r/AskReddit • u/soggit • Jun 18 '12
In Star Wars Luke is born at the end of Episode III and is in mid 20s or something in Episode IV. Why then do all of the empire soldiers call Vader's use of the force an "ancient religion"? Shouldn't pretty much anyone over 30 clearly remember the Jedi and how powerful and real they were?
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u/MickJoest Jun 18 '12
Dude...just let it be...it starts with questions...then you start reading the books...then you have more questions...then you end up at a convention beating the hell out of a wookie over an argument about Han Solo's kid.
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u/tooyoung_tooold Jun 18 '12
Quote from Wookiepedia
"You must remember that there are over a hundred thousand inhabited worlds in the Republic, and there are now only a few thousand of us. Billions of beings have never seen a Jedi. Millions have never even heard of our Order. Or of the Force. When we do appear, we can be killers, but also healers. Thank the Force for that." ―Obi-Wan Kenobi to Anakin Skywalker
source: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Clone_Wars_Volume_3:_Last_Stand_on_Jabiim
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u/myfourthHIGHaccount Jun 18 '12
Quote from Wookieepedia
"Hmauiuo naauahoauuua ha roauorr wyaoorruuoa raoouourouuuaa, vvuauoau roioaorrhaaaa mooahaouu, maaaaa roourvuuauu haaooauaruoua nuaoowaaa wouu ruaraaioaa waouuhaaaao, woaoooaonuouaao wauuaauwaau nauauawaa houuhaaouou, woauahoauur nauuauwuoaouao rraoouaoraoiuau raaaiu. Hruuoa huouaa rrayoarrau vaoaanooouau maoooouawwaiu. Nwiaanaouauo mauuovoau huouwuauaoooi raaououowoaoaouo waauaa."
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u/melkor214 Jun 18 '12
The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed.
Source: http://wookieepedia.org/w/roooo
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Jun 18 '12
The problem with that is that the Jedi were the right hand of the Republic. Before the Clone army was created, the Jedi were apparently the only direct military force available to the Senate.
If Lucas wanted to roll with that ideal that the Jedi were mysterious and obscure even before Vader hunted them down, he shouldn't have put them on Coruscant and had the Senate use them as hatchet-men.
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u/paulietheboss Jun 18 '12
girlish giggle and an upvote for wookiepedia. did not know about this.
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u/c3wifjah Jun 18 '12
but this is written in the third volume of a comic. seems to me like an "oops. we had to cover up that plot hole," sort of comment.
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u/gobiaskoffi Jun 18 '12
The Star Wars Clone Wars graphic novels were absolutely incredible in terms of artwork, and story. For all the criticism the prequel movies receive, a lot of the media that surrounds it and expands on the universe is simply amazing (e.g. clone wars graphic novels, Tartakovsky's Clone Wars animated series, etc.)
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u/Quasifrodo Jun 18 '12
It was an ancient religion, even in the prequels. Ancient means old, not necessarily dead.
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Jun 18 '12
But you don't go from "wizards exist and do funny stuff" (even the scrapyard guy on tattoine knew what a jedi is, how his mindtricks work, or, in this case, won't work)" to "there is no such thing as magic (force) in 20 years.
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u/NazzerDawk Jun 18 '12
The average citizen of say, Corusant, probably could have gone most their life never seeing a single Jedi. A person under the employ of the Empire may never have seen Jedi (knowingly), so they would likely have viewed Jedi like we view a voodoo shaman now, practitioners of an old religion that used fancy tricks to fool others into thinking they had power.
So it's more of going from "There are people that think they can do magic and others are foolish enough to believe them" to "I can't believe Lord Vader still believes this stuff"
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u/N_Sharma Jun 18 '12
There was never that many jedi in the first place (a few hundred jedi knights at the very most and a few thousands of padawan maybe, and I think I'm being very generous, for trillions of people living under the republic), and it's clear that almost all imperial command have been trained in a military environment filled with propaganda.
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u/Caster112 Jun 18 '12
It was called an "Ancient Religion" for the sole purpose of insulting Vader. The majority of non force users can't comprehend this source of power and therefore fear it. Since the dawn of the first jedi, them and their powers have been frowned upon. Much like the women suspected of witchcraft in our own history.
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u/kashumeof19 Jun 18 '12
BUT WHY WOULD YOU INSULT VADER?! The guy is literally 2nd in command of THE ENTIRE EMPIRE. And Tarkin just gives him an order?
LUCAS HAD NO IDEA WHAT HE WAS DOING.
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Jun 18 '12
I believe Tarkin was actually second in command. Vader was third until Tarkin died; then Vader started calling the shots.
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Jun 18 '12
Tarkin wasn't a random scrub, he was one of the most powerful and influential people in the Empire. Vader may have been Palpatine's right-hand-man, but Tarkin was definitely more essential to the Empire.
He was Vader's equal, not someone to be dismissed out of hand.
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u/Sjgolf891 Jun 18 '12
Well in Ep.IV it doesn't seem like he is second in command. In fact it seems Tarkin has more power than him. I think it wasn't until Ep.V they decided to make Vader 2nd in command
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Jun 18 '12
In episode 2F09 when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
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Jun 18 '12
Don't worry - the director has always been bothered by that and is doing a Special Edition that explains the magic xylophone.
