Recently, The Stooge had a blog that listed 10 ideas Twentieth Century Fox suggested to George Lucas concerning "Star Wars" (1977). One of them was to give Owen Lars are drinking problem...but didn't he already have one? Or did Lucas take this idea?

For someone worried about all the work that needs to get done, Owen doesn't seem to be doing much of it. He seems depressed. He is surly to his wife and to Luke. How did Luke know about Mos Eisley? Could it be there were many nights when Beru sent him to pick up his Uncle there?

Why would a moisture farm turn to alcohol? Primarily, I believe, because he never wanted to be a moisture farmer himself. There was much of Luke's father in him, but there was also something of Owen.

At the end of Episode III we see Owen and Beru looking up at the same setting suns Luke would gave upon in the near future. However, as Luke looked up to find his dreams, I believe Owen was saying "goodbye" to his. Saddled, unexpectedly, with Luke--the son of one of two most dangerous men in the galaxy--Owen's ideas of getting off Tatooine vanished into fantasy.

There is never ANY reason to surrender to a life of alcoholism, but you can see how people in our world may be enticed by it under similiar circumstances.