More Star Wars Questions: Empire Strikes Back

[LynneSin]

When Luke left the Dagobar system and his training with Yoda, Obi-wan Kenobi said to Yoda "He is our last hope". Yoda then replied "No, there is another" (referring to the fact that Luke had a twin - which is Leia).

Ok, here's the dumb question of the day. How's come Obi-wan didn't consider Leia as a possiblity as the one who could become a Jedi and fix everything if Vadar had his way and converted Luke to the darkside? I mean first, Obi-wan knew that Luke had a twin sister Leia because as we know, Obi-wan was there in the delivery room when the twins were born (in Sith). So what gives? Did Obi-wan go mental all those years by himself in the sand and forget about Leia or did he just have little faith that a girl could actually do a good job as the boy could (and yes, through the latest triology there was at least one female Jedi Knight).

What gives!

[RPM]

1. The Galactic Phallocracy in Action

Goddamn jedi men.

[GOPisEvil]

2. Apparently sexism lives in the future, too.

It's all Bill Clinton's fault! x(

[RPM]

6. ahem - Long, Long Ago in a galaxy Far, Far away....

It was in the past.

Furthermore, it doesnt appear to be full fledged sexism as Luke and Leia's mother was a Galactic Senator.

Of course, the empire was probably less enlightened than the republic....

[Liberal Veteran]

8. Well, time is relative (not unlike Luke and Leia) so...

....a long time ago may not really be tomorrow?

[LynneSin]

9. Actually, it was only a Long Time ago

I will say this much about the original triology. The lightsaber fights kinda suck compared to what they have in the latest triology

[lenidog]

13. Also remember that Leia herself was a senator

and the leader of the Rebellion Mon Mothma a female.

[GOPisEvil]

15. Oh, I'm not a fan. Can you tell?

Oh well...show me for being flippant.

[lenidog]

3. What gives is that just before writing Return of the Jedi

Lucas decided to make Leia, Lukes twin sister.

[LynneSin]

5. Come on, you had a clue when Luke was able to contact Leia at the end

I mean, sure, I never realized until Jedi that they were twins, but Lucas still made a connection when Leia was able to find Luke.

That fact and the comment about Yoda that "there is another" meant that Lucas was planning on rolling out a family member. And it's not like there was any tongue between Luke & Leia with that kiss they had at the beginning of Empire

[lenidog]

10. Actually what it means is that Lucas is a poor scriptwriter

Just because he says there is another doesn't mean Leia was to be the one to be Luke's sister. In ROTJ Leia says that she actually remembers her mother but Padme dies after giving birth. (I least that is what I have gathered. I am seeing the movie this weekend)I mean think of it if they were twins then Luke really got the short end of the stick. Leia ends up being a princess and he gets sent to live on some scruffy moisture farm on the hind end of the galaxy. He has a large problem with continuity in his stories and this is just one example of many in the trilogies.

[MidwestMomma]

14. Yeah but his lack of continuity makes for fun discussions

At least in my geeky Star War family :)

[lenidog]

19. It is fun but irritating at times because some of them are so blatant

You would think since these are his movie legacy he may have been more careful or hired some geek to remind him what is what.

[LynneSin]

18. Did you ever think Leia didn't know she was adopted?

She was taken by Bail Organa right after birth so as far as Leia knows the Organas were her parents. Perhaps Mrs. Organa happen to die when Leia was young

[lenidog]

20. Its possible though I just write it up to Lucas screwing up

and deciding to tweek the story midcourse. Like in the original script for ROTJ there were no Ewoks. It was actually wookies that were supposed to be on Endor as a part of a slave labor force. He changed it just before they started filming because he thought a revolution of wookies would be a little too much for the Imperial forces to manage in the script.

[LynneSin]

24. I thought he changed it to Ewoks for commericial value

I mean this


Is much more adorable and sellable to kids than this:

[Liberal Veteran]

28. Good thing the Ewoks all died due to the aftermath of...

...of the destruction of the second Deathstar. :D

[4_Legs_Good]

43. It *could* be a misunderstanding, but Luke clearly asked

because he knew he never knew his mother and if Lea *did* then it must mean that she was his sister.