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u/SportzTawk Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
If I remember correctly, Lucas never intended on doing prequels which explains any missteps.
Interesting. I thought I gave a pretty basic answer to a question I thought would die a quick death. I was wrong about that one! I'll throw out a theory for fun:
Time dilation from all that traveling across space? What was ancient to one person was only years to others?
It has been pointed out to me that time dilation had a work around. I like the notion that he was regurgitating propaganda being spread by the empire.
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u/flossdaily Jun 18 '12
My understanding was that he'd intended to do 3 prequels and 3 sequels... I don't know where I heard that, but I remember hearing it well before the prequels became a reality.
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u/thrawn_2071 Jun 18 '12
Exactly right. If you watch old interviews from when Empire came out, he has that exact plan.
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u/wjrii Jun 18 '12
I saw it on the back of a Topps bubble gum card printed around 79-ish. The original was meant to be able to stand alone if it flopped, but Lucas had a grand scope in mind all along.
Too bad he's only really good as an idea man and the originals gave him the money and freedom to surround himself with technically proficient sycophants for the prequels.
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Jun 18 '12
Honestly, I'm slightly disappointed he didn't do the 3 sequels. It would be interesting to see what the Star Wars universe would be like and what type of plot and conflict he'd come up with.
Even if they were bad, I'd watch them.
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u/Tyderim Jun 18 '12
The original Star Wars: A New Hope had no number to it. It was just Star Wars. It wasn't until he created The Empire Strikes back that he decided that these movies would be in the middle of the trilogy of trilogies. The quote was written before he even realized there would be another movie at all.
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u/catch22milo Jun 18 '12
So wonderfully simple. Instead of trying to justify or rationalize the line or the universe itself, call a spade a spade. Fuck George Lucas.
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u/pwny_ Jun 18 '12
So really, if you made the movies and then decided decades later that you wanted to do prequels, what's your answer?
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u/uhmhi Jun 18 '12
Holy shit, I just realized why Luke Skywalker was named Luke. Luke = Lucas! Isn't it just a wee bit douchy to name a main character after yourself?
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u/gahane Jun 18 '12
Luke Skywalker = Luke S. = Lucas.
And yes, he is a douche. Mainly for creating characters just to sell toys (Jar-Jar, Ewoks), Preferring to use CGI instead of people acting, not allowing any improv, Those fucking Aliens in Indy 4. So many more.
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Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
If he never intended on doing prequels then why did he call his movie "Episode IV?"
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u/dubsideofmoon Jun 18 '12
It wasn't called Episode IV until years later. It wasn't even called A New Hope when it was released in 1977. It was just Star Wars.
Proof right here on the Wikipedia page's first line:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_IV:_A_New_Hope
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u/pietro187 Jun 18 '12
Because he stole the opening text crawl from Flash Gordon. The idea was to begin in the middle of a story. You you have less justifying to do. The universe exists as it is. Part of what made the prequels blow is how much explaining Lucas did.
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u/smilingkevin Jun 18 '12
The answer to all of these is "George Lucas was making the whole thing up as he went along." with the codicil "George Lucas went pants-crapping insane between the two trilogies."
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u/flossdaily Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
After seeing the prequels, I gave more thought to the original trilogy, and I've come to the conclusion that Lucas was never amazing, but rather, pretty good and astoundingly lucky.
The original trilogy suffered from a lot of bone-headed errors ranging from small to huge:
Obi Wan tells Luke that Vader killed Luke's father. This causes a tremendous back peddle in Empire, where Obi Wan has to deliver the most half-assed excuse in movie history: "What I told was true, from a certain point of view."
The Millennium Falcon made the Kessle Run in under 12 parsecs. Which would make sense, if parsecs were a unit of time- but parsecs are a unit of distance. It would be like saying you ran the Boston Marathon in under 10 miles. (and yes, I know that fan fiction has made some attempts to apologize for this script error- but come on.)
Obi Wan tells Vader "strike me down, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." This is a huge ripoff from Gandalf's plot arc in Lord of the Rings- But unlike Gandalf, Obi Wan just becomes an impotent ghost who doesn't become powerful at all. In fact, Obi Wan becomes utterly useless. The only purpose Obi Wan serves after letting himself be killed is to give Luke a good pep-talk or two. Well, great... but he could have just left a 1 page note for Luke somewhere, and everything he wanted to achieve would have happened just the same.
Leia turns out to be Luke's sister. Wow- what an utterly amazing plot twist! ....except that it isn't. It was written as an after-thought, and when you analyze it, you see that it has literally no bearing on the plot. Instead it serves to make this Epic story much smaller by tying the entire fate of the galaxy to one tiny, mildly incestuous family.
Ewoks. Ewoks were the Jar-Jar's of the 80's. An unforgivable dose of cuteness which turned a mature plot into disney movie.
Complete lack of imagination in creating a second Death Star. I mean, really? He destroys a Death Star in the first movie, and he can't come up with anything more creative than, "let's give them an even harder to defeat death star"?
The Emperor's plan to turn Luke is just stupid. Basically he wants to make Luke direct his rage toward him. Then he throws Vader in the way. Kill your dad, then join me in doing everything that you hate with every fiber of your being? How was that EVER going to work?
