text:
This page now has the following archivesnote : 2010
All movie-specific Headscratchers have been moved to their appropriate pages. If you want to ask a question specifically pertaining to a movie (or other work in the EU), please do so on the appropriate page. However, any questions which relate to several movies or works may be asked on this page.
Specific works:
- Knights of the Old Republic
- Star Wars: The Old Republic
- The Phantom Menace
- Attack of the Clones
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars
- Revenge of the Sith
- Star Wars Rebels
- The Force Unleashed
- Rogue One
- A New Hope
- The Star Wars Holiday Special
- The Empire Strikes Back
- Return of the Jedi
- The Force Awakens
- Star Wars: Forces of Destiny
open/close all folders
Aunt and Uncle
- What is the deal with the whole "Uncle" Owen and "Aunt" Beru thing? It's not as if either Obi-Wan or Yoda wanted Luke to know that Vader was his father. So why not just have the the Lars's claim to be Luke's parents, much like Queen Breha and Prince Bail did with Leia? Ironically, Luke actually resembles Owen and Beru (medium height, blond hair) much more so than he does Anakin and Padme (there are some serious recessive genes going on with those two!). Especially since the two Jedi Masters' rather dubious goal was to eventually send Luke out to commit patricide, and were hoping that the truth about who Vader really was would not slip out, it just seems like it would have made more sense to have Owen and Beru to just be his folks. Then Luke would not have spent a restless childhood wondering about his long-lost father. After all, he was virtually newborn when Obi-Wan handed him over to them. So it's not as if there was any gap in his life history that would have needed to be filled with stories about a father who was a navigator on a spice freighter.
- Maybe they felt more comfortable raising him as their nephew and just lying to them about Anakin. If Owen and Beru want to raise him differently than what Obi Wan would have done, then what's Obi Wan going to do?
- That might have made some sense if Owen and Beru actually knew Anakin well. But they only met him and Padme on the one occasion, and interestingly they spent more time with Padme, as Anakin was off looking for Shmi. By leaving open the question of parentage, they were setting themselves up for years of Luke pestering them for information about his father (oddly, he was not very curious about his mother). Given the apparent high mortality rate on Tatooine, one has to assume that adoption is far from uncommon there. Not having had a close relationship with Anakin, there doesn't seem like much reason to even admit he ever existed. If anything, acknowledging his existence would seem to open the door for Obi-Wan to lure Luke off to become a Jedi, something Owen strongly opposed.
- Owen scrapes a living as a moisture farmer on a planet where organized crime offers a fairly clear path to at least moderate wealth. It's probably safe to say that he's fundamentally an ethical person, meaning that he didn't want to lie any more than was absolutely necessary.
- Creating an entire fictional history about Luke's father having been a navigator on a spice freighter doesn't count as lying? The entire need to say anything at all about Luke's father was created by admitting that he was not their child. Had they simply pretended that he was, then none of the other lies would have been necessary.
- Good people tend to be absolutely terrible at lying. It's easy to imagine he talked himself into a corner. First he told Luke the basic truth ("We're not your parents, your father was Anakin Skywalker"), and then when Luke kept pestering him with questions he came up with something believable ("Let's see, my step-mother mentioned he was a pilot prodigy, and weren't there stories of him flying fighters during the Clone Wars? Yes, that works, he was a pilot. What's that? What kind of ship did he fly? Uh... spice freighter.").
Vader's buttons
- What happens when you push the buttons on Darth Vader's chest? Or are they just a bunch of lights to indicate that his support system is working properly and display his vital signs and whatnot?
- He Force Chokes you for your impudence, that is what happens. Or more realistically, they are needed for adjusting his suit's settings depending on situations and locations he is operating in.
- They're actually a part of of his life support system. The buttons and shit on his chest are hooked up to tubes in his lungs and wires to his heart. The belt/chest panel are a dual system to regulate his breathing and heart beat. If one did try to touch them Vader would most likely kill them as fast as he could.
- That's also why he changed his lightsaber stance (ever wondered why he kept his blade in front of his chest?) If anyone wanted to cut that, they'd have to bypass his lightsaber. Also, IIRC, there was an EU novel where a prisoner actually had the audacity to switch one of those buttons off, thus deactivating Vader's entire suit. It's a miracle Vader didn't kill him right then and there.
- He keep his lightsaber that way because he can't really raise his arms because of the shoulder pads of his armor, he is shown doing it in several occasion though.
- In other words, the whole suit is just one massive case of extremely bad design. It limits his mobility, has exposed systems that if damaged could result in death and leaves him distinctly vulnerable to his boss's favorite power (Force Lightning).
- That last one may be a deliberate design element, though. Palpatine designed the suit, and Palpatine is exactly the sort of person who would leave his apprentice vulnerable to his favorite attack.
Levitating Lightsabers
- Something that came to me the other day, in all the centuries that the Jedi Order, or hell the Sith for that matter, has existed, have they never bothered at all to create a fighting style wherein you can just use The Force to control your lightsaber? Just imagine facing your opponent and then you can just stand there like a badass, making simple gestures to control your saber while your opponent struggles trying to get a shot at you. Or better yet, having two or more lightsabers circling you! You can immediately switch between offense and defense! Why hasn't anyone thought of this style?
- Any telekinetic movement requires concentration and effort — effort you're better spending on dodging when you're in a fight, especially if your one physical defense is floating around several feet away from you. In all the movies, books, and games, we've almost never seen anything like the fine control you'd need for what you're suggesting.
- .....Good point. Fuck.
- Actually, Vader does something like that in RotJ, when he throws his lightsaber to collapse the catwalk Luke has leaped onto. He soon has the lightsaber back in his hand, so obviously it was not just a good toss. It probably is too much of a distraction to try to use them as Dancing Swords however. That said, one does wonder why the Jedi or the Sith don't carry a second lightsaber to use as a thrown weapon which they can control at will. It would be useful when fighting numerous opponents. Count Dooku had mastered telekinesis sufficiently that he could even grab Obi-Wan with it while simultaneously fending off Anakin.
- Darth Traya does this at the end of Knights of the Old Republic 2 with three lightsabers at a time
- And Darth Traya was one of the most powerful Sith lords of all time, probably only a few steps below Palpatine, considering that the Exile is stronger than Revan by the end of that game. It would stand to reason that, while it's possible to fight in such a way, its also requires tremendous ability with the force.
- And Darth Traya also had no choice: The Exile had just cut off her other hand, after her previous one was cut off by Darth Sion. So she had to telekinetically use lightsabers because she no longer had a hand to hold them with.
Instant communication
- How can holograms and messages reach, say, a person on a planet millions of light-years away, faster than Faster-Than-Light Travel hyperdrives?
- I'm pretty sure those messages use the setting equivalent of the Subspace Ansible. The EU calls it the HoloNet (dunno if it gets named in the movies, novelizations of the movies, the cartoon series, or any of the more recent works).
- A given in most sci-fi settings is that data can travel faster than objects. Less mass means less energy to transport it and perhaps more energy directed to thrust.
Jedi killing criminals
- Luke finishes his training and learns what it is to be a true Jedi. Then, in Return of the Jedi, he slaughters all of Jabba's entourage. What??? Granted, a lot of them were murderers and assassins but what about those Jawas in the palace? They were probably just there to sell stuff or something. And what about those exotic slave girls and the band? The slaves didn't want to be there and the band was just the band! I know the EU says most of the band and the slaves survive but Luke didn't know they would when he blew up the sail barge.
- Of course he knew, he probably was guided by the Force to blow it up in just such a way as to minimize casualties.
- But what about when he slaughters all of the criminals who had no chance against him? Yeah, they were criminals but when are Jedi Judge, Jury, and Executioners?
- You are referring to the people who were trying to kill him at the time, yes? It was a battle. He didn't walk into their house while they were having drinks and start slicing up the place. In fact, when Luke does walk into their place while they're having drinks, he tries to do things diplomatically and get his friends free without anyone at all getting harmed. On the barge, he was fighting for his life and at that point, anyone who's not on your side is fair game.
- Exactly. Not his fault that the thugs decided to answer his attempted diplomacy with violence and executions. Luke even tried using diplomacy one last time, but they chose to not listen.
- Think about this: Luke also never thought about all the innocent people in the giant Death Star he blew up either. Remember the large detention block? The heroes never bother to look in any of the other cells, leaving any other political prisoners to get blown up. Compared to this giant act of dark-sideideness, butchering some smugglers and murderers was a public service. Oh, there was a band? Chalk that up to "acceptable collateral damage." There were probably a few innocent slaves on the barge as well, but again, acceptable losses.
- Also, does Luke even have a standard moral compass? He was raised on a harsh desert world where death is very easy to come by, raised by people who lied to him his entire life, and goes to war against an enemy that personifies evil. Is it strange that sometimes innocent people get in the way?
- The people on the Death Star were all Imperial soldiers. They were on a giant super-weapon that could blow up planets, presumably as an invasion/occupation force for any planet that surrendered after the threat of the giant super-weapon blowing up their planet. It was not an act of "Dark-sidedness" to blow it up, it was an act of (declared) war, and I really wish people would stop acting like the Death Star was carrying mostly Girl Scouts, orphans, and the largest collection of cuddly puppies and kittens in the galaxy far far away.
- Rewatch the prequels. I know, they're not the greatest, but pay attention to how the Jedi operate. They are like US Marshals back in the Old West. They very much ARE Judge, Jury, and Executioner if the needs of the situation present that. Also keep in mind there are no Jedi as of the original trilogy. They all split up, went into hiding, and are trying to just stay alive against the emperor's evil rule. So calling Luke a Jedi is a little far off yet. Yoda even says it when he tells Luke he is not a Jedi yet and must face his father. All that aside, I don't think Luke cared about who he was killing as long as they were in his way. Remember, at that point in the movie, he is on the dark path.
- And to blowing up the Death Stars with people still on them? It is simply them or the potentially millions of planets in danger of being blown up because the emperor wants to make a point. Screw the people on the Death Star. We got a whole galaxy to save.
- Yes - the Jedi are utilitarian. If a Jedi has no other option but to save trillions by killing thousands, they'll do so.
- The "innocent people on the Death Star" thing is nonsense. If there were prisoners on the Death Star, then its the Empire's fault for bringing prisoners onto a military craft into a combat zone and putting their lives in danger. The rest of the Death Star's crew are all valid military targets in wartime. Neither Luke nor anyone else has any reasonable capacity to search for and locate other prisoners and then extract them from the Death Star in any reasonable time frame.
- The Death Star might not have had any other civilian prisoners at all, or only a few. It had a brig like many warships do, but it was a newly commissioned vessel and being a prison wasn't its main function. The cell block was probably for holding defectors or internal discipline (like on real-life ships), not political prisoners like Leia. I imagine she was there because she was probably the highest value Rebel prisoner they'd had yet and Vader wanted to interrogate her personally.
- In the Legends continuity, Luke feels guilty enough to memorize the exact crew complement of the Death Star, but is ultimately aware that the Death Star was a weapon capable of killing billions and had to be stopped.
Vader sensing his children
- Why couldn't the Force tell Vader that the presence he felt was children (Jaina did it with Allana in Invincible.)
- "The Force is strong in this one," he says of Luke in the first film, even without meeting him in the flesh. Wouldn't it stand to reason Leia would show up on his radar in a similar way? More evidence that the revelation that Luke and Leia are siblings is an Ass Pull.
- Vader could pick up on Luke because Luke was using the Force- there's no indication that he was at all aware of that one particular X-wing pilot until Luke started using the Force to guide him rather than his computer. Leia had no idea she was even Force-sensitive until Luke told her and certainly never used her powers in Vader's presence.
- It occurs to me too that this is consistent with how Vader doesn't pick up on Obi-Wan being on Tatooine when he's in orbit more or less right above him, but does notice Obi-Wan is on the Death Star, because Obi-Wan was using the Force to distract stormtroopers and such. Jedi and Sith seem to have a way to "cloak" themselves from each other, maybe by simply not using the Force and keeping it to themselves. Notice how Darth Maul was able to sneak up on the two Jedi on Naboo and Vader was able to ambush Luke when they fought on Cloud City, and Yoda arrived to fight Count Dooku without him noticing on Geonosis. (But Anakin and Obi-Wan sense Count Dooku when they sneak onboard his flagship above Coruscant, so maybe that was because he was using the Force for something. It probably just depends on whatever is plot-relevant anyway.)
- There's also the issue of distance. Sensing a guy from orbit is surely a lot harder than sensing him when he's 20 yards away. And it's heavily implied that emotional investment makes it easier to sense someone; Vader senses Luke when he arrives at Endor, but Palpatine doesn't feel a thing.
- Watch how Leia addresses Vader in their scenes together. It's abundantly clear that she absolutely hates his guts, and probably has ever since Daddy Bail explained to his adoptive daughter that that armored dude looming next to the Emperor's throne in all the propaganda broadcasts is Palpatine's hand-picked bullyboy, responsible for many good people's deaths. The finale of Rogue One would have further inflamed those feelings to white-hot after he'd brutally killed most of her Senatorial entourage. Given how attuned Sith are to dark emotion, the hostility and contempt Leia felt for Vader-The Dragon could very easily have overwhelmed any subtle hints of relatedness to Anakin-the-man.
Bane and betrayal
- Why is Darth Bane so utterly obsessed with the idea of betrayal to the point of being an obvious hypocrite? He rages against Kaan for replacing rampant individualism with some semblance of unity and a greater purpose, but in fact desires to be killed by a stronger apprentice for a greater purpose rather than his own gain? What's the difference, apart from Kaan's methods not leading to stupid amounts of backstabbing that always bring down the Sith?
- Because people who are so blinded by their principles that they don't notice their own hypocrisy never exist...
- He raged against Kaan because Kaan's Brotherhood was centered on a united organization (with some Sith complaining that they had become a "dark parody" of the Jedi they so hated), but by the Sith's very nature, they would fight amongst themselves, make groups of weak Sith to take down strong ones then let that group degenerate and weaken the Order. Bane stopped this by only having two Sith.
Purging Sith worlds
- Why, in the thousands of years they had available, did the Republic and/or Jedi never think to get around to purging important Sith planets, like Korriban, from orbit? I mean, they serve no function other than to equip the Sith Lord of the day with some Ancient Knowledge o' Evilness. And just leaving them utterly unguarded, repeatedly? What on earth were these guys thinking?
- They probably did sweep through each time and destroyed most of the Sith Holocrons, its just that they always missed one or two that were really well hidden. As for why no Base Delta Zero... of the dark side, such action is. Harm many innocent life forms with no dark side association living around the temples, it will.
- The Republic did sweep through Korriban after Malak's army was defeated, and they found that without strong leadership the Sith had turned on each other and all of them were already dead. It's just that Sith architecture is easily capable of shedding anything up to and beyond orbital bombardment without much trouble, and if they want to confirm that everything has been destroyed, they have to send guys down there to check it out - and sending troops onto a planet that is dripping with The Dark Side is a bad idea.
- Planets are large places. Unless you have a Death Star handy, in order to make sure you purged the entire planet through orbital bombardment, you would by necessity have to spend months or perhaps even years in a systematic shower of battery fire. And that's just to make sure you've covered the entire surface of the planet. In order to do the same for the underground, or even just to make sure you succeeded, you'd end up having to send millions of ground personnel treasure hunting. Its just not feasible. I don't see how you'd ever find politicians or high-ranking military figures who would agree that that was an appropriate use of time and resources. And that's not even considering the ethical question of whether its fair to be killing off all the life (whether sentient or otherwise) that populates the place.
- Er, it would be incredibly easy for them to bomb the hell out of the surface of the planet, simply drag a few good sized asteroids into orbit, then let them go...
- The Republic DID bomb the hell out of Korriban after the Great Hyperspace War. It backfired: the survivors then saw the Republic and the Jedi exclusively as mass-murderers and believed Vitiate's propaganda of gathering forces before the sweet revenge. Some took the propaganda to heart and were frantically afraid of starting the new war against the Jedi, fearing that in case of failure the Republic will kill them all.
- The cinematic trailers for SW:TOR show that the Republic guards the ruins of Korriban and apprehends smugglers. The "Return" cinematic trailer shows the Sith Armada arriving and retaking the planet in a Pearl Harbor style attack.
- The Republic and the Jedi hold the moral high ground. Genocide is not cool, and any Jedi taking part in orbital bombardment has, by definition, fallen to the dark side. The Republic...well, it's not outside the realm of possibility, but the Republic is beholden to the will of its constituents. The citizens of the United States are, generally speaking, not okay with nuking other countries, and there are only about 300 million of us. Put that on a galactic scale, and it's not hard to imagine that Republic citizens aren't going to be okay with that level of mass murder.
- Is it just me, or do all of the worlds in the Star Wars Universe not have countries? I mean, it's always just some ambassador of the country, or something like that. They don't seem to have like, multi-cultural worlds. Everyone has the same culture. It's just weird.
- Probably a consequence of only having one climate feature per planet. No climatic barriers to civilization expansion.
- Also of note is that we know from Naboo that there are planets with vastly disparate civilizations sharing the world... and only one representative between them anyway. Planets with multiple countries probably compromise and agree on their common representative to Coruscant; Mass Effect has the best available detailing of how something like that would happen with modern Earth as an example.
- It's federalism. Just as Alabama doesn't send its own ambassador to the United Nations, the various countries on any given world get together to elect a representative to the Galactic Senate. Given the large number of Senators in evidence under the current system, allowing one representative from each country of each planet would be terribly unwieldy.
- Sometimes they do have countries, or at least independent political powers sharing a world. Uniting the Gungans and Naboo Humans to get over their mutual dislike was a major plot point in The Phantom Menace.
- Simple: advanced technology means a high level of globalization and also allows terraforming, which is why developed planets have a single culture and environment. This may also explain why black and Asian people are so rare in the Star Wars universe.
- When humanity gains space travel and the ability to colonize new planets the territorial divisions on the home-world become irrelevant. With the emergence new "others" (to antagonize with) the different competing factions unite under one planetary representative system.
- Oh, yes they do. I can recall at least one example, the planet Adumar that was divided between two superpowers. But this situation was unusual enough for the Rogues to mistake the ruler of one of those countries for a ruler of the entire planet.
- Adumar consisted of dozens of nations, and the surprise was because most planets, by the time they develop hyperdrive, have formed a planetary government to allow for ease of operations when exploring/researching.
- Of course, if developing hyperdrive offers the nation that pioneers it an overwhelming strategic military and economic advantage, then it could be the norm for the inventor-nation to promptly annex all non-spaceworthy countries on their home planet. By the time the newly-spacegoing world makes contact with the wider galactic civilization, they've become a united planet by force and/or economic pressure.
- A great game example of why is in Spore. At each stage of development, you remove the borders because they become meaningless the further your empire expands. I am sure there are still technically countries, states, and cities on each planet, but like our own governments, those representatives are not needed when you are speaking in galactic terms. they had their respective say in their planetary government. Now the system governor will take their needs to the galactic senate. Which of course is nice and corrupt as usual.
Force religion
- Why is knowledge of the Force referred to as a religion? For one, it's been scientifically proven, through the existence of Midi-Chlorians that it's not a religion, it's a science. Additionally, one of the main reasons religions are that, religions, is because there's no way to convince everyone. But the force...Vader uses the force on that guy, (Motti, I think?) basically proving that it's true....
- I don't think this "basically proves that Jesus is real."
- Knowledge of the Force isn't a religion. Using the Force and being a Jedi is the "religion". Also, I sorta resent the implication here that "religion" means "you can't prove it" or "not true."
- Then you are just resenting grammar. "You can't prove it" is built in the very definition of faith... As for "not true," it's just a question of how credulous you are.
- It's the simple premise that "religion=faith unsubstantiated by reason based on dogmatic tradition, science=testable and based on tradition of trial and error and records thereof." Jedi kinda sit on the fence—they're too based-on-what-can-be-proven-practical and substantiated by reason to fit real-world religious definitions, but far too dogmatic and spiritual about it to be scientists.
- It may be true in real life that there is no real-world evidence for religion, but there is nothing inherent about the concept that says this needs to be the case. Plenty of religions have myths about their gods or prophets performing miracles, so if you accept that the mythology is true (which it clearly is in the case of the Force) then there must have been a time when real-world evidence was readily available and there is no reason in principle why the gods couldn't start up again.
- The Force is a real, natural, observable and provable phenomenon in Star Wars, yes. But the Jedi and the Sith both have a bunch of dogmatic beliefs about it and how it should be used and how to live life and stuff, and that makes their practices religious; Jedi teachings in particular resemble Buddhism. So it's like sun worship or something, where the sun is real, but the rituals and adoration are religious.
- I would agree with the above. The more precise comparison is "totemic religion" of the sort discussed by Durkheim in the Elementary Forms of A Religious Life. If we understand religion as "A system of collective representations, accepted by a moral community (Durkheim calls this a Church), that seeks to provide some kind of coherent framework for understanding what's around us," then Jedi is definitely a religion. The point is that religion is not defined by the presence of the supernatural.
- Or to put it another way: certain individuals have the potential to develop telekinetic and psychic abilities, along with some enhanced physical abilities. That much is certain. Whether that ability translates to an "all powerful Force controlling everything," as Han puts it, that's divided between the light and The Dark Side in a cosmic struggle for dominance over the galaxy is another matter. And since the Jedi are so few compared to the galaxy's population, it's easy to imagine that the vast majority of people have never seen one, and dismiss the stories of their Force powers as just overblown urban legends.
- Also considering that after the Purge there were only two known Force users, both of whom were in hiding and both victims of a government conspiracy, it makes a lot of sense. Palpatine probably spread a lot of misleading propaganda about the Jedi during the Purge too.
- Only people who are ignorant of the Force (like Han and the Imperial officer who Vader chokes) call it a religion. (Well, and Tarkin does, but he seems to genuinely respect Vader.) Jedi themselves or people who know them well never do.
- Really? "You thought that the corrupted remnants of the Republic, the machines spawned by technology that Revan led into battle were the Sith? You are wrong. The Sith is a belief. And its empire, the true Sith Empire, rules elsewhere."
- The Jedi HQ on Coruscant was referred to as the "Jedi Temple", and Chancellor Palpatine addresses the members of the Jedi Council as "Your Graces". So it is pretty obvious that at least during the late Republic the Jedi were perceived as some kind of clergy, albeit of a non-theistic religion.
- I think "religion" is just the best word they could think of to describe it. It's sortof a...life philosophy combined with an organization. Kinda how religions involve a philosphy (e.g. here's what we think about god and morality and existence) and usually an organization (here's the specific church we've set up with some priests and whatnot). Note that simply using the force does not make you a Jedi; you have to ascribe to the values and principles of the Jedi too.
Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi
- "I haven't gone by the name of Obi-Wan since, oh, before you were born."
- IV sets up that Obi-Wan's been using the Ben pseudonym before Luke's birth, while III seems to show that Obi-Wan's still called by his name even after the kid gets popped, albeit briefly, as he soon has to bring Luke to his home and then go into exile.
- Same troper: Most people I know who've noticed this thought it was just a plot hole. How do I justify it? Simple, Obi is lying. After all, he'd have a whole lot more explaining to do had he told the truth and said "I haven't gone by the name of Obi-Wan since after you were born". What he actually says conceals the real story and sounds natural.
- Maybe he just didn't remember when he'd last been called Obi-Wan, knowing only that it was a really long time ago. He's pretty old by this point.
- He went by the name Obi-Wan for 38 years before Luke was born, and assuming that he started going by "Ben" after leaving for Tatooine, there were probably only a few days to a month before the name change, then nineteen years as Ben. Luke's birth is a pretty good cut off point, there's not really much point of saying "I haven't gone by that name since 16 days and three hours after you were born."
- Right, he's not literally saying "I haven't gone by that name since before you were born", he's saying "I haven't gone by that name since before-you-were-born", using the phrase to describe the time period before Luke and Leia were born, when he was still called Obi-Wan. Luke's birth fell right on the dividing line between the Republic and the Empire, and the fall of the Jedi. Obi-Wan's former life and identity pretty much entirely fall under the "before Luke was born" side; that's all he meant.
- And once again, I find myself wondering how it is that people can't recognize figures of speech and generalizations for what they are. Do you really expect everything anyone says to be the exact literal truth? If so, how in the flying hellfish do you communicate with other members of the species?
- These are Star Wars fans we're talking about, dude. They'll analyze even the most insignificant things, regardless of how clearly unimportant they are to the casual viewer.
- He says it like this: "I haven't heard that name since...oh, before you were born." The timing, the nonchalant tone, and the "oh" make it quite clear that he's answering off the top of his head and not bothering to remember the exact details. Pay attention to the delivery of the line the next time you watch the scene.
- Exact Words. He went by Obi-Wan before Luke was born. He went by Ben immediately thereafter. Let's also assume that "Kenobi" is such a common name (let's say it's the galactic equivalent of "Smith", as "Antilles" seems to be) that nobody would notice.
- Obi-Wan is being intentionally vague. He is hiding a lot of information from Luke at this point, so he can't be too specific about his own past.
Force Storms
- Why didn't Darth Sidious Force Storm the Rebel base?
- "Force Storms" are an Extended Universe phenomena that doesn't exist in the films (where Palpatine can do Force lightning, but that's about it).
- Which Rebel Base? Throughout the whole trilogy, he's never anywhere near the bases we see.
- This gets into the realm of, "Is the Expanded Universe canon?", sort of argument. In the Expanded Universe Palpatine showcases the claim that he is the most powerful Sith in Galactic history by creating something called Force Storms, which as the name implies are storms of pure Force energy that function like tornadoes that consume and destroy everything in their path. The most powerful display of this power was able to destroy an entire fleet of Star Ships, which brings up the question that if he could destroy space fleets then the Emperor should have been able to end the Galactic War with the Rebellion all by himself. If you don't acknowledge the EU then you don't have to ask this sort of question and can just say that even the Emperor can't take on Armies entirely by himself.
- "This gets into the realm of, "Is the Expanded Universe canon?", sort of argument." Doesn't matter, since it isn't an argument at all. The EU is canon. Period. The end. Lucas and his representatives have been quite clear on this issue. Any element of the Expanded Universe that doesn't contradict the films and hasn't been retconned by a later EU work is canon with both the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy. Regarding the Force Storm issue, Sidious is not omniscient. He can't send a Force Storm against a Rebel base or Rebel fleet he doesn't know about. Force Storms are incredibly powerful but also incredibly difficult to create and even harder to control. They're not something you can just wish into being with a snap of a finger. Even Sidious himself once admitted that once summoned he could not fully control a Force Storm. If he can get the same job done with a more conventional fleet of ships, there's no reason not to.
- Except that this is self-evidently untrue: way too many things, including many that are critical plot-points, in the Expanded Universe contradict what happened in the movies for this not to be an argument at all, regardless of what Lucas or his representatives say.
- Also, now invalidated since Lucas sold the franchise to Disney. It has been officially stated that the new sequel movies will not be following the EU canon. So effectively everything from the EU just got kicked to a curb in a parallel universe.
- The most likely answer seems to be that he just considered the Rebellion too trivial to waste that much power on and/or mundane scheming against them was just more fun for him. He certainly doesn't take the Rebels seriously at all in Jedi, because he considers his plan airtight enough there's no way for them to be an actual threat.
- Besides, Palpatine has to know roughly where to send his power—no use accidentally blowing up his own Death Star—and also, why waste effort on a small movement like that, when your biggest problem is probably (if he is cunning) be focusing on eradicating Starkiller, the guy who, oh yeah, started the Rebellion, nearly killed Vader and Sidious single-handedly, and blew up a Star Destroyer without even trying very hard? Who cares about a little group of miscreants?
- On the other hand, if the Emperor can singlehandedly crush fleets of ships, one wouldn't expect Vader's officers to be so flippant about his "ancient religion" and the limitations of the power it grants.
- Pretty sure that the Expanded Universe establishes that it wasn't widely known that the Emperor was a Force-user, and in any case, he rarely used his abilities to their flashiest extent, at least before his rebirth in Dark Empire. It's probable that even the officers aboard the Death Star didn't know the full extent of his power. (Taunting Vader, who does use his telekinesis at least both frequently and publicly, and is known to be both a Sith and an ex-Jedi, is still stupid).
- It's also worth remembering that Palpatine typically doesn't use his Force abilities when simple deception and manipulation suffice. Which is more useful to him, personally? The lives and ships of his troops, or his facade as a crippled old man? The destruction of the original Death Star barely slowed him down, but Luke forgot Yoda's advice about underestimating the Emperor, to his peril.
Reattaching limbs
- So why exactly do limbs sliced off by a lightsaber seem impossible to reattach? In any Star Wars story where a guy who had his arm or leg cut off by a lightsaber and survived to tell the tale they never simply go to the doctor and have them put it back on, they either clone a new one or get a robotic replacement. Now if we look at the movies on their own Luke's situation is understandable since his hand got cut off by Vader and it fell into an abyss that must have been miles long, but the right arm of Anakin Skywalker is cut off and is simply left there to rot when they could have picked it up and reattached it. The only explanation I can think of is that lightsabers being blades of super hot plasma cauterize wounds thus closing them and preventing blood loss and infection, and this no doubt would make reattaching nerves difficult since you have to open the sheared flesh of the stub and missing limb and then proceed to reattach what is left of the nerve endings. However arms that have been severed much more brutally have been successfully reattached in our world, and in fact an arm that has had its wound closed should be more viable for reattachment since germs can't enter any sort of open wound and compromise the surgery.
- You've got about an inch or so missing from the kerf of the blade, plus the layer of burnt flesh on each end of the cut. All of the "much more brutally" severed limbs still had all their bits, even if the larger chunks were merely hanging or needed to be completely reattached.
