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Star Wars Inconsistencies

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Have you ever noticed some inconsistencies in the Star Wars movies? Like when Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) wants to train little Anakin to be a Jedi, the Jedi Council says he is too old.  Yet when Obi-Wan wants to train Luke, he is much older than Anakin was.

Also, in episdoe IV when Luke seeks out Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan doesn't remember the droids C3PO and R2D2.  Yet in previous movies he knows them well.

Also there is no mention of Anakin having any siblings, yet Luke's uncle Owen (episode IV) must have been Anakin's brother.  They have the same surname.

 

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Or... or... Leia says she remembers her mother, but then we find out she dies at birth!!

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To be honest, Obi-wan gives enough funny faces when meeting the droids in ANH that I don't see an inconsistency there.

 

3P0 and R2 aren't together and thus are not the true main characters for large parts of the PT.

ROTJ Storyboard Reconstruction Project

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 (Edited)

There is wiggle room on the mother issue. Leia may have been shown a hologram of Padme at some point. Bail Organa and his wife may not have been as evasive on certain questions as Owen and Beru were.

And welcome to the board, wildcats2323.

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Where were you in '77?

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Or maybe she got hypnotized by a space shrink so she relived her birth! Ol' Owen couldn't afford that...

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wildcats2323 said:

...when Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) wants to train little Anakin to be a Jedi, the Jedi Council says he is too old.  Yet when Obi-Wan wants to train Luke, he is much older than Anakin was.

 Good thing the Jedi Council wasn't still around to tell him that ;)

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Oh, and Luke's hair in ROTJ looks different from the previous movies... and I don't like things that are different.

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wildcats2323 said:

Also there is no mention of Anakin having any siblings, yet Luke's uncle Owen (episode IV) must have been Anakin's brother.  They have the same surname.

In AOTC, it's established that Owen is Anakin's stepbrother.

...

*stabs self in eye with an ice pick*

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 (Edited)

And, Obi-wan says the jedi have been around for a thousand generations but everyone in the prequels say a thousand years!

And, Obi-wan says that Anakin was a pretty cool dude in the original trilogy but he turns out to be a total asshole in the prequels!

<span style=“font-weight: bold;”>The Most Handsomest Guy on OT.com</span>

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Asaki said:



wildcats2323 said:

...when Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) wants to train little Anakin to be a Jedi, the Jedi Council says he is too old.  Yet when Obi-Wan wants to train Luke, he is much older than Anakin was.


 Good thing the Jedi Council wasn't still around to tell him that ;)


Yeah, fuck the fucking Council.

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greenpenguino said:

And, Obi-wan says the jedi have been around for a thousand generations but everyone in the prequels say a thousand years!

And, Obi-wan says that Anakin was a pretty cool dude in the original trilogy but he turns out to be a total asshole in the prequels!

Actually he said he was a good friend...so love has blinded him?

*stabs out other eye*

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The meaning of "poodoo"

Accuracy of Sandpeople vs. Imperial troops

Basically George's whole "vision".

Also, why doesn't Luke just use the force on the switch for the Rancor's cage instead of throwing the damn skull?

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One of the worst inconsistencies is the changing timeline. In the original trilogy it is implied that The Empire has been around for a good while; at least 40 or 50 years. The Star Wars novelization provides an interesting "alternative" history of the fall of the Old Republic and rise of the Empire. A much better one that the that which is presented in the prequels, I might add.

“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord

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theprequelsrule said:

One of the worst inconsistencies is the changing timeline. In the original trilogy it is implied that The Empire has been around for a good while; at least 40 or 50 years.

Where is that clear in the films?

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greenpenguino said:

And, Obi-wan says the jedi have been around for a thousand generations but everyone in the prequels say a thousand years!

And, Obi-wan says that Anakin was a pretty cool dude in the original trilogy but he turns out to be a total asshole in the prequels!

1) RLM ripoff :D
It just crossed my mind, though, the REPUBLIC has been around for 1000 years... the Jedi for 1000 generations :D
But I'm sure that's more of a double slop than a consistency.

2) He wasn't that much of an asshole except in the crisis parts. The two seemed to have a pretty good relationship "normally", and Anakin was a bit sarcastic at worst.
Now, Hercules, that was an asshole.


Oh... and... SOLO HAD NO LIGHTSPEED BUT MADE IT TO BESPIN!! PLOTHOLE!!!!

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twooffour said:
Oh... and... SOLO HAD NO LIGHTSPEED BUT MADE IT TO BESPIN!! PLOTHOLE!!!!

This has been discussed ad nauseum, but I'll explain the "No it's fine" side:

Bespin is not too far away from Hoth. Not in the same planetary system, but nearby. We do not know how long it takes them to get to Bespin. In fact, all we know for sure is that while they're en route:

  • Luke trains with Yoda
  • Boba Fett follows them without being noticed
  • Vader waits for his bounty hunters to report back

Vader waiting has no real time problems. The man can wait with the starfleet doing Imperial things for as long as he needs. He's not likely to find the Falcon during this gap, as the Falcon is flying in the big empty spaces between star systems and that's just not very easy to search. Besides, he's counting on the bounty hunters to turn something up whenever the Falcon reemerges at spaceport from wherever they disappeared to (remember, Vader doesn't actually know where they went).