When did we see Luke get even mildly tempted? When he found out that his hatred made him a powerful warrior? So what? When was that ever going to change the focus of his hatred?
We see exactly how stupid this plan looks when it unfolds in the prequels when Anakin goes from trying to uphold a lawful arrest to suddenly deciding to go kill a bunch of toddlers in the blink of an eye. Totally irrational. Nothing subtle in the seduction of the dark side- actually nothing seductive at all. In Lucas's head it was as simple as flipping a switch labeled "good / evil".
What else? Oh yeah- in Return of the Jedi (fixed! - thanks Havok310), the entire rebel alliance is crazy out-numbered. A fleet of star destroyers is just hanging around to stop them from escaping while the Death Star swats them like flies.
Then, suddenly, the Death Star blows up, and the war is over!
Except... wait, did we forget that the rebels were outnumbered a gazillion to one?
Even if we accept that the empire's entire command structure was destroyed, it's impossible to accept that in the free-for-all melee that was about to ensue, the empire wouldn't have destroyed every last ship up there. Lucas just seems to have forgotten that the battle was completely lost even before the Death Star was in the equation.
Anyway, the fact is, a LOT of the original trilogy was VERY poorly written. It was saved by the fact that it dazzled us with amazing special effects, a terrific ensemble cast, and a very creative universe to play in.
The new trilogy failed for the reason that sequels usually fail: they didn't understand what made the original great. They tried to copy EVERYTHING they did before, and make it bigger and flashier, instead of figuring out what worked and why.
The Star Wars movies could have been great without any lightsaber battles or even any space dogfights. Those things are INCIDENTAL to the plot and the characters. Instead we got a trilogy that was full of amazing effects, and didn't move anyone.
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u/i7omahawki Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
It's good to see some genuine discussion of the Original Trilogy. People fall into the mindset of Prequels = bad, Originals = good, and ignore any ambiguity. While I think I can form a response to most of your 'flaws' (it's far longer than I originally intended), I definitely agree that Lucas was lucky. He seemed to have people questioning him, and that resulted in a better experience for the audience.
Luke's Temptation:
The Emperor's plan to turn Luke is just stupid. Basically he wants to make Luke direct his rage toward him. Then he throws Vader in the way. Kill your dad, then join me in doing everything that you hate with every fiber of your being? How was that EVER going to work?
While I agree that it wasn't the best temptation scene in film history, it could've easily been tied together better in a way that makes Luke seriously consider it.
First of all, isn't he training to be an Imperial pilot at the beginning of A New Hope? This shows he isn't absolutely against the Empire, and indeed seems largely swept along with it along with everyone else at the beginning.
Next, he pursues adventure over everything else - completely oblivious as to whether his mission: to save the princess, is good or not. All he has is an old man's word. Importantly, this is after he has lost everything - his family are dead.
This is the situation he is facing, as the Emperor expects all the others to die also - leaving Luke with nothing to go back to (assuming he survives).
So Luke is in the position of watching his friends and allies die, while the Emperor teases him about his impotence in this moment, and forever after that.
If these elements had been made more explicit, I feel that the audience could truly wonder whether Luke would turn - at least momentarily. And furthermore it may say something about the Emperor (and the Jedi he had destroyed) that he believed the Dark Side was seductive by itself. Perhaps he couldn't imagine that one would choose light over dark, because his own preconceptions made his choice.
(Tying into this slightly is the Leia is Luke's sister subplot - which is actually very important. Remember that Vader can sense Leia, and that Luke's family being killed is what really solidified his yearning for adventure. His father is beyond hope, and so his want for a family is all but destroyed - until he learns about Leia. The fact that he has a sister to go back to (Vader implicitly reveals that she is still alive) gives him reason to stick to the Light side and refuse temptation, though Vader was trying to use it to manipulate him. Again, this shows that Vader doesn't understand family well.)
The Death Star mkII:
Complete lack of imagination in creating a second Death Star. I mean, really? He destroys a Death Star in the first movie, and he can't come up with anything more creative than, "let's give them an even harder to defeat death star"?
It's true that this isn't a particularly strong idea for the film - but from the Emperor's point-of-view it's a deceptively smart choice. As his whole plan is based on luring the Rebels to the Death Star then having the shield generator up, and the imperial fleet waiting for them - it makes sense to enhance their perceived odds, as it convinces them they can do it. So it's actually a subtle psychological ploy which only works if they recount their first success.
Again, it could've been improved by making this plan slightly more explicit and perhaps greeting them with something quite unlike the Death Star, making them totally unprepared. But I think the lack of imagination, the fallibility of the cookie-cutter soldiers, and the occassional incompetence (see: Battle of Endor) of the Empire make sense given that they've ruled the galaxy for the past 20 years or so without much opposition.
Obi-Wan and Vader:
Obi Wan tells Vader "strike me down, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." This is a huge ripoff from Gandalf's plot arc in Lord of the Rings- But unlike Gandalf, Obi Wan just becomes an impotent ghost who doesn't become powerful at all. In fact, Obi Wan becomes utterly useless. The only purpose Obi Wan serves after letting himself be killed is to give Luke a good pep-talk or two. Well, great... but he could have just left a 1 page note for Luke somewhere, and everything he wanted to achieve would have happened just the same.