- Actually, you can still re-attach a limb even with the missing inch or so. A friend of my family lost most of his left arm in a hay baling machine, it's been re-attached, whilst missing about four inches or so of it. If they can do it in real life, you'd think that they could in Star Wars. I guess its just to show us his slow descent into Darth Vader territory?
- If you would lose several inches in length by reattaching the original, perhaps a cybernetic or vat-grown replacement would be preferable.
- In the original trilogy especially, the tech may exist, but it's not necessarily available to the Rebellion. Even assuming Yoda could've retrieved Anakin's missing arm, however (not a given, when you remember that Dooku's fight with Yoda resulted in enough debris that Yoda had to abandon the fight to save Anakin and Obi-Wan), it's not like Yoda had dry ice with him. By the time Anakin could have received proper treatment, nerve damage would've been pretty severe. For a warrior like Anakin, the alternative of a prosthetic is pretty attractive.
- In the SW universe, science has progressed far enough to the point that Luke's "artificial" hand is in every way as useful as a regular hand, if not more so. Therefore, from the medical practitioner's POV, what's the point to reattaching the original limb when it is much more dangerous and prone to infection? Granted, artificial limbs of Luke's caliber are likely prohibitively expensive for some, but it still makes more sense generally.
- Simpler explanation for Anakin's situation, his arm was electrocuted during the later fight, or even crushed by some of the debris. Or maybe since they were on an alien planet, there wasn't an appropriate facility for it available to them.
- It is widely explained in the EU that lightsabers cauterize flesh that they cut through. Simply put, the lightsaber burns and melts either side of the cut, causing 3rd degree burns and scar tissue formation. Perhaps it is too tedious a process to dig through all that mangled flesh and waste tissue in order to find the necessary nerve endings and other connection points. They probably figure it's easier to just work on the body portion and attach a robotic limb that will function a lot better than a reattached one.
- Maybe limbs die before they can be transported with the victim to a medical facility. Besides, Artificial Limbs are just as good if not better, so why not?
- It isn't impossible to reattach limbs cut off by lightsabers, just very difficult due to the whole cauterization issue. In the Young Jedi Knights series Tenel Ka loses an arm in a training accident when her lightsaber malfunctions. It's later stated that they might have been able to reattach it if her lightsaber hadn't exploded and destroyed her amputated arm.
- If memory serves the only limb that could have been easily re-attached was Anakin's first lost arm. It seemed to be unharmed after being diced. Other than that we have some side issues for the rest. Both of his legs for certain, and likely his arm, were lost into liquid hot magma. Hard to salvage those. Luke had his hand cut off, and after that didn't it fall from the catwalk to hang out with Darth Maul?
- Finally, remember that it has been calculated that the core of a lightsaber would have to be 2 million degrees Celsius to do what it does. Even though magnetic fields stop heat getting out except for the place where the blade is cutting, that's going to be about an inch either side melted and burned white hot, another inch cooler but still charred to ash, and another with third-degree burns, nerve damage etc. For a warrior such as Anakin, losing seven inches of his arm (one more for the width of the blade) when he could have one the right size which would work fine, is a no-brainer.
Robotic arms and Force Lightning
- So why is it that Vader's robotic arms make it impossible for him to perform Force Lightning? The explanations I have heard is that if Vader were to generate it then it would short-circuit his arms and render them useless or that any lightning he generates would somehow reflect back on him and short-circuit his entire suit and cause him to suffocate to death without his iron lung functioning. The problem I have with the first is that it is quite possible to offer some form of protection against electrical pulses shorting out machinery, in our own world we have made EMP resistant technology so Vader should have something similar. The problem I have with the second is that a projectile shouldn't be reflecting back on you unless an opponent deflected it, beams of energy aren't like boomerangs, but the iron lung having to constantly keep Vader alive is understandably not capable of being reinforced with its already sensitive electronics so it being shorted out makes sense were he to be hit with it which is why he dies in Return of the Jedi.
- I don't know of the movies themselves (remember, this is an Headscratchers page about the movies and the movies alone) ever establishing that he's incapable of Force lightning, but if he is then I think that's likelier to be due to the Emperor never teaching him than to anything involving his cybernetic condition. The master must reserve some tricks for himself lest the pupil learn too much.
- Well the EU establishes that he can't, but from just a movie perspective the fact that we never see Vader use it seems to suggest there is something preventing him. Not that it really matters since Vader has 80% of the Emperor's strength and can do such amazing things as Force choking a guy on an entirely different space ship, he doesn't really need Force lightning but it would be nice if he could.
- From the archives:
The emotion for Force-choking someone is "I hate you specifically so much I want you to die twice." The emotion for Force lightning, a far less precise and discriminatory use of the Dark Side, is "I'M SO MAD I'MA GONNA BREAK EVERYTHING URRRAAAGH".
This explains why Darth Vader can't use it not just that his cyborg body can't handle it, but he's also way too mopey and tormented inside to indulge in Palpatine's exultant break-everything gleeful rages. Palpatine smiles, cackles, expresses sheer exultant anti-joy at the pleasure of being evil * all the time* ; Vader, by contrast, never seems happy at all.
- You didn't sense a bit of wry amusement at finding your lack of faith disturbing?
- More specifically, the overwhelming majority of Vader's hate is directed at himself. He can Force-choke by hating someone specifically if he tries hard and focuses on them, but if he tried just letting all the hate out, since most of his hate is for himself rather than the world in general, he'd just electrocute himself, as opposed to Palpatine, who hates everything except himself.
- If the emotion is "I'M SO MAD I'MA GONNA BREAK EVERYTHING URRRAAAGH", then how the hell can you aim it?
- By pointing your fingers, obviously.
- Is it necessarily your fingers? I haven't thought of that until now. It doesn't make any sense that The Force would just somehow gravitate to one particular spot on one's anatomy. Is it possible, for example, for a Sith to fire lightning out of his ass? Now that I'd like to see!
- Chalk it up to Pstandard Psychic Pstance; from a mental/subconscious standpoint its much easier to aim something if you point at the target and from a visual standpoint it conveys the action much better than shooting it from you elbows or something.
- It seems to head towards the nearest living being. At the end of Return of the Jedi, when Vader picks up Palpatine, the force lightning loops back on itself after leaving Palpatine's arms to strike Vader.
- Amusingly, The Force Unleashed II shows that Vader can use Force lightning, and it appears to come out of his armpits.
- No, he's redirecting the natural lightning found on Kamino. Vader can obviously redirect lightning or you could kill him with a single shock; he's subconsciously blocking all the time.
- Since the Force comes from living things, you need living limbs to serve as conduits through which the lightning flows. If Vader tried to use Force lightning, it would have to go through from his stumps and through his cybernetic arms, which would screw them up.
Inconsistent damage
- Can anyone tell me why in ANH, Han's blaster is taking chunks out of what is supposed to be a concrete building, yet in RotJ, Leia takes a shot in the shoulder from a military grade carbine, but only needs a bandage rather than a prosthetic limb?
- The shot actually hit the building next to her and the flashback wounded her. I remember seeing a gif of that somewhere.
- Remember also that blasters are dial-a-yield. The Stormtroopers may have dialed back the power of their carbines to save ammunition, so instead of grenade-power detonations, they have much smaller blasts - enough to kill a lightly-armored Rebel trooper, for example, instead of needing to punch through heavy armor. It's also worth noting that Han's DL-44 blaster is heavily-modified for maximum firepower and energy output. In his line of work, he generally has time to squeeze off only a few shots, so he wants those shots to be brutally effective, i.e forcing Stormtroopers into cover while going for a quick getaway, or incinerating a bounty hunter instantly to the point where he can't shoot back.
- Here's a detail of the SW universe often overlooked: the Stormtroopers we see are generally being used as cops. Border patrol officers at identification checkpoints, breaking up criminal rings such as Jawa droid thieves and Corellian smugglers, investigating bar brawls, etc. Their main priority would be to bring back prisoners alive for trial, so yes, while intimidating, they'd tend to keep their blasters dialed down. Han is a smuggler when we first meet him. If somebody is chasing him, he wants that person DEAD-hence, as mentioned above, he's bought the most powerful pistol he could find.
"A long time ago..."
- So what are we supposed to assume the Star Wars universe is? A galaxy that had the human race be super advanced and interact with other alien species in the distant past before we crash-landed on Earth and went "stupid" for some unexplained reason, or is it set in the far future after the human race has finally become super advanced and is interacting with alien species at long last? The "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.", line seems to suggest that some sort of sentient species, perhaps humanity, is looking back on the overall Star Wars history and telling that story.
- Actually...that's a pretty good answer...maybe the "people" who said "A long long time ago, in a galaxy far away" are the people telling the story, which WOULD be a long time ago, depending on how far into the future they are.
- There's no real good explanation for it, but the most likely one is that some unknown, highly advanced alien civilization (and they do exist in the Star Wars Extended Universe) grabbed a bunch of human hunter-gatherers hundreds of thousands of years ago, and dumped them on a planet in the Star Wars galaxy. The other theory - that they coincidentally evolved to be exactly the same as Earth humans - is unfathomably preposterous by comparison.
- Oh, you do not know what a can of Fan Wank you have just opened. Don't get a hardcore Star Wars fan started on whether primitive humans traveled from the Star Wars galaxy to Earth, or it's parallel evolution, or what.
- There was a (cancelled) novel that would have answered this, and put THX 1138 in the Star Wars universe: Alien Exodus. On the 25th century Earth of THX 1138, three humans hijack a spaceship and flee the solar system, fall into a "cosmic whirlpool" that takes them back in time and to another galaxy, and land on Corellia. The humans we see in Star Wars are their descendants.
- The Doylean answer, though: "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" is just a way of saying "What you're about to watch is a fairy tale set in space."
- With a question like this, I think it is important for us to remember what the word fiction means...
- I simply bring this up since in all the Star Wars stories I am familiar with no species, even humanity itself, seems to know where human beings came from.
- ^^Star Wars is Science Fantasy, not Science Fiction. ^The wikia claims that Coruscant is the universally accepted answer, due to some parts of the sub-city dating back 100,000 years.
- Okay and the difference is?
- The fact that Star Wars rates an absolute 0 on the Mohs Scale, as compared to say 3 for Avatar, or 6 for 2001:A Space Odyssey. The Force is basically magic with another name, and the the star-fighters seem to break about half the laws of physics, and that's only some of the worst of it.
- Ok, but it wasn't necessary to bring up the distinction, the MST3K Mantra still applies...
- The MST3K Mantra applies to every single thing on this page.
- Nonsense. Just because Star Wars uses softer science than some other franchises doesn't magically make it not scifi. It's science fiction. Accept it and move on with your life.
- Space Fantasy is a sub-genre of Science Fiction. The implication of the story being Space Fantasy, however, is that there is not and will never be an explanation for why humans magically exist in another galaxy thousands of years ago.
- I always believed that Humans from our universe ( In a universe without fictional star wars) simply figured out the way to build spaceships that can travel long distances, and they all left the earth in mass quantities due to the planet becoming unstable. Somehow, they were sucked into the portal that brings them into the Star Wars universe. They all end up on different planets and crash. Since the technology for Hyperdrives is a few hundred/thousand/million years away, they are left to grow and evolve on their prospective planets. Some Humans stay humans, some evolve into the near human species due to the generic makeup of their native planets...
- As I've explained already on the archives page, the movies are assuming the Infinite Monkeys rule and positing that in a universe as unknowably large as ours, there must exist somewhere out there a species unnoticeably different from our own, in worlds with a similar environment to ours. And yes, it is in the distant past, with civilizations older than our own which have had sufficient time to become more technologically advanced than ours because they started so much earlier.
- Try this one on for size: who says that Earth humans have to be the forerunners of Star Wars humans? Maybe a colony ship was completely disabled, slipped through a wormhole, and crashed on Earth at some point in the distant past? Deprived of their technology and vast expanses of space away from any contact, they went native, and displaced the native hominids' place in evolutionary history. Thus, every instance of the Ancient Astronauts trope is simply a permutation of half-remembered snatches of the distant past. Sadly, there were no Force-sensitives on board; otherwise, our own history would be a lot more... colorful.
- It's really very simple: at some point in the future of humanity on earth, we shall invent hyperdrive, allowing faster-than-light travel. All ftl travel though, by definition, involves time travel into the past. At short distances, i.e., within a single galaxy, this might not be such a big deal. But traveling to "a galaxy far, far away," at ftl speeds would inherently mean also time-traveling to "a long time ago."
- Where do the humans on Krynn, or Ravenloft, or Tamriel, or Theddas, or Coocoon/Gran Pulse, or Westeros/Essos come from? Fantasy works have long lived the trope that far-flung fantasy worlds, which bear absolutely no resemblance to our own, still have recognizable humans. Star Wars is Space Fantasy, so of course is uses that trope.
- The Star Wars setting is something which Tolkien called a "secondary world" (or what TV Tropes calls a Constructed World). Secondary worlds are rare in science fiction, but you see them all the time in the fantasy genre: fantasies often take place in what looks like Earth in the distant past, but which features entirely made-up countries, cultures, and languages, without any mention of familiar names like England or China or Europe or Asia, or any references to real historical events. (And maybe it's no coincidence that Lucas, shortly after completing the first Star Wars trilogy, went on to write Willow, a traditional fantasy set in such a world.) Similarly, Star Wars features an entirely fictional galaxy populated by creatures called humans and an abundance of alien life, and while some fans like to speculate about it all being some kind of future to our world, there really is nothing to suggest that "our" Earth or "our" Milky Way galaxy exist at all in the Star Wars universe. Just like the setting in so many fantasies, it's for all intents and purposes an alternate universe from ours. That explanation may not satisfy all fans, but it certainly has precedent as a fictional conceit.
Letting Sith speak
- This is something that applies to the Star Wars universe as a whole, not just movies but even in the EU, is that if the Jedi are basically magical wizards with swords made of energy as an extension of that mystique then why do they always just stand there and let the villain spell out how they went about their dastardly plans? Sure the Sith probably have a degree of defense against Force powers since they can use the Force themselves but this doesn't explain why villains that can't use the Force aren't choked to death or blown away by a thought from the Jedi asking the Force to do that for them. And its even worse in regard to their use of lightsabers as once the lightsaber duels are won without the villain dying or they have the villain at their mercy before a duel could even take place they hesitate to just kill the bastard already because its "immoral". Why does no one think to just kill them already, and I don't care for "Well if the villain died like that then it wouldn't make for a good story.", nonsense I want an actual good reason for why this nonsense of letting the villain live keeps persisting, with a few notable exceptions. The Jedi shouldn't be using deadly weapons like lightsabers and attacking the villains with the Force if they didn't intend to kill them, how is what they were doing by fighting them in the first place any different from "striking them down in anger turning me to the Dark side." Isn't fighting in a war a negative thing from the get go? The whole thing is absurd what the Jedi are spouting.
- Nobody ever said the Jedi weren't absurd. They're as human as anyone.
- Does the concept of "minimum force" mean nothing now? Yes, they are using obviously lethal weaponry, but they generally attempt to use nonlethal force to take down their enemies - but they are prepared to use lethal force if necessary. Its the same thing basic principle that SWAT teams follow: they breach a building and take down criminals, and are armed with lethal weaponry that they use if necessary, but they always attempt to take suspects alive if possible. If a Jedi kills an opponent, it is because the Jedi has no other choice in the matter. So yes, if they take down an opponent and have them at their mercy, they hesitate to kill, because that enemy is defeated and they don't need to kill them now. Jedi defend and use minimal force, and never attack.
- I understand that the Jedi are warriors of justice that fight for peace, order and security for the people of the galaxy and are supposed to have love for all life, even the lives of their enemies, but such mercy should have limits. Justice requires that bad actions receive retribution and that good actions are rewarded, everyone pays for what they do in time, the Sith should be no different. It annoys me that you have confirmed Sith or other assortments of villains that have caused wars or terrorist incidents that have claimed countless lives and yet the Jedi just go like, "OK he's bad but if I kill him I'll be bad too. So let's not do that." Cases like Darth Vader who never completely turned to the Dark Side and still had that little speck of goodness in them were redeemable, but men like Darth Sidious who despite all the evil he does has not an ounce of remorse in his soul should not be bothered with, mercy for a Jedi should only extend as far as how well the villain responds to reform. If the villain doesn't care then he should pay for his crimes, and besides if you were to imprison the bastard he would be executed anyway so why not kill him already to save the firing squad having to use some ammo.
- The Jedi don't have a "no-kill" policy. That was just Luke's thing with his dad. In most other cases they don't hesitate to kill.
- Yes they do. They only kill if necessary. Running around indiscriminately killing everyone and being generally Ax-Crazy is a Sith practice.
- Since when did the Jedi offer Sidious mercy beyond asking him, once, politely, to surrender? Mace Windu was on the verge of killing Sidious himself, after all.
- The point was that there was always a hesitation, even if they did want whatever villain they had at sword point dead, and he who hesitates is lost. It is always the same damn argument, "It is not the Jedi way, or if you strike him down in anger then you will turn to the dark side (as if you could kill someone you fought for years on end in a war without anger), or that he can be shown mercy and be imprisoned." There is always someone to tell the villain's would-be killer that what they are about to do is wrong.
- First of all, let's not turn this into a death penalty discussion; that can't end well...second, there's definitely a difference between fighting a war and killing your enemy, and standing over him after he's defeated and killing him solely because you're angry at the guy. Even if you argue they need to be killed, I don't think there are any sources to say a level-headed Jedi couldn't perform the deed. The fact that the executing is derived from vengeance and anger is what warps Jedi into the Dark Side, not the fact that they killed someone. Remember, Anakin was lauded by Obi-Wan for killing Count Dooku (Obi-Wan didn't know the tiny detail of "the guy was helpless and Anakin acted out of spite"). Or heck, look at Darth Maul in Episode I; that was an unquestionably good action on Obi-Wan's part. The difference there? Maul was still fighting.
- And in regards to "they're in a war," using the Darth Maul example again, yes, Jedi are expected to kill their enemies. But just like in Real Life, there's a qualitative difference to being angry and killing enemies in combat, and capturing enemy soldiers/officers and executing them to satisfy your own anger. That doesn't fly here, either; it's not just a Star Wars thing.
- And about the "why don't they just squish Force-insensitives if these guys can chuck Star Destroyers around" thing: I always imagined it like a video game, you can't really use the Force in a hail of fire, as you need to concentrate on not becoming a pile of ash.
- Original Troper, you have hit upon the major moral quandary in Revenge of the Sith, which demonstrates Palpatine at most magnificently bastardish. Anakin is presented with the exact same choice twice in the film: kill a defeated opponent or let the justice system society has more-or-less agreed upon prevail. In the first instance, Palpatine wants him to kill Dooku, bringing Anakin closer to the Dark Side. In the second instance, Palpatine obviously doesn't want Anakin to let Mace Windu kill him, and one could argue that part of the reason Palpatine forced the choice on Anakin earlier was so that he'd reconsider his options when presented with it again. Both times, Anakin makes the wrong choice. Dooku was completely helpless, and Anakin was unknowingly being manipulated by a Sith Lord; capturing Dooku and forcing him to stand trial was the right choice. The second time, Mace Windu was absolutely right: Sidious was too dangerous to be taken alive, controlled the courts and Senate so a trial would be all but pointless, and was directly responsible for basically every bad thing to happen in the last fifteen or so years. Murdering him may not have been correct, but would have been right.
- My problem with Mace being right? Why didn't Mace just stab Palpatine as soon as he disarmed him. Mace had at least a minute where Anakin wasn't physically intervening - why not stab Palpatine already and be over with it?! Instead he goes "you have lost...bla bla bla..." instead of just thrusting the damn lightsaber!
- Which also brings me onto my next point! There has been at least one time when Obi-Wan had Grievous at his mercy - and he just requested Grievous to surrender. WHAT THE HELL?! The damn opponent is a slaughterer of thousands and you gonna ask him to surrender?! You STUPID, Kenobi?!
- Jedi don't just kill helpless opponents they don't like because they feel like it. That's consistent throughout the movies, that it's a Dark Side act and it's evil and it will make you evil. Luke almost does it and almost becomes evil. Anakin does it, and becomes evil. Mace was extremely conflicted, because he had a serious dilemma: go against all of his training and his morals and maybe end up falling to the Dark Side himself (wouldn't that be ironic?), or try to arrest a highly dangerous prisoner who might escape or walk free anyway and continue doing evil Sith things. He decided it was worth the risk to kill the last known Sith Lord in the galaxy, but it's understandable he hesitated. This also explains why Obi-Wan would not just kill Grievous, because the Jedi strongly believe (and there is good evidence supporting them) that the Force works like If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him.
Killing the Emperor
- So why didn't Darth Vader ever try to kill the Emperor during the 20 years between the two trilogies? I mean sure Palpatine is more powerful than him but I find it hard to believe his master's guard was up the ENTIRE TIME. The Expanded Universe tries to hand wave this by saying Palpatine learned his lesson through the murder of his master Plagueis, whom he killed while he was asleep, and learned to stay awake every moment of every day. This hand wave doesn't make sense as even Superman needs to sleep, so no amount of power should keep you up forever unless you have infinite power, which Emperor Palpatine does not have. Plus no guard Darth Sidious would have stationed while he sleeps would be any where near as powerful as Vader is. I find it hard to believe in 20 years Vader had absolutely NO OPPORTUNITY to kill his master.
- Why would he do this. I mean, why would he try to kill the Emperor? What are his motivations for killing his own master? Does he get more power out of it? Does he somehow inherit the title of Emperor?
- He achieves vengeance on the person who tricked him into becoming the monster that killed Padme. Remember, a Sith derives power from hatred, and the thing Vader hates most is himself, for obvious reasons- so, logically, he must also really hate the one who made him fall and do the deed. Also, its literally a Sith tradition to assassinate one's master- that's the official method of ascending from Sith Apprentice to Sith Master
- Palpatine is killed, and the Empire tries Vader with treason and assassination and has him executed, since it is, y'know, a government. Sith or not is really irrelevant.
- As was posted by the previous poster the Sith work under the premise that the Master should constantly watch his apprentice in order to prevent him from killing him and should he find a better apprentice replace the weak apprentice for the stronger one, and the apprentice should try to get stronger until he can kill his master and succeed him. The master is the one who wields the power and the apprentice craves it, this way both are constantly forced to reach new heights in order to survive, and Palpatine's ideal world would have both him and Vader being the top two Force users for all time and with his potential reach new heights and unlock mysteries of the Dark Side. However when Vader became injured Palpatine sought a replacement and so Vader in response has been planning to replace him as the Sith Master and Emperor of the Galaxy, not only so the Emperor can't kill and replace him but for ruining his life by taking him down the path he went. So it isn't a question of why he would want to kill the Emperor, the question is how.
- Now onto the way Vader would become Emperor. For the poster who said it is a government and Vader would be arrested, not necessarily. There have been countless rises to power through assassination in history, and some with little to no opposition to the assassin. In terms of power Vader is the Supreme Commander of the entire Galactic Military, making him second in command to the Emperor so should he die the legal channels of the government would make him next in line for Emperor so killing him would benefit Vader. And Vader doesn't even have to make it an overt assassination should he be worried about retaliation, which he shouldn't since he controls the military, all he has to do is reach over at the Emperor with his hand and snap his neck, no finger prints, no blood, sweat, etc. to find and he can just say some assassin came in before he could stop him, among other possibilities.
- I think it'd rather take more cunning than that; in a one-on-one fight, all Palpatine has to do is lightning Vader and he's basically dead. Keep in mind, he did kill the Emperor while he was distracted with Luke, and died shortly thereafter. As for killing him in his sleep, Palpatine is not Superman, and the Force is not solar energy; there's no reason Superman's sleep schedule should have any bearing on a Force user's. Also keep in mind that it's a big galaxy; it's not like Palpy and Vader are roomies. And something tells me slipping in without triggering any alarms to get Palpatine in lightning mode isn't one of Vader's strong suits.
- It's also worth noting that not everyone in the Imperial hierarchy thinks all that highly of Vader. He may not have commanded full support as Emperor and might even have been somewhat vulnerable to mutiny. There was a rebellion going on after all, which they lost, so even maintaining what power he had was something of a question. He also made the mistake of underestimating his previous master in Episode III, and that didn't end so well for him. Bottom line, I think it's just likely that Vader may not have believed himself strong enough to take on Palpatine. He does, however, seem to believe he and Luke together capable of doing it, and tries to pull Luke over to his side.
- It has been proven that lightsabers can block Force Lightning and there are ways to create actual barriers made of energy with the Force, so Vader has some form of protection against the Emperor short circuiting his suit with Force Lightning. Besides once the Force Lightning did successfully short circuit Vader's breathing apparatus the strength of the attack itself was not able to deter Vader from throwing Palpatine over the edge, so Vader is at least powerful enough to be able to withstand an attack from his master and once he has a hold of him his superior physical strength could easily break the Emperor's body. Being 80% of the Emperor doesn't mean Vader is weak, it means he is the second most powerful Sith in history seeing as the Emperor is the most powerful Sith ever. I brought up the example of Superman as he is practically a demi-god who can survive going through stars and can move planets, if that kind of power needs to sleep than Palpatine should need sleep. As for assassinating the Emperor Vader doesn't even have to do it in his sleep (which he could pull off since he knows how to hold his breath, he used it on Luke to ambush him), there are moments in the Expanded Universe and the films where he is literally just a few feet away from his master, Vader is a powerful and fast warrior a quick raising of his hand towards his master's neck and... SNAP! Not to mention what Vader could pull of with a lightsaber, if I recall correctly his mastery is greater than his master's. It would be that simple.
- Remember how Palpatine had to use the clones to kill off the Jedi? Remember their main advantage? It wasn't their overwhelming numbers - it was their lack of emotions that shielded them from the Jedi precognition powers. Vader didn't have such advantage. Palpatine would've sensed his murderous intention, probably even in sleep (why not, the Great Force doesn't sleep). Next, you somehow suppose that Palpatine is NOT a powerful and fast warrior. I thought Yoda's example taught us that the frail constitution is not a hindrance to a Jedi. All in all, I guess, Vader only managed to kill Palpatine because the latter was distracted with torturing Luke.
- This is contradicted by out-of-film sources that have the Jedi possess the ability to sense energy signals of clones, Yoda in particular has told clones to their faces he can feel an energy and a spirit inside of them that makes them unique to other clones. It was probably the heat of battle and the sudden change of heart that didn't allow the Jedi to notice the malice in time to react. Palpatine seems relatively aware of Vader's thoughts and emotions due to the Force bond he has with his apprentice so logically he should have some degree of preparation time in case of a betrayal, but this DOES NOT APPLY WHEN HE IS SLEEPING. If that was the case then Palpatine would not have been able to murder Plagueis who was his master while he slept. The fast and powerful statement was to do with Vader's actual physical strength and agility, Vader being a foot away from his master is akin to a person strangling a person with a gun before they can bring their gun out, sure if the gun comes out (in this case Palpatine's Force powers) then the attacker is screwed but if the gun wielder is killed before he can reach his gun then the weapon is useless. Vader is actually relatively swift, once he became adapted to the suit he was able to jump and run with some degree of grace and his strength due to his robotic arms is self explanatory, so a personal meeting between him and his master would be the perfect time to use those attributes of his. It wouldn't be without risk to Vader but not impossible to pull off.
- Well, that's Yoda to you. Others just weren't that good. As for the sleeping part, you apparently take everything Palpatine told Anakin about Plagueis at face value. You shouldn't. And if the Force Awareness (or whatever the ability to sense intentions is called) is indeed on 24/7, this negates all the reasoning with respect to Vader's prowess. However swift you are, if the target already knows you're about to strike (and can electrocute you with its mind), you're screwed. And electrocuted. Finally, you seem to give the Emperor too little respect. The man managed to get the better of the whole Jedi order, not to mention the rest of the Galaxy, after all. Surely he could manage one whiny bitch in clanking suit.
- Word of God from George Lucas confirms Palpatine's story about Plagueis in an interview he calls him a "super-Sith", and even the Expanded Universe speaks of Palpatine training under Plagueis until he learned that his master wanted to create life using the Force which Palpatine viewed as his replacement, and then he killed him in his sleep. According to Palpatine, Plagueis was so wise and so powerful in the Force that he could even save those he wanted to from dying, and allegedly was capable of creating life or was on the verge of finding such a power, a Force user so powerful that he had to kill him in his sleep in order to succeed. If his story is to be believed then even someone as aware as Plagueis was can't sense danger in their sleep, unless in the form of prophetic visions such as what Anakin had. I am not downplaying how powerful Palpatine is, I called him the most powerful Sith in the history of the Sith Order, which many sources claim him to be, I was simply claiming that no matter how powerful you are your guard can't always be up and even powerful Force users can take damage from opponents that are weaker than them. Besides if Palpatine was so aware all the time then he wouldn't have been grabbed by Vader and thrown over an edge of a reactor core to his death in Return of the Jedi, which is where the topic of why Vader didn't try something like that some time in the last 20 years comes from. Also Vader is not a "whining bitch in a clanking suit" (especially since his whining personality that so many infamously claim Anakin had in the prequels is gone once he becomes Darth Vader), he is the Chosen One who had the potential to be the most powerful Force user who ever lived and due to certain mistakes and injuries was reduced to a shell of what he could have been, but said shell is 80% as powerful as the Emperor is who as I said is the most powerful Sith that has ever lived. 80% of Palpatine is nothing to laugh at.
- Lots of Real Life dictators ruled that long and even longer, somehow avoiding all attempts on their lives (usually plentiful), despite lacking awesome Jedi powers. If the Plagueis story was indeed true, a reasonable assumption would be that Palpatine learned from his master's mistakes, like a good Sith should. Vader only managed to kill Palpatine because the latter was distracted with torturing Luke. And last but not least: Evil Never Sleeps. Nuff said.