The longer Luke trains with Yoda, the more plausible ROTJ becomes, as he can learn loads and loads from Yoda, but only really get the practice and meditation he needs to be a Jedi in between ESB & ROTJ (thus explaining why he's not so much a Jedi during the ESB duel). This is, for me, the biggest thing in favor of the Hoth->Bespin journey being long.

As for the Falcon and Slave 1 flying for so long... They don't have hyperdrive, only their engines. Spaceship engines are never really well explained in Star Wars (because it's a space opera, thank god), so we don't actually know much about how much they can accelerate a ship, for how long, fueling, etc. However, if we assume that they just put the engines on FULL-GO-FAST for the whole trip, then perhaps we can say that they spend the whole trip accelerating up to as near lightspeed as they can go. Relativistic effects become noticeable, and the occupants of both the Falcon and Slave 1 experience a far shorter journey than Luke does while training. In this way, we solve their food problems.

No, I don't know how Fett manages to not be detected. Perhaps he follows (somehow stealthily) for a short period, long enough to get their heading and extrapolate where they're going, then turns off the engines andlets them fly away a little longer so they won't notice him when hyperdrives back to civilization to bounty hunter things. Later, knowing approximately when they'd arrive at Bespin, he informs Vader and they all hyperdrive to Bespin just before the Falcon arrives.

And yes, I'm introducing relativistic effects in a movie series where spaceships move like WWII fighter planes.

ROTJ Storyboard Reconstruction Project

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As far as space travel, the 5 minutes it took to get from Tatooine to the remains of Alderaan bothers me. And they had to pay Han a small fortune for that tiny trip from Tatooine (at the edges of civilization). I just like to pretend it took a long time...

The blue elephant in the room.

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timdiggerm said:

twooffour said:
Oh... and... SOLO HAD NO LIGHTSPEED BUT MADE IT TO BESPIN!! PLOTHOLE!!!!

This has been discussed ad nauseum, but I'll explain the "No it's fine" side:

Bespin is not too far away from Hoth. Not in the same planetary system, but nearby. We do not know how long it takes them to get to Bespin. In fact, all we know for sure is that while they're en route:

  • Luke trains with Yoda
  • Boba Fett follows them without being noticed
  • Vader waits for his bounty hunters to report back

Vader waiting has no real time problems. The man can wait with the starfleet doing Imperial things for as long as he needs. He's not likely to find the Falcon during this gap, as the Falcon is flying in the big empty spaces between star systems and that's just not very easy to search. Besides, he's counting on the bounty hunters to turn something up whenever the Falcon reemerges at spaceport from wherever they disappeared to (remember, Vader doesn't actually know where they went).

The longer Luke trains with Yoda, the more plausible ROTJ becomes, as he can learn loads and loads from Yoda, but only really get the practice and meditation he needs to be a Jedi in between ESB & ROTJ (thus explaining why he's not so much a Jedi during the ESB duel). This is, for me, the biggest thing in favor of the Hoth->Bespin journey being long.

As for the Falcon and Slave 1 flying for so long... They don't have hyperdrive, only their engines. Spaceship engines are never really well explained in Star Wars (because it's a space opera, thank god), so we don't actually know much about how much they can accelerate a ship, for how long, fueling, etc. However, if we assume that they just put the engines on FULL-GO-FAST for the whole trip, then perhaps we can say that they spend the whole trip accelerating up to as near lightspeed as they can go. Relativistic effects become noticeable, and the occupants of both the Falcon and Slave 1 experience a far shorter journey than Luke does while training. In this way, we solve their food problems.

No, I don't know how Fett manages to not be detected. Perhaps he follows (somehow stealthily) for a short period, long enough to get their heading and extrapolate where they're going, then turns off the engines andlets them fly away a little longer so they won't notice him when hyperdrives back to civilization to bounty hunter things. Later, knowing approximately when they'd arrive at Bespin, he informs Vader and they all hyperdrive to Bespin just before the Falcon arrives.

And yes, I'm introducing relativistic effects in a movie series where spaceships move like WWII fighter planes.

tldr; I brought it up as a joke, in the "presenting long chewed pet peeves as a novelty" sense.

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twooffour said:

greenpenguino said:

And, Obi-wan says the jedi have been around for a thousand generations but everyone in the prequels say a thousand years!

And, Obi-wan says that Anakin was a pretty cool dude in the original trilogy but he turns out to be a total asshole in the prequels!

1) RLM ripoff :D
It just crossed my mind, though, the REPUBLIC has been around for 1000 years... the Jedi for 1000 generations :D
But I'm sure that's more of a double slop than a consistency.

The quote is:

"For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic."

The blue elephant in the room.