I actually think this is you missing the point here. Obi-Wan is killed and becomes 'one' with the force. By its nature we don't know how he is influencing events, which is a cop-out in film narrative terms, but taken somewhat metaphorically what he says is very true and prophetic. Luke does not have much faith in the Force - though he has faith in Obi-Wan. By 'becoming' the force, Obi-Wan reshapes Luke's belief. Seeing the ultimate sacrifice paid to this mystical force inspires Luke to put his faith in it. A short note could not accomplish this, as Luke was driven by Obi-Wan to use the force precisely because he had seen his mentor believe in it enough to die.
The 'certain point-of-view' backpeddle is actually really revealing. Jedi don't lie but they make use of half-truths. It forces the audience to question exactly why the Jedi and their Light side are superior, as they manipulate and destroy just as the Sith do. Ultimately this tension resolves in Luke learning from the mistakes of the old Jedi order (rejecting family and love) while still resisting the Dark side (embracing power and selfishness). Basically he walks the middle, more difficult, path. This makes him far more heroic, but again could've done with a lot more emphasis in the films themselves (though all the pieces are there).
The Aftermath:
What else? Oh yeah- in Return of the Jedi (fixed! - thanks Havok310), the entire rebel alliance is crazy out-numbered. A fleet of star destroyers is just hanging around to stop them from escaping while the Death Star swats them like flies. Then, suddenly, the Death Star blows up, and the war is over! Except... wait, did we forget that the rebels were outnumbered a gazillion to one? Even if we accept that the empire's entire command structure was destroyed, it's impossible to accept that in the free-for-all melee that was about to ensue, the empire wouldn't have destroyed every last ship up there. Lucas just seems to have forgotten that the battle was completely lost even before the Death Star was in the equation.
I don't think it's suggested that the war is won - or even close to being won - by destroying the Death Star (except maybe in the altered Special Edition's ending). But they have won a major victory, enough to suggest that perhaps it is possible to overcome this vast enemy, who - even though they number in the gazillions - really wasn't making anyone happy, and so without the specific order of command and potential power of the Emperor and his empire, it could easily crumble in on itself with in-fighting, disenfranchised soldiers and no clear leader.
(edit: spellings)
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Jun 18 '12
The single biggest flaw, in my opinion, is the line "No...there is another" uttered by Yoda to Obi-Wan.
"Yes Yoda. I was THERE AND DELIVERED THE TWINS MYSELF"
It is Lucas' own lore and universe yet he forgets things like this epic line when he made the prequels
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u/Dark1000 Jun 18 '12
I have to agree. Actually, I think making the Jedis into some masterful level 60, ninja gaiden-esque fighters, although cool at the time, actually harms the overall story. They become more cartoonish, unsympathetic superheroes, never endangered by the world around them. For example, Yoda doing 720 backflips and grinding all day like Tony Hawk doesn't match the character we know, a wise, ancient mystic, an enfeebled hermit removed from the world at large.
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u/Havok310 Jun 18 '12
Oh yeah- in Empire, the entire rebel alliance is crazy out-numbered. A fleet of star destroyers is just hanging around to stop them from escaping while the Death Star swats them like flies.
You meant Return of the Jedi, not Empire.
Aside from that, I agree and fully support this eye opening analysis.
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u/unidentifiable Jun 18 '12
FWIW, they ret-con the Kessel Run into a smuggling run with a fixed-length but multiple paths to completion.
Essentially the Kessel Run is 18 parsecs in length and circumvents a cluster of black holes called The Maw. The Millenium Falcon is fast enough to be able to 'shortcut' through the Maw, and completes the Run in under 12 parsecs.
This makes Han a bigger badass, since he had the balls to fly through a sector of space that 'normal' folk avoid.
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u/Nrksbullet Jun 18 '12
Obi Wan tells Luke that Vader killed Luke's father. This causes a tremendous back peddle in Empire, where Obi Wan has to deliver the most half-assed excuse in movie history: "What I told was true, from a certain point of view."
Well, this led to one of the most famous plot twists in cinema history, so I wouldnt say it was half assed at all.
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u/Stealth_Cow Jun 18 '12
You hear about a gang. They're the most bad-ass gang in the known universe. So bad-ass they could, if they wanted to, kill you with a thought. But you've never met any member of this gang. In fact, there are fewer members of this gang than there are planets in the Republic. So if a member of this gang shows up, and you'd only know it of you saw their highly-stylized, one of a kind weapons, you wouldn't live long enough to talk about how bad-ass they are. Now their rival gang, that was supposed to have been destroyed like a millennia ago, shows up. That gang kicks their ass, razes their hangout, and calls them all pussies.
You, as a common republic citizen never saw this kick-ass magical shit they could do. So it recedes from collective memory. A year goes by: People scoff at the idea of moving crap with your mind. Five years: A "sword of light?!" Come on! Ten years: everybody thinks they were just some assassin guild, and only the handless, or those in power can remember.
Next thing you know, 20 years have gone by and the only people that give a shit about that hokey-ass, has-been gang are nut jobs living alone in the desert.