- The Rise of Darth Vader mentions this: "Unlike Plagueis, Sidious knew better than to sleep".
- The Emperor clearly has some ability at mind reading (eg "I can feel your hatred"), so my guess is that he's constantly monitoring Vader and is ready to short out his suit whenever he senses a dangerous thought. Vader knows this and is biding his time for a moment when the Emperor is distracted enough to be killed, and in turn the Emperor is careful not to become overly distracted (hence why he doesn't force storm the rebellion bases). In the end the Emperor realized that the shield was down and they were all about to be obliterated, so he figured that should enjoy his final moments and fry Luke regardless of potential betrayal, Vader saw his opportunity and promptly murdered his master.
- A lot of this is ignoring the fact that Palpatine bends the rules. He deliberately takes inadequate apprentices so they can never surpass him. Darth Maul wasn't a strong Force-sensitive; he could be trained in combat and was thus a threat to Palpatine's enemies, but not to Palpatine. Count Dooku was easy to lie to. Anakin had a leash around his neck with "Padme" inscribed on it, and after that's out of the way, Darth Vader is, for all the prosthetics and scariness, a cripple. Vader certainly wants to kill him, but he can't. It's not possible for him to pull it off. Palpatine, on his worst day, can still read Vader like a book, hear him like an audio-book, and see his intentions in James Cameron 3D. Remember Vader's speech to Luke in Empire, where he blatantly spells out his intent for the two of them to kill Palpatine so they can rule together as father and son? It's even given a Call-Back in The Force Unleashed, where Galen realizes, "You never wanted to kill the Emperor," but Vader answers, "Not with you."
- One thing that always bothered me about saying that Palpatine can take out Vader in one strike is that if this is the case then having an apprentice to help him kill the Emperor in a straight fight is pointless. Vader didn't disown Galen Marek because he was weak but because he didn't like the fact that he was becoming a good person and turning away from the Dark Side, The Force Unleashed II is dealing with the premise of Vader cloning Starkiller in order to have a more obedient version to command against Palpatine. All that aside whether he was going to use Galen Marek or his son Luke Vader can't help his apprentice if Palpatine takes him out of the fight with one burst of Force Lightning by short-circuiting his suit, unless Vader can actually deal a blow then the whole affair is of no good. Unless Vader was hoping to raise his apprentice to be stronger than the Emperor and let him fight his battle for him, which doesn't sound like Vader as he not only would want to participate in the assassination of his master but raising an apprentice to a level equal to or beyond that of the Emperor, even Luke who according to George Lucas has the same potential that Anakin once had, would take years. Logically Vader can at least hurt the Emperor, a guy who is weaker than you can still inflict pain on you or even kill you, and therefore the apprentice is there only so that Vader doesn't die taking the Emperor with him. This is showcased in the Return of the Jedi, had Luke been powerful enough then Vader and Luke could have killed the Emperor together, but as it was Vader had to sacrifice himself in order to kill Palpatine.
- In short: Palpatine killed Plagueis because the latter was overconfident and believed he could afford to let down his guard, Palpatine took the lesson to heart so he never slept and Vader just isn't strong enough to take Palpatine, and only managed in the end because Palpy was intoxicated by the Dark Side while torturing Luke. Oh yeah, Power of Love.
- Power of Love indeed. It's entirely possible that the whole reason Vader was even able to kill Palpatine in the end was (in addition to his distraction) the fact that his emotions at the time weren't aggressive. He wasn't feeling his overwhelming hatred for his master, he was feeling his love for Luke. Presumably Palpatine had trained himself to react to feelings of violence towards him, but, distracted as he was, he couldn't immediately process Vader's shift to positive emotion, digest the implications, and anticipate his attack. If you look at it in that light, it's entirely feasible that Vader spent the last twenty years trying to kill him and failing at it, since he presumably went about his assassination attempts in a very Sith way, and Palpatine was always the superior Sith.
- Also, if Vader would be the logical heir to the Emperor's throne as has been suggested, being Emperor involves a lot of politics and social manipulation. Shadows of the Empire makes it quite clear that Vader hates having to deal with politics and politicians, who are always sneaking around jockeying for influence and power, and with the shadow-world of spies and secret agents. Vader is, frankly, a warrior, and it's stated that he'd rather fight with a lightsaber or star-fighter than duel in a political ring. Also, Palpatine is a bit of a dick and has spent the last 30-40 years wrapping Anakin/Vader around his little finger. You're telling me that a man who can make several billion people forget seeing an 8km-long warship getting buried in Coruscant (namely Lusankya, a Super Star Destroyer that shows up in the X-wing novels) and specifically designed Vader's life-support suit to be a hassle and burden wouldn't have had other methods of keeping Vader in his place?
- Unlike Palpatine, Vader does not want power for power's sake. He wanted power to save Padmé and rule the galaxy with her. With her dead, he would have no more reason to want to be emperor. Besides, after the events of Sith, Vader is probably pretty Lonely at the Top and Palpatine is the closest thing he has to a friend left. It was only when Luke came along that this changed.
- Is there any evidence that Vader considers Palpatine to be the enemy? Palpatine's apparently been his friend since he was a boy, he gave Anakin his position on the council, always encouraged him even when everybody else was "holding him back", and in the end was the only person to offer any useful advice other than "Death is a natural part of life accept it and let go". From Vader's point of view, it's his own fault that everything came crashing down, and Palpatine was just a good friend who did everything he could.
- Yes, there is. In the novelization of Revenge of the Sith Palpatine asks him if he hates him and wants to kill him- Vader says yes, he does, and later in the film he tells Padme that he can get strong enough to defeat him. And in The Empire Strikes Back he tries to talk Luke into helping him overthrow the Emperor and rule the galaxy together, and there is no indication that he isn't serious. Vader is not stupid- he knows full well that Palpatine is not his friend. He tricked him into killing Mace Windu because he said he had the power to save Padme`- "whoops! I meant we might be able to find out how to save her", or as Anakin heard it "I lied, bitch". He also just found out that his so-called friend orchestrated that hugely destructive intergalactic war that he had just spent the last X years fighting and seeing people die in. He hates Palpatine; Palpatine ruined his life, and he's well aware that for all his talk about "peace" he is really motivated only by a lust for power. He goes along with him only to learn how to beat him, and because Vader really does believe in using The Empire for peace- he has to, because he needs to somehow drag some sort of victory out of all the disasters he is responsible for. In one of the comics a Fallen assassin tells him that he can't keep running from his crimes- Vader's response is "I have no choice", and he kills her, and that sums him up rather neatly.
- I always thought Palpatine had some sort of mind control over others. He obviously wanted Luke to kill Vader, presumably so that he could be his new apprentice. It seems clear to me that surrendering to anger (the Dark Side) gave Palpatine power over the Jedi. Besides, Luke tries to persuade Vader to fight Palpatine, and his response amounts to "his power over me is too strong". He doesn't say "he's my master, I am on his side and I don't want to kill him". Heck, he stops just short of saying "I am entirely incapable of turning against him". Giving in to your anger does not seem like an abstract, moral victory for Palpatine (i.e. you kill your father/son/whatever, you are evil and therefore the Dark Side wins). It seems that Vader even acting against Palpatine required a heroic act of willpower on his part, when he finally did. Heck, that's why I figured Anakin became Vader in the first place. There is absolutely no reason for him not to say "what, my love died? You promised me you'd save her. No, I will not be your apprentice". The Dark Side seems to warp Sith mentally, they are not merely "bad guys". Otherwise, there is no reason for Luke to be at Palpatine's side after he killed Vader. He'd either kill Palpatine or get killed himself. And what purpose would it serve for Palpatine to have Vader killed, if Luke was not meant to replace him somehow?
- There's also the simple problem facing Vader: Palpatine's a much better planner. He's perfectly willing to kill Palpatine (in fact, he mentions such ambitions to Padme), but it's all for nothing if Vader gets himself killed or sidelined in the process.
- Lucas has stated that Vader being in the suit made him physically much weaker than Palpatine had hoped. Probably the estimate of Vader as being 80% as powerful as Palpatine might have been true if he hadn't gone and got himself all burned up, but afterward the percentage was way lower.
- Lucas' exact words were that had Anakin never suffered any of his injuries he could have been twice as powerful as the Emperor, in his injured state Vader could only achieve 80% of the power that the Emperor wields. The way it is worded heavily implies that Vader is at that 80% power in the Original Trilogy.
- Obi-wan said it himself - 'He's more machine now then man.' That wasn't just referencing Vader's cybernetics: The man has lost everyone he ever loved, and been involved in some horrific events. He's desensitized, dead inside, and has no idea what to do with himself. The more he thinks about his current situation, his past - anything, really, the deeper into despair he falls, so as a coping mechanism, he tries to stop thinking altogether, and simply follows his orders without question - anything to keep his mind busy. As time goes by, this habitual obedience becomes a part of his psyche until it is all that he is anymore. It's only once he realizes his son might be alive that he begins to think for himself again.
- In the RotS novelization, Vader tries to kill Palpatine after being interred in his armor but is too damaged from his wounds to even hurt him. He then realizes he doesn't even want to because Palpatine is the only thing he has left.
Humanoid aliens
- So is it ever explained why there are so many aliens that are humanoid in form alongside normal human beings like us in the Star Wars universe? It can't be a coincidence that so many aliens look like humans and yet clearly have features that separate them from us, surely there is some sort of evolutionary chain between humans and aliens.
- Yup. Precursors took human slaves from wherever it is humans originated, and brought them to all of their colonies, then died, leaving lost colonies behind. Some of the older ones were separate from other humans long enough to diverge genetically. Which set of precursors did it isn't quite clear, you practically can't walk ten light years without tripping over another set of 'em, and its highly probable that they all took human slaves.
Vader in the suit
- This was brought up in the Archives page but I never could understand why Vader stays in that suit, iconic as it may be, for the entire Saga when he had alternatives to being a walking iron lung. There was cloning technology right there, and yet his limbs, damaged organs, lungs, and skin are never replaced with healthier cloned parts, this is somewhat hand-waved by the fact that Dark Side energies apparently corrupt clone flesh for some reason and yet there are more advanced forms of cloning that prevent this problem, technology that Vader personally uses on his apprentice Starkiller. Vader was also given the option of being taken out of his old suit and put in one that would be far better in every way in comparison to the original, but considers it too risky as having his suit replaced would require everything to be turned off, including his iron lung which he needs to breath. It upsets me that Vader feels trapped in that suit of his when there were clearly ways out of it, options that he never experimented with. I could understand if he tried and failed, but Vader never even tried.
- Remember, a Sith's power stems from his hate, and the thing Vader hates most is himself. Its entirely probable that whatever explanation he gave to others (and to himself), the real subconscious reason he stayed in the super-uncomfortable suit is self-flagellation.
- Yeah but Vader's justification is irrational, you don't need to put yourself through physical pain or discomfort to prove you hate yourself. That kind of thing starts from within the heart, not the body. I agree with the statement that he has self-hatred because Vader said that he hated himself in a fight he had with a resurrected Maul, Maul grabs Vader from behind but Vader pierces Maul by putting his lightsaber through his stomach and as collateral through Maul's as well, Maul has a brief exchange with Vader before he dies for a second time; Maul: What could you hate enough to destroy me? Vader: Myself. However if Vader's self-hatred was that great you would think he would have have gave up on life long ago, Vader hates himself because of his failures but clings to life because he feels that he can reach greater heights than his present condition by killing his master and becoming Emperor, it would only make sense for Vader to make himself stronger by healing his body so he achieve the only goal he feels he has left to live for.
- Its irrational, but that's why I said subconscious. He probably never admitted to even himself that that was why he stayed in the suit- he probably convinced himself on an intellectual level that it was due to the risks involved being too great, or being too busy, or dangers of clone tissue degeneration or something. And because he had convinced himself it was a logical-sounding justification, and not the subconscious hatred, rational argument wouldn't really do much good in persuading him (lord knows I've run into a similar problem with my own psyche enough times). Basically, just assume he ain't thinking clearly and is just one huge bundle of self-hating neuroses, and it all falls into place. It doesn't make sense- but then again, psychological issues, especially ones driven by trauma, rarely do, and hate is often self-destructive and aimed as much inward as it is outward, even when they only admit the outward part to themselves.
- Probably the most interesting story about Vader's self-hatred is when he uses it on himself... for healing purposes. In Shadows of the Empire Vader focuses on all of the hatred he has against himself, everything bad that has ever happened to him, and for his master Palpatine, and channels this into Dark Side energy which he uses to heal his old scars from Mustafar. Vader's skin is completely void of all scar tissue from the severe third degree burns he suffered and the damage dealt to his internal organs and lungs is reversed which allowed him to breath without his iron lung, but his regenerated body causes Vader to flashback to what life used to be like when he was fully organic, back when he was once Anakin and this causes Vader to become joyful and reverses the Dark Side induced regeneration. Vader's regeneration wasn't being held back by Vader, but rather by Anakin, the spark of good inside Vader prevented Vader from regenerating his body back to the way it once was because the more he became like his old self physically the more his memories of being the good man he once was as Anakin interfered with his Dark Side powers. Not cloning body parts to graft onto his flesh was probably Anakin's guilt affecting Vader.
- Not to mention, we're talking about completely cloning Anakin then putting Vader's brain into the clone. Difficult and expensive, not to mention probably to advanced even for Star Wars. And about FU2, I always thought it was original Starkiller all along, and Vader just wants to confuse him enough to turn him dark again, so he takes the almost-dead Starkiller, heals him, then uses the dark side to try and corrupt his mind. The bad clones were just that, and were supposed to just be powerful cannon fodder.
- My bet is that Palpatine wouldn't let him- he designed that suit to be a hinderance to Vader to help keep him under control. Palpatine probably beat Vader over the head with 'this procedure would likely kill you' when he caught word that Vader wanted the new suit until Vader gave in. Palpatine is supposed to be a manipulative bastard, and the person he needs to manipulate the most is Vader, his trusted and very very powerful second-in-command.
- I'd imagine the actual reason is because Lucas hadn't conceived of clone tissue being used in that manner back when writing the original trilogy and had to keep it consistent by the time of the prequels. There's also the point that Lucas is a fan of Cybernetics Eat Your Soul; Darth Vader's implants represent his inhumanity.
Knowledge of Anakin Skywalker
- So does anyone even know that Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker in the general populace? You would think that Palpatine would like to use the story of a noble Jedi like Anakin defending the Republic from his rebelling brethren and being scarred and put in a life-sustaining suit in the process as propaganda. People like Yoda and Obi-Wan know who he is because they use to know him when he was a Jedi himself and know that after he became Darth Vader that he survived the volcanic scarring he suffered on Mustafar. The surviving Jedi and Dark Side users on occasion also claim to know Vader was once Anakin but how they know is never explained, either Obi-Wan and Palpatine shared their knowledge of Vader's identity to the Galaxy or Vader's mind is an open book to whatever Force user tries to pry through his thoughts which I find unlikely.
- Most people don't know who Vader really is. Even Prince Xizor, who was powerful enough that he could have been a rival for Vader in position within the Empire, did not know Vader was originally Anakin.
- Actually Xizor does know that. When he finds out Luke Skywalker's name, he realizes that was once Vader's name, and figures out they are related.
- So if people don't know that Anakin is Darth Vader then what is the general perception of Anakin Skywalker in Galactic history? Is Anakin still viewed as a galactic war hero by the general populace despite being remembered as a Jedi, or did Palpatine not care to protect the memory of his apprentice's original identity since no one knew he was Darth Vader anyway? It is at least presented that people who fought in the Clone Wars with Anakin still remember him favorably, for example a fighter pilot who fought with Anakin Skywalker during the Clone Wars decided to choose Luke as the squadron leader on the basis that he was Anakin's son, it must be noted that said pilot had only ever participated with Anakin in one battle out of literally thousands that were fought in overall war.
- I believe the general populace were told that Anakin Skywalker died heroically defending the Chancellor from Jedi assassins, and while I don't think that story was ever changed outright, it was downplayed as the Jedi became increasingly taboo. Luke, of course, wouldn't have been told anything about this by his aunt and uncle, and may well have believed his father and "the" Anakin Skywalker were two different guys with the same name until Obi-wan set him straight. Then, after the Rebellion was successful the truth got out, and Anakin's reputation for pretty self-evident reasons took a nosedive.
- Tatooine Ghost has an image of Anakin Skywalker for sale in the auction house. A small scene ensues and it's shown that they, in fact, knew who Anakin was and that he became Darth Vader.
- Really, what would they have to hide? What could be gained by pretending that Lord Vader is some new person?
- Realistically, because that would kill The Reveal: if Vader's real identity were common galactic knowledge, then Luke should have found out years ago. Canonically, because Palpatine wanted a clean break between the person Anakin was and his new personality; several times in the EU Palpatine chastises Vader for retaining vestiges of his old self.
- Maybe there's two guys in the galaxy named Anakin Skywalker and Luke grew up thinking it's a weird coincidence that his father and evil's iron fist happened to have the same name?
- Before Vader's "mishap" on Mustafar, Palpatine was likely planning some spin about how all the evil Jedi, except for heroic Anakin Skywalker, were killed by loyal clone troops to prevent them from taking over the Republic. Once Anakin was confined to the suit, it was much easier and more effective to claim him as an entirely new person. Instead of asking the public to believe that all Jedi but one were bad, they're asked to believe that all Jedi are bad, but you can trust your Friendly Neighborhood Sith Lord. There's just no reason to try and ride the coattails of Anakin's fame, and every reason to abolish them. Reminding the public of Anakin's great exploits would remind them of other Jedi, and anti-Jedi sentiment would be harder to cultivate. By first vilifying, then erasing, as much information about the Jedi as possible, Palpatine both prevents the public from retaining romantic notions about the guardians of peace and justice, and makes it that much harder for random Force-Sensitives to piece together enough Jedi lore to resurrect the Order. A great deal of early EU (especially before the prequels) deals with the fact that Luke has precious little information about the old Jedi Order to model his new Order on, and has to basically reinvent all the wheels.
- To the above two points: Even if nobody knows that Vader is Anakin, Luke would still have to reconcile that his father the nobody spice-freighter navigator had the same name as galactic war hero Jedi general Anakin Skywalker. That is, unless Palpatine and the Empire suppressed all knowledge of Anakin and the Jedi in general (explaining how Luke knows nothing about them or even what the Force is). The Empire's propaganda could have easily taken the line of "the Jedi were evil, they betrayed the Republic, they're dead now, so stop talking about them" and written them out of all the history books (or history holograms or whatever) and banned all mention of them like the Roman practice of ''damnatio memoriae'.
Midi-chlorian inheritance
- So if midi-chlorians are the genetic explanation for how much potential one has in the Force then are we to assume that it can be passed on like genes from parent to child? Like for example Anakin Skywalker had the highest count of these special cells in Galactic history and George Lucas said that had he never become Darth Vader then he would have been the most powerful Force user in history, but then George goes on to say that his son Luke could become what his father could no longer be. This sort of implies that you can inherit potential in the Force from your parents.
- Yes, you can inherit Force sensitivity. Luke even says, "The Force is strong in my family." In the EU, all of Leia's kids become Jedi.
- I guess to phrase the question better I should ask can Force sensitivity act like recessive and dominant traits? Like if one parent had 20,000 midi-chlorians per cell and the other parent had 10,000, could we say that the child may have the possibility of having the dominant 20,000 genes or getting the 10,000 recessive genes expressed? Does it work like normal physical traits like hair, skin and eye color, which are affected by the genetics of their parents, when it comes to Force powers? A perfect example of this idea is Anakin Skywalker, he had 20,000 midi-chlorians per cell but the mother of his children had no Force powers and yet George Lucas says that Luke can become just as powerful as his father which would imply that Luke has the same number of midi-chlorians. You would think that midi-chlorians counts would decrease with situations like these, that Luke instead of having 20,000 or more midi-chlorians he would have like 10 or 15,000 due to the genetics of his mother affecting his Force sensitivity, or are we to believe that the Force is still mystical and simply decides for itself how many midi-chlorians people get?
- I believe it's been said (though this may just be Wild Mass Guessing) that the presence of midi-chlorians don't give one the ability to use the Force, but instead it's the other way around. Force sensitivity increases your midi-chlorian count. So while Force sensitivity can be inherited, I don't think it necessarily means that the child of two Jedi would automatically be stronger in the Force than the child of one Jedi and one ordinary person.
- Well it is mentioned in the novelizations of the films that midi-chlorians can be increased as you become more knowledgeable and skilled in the Force, but there has to be a base count that denotes your potential ability to tap into the Force. What needs to be understood about midi-chlorians is that the amount that you have does not automatically make you super powerful, the amount that you have simply determines how easy it is for you to listen to the will of the Force and tap into its power, so just because you have as much as Anakin Skywalker doesn't mean that you automatically will be as powerful as your Yoda and Palpatine figures you still have to work for that kind of power, but the amount of time that you will have to work is reduced. This is why it must be asked if genetics affect midi-chlorians, it certainly is an interesting and worthwhile matter to discuss.
- The term midi-chlorians seems to have been inspired by mitochondria, the real-life bearers of the biological "force". They multiply independently in your body cells, and you inherit them from your mother.
- This is a major problem for those who claim that midi-chlorians "demystify" the Force, or reduce it to simple genetics. The Jedi Order of the prequels doesn't allow attachments, certainly not marriage. Strict constructionists say that this means Jedi have no lovers, thus no children. If Force-Sensitivity was purely genetic, the Jedi would breed themselves out in short order. Word of God has it that Jedi can have as much casual sex as they want, but it's still unlikely that the Jedi would, ahem, "sow sufficient seed" to keep the number of Force-Sensitives viable. The only other alternative is that the Force itself "chooses" people to be Force-Sensitive, and that it is not a purely inherited trait.
- Force sensitivity must be common enough as a recessive trait in the gene pool for new Force sensitives to keep being born. Also, remember that the Jedi don't train every Force sensitive they find, only the very young, so there will be latents out there as well, and the children of latents.
Research and Development
- Where is the R&D? The Galactic Republic was around for about 25,000 years and had hyperdrive all that time, yet nothing really improved. The Force Users were actually a bit WEAKER by the time of the movies. Ships and technology were a bit more advanced and powerful, but not by much. Compare this to what humans have done just in the last 500 years or so in Real Life.
- You're assuming that there are no scientific limits to technological advance. For all we know, the Star Wars civilization has discovered all of physics, and what remains of technological innovation basically consists of occasional improvements on existing technology.
- Except that you don't even see that, things in the movie era are apparently not appreciably better than things in the KOTOR era, a time difference which, in real life, separates us from the middle bronze age.
- You could probably say that the technology has hit a standstill because there isn't much that can actually be improved upon. I mean really where do you go after you have reached faster-than-light travel? Faster-than-thought travel? Laser weaponry is the same way, once you can fire lasers at your enemies then all you really need to focus on is how powerful you can make that laser and how you can fuel it, no one's going back to lead bullets after that. Space ships made by the Empire are much larger and advanced then anything made 25,000 years prior, the Death Star and Vader's personal flagship the Executor in particular can take on fleets by themselves so at least star ships increased in the grander of their design and power. The Jedi and Sith have data logs and personal teachings that have transcended thousands of years, the Force users of 25,000 years ago would not be as powerful as the preceding generations as everything that they learned would already be indoctrinated from a younger age. Not to say that there wouldn't be Force users that are stronger than present day Force users, but for the most part the present is more advanced in their teachings than the ancient Sith and Jedi. Darth Sidious, or Palpatine as he is also known, is considered the most powerful Sith who ever lived by the time of the films, and he was able to become that powerful because he became indoctrinated with all the knowledge from the entire Sith archives that has spanned thousands of years, and thanks to that he would floor even the strongest Sith of the ancient world.
- Well as far as technology goes I would have thought that there would at least be few advancements in medicine, but apparently the only change here from 4000 BBY is the fact that everyone is using Bacta rather than Kolto. The same goes for hyperdrives, the Centurion-Class SD back in the era of Darth Kreia had a class 2 hyperdrive with a class 8 backup, exactly the same as the Imperial-Class SD from almost 4000 years later. In a much shorter time (ie, less than 1/20th that) humanity has moved from sail and oar powered ships that can manage a handful of knots downwind, to a nuclear power aircraft carrier than can maintain a speed of 2-3 times that for thousands of miles at a time without (metaphorically) breaking a sweat, and from surgery with rusty blades that would kill you as often as not to organ transplants that will keep you alive for many years afterwards.
- Actually, the theme of rapid scientific development of humans as opposed to much more dragged one of alien species is rather widespread. In Animorphs, p.e. an alien admits that humans made a certain progress much faster than his own people did. Humans Are Special, anyone?
- Yeah, but that was 3 times faster, not 20+ times, the difference is an order of magnitude, and he was only mentioning 1 (or 2) field(s), flight (and rockets), whereas SW seems to have gone static over pretty much the entire spectrum, and for a much longer time.
- The short answer is that the tech level is secondary to the Space Opera. It's really that simple. There's been some token nods in the EU in the direction of tech development, but it's not really widespread among the creators.
- Simple. The modern-day human writers who create Star Wars stories can't think of 'more advanced' technology. If you have the technology to sail on the ocean in a little wind-powered boat, you're not necessarily going to be able to imagine sticking a steam engine on it. All you're going to be able to do is make your little sailboat more efficient until you can actually imagine making a steam engine. The writers can't think of anything more 'advanced' than FTL travel, so they focus on refining FTL travel.
- Technological plateau. At some point, there's just nothing new to discover or create. You can't build a computer that processes faster than the speed it actually takes an electron to move. You can keep developing/inventing materials that conduct that electron faster, but eventually you'll hit the speed the electron itself can move, at which point there's no such thing as a more efficient conductor. Man-portable blaster weapons are pretty much as efficient as they can get, with EU sources (mostly RPG books) describing all blaster weapons as making various tradeoffs between range, capacity, size, and power. Han's "heavy blaster pistol" does more damage than Leia "sporting blaster pistol," but has a shorter range and fewer shots. The Stormtrooper's blaster rifles do the same damage as Han's blaster pistol, at far greater range and with more shots, but are twice as big. One RPG sourcebook details "The Blaster Wars," where various manufacturers started trying to one-up each other by creating more and more powerful blaster pistols. The winner was the Blas Tech T-6 Thunderer, which basically looked like a beefy Stormtrooper blaster rifle, scaled down to just under the limit to still be considered a pistol. It does outrageous damage, but has pathetic range and handful of shots. Technology in Star Wars just can't get any better, and has been at this plateau for at least the last 4,000 years. Super Star Destroyers aren't any different than the ships used in the Mandalorian Wars 4,000 years ago, they're just much bigger. Even the Death Star isn't anything new: it's the exact same technology Han has strapped to his hip, just scaled up to a jillion.
- Medieval Stasis, in space. There's no good explanation for it. It's just how the story works.
Force Performers
- Silly question I know but are there any Force performers in the Galaxy? I mean are there people who use the Force for the sake of entertainment like in a circus or something? Also there isn't much mention of Jedi or Sith using their powers for recreational purposes, it is like these people don't have a life outside of battling to the death for the cosmic balance between Good and Evil.
- I doubt there are, I get the feeling that the force is considered a bit too 'sacred' to use for mere entertainment. There are IMO perfectly legitimate non-battle uses for it though, like pilots, engineers, doctors, that sort of thing, which would not only garner public support, but would also be a way to help fund the Order. Think about the way it works in Anne McCaffrey's 'Pegasus' series (not so much the 'Tower and Hive' one, by then they seem practically godly).
- The EU actually has something called the Jedi Service Corps which does just that sort of thing - medical services, disaster relief, deep space exploration. Most of the members are apprentices who failed their training at some point and chose it as an alternative to leaving the order so they aren't as skilled as full Knights, but they can still use the Force. Beyond that though it seems that Force sensitives with useful levels of ability are just so rare that they can't spare the manpower for anything beyond their peacekeeping/diplomatic duties (and even then they're stretched).
- It's usually the other way around. It's not that people learn the Force and then become awesome circus performers, it's that awesome circus performers are often subconsciously also Force users. It's how Luke finds a lot of his potential students in the EU books that take place right after the original trilogy... he goes looking for people that are said to be extremely naturally gifted at things like animal training, piloting, acrobatics, etc.
Belt clips
- In the Original Trilogy Luke's lightsaber had a little hook on it so it could attach to his belt. So did Vader's. It wasn't ever addressed, it was just a functional part of the weapon. Now, in the Prequel Trilogy, all the lightsabers no longer have belt clips, yet we still see the Jedi walking around with them strapped to their belts. But when they take them out to use them, or pose for publicity shots, you'll never see a clip attached to them. Why? Did Lucas really not want to acknowledge a functional means for the Jedi to carry their weapons? Did he feel that belt clips would have made them less imposing? It's not as though no one thought about it, since ILM obviously had to specifically make props with clips for the actor's costumes along with ones without for when they are being held. So a choice was made explicitly regarding whether or not the lightsabers should have belt clips. What really bugs me about this is that the original lightsabers feel so much more functional, so much more real, simply because they have those little hooks. It shows a practical side to this fantastic world.
- They have some other way to attach them to their belts. The actors can walk around with them attached to their belts and remove them without hassle, so obviously they have something else that works. Don't ask me what. Magnets, maybe?
- The point isn't rationalizing how they attach for the characters; it's about the fact that Lucas decided he'd rather replace a functional piece of hardware with an unnecessary effect. It's just another symptom of the greater illness of over-reliance on effects that plagued the prequel trilogy.
