Wise Mentor

It is important that a Child of Promise have someone to guide him and to mold him into the Man of Destiny. This calls for the archetypal pattern of the Wise Mentor. This person is also known as the Wise Old Man, the Aged Wizard, of the Seer. In the case of the original trilogy there are no less than three Wise Mentors. The first, and perhaps most well known, is Obi Wan Kenobi, or as Luke knows him, Ben Kenobi. Just when Luke is yearning to know the two-fold riddle of his past and his future, Ben shows up in his life to serve him as a mentor. We hear about him before that as a "crazy old man" from Luke's uncle Owen. When we meet him, he is a character with the pointy hood of a magician and the white hair and beard of an expereinced man. He unlocks the mystery of Luke's destiny for him and promises to make him a Jedi like his father before him. He also promises to guide him in his quest.

Even after his death, Ben remains with Luke as a voice and later a spirit form that gives him insight and power. It is because of this voice that Luke is able to make the impossible shot that destroys the Death Star. It is also Ben who saves Luke's life on Hoth by guiding Han to his location. He also is the mentor who guides him into the tutelage of Yoda. His role as a mentor also comes up when he warns Luke not to go to Bespin, but to stay on Dagobah and complete his training. He also fills that role in VI when he tries to help Luke understand the reasons why he had kept the information about Darth Vader being his father from him.

Yoda is the second individual that fulfills the Mentor archetype. The very first moment we see him on the Empire Strikes Back he is engaging in a test to see if Luke is ready or not to accept his training.
The way that Yoda fulfills the Mentor role is as the certain master of the force. He teaches Luke as much as he can about the force before Luke leaves. A third person that meets the characteristics for this archetype is the emperor.Despite Luke's persistent refusal of the emperor's training, the emperor attempts to train him just the same. He even calls him "my young apprentice." He tries to back Luke into a corner of anger and hate so that he will be forced to call on the darkness of these emotions to save himself, only to find that they will enslave him instead of save him. The emperor is unsuccessful in his bid to teach Luke the powers of the dark side.

The prequel trilogy also has three Wise Mentor figures. In Episode I, the Wise Mentor is Qui Gonn Jinn. He fulfills this role as a mentor for both Obi Wan and Anakin. One of the first moments in the movie is a teaching moment that was alluded to earlier.
It is when Obi Wan is telling Qui Gon that he feels some kind of disturbance in the force and Qui Gon responds by telling him, "...don't center on your anxieties Obi Wan, keep you focus here and now where it belongs..." Later just as Anakin is readying himself for the start of the podrace, Qui Gon mentors him with these words, "...feel don't think, use your instincts..." Qui Gonn is finishing his mentorship of Obi Wan just as he is beginning his mentorship of Anakin.

The second mentor in this series is Obi Wan to Anakin. Obi Wan, who is later such an excellent mentor to Luke, is a poor fit for Anakin. In Episode II, we constantly see Obi Wan's mentoring of Anakin rub Anakin the wrong way rather than helping him.
Many would say that that is the fault of Anakin, but I would say both sides are responsible for the failed relationship. Anakin wants to obey his feelings, his instincts, but Obi Wan tells him--while amid such an instinctual act--"Stop. Think. Use the force." An interesting counterpoint to this poor mentoring is the Chancellor's skilled mentoring. Not ten minutes later in the same film he tells Anakin, "You don't need guidance Anakin. Soon you will learn to trust your feelings, then you will be invincible." Later Obi Wan speaks of this time of failure in these words, "...I thought I could train him as well as Yoda, I was wrong."

If Obi Wan is a failed mentor to Anakin, then Chancellor Palpatine is a successful one to him. It is in Anakin's choice of mentors that the tragedy of the prequels lies. However, like Qui Gonn before him, Palpatine recognizes that the best way to guide Anakin was to teach him to trust his own feelings.
Obi Wan was too concerned with making Anakin fear his feelings. In Episode III, we will see that the Chancellor teaches Anakin to embrace the dark side and its powers. Obi Wan is no longer his mentor, as Anakin has already become a full knight, and Palpatine comes in to fill the void left in Anakin's life.

So, in summary, the first trilogy has the successful mentoring by Yoda and Obi Wan of Luke and the unsuccessful mentoring by Palpatine of Luke. In the prequel trilogy we have the ultimately unsuccessful mentoring by Qui Gon and Obi Wan of Anakin and the successful mentoring by Palpatine of Anakin. Not only is there a harmony between the two trilogies, but there is a wonderfully symmetrical checkering as well. 2 mentors fail in the first 2 movies, and one mentor succeeds. Then 2 mentors succeed in IV and V and one fails in VI. Fail-Fail-Succeed. Succeed-Succeed-Fail. This is what Lucas means when he talks about his movies having rhythm and rhyme schemes the same as musical pieces. To me, it is exceptionally beautiful in a high-minded sense.