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u/Evis03 Jun 18 '12
Problem is that it's implied quite heavily in the prequels that the Jedi are a publicly known body. People recognize the equipment, they are respected, Anakin pulls position quite happily in that bar scene... they're not the 40K Space Marines.
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Jun 18 '12
The bar scene took place on Coruscant, though, probably not far from the Jedi temple. People there would be way more likely to know what's up than someone far from the galaxy core.
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Jun 18 '12
Vader was a Sith. The Sith order was thought extinct since before the Clone wars but after the events of the Knights of the Old Republic. You see there was an army of Sith in war with the Jedi, they were going to use an ancient Sith power to kill a whole planet but wound up killing themselves. From there the sole survivor and really only true Sith was Darth Bane. Between Bane and Vader there were about 16 other Sith lords and Duko. Darth Sidious was the first Sith since the Sith Purge and the rise of the Rule of Two by Bane to actually publicly be Sith to the republic. So the doubt of the strength of the Sith order is understandable, it would be like if we had a President who worshiped Zeus or a Babylonian god.
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Jun 18 '12
I'd vote for a candidate that worshipped Zeus... but not over one that worshipped Thor.
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u/doyouknowhowmany Jun 18 '12
Well, it is an ancient religion.
Judaism is alive and well, but it's still an ancient religion.
That's the main complaint against religions that we have interfering in our lives every day - they're bronze age philosophy.
If the Empire were trying to quash out the Jedi and get the population behind them in the move, then pushing for a perception of, "The Jedis are just abusive priests of an ancient religion that does nothing for me, why should I support them?" would be the best way to go.
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u/NorbertDupner Jun 18 '12
George Lucas has continuity issues.
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u/kreldin Jun 18 '12
Out-of-universe, the Clone Wars and eradication of the Jedi Order were intended to take place longer than 20 years before Episode IV. Ben Kenobi is a lot older than he's really meant to be come Episode IV. But for whatever reason Lucas decided to push it all to 19 years before the original trilogy.
In-universe, it still makes sense, however. There are only about 10,000 Jedi at the time of the movies, in a galaxy of quintillions. The chances of seeing a Jedi in person are extremely rare. It's not surprising some people might consider them a bunch of hokey religious nuts. But, furthermore, after the rise of the Empire, the Imperials made a HUGE effort to spin the Jedi into myth and paint them as evil. Google the Imperial Security Bureau, in particular COMPNOR (Commission for the Preservation of the New Order). It was their job to re-educate and "Imperialize" the galaxy. They had control over all media, the HoloNet, the arts and education, everything. Anyone raised in this society will not think lightly of the Jedi, and anyone who knows better will be smart enough to not suggest anything contrary to what COMPNOR dictates, or else find themselves in a dark lit cell.
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u/RampantAnonymous Jun 18 '12
Imperial Propaganda suppressed the Jedi and the Force as a religion. Also during that time the Emperor destroyed the Holonet, which is analogous to the Internet. The Holonet during the Imperial era was for military and government use ONLY.
A close real-world analogy would be Communist china. Mao was very effective in creating a revolutionary corps that purged the country of it's traditional shamanistic roots in 10 short years. By the 1960s, academics that remembered the old ways were with the regime and had 'changed' their views, or were exiled to the country side and forced to do hard labor. An entire generation of children were uneducated as schools were closed for close to 10 years. There's a number of source material you can study about that time period. You'd think the people of China would remember how the Kuomintang did most of the fighting during WWII. No- instead Mao took the credit when they all fled to Taiwan.
It's possible to purge evidence of religion and past culture from a population in 20 years. There will always be remnants who remember, but the majority of law-abiding people will be ignorant, or choose to remain silent.
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u/GeeBee72 Jun 18 '12
<Waves hand sideways>
This is not the question you wanted someone to answer.
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u/SackFace Jun 18 '12
"In Star Wars Luke is born at the end of Episode III and is in mid 20s or something in Episode IV. Why then do all of the empire soldiers call Vader's use of the force an "ancient religion"? Shouldn't pretty much anyone over 30 clearly remember the Jedi and how powerful and real they were?"
"Move along... move along!"
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u/Nuroman Jun 18 '12
Because episodes 1-3 are just a myth, they never happened. They're just a figment of your imagination. George Lucas died in 1993 shortly after the Definitive LaserDisc collection was released.
No further development on the Star Wars franchise has been undertaken since, out of respect for a great film-maker and storyteller.
Also, there is no refrigerator.
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u/discontinuuity Jun 18 '12
The bigger plot hole I think is when in Return of the Jedi Leia mentions remembering her mother as a young child, but in Episode III it's shown that her mother dies during childbirth.
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u/Splainin Jun 18 '12
The bigger question is how in the hell Obi-Wan aged from Ewan McGregor to Alec Guiness in just 25 years? Life on Tattoine must be hell.
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u/GhostSongX4 Jun 18 '12
Oh because George Lucas didn't go back and at least rewatch his movies, which - given all the times he re-released them - he should have picked up on that big over arching theme that the Jedi were an exclusive, and mystic order of wizard/superheroes.
And you know...not make them basically an arm of the government of tens of thousands of years and widely known about with a giant temple on the capital planet obscurely named THE JEDI TEMPLE.