- If your point is that finding some other way to attach the saber hilts to belts was another piece of unnecessary SFX, I feel that I must point out that the previous troper has a point: they obviously found some way to attach them without the hook anyway.
- I think they have holsters for the sabers in the prequel trilogy. I'm watching The Phantom Menace right now, and it looks like everyone - including Darth Maul - has some kind of leather thingy on their belt for the lightsaber. So no, they didn't need to make extra hilts.
- Look at the picture of Qui-Gon's lightsabre.◊ You may notice a black protrusion on the underside. All the lightsabers in the prequels have this. It's a small circle that hooks into a special slot on their belts. It's actually more convenient for drawing a saber quickly and it doesn't bounce around so much when the wearer walks around.
- I concede your point and retract my complaint entirely. I was always convinced that they were just switching out props rather than using actual clipping mechanisms.
- Ooooooh, so THAT'S what that little knob is for!
- In fact, they're one of the few parts of the prequel lightsabers based in existing technology. They're called Covertec clips, and they're an over-engineered alternative belt clip for pagers and cell phones that just happens to be even better for attaching lightsabers to belts.
- Certain Real Life manufacturers of prop and souvenir lightsabers, such as Ultra-sabers, do widely use the covertec clip in their designs.
The Emperor discussing Luke
- "We have a new enemy, the young Rebel who destroyed the Death Star. I have no doubt this boy is the offspring of Anakin Skywalker." Then Vader says, "How is that possible?", as opposed to "Holy shit, my son's alive!" or "Wait, why aren't YOU surprised my boy's alive?" (Or questioning about the other twin)
- Vader never knew there were twins in the first place. Secondly his reaction of "how is that possible" basically is his version of "holy shit, my son's alive".
- Vader not knowing he had twins strikes me as implausible. They don't have ultrasound in Star Wars? He and Padme should both have known she was pregnant with a boy and a girl.
- According to another page where this was brought up, the novelization of Revenge of the Sith says that Padme went to the doctor to make sure she was healthy, but wanted everything else to be a surprise.
- Yeah, "How is that possible?" is basically the same as "Holy shit, my son's alive?" except the latter isn't the sort of thing Darth Vader would say. As to why the Emperor wouldn't sound surprised, if he was going to show surprise, it'd be when he found out. By the time he's telling Vader, Vader would presume he's taken time to confirm in some fashion so the surprise would have passed.
- Fridge Logic here because Vader should have known Padme had twins because he would have been able to feel them through The Force. More likely, he is asking how his son can be alive when he assumes both children died when Padme did. When he reads Luke's thoughts on the Death Star II, perhaps he realizes Leia is alive as well.
- I don't think that Force sensitives can discern pregnancy, however. Anakin didn't realize Padmé was pregnant upon his return from rescuing the Chancellor, after all. It's highly likely, therefore, that he wouldn't have sensed anything about his future progeny.
- The EU establishes that Vader interrogates a Rebel Officer concerning the identity of the pilot who destroyed the Death Star after the events of A New Hope. The officer utters, "Luke Skywalker" before Vader kills him, so Vader knew that his son was alive before the events of The Empire Strikes Back. Logically this means that his utterance of, "How is this possible?", is more Vader asking the Emperor why he lied to him about the death of his children than a genuine shock at the existence of his son.
- Vader's had years to learn to maintain a reserved demeanor in his dealings with Palpatine. Such a sudden, amazed outburst wouldn't be consistent with how somberly the two of them interact all through the series.
- I'm sorry, but what are you all talking about? Vader never says "How is this possible?" so far as I can recall. The actual exchange is as follows:
Emperor: We have a new enemy: Luke Skywalker.
Vader: Yes, my master.
Emperor: He could destroy us.
Vader: He's just a boy. Obi-Wan can no longer help him.
Emperor: The Force is strong with him. The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi.
- That's the way the conversation went in older versions. It has been updated in newer DVD/Blu-ray versions of the trilogy.
- The only question here is why the Emperor refers to "the son of (Anakin) Skywalker" when talking to Anakin Skywalker, rather than just saying "your son," and the in-story reason is that "that name no longer has any meaning for [Vader]," and the writer's reason is so as not to spoil The Reveal. Vader never asks "How is this possible?"
- Why does the Emperor call Luke "the son of Skywalker"? Because, as Obi-Wan put it:
- "[He] was seduced by the dark side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was [Anakin] was destroyed."
- Meaning that the Emperor knows what would happen if Anakin Skywalker reasserted himself, and is working to keep that part of Vader's mind submerged.
- Or he just knows how to count months. When Luke was conceived, i.e. "fathered", his male parent still was Anakin, not yet Vader.
- I always thought Palpatine was using euphemisms in the vein of a Cryptic Conversation. Remember this is probably a top-secret communication between the highest-ranking individuals of the Imperial government. If the message got compromised and anyone else heard it, then it wouldn't be obvious to the listener that Vader is Anakin and the person they're talking about is Vader's son. I also figured that, given three years have passed since the Battle of Yavin, they both already knew Luke's name and strongly suspected he was Anakin's son; this message is just the Emperor confirming to Vader that he has found out that Luke is in fact his son and he is training to become a Jedi, so it's extremely urgent that they deal with him quickly before he becomes a serious threat. They may have discussed Luke's identity before and Vader is just saying he's still unconvinced when he asks "how is that possible?".
Showdown at Centrepoint
- The battle in 'Showdown at Centrepoint' irks me, I mean, they take their badly outnumbered little battlegroup into the middle of the enemy fleet and leave their ace (the Planetary repulsor) totally unguarded. What was wrong with leaving the enemy fleet up to Ackbar's fleet, and keeping the Bakuran ships back in case the enemy does figure the game out and make a salient at Drall?
- I'd chalk it up to bad writing. I mean, the main villain is essentially Han Solo with a beard.
Obi-Wan telling Luke and Leia
- Was there any good reason that Obi Wan failed to mention Luke and Leia's relationship to them when he was aboard the Millennium Falcon? Other than to surprise everybody in The Return of the Jedi?
- "Ah, you see they aren't really family, From A Certain Point Of View", Obi-Wan has kinda an issue with telling people the truth, you might have noticed this.
- Yes, we get it, you hate Obi Wan. That doesn't mean everything he says is a blatant lie, nor that the "Obi Wan is a liar!" is the answer to every slight inconsistency.
In this case, you might recall that Obi Wan more or less tells Luke exactly why he didn't say so when he's on Dagobah in Jedi. They wanted to hide Leia from Vader's awareness, and the best way to do this is to keep anyone from knowing who she is. Remember that later in Jedi, Vader finds this information from Luke's head with very little effort at all—that is what Obi Wan was looking to prevent by telling him earlier.
- Maybe he didn't think he would die so soon and was waiting until they would have Leia on board so he could tell them together. Maybe he thought that if they knew, Vader or Palpatine could find out by reading their minds (like what actually happened) and then the Empire would know there were two Skywalker siblings. Or maybe he just plain forgot to mention it.
- Actually, Obi-Wan never knew Leia was there. He'd left to deactivate the tractor beam before R2-D2's hacking uncovered the records of her imprisonment on board the Death Star. The only time Ben saw Luke and Leia together since infancy was when he glanced over to the Falcon and saw the others escaping, and that was literally mere seconds before Vader cut him down. By the time he'd gained sufficient strength as a Force ghost to communicate with Luke again, he had more important messages to deliver than, "By the way, you really shouldn't be smooching that girl with the cinnamon-bun hair...".
- Yes, he did know Leia was there. She kinda sent him a distress call in an astromech droid. You know how it goes.
- No, he didn't. The "Distress Call" consisted entirely of "Get these plans to my father on Alderaan." Nothing about being captured and sent to the Death Star because she wrote the message before she was captured and sent there. Hell, when she made the message she was probably expecting to be killed anyway.
- Out of universe answer: Lucas hadn't decided to make her Luke's sister at that point. In universe answer: He was trying to keep her hidden from Darth Vader as a backup in case Luke got captured or killed or turned to the dark side.
Snarky Battle Droids
- Throughout the Prequel Trilogy. Can anyone give me an In Universe reason why all the battle droids are deadpan snarkers that sarcastically talk back to their commanders?
- Fridge Brilliance/Truth in Television: Whoever designed the battle droids must've been someone who thought that they should have some kind of attitude/personality so that they could be interesting for commanders to work it. Just like some screenwriters in Real Life believe that having characters be snarky/jerkish is the only way to make those characters interesting, because they think nice personalities are boring, whoever designed the battle droids must've been had the exact same belief. So the designers might've made the battle droids deadpan snarkers because they thought the commanders would find that more amusing than polite/emotionless battle droids. Considering the fact that Lucas was using the battle droids' snarkiness for comic relief, and since I always chuckled when the droids spoke, I'd say Lucas succeeded on that part.
- The Droid Personality Virus is very, very, very far reaching.
- Joke answer: They were built by the lowest bidder, who adapted video games for their responses. They're like when you poke the Starcraft Marine too many times.
- Actual Canon answer: You may notice that the droid in tPM are emotionless and without humor. This is because they are controlled by the command ship in orbit around Naboo. After it's destruction the Trade Federation realized that having your entire army controlled by a single ship was incredibly stupid. If they continued to use control ships during the clone wars the republic could take CIS planets in a single space battle. The Trade Federation made the choice to convert to individual droid brains by the time the clone wars began. It would prevent further catastrophic failures like the incident at Naboo. However the Trade Federation was incredibly cheep so when the brains were inserted in the B1 battle droids the the result was incredibly simplistic hardware dealing with more advanced cognitive software. The new systems created incredible glitches in the B1's performance as they struggled to respond to the signals. One of these glitches involved B1s actually shooting at each other in battle well the more common was snide remarks brought on by a poor comprehension of there brains. While CIS command was irritated by the ineffectual performance of their droids and their chatty nature they acknowledged the alternative was a foolish centralized command.
- The EU establishes that droids that go long times without memory wipes start to develop personalities, usually based on their experiences. Mistreated droids become bitter and misanthropic, while well-treated droids become friendly and caring. Given the likely millions of battle droids the Separatists were using, it's likely this piece of time-consuming maintenance was neglected, especially since the B1s in particular were practically designed as cannon fodder. As the war drags on, the B1s that survive start developing quirks, notably snarky personalities, since they're well aware that they're seen as utterly disposable by their commanders, and in combat are really just there to keep the enemy busy until the real forces, B2s and destroyer droids, can show up.
Droid slavery
- Droids seem reasonably self-aware, and most are capable of emotion to one degree or another. For all intents and purposes, they're artificial lifeforms, yet they're bought and sold like slaves. Hell, poor C-3PO gets his memory erased, basically meaning that everything he'd ever learned or experienced was destroyed, yet Bail Organa orders it done like he's placing an order for new drapes. Doesn't anyone in the Star Wars universe care about how they're treating the droids? Even slavery of organic beings only happens on the outer rim planets, so clearly slavery isn't a universal practice. What the hell's wrong with these people?
- The idea, though, is that it's not supposed to happen. Droids are routinely memory wiped specifically to prevent them developing personality.
- Well, the droids are supposed to have their memory routinely wipe. I suspect the operators charged to wipe them didn't exactly liked their jobs and will slack off as much as possible and leave more than a couple of droids with their memory intact.
- There are droids activists in the EU, and Naboo is noted for treating droids as equals. Really, though, Star Wars just seems to have a different sense of morality than we.
- So were robots in Asimov's "I Robot". The keyword is "artificial".
- It's Star Wars. The technology is there to support the story and characters, and nobody cares about the far-reaching social or moral ramifications of it.
- Why do people keep making comments like this when they totally miss the point of this entire page?
- The point of headscratchers is intended as "I found this Plot Hole, does anyone have an explanation that fills it in?" Consistent aspects of interaction in a setting are not plot holes, thus "That's just how it is in the setting" automatically fills it in. That droids are consistently treated as less than full sentients by the majority of society in the setting of Star Wars is how it is, thus droids being treated as less than full sentients in a Star Wars property isn't really a headscratcher, and should have immediately been filed under "Oh, that's just how they do it". Now, if you view a Headscratchers page as a place to say "I caught what I think is an error and am smarter than the creator of this piece of media, everyone congratulate me", or "I take moral or logical issue with something the hero did, everyone agree with me how much dumber the hero is than I am", then I suggest lobbying to have the name changed back to It Just Bugs Me.
- I think it does count as a headscratcher. Most of the characters in this franchise are presented as antislavery. And yet, they are okay with enslaving droids. That doesn't make any sense. And considering how intelligent and advanced these people are supposed to be, there's no way they don't realize that that's essentially what they are doing. It seems like a plot hole to me.
- Maybe The Force really is evil, and thus makes people treat androids as tools because it can't control them due to being inorganic.
- Sad case of Truth in Television, lots of famous freedom fighters and heroes like Washington and Jefferson, had slaves. Social changes are slow, even after the idea that all [white] men were equals and that things like serfdome should be abolished, many countries kept slaves of non-white races. And even when slavery was abolished (by the way, not so long ago, Saudi Arabia abolished slavery in 1967 and Mauritania in 1970 something, that mean those countries still have former slaves living around) other forms of discrimination remained. Notice also that a Galaxy would be equally diverse. Tatooine looks a lot like a backwards "country" which probably hasen't the same advance in social normas as Naboo or Alderan, in a similar way (no offense to anyone) how Saudi Arabia still has feudalism, women can't live the house without a male relative and slaves existed up until a few decades ago when here in The West we are already starting to debate whether animals should have more rights (like courts in countries like Canada and Argentina saying that chimps are non-human personas). And, that's another interesting example, we know now that certain animals like the great apes are self-aware and sentient, yet most people still are reluctant to give them rights closer to humans, with no real scientific reason for their opposition, just cultural reasons.
- Droids Sentience isn't as common as the films and shows would like us to believe. Droids gain more personality the longer they go without a memory wipe, yet why do they only gain a personality if they don't get wiped? I think it has to do with experiences that the droid went through. When a Droid encounters a situation that isn't in their programing they are forced to think and act on their own. with each action a droid gains more memories that is can call upon and reference when in needs too. Droids gain more independence and personality when put in a situation that is outside their programming. This is why R2-D2 is so full of personality, because he has been through a lot since phantom menace and he has been in several situations outside of normal astromech functions that force him to develop a new mind and write new code for each encounter as a way of survival. If you recall the D-squad arc in clone wars the droids they picked for the team were droids that have worked with Jedi, Droids that would no doubt have been put in situations that would have caused them to develop a personality. Also think in the in the Order 66 Arc Fives and his short time with AZ. During that time Fives taught AZ about loop holes in his code that he could exploit and AZ began to take on more and more personality as the arc went on until his memory was reset. Memory wipes are routine as to prevent a Droids from deviating from their programming (such as finding loopholes) as a Droids remains unwiped it gains more things to call upon and think on other than its programing. A droids gaining a true personality is rare and only appears to those that are online for a long time or consistently put in places they weren't meant to. Also Some Droids might not have true personality just programmed way of interacting with others. Though Legends HK-47 was programed to address all Organics as Meatbags by his master and something like this could also be common and I think C3-P0 might have some programed personality with his stuffiness and kindness. He does develop a personality after a while, but I think his some of his personality is programed. Droids are built for a function and personality is a side effect of thing outside of that function.
Leia, Vader, and the Force
- Luke declares that his sister Leia is powerful with the Force, and she has three kids that are all strong with the Force. Yet she gets captured and has an up close and personal meeting with Vader during which he drugs and tortures her and he never has the slightest idea that she's a) kin or b) powerful with the Force.
- You have to either actively look for a person's force potential (it involves psychic probing of the mind, as I recall; you don't actively emit force waves and can't judge power from a distance like with Dragon Ball ki levels) or use a midichlorian scanner, neither of which would have occurred to Vader to use, since as far as he knew, she was the daughter of Bail Organa and he had no reason to doubt it, and probing her for force potential would be a waste of time- it isn't policy to do it for every ID-confirmed adult prisoner, after all, or even any, as far as I know (what scanners they have are mostly used on Jedi-hunts and Emperor's Hand searches). As for her being kin... again, why would it occur to him to look?
- He picked out his other kid on another ship. Granted, Luke is a trained Force user, but it seems like if there were any circumstances under which a latent talent might in some way manifest itself, drugged torture would be it. Plus, it just bugs me that he has this mystical connection to one kid while the other is literally invisible to him.
- His other kid who a bit of basic detective work would have revealed to be named Luke Skywalker and living with Owen and Beru Lars, and was actively using the force in front of Vader. He probably knew what to look for with Luke, and was expecting it, and probably would have dismissed it as a coincidence if he hadn't been able to back it up with stormtrooper investigation records.
- Vader felt the pilot who destroyed the Death Star use the Force, afterward Vader interrogated a Rebel Alliance officer to find out the name of the pilot and he told him that his name was Luke Skywalker. Vader realized that it would be a one in a million coincidence for a pilot to both know how to use the Force and have the same last name as him, he put two and two together and realized that his son was alive. Leia never used the Force in his presence and not knowing how to use it she wouldn't give off any sort of Force signature anyway, so that is why he never realized that Leia was his daughter until he probed Luke's mind and found it out in Return of the Jedi.
- Leia is good at keeping secrets. (If she wasn't good at it, she wouldn't have been given the task of secretly carrying the Death Star plans to the rebel base.) She calmly lies to Vader's face when he first confronts her. She successfully resists the mind probe. Later on she comes up with the "Dantooine" lie even though she's under duress. And Vader is standing right there, and he apparently can't sense that she's lying! Considering all that secrecy and deception, I imagine that she's also subconsciously shielding her own Force presence, even though she's not aware of her latent powers. I bet the Force helped her resist the mind probe too, once again without her conscious knowledge.
Recruiting from birth
- So why did the Jedi only recruit members from birth, instead of at least waiting until they are young children?
- Because it's easier to teach the younger someone is. If you can tell someone's Force sensitive from birth, and you want them to be part of an order of monks that forsakes things like familial connections, why would you wait until after they've formed strong familial bonds to recruit them? You know, exactly what happened with Anakin and caused the downfall of the entire Jedi Order?
- You do understand that it sounds awfully like an indoctrination technique of some totalitarian sect? And Anakin would've been fine, if somebody (including him) ever bothered to free his mother and settle her in a nice, safe place, like Naboo.
- Something key must be noted. The Jedi actually forbade Anakin from going back to see his mother. Cruel much? The only reason Anakin was able to do so in Attack of the Clones was because of something along the lines of Padme would come up with a cover reason for doing so.
- Yes, it's a brainwashing/indoctrination technique. You can condemn the Jedi for doing so, but those are their reasons; to raise somebody from a young age with their values and turn them into superhuman soldiers/diplomats/generals through training.
- Diplomats and peacekeepers, not generals. They hadn't had anything even approaching war since the Ruusan Reformation a thousand years before, and the Jedi explicitly eliminated their formal military branch after said reformation. It was the Clone Wars that forced a revival of the military aspect of Jedi, but it was far from usual during those thousand years. That said, it was for purposes of molding them to the proper mindset, just into Jedi philosophy and emotional attachment to life in general rather than specific individuals, instead of the soldier drone implications the phrase usually has. Anakin is a good example of why they wanted them properly indoctrinated.
- Also, they don't take infants to raise: the parents give them up by their own choice. If anything, the parents are the ones to blame.
- Actually, this is false. According to EU canon, the Jedi were entitled under Republic law to seize any children that they identified as Force-sensitive. They would have gotten away with it because such children were so rare that it wasn't a major political issue in a galaxy with trillions of sentient beings. Nonetheless, some source materials have stated that the Empire used the Jedi's reputation as "baby-stealers" as part of their anti-Jedi propaganda campaign after Order 66.
- That's the EU, though. Canon hasn't established this.
Palpatine's racism
- EU describes Palpatine as a racist, who hated non-humans. Now look at the movies. All his cabinet of aides consists of aliens. Mas Amedda and Sly Moore, and that Rodian guy, not to mention his dealings with Neimodians and Geonosians. In fact, I see neither him, nor his Empire being any more humanocentric than GR. Senators and moffs are still from different species, while troopers are still humans in white armor.
- Hating other groups of people does not mean that you can't use them for your own purposes. For example Hitler looked down on the Japanese and he still coveted them as allies regardless during World War II, and even though he killed the Jews and other groups such as Gays, Gypsies, etc. he still used them for slave labor. I don't see any contradiction with Palpatine wanting a human dominated universe and still putting other alien species to his own purposes.
- Prior to the rise of the Empire human supremacy (or "Human High Culture" as it's referred to in the EU) was a fringe minority position. Palpatine couldn't afford to come out as a human supremacist until he had secured his position as Galactic Dictator.
- Also, its hinted that Palpatine isn't a racist-he considers everyone in the universe inferior to the awesomeness that is Palpatine. The guy just used xenophobia in the Empire because that's the policy of the Imperial Officer.
- It's also a historical policy of the Sith. (Though this is likely because of EU writers drawing on Palpatine's Empire as the measure of how the Sith acts.) The original Sith Empire was composed of True Sith and humans, and their alliance considered all other races fit only to be slaves or die... and The Old Republic shows that the remnant True Sith parts of that current Empire barely even tolerate the humans.
- Sure, Palpatine used the Nemoidians, Geonosians, Muuns, Skakoans, and other as allies... the "founding fathers" of the Separatist movement, which was intended to be villainized. Making a bunch of aliens responsible for the destruction of the Clone Wars paved the way for anti-alien sentiment to come into vogue, Dooku says as much in the Revenge of the Sith novelization.
Luke learning lightsaber combat
- Where/when did Luke Skywalker learn lightsaber combat? Was it on the ride to Alderaan on the Falcon, where he practiced against a little droid, or was it after Yoda was done making him balance stuff on his head? As the last Jedi, who would he train against to be able to hold his own against Vader in Empire Strikes Back, not to mention how crazy awesome he is in Return of the Jedi.
- Mmm. Yoda didn't spend all that time making him balance on his head, you know. Lightsaber training is part of the deal.
- Besides, in ESB Luke ultimately got the shit kicked out of him, even though Vader didn't want to kill him. In RotJ he whacked a few thugs and then got his shit kicked out of him AGAIN and only bested Vader through berserker rage.
- You may want to rewatch the fight in Return again. Luke does not have things all his own way, but he clearly has Vader matched. Their first exchange ends after seven seconds with Luke kicking Vader ass-over-teakettle down a flight of stairs. In their second exchange, Luke does not want to fight Vader, just get away from him, and he accomplishes that in twenty-two seconds; at no time does Vader come close to getting through Luke's guard. In their third exchange, it takes thirty-six seconds from when Luke reignites his lightsaber until he cuts Vader's hand off. As for when Luke practiced swordsmanship, it was likely off-screen. How much time did you want the films to spend showing us Luke doing fencing drills?
- According to some EU materials, the Millennium Falcon's trip from the asteroid belt to Bespin took a few months on its backup hyperdrive. Why didn't he use this before? They wouldn't have gotten far before another Star Destroyer squadron found them. Anyway, we don't see what happens during the time between when Yoda lifts the X-Wing out of the swamp and when Luke has his premonition.
- According to other EU materials, while you can learn to use a lightsaber through purely martial training and repetition, lots of Jedi can use them better simply as a Force skill, with a select few being really good at using them that way. Nomi Sunrider, for instance, as a full adult who had never once used the Force, picked up (I believe it was her dead husband's) lightsaber and was instantly a master with it because that's just where her latent Force abilities lay. Part of the explanation for this is that properly-constructed lightsabers have the Force used in their construction and thus channel it. Luke probably has some innate skill that just needs refining by actual training and practice.
- In some older sources (maybe no longer canon, but whatever) it was shown that Obi-Wan left Luke a treasure trove of useful Jedi paraphernalia in his house on Tatooine, including books about Jedi training and manuals on things like how to build lightsabers. Luke therefore would have taught himself the basics, then Yoda taught him in more depth. It's not strictly necessary to have a sparring partner to learn some fencing moves, any more than it is to learn some chess tactics, is it? Also, in another book Luke explicitly says Yoda taught him how to fight while he was training under him.
Jedi and combat
- An earlier entry from the archives has someone arguing "Many Jedi, quite possibly even the ones on the council besides Yoda and Windu, simply weren't good at lightsaber combat because, lacking the mindset and power of those two, there weren't any lightsaber-wielding opponents around for them to fight in the last thousand years. They only trained in blaster-bolt deflection." however I read at least one novel involving a Padawan Obi-Wan dueling a rival with training sabers. Surely the combat-able Jedi would constantly train against each other in such a manner, and pit all of the styles against each other? Apart from perhaps Vaapad, the most dangerous one. Or did they simply not bother, and they got what was coming to them?
- Well Lightsaber dueling was technique and power based. Start on the road of power, the dark side does. Why urge a generation of increasingly arrogant Jedi to become more outwardly powerful?
- ...pretty much the entire point of the prequel trilogy is that the Jedi had grown arrogant and basically believed the Sith were extinct for good.
- And they probably had basic lightsaber duel training (if nothing else, as a means of training in how to handle the weapon, especially around others) as padawans but not very serious training in dueling since it was considered unimportant. Note that some Jedi Masters were expert duelists, including Yoda and Mace Windu, so it's not like lightsaber dueling was a lost art - SOMEONE had to teach those two. Many different EU and some higher-canon sources indicate that there is more than one way to be a Jedi and not all Jedi have the same talents. Luke, for example, is more of a "warrior" Jedi who fights with a lightsaber and more basic Force skills and Force senses. Leia is more of a "diplomat" Jedi who uses her talents for, well, diplomacy, although she's not helpless in battle either just like Luke isn't helpless when it comes to actually talking to people. It's just their specialty. Yoda specialized in everything because he's Yoda, that's all (he's probably had the better part of 900 years to master all the disciplines). But why raise many Jedi from a young age (when they may be more open to a wider variety of skills and talents to place their focus on) to focus on the single least useful talents in a Jedi's potential arsenal? It's clear at the time of the fall of the Old Republic that most Jedi were trained either as warriors to fight against non-Force-using opponents (droids or small armies) or in diplomacy to keep the Galactic Republic functioning smoothly. Not to fight against a threat that was pretty much regarded as theoretical.
- Also, while fighting other Jedi might be fun, it's not considered a Jedi life skill at that point. It might be comparable to asking a modern knight, say Sir Alec Guinness why he does not know how to use a sword.
- Well also Yoda is seen instructing younglings in the ways of the lightsaber in AOTC. We know that all Jedi receive initial instruction from a master, Anakin was one of the few exceptions seeing as how old he was, so why is it hard to believe that Yoda taught all of his students inward and outward strength?
- In the previously mentioned book involving Obi-wan it certainly sounded like training in lightsaber combat was important, at least going by how the author described it. Of course that's the problem when you get to a vast expanded universe filled with material of dubious continuity. You easily get things like contradictory descriptions of training or three million soldiers apparently fighting a galactic war.
- Hey, one million was apparently good enough in the AOTC novelization, and 10000 Jedi was supposedly an effective galactic peacekeeping force. These are from G-level sources, so it's not just the Expanded Universe.
- There's a strong difference between the light sparring the Jedi get in, and the Training from Hell Jedi killing practice the Sith receive. The Jedi are trained in Lightsaber dueling, but they're not specialized in it.
- EU sources establish that there are several lightsaber forms, each with its own strength and weaknesses. One of the more common forms by the time of the prequels was called Niman, also known as the "Diplomat's Form," because it was not demanding to study and freed up a Jedi's time to learn other things, like diplomacy. Most of the Jedi Mace Windu took with him to Geonosis were Niman users, and EU states that all Niman-using Jedi present died. So yes, the Jedi Order did suffer a deplorable lack of combat training, but they never really expected combat training to be their most important skill. Count Dooku, on the other hand, uses Makashi, a form that had fallen from favor among the prequel Jedi because it was best at dueling, something the Jedi had no reason to believe they'd ever need to do again.
Left/right hand
- Would a left-handed Jedi/Dark Jedi/Sith have any advantage or disadvantage against a right-handed one?
- In sword combat if you are right handed then you are more easily able to reach your opponent's left side, if your enemy is left handed then the right handed combatant has to adjust his horizontal slices so that he now has to hit the right side which gives his left handed opponent an opening. In fact Palpatine was known to switch his lightsaber from his right to his left hand in the blink of an eye to throw his opponent's off in just such a manner. As did Darth Venamis, Plagueis's rival contender for title of Sith Master before he initially met Palpatine.
Hutt crime lords
- Ok, the Hutt species' hat is that they're criminal lords. What about them seems to lead them entirely into pursuing careers in illegal enterprises? How do they even manage to have the influence they have; they're all barely mobile slugs.
- By this reasoning, Queen Elizabeth of England shouldn't have any power. I mean, I'm fairly certain that in a 1v1 arena type situation, I, a 25 year old male, could take her out. She could never have ruled a country on her own. There's more to power than just physical domination. Hutts are criminal overlords. They don't need to be physically impressive when they can snap their fingers and hundreds of people will do their bidding.
- They're smart, and they know how to get wealth and strategically apply it. In other words, they're good at getting other people to do their dirty work for them. They're also really hard to kill and live for centuries, which certainly doesn't hurt.
- Where is it said they're really hard to kill?
- They are NOT hard to kill. If Leia could so easily choke Jabba to death than the rest of the galaxy should have nothing to be afraid of, asking the question of how they became so feared is a valid criticism.
- Leia killed Jabba because he was stupid enough to chain an Action Girl to his own body. Hutts have very thick skin, a digestive system that can handle most poisons, and can't themselves be digested even by the Sarlacc, a borderline Eldritch Abomination. They can be killed, obviously, but a lot of conventional methods either don't work or take a lot of effort.
