Bail Organa must have been some kind of genius. With all that goes wrong in the events of "A New Hope"-including but not limited to poor Bail getting blown up by the Death Star-it's amazing that the Death Star plans managed to get into the hands of the Rebels at all, much less being used to take the battle station down.

When last we see Senator Organa, Master Yoda, and Obi-Wan Kenobi in the same room, they're reeling from the death of the Jedi Order, the betrayal of "Chosen One" Anakin Skywalker, and Palpatine's declaration of the Galactic Empire. Yoda has resolved himself to lonely exile, Obi-Wan is going into hiding with Anakin's son, and Bail is adopting Anakin's daughter to now be raised as a Princess of Alderaan. They are henceforth parting ways, never to see each other again, until...

Until when? Until the time is right, Yoda says. But what does that mean? It's all very vague. Obviously, the two Jedi are hiding from the Emperor lest they be hunted down. Presumably, they hope to one day train the children into powerful Jedi to defeat the Emperor, but what is their plan? We presume that Obi-Wan and Yoda will be able to communicate through the Force, since Obi-Wan still has to learn more about Qui-Gon Jinn and blue ghosts. It is possible, though doubtful, that Bail might visit or telephone Obi-Wan on Tatooine on occasion, but I'm pretty sure the three of them agreed to stay separate for secrecy sake, and if Old Ben had a phone it was probably in the bottom of that old trunk with the dusty lightsabers.

From the positions they are all in, Bail is the only one with any ability to determine when "the time is right" and be able to do anything about it. The Jedi are resting all of the responsibility on the shoulders of the Senator from Alderaan because their plan is this: We're going to sit and wait, watching over the kids as we can, and when Senator Organa, a man of respect and influence in the inner circles of the Imperial Senate, sees the right opportunity in the right place at the right time, he will reunite us, and we will lead the rebellion against the evil Empire.

"Revenge of the Sith" brings a new perspective to all of the events of the Original Trilogy, but what I most realized after watching it again was that the events in the original "Star Wars" didn't happen at all how they were supposed to. Everything went wrong from the beginning. If we refer to the Radio Drama, Leia's adopted father sent her (after she convinced him that she should go in his stead) on a mission to intercept the plans to the Death Star and then find General Kenobi on Tatooine, presumably to bring him back to Alderaan and join (perhaps lead) the Rebel Alliance. But when the Tantive IV is intercepted on route to Kenobi's hiding place, everything seems to go horribly wrong.

Princess Leia is captured shortly after sending the plans down with R2-D2. Artoo is captured by Jawas but then picked up by Luke Skywalker and taken, eventually, to Obi-Wan who sees the message Leia left in Artoo, and all the gears click into place. It is time to enact the plan, Obi-Wan must be thinking, but before they can reach Alderaan and be reunited with his old friend, Alderaan is destroyed and Bail Organa with it. Then, Master Kenobi, his new ward, and the Death Star plans are swallowed up by the Death Star itself, and Obi-Wan is forced into a duel with his former apprentice-turned-Sith Lord, which does not end so well for the Jedi. By some miracle, Luke rescues the Princess and escapes with the plans, making it at last to the Rebel base where they find the one weakness in the Death Star's defenses and destroy it before it vaporizes all of them as well.

By all accounts, this operation was an unmitigated disaster. Following Murphy's law, everything that could have gone wrong did. Yet, at the end, the Death Star is destroyed, and Luke has taken his first step on the way to becoming a Jedi. Surely, they weren't just lucky. As Obi-Wan says, "In my experience, there is no such thing as luck." They were fortunate in many ways (Artoo and Threepio's escape pod could have been blasted away, but that would have doomed everything), but they capitalized on their good fortune and didn't take it for granted. Two out of the three guys involved in the plan didn't even make it alive to the end of the movie, and the third is still in exile with only the Force to tell him the news.

"Star Wars" was not the fun, adventurous romp we all took it to be for so long. This was a worst-case scenario. Anything less would have meant the death of all they had prepared for. This is something they had been planning for twenty years until the Death Star gave Bail the impetus to put the plan into action. By then, he must have thought of every possible scenario and every possible contingency, so that when things did go wrong on the way to Tatooine, enough pieces were in place so that something would survive. That's why everyone was separated to begin with--for failsafe.

It makes me wonder what the master plan would have been for a best-case scenario. What would have happened if Darth Vader didn't capture Princess Leia? What if she had the time to park the Tantive IV at Mos Eisley and pick up General Kenobi? Would he have insisted on going back for Luke as well, and would Luke have left Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru to go along? What if Alderaan was not destroyed, and Bail Organa and Obi-Wan Kenobi were reunited? Would Kenobi have lead the Rebellion? Would he have trained both Luke and Leia? If Obi-Wan ran into Vader on the Death Star before he intended to, when did he plan on confronting his old padawan again? When would they have gone back for Yoda? And when would they tell Luke and Leia the truth about their parents?

Of course, they would never have met Han or Chewie or Lando (or would they?). Threepio would still be a clueless protocol droid, and Artoo would still know everything, wouldn't he?

Which leads me to believe that even the Death Star itself was not part of the plan. It forced Organa's hand, but he knew that the time was now or never. I would still like to know the plan those three came up with all those years ago if things hadn't gone so horribly wrong. Everything had to come together too quickly, and yet it still worked.