Of course, like so many other things, there are ways to justify it.

david

[Dukkha]

7. no the whole trilogy was written at once

He split it up later when he realized it was too long

Now here's an error on that ESB scene. What happened to Luke's yellow ladder on the X-Wing when he took off? It mysteriously disappears.
:shrug:

[4_Legs_Good]

44. I'm 90% sure that they we're written as screenplays at once

and that they did evolve. I can almost quote Lucas as to when he decided, long after the fact, that Luke and Lea were brothers. It wasn't part of the original plan, IIRC.

david

[Liberal Veteran]

4. Maybe the cinammon buns on her head distracted him?

:shrug:

[MidwestMomma]

11. You know what bugs me

The great Jedi masterminds decide they must hide the twins birth and the twins.

So they send baby Leia to live with Senator Organa and wife. She is henceforth known as Princess Leia Organa. (I think so anyway, but I know for sure she wasn't called Leia Skywalker.)

But they send baby Luke to Tatoonie to live with his mom's relatives and he is henceforth known as Luke SKYWALKER. (And remember, his mom's relatives are Darth Vader's relatives.)

I think they could have done a better job of hiding him...don't you?

And all those years, Vader has no clue his children have survived?

I mean on Tatoonie, Annakin Skywalker is a local hero. Kind of famous. Only human to win the Podrace. Then his mom's relative end up raising a kid called Luke SKYWALKER and nobody notices?

What gives with that?

Man, I love to talk Star War plot inconstancies, don't you?

[lenidog]

16. Technically they were Anakins relatives

his uncle is actually Anakin's step brother. Also don't you love the fact that C-3PO doesn't remember working on the same farm that the Jawa's sell him to and Luke's uncle doesn't recognize him either.

[Liberal Veteran]

21. Well....they did explain that in episode three..

...at least the why 3PO doesn't remember any of that.

[lenidog]

22. They did?

Well that solves that problem I will find out this weekend.

[Liberal Veteran]

25. Don't blink or you'll miss it...it's just a throwaway line towards the end

:D

[lenidog]

32. Do they explain possibly Anakins birth in the last episode

Because if I recall in the "Phantom Menace" Shmi says that Anakin had no father.

[4_Legs_Good]

45. It was hilarious! I kept saying...

well, I know the movie isn't over yet, because they didn't say the one line they need to say about C3PO.

Lame!

david

[LynneSin]

26. Half-brother

After Smni was freed from Watto she remarried

[lenidog]

30. Stepbrother

I still had the DVD stuck in the player from when I watched it last night.

[MidwestMomma]

31. Yeah, that's what I meant, they were Anakin's relatives

So I wouldn't think that would be the best place to hide the child you didn't want the Emperor to find.

Part of my problem though is I've read so many Star War novels and then the storyline really starts confusing.

I just read a book set after the fall of the Emperor and Leia goes to Tatoonie and everybody there is like "No way Anakin Skywalker was Darth Vader". And I'm like, when did that become common knowledge? Was it always common knowledge except to Luke?

And then I have to remind myself to get a life :)

[lenidog]

33. The problem is that

Lucas keeps contradicting himself and changing everything around. then giving us different tales about why he changed it around. During the late 80s and early 90s a whole mess of novels and comics were released that were given Lucas's approval. They were suppsoed to continue the storyline since Lucas had given up making the last movies and were to fill in some of the backstory in preparation of the release of the first movies. Now it seems that Lucas has turned his back on that idea after making his cut of the profits and bascially said they aren't official canon.

[MidwestMomma]

35. Yes I heard that about Lucas and the novel storylines

And now it seems like you have the Star War Lucas fans vs the Star War novel fans. With one side saying, it's Lucas story, he can put anything he wants in his plot and the other side saying, Lucas is ignoring huge parts of a storyline that at one time he was okay with and it's bugging the heck out us.

Or something like that it seems.