- They're good at finances and wielding money. They don't need to be physically mobile or powerful in a society where hired guns are commonplace and most weaponry is handled by a flick of a switch.
- Before Republic Hutts were dominant force in Galaxy so being crime lords is step down for them.
- In real life people who became rulers normally gained their influence by giving their allegiance to a greater power than themselves. From there they would conduct personal tasks for these kings or queens such as fighting in their wars, taxing citizens, being a healer, or giving useful advice of some sort, and in exchange their superiors would give them political power or wealth and this would extend to their families and then they would become a ruling family of their own as time went on. The Hutts being slobs of flesh and blood as they are slugs can't fight in wars and would be killed if they tried to, they don't appear to care about healing people since they are corrupt crime lords so they obviously never served that role, so the only things left are that at one point they gave useful advice to a ruler of some sort or used their knowledge of money to exploit the financial system. The Hutts could never have gotten such power on their own as they are immobile slugs, someone would have had to have given it to them.
- The expanded universe has a few mentions and examples of Hutts being pretty dangerous in close combat. Of course that's the expanded universe so exact canon is always difficult to establish.
- Its a simple explanation - the Hutts are predisposed towards strategy and finances, and are naturally cruel, scheming and greedy, but intelligent enough to put those traits towards a goal. They are also not all as immobile as Jabba, as he was gluttonous even by Hutt standards. They're career criminals because they are biologically inclined towards it, they aren't ALL crime lords, most of them are petty criminals, or even corrupt politicians or bureaucrats.
- The only thing hard about killing hutts is the protection they hire around them. In the Clone Wars, Ziro died from a shot or two in his front, not much of a blaster resistance. Was a simple pistol even, pretty much the equivalent of shooting someone with a revolver.
Bothan spies
- To quote a Lets Play of a Star Wars Rebellion about the Bothans: "How can they ever get within 500 feet of an Imperial compound without someone going "Hey, look, a giant fucking bipedal cat!"?" How, exactly, are Bothans such good spies? Okay, so in the EU they have a couple of other hats besides spying, but what is it that makes them good spies in the first place? Do they have a genetic power to turn invisible?
- Yes. And on top of that, see below.
- There's a lot more to spying than just sneaking around. In fact, it's generally a bad idea for an agent to be within line-of-sight of whatever they're trying to observe. Bothans specialize in SIGINT and ELINT (signals intelligence and electronic intelligence). Essentially, they're experts at hacking into files and breaking into secure data networks, and intercepting data and breaking encryption. Less James Bond, more ECHELON and the NSA. Even when you're gathering HUMINT (human intelligence, which is traditional eyes-on-the-ground spying) agents generally operate through local contacts instead of going out and spying on enemy activity personally. A Bothan spy group probably won't even be on the planet they're observing, instead sitting in orbit or on a moon or at the far end of a hypercomm channel observing and collecting data being sent to them by agents of another species on the ground or drones.
- I believe it is possible for Bothans to be invisible or at least camouflage themselves. In Battlefront II there are a few places were Bothans can ambush you and take you out before you know what it was that got you.
- Plus: the Bothans actually kind of sucked at spying, at least in the films. Many Bothans died stealing the falsified information that Palpatine deliberately let them have.
- Palp couldn't let them have it too easy, or it'd be obvious it was a trap.
- Actually, those Bothans weren't killed via spying. They were killed capturing the information through direct action. Shadows of the Empire specifies that the Bothans took heavy losses assaulting the ship carrying those plans, as the Empire was using some new kind of missile that was resistant to anti-missile fire.
- You misunderstood. It was actually the singular super spy and all-around well-known great guy Manny Both-Hands that died retrieving the Death Star plans. He was a close personal friend of Mon Mothma, thus why she's upset about his death in the line of duty.
- That last point is made obsolete by Rogue One, by the way.
- Rouge one is plan for the First Death Star bonthans died for the Second
Yoda's speaking style
- Yoda's been alive for 900 years and he still hasn't learned proper Basic sentence structure?
- Yoda is a bit of a trickster. Maybe he can speak proper Basic. He just likes to mangle syntax.
- Maybe he's a trickster but, you'd think he'd knock it off in a combat situation when ordering soldiers around. Being clear about exactly what he wants them to do is pretty important.
- Understand him just fine, the clones do. A problem, it is obviously not.
- Basic live language is. Grammar structure over 900 years may change. Archaic version he speaks and by Translation Convention difference between KOTOR and films you hear not.
- His species all seems to speak that way, probably because it's how their own language is structured. (And, y'know, because when one of them shows up it's usually as a Yoda Expy.) While they're obviously rare, there are probably enough of them around that most people are familiar with the verbal quirk and can understand it. People obviously learn numerous languages as a matter of course in the Star Wars universe (and still need translator droids because there are just that many out there), understanding slightly odd syntax is probably so simple for most inhabitants of the galaxy that they don't even notice it.
- In real life, plenty of people learn another language and become fluent in it but never have a perfectly native-like grammar or accent their whole lives. Since everyone can understand him and he's comfortable speaking that way, Yoda probably just doesn't care, and neither does anyone else.
Cloning uses
- Do people in this universe not realize how absolutely revolutionary cloning technology is, that it would change medical procedures FOREVER? Limbs that have been lost can be cloned and transplanted, cloned skin can be grafted on to heal scars, burns, and aged skin, and if organs begin to fail then those can be replaced too. Not to mention Palpatine's method of transferring his soul into a clone body. Guys like Darth Vader using technology like this could become completely whole in a short period of time and people in the long term could essentially sustain their bodies' forever. I can understand if it is expensive but I never even hear anything about the rich using it, it seems like a waste of technology to me.
- Cloning technology is used quite extensively in the EU.
- All I ever hear about is cloning used on Storm Troopers, medical treatment on heroes and villains seems to be limited to bacta and cybernetics.
- They don't mention it much in the movies because it's a relatively minor point, but it's pretty thoroughly discussed in the EU. They do clone organs, although it was made illegal under Palpatine (probably to keep everyone under the Empire's control), but it can be expensive. However, only a few groups were capable of truly excellent full-body cloning, and even then they tended to die quickly. Most full clones tended to go insane. Palpatine could transfer his soul because he was an extremely powerful Force user, which most people obviously wouldn't have qualified as. Vader was forced to use his suit to keep suffering.
Better suit
- Why doesn't Vader get a better cybernetic suit? I'm not asking for an Iron-Man suit like in the Comic Books as I know Vader would prefer to rely more on the Force than technology, but Vader could easily modify his suit and cybernetics so things could be more comfortable for him. In fact if I remember correctly I think an Expanded Universe source claimed that Vader was going to do it but was afraid that the surgery might kill him, though you would think that after years of being in his current suit his wounds would have healed to the point where a second surgery wouldn't be as risky. Plus even if it was too risky a periodical upgrade could have been conducted safely, you know like they retro-fit him with new limbs first, then move on to his lungs, and so on and so forth until he has a new cybernetic body suit.
- The Emperor is a prick who intentionally gave him an ill-fitting mildly dysfunctional suit in order to cause pain and suffering, in order to make his dark side usage stronger.
- Why doesn't Vader try taking the initiative on his own? I would say 20 years of suffering in the same suit and all its limitations would have allowed him to milk all the "Dark Side energies" that would have been produced by his negative feelings. Hell, even if Vader did get a new suit he still has reason to be angry since he isn't a fully organic human being which is obviously much more comfortable. That isn't an excuse to not improve his living and combat situations with a new suit, and besides the Emperor knows as well as Vader does that until he can become a fully organic human being again Vader won't have the power to overthrow Palpatine. Neither of them should have a problem with the surgery.
- Why doesn't Vader take initiative? Because Palpatine told him not to, and it'd be really hard to hide the fact that he replaced his entire body. If he gets an new suit without permission, Palpatine might just kill him. He has no use for a disobedient apprentice.
- The person Vader hates the most is himself. On some level, he probably feels he deserves being miserable and stuck in a low-quality life-support suit for the rest of his life, particularly since it doesn't impede his duties (thereby keeping him from feeling an immediate practical need to upgrade).
- The thing about Vader's suit being of a crappy design and leaving him in constant pain is an EU invention, isn't it? Leaving aside that he would be in pain already from the multiple amputations and severe burns, there is no evidence in the movies themselves that the suit is sub-par or particularly uncomfortable. Maybe it's kind of heavy and reduces his agility, but it also provides protection, so it's exactly like real-life armour, not a monk's cilice.
Luke using Force Choke
- The Force Choke is a Sith/evil technique, isn't it? So why does Luke use it nonchalantly on the pig guards at Jabba's Palace?
- I think the idea that Force Choke as a purely evil technique was more a development in the EU by people who saw Vader choking the crap out of people but missed Luke's own actions. Currently, at least in the RPGs, Force Choke is a neutral power, just one that's easily abused towards the Dark Side. Luke is effectively using a telekinetic choke hold to disable his opponents non-lethally, while Vader is actively trying to crush his victims' windpipes. Luke just incapacitates the guards and releases them once they're no longer a threat, whereas Vader uses the choke to either kill people, or intimidate people by threatening to kill them.
- The idea of Force techniques being outright evil from the start is stupid and very short-sighted. It should always be based on the intent of one's heart rather than the technique itself, for example the Force Lightning technique that Palpatine uses could easily be used to jump-start someone's heart if they were dying. Besides you mean to tell me that using the Force to telekinetically throw someone across the room isn't "evil"? Not if it that "evil" is being directed against a villain it isn't, that application of the Force to fight evil should be considered good.
- Sith Lightning isn't actually lightning- it's the raw energy of the Dark Side, weaponized, and only superficially resembles electricity. I highly doubt it could restart someone's heart, and if any Force technique can freely be labelled "evil", it's this one. Choking someone, however, is just a particular application of telekinesis, one of the most standard powers in any Force-user's repertoire. Considering Luke didn't do any lasting damage to the guards, and in fact only used the power as long as it took to get past them, I doubt it was a problem.
- Force Lightning can be used to defibrillate - it was used to keep Grievous alive until they could weld him together - but it's still considered an evil power because it is literally fueled by anger and hate. Hating someone to death is possibly the purest expression of the Dark Side you can get. As for the Force Choke, it generally comes across as dark-sided because instead of, say, delivering a pressure to an artery that renders them unconscious quickly, you're slowly and deliberately asphyxiating them, a process that cannot be fun (unless they happen to be into that, but most targets of a Force Choke presumably aren't).
- Force Choke can easily be construed as a neutral technique, but even if it is inherently evil, well...Luke might not know that. And since Ro TJ involves Luke being tempted to join the Dark Side, it's actually kindof chilling to see him casually use an evil technique at one point. It sorta indicates that there's a little bit of darkness in him, a little bit of room for temptation.
"There is another."
- "That boy is our last hope." "No. There Is Another." Umm, Obi-Wan? You know there is another. You were there when Padme pushed the kid out of her hooha. 20 years later, that kid sent you a transmission during A New Hope, addressed to you by name, so you know she's alive. And, if I recall correctly, you let Senator Organa keep her because his wife was barren, which creates high odds that Leia is their only child. So: what's up with the Plot-Induced Amnesia? Why is Yoda telling you this?
- Even if the Organas had other children, Obi-Wan was there when Padme named her "Leia", so he should know who this "Leia Organa" is. This is stretching it a bit, but I guess it's possible that Obi-Wan knows who Leia is but doesn't consider her to be their "hope", since she hasn't yet shown any other Force sensitivity, whereas Yoda, being more attuned to these things, knows she has the same potential as Luke. On the other hand, I'm not sure how that would work, since it doesn't look like Yoda has even met Leia ever since her birth.
- By this point a fair amount of time has already gone into training Luke. If he died, Leia would still be there, but the time left would be even shorter. Obi-Wan was already dead and Yoda died a few years later, so they wouldn't have been able to do as much if they had to start over with Leia.
- But the above only begs the question: since Obi-Wan and Yoda knew where both Luke and Leia are, why didn't they start training them earlier? According to Episode I, a Jedi's training should begin much earlier than when s/he is 19. Okay, Luke's a bit of a wild card, maybe they were afraid he'd turn to the Dark Side like his father, but Leia had already shown her resourcefulness and anti-Empire conviction, so shouldn't she be prime Jedi material? Or would Obi-Wan and Yoda have not trained Luke at all, had the Empire not interfered on Tatooine? Wouldn't it be more dangerous to let Luke and Leia discover Force on their own, with no knowledge of what it is, and possibly turn to the Dark Side?
- Luke was in the custody of his aunt and uncle, and Uncle Owen clearly did not want Luke to start training as a Jedi, so unless Obi Wan was going to kidnap him, not much he can do there. As for Leia, who, precisely, was going to contact and train her? Obi Wan was in hiding, so was Yoda, and they'd have to expose themselves pretty openly to start training a sitting senator and daughter to the planet's ruler.
- If Leia would've started the training when she was a little kid (as Episode I tells us is the Jedi tradition), she wouldn't have been a senator yet. And who's to say Obi-Wan or Yoda needs to come out of hiding to train her? She could've been sent to a "summer holiday" on Dagobah or Tatooine every year. Somehow I doubt the Emperor was secretly spying every kid of every ruler of every planet in the Empire for no proper reason at all, so the risk of Obi-Wan or Yoda getting exposed would've been pretty low.
- Summer holiday to a nothing-but-swamp planet with no civilization, infrastructure, and glowing with the Dark Side (that's why Yoda picked it), or a nothing-but-desert planet with little civilization and infrastructure that's at the ass end of nowhere and is run by crime lords? Suuuuuuure, nothing suspicious about that.
- It would only be suspicious if the Emperor was actually spying on Leia, but why would he be doing that? He doesn't even know Padme's kid(s) survived. And if Tatooine or Alderaan are too suspicious, either Obi-Wan or Yoda could've taken a trip to some other remote planet and train Leia there.
- Bail Organa is known for his anti-Imperial stance, it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn the Empire was spying on him and his loved ones.
- It would be suspicious because Leia's father is a Senator who it's known has sympathies to the Jedi. She's the princess of a planet—that sort of thing is going to make it really really hard to sneak away without anyone knowing. I mean, look at how the paparazzi hound celebrities here on Earth. There's also logistics of communications to consider. Obi-Wan and Yoda would've had to send a message to Bail about it, set up the meetings, etc., each step of which risks exposing them to the Empire. Plus, Obi-Wan and Yoda didn't necessarily know that Leia was Force-sensitive.
- In Episode III Senator Organa himself is certainly able to do all sorts of suspicious stuff (meeting and contacting Jedi) without the Emperor finding out, and this is at the time the Emperor is actively searching for and executing Jedi. So if her father could do it, why not Leia? And Yoda at least clearly knows Leia is Force-sensitive, why else would he say that "there is another" hope? Since there's no implication that Yoda ever met Leia after her birth, he must have picked it up when she was a baby.
- Organa does all that over the course of maybe a couple of days, right when Palpatine first takes power, and before he can really solidify his anti-Jedi efforts. Remember, at that point, his Plan A was to have any Jedi who was missed by Order 66 drawn to the temple to be killed, not "actively searching for" them. Palpatine might have taken over the Empire, but he wasn't in a place yet where he could get away with imprisoning and executing Senators yet, and he doesn't know there is a Rebellion in the works. By the time Leia is old enough to have started Jedi training, that status quo will have changed, and you can bet he was keeping some kind of eye on Senators that were against him.
- Okay, if we suppose that Obi-Wan and Yoda can't train Leia without the risk of being caught, and wouldn't have trained Luke if his step-parents hadn't died, which made him join the Rebellion, then what exactly were they planning to do? Just lay low until they die of old age, and let Palpatine expand his Empire? Even if the Rebellion is gaining strength, Episodes IV and VI seem to suggest that they can't defeat the Emperor without a Jedi on their side. So wouldn't it be better for Obi-Wan and Yoda to at least try to train Leia and/or Luke rather than do nothing at all?
- I think it's pretty obvious that one of the main reasons Obi-Wan was on Tatooine was to keep an eye on Luke. But judging from the way Uncle Owen talked about him, it was clear that he wasn't going to let Obi-Wan near Luke anytime soon. Possibly Obi-Wan even tried to contact Luke a couple of times and was shooed away by Owen, so he decided to wait until Luke was older and could come to him on his own.
- Here's a thought: Obi-Wan didn't consider Leia a viable option for being a savior because he saw too much of Anakin's personality in her. While Luke had bits of Anakin's less attractive traits (like overconfidence), Leia's the one who's more prone to outbursts of anger, frustration, stubbornness, even arrogance. Yoda's line could even be seen as being sad, vaguely despairing tone... he knows that if Luke dies, they could try to train Leia, but they'd be more likely training the next Sith Lord in the process. It's not until quite a bit later in the EU after some Character Development (and a bit of Flanderization) that Leia becomes anything like a calm, reasonable leader and matriarch.
- The Revenge of the Sith novelization includes an epiphany by Yoda during his duel with Sidious. Yoda realizes that the Sith have changed and adapted, while the Jedi have stagnated. The old Jedi have no chance against the new Sith. Only a new kind of Jedi can hope to defeat them. Later on in the novel, Obi-Wan starts planning to train Luke from early childhood, as Anakin should have been trained, and Yoda shoots down that idea because all they'll get is another dogmatic old Jedi who won't stand a chance against Vader and Sidious. And indeed, it's Luke's emotional attachment to his father (which would have been forbidden had he been trained as Obi-Wan initially wanted) that allows him to reach Anakin, thus having Anakin turn on the Emperor. As far as what Obi-Wan and Yoda's plan was, it seems likely that they were simply waiting for the "right time." Rather than try and influence events, when the Force was ready, Luke and/or Leia will be brought to them, and the end of the Sith will begin. Look closely at Obi-Wan's face when he tells Luke "You must learn the ways of the Force, if you are to come with me to Alderaan." He's fairly glowing with excitement, knowing that at long last, the tide is turning. Luke, and the Force, are ready.
- Obi-Wan might have just been speaking, as he does, from A Certain Point Of View. Luke is their last hope in the sense that he's the last (half-) trained Jedi who is available to take on Vader at that time. He knew Leia existed, of course, but he probably wasn't thinking of her at the moment since it would be a bit of a far-off prospect to convince her she's Force-sensitive, get her to abandon the Rebellion, drop everything and come to Dagobah for several years of Jedi training before she'd be ready to replace Luke. Even convincing Luke to learn the Force when he was an angsty teenager who couldn't wait to get off Tatooine and idolized his Jedi father almost didn't work.
- Obi-Wan thinks from the viewpoint of decades, Yoda from the viewpoint of centuries. Maybe Yoda wasn't referring to Leia herself being another hope, but Leia's children being one: she's too old and caught up in other obligations to become a Jedi, but she can pass on the Skywalker bloodline to another generation of super-Force-sensitive candidates.
Paying off Jabba
- How come Han Solo didn't pay off Jabba the Hutt with the reward money he got from helping Luke blow up the Death Star? Sure, he has been busy working with the rebels ever since, but it's not like he wire the money over or something. Don't tell me the galaxy has the technology to build hyperdrives but not wire-transfers.
- Given that he's a known smuggler who was already wanted by the Empire, and he's paying a known crime lord with physical cash given to him directly by the Rebel Alliance, wire-transfers are probably not the best idea. That'd be like Don Corleone paying a hitman with a check with the memo "For whacking Vinnie" on it.
- I love this line.
- According to the five-part comic The Rebel Thief, Han did use his reward money to send Jabba a crate of Sith treasure, but Jabba just said "Hmmm. I accept Solo's most generous gift! As for calling off the bounty, tell Solo...'Fat chance!'"
- At the beginning of Empire Strikes Back Han informs the rebels that he is leaving citing the need to pay back Jabba in order to get the bounty taken off his head as the reason. Presumably since he's been too busy helping the rebels to return to Tatooine and pay back Jabba he's also been too busy to spend any of the reward money he gained towards the end of New Hope and its still on the Falcon waiting to be delivered to Jabba. Unfortunately for Han he doesn't get a chance to go pay Jabba back as the rebel base gets attacked before he can leave, he gets chased all round the galaxy by the imperial fleet, and probably the imperial forces confiscated anything of worth aboard the Falcon when they captured the gang at cloud city. Either that or Lando found it first.
- Another explanation is contained in the Marvel Star Wars comics, where Han and Chewie were robbed of the money after leaving Yavin IV and had no choice but to return to the Rebellion.
- Another explanation, found in Star Wars: Scoundrels is that Jabba actually raises the price after Han gets one of his agents on Bespin burned.
- The NPR Star Wars Radio Drama establishes that Han wasn't paid in currency because, as one Rebel puts it, "This is a Rebel camp! We've very little Imperial currency among us." Han settles for stocks of precious metals, which the techs need to keep their ships in repair. It's likely that, after returning to save Luke, Han returned those metals with the agreement that Rebels would help him settle his debt with Jabba in exchange for his services, leading to Han's preparation to leave Hoth to square his debt. Of course, he's prevented from doing so, and Jabba has already run out of patience by this point, which is why Boba Fett is already on his trail before Darth Vader summons the various bounty hunters to help him find the Falcon.
First major victory
- In the opening crawl of Episode IV, it says that the Rebels' first major victory was the stealing of the Death Star plans, but in The Force Unleashed II, the rebels blow up many a Star Destroyer and take DARTH VADER prisoner. Why exactly does this not count as a victory?
- "Major" victory is the key word here. The destruction of a few Star Destroyers is meaningless, the Empire's fleet has billions of star ships and numerous Star Destroyers. The Death Star on the other hand is pretty much the flag ship of the Empire's fleet, it has the power to destroy entire planets so any move towards the Rebels being able to destroy it, which they eventually do by the end of the movie, is a major victory for them. As for Darth Vader's capture well obviously he escaped in order to be able to appear in the original trilogy thus turning that "victory" into a defeat, besides there are a few notable hints given in the game that Darth Vader let himself be captured in the first place.
- Easy, Scariff is canon, whatever the battle that happened in "The Force Unleashed" was called is not. And if you look at Star Wars Rebels, there are a lot of minor victories, but at the very least two or three crushing defeats. And by the end of season 3 (about a year and a half to a year before Scariff), the Rebellion has reached a George Washington at Valley Forge point. They can be glad they're still alive. They might be on the brink of a great victory that will resonate round the Galaxy, but nobody would be willing to be a Continental Credit on them.
- To those of you who resolve this by admitting that the Rebels had other victories previously but this was the first major victory...please note that the word "major" does not actually appear in the opening crawl. It says "It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire." The Doylist answer to all this is that Lucas hadn't bothered to imagine any previous Rebel victories at that point.
Bail and Obi-Wan at the start of the Rebellion
- Why didn't Bail Organa tell Obi-Wan about the start of the Rebellion? He's still a powerful Jedi Master, and he also has two other Jedi Masters presumably willing to train Luke. Why wait 2 years and have your daughter do it?
- It seems that knowledge of the Rebellion is fairly common knowledge even on a remote planet like Tatooine so Obi-Wan already knew. Why he wasn't involved in it and why he and Yoda didn't put more effort into training Luka and Leia... is a very good question. The best answer is just that a lot of details from the first three movies (especially the first movie) simply don't make sense when you see the events of the prequels (especially the third prequel).
- They were probably afraid that the moment they came out of hiding, Palpatine and Vader would bring the full brunt of the Empire's military might to wiping them out, and a dead Jedi Master doesn't train many saviors. In a way they're being very savvy... they're letting Palpatine and Vader think the Jedi have been destroyed, just as the Jedi thought the Sith had been destroyed. Aside from that, they're "actively waiting for change" much like Kevin Flynn... they're waiting for the game-changing move to happen, and Luke stumbling over the droids with Leia's message in them is it.
- Yoda tells Obi-Wan in Episode III that they will disappear until the time is right. When Obi-Wan got that message from Leia and Luke showed up practically on his doorstep, that was obviously the right time to him.
Real-world solutions to Vader's medical condition
- Some people above were debating about a new cybernetic suit or cloning to fix Vader's injuries but amusingly there are a bunch of real world medical solutions that could make life easier for him. For example Vader's lungs could be fitted with prosthetic sponge-like gel that given enough time would be absorbed by the flesh of the lungs and would expand up and down like organic lungs would, or lungs can even be transplanted, getting rid of the need for the respirator. We also have stem cell medicine that takes the healthy cells from your skin and within a matter of days can cure burned skin as if the burn had never occurred. Are we to reasonably believe that if we can accomplish things like this in real life that Palpatine didn't have access to stuff like this when he was repairing Vader in a society with super-advanced technology?
- Palpatine wanted a loyal servant, and Vader wanted to heal his lungs himself. They could have very easily replaced the lung damage, if only through cloning, but neither of them wanted to.
- Yeah, typical responses. Can't we just accept that Status Quo Is God and that no one wants Vader's condition to improve? Obviously if the Vader we know from the Original Trilogy had been cured the story as we know it would change, and no one wants that.
- Also consider that many real-life disabled people know about cures or treatments for their conditions, but they don't want them (for example, deaf people who could get cochlear implants, but have been using sign language their whole lives and are comfortable that way, and don't see the point). Maybe Vader liked his intimidating image with his scary metal helmet and it suited his purposes for the time being, so lung transplants were more like a future possibility once he's gotten more important stuff like exterminating the Rebels out of the way.
Lightsaber convection
- Ignoring how a lightsaber actually works, scientists have determined that for it to be able to cut through reinforced steel with such ease it would have to be at least 4 million degrees. Logically one might then wonder; how do users of lightsabers not outright set themselves on fire the moment they ignite them or at that heat be incinerated into ash beyond recognition? The Force can't explain it because if the Jedi and Sith could conjure up enough energy to prevent being burned by the lightsaber they should be outright immune to being struck by one, the difference in heat energy between being struck by a lightsaber and being near one shouldn't be significantly different. Furthermore average human beings without the Force have been known to use lightsabers as well. This is all very odd.
- The energy arc the lightsaber uses is very, very efficient and lets no waste heat out. This is actually explicitly described in the EU when Luke is assembling his new lightsaber; a properly designed one does not release waste heat.
- How? It should be impossible to create any form of mechanism that can 100% cancel waste energy, short of the crystal that powers the blade being outright magic.
- Star Wars tech is really, really, really efficient. Remember, this is a setting where they built a planet that can kill other planets. Twice. with brute force energy beams so efficient and effective that they can be fired within a dozen meters of their operators with no risk. Waste heat is not an issue in this setting.
- Maybe the lightsaber isn't supernaturally hot, but is incredibly sharp.
Vader and infrared
- About Darth Vader's helmet; why did Palpatine design it so that it can only see in infrared images? Wouldn't it have been far more productive to make it so that his visor can see in color for combat situations? Infrared would only be useful in environments where visibility is poor like in pitch black or in snowy weather, which would make it cool if his helmet could turn that feature on when he needed it. Everyday life on the battlefield seeing in that mode would make comprehending the environment and who is friend or foe extremely difficult. Plus how is he even suppose to be able to recognize the faces of those under his command? To top it all off it just seems cruel to make it so he can only see in red, it only enhances the feeling of being trapped in a mechanical coffin and is counter-productive to him not succumbing to despair. The Force must do wonders if it can help Vader past all these problems.
- "It just seems cruel" and "is counter-productive to him not succumbing to despair" is probably what Palpatine was aiming for. Despair is how he keeps Vader under control, after all.
- Despair is quite the opposite of what you want a soldier to have, as any real world military force would tell you, if all a soldier can do is dwell on a traumatic experience then he is useless on the battlefield unless he can learn to channel it, which to be fair Vader does succeed in doing. Also people that fall too deeply into despair tend to lash out emotionally on others, which is probably why Vader kills his own officers for their mistakes, and this only leads to further problems in a Military Chain of Command. Hell over time Vader would come to resent Palpatine for limiting him in the suit and if he ever found a way around it would try to kill his master. Are all of these potential problems really worth it? Palpatine is far from sane if he thought all of this was in any way productive.
- That's probably why Palpatine spends half the original trilogy trying to replace Vader with Luke.
- "Palpatine is far from sane if he thought all of this was in any way productive". Um, megalomaniacal sadism isn't exactly an uncommon trait among Sith Lords.
- Basically the answer to all of the "Why does Palpatine do X if it is gonna cause problems?" is "Palpatine is a prick who likes torturing people in all sorts of interesting ways just for shits and giggles". It's kinda his thing.
- Pretty much. All he cares about is himself, not how to make someone's life as comfortable as humanly possible. If he cares about others, it's about how they can serve him. He knows that with one word, he could arrange to have Vader be put in a suit that would make his life a bit better, if not more. He just doesn't want to. After 20 years of living with an angsty, robotic toy, he got tired of it and wanted to find another apprentice.
- I'd like to point out that "red" and "infrared" are different things. There's no indication that Vader perceives images as a heatmap or whatever. Also, just because we saw red lenses at the end of Ep 3 doesn't mean that they stayed that way for 20 years. Maybe the red stuff was just the prototype, and it was later replaced with a full-color version.
- Anakin's eyes look weird when he's writhing on the ground without his limbs, screaming about how he hates Obi-Wan. Possibly his vision was damaged in some way by the heat and/or his own over-straining of his Force powers during the duel, and he finds colors other than red to be too garish and eye-straining to look at afterwards...? It'd certainly explain why he only takes the helmet off inside a sealable pod that's all flat white on the inside.
Obi-Wan and Yoda
- Obi-Wan says in V/VI that Yoda trained him. Cue Episode I, wherein Qui-Gon trains him. I know that Yoda's still alive and Qui-Gon's dead, but Qui-Gon can come back from the dead and is the one who taught Obi-Wan/Yoda how to do it. Why the change?
