I don’t get how Obi Wan telling Luke to track down someone he used to know is “shrinking the universe.” If Han Solo happened to be the Jedi master he was referring to, or Yoda lived on Hoth, then that would be convenient and universe shrinking.
Yoda and Obi-Wan supposedly being the only Jedi survivors, while perhaps not “shrinking” the established story universe, is still convenient for the plot and how it relates to Luke. But then again, it’s part of my overall point in this argument: Leia being the Other/Luke’s sister is no more a case of “shrinking” the established story universe than is Ben (a close comrade of Luke’s father) and Yoda (Ben’s teacher) being the only surviving Jedi in the galaxy such a case.
Yoda and Obi-Wan being the only Jedi survivors that we know of. Maybe there are some more, but neither Obi-Wan, nor Yoda know that they are alive. And they probably didn’t know every single Jedi personally. So Yoda is the only other Jedi that Obi-Wan knows is alive, and he knows that because they have a pre-established connection. It would be a greater convenience if some Jedi, that Obi-Wan never heard of, appears at the start of Empire to offer Luke training. How did he find Luke? Why should Luke trust him?
I see that this could also make an interesting plot line, but that would have been much more than was needed for the move. Empire just needed a new mentor for Luke, that he can immediately trust, so why not introduce him via Obi-Wan? And Obi-Wan can only vouch for him if they have a personal relation.
The writer of the story having one more Jedi other than Obi-Wan Kenobi survive the purge - and just those two but no more! - is not exactly a case of “expanding” the story universe. An expanded universe would have been that Ben and Yoda thought they were the only survivors but actually weren’t (something that I originally thought the title “Return of the Jedi” alluded to before the movie came out).
Note that when originally - per the first draft of ESB - the Other/Luke’s sister wasn’t Leia but was “Neilith” Skywalker, she was said to have been undergoing Jedi training on the other side of the galaxy. A story element which, of course, implies that Jedi other than Yoda and Ben had survived the Empire/Vader’s purge (a Jedi was training her). The story universe where Leia is the Other, is logistically consistent with a story universe where only two Jedi survive the purge (and one if not both of them, had a close connection with Luke’s father - Yoda having originally supposed to have been Annikin’s teacher as well as Ben’s).
And this is why Jedi is shrinking the universe, but not Empire. When Yoda says “there is another one” in Empire, it could be the setup for a new Jedi character, but Jedi makes it clear that this is not the case, he was just talking about an already established character. That’s the prime example of universe shrinking.
Frank your Majesty said:
There is no doubt that Lucas made it up as he went along. But that’s not what universe shrinking is about.Sometimes the two are connected, especially if it’s a case of a storyteller writing themselves into a corner.
Yes. In the case of Jedi, they are connected, in the case of Empire, they are not.