Thanks for the Star Wars talk. :)

[lenidog]

37. No problem

I always enjoy getting in touch with my inner geek. ;-) If you ever want to do it again you can always PM me. I am a font of useless info on universes and worlds that never existed.:P

[LynneSin]

23. Here's why Tatooine was a good choice for hiding Luke

Because in Phantom we learned several things:

1.) Tatooine is so fricking remote that the Jedi never bothered to check for potential Jedi living there. Anakin who was born on Tatooine was strong in the force but since he lived in such a fricking remote planet he was never found until a forced ship landing by Obi-wan & Quo-jong left them on Tatooine

2.) Anakin had a really shitty homelife on Tattooine. He was forced into slavery when he was a child and when he returned his mother was killed by the sandpeople. I think Anakin had no desire to go back to Tattoine

3.) Anakin and his younger half-brother Owen didn't like each other. You saw the animosity between the two in Clones when Anakin came back to try and save their mother. Even in Hope, Owen discouraged Luke from becoming a Jedi

4.) As far as Anakin knew - Padme and the children died. Palpatine/Sidious wanted Anakin for himself and the best way to get him was create a horrible grief with the death of his wife and unborn child (Vadar never even knew she was pregnant with Twins).

So yes, Tattoine was a decent choice to hide Luke. Not like Yoda, Bail & Obi-wan had much choice and they wanted to watch over the twins as they grew up!

So in a nutshell - what

[Guy Fawkes]

12. Leia had been captured by Vader in "New Hope"

So there was no way for Obi-Wan to know if she hadn't already fallen to the dark side.

[Neoma]

17. VERY good point!

[LynneSin]

27. I don't think so

Obi-wan glanced over at the Millenium Falcon and saw Luke, Hans & Leia all there right before Vadar sliced him.

He knew

[Crunchy Frog]

29. I found a really looong discussion of this on the IMDb message board

If you've got a few hours to throw away reading it.:)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121766/board/nest/19620902

My guess, Obi-wan was kind of sexist, and when the original films were made, attitudes were still sexist enough that it wouldn't really have been concievable to have a female Jedi knight heroine.

Also, the plot over the course of the six films isnt' the most tightly constructed and consistent. I still love them, but I just accept that as a fact about them.

[Lisa]

34. and the 3 original movies themselves might have changed things

Leia does some fighting in A New Hope, and more in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Aside from the metal bikini episode (and she gets back at Jabba for that, as I recall) -- her outfits get more sensible too. She changes from being the damsel-in-distress to being a rescuer herself. The fact that a lot of the women in the audience approved (and, maybe more important to the Hollywood types back then, the males didn't disapprove) probably didn't go unnoticed.

Now I'm really dating myself, but I recall that the audience gasped when she took off her helmet and revealed herself to the gangsters as -- a woman. These days, we see female soldiers in grimy battledress all the time on CNN, but back then it was a real surprise. Except for the Conan-type shows, where the guys were wearing skimpy fur or leather outfits too, you could pretty well bet that when you saw an adventure show on the big or small screen, the men would have military gear and the women would either look like strippers or waitresses.

Even on Star Trek: TNG in the late 1980s some of the female Starfleet characters wore different-looking uniforms than the "serious" crew. Not as blatant as in the original 1960s series, but it still wasn't the sort of thing one could fight in without one's breasts popping out. The more recent shows tend to have everyone wearing the same kind of uniform, though.

[Crunchy Frog]

36. Yes, it's been a gradual evolution.

I actually think Leia was a pretty strong female character for 1977. She's actually pretty powerful; a leader in the Rebellion, able to stand up to Vader without flinching and not reveal the location of the Rebel base even under severe interrogation, out on a dangerous mission to obtain the plans to the Death Star and get them to the Rebellion. She doesn't just get passively rescued either, but takes a very active role. Overall I think sci-fi tended to be very sexist at that time, and I think Leia probably stood out somewhat relative to what predominated then.

And then, of course, the eighties was a time when the portrayal of women in movies and TV was dramatically shifting and the portrayal of Leia in the other two movies kind of reflects those changes, but she was strong even before it really started coming into vogue. I do give Lucas alot of credit for that, but it's still ultimately the boy who gets to be the big hero.x(

I do remember when Aliens came out in '86, what a big deal it was that there was a sci-fi movie with such an extremely strong female heroine. I think it's become much more usual since then.

