Triumph of Destiny: ACting on the Future in ESB and ROTS
 

Forgive me if this is a bit convuluted, but I thought that Lucas did a good job explaining the problems with acting on future visions. In ROTS, it is evident that Anakin's downfall was directly related to the vision of Padme dying in childbirth. Of course, the tragedy is that it is a circular vision - he turned to the Dark Side to save Padme fromd dying, yet she died because Anakin had turned to the dark side.

In ESB of course, we are presented with a similar vision that Luke senses..that his friends were in pain. It could be argued that Luke's emergence as a Jedi led Vader to torture Han and the others because Vader anticipated that Luke would have these visions and attempt a rescue. Yet, it seems that Luke's acting on his vision had a good effect in the general course of the movies because eventually Luke's confrontations flip Vader back to a good guy.

Any thoughts? Are these consistent?

Well, the difference would be that Luke wasn't seeing the future. When he was seeing his friends in pain, Vader had already taken them hostage. Vader put them in pain to lure Luke in.

Luke's vision of the future came from the cave. He doesn't understand the vision fully until Jedi after he has defeated his father. Then he realizes what the vision meant, and is able to turn away from it.