It's said, even by George Lucas himself, that legendary actor Toshiro Mifune was in line to play Obi-wan Kenobi in A New Hope. What would the effects of this casting change be, and how might it play out through the rest of the series?
If it bombs, then Splinter is up on the table.... Or the movie could have bombed completely. As I recall it was a huge gamble and at one time or another pretty much everyone involved had his doubts whether they weren't just filming Hollywood's costliest flop. So just changing one or two scenes or one or two actors could have made the difference between the legend Star Wars is today and just a costly nothing like 'waterworld'
Simple Fix:Didn't Alec Guinness specifically want Obi-Wan killed off? Couldn't that lead to the implication of what do you with a surviving Obi-Wan plot wise and how do you work that going along with the rest of the film, and future sequels?