Just got finished watching my videos of the original Trilogy. I have them in the final video release in Wide Screen, and remastered, but before any of the changes were made. :) I'm not sure I could deal with watching the new DVD editions with all those alterations in them.:-(

[LynneSin]

38. I think my original videos are now at my grandparent's old house

We keep a VCR up there with a bunch of videos for the kids to watch when they're up there. I might have to go back and reclaim them. I had the original movie triology on VHS, the second release after the re-release of Star Wars back in the late 90s and I have the DVD set. It would be neat if Lucas put the original movie on DVD, but if I can't find my original set I'll see if I can find another set to buy.

I don't mind so much the re-edit version except in ROTJ when they show Hayden Christensen at the end with Obi-Wan (Alec Guiness) and Yoda. I think Lucas should have kept it as it was

[Lisa]

39. I liked the old Vader too ...

I don't believe it would be too much of a strain on the audience's imagination (and since they're watching a science fiction movie, let's assume they do have imaginations) to make the mental shift from the character from the end of Episode 3, to what he might look like after a couple of decades of being kept alive by his armored suit. I haven't seen Episode 6 for years, but coming out of the theater after "Revenge of the Sith", my recollections of the scarred-up, kind of chubby old guy didn't seem to be at odds with what I'd just seen. Replacing him with Christensen, digitally-aged or not, seems a bit of a cop-out.

I think this is the guy who played the unmasked Vader. I thought he put in a good performance, and it seems unfair to take him out of that last scene. Especially since he passed away a while ago ... and if the info in his biography is correct, he upheld his end of the deal with Lucas (to not reveal the film's details until after it was released).

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0789970/bio

[LynneSin]

40. I just watched ROTJ tonight

And they should have left the original guy in the ending.

Someone earlier said the reason for Hayden instead of the original guy was because Hayden's Anakin was the last time that Anakin was one of the good guys. Well, that's not true - the old man redeemed himself in the end of ROTJ to save Luke from the Emperor. Oddly enough Anakin fulfilled that original Jedi prophecy of being the one that would destroy the emperor and bring balance to the force. Unfortunately it took a few decades and a really dark period for it to happen

[Lisa]

41. yes, if only ...

... he'd chucked Darth Sidious out of the window then, instead of having an attack of the scruples ("He must stand trial!") -- think of all the trouble it would have avoided!

[4_Legs_Good]

42. Sorry LynneSin that's just another plot hole

created by the prequels. I'm sure prequel fans will find a way to justify it, but IMO it's just another in the long line of plot holes that Lucas could not avoid in bringing this new vision to the screen.

I'll justify it by saying it was just a filmmaker's attempt (very good one, I might add in ESB) at foreshadowing. Maybe it can be explained by Obi Wan not knowing that Lea would have enough Midiaclorides (:puke:) to become a jedi.

In RotJ Vader (who makes *many* mistakes in judgement) assumes that Obi Wan is behind everything - "Obi Wan was wise to hide her from me; Now his failure is complete." Vader also often assumes that Luke was trained exclusively by Obi Wan and comments on that many times "Obi Wan has taught you well."

I think that the Emperor and Vader in the Star Wars trilogy believed that only Obi Wan had survived, and even that was probably a surprise to Vader ("I sense something, a feeling I've not felt since..." and Tarkin "The jedi are extinct; their fire has gone out of the universe, you, my friend, are all that's left of their religion".) - there's always a very strong feeling that Yoda was dead, and that is why Luke is so prized to them, he is the last of the jedi as far as they know, even though Yoda, their most serious threat, is still alive.

Another Star Wars trilogy inclusive plot hole, though, would be when the Emperor in ESB says "The son of Skywalker must not become a jedi." and then Vader says "If he could be turned he would be a powerful ally". Now how exactly COULD Luke become a jedi if Obi Wan, the last of the jedi, was dead? One has to assume that Vader thought at the time he killed Obi Wan that Luke was already fully trained, but it doesn't fit in with what the Emperor said. It's safe to assume that *IF* they knew Yoda was alive they woulda sent out 1,000x as many little probe droids across the galaxy to find him as they sent to find Luke in ESB.

Obi Wan also said "I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid" in Star Wars, which is completely inconsistent with meeting C3PO and R2D2 on Tatooine. I think in the past 20 years Lucas decided to take Star Wars to another place than he had originally intended, and if one is to accept the prequels as Star Wars cannon (which I don't ), you have to forgive the plot holes.

Sorry to go on and on.

david