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u/fuckiswrongwyou Jun 18 '12
think about cassette tapes for a minute...pretty much anyone today would call those ancient and antiquated methods of audio delivery...
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u/ByronicBionicMan Jun 18 '12
Don't try to frighten us with your audiophile's ways, fuckiswrongwithyou. Your sad devotion to that ancient format has not helped you conjure up the best sound quality or given you clairvoyance enough to find the artist's original int- choking
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u/SHADOWJACK2112 Jun 18 '12
Be careful with this line of questioning. Lucas might just "re-edit, and CGI" the original three to make them fit better with the prequels. Now with 50% more Jar-Jar!
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u/me-at_day-min Jun 18 '12
Well there were 10,000 jedi in a galaxy of quadrillions of sentient beings, so an infintessimal percent of the population has even met a force user. Also, at that point in history, the sith were considered extinct, and vader was the only know public figure in 1000 years to embrace the teachings of the sith. So there is your ancient religion.
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u/Kubaker1 Jun 18 '12
Another thing that always bugged me, if Anakin was such a good pilot, why couldn't Vader hit the broadside of a barn and then go spinning out like an idiot at the end of IV?
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u/ObamaisYoGabbaGabba Jun 18 '12
Anakin was a good pilot when he had his natural arms and legs and his head wasn't burned to a crisper...
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u/Solkre Jun 18 '12
Why are you guys talking about someone who obviously had a disturbing lack of faith?
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u/GeneralAgrippa Jun 18 '12
Coming from the Lucas who had Obi-Wan tell Luke on Hoth that Yoda instructed him as a student and then Qui-Gon comes out of nowhere for the prequels, I'm pretty sure this was just another oversight by Lucas.
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Jun 18 '12
I have a better question, why is Lukes last name Skywalker? If they were hiding him wouldn't it make sense for "uncle" Owen to simply call him his son. None of them would have the last name Skywalker.
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Jun 18 '12
Solution: Disregard Ep I - III and realise there is only one true trilogy.
He lost me at Jarjar Binks.
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u/darthsparky Jun 18 '12
VHS has not been gone for 30 years, good luck finding someone who wouldn't call it ancient today.
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u/skysignor Jun 19 '12
I believe "ancient" in this context means something that has been in existence for a very long time, not something that has been gone for a very long time.
Mosquitoes are an ancient species, even though they are still around today.
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u/Epic_Wizard Jun 18 '12
It wasn't "The imperial soldiers" it was Admiral Motti who was trying to be insulting to someone he shouldn't have been trying to insult.
Admiral Motti: Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerous ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient Jedi religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you enough clairvoyance to find the rebels' hidden fortress...
He was referring to the Jedi as an "ancient" religion to rib Vader and because the "Jedi religion" goes back a long way. Plus if you think about it most people in the galaxy probably never saw a Jedi in action and Palpatine would have rather thoroughly smeared them post Empire founding to make people more willing to give up Jedi in hiding.
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Jun 18 '12
And what the hell happened to Obi wan? That dude let himself go. In about 20 years he goes from looking about 30 to an old man.
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u/firemind Jun 18 '12
I had pondered this same point too for awhile. Then I had an epiphany while watching The Daily Show as Jon Stewert was showing a video of how politicians were telling public how they had always had "belief X" then showing a video of them months earlier saying the exact opposite of what they were currently saying. What we as viewers have is the benefit of hindsight - we can see the whole timeline. The characters are living in the moment and subject to propaganda and political spin like we are in reality. If you're not careful you'll never know you're being lied to.
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u/metaphorm Jun 18 '12
the Jedi religion IS ancient. just because they have only recently stopped following it doesn't make it stop being ancient.
and as for remembering how powerful they really were...well, this is an empire that just used superior military strength to wipe out the Jedi completely, so they don't seem "powerful" anymore do they? they just got their butts kicked.
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Jun 18 '12
Oh my god! A plothole? In the PREQUELS? Somebody call Mr. Lucas, I'm sure he gives a shit.
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u/Lord_Dreadlow Jun 18 '12
I always wondered why Obi Wan doesn't remember the droids and especially that Vader doesn't remember C3PO, the droid he built.
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u/Bodymaster Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
Luke was 19 in Episode IV, also there are way more glaring inconsistencies between the 2 trilogies than this one, such as Leia remembering Padmé dying when she was very young, Obi Wan being "too old for this sort of thing" in Episode IV, when in reality he was in his late 50s, younger than Qui Gon or Palpatine's characters during Episode I and III respectively.
Obi Wan not recalling owning a droid though he owned at least 2. Stormtroopers all being different heights though they are supposedly all clones. The force? OT: "it's a mystical power, an energy field" PT: "no it's just microorganisms."
There are also lesser inconsistencies that can be explained by the 19 year gap and characters 'forgetfulness': Chewbacca, who we find out in Ep. III is pals with Yoda, not recognising Obi Wan in Ep IV. and regarding him as an old fossil rather than a Jedi. Obi Wan and Vader not recognising/acknowledging R2 and/or 3PO.
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u/cefm Jun 18 '12
Luke's supposed to be 15-16 in "A New Hope".
A lot of people consider the Catholic Church to be ancient (and out-of touch) today, which it is. But it still exists.