- Yoda trains all the Jedi apprentices as little kids, as seen in Episode II. As teenagers, they get paired off in a master/apprentice relationship, like Qui-gon and Obi-wan's. So Yoda is the (or rather, a) Jedi Master who instructed Obi-wan.
- And keep in mind that Anakin and Obi-Wan's lifelong relationship isn't the norm for a padawan. Normally, Yoda trains a young Jedi and, when they're almost ready to become a Jedi Knight, they first become a padawan (which is why Obi-Wan said "I thought I could teach him as well as Yoda — I was wrong," since the council skipped over that part with Anakin). By the time Obi-Wan joined Qui-Gon, he was already trained so far as using the Force, fighting with a lightsaber and controlling his emotions went. Plus, Obi-Wan's only trying to give Luke a sense of Yoda's credentials as a mentor. There's no need to muddle up a message being delivered to an already half-conscious Luke with "you will go to see Yoda, the Jedi Master who trained me as a child, until I finished that part of my training and was then apprenticed to Qui-Gon who further taught me as a young man, but he's dead and you won't be meeting him unless his Force ghost makes an appearance, because he's the one who figured out how to do that you know, but anyway... hey Luke, are you even listening?"
- Yoda resumed "training" Obi-Wan after Rot S, in a way. Qui-Gon shared the secret of Force Ghosting with Yoda, who shared it with Obi-Wan. So, Yoda is still the Jedi Master who instructed Obi-Wan. . . From a Certain Point of View.
Yoda hiding
- Between Episodes III and IV, why did Yoda decide to move to a remote planet and basically do nothing at all to fight the Empire? In Episode III we see he would've had a good chance of defeating the Palpatine, but after that he just gives up? When the Rebellion started, couldn't he have joined them, or at least offered them his advice? Now Luke has to actively search for him to get his help. I guess you could say that after the events of Episode III Yoda became bitter and pessimistic and didn't care about the fight anymore, but that doesn't really fit his character.
- Yoda and Palpatine are roughly equal in terms of skills, but with the dark side ascendant Yoda did not have the power to actually defeat Palpatine; the movies imply this, and the novelization of Sith outright says it. Yoda and Obi-Wan both knew that their best hope lay in Anakin's (The Chosen One's) kids, so Yoda went into exile on a remote, little known planet (hidden by the emanations of the dark side cave, per The Thrawn Trilogy) in order to wait and train Luke and/or Leia when the time came. If he'd fought, Palpatine would have certainly devoted all his effort and resources to taking him down, so sooner or later he'd almost certainly be killed, and then Luke never becomes a proper Jedi, and- well, you can see where this is going.
- Still, Yoda really could have been more active. In particular, he could have fought with the Rebels. Not by appearing on the battlefield, of course, but by using his force powers (such as battle meditation) to help Rebel forces.
- Battle meditation? You mean the very, very rare ability that only very few Force users could have used to any reasonable degree? The ability which Yoda was never hinted at being able to use?
- Actually, Yoda used battle meditation on at least two occasions-during his mission to Vjun and during the battle of Kashyyyk.
- There doesn't seem to be a good reason why Yoda and the rebellion didn't have some kind of facility built there specifically to teach Luke and Leia from childhood. Even if we justify it by the distrust of Jedi in imperial times Bail Organa certainly seemed on good terms with Yoda and it should have been obvious that they were going to need new Jedi fast.
- The Rebellion has nowhere near the resources to fight the Empire in a direct attack, so battle meditation isn't going to work if the Empire outnumbers and outguns you by an order of magnitude. The Rebel Alliance seemingly only started as a unified organization a few years BBY based on the events of The Force Unleashed, so they wouldn't have had the resources to build a facility for future Jedi they don't know exist. Not to mention the fact that Yoda might have foreseen the Emperor using Starkiller to lure the enemies of the Empire into revealing themselves.
- The Rebellion's only defense, in their early years, is being secret. At first, no one even knows they're around, and then no one knows where to find them. Yoda trying to directly contribute would only have made them more visible and decreased their chances of surviving, let alone succeeding.
Force Heal
- Force Heal seems to appear erratically. In the original trilogy, it makes no appearance, though that can be for the most part explained by the fact that there's never an opportunity to use it. It doesn't appear in the prequel trilogy either, except for Darth Plagueis, who seems to have an extra-special version of it, and by Vader to himself in III, which raises the question of why Anakin didn't use it on himself after chucking Palpatine down the shaft. Other than that, it appears in video games as a power, including in KOTOR, when it's clearly an actual Jedi power and not just a game technique like a health/Force bar. Why does it only appear when the plot wants it to?
- Not all Jedi are healers; haven't played KOTOR, but in the EU books, it's presented as a fairly specialized power. Also, pretty sure Vader felt he deserved to die at the end of RotJ- after killing the Emperor and reconciling with Luke, he has nothing left to live for.
- Force skills don't just appear. They have to be learned, just like anything else. Luke probably had no clue how to Force heal, and Anakin probably was not very good at it and may have wanted to die anyway.
- Couldn't Obi-Wan have tried it on Qui-Gon at the end of Episode I or Padme at the end of episode III, though?
- What makes you think he could do it at all?
- In the early EU novel Truce at Bakura, Luke muses that he'll have to recreate the lost art of Jedi healing to recover from lingering effects of Palpatine's Force Lightning attack. The fact that it was used nowhere else in the movies or TV shows (that this troper recalls, anyway), demonstrates that it's already an incredibly rare ability, if it even exists in canon at all, and completely lost by the time Luke is last of the Jedi. As for its prevalence in video games, well, of course video games have access to unrealistically fast healing powers. Star Wars actually had an enforced Story And Gameplay Segregation trope, where the events of a game were considered canon, the mechanics were not. So a Rebel Commando named Kyle Katarn did, indeed, thwart the Empire's Dark Trooper project, he just did it without a personal shield belt that allowed him to take a dozen blaster shots to the face.
- Darth Plagueis isn't said to have the ability to heal people, he's said to have the ability to save them from death (which is extremely vague and could mean anything, including resuscitation) and to create life, which is not the same thing as healing. Anakin never learned how to do it in the movie and Palpatine all but admits that he doesn't really know how to do it either, and he's the one who claimed he could teach it to Anakin. Anakin definitely did not know how to use this ability when he died, even if Darth Plagueis once did. Obi-Wan had almost certainly never even heard of it, since according to Palpatine it's a long-lost Sith technique. Obi-Wan and Anakin may have known how to heal minor wounds, but probably nothing fatal - that's why Jedi have doctors just like everyone else.
Obi-Wan and flying
- When does Obi-Wan actually say he hates flying in Episode IV? It's mentioned near-obsessively in the prequels, but I don't remember when it comes up in the original trilogy.
- In the prequels, he is actually flying, as opposed to being a passenger as in New Hope. Also, his remarks about hating flying mostly occur when he is flying in combat situations (eg. Battle of Coruscant), a far cry from his flying experience from A New Hope. Could be that he simply hates flying, but has no qualms about being a passenger.
- It could easily be like how some people driving in real life: they find it a pain in the ass, and use other modes whenever reasonably possible, but accept that sometimes it would work better than alternate methods, i.e. it's literally freezing, you need to get groceries to feed you're a small child, and you need to take your child with you to the store because your partner won't be out of work before dinner, it might be a tad bit easier to use the car rather than the bicycle.
- How many times does he say he hates flying anyway? He does at least twice, but I can't remember any more than that.
Vader's suit improving lifespan
- Would Vader's suit provide a longer life-span than what he normally would have had? I mean would the cybernetics make it so his body could survive longer than its natural limits? In the Star Wars universe 100 years is apparently the average human life-span, and Force Users being able to maintain their youth and physical abilities longer than normal humans, there have even been cases of human Force Users living almost as long as Yoda (however rare that may be). I imagine cybernetics plus the Force is like a treasure trove as far as life extension goes.
- Well, considering they're already doing so since his lifespan would have been measured in minutes otherwise... but in all seriousness, yes, probably. Likely they would have kept him alive for a long, long time... Sith in other parts of the franchise are implied to live for multiple centuries, largely because they don't shy away from cybernetics. The suit probably would have kept him going for a long, long time... but in ever increasing pain and misery, until everything left of Anakin was wiped out, at which point he'd either be able to heal himself further with the Dark Side or be powerful and confident enough to say "Screw you, Sith Dad, you're not the boss of me" to Palpatine and get himself some upgrades.
Reason for lightsaber
- Historically is there a reason in-universe why the lightsaber was created? Why did the first Jedi (or Sith) decide, "Oh you know what's missing in my combat arsenal? A super-heated plasma blade that can cut through virtually anything, let's go ahead and make that!" How does any Military force make the logical leap from plasma pistols and rifles to wanting to make plasma swords? Was it an accident that they just stumbled upon the crystals that power the lightsaber or did they actually go out of their way to make one?
- If I remember correctly, the Force users that eventually became the Jedi and the Sith were on only one planet and originally used normal swords. I think somebody got the bright idea to make the things glow, not sure if it was plasma or not. I guess it developed gradually out of that as regular weapons shifted from solid to plasma rounds. It was a modern, for them, improvement of the sword rather than an odd outgrowth of blaster weaponry. Honestly, if you could get the lightsaber to work, it is a great military weapon, even in the hands of a normal person. It can cut through just about anything. It probably only weighs about as much as a flashlight. A small one could be used as a bayonet. It actually is quite a good weapons system.
- If it's me who remembers correctly, the prototype for the lightsaber was a bulky device used for breaking and entering, and the Jedi who used it got an idea how to improve their then-steel weapons. The next version was easily man-portable, but still requiring power packs worn on the belt. And, finally, lightsabers as we know them appeared. When exactly do crystals enter the equation, I don't recall, but IIRC, the "bulky siege door-melter" didn't use them.
- They were replacements for metal swords once the technology to make super awesome laser swords was invented, originally used for duelling, and they definitely became useful once the citizens of the galaxy got ahold of handheld blasters.
Emperor's political appearances
- Does the Emperor ever actually deal in social gatherings, like real life world leaders do, in order to foster a certain political image of himself? His presence in the Original Trilogy comes off as a very secretive and shadowy kind of guy that only comes out to participate in Galactic affairs when it is of the utmost importance (such as overseeing the construction of the Death Star, or converting Luke to the Dark Side). Also I wonder if poor ol' Vader would ever have to attend any such gatherings, I understand that he hates scheming and politics in general. As rulers those two don't seem the sociable type.
- Per the expanded universe, he's got another underling- Grand Vizier Sate Pestage- whose main job is to speak for and represent him in public. Palpatine himself is a largely distant figure, though he's strongly emphasized as a good and wise leader in Imperial propaganda.
- Remember that his first appearance as Emperor had him publicly announce that the Jedi had scarred him in a murder attempt. Given that start of his reign, it wouldn't be too unusual if he refrained from public appearances due to security/paranoia/embarrassment about his scars.
- Pity, because I am sure it would be comedy gold! Just picture it, he sweeps the cocktail party with his Force Empathy and finds some vain Alexis Colby type political/industrial leader and notices her feeling jealous of some rival at the party...
Palpatine: You hate her don't you? I can feel your anger! Give in to it! Let the hate flow through you! (Stands back and watches the ensuing Cat Fight cackling with malicious glee...)
- The original concept for the Emperor was that he was a shadowy figure who ruled in secrecy and ignored the public, which is probably why he is only mentioned in Episode IV and only appears briefly in Episode V. There was also a cut scene in Episode VI that showed a bunch of his corrupt underlings waiting for an audience with him which he wouldn't give to them. As for being embarrassed about his appearance, not likely. He actually uses it to gain sympathy in Episode III, telling the galaxy those malicious Jedi left him scarred and deformed and so on.
Owen telling Luke about Anakin
- How did Owen tell Luke anything about his father considering they only met once? He lied, but he also seems to be aware of his past and his becoming Vader, hence his worry that Luke will turn out like him. Obi-Wan also mentions that Owen disapproves of the "damn fool idealistic crusade" he went on, which implies they knew each other for a while, at least.
- There was something like a three year intercession between them meeting, and Anakin becoming Darth Vader. He might have visited. Plus, he'd have known Shmi, so he could have gotten information from her.
- Considering the time gap between the first and second trilogies it's likely that Lucas simply forgot about that line or decided that he liked the new background for Anakin too much to reconcile the line with the second trilogy. Nothing we see in Attack of the Clones or Revenge of the Sith suggests that Anakin ever had much contact with Owen, that Owen was against Anakin getting involved in anythingnote or that Owen ever had the faintest idea who Darth Vader was. The Rebellion certainly didn't seem to know until the events of The Empire Strikes Back.
- At the end of Episode III, Obi-Wan is seen handing baby Luke over to Owen and Beru. Obi-Wan must have explained Luke's sordid ancestry to them at that time. In fact, this is necessary for the story to work: without the family tie, Luke is just a Doorstop Baby to them, being dropped off by a guy they'd never met before.
- There is zero evidence that either Owen or Beru ever knew that Anakin was Vader. In fact, I'd say there's strong evidence against it when Beru says "Luke's just not a farmer, Owen. He has too much of his father in him." Look at the way she says it. She practically smiles. Bearing in mind that Vader is basically Hitler (second only to Palpatine himself), this is not the sort of thing you would smile about. So here's my headcannon: Obi-wan didn't tell them the full truth. He told them that Luke was Anakin's son. He told them that Anakin perished in the Order 66 purge. He told them that the mother died too. They knew that Anakin was a Jedi, and that the Empire had murdered all the Jedi. They knew that if Luke's heritage became public knowledge then the Empire would come hunt him down on the off-chance that he might follow in his father's footsteps and become a Jedi himself. So they told Luke (and everyone else) that Luke's father was a non-Jedi navigator on a spice freighter. Beru tends to think of Anakin as a heroic figure who tragically died; she smiles at the mention of Anakin because she hopes that Luke will grow up to be a good person just like his father. Owen, working from the same (incomplete) information, tends to think of Anakin as a well-intentioned idiot who got himself killed by trying too hard to be a hero. (Hence the line about Anakin being on a "damn fool idealistic crusade".) He figures that Anakin never would have died if he had never become a Jedi, and he wants Luke to stay on the farm so he won't meet his father's fate. Neither one of them has any clue that Anakin was ever evil.
Human-cyborg relations
- To what does C-3PO refer when he introduces himself as "C-3PO, human-cyborg relations"? Isn't he specialized for mediating organic-organic relations and/or organic/droid relations? He's never even shown dealing with cyborgs, which are incredibly rare - just Grievous and Vader (and Luke when he has the robotic hand, I suppose).
- And neither Grievous nor Vader need interpreters. They know their Basic just fine.
- Pretty much. He meant droids who can't speak Basic. And I would call Vader half-man, half-machine, not fully cyborg. And Luke? The guy just has a mechanical hand! He's not a cyborg! Not by a long shot!
- What on earth would "fully cyborg" mean? What is it to be "fully" something defined by in-between-ness? The dictionary definition is "a person whose physiological functioning is aided by or dependent upon a mechanical or electronic device." Does that exclude Vader? Does that exclude Luke? Does that exclude a person today with a built-in insulin pump or an artificial heart? I would say not.
- Indeed, someone who is "half-man, half-machine" is by definition a cyborg.
- I think it's supposed to be human/cyborg relations as in C-3PO is programmed for facilitating interactions between and among humans (organics as a whole, but he was originally built with humans in mind), as well as aiding them in larger networks of communication and control. He's using a broader definition for cybernetics than we're used to, not just droids and computers but navigating bureaucracy and protocol.
- In Spanish, it is "cybernetic-human relationships", so I guess that C-3PO is meant to be built for the protocols between cybernetic organisms and humans. My opinion is that C-3PO, with cyborg, meant all "cybernetic organisms", including droids and all kinds of machines, and the "human" part should have been "sentient".
- This line might just have been a mistake commonly made, including by some of the comments above, of believing the word "cyborg" is a synonym for "robot", instead of what it really means (part-robot beings like Vader).
- Or it's actually a three-word phrase, as in "human-cyb/org", with "cyb" being short for "droids, robots and computers" and "org", for "various organic entities other than humans". (Note that he speaks Ewok, which isn't something that either humans or robots would be expected to know, so translating for alien races is probably just as much within his functional purview as talking to machines.) "Human" is specified because 3PO just happens to be a model built primarily to serve humans, on a human-like body plan; a protocol droid designed mainly for Hutts' use would be built grossly fat, with no legs and a tail.
Alphabet ships
- So we have X-Wings that look like the letter X, Y-Wings that look like the letter Y, A-Wings that look like the letter A and B-Wings that kinda-sorta but not really look like the letter B. Where did these names come from if the Star Wars galaxy has no Latin alphabet?
- Technically, according to expanded universe materials, it does have a Latin alphabet equivalent. Its just really old and no longer used very widely.
- Translation Convention. Everythig we hear as English in the movies is actually Basic translated into English (alien and droid languages are left unchanged). That includes letters of the alphabet. The real names for the ships were probably other shapes that sort of resembled them.
- This is actually parodied in this segment of Robot Chicken https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bztY0SOV9zg
- Not sure if I should be mentioning this here, but why do a disturbingly large number of fanfic writers keep having characters address Jedi Knights as "Knight (insert name here)". Everything I've seen in the films and EU suggests that a Jedi Knight is addressed as "Master (insert name here)". Are these writers just making a mistake (repeatedly), or am I missing something?
- It might come from Attack of the Clones, where one of Naboo's officials addresses Anakin as "Master Jedi," and Padme corrects him by saying Anakin's not a Master, only a Padawan.
- At least in the New Jedi Order-era novels, Jedi Knights are usually addressed as "Jedi X" or "Jedi Knight X" to be really formal, but never just "Knight X".
- 'Master Jedi' is only really correct for Masters but seems a very common form of address, and most Jedi seem to just accept it (technically Jedi aren't suppose to get too hung up on rank anyway).
- A Padawan addresses Anakin as "Master Skywalker", but this might have just been a mistake by a little kid talking to a legendary Jedi and assuming he's a Master even though he isn't.
- Yoda also refers to Obi-Wan as 'Master Obi-Wan' in Attack of the Clones as do the kids he is teaching, so I don't think the kid addressing Anakin as 'Master Skywalker' was making a mistake, at least in terms of address.
Memory wipes
- Is there anything in the canon, EU or not that explains what exactly memory wiping droids does, and why the people of the Star Wars universe routinely do it to droids?
- In the films themselves, memory wipes delete information in a droid's memory banks. In the EU wiping the memory deletes all saved data inside the droid's processors. A droid's personality comes from not wiping the memory. Its personality quarks are caused by information processing defects that a memory wipe would fix but also remove the droid's personality. In extremely simple terms, a full memory wipe makes a droid forget everything about its 'life' and revert to factory settings.
- As for why people do it- most droids are not sentient (R2 and 3P0 are in the top percentile here, due to a combination of being very smart droid models to begin with and both going quite a while without a memory wipe). Most people don't want their droids developing sentience, for pretty straightforward reasons, and therefore give them a routine procedure to keep it from happening.
- In Heir to the Empire, Mara Jade makes a comment about "wiping and reloading droid memories every few months'' to stop personality quirks from developing. Indicating that, not only can you wipe a droid's memory to keep it from getting too self-aware, but if the droid has vital information you want it to keep, you can reload that data after the wipe, keeping the droid as skilled and functional as it was but avoiding it getting, shall we say, uppity.
- In the movies, memory wipes aren't really shown to be routine anyway. Owen tells Luke to do it to their new droids, just like how you would restore someone else's computer to factory settings if you bought it secondhand (and also to stop Luke from getting ideas about visiting this Obi-Wan guy that R2 keeps talking about). The only other time it's mentioned that I can think of is when Bail Organa has C-3P0's memory wiped when he begins serving on the Tantive IV.
Evil Empire
- I'm not that familiar with the EU and whatnot. How was the Empire "evil"? Beyond Palpatine's machination in gaining his power and the things he did to keep it, I really didn't see much "evil" activities that any ruler wouldn't do even today. Most of the original trilogy dealt with the rebels fighting against the empire. I get that the Emperor could be a cruel person with certain people that he is dealing with. But the only people we see him and Vader deal with are the leaders of the rebellion who any ruler would be very firm in dealing with. Basically any government power would go to certain lengths to squash any and all threats to it's power. The prequel trilogy are just a reversed version of this, with Palpatine and the Sith as the rebels.
- They killed several billion Alderaanian civilians who did absolutely nothing illegal solely to hurt the traitorous Alderaanian royal family?
- In addition, Vader's signature act is to kill those who displease him, personally choking rebels and commanders who annoy him. The Emperor is also heard of dissolving the Senate once it disagrees with him. The stormtroopers kill innocent farmers and traders because they unknowingly bought and sold Rebel droids. And that's just on top of building a super-weapon called THE DEATH STAR, using it to commit genocide, and being led by rulers who wear black cloaks and skeletal armor.
- Question asker here. I can see how the Empire did things to try and maintain their power. The destruction of Alderaan I can see as retribution for the rebellion's actions and a showy display of their new power. It wasn't particularly nice but not all things done during wars are. the United States dropping two atomic bombs on Japan is probably the closest thing we have in real life to compare. It was an evil act, but I don't think many are calling the US evil for doing so. as for Vader's Force choking, the rebels are his enemies and would probably do worse to him if they could. And as the second in charge of the galaxy, you really should try your best not to do anything to upset him. I guess what I'm actually looking for is examples of evil from the Empire that would still be done if everyone just accepted their rule.
- Blowing up Alderaan isn't anything like nuking Japan. For one thing, the country of the US was at war with the country of Japan. Alderaan was a member planet of the Empire, and only a target because their prisoner personally lived there. It would be more like the next president wiped Hawaii off the face of the planet just because Obama had been from there. Vader doesn't even force choke the rebels—he mostly force chokes his own officers. You are remarkably, and honestly a little horrifyingly blasé about accepting things like blowing up a planet full of innocent people who have done nothing to deserve it here. I simply cannot comprehend how you can call the destruction and murder of billions just "not particularly nice" and say it's somehow acceptable as a "showy display of their new power."
- Question asker here, again. Its just always bugged me that the only real reason the Empire is called "evil" is because their methods for gaining and keeping power are more severe than "good" Republic. I can accept that we really only have three movies where the Empire is in full power and that what I'm looking for might be covered in EU and other supplementary content.
- Not very much (aside from some moderately-detailed human supremacism stuff and intentional maximization of bureaucratic corruption and inefficiency to ensure that everything depended on Palpatine being around to keep order), mostly because the "several billion innocent people killed for literally no reason whatsoever given that a much smaller blast aimed at the Alderaanian Palace would have done nicely for their purposes" and "dissolving the senate in favor of the whims of a mad dictator and his appointed corrupt cronies when democracy became inconvenient for said dictator and his cronies" are generally considered "ample evidence of evil"
- Not the question-asker but I'm not sure anything other than Alderaan's destruction counts. The Senate was a rubber-stamp organization and dictatorship, believe it or not, is not inherently evil. The bureaucracy is just stupidity (and narcissism), not evil.
- Not necessarily evil, no, but it usually is when it puts one group of citizens (humans) as first class and everybody else as second-class citizens at best (again, it wasn't shown well, but there were plenty of hints - Wookies, for instance, used as slave labor (that's where Han met Chewie), mostly because they were good at it and why not), and when it intentionally makes governing as inefficient and ineffective as possible for personal reasons. An enlightened dictator Palpy was not, as is also evidenced by the ludicrous amounts of tax money, manpower, and whatnot he poured into the "super-weapons to make you all tremble at my feet" program. Relatedly in the "resources criminally devoted to the military for no good reason but terror", the novel Death Star makes it clear that the Empire not only has a draft (acceptable), but has no limits on cycle of duty (not acceptable, and criminally stupid given that they might do the economy better elsewhere); there were soldiers on the Death Star who'd been drafted in the Clone Wars 19 years earlier and had long since given up on being allowed to do anything but be battle-slaves. And then, doing a bit of research, there's one world (the home-world of the Noghri), where a species of super-soldiers was discovered, and the planet was purposefully polluted, so that Palpatine could promise he'd clean it up in exchange for their service... and then make it dirtier while continuing to claim he was cleaning it, so he could keep them as fiercely loyal battle-slaves in perpetuity. There's also the "founded on false pretenses" issue, in that he only had the legal right to become Emperor due to emergency powers, which were passed in response to a threat that he, himself, was posing, making his legal authority somewhat thorny from a more-knowledgable-than-he-let-people-be standpoint. Or the fact that he ordered the extermination of a rival religious organization (one responsible for much of the Galaxy's peacekeeping (which was replaced by threat of force and martial law instead of negotiation and lone-individual-targeted wet-works) on the grounds that they had committed treason... because he had goaded them into it and they realized that his legal authority was formed on illegitimate grounds of false pretenses.
- Tell me...does anyone genuinely like totalitarianism(put your hands down thousands-year old ghosts)? Last I checked, people don't like it when they have no freedom of speech or say in how the world work-that's WHY fascism and despotism are considered evil by just about everyone. The only reason why it's even allowed to exist is because we think an absolute power can be used to change the world for the better, or we just don't know better. Since the Republic was demolished just 20-something years ago, the latter is ruled out. Said absolute power is the selfish, sociopathic PALPATINE, so the former is ruled out(propaganda that he's a nice guy doesn't count). Also they are willing to use a planet-destroying weapon like the Death Star just for rebelling-that's the equivalent of the US threatening to nuke a city that doesn't agree with the way the government is doing thing. I know this kind of breaks the No Real Life Examples, Please! trope, but an absolute dictatorship is EVIL, plain and simple. Why is that hard.
- I don't think anyone here's saying, "Hey, living in a fascist/totalitarian dictatorship would be super cool!!!" It seems to me they're just playing devil's advocate and trying to see things from the Empire's perspective. Trying to see things from the bad guy's perspective doesn't mean you wholeheartedly agree with the bad guy/support them.
- Actually, in the EU, the Empire itself wasn't necessarily evil. Palpatine was. Eventually, the New Republic and Imperial Remnant sign a peace treaty, with the understanding that any worlds that actually prefer Imperial rule can rejoin the Remnant, while any still-Imperial worlds who would rather join the New Republic can do that, too. Palpatine did assert a number of evil policies (re-legalizing slavery, planet-destroying super-weapons, and rule-through-fear are just scratching the surface), but the Empire after his death is still a relatively stable government, which does foster order, and some species in the galaxy prefer it to the chaotic New Republic (though some of that lies squarely at the feet of EU authors who felt their books just weren't complete if they didn't almost destroy the NR; a government that does little more than lurch from crisis to crisis isn't going to win a lot of awards.)
- We should also note that what we saw in the movies was probably only a FRACTION of the day-to-day evil that probably went on in the Empire. I'd like to imagine that involves a lot of fatal, police brutality like actions by Stormtroopers on a daily basis, oppression, if not outright genocide, of non-humans because of Palpatine's almost fanatic xenophobia and racism, and probably a bunch of other horrible things like DMV inefficiency and ponzi schemes and gentrification. Presumably, the Empire does a LOT of really evil offscreen things besides the annihilation of billions of people in one fell swoop.
Non-Force Sensitive = Sitting Duck?
- How is it that Non-Force Sensitives even stand a ghost of a chance against even a minimally trained Force Sensitive of either of the 3 sides? I mean, at their most basic level Force Sensitives have the ability to move objects with their minds, and that's just the start. How could NonFS' possibly hope to win against a FS when they could rip their spines out of their bodies, cause a brain aneurysm, or just trip the NonFS up with but a thought? The FS's Telekinesis powers are enough as it is, but when we start getting into the countless other powers that FS' have to the point where they border Imagination-Based Superpower when they're fully trained the idea that a NonFS could even escape with their lives not to mention win gets even more ridiculous.
- Because it takes an insane amount of concentration to move stuff. Look how long it took Yoda, one of the most powerful Jedi, to move Luke's X-Wing. I'd imagine trying to focus on something as small as a spine would take some concentration as well. Also, most Jedi don't know much more than your basic Force maneuvers, hence why you don't see Anakin Force shielding himself when it would be useful. Also it takes time to do all those Force powers. And in a combat situation, you can't afford to stand still and concentrate for even three seconds or you get gunned down. Hence why, most Jedi fighting rely on lightsabers and the occasional Force Push.
- Considering how when Force users fight, they fire off Force abilities constantly, sense, then dodge or block several attacks from all directions at once, slice up enemies left and right, and all without doing any noticeable concentration in all Star Wars media (games especially, but all of them really) including their apprentices/acolytes/whatever the order their in calls it's least trained members, I'm not sure that holds water. Force Users VS. Force Users is understandable, since they can generate Force barriers against each others attacks, but Non-Force Users don't have anything to protect them from the Force.
- Let's take a look at the video games to get a good idea of how things can go down. When a skilled gamer is playing, they're cutting down every enemy and getting their objective done without taking a single hit. When a less talented gamer is playing, they're going to take a couple of hits and stumble here and there. It's a thing where you have the more combat talented force users who are literal one-man armies and then those who aren't that good. Even Luke struggled during Han's rescue after getting some training from Yoda.
- Numbers, firepower, durability, and the fact that most Forcer users don't rip out spines, trip with a thought, or cause brain aneurysms. If you look at most Force-wielding characters across the movies, they usually generally have broad telekinesis powers and can deflect blaster bolts with lightsabers. Against that, any enemy with enough manpower or firepower can defeat them. Force users are powerful, but they can't block the blasters of several dozen men shooting them at once or deflect a turbo-laser bolt.
- ^ Exactly. Jedi aren't supermen. They're not bulletproof and it's a challenge for them to take on even a handful of blaster wielding goons. Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Mace and them are some of the most powerful Jedi ever. That's why they're on the council; because they know how to embrace the Force. Most Jedi are not nearly as powerful, example being every Jedi without a name in the Battle of Geonosis.