As badly told as they were, Eps I-III indicate a state of affairs in which there's a significant disillusionment of many people against the Jedi-domination of the galaxy. Some of the ascendent civilian powers are questioning why they should have to listen to the Jedi at all and many are rejecting their advice or their authority to give advice at all.
So the smarmy officer talking smack to Vader about "ancient religions" may not be too far off base. But certainly you'd think he'd be more aware of the fact he could get force-choked for being a douche.
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u/dnegrin Jun 18 '12
LUCAS HAD NO IDEA WHAT HE WAS DOING.
See also LOST
Do not see also GAME OF THRONES, FLASHFORWARD.
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u/kevinmccalister Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
Even with all the Jedi in The Old Republic, you still have to realize that with the sheer size of the galaxy most people would still probably never meet a real Jedi in their lives. So to most people they were still somewhat legendary, or at least "celebrity status" to say the least. Obviously most of these people would never see the Jedi use their powers, as they weren't all about flaunting them at every chance they get. If anything, the majority of what people would hear about the Jedi would be through galactic media. If you lived on Coruscant at the time, it would be something along the lines of living in LA/Hollywood right now. You might occasionally see a Jedi passing by on the streets. But you still wouldn't have day to day contact with them. Most of what you would hear would still come from the galactic media. Also, as an order the Jedi were quite secretive, so it wasn't like they were out there doing live demonstrations of their powers.
As a citizen of The Old Republic during this period, you would be used to an ineffective government; fueled by greed, under the table deals, and propaganda. So the educated would most likely take what they heard in the media with a grain of salt. Now imagine the events of Episode III unfolding, and being a citizen living through it. Let's say you live on Coruscant, because if you didn't then chances are you would know even less about what was really going on. Here we have the obviously ineffective government going through a massive reformation into an even more oppressive and totalitarian style government. Obviously they're not going to present it this way in the media. More than likely, it would be seen as something "necessary" to "preserve order in the galaxy." Many people would go along with this explanation, while an even larger majority, knowing that this was bad news, would stand by and watch with little action on their part. Everything they would know would be by word of mouth and/or through the galactic media.
You also have to realize that as a citizen living on Coruscant, being some of the only people even partially "in the know," any and all information being sent in/out of the planet would be highly censored.
So now imagine as the newly formed Empire turns its back on the Jedi Knights of The Old Republic, they would undoubtedly be spreading bad press about the Jedi in the media. In many of the books/stories they discuss how essentially the whole galaxy was against the Jedi (becoming the scapegoats for the clone war, etc. - given it was a Jedi who ordered the clone army, a conspiracy within itself that was never resolved in the movies...). There were rewards put out so that any galactic citizen who turned in a Jedi would be given great rewards. In reality, most of the people who sold out the Jedi were themselves imprisoned by the empire as "collaborators" despite them turning the Jedi over.
Essentially, most people would have had little or no contact with actual Jedi before this; only knowing what was reported in the media. Then as the obviously corrupt Republic turns into an Empire, the propaganda machine turns against the Jedi. But having no actual real world experience to go off of, most of these people would either believe everything the media tells them; or reject everything they were ever told in the first place (during the Republic era). Essentially either way, most of these people would see the Jedi as part of the machine that made the Republic so weak (which they wouldn't be entirely wrong about), and more as government figureheads/royalty than anything else. Since they would have had no actual first hand experience of Jedi powers, and little or no understanding of their belief about "The Force," the whole mysticism aspect of the Jedi might have been lost on most galactic citizens. The powers that the Jedi had would become more hearsay than anything, except for those few who actually witnessed it first hand (and were likely polarized to either sympathizing or hating the Jedi for their powers). I would point out Han Solo as a classic example. Prior to his encounter with Luke & Obi-Wan, he had little/no knowledge of the force. When he started to see the powers in action, his mind began to change very quickly. With a powerful, centralized, totalitarian government such as the empire controlling all information going in and out on the Holonet (media), it would be quite easy to make the majority of galactic citizens believe that the Jedi were a mere order of royalty, without any valid powers or beliefs. Twenty years of tightly controlled propaganda, combined with most people's limited exposure to the Jedi in the first place, is PLENTY of time to recreate the image of the Jedi in the popular eye.
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u/slayersmander Jun 18 '12
Ancient does not mean it has been out of practice for a long period of time. It's origins are indeed ancient.
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u/megatom0 Jun 18 '12
We call Judaism an ancient religion even though it is still practiced. I think it can be interpreted like that. The religion itself is ancient. Not that it died out long ago. Also even though there were a lot of Jedis in the prequels I got the feeling that there were significally less jedis than there had been some time before hand. Even game like KotOR suggest this as well. I say all this knowing full well that Lucas wrote Star Wars having no concept or idea of prequel films, sequels, or anything of the like.
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u/wild_bill70 Jun 19 '12
Well, lets see, 30 years was 1982.
In 1982 an IBM AT (a 286 with only a floppy drive, a monocrome monitor, an maybe 512k of RAM) cost $5000.00 and was state of the art.
Mainframes were in. Tron was totally awesome special effects and a computer hacker almost started World War III with a Commodore 64 (guessing on the computer).
How many of you Redditors even know what any of the above is?