- Might want to rephrase that; with the Expanded Universe being what it is, every damn Jedi in the Battle of Geonosis has a name and at least a page of backstory.
- Not true. A lot of them do but Wookieepedia has a whole page devoted to unidentified Jedi at the Battle of Geonosis.
- No, Jedi aren't Supermen, but my point is, with what they are capable of, they should pretty much be exactly that. A Force user Vs a non Force user should always end in a Curbstomp Battle of epic proportions in the Force user's favor every time. It just seems ridiculous to me that Jedi, Sith or whatever can possibly lose to non Force users, especially considering how it doesn't take "an insane amount of concentration" to use Force abilities in pretty much any Star Wars media, especially in the EU. A first year student can move objects around, then we get into Padawans, Knights and then Masters, who have had years worth of training and can move objects in less than a second just by thinking about it, maybe gesturing with their hands a little at most, not to mention jumping several stories in the air, shooting lightning from their hands, and so forth, all with only a minimal amount of effort required on their part. I noticed it's more of a lack of tactical thinking when using their abilities on the Force user's part when up against a non Force user than anything else as a far as I've seen. A Force user should be able to practically just snap their fingers and kill a non Force user, but I suppose if they did that then non Force users would be pointless to have around at all wouldn't they?
- Actually according to the EU, attacking living beings with the Force itself is apparently more difficult than using the Force to move objects around ie; it's easier for them to throw around a rock than it is to throw around a person. It's also possible that the using Force powers is like a video game: they don't just have a bottomless pool of Force Energy they can use, they have a finite amount, which would likely recharge, but not necessarily as quickly as a video game. My point is that most trained Force users probably hold back on their full potential unless they actually need to use it.
- The EU credits Force-Users with a lot of abilities not in evidence in the films, even the prequels, where better effects technology and more complete training meant the Jedi could be a lot flashier. A lot of EU authors seemed to take Vader's Badass Boast that "the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force" a little too literally, taking it to mean that a Force user really could just snap their fingers and make anything imaginable happen. In the films, Jedi are a lot more limited. They rarely exhibit fine telekinetic control; in fact, if memory serves, Anakin is about the only one to move something smaller than a human-sized object with any amount of finesse. Usually, we only see Jedi yanking something to their hand (usually their lightsabers), and even that could be under extenuating circumstances because a Jedi uses the Force to construct their own lightsaber, making it spiritually a part of them. Aside from jumping really high (not really that impressive of a superpower when you think about it), the only ability they all seem to have in common is their attack-anticipation abilities, and it would seem that a sufficiently skilled gunman (Jango Fett) can even get around that. The myth that all Jedi are one-being powerhouses of unstoppable destruction is just that: a myth.
Chewbacca in PT vs OT
- How did Chewbacca go from second in command of the esteemed Wookiee army to the sidekick of a two-bit smuggler?
- A major fan theory is that Chewbecca was Yoda's spy and informer while R2D2 is Obi-wan's. They can therefore keep in contact through each other (through Chewbecca), be game on the neutral/crime elements (Chewbecca again), keep tabs on the rebellion and the Empire (through R2D2), and store information on the raise of the Empire (through R2D2's digital memory). It is also possible Chewbecca was just a subordinate to the chief wookie and had to go into hiding for being anti-Empire. Officially, there really isn't a definite answer.
- According to various EU materials, Chewie gets enslaved by the Empire somehow, and Han busts him out while defecting from the Imperial military. Chewie then swears a Wookiee "life debt" to always help and protect Han (and his wife/children eventually) in order to repay him.
Force Lightning and Dooku
- It's mentioned above that the emotion for Force lightning amounts to "I'M SO MAD IMA GONNA BREAK EVERYTHING URAAAAGH", i.e. blind, uncontrolled rage. If that's the case, how the hell is the calm and collected Dooku able to bust it out during his duel with Anakin/Obi-Wan and Yoda in Attack of the Clones?
- Presumably, carefully cultivated and directed malice. Note, however, that Dooku's lightning appears far less powerful than the sadistic Palpatine's; indeed, most EU sources that get inside Dooku's head show him to be quite the cold fish (to the point of outright sociopathy in some descriptions), which combined with his age would have likely made him a poor choice for a long-term Sith apprentice (but as a placeholder...)
All Planets are Earth-like
- Not really a major headscratcher but: Is there any single planet in Star Wars universe where humans can't breathe?
- Yes, the planet Gand is toxic. However, we don't see that in the movies. But remember, we do see a variety of creatures, like Plo Koon, wear breathing masks.
- Speaking of which, Plo Koon's home planet Dorin also has an atmosphere toxic to all species except Kel Dor.
- Plenty of planets in Star Wars do not have "Type I" atmospheres, i.e. atmospheres breathable by human-like beings. We pretty much only see the ones that do because, well, they're where the people are, so they're where the action mostly takes place. No sense fighting over airless asteroids or planets where the main gas is, say, chlorine, because it isn't of use to anyone. That having been said, there are plenty of hostile environments that are worth fighting over, for a variety of reasons. If memory serves, the rough guide is "Type I" (breathable by humans and similar), Type II (not breathable by us, but breathable by something, only need a breath mask), Type III (not breathable by anything, need an environment suit), and None. Most planets in a "habitable band" will have a Type I, or maybe Type II, and those are usually the most important, because, well, they have breathable atmospheres. Also, bear in mind that "habitable" does not necessarily mean "comfortable." Hoth is clearly in a habitable band, as it has indigenous life, it's just so far on the extreme cold end that no one really wants to go there. Similarly, Tatooine is on the hot side of habitable.
- Given that we have planets with names like "Yavin IV" (since we don't see them, all the other Yavins are presumably uninhabitable) I would say yes, the vast majority are inhospitable to humans but almost all the action takes place on planets where they can breathe because, logically, that's where most people live. Also take into account the possibility of terraforming.
R 2 and Luke
- Why didn't R2-D2 tell Luke that Vader was his dad?
- Why would he? R2 is a crafty little droid who knows when to keep things secret until the right time.
- There's a lot of things that R2-D2 or C3-PO may have told. To prevent any such continuity snarls, it was stated at the end of Revenge of the Sith that their memories would be erased. "Skywalker? That's the first time I hear that name, sir".
- Correction, Threepio had his memories wiped, R2 never has. R2 is also smart enough to keep his mouth shut most of the time (for example he had to have recognized Yoda in ESB but he played along anyway).
- Also, R2 can really only communicate with Threepio (and the computer in Luke's X-Wing.) He couldn't tell anyone much of anything, without telling either of them, and he's certainly savvy enough to know the secrets he has are important enough to keep under wraps for a good long time. One imagines that R2, Threepio, Luke, and Leia sat down to a good long chat sometime after the Battle of Endor (not that we got to see it in the pre-prequel EU, because the authors didn't know that R2 knew anything yet.)
- Did R2 know that, though? He was around Anakin when he was evil but he didn't necessarily ever hear him called "Darth Vader", and he also never saw Anakin in the Vader suit, not until twenty years later at least.
Final battle in The Last Command
- There are a lot of things I don't understand about the final battle for the CGT in The Last Command. I know what it is and why the New Republic wants it, but why exactly does the Empire have them? If Thrawn knows they're the target, why wouldn't they simply be moved? Or replaced with a decoy? Or rigged with explosives to ensure the NR doesn't obtain one? Or modified to provide false positives and ignore some (but not all) cloaked objects, adding another layer of paranoia and confusion, something we all know is right up Thrawn's alley?
- Could you be a bit more clear? Some of us, myself included do not remember what CGT stands for. Identifying it properly would go a long way towards possibly clearing this up for you.
- Crystal Gravfield Trap, a special sensor that can detect cloaked ships. At the end of The Last Command, the New Republic forces were trying to capture one from the imperial shipyards at Bilbringi to locate the cloaked asteroids Thrawn placed around Coruscant. The Empire had two, one at the shipyard and the other on some other less heavily defended planet.
- Having the sensor allows the Empire a bit of a technological edge (cloaked ships aren't as effective against them) and anyone else using a cloaked minefield (or asteroid field) would find the technique not nearly as effective against the Empire as it was against the New Republic. I can't remember if Thrawn knew that the NR knew about the CRT (I haven't read the book in a while) but I find it unlikely he'd assume the NR knew where to find the CRT. Moving those items would risk drawing attention to them and making them more at risk for attack while in transit. Even if the NR had perfect information on all that, Thrawn is pretty good at winning space battles. I doubt he'd think any NR attack would be likely to succeed without opening up some weakness that he could exploit.
- But at the time, the Empire was the only group with practical cloaking technology. They may have used the CG Ts to keep track of their ships if necessary, but that's it, and Thrawn did know they were the target, since he needed to determine which of the two locations the NR would attack and plan accordingly. And it still doesn't change that he should have been prepared to destroy the CGT rather than lose that advantage. He must have prepared for the possibility of losing it, I mean, it's Thrawn.
- Correct, but there's really only so much one can realistically plan for. If Thrawn did absolutely everything right he would have won. Maybe this should be chalked up to "idiot subordinate screwed something up" if you don't want to say that Thrawn made a mistake (not that he makes very many).
- I don't think "don't let the enemy get our stuff" is unrealistic to prepare for.
- Again, correct, but not having unlimited resources means that only so much can be done. Any form of auto-destruct, while unlikely to be set off accidentally, still has a chance to be set off. As for defenses, people can make mistakes. I'm operating half blind here (I haven't read the book in a while) so I might be missing something. All I'm trying to say is that there is a limit for what you can realistically plan for, and there is a level of risk with each of those plans. Most US military computers don't have autodestruct, for example. Keeping them from falling into enemy hands requires a hands-on approach (fire axe). If Thrawn had instructed his troops guarding the CGT to just blast the thing if its about to be captured, its rarity may make the troops hesitate and try to beat off an attack rather than destroy a very rare piece of hardware and that prove to not be necessary. This would go under "underlings making mistakes". Believe it or not, Thrawn is not a god. Just because he says something will happen does not make it so. His troops may be able to do quite a bit of what he wants them to do, but they can't succeed every time.
- Reading the book wouldn't help you much, that's the problem, there isn't much exposition about this thing. Look, I know Thrawn sometimes teeters on being a Mary Tzu, but a little explanation for the defense strategy would have gone a long way. Let's just call it quits for this section.
- Alright. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.
- For one thing, the CGT was something of an afterthought by the time the battle actually got underway. The New Republic didn't need it anymore thanks to Talon Karrde telling them they had gotten rid of all the asteroids. They launched the attack anyway to seize some initiative from Thrawn's relentless advance. Thrawn didn't know that and needed the [CGTs] to stay where they were to act as bait for the trap he was setting for the Republic fleet. Ultimately, no one even tries to swipe the CGT so any security it had beyond being in the middle of an Imperial base and what exactly Thrawn planned to do if it was stolen is unknown.
- So why does anybody bother using Walkers when antigravity technology is so omnipresent?
- It's been stated before that walkers are used by the Empire as a power symbol. After all, a hulking metal behemoth is a lot more intimidating looking than some hovercraft coming at you. It's designed to crush spirits and keep people in line.
- Walkers are also more durable when it comes to harsh weather and other terrain effects than repulsors, working long after the repulsors would have shorted out. Remember the Rebels had to have specially designed speeders to work on Hoth, but you could use the walkers anywhere there isn't a mountain in the way.
Vader and Xizor
- In Shadows of the Empire, why doesn't Vader want Xizor to kill Luke?
- Vader wanted his son to not be dead. Just like in The Empire Strikes Back, he wants Luke to join him and help overthrow the Emperor so they can rule the galaxy together.
- Meta example: When discussing what "balance of the Force" means, Lucas says that the Jedi aka Space Taoism represent balance and the Sith represent imbalance. If so, what are the two forces/entities that the Jedi are trying to balance in the first place?
- "Balance" doesn't necessarily mean two different forces and entities. Put it this way: Stand on one foot. You're now balancing, and you're only one entity.
- Another meta example: Lucas only considers the movies and Clone Wars cartoon canon. Darth Bane appears in the Clone Wars cartoon. So does this mean Lucas considered the Darth Bane novel canon?
- (This includes the new Disney overlords) He would consider whatever elements he wants canon. If he likes something on chapter 2, he's free to include it. If he finds something in chapter 7 not to his liking, he can ignore it. If chapter 7 has something absolutely critical, he can redo it his way. If the only thing he wants is the name Darth Bane as a Sith Lord and the maker of the Rule of Two, and wants to ignore and rewrite every single other detail, he could. Lucas had and now Disney has the right to use or dismiss whatever elements they want. It's not all or nothing.
- Well, in order for a Jedi to be properly balanced they need to keep all their emotions under control. So you could say they're balancing their emotions, positive and negative. The Dark Side feeds on negative emotions but the normal force thrives in neutrality, positive emotions are just as disruptive as negative. Jedi aren't supposed to get too attached to anything, attachments are dangerous and can lead to the Dark Side.
Breathing while talking
- How can Vader talk and make those breathing noises at the same time?
- Because the machine does the breathing for him, regardless of whether or not he talks.
- Come to think of it, Vader's speech might not actually involve any air going through his windpipe. There could just be a little sensor hooked up to his vocal chords, and whenever it senses that he's trying to say something it just activates an internal speaker that generates the sound for him.
Boba's helmet
- Did Boba Fett spray paint Jango's helmet or did he make a copy of it?
- I always assumed he made a new copy that resembled his father's helmet.
Palpatine overlooked as an infant
- How did Palpatine get missed as an infant as having a high midi-chlorian count by the Jedi?
- No screening process is perfect.
- Always two there are, a master and an apprentice. Whoever was Palpatine's master, he found him before the Jedi did, and concealed him from them. And also that master's master... all the way to a point in the past when there wasn't a Jedi order searching kids to begin with.
- That whoever was Darth Plagueis.
- Also, depending on how far back Palps' Magnificent Bastard Chess Master qualities go back, it's likely he managed (even subconsciously, perhaps) to mask his latent Force potential from Jedi who had business on Naboo as their organization was never one he wanted to be a part of. Plagueis either lucked out by finding him, or the Dark Side willed it so.
Palpatine and LiMerge Power building
- Near the end of the book Darth Plagueis, Palpatine tells Count Dooku that Hego Demask (a.k.a.) Darth Plagueis had owned the LiMerge Power building but deeded it to Palpatine before he died. Now, I believe in Labyrinth of Evil, the Jedi and Judicials were able to trace the Sith Lord to that same building, and the Jedi that were part of the party said they felt a huge presence of the dark side in that building; couldn't they have checked the records and seen that Palpatine was the owner, thus drawing the focus of their investigation to him?
Midi-chlorian transfusion
- What if someone gets a blood transfusion from a Jedi or Sith? Does he get Midi-chlorians and become force-sensitive?
- The most likely explanation for how midi-chlorians work is that they're a symptom and side-effect of force sensitivity, feeding on it and thus being able to support higher concentrations in more force-sensitive individuals. If such is true, then a midichlorian transfusion wouldn't make you force-sensitive, it would just make a lot of midi-chlorians starve to death.
- General Grievous, during the surgery that turned him into a cyborg, received blood transfusions that belonging to the late Jedi Sifo-Dyas. He hoped it would make him Force-sensitive, but it failed to do so.
- That isn't quite accurate, as the blood transfusion might have made him force-sensitive. However, he was so badly damaged that there wasn't enough biological tissue left for him to manifest it if it did. And that's not to mention his psychic dreams that occurred long before the crash. His people saw it as the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy, but it could have easily been due to force-sensitivity. So Grievous' case isn't really a good way to judge this.
- Midi-chlorians are not the Force. The Force is still a mystic energy field, midi-chlorians just let you tap into it. If you get a "Jedi Blood" transfusion, sure, you have more midi-chlorians in your blood. But only in your blood and only until your body naturally replaces that blood with your own blood, with your own normal midichlorian count. The volume of midichlorian-infused tissue is probably too small to make a difference, and it wouldn't last long even if it did. You would have to find a way to infuse all of the body's cells with more midi-chlorians, and even then, if the Force doesn't want you to be Force-Sensitive, it just won't talk to those additional midi-chlorians.
- Assuming that humans in the Star Wars galaxy are like humans in Real Life, physiologically, then the vast majority of cells in their blood (erythrocytes) wouldn't contain any organelles, just hemoglobin. That presumably means they wouldn't have any midi-chlorians either, as Lucas got the idea for those from mitochondria. Nor would any non-human races with enucleated blood cells.
Zannah's puberty
- I wonder if this is something many Star Wars readers have wondered about: When Darth Bane founded his Order of the Sith Lords, and took a prepubescent human female named Rain (rechristened as Darth Zannah) as his apprentice, when she first started having her ahem monthly issues a few years later, how on God's green earth did Darth Bane, a male, handle that, with the two of them working mostly alone?
- Given that he founded an Order where Masters try to get their Apprentices to kill them, probably in a manner that would not be considered healthy.
- ... he bought space tampons in addition to whatever other supplies they needed to stay alive and healthy? I'm confused as to why this is a problem (or what his maleness had to do with it, unless sex ed is just really really terrible in that galaxy).
- Same thing any male single parent or guardian would do: have "the Talk" while struggling not to die of embarrassment. Or, since this is Star Wars we're talking about, buy a caregiver-droid when he first takes responsibility for Rain and let it deal with the matter.
Imperial uniforms
- Why did the Imperial Army officers and the Imperial Navy officers wear the same uniforms for the most part?
- Well, you see Palpatine and Tarkin went and blew the uniform budget on something called Project: Big Laser Ball, and there were all those laser bolts they had to pay for when people shot them off at will. I mean there had to be budgetary savings, like paying by the laser, and cutting back on uniforms... Slightly more serious answer: The Republic and the Empire that followed it just didn't have the same differentiation of services that we do. We know that up until the end of the Clone Wars, the republic didn't even have an army to start with. Presumably once it got set up, they just copied from their only existing military, the fleet.
Sith vs normal Dark Side users
- By what measure is a Sith? I'm not talking about the species, which appeared to have gone extinct by the time of the Ruusan Reformation, but rather Dark Side users who called themselves Sith and often formed organizations of their own with Sith in the name or joined such organizations. What qualifies them as Sith versus just another Dark Side user? When a new organization claiming to be Sith is formed, what qualifies its founder as Sith, especially if the founder had not previously been a member of another Sith organization?
- There are specific Sith traditions that set them apart from fallen/dark Jedi including their training practices, motivations, religious beliefs and outlooks. If effect, the difference between a Sith and a dark side user is the same as the difference between a Jedi and a light side user: none except traditions and titles.
Force evolution
- As the Force gives those sensitive to it powerful, advantageous abilities like telekinesis, telepathy, mind control, and precognition, and Force-sensitivity seems to be at least partially heritable (such as Anakin Skywalker's children also being strong in the Force, implied to be so because their father was), why was it not selected for in many sentient species? As the films and books would seem to have it, Force-sensitive sentient beings appear to make up a small fraction of most sentient species, with some exceptions like the Sith species. Perhaps in the past Force-sensitivity was a lot more common, but when the Jedi started accepting the vast majority of Force-sensitive babies into the Order (in the novel Darth Plagueis, it's suggested that 99% of all Force-sensitive sentient beings are part of the Jedi Order or its auxiliary units like the Agricultural Corps, during a discussion of someone using the Force to cheat in casinos) and forbade attachments, that led to a de-selecting process as nearly all Force-sensitives stopped producing children?
- Jedi are still allowed to have sex and reproduce, just not have families or other loved ones. So they can have children, but if you're told that you have to abandon them because of your code and have direct 'orders' to not love them any more than any other being, you might be discouraged to have any regardless, plus the time being a Jedi takes from your life and the dedication required making it hard to be around anyway. One master practiced polygamy because of his species' low birth rates and even lower force-sensitive birth rate, but this was said to be a special case and was from a figure box blurb.
- Even with the midi-chlorians explanation, the Force transcends simple biology. Force-Sensitivity (and thus, high midichlorian count) are not solely genetic traits, otherwise the Jedi would have "un-attachmented" themselves into extinction. The Force chooses who will be Force-Sensitive, and doesn't choose all that many at one time. Because With Great Power Comes Great Insanity.
- Indeed, given that strongly Force-sensitive individuals left to their own devices would most likely fall to the Dark Side, go batshit crazy from it, and get themselves killed after wreaking havoc for a while, it's possible that having the Jedi Order catch them young and teach them discipline would increase their odds of leaving descendants, provided padawans are allowed (or even encouraged) to get laid once in a while to dissipate frustration and distracting thoughts. Even more so, if an internal adoption network exists within the Jedi organization to place any offspring of female Jedi, with temple support-staff as their foster parents, far away from and outside the knowledge of their biological mothers.
Naboo monarch's powers
- Why does the Monarch of Naboo possess the sole power to appoint and dismiss at will the Galactic Senator representing the Chommell Sector? In Episode I, Palpatine is said to be "the Senator from the Sovereign System of Naboo" (and the Queen of Naboo can actually butt in and make Senate motions in the Senator's place), but then Cloak of Deception says he doesn't represent just Naboo, but 37 other worlds as well. Now, works are saying that the Senator from Naboo actually represents the entire Chommell Sector (as every Galactic Senator represents a Sector—with the exception of those who represent business conglomerates), but as late as the novel Darth Plagueis it was made clear from King Ars Veruna, no less, that the Galactic Senator from the Chommell Sector served at the pleasure of the Monarch of Naboo. (Basically, King Veruna was planning to fire Palpatine after an election because Palpatine supported Padme Naberrie over him, but Naberrie won anyway and became Queen Amidala: Palpatine's career was saved. Also, decades earlier in that same novel, Senator Palpatine referred to "instructions" given to him by the King of Naboo on how to vote on a proposed bill—saying that because those were his instructions, he abstained from voting on the bill—when Senator Pax Teem was holding him hostage.) Why don't the rest of the worlds of the Chommell Sector get a say in who becomes their Senator?
- Did they ever say that the Chommell Sector was politically organized as a federation? There are many real-world examples of countries where the capital state (or whatever was the next sub-country administrative division) decides things on behalf of all the other states of the country, without actually asking them about it.
- It's also possible that those worlds are colonies of Naboo, and subordinate to the "mother world" as its still-dependent territories. Others may be protectorates where the native populations are too primitive or few in number to petition for a seat at the Senate, but have arranged for Naboo's Senator to speak up for their interests.
Rebel Assault Death Star
- I remember that in Rebel Assault it took the Death Star like 3 seconds to destroy a planet and the laser ray wrapped it during that period, but in Star Wars movies that same ray destroyed the planet immediately at the first touch, I mean... Why?
- Perhaps Rebel Assault was based on the pre-Special Edition movies where the beam seemed to wrap around the planet before blowing it up?
Ship wings
- Why do Star Wars ships have wings? They aren't even aerodynamic if you look closely and they don't even need them, since ships like Corellian Shuttle or Tie Fighter have no wings but a very good hovering system, so?
- The Coruscant manufacturers thought that wings would make the ships look sci-fi.
- TIE fighters are actually quite terrible in-atmosphere. X-Wings which would normally be a bit less maneuverable than TIEs actually fly rings around them in atmospheric dogfighting.
- TIE wings are solar panels, or so the EU once said. Not sure why they need them.
- Heat dissipation may be a factor for some designs. Sure, there are probably fancier ways to take care of that available, but primitive and cheap can do the job sometimes.
Suns and stars
- Why is it stated that Tatooine orbits two suns? Wouldn't it be better to say it orbits two stars? There's only one star called Sun and it's in the Solar System!
- All suns are also stars. Our world is part of the Solar System with the Sun, it just so happens that our proper names are also the standard terms (the same way that our planet is called Earth but dirt can also be called earth). While Tatooine's suns might have names, calling them the Twin Suns is probably easier than stating their formal names every time.
- Any star that gives light to a planet can be called a sun.
- It's a handy way for the planet-bound to distinguish between "the big ball(s) of incandescent plasma that are providing sufficient light and heat that we're not freezing to death in the dark" from "those big balls of incandescent plasma that are too far away to do anything useful except maybe tell us what direction we're looking if it's nighttime".
Year length
- How long is a year in Star Wars' universe? (You know, those divided between BBY and ABY periods) Taking in count that 365-day years there are not a parameter since it's a galaxy far, far away and no one there has an idea that Earth exists, plus all planets have different star-orbit periods.
- Probably about the same amount, for the sake of simplicity. Probably Coruscant has a year that the rest of the galaxy uses as the standard, similar to the "T-Year" references made in Honor Harrington.
- Apparently they use a Coruscant standard year for their time keeping as far back as the early days of the Old Republic. 24h long days (presumably with a similar definition of hour to ours) and 368 day long years.
Yoda taking twins with him
- Why didn't Yoda just take baby Luke and Leia with him into exile at the end of Revenge of the Sith? Wasn't the whole plan to train Luke and Leia to be Jedi to some day defeat Palpatine and Vader and overthrow the Empire? And wasn't the Jedi philosophy that Jedi training had to begin pretty much from infancy? Yoda was going into hiding anyway, so wouldn't taking Luke and Leia with him serve the need to hide them? Granted, they were infants, so maybe he has to bring a large supply of baby formula and diapers with him, but would that have been such a huge problem? As it was, what was their plan? Wait for Luke and Leia to be much too old to begin Jedi training and then arrange for them to go to Dagobah?
- Pretty much. Had Yoda taken Baby Luke and Baby Leia with him and began training then, they would've been instantly spotted by Vader and Palps and good-bye last hopes for the galaxy.
- How would they have been spotted? They would have been hiding on Dagobah.
- In the Revenge of the Sith novelization, Yoda's discussion with Qui-Gon Jinn's Force ghost after Padme's death leads him to conclude that Jedi training has become stagnant and outdated by a millennia, while the Sith have evolved with the times. He decides the old way of raising Jedi padawans from infancy will only cause the twins to become indoctrinated and thus make the same mistakes as he did, therefore he asks that they be raised with normal families and be taken in as Jedi when they're older.
- If that's the case, why does he insist that Luke is too old to begin the training when he finally does arrive on Dagobah? Also, if he was concerned that the Jedi had become moribund, why did he make all the same mistakes with Luke that he made before? Don't forget that Yoda was pretty much wrong about everything. Wrong to counsel Luke against going to Bespin, wrong not to tell Luke that Vader was his father, wrong to tell Luke to deny his feelings. Why did he repeat all the same mistakes that he made in the past if he knew that they were mistakes?
- Although he intended for Luke to start training later, he might have not meant that much later. Obi-Wan was hoping to start mentoring Luke while he was a kid, but Owen Lars was extremely protective of of him and knowing what happened to Anakin didn't want Obi-Wan to come anywhere near him. As for Yoda's teaching, his goal was still to kill Darth Vader, and figured Luke knowing the truth would cause him to hesitate, which it did. It was indeed wrong for him to not tell Luke, but neither he nor Obi-Wan thought Vader could leave the Dark Side and were trying to be practical about the situation.
- Firstly, would you want to try raising two infants of a completely different species on a remote, completely undeveloped swamp planet? Second, the Emperor and Vader could clearly sense Luke as he grew stronger in the Force, even on Dagobah, having both of them there learning at such a young age would have exposed them all much earlier, when Luke and Leia were likely way too young to effectively fight back. Third, after seeing the prequels, it's pretty clear that Yoda's "He is too old" is a friendly jibe at Obi-Wan, essentially reminding him (as if he needed it) that if everyone had listened to Yoda at the outset, they wouldn't be in this mess.
Jedi leaving the Order
- What happens to Jedi who quit the Order? Not many do, but Count Dooku was an example of a Master who did so, and went on to claim a position of political power. This is relevant because the main conflict revolves around what Anakin would do if knowledge of his marriage to Padme got out. There don't actually appear to be any serious consequences to leaving the Order. It's not as if the Jedi can take away his Force powers (they certainly didn't, or couldn't, with Dooku). Sure, he might have to find a regular job. But with his skill set he could have taken up any number of careers. The films are rather internally-contradictory, because Anakin is depicted as being treated as an outsider by most of the Jedi (who were raised from early childhood within the Order) and Obi-Wan was his only really close friend among them. Why would having to quit the Order be so bad, especially since he spent so much time resenting them (and the Council in particular)? It might make sense for him to stick it out if he had nothing else in his life. But with a wife and child(ren) on the way, he had enough of a reason to want out.
- Anakin did want out, but Padme was encouraging him to remain on the Order because she felt he could make the most use of his talent and benefit the most people there.
- In that case, maybe the kids dodged a blaster bolt and were lucky she died and Anakin was fried. With that kind of Family Versus Career mentality reigning in the marriage, Luke and Leia would have almost certainly been raised by Artoo and Threepio. Plus that No OSHA Compliance penthouse of hers in 500 Republica, with the open platform that lacked railings along most of its edge, would not have been a safe place for small kids. Regardless, that's a bit of a scary rationalization. I get that Padme is all about helping others. But at the expense of her own children? Sure, Anakin should have to stay in the closet as a husband and father, pursuing a dangerous vocation and neglecting his family.
- There are surely repulsor-shield child guards designed to protect infants which can be configured for any type of residence, and of course she could afford a set.
- I always figured there was some kind of formal procedure to leaving the Order. You announce your intentions, your lightsaber is confiscated, you pack up and they likely tell you to not overuse your powers. Once you leave the Order, you are obviously not allowed back in and are treated like any other non-Jedi. They may, or may not, also ask to sculpt a bust of you to put in the Jedi libraries.
- It likely depends a lot on the era you're speaking about, the respect you're held in, and your reasons for leaving. A respected Jedi Master who disagrees with the council as a matter of conscience would (reluctantly) be allowed to leave without much fuss. A Jedi Knight who wants to go out and kill people and turn to the Dark Side would likely be given a firm no and re-educated for their own good. Any who do leave would likely have someone close to them in the Order be given the task of checking up on them occasionally, encouraging them to come back and rejoin the order. Giving in your lightsaber does seem a consistent ritual, though nothing stops you from making another one.
- Why wouldn't the Jedi want someone who had left the Order to come back? Isn't that what Obi-Wan and Luke tried to do with Vader? The Jedi believe in forgiveness, surely
- Obi-wan never tried to turn Vader back to the good side, at least not during the OT. That was all Luke's idea. Luke says "I can't kill my own father" and Obi-wan replies "Then the Emperor has already won." He really doesn't think that Vader can be redeemed.
Imperials helping Vader at the end
- Remember the famous "unmasking" scene where Luke and a dying Vader are talking? In the background, Vader's troops are evacuating. Why didn't the troops help their dying master/leader? You mean to tell me they didn't notice Darth Vader dying on the floor?
- It turns out crushing the spines of your underlings whenever they fail you isn't a useful technique for winning the loyalty of said underlings. Who knew?
- That, or when they saw Luke dragging the dying Vader toward a shuttle, they thought "Holy shit! That guy managed to somehow kill Lord Vader! Screw that, I'm getting as far away from him as possible. I don't want to give him any reason to kill me either!"
- Also, "evacuating". As in, running for their lives in panic as the world is exploding around them. Not the best conditions to start playing hero.
- Additionally, they probably didn't even see Luke dragging Vader to the ship and if they did, they likely assumed he was some brave Imperial cadet dragging their Dark Lord to safety.
- On a more out-of-universe example, it would have been really awkward and inappropriate to have a random Imperial officer/soldier with Luke in what was otherwise supposed to be a touching moment between the dying Anakin Skywalker and his son.
Vader and Boba
- Vader is not bothered by the fact that he's forced to work with Boba Fett? You have a mercenary who looks and sounds exactly like the guy who tried to assassinate your late wife. It doesn't feel awkward for Vader?
- Vader seems to have contempt for most beings. It doesn't mean you can't be useful to him. Plus the fact that he also looks a sounds a lot like the clone troopers that he fought with for much of his life.
- "Forced to work with?" He hired him. Also, yeah, he fought next to the clone troopers for years. One more clone two decades later isn't going to even register.
- A clone of the guy who hired someone (did he even, or did Count Dooku?) to kill the wife he desperately wants to forget, over twenty years ago. That's going to pale next to having the best bounty hunter in the galaxy help find his son. Besides, I don't think Anakin even met Jango Fett - Obi-Wan did. Maybe he saw him briefly right before he got his head chopped off.
Death Star's tractor beam
- So if the Millennium Falcon was captured by a tractor beam at such a distance that the Death Star still resembled a moon, why couldn't the Death Star use that same tractor beam to snag the Rebel fighters at the end of the movie? It clearly has a long enough range that it could have grabbed them well before they became ensconced in that trench, and you can't expect me to believe a battle station that size doesn't have multiple tractors beams capable of capturing multiple targets. Even if it couldn't grab all of them, it doesn't make any tactical sense not to take a good chunk of them out of the battle. Are fighters just too small for a tractor beam to lock onto?
- There's actually a few different reasons for why that didn't happen (not counting the out-of-universe answer of 'not cool enough'). The first is Tarkin himself. His answer to the Rebel fighters is to ignore them. He doesn't even launch fighters. Vader does that. The second reason is a bit more of a guess. The tractor beams have to have a maximum range. The further away a ship is the harder it is going to be to pull on it. At the distance the Falcon was at it was probably in line with several tractor beams. Worse, the tractor beam operators knew where it was thanks to the TIE fighter that buzzed the Falcon. The individual Rebel fighters are smaller than the Millennium Falcon, making them harder for the operators to get a lock, assuming they were on alert in the first place. This also assumes there is no unmentioned system for countering tractor beams that doesn't work in the Falcon's case. The Rebel fighters are also heading towards a 'pole' of the Death Star rather than the 'equator', which would keep them yet further away from the tractor beams located at the 'equator'.
- Obi-wan actually disabled the tractor beam(s) while they were onboard, though realistically you'd think that Tarkin would turn them back on again. A better answer is that the tractor beams only cover particular sections of space, and there are some gaps in the coverage. The Rebels had the complete set of Death Star plans, so they knew where the beam generators were located and they knew which areas lacked coverage. They designed their approach with that in mind.
AT-AT pronunctiation
- A slightly OoU one but, has there ever bee an official source confirming the pronunciation of AT-AT? I ask because I've spent years pronouncing it Ay-Tee-Ay-Tee but recently I've seen a lot of other fans say At-At.
- I'd say it depends. This troper has always said Ay-Tee Ay-Tee, but knows many who sat At-At. I'd imagine that both are technically correct, with the former being the more "official" pronunciation and the latter being more familiar/slang.
White lightsabers
- Why are there no white lightsabers?
- In the EU, there are lightsabers of just about every color, even black. In the films. . . well, why no orange, pink, brown, silver, gold, yellow, etc.? Why does only Mace Windu get purple? Likely, George thought red/blue was a better symbolic color representation at the start, then had Luke switch to green for Return of the Jedi because he felt it would signify that Luke has come far in his Jedi studies, as well as reminding the audience that his is his lightsaber, not his father's.
- Not sure if they've popped up anywhere else, but Knights of the Old Republic II did include the option to have a silver lightsaber blade, which basically looked white. Also, to the best of my knowledge Luke's second lightsaber was made green so that it would be more visible against the blue Tatooine sky.
- Ashoka's lightsabers in Star Wars Rebels are white. As for why... green, red, and blue are just the most common variants, and colors outside those are very rare.
- Ahsoka's lightsabers are white because she performed the Light Side equivalent of 'Bleeding' the kyber crystals that Dark Siders use to make their red lightsaber blades. Lightsaber colors take on the color of the wielder's mentality with the Force at the moment of construction (Blue for martially-focused, Green for mysticism-focused, and Purple for those who toe the line between light and dark). White blades means she purified a 'bled' crystal, as detailed in the novel Literature/Ahsoka
Luke looking for the Jedi homeworld
- In the Marvel comics, Luke wants to learn where the Jedi home-world is, so he goes to the shadiest bar on the Smugglers' Moon to look for answers. My question is why does he need to do this? I'm sure the Empire is still spreading propaganda about how the great Palpatine defeated the evil Jedi on Coruscant. And even if they aren't, then both R2-D2 and anyone over the age of thirty could still tell him what planet the Jedi lived on.
- He's looking for someone to smuggle him onto Coruscant so he can go to the Jedi Temple (not the Jedi home-world, which is different) because he's essentially the Empire's Most Wanted at the moment.
Holding lightsabers
- How do Jedi and Sith hold their lightsabers properly? Whenever I see a close up of them, they've got all these switches an dials all along the handles that look like they would get in the way. In fact, they do get in the way. I own some replica sabers and I can never get a decent grip on them because of all the doodads.
- Considering one of the most important things a Jedi (or Sith) can do is create their own lightsabers, it's very likely they design the hilt/grip of the lightsaber around their own hands, or they way they would normally hold it. It doesn't work for you because the lightsaber replicas aren't designed for your hands.
- This also confuses me because some have the activation switch up near the blade, and others have it further down, so it's not really clear how they press it - with the thumb? Which hand?
Canon books
- Are the books still canon? I have a feeling the disney sequels will go their own way.
- No. The company announced they were no longer canon months ago.
- Depends on the books. Books made after the Disney declaration are canon to the Disney, provided they don't belong to the Legends canon.
Claymore sabers
- Why do Jedi and Sith wield their lightsabers as if they were claymores? They all seem to use a two-handed grip and take these big, broad swings. But they are wielding swords that are (extremely) lightweight, which can easily inflict fatal wounds with a thrust, and against which no armor is effective. Would it not make much more sense to wield these things more like rapiers or even fencing foils? Use a one-handed grip, keep most of your body as far away from the enemy as possible, use economy of motion to conserve energy, and poke your enemy to death. If your opponent wants to haul off and take some big two-handed swing at you, just poke him in the chest as he's winding up and end the fight right there. I am especially confused as to why Jedi do not fight this way, since an elegant, economical fencer's style would seem to fit more with their philosophy of dispassion and self-control than does the two-handed chopping style they actually do use.
- There's several different styles. Some of them do wield them like rapiers (look at Count Dooku, for instance). They do it differently to suit their own personal strengths and weaknesses.
- You may want to rewatch Dooku's fights again. It is true that he occasionally uses a one-handed grip, although more often a two-handed grip, but he is still taking these big, broad slashes. He is spinning around and hacking with his lightsaber. He hardly, if ever, thrusts with it. All this stuff about different styles seems to be from the expanded universe. In the movies, they all seem to fight with a style suited to a claymore, not a rapier. But even if there were a rapier-style in the expanded universe, the issue is not that there might be different styles that we never see in the movies, the issue is that the rapier-style would logically be the dominant style. Realistically, the person using a lightsaber like a rapier would beat the person using it like a claymore almost every time. The weapon itself is far better suited to the former than the latter.
- The reason people with rapiers fight the way they do is because a rapier is a stabbing and thrusting weapon. Jedi use the length of the lightsaber to slash because its entire surface is a weapon. They do more damage to things by cutting with wide swings than they would with a stab. A stab is not guaranteed to be fatal, while a slash with a lightsaber is almost uniformly incapacitating. Also, I don't think there's anyone on the planet who wields a claymore as quickly and nimbly as a lightsaber is swung.
- I think you are seriously underestimating the lethality of a lightsaber thrust. Don't forget, they burn as well as cut; in Force Awakens, Kylo Ren's quillon sets Finn's jacket on fire and severely burns him. A lightsaber thrust would easily cause fourth, fifth, or even sixth-degree burns, in addition to making a nasty hole in internal organs, puncturing blood vessels, and severing nerves. In point of fact, thrusting weapons generally do more damage with less energy expended by the wielder than do slashing weapons. Also, rapiers are edged weapons.◊ That being said, they are designed the way they are precisely because thrusting does more damage more efficiently. Also, the very fact that a lightsaber can be swung so quickly because it is so light is why it makes no real sense to swing it around like a claymore.
- I know rapiers are edged weapons, I said they were designed for thrusting. And thrusting extends you and leaves you more open to attack, and you have to hit somewhere in particular to do so much damage with a thrust — especially if, for instance, you're not just fighting humans but other beings who might need to be dismembered to stop. A slash does more damage over a larger area, chops things off and the power of it is harder to simply turn aside than a thrust.
- The two-handed slashing style actually leaves you much more vulnerable to attack, both because it you forces to keep your body much closer to your enemy and because when you slash, you move your sword out of the way of your opponent's sword, especially if, as we repeatedly see Jedi and Sith in the movies do, you bring your sword back first to wind up. Thrusting leaves you much less vulnerable, both because it keeps your body farther from your opponent and because it keeps your sword in your opponent's way, but also precisely because when you thrust, you shift your weight to your forward leg, meaning that you can spring back quickly. You cannot spring back anywhere near as quickly with a two-handed slashing style. And what are these beings that need to be dismembered to stop? When in any of the films have we seen a Jedi fight an enemy who could not have been stopped by a thrust? But even if a Jedi were fighting such a being, the beauty of a lightsaber is that it can cut through just about anything with minimal force; in thrusting, you could widen a wound and sever a limb by simply flicking your wrist either while thrusting forward or withdrawing. You do not need a big two-handed slash to take an arm or a leg off with a lightsaber.
- The Jedi prefer not to stab people but something less lethal like cutting off the hand or destroying the weapon. The Sith are more stab-happy and we see them do it on several occasions. As for why both generally prefer slashing over stabbing, it might seem counter-intuitive to us but to precognizant space warriors, a stab might not be as useful because they can sense it coming and have their weapon right in front of them to parry it easily. The point of all the hacking and slashing is to outmaneuver your opponent and eventually score a blow by spotting an opening or catching them off guard. It's the same reason that good chess players don't just bring out the queen and use it to attack the kingside right away - it's too obvious and a skilled veteran knows how to easily defend against that sort of attack, so they try to set up more complex patterns that take up to 50 moves or more to win. And more prosaically: the fighting style in the movies looks cool.
Building superweapons
- Why do the bad guys even bother with building Death Stars or Starkiller bases? They have Sith Lords, who can use the force. Why don't they simply derail those planets out of their orbits and throw them into their suns? According to Yoda, size does not matter.
- There's nothing in the canon that suggests they can do things on that scale.
- "The Ability To Destroy a Planet is Insignificant Next to the Power of the Force". So, they should try it. Or go ahead and DO IT, because there's no try.
- He's speaking metaphorically. Again: There's nothing in canon that suggests they can do things on that scale. Frankly this question is ridiculous.
- There is a reason Metaphorically True used to be called Jedi Truth. In the scene from Empire Strikes Back referred to Yoda is quite clearly just trying to get Luke to change his defeatist attitude and nothing more than that. It is the Jedi pep speech.
- And as far as we're aware in the current continuity, there aren't that many Sith Lords left. Even if there were, they'd sooner stab each other in the back (metaphorically and literally) than willingly work together.
- I think you misunderstand the asking troper's use of Sith Lords in plural. He/she meant Over the in-universe history of the franchise, the bad guys sometimes have Sith Lords, sometimes just one Sith Lord at a time. Not They have several Sith Lords at any given time, and should somehow force those individuals to work together.
- Size does matter. It just matters less than Luke imagines. Yoda is using poetic license. Because yeah, obviously if size literally had zero meaning, then Sidious could just smash the whole galaxy with his bare hands. As to Vader's comment about the power of the Force, he's talking about the entire Force, which is something that individual force-users tap into. The power that Vader wields is way way less than 1% of the total amount of Force-power that exists in the universe.
Species of human-looking people
- Which is exactly the species of Anakin, Luke, Obi Wan, Han Solo and those other guys? Human? Then how the hell are there so many humans living in alien planets, if this whole franchise takes place in the past, not the future?
- They're humans, and they're not from Earth. It's a science fiction fantasy, do not expect it to accurately depict something plausible from the real world.
- They are canonically a species named Humans. In their own language they are probably just
Jedi Knight vs the Empire
- "Only a fully trained Jedi Knight, with the Force as his ally, will conquer Vader and his Emperor." What is Yoda talking about? Four fully trained Jedi Masters couldn't conquer Vader and the Emperor; three of them got killed in seconds just by the Emperor. Yoda himself could not defeat the Emperor. What makes Yoda think that Luke would do any better, no matter how much training he had received?
- Pure desperation. Luke (and Leia) were literally the Jedi's last hopes to ending the Sith oppression and now here's Luke running off on a mission that likely would (and almost did) get him killed.
- Yoda didn't mean a fully trained Jedi Knight inevitably and in every possible iteration of that hypothetical scenario will with all possible certitude defeat Vader, he clearly meant only a fully trained Jedi Knight (and one assumes, preferably a Master) could stand a chance. As for Luke doing better than him, well, Luke is the son of Anakin which gives him a major genetic advantage over other candidates, and is younger and in better health than Yoda. It's perfectly plausible to think Luke might given enough training become as strong as Anakin was or maybe even stronger. Anakin was about the same age as Luke is here when he defeated Count Dooku. Beside, Luke proved him right when he did defeat Vader ... once he was fully trained.
Anakin's lightsaber design
- Why, just why, Anakin/Luke's lightsaber design is so inconsistent between movies?
- Not sure what you mean. Anakin/Luke's 1st/Rey's lightsaber all have the same design between movies, except for the belt clip part, perhaps.
- The lightsaber Anakin had in Attack of the Clones ended up getting cut in half while he was fighting through the Geonosian Droid Factory. He used a borrowed lightsaber during the battle against Dooku at the end, and then built a new one for Revenge of the Sith. This new lightsaber would end up in Luke's hands years later, but would be lost in the battle against Darth Vader on Bespin, which required Luke to build a new lightsaber of his own, which is a totally different design (it's based on Obi-Wan's). So that explains why Anakin's lightsaber is not exactly the same in Episode III as it is in II but it is nevertheless very similar. There are also some small differences between Luke's lightsaber in Episode IV and V, such as screws being added to the black grips on the lower part of the hilt. Maybe Luke tinkered with it a bit and "made a few special modifications". Obi-Wan's lightsaber also looks slightly different so perhaps it's common for Jedi to periodically upgrade or replace parts on their weapons the same way you might replace components in a car or computer. They are technological weapons after all.
- Luke may have modified his saber between IV and V to make sure its controls would work properly in the frigid conditions of Hoth, same as the rebels were having to adapt their vehicles. Neither he nor Anakin would seem to have had to operate the thing on a world that cold before, at least to judge by the movies.
Palpatine's power level
- How strong is Palpatine? I always wonder if he could have killed Yoda at any time during their fight scenes, but chose to toy around with him. To this day, I still think Palpatine could have killed Windu but wanted Anakin to kill the Jedi so he can turn to the dark side.
- That is actually a nearly unanswerable question. Personally I find it laughable that he could have killed Windu without Anakin's intervention. In what is now canon (The movies, The Clone Wars, and Rebels), he is shown to be rather powerful but so is Windu and many other Jedi. Its all really up to your interpretation of what we see in the movies and canon shows. Palpatine's death, however, suggests the man is far more pathetic than any of us want to admit.
- Word of God says Palpatine was, in Episode III at his peak, as strong as Yoda if I recall correctly. (However, Anakin would have surpassed him if he had stayed on the Light Side, become a Master and so on.) He was slightly more powerful than Anakin, Obi-Wan and Dooku, but he couldn't have killed Yoda that easily - they were pretty evenly matched. I think Mace is supposed to be around his level too, although sadly we don't see much of him fighting in the movies.
Selfish, Stupid, or Evil
- Can a Sith or anyone else who had fully embraced the dark side still do good things out of altruism (or at least trick themselves into thinking they are), or does the Dark Side kill all their morality and attachments, so they only act selfishly, or does it simply compel someone to uphold the universal standard of evil? I can ignore Palpatine in this case, because it's generally accepted he was a biological psychopath as well as gifted with the Force, but Darth Vader is probably the most confusing case. He claims he's just doing what needs to be done to keep the peace, yet he does things that blatantly go against his morality like child-murder, genocide, and slavery (which the Clone Wars established was his Berserk Button), and don't benefit him directly. And it was show any feeling of compassion or conscience (like not wanting to see his son tortured) is enough to make him sacrifice himself to fight the Empire. Same goes for Dooku and Jacen Solo, who were alienated from their Jedi orders for matters of personal morality, but became Obviously Evil almost immediately afterwards with no remorse.
- The Dark Side is, to quote Yoda, "quicker, easier, more seductive", which sort of explains how Anakin went from well-meaning but flawed individual to child mass-murderer so soon. As for slavery, when did Darth Vader ever do that?
- Slavery on certain species, most famously Wookies, Geonosians, Gungans and Mon Calimari was widely practiced by the Empire, and Vader was often called to act as its enforcer. And saying that it acts quickly doesn't answer the question of what the Dark Side actually does to someone.
- The Dark Side is, to quote Yoda, "quicker, easier, more seductive", which sort of explains how Anakin went from well-meaning but flawed individual to child mass-murderer so soon. As for slavery, when did Darth Vader ever do that?
Anakin and Darth Vader
- Why do some fans talk about Vader and Anakin like they are two separate entities? I keep hearing "Vader killed Anakin" and "Anakin killed Vader to save Luke" from fans. I know it's true from a "certain point of view", but they make it sound like Anakin was possessed by an evil spirit, or something.
- It's more a case of "Anakin" and "Vader", while being the same person, are two separate identities based on the side of the Force he was aligned with. So when Anakin turned to the Dark Side, the "Vader" identity effectively killed the "Anakin" identity (though not quite) and when he redeemed himself, the "Anakin" identity reemerged and killed the "Vader" identity along with Palpatine.
- There's also a great deal of evidence in both canon and legends that Vader/Anakin literally suffered from schizophrenic multiple personality disorder.
- Jedi are forbidden close emotional attachments because it's feared that prioritising specific individuals over the good of people as a whole will lead to selfishness, corruption, and the Dark Side. Fair enough. So why do they have the Master/Padawan system? Young trainee Jedi are required to establish bonds of trust, respect, loyalty, mutual reliance, and ideally a close rapport with their Masters, and the Master/Padawan relationships we see (Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan and Anakin, Anakin and Ahsoka, arguably Obi-Wan and Luke depending on whether Luke was technically a Padawan) all involve close bonds of affection. How is this not a close emotional attachment?
- It is, but it's necessary to train Jedi, or at least that's the system that worked well for them. For a real-world comparison, we get taught in large groups for most of our education, but in the most advanced education like graduate school typically it's like being "apprenticed" to a supervisor because the material is so complex and more hands-on, and fewer people train at that level. There is so much involved in learning to be a Jedi once you get past the basic training that maybe it just requires a 24-hour one-on-one training regimen.
Obi-Wan's Clone Wars Service
- Ever since the prequels came out I've been confused by what Leia meant when she said that Obi-Wan "served my father in the Clone Wars". Based on the prequels, and Rogue One, and the Clone Wars show itself, I don't see how he did so. When did Obi-Wan ever serve under Bail Organa? They knew each other, yes, and were on the same side, but not in a military context. If anything, Bail Organa served him because he risked his life and his ship to rescue Obi-Wan and Yoda from the Empire. As far as I can tell, Obi-Wan fought for the Jedi and the Republic, but not for Alderaan or the Organas. Or did he and there's something I missed somewhere?
- Bail was a senator whereas Obi-Wan was a soldier, so technically Obi-Wan's service was in part to him.
- In teaching Leia about how the Jedi Order had actually been a force for peace and justice, not the treacherous power-grabbers that Imperial propaganda presumably branded them as, Bail may have gone out of his way to stress how the Order placed itself at the service of the Senate. This would better contrast the Republic's previous, more equitable system with how the Emperor was consolidating power within a standing military that answered only to him. Also, Bail was one of the most influential Senators to actively work with the Jedi against Palpatine's coup-in-sheep's-clothing, so technically he probably did rate as Obi-Wan's superior if the Chancellor had gone rogue and the Jedi were still tacitly accepting civilian governmental authority over themselves.
Corellian or human?
- According to Lucas Arts' Star Wars Screen Entertainment Han, Lando and Wedge's race is Corellian while Luke and Leia are humans, but I also read later that Han is a human from Corellia, so? Is Corellian actually a race different to humans or they're simply humans whose Corellian origins make them being distinguished from the rest for no reason?
- I think it is Corellian is a subset or clan. It could just mean they are from a certain area (Example: if you you are from Spain you are Spanish) or it is a clan acceptance type of deal similar to the Mandalorians.
- A Corellian is a person from Corellia, just as a Canadian is a person from Canada. Since Corellia is a well-known place (as opposed to Tatooine, which is a far-off backwater place), people from Corellia tend to get identified as "Corellians" way more often than people from Tatooine get identified as "Tatooiners" or whatever. But Han, Lando and Wedge are all still humans, regardless of where they come from.
Does The Sith Code Let You Be Good?
- Related to an above entry, but focused more on the Sith philosophy than the will of the Dark Side. The Sith Code, as written, just talks about how through passion, a Sith can overcome their limitations, but all the Sith we see are driven by hatred, powered by wrath, and obsessed with taking over the galaxy and instituting endless tyranny. Are there any Sith who are driven by neutral or good passions? Any Sith who read "Through victory, my chains are broken" as an incentive to overcome oppression, or "The Force will free me" as an incentive to break free of unhealthy patterns of thought and behaviour? Any Sith who draw power from righteous anger against bigotry and exploitation? Or is there something about feeling intense emotion that makes Force-sensitives automatically turn evil, no matter what emotion they feel or how they channel it? Does the Force really require its users to deny the very existence of passion in themselves (which even Vulcans don't go so far as to do) if they want to be good?
- The Revanite Sith, who are pretty much the Dark Side's equivalent of the Gray Jedi, can indeed be "good"; they will use the Dark Side and draw strength from anger and/or hate, but they can still be good people at heart. To make things simple, let's say that Revan!Sith can be a prime example of Good Is Not Soft.
- Depending on the Writer. General consensus is that yes, any intense emotion, passion, or anger, if not, at the very least, extremely well tempered, will make one evil. They'll put their passion or anger above the lives of innocents, and then become addicted to the dark side and power in general and become the very oppressors and exploiters they swore to destroy. I think the Sith Code might have been deliberately written in a way that does not directly imply evil to show it's potential appeal, but also how the dark side corrupts even the most pure of intentions, as was seen with Anakin.
- ... well, that's depressing. So the Jedi Order propped up the corrupt Republic, supporting an unjust status quo, and brainwashed children into believing interpersonal attachments led to evil (except for Master-Padawan relationships because it;s necessary there), and yet it's feeling too intensely that's the only thing that turns you evil on an official metaphysical scale? It looks a hell of a lot like there's a good and evil side to the Light Side of the Force and the Jedi teachings, so how come the Dark Side and the Sith are pure evil?
- Because when the Jedi indulge in slavery and and injustice, it is a sign they've failed. When the Sith do it, it's a sign of their success. That is why the Sith are evil.
- Except that as the original headscratcher points out, there's nothing in the rules saying the Sith have to want slavery and injustice - nor, if the Dark Side is accessed by passion in general rather than desires to subjugate and hurt people (which is ambiguous - Yoda thinks the former, but he's canonically blinded by Jedi dogma in general), is there anything in the rules saying that Dark-Siders have to want that. The question is: can the Sith do good while acting in accord with the Sith Code and using their passions to draw on the Force, and if not why not given that ordinary people in real life can do good according to principles of transcending limitations and being driven by passion? The second answer suggests that the Force is just a dick that way, but if that's canon it's incredibly unsatisfying and reduces one of the main moral divisions in Star Wars to the totally arbitrary whim of a mystical energy field. (Or, Doylistically, means that George Lucas didn't give it enough actual thought and that subsequent writers slavishly followed him, but that's not so much the point of this page.)
- It's unfair, sure, but force-sensetvity has always had Blessed with Suck undertones, and their need to avoid the darkside is meant to be a metaphor for us not giving into temptation. The reason that, until recently, you only saw grey Jedi or Revanite Sith in the EU is because the fans likely to read that material are older, and have a better chance at grasping the moral complexities the kids that only watch the movies won't. Also, the force has never been the only moral decider in Star Wars; the normal imperials, sepparatists and corrupt senators did bad just fine without the force, and Han, the rebels and Padme didn't need the light side to tell them right from wrong. Canon seems to be trying to portray characters like Grey Jedi in a more positive light, but the original idea of the light and dark was With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, but headscratchers like this show the message was somewhat lost in translation.
- Then the films' writers have a really limited idea of temptation.
- I think the implication is that dedicating oneself to the greater good requires calm and the ability to view things with rational detachment. Acting on emotion is effectively acting tribally and childishly. Even if one has a passion for justice, that passion with be heavily infected with tribalism at best and childishness at worst. Thus, a Sith dedicated to justice will see justice through such a tribalistic and even childish lens that he wouldn't be meaningfully different from a dictator.
The Sith Imperative/Grand Plan
- I'm re-reading the Darth Plagueis novel and slightly confused about the Grand Plan. The Sith wanting to eradicate the Jedi, yes that's clear. But they talk about "wanting to pull the rest of the galaxy's sentient species" from the brink. The brink of what? "Everything antiquated and corrupt" about the Republic? You later see the Sith and the Empire subjugating most of the galaxy's have-nots, while allowing corruption to be perpetuated for the haves. I don't get what "brink" Plagueis was talking about.
- Maybe the Empire wasn't entirely run on Sith ideology? Palpatine wasn't raised from birth as a Sith or kept isolated from all non-Sith in the galaxy; he developed his own values, opinions, and beliefs before he ever met Plagueis. Plagueis might also have had his own values independent from Sith doctrine that influenced what he thought the Sith plan was supposed to be. Or maybe the Empire was exactly what the Sith wanted and Plagueis meant something like the brink of decadence or anarchy or the usual things totalitarians think are wrong with non-totalitarian cultures.
- Palpatine, and probably most sith since the Rule of Two was instated, probably don't know or care about their founders actual Grand Plan beyond "extermination of the jedi i.e. the only people who could stop us" and "lots of power for the one person good enough to grab it i.e. me.", and just recite ancient speeches or texts, the true meanings of which have long since been forgotten, to seem more Sith-y. It sounds pathetic, I know, but it's Truth in Television for many longstanding religions and orders, especially ones who have lost most of the history over their lifetimes like the Sith have.
Jar Jar Abandoned?
- It's stated in the Aftermath trilogy that after Jar Jar was ousted from the Imperial senate, he suffered exile by both humans and the Gungans. Why would people like Queen Julia, Bail Organa and Boss Lyonie just walk out on him?
- I'm not familiar with that trilogy, but being manipulated by Palpatine to give Naboo's blessing to the Military Creation Act and thus plunge the galaxy into the dark times probably had something to do with it
Disguise and Padawans' plaits
- There are more than one scenes in the movies, books etc. when Jedi and their Padawans have to act in disguise. In Attack of the Clones Anakin and Padme travel to Naboo disguised as refugees. In Dark Rendezvous a group of Jedi including two apprentices travel in a similar way. In Cloak of Deception Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan briefly infiltrate a group of terrorists pretending to be members of their organization. In all these cases - aren't the Padawans' plaits too telltale about who they are?... The only possible explanation which occurs to me is that maybe such a hairstyle was not at all unique to Jedi Padawans, but could be also used by a number of other nations / cultures / humanlike species and so on... But even in this case - it looks a bit risky to give others at least a possibility to suspect who they may be.