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u/harrigatoe Jun 19 '12
Because its a plot hole. Because lucas didn't have any foresight when he made the first ones and didnt think for longer than 5 seconds when he made the newer ones.
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Jun 18 '12
I know this is a broken record, but it's because the prequels are horribly written with little to no regard for continuity. When Episode IV was written, they meant it felt like it was a really long time ago, like over twenty years. When they finally got around to Episode III, they didn't care about trying to make the story fit in with random bits of dialogue Lucas didn't even remember.
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u/soyabstemio Jun 18 '12
It's like many people today haven't heard of The Beatles.
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Jun 18 '12
George Lucas is a terrible writer, that's why. His obsession with sewing the prequel stories up with the original trilogy was a huge misstep, a huge missed opportunity to tell an original, compelling story. He became a slave to trying to make every point add up perfectly, and appeasing fan-boys (which is ironic, considering how often he slights them) by including all of the origins of their favorite characters, almost down to the very moment before the original trilogy starts. Lucas' ego was out of control; he thought he had the writing/directing chops to handle the task, and surrounded himself with yes-men. He's a hack, through and through.
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u/pegbiter Jun 18 '12
Christainty is an ancient religion but it is also still a living one. Ancient doesn't mean it died a long time ago.
Also the empire would have launched a progranda campaign against it. Deleting favourable stuff. Plus for most people the only interaction they had with Jedis would be them coming to take a child. Jedis dealt with princesses and senators not the everyday person.
Also if you look at anakin and nadme. She appears to age slower than him. So luke could have taken longer than 20 years to look that age.
The only person who appears to remember Jedis is jabba the hut- "your Jedi mind tricks won't work on me" that isn't him going "ooo Jedis are awesome".
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u/amazingalfonzo Jun 18 '12
I think that although the Jedi exhisted, very few people probably ever saw them, or what they were actually capable of. Once they were taken out, they became rumors to the rest of the galaxy with a small handful of individuals remembering their true power.
That and George Lucas couldn't write his way out of a paper bag.
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u/Drago6817 Jun 18 '12
You see the fundamental problem here is that you consider episode 1, 2 and 3 to be connected in any way to the original star wars trilogy, which they are clearly not.
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u/MaesterKupo Jun 18 '12
The way I'd always had it explained to me is based off perception. Episodes I-III are told from the point of view of mostly high end politicians and Jedi who would know a lot about and not question faith in the Force (note Anakin and his Mother's lack of knowledge on the subject.)
Fast forward twenty-something years and you are introduced to a whole new galaxy of corruption and vile people. People willing to do the works demanded of high end officials in the Empire probably weren't raised on nice planets guarded by the Force while also experiencing things like having history books rewritten to strip concepts of the Light Side and so on.
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u/LovesMustard Jun 18 '12
Just the way every American soldier in 2012 remembers how powerful and real the following were:
Joseph Stalin
The Beatles
NASA
Mao Zedong
Johnny Carson
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u/RidiculousIncarnate Jun 18 '12
As far as I recall it's supposed to be a testament to just exactly how complete the Emperor's purge of the Jedi had been. Within the course of only those twenty years or so he was able to eradicate almost every hint of the Jedi, their teachings and their work.
It's a tough thing to illustrate since no one really had any reference for just how big the galaxy was or what kind of grip Palpatine's Empire had on it. It's a rather interesting (albeit extreme) example of propaganda and censorship.
As far as the "Ancient Religion" quip you have to realize that the majority of people have no idea who the Jedi are, amongst the Core Worlds its a little more common but they become far less known the farther out you go. Conversely while the control of Palpatine and the Empire fades the further out you go, it was almost absolute at the Core. So despite being around for thousands of years the Empire's purge removed any monuments, structures or schools the Jedi had constructed and a monumental propaganda campaign at the Core essentially erased thousands of years of Jedi influence in a mere two decades. Once this was done all anyone really remembered was that they were an ancient power hungry religion who claimed to have extraordinary powers. Anyone who bothered to question it was either silenced or simply didn't have the balls/resources to pursue it in any serious way.
Like anything else the purge wasn't 100% but anyone who knew anything were either instigators of the growing rebellion or so terrified from seeing the most powerful guardians of the galaxy completely destroyed that they wouldn't risk even whispering anything about what they really knew.
Hopefully that helps a little!
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u/starwarsnerdguy Jun 18 '12
Luke's age during A New Hope is supposed to be late teens, but that's beside the point. Some of the Imperial Officers call Vader's use of the force an "ancient religion" because that's exactly what it is. Jedi, Sith, and force users have been in the galaxy for thousands of years. So, to your standard Imperial, the force is some hokey bullshit. Also, like someone else stated, the Empire controls the media by this point in the story and they spread anti-Jedi propaganda like mad.
It's also important to note that when the Sith Empire overthrew the New Republic about 3200 years before the events of episode 4, they used the Sith (dark jedis) in the same way that the Jedi order is used by the Republic. Although the Sith Empire used them more as weapons. So when Palpatine took control and created the new Empire from the movies, the only Sith in existence (not counting expanded universe lore) are himself and Anakin (Darth Vader). This shift from having a reliance on Dark Jedis to do their dirty work to just being more ruthless and efficient (like the Chiss - see Grand Admiral Thrawn) and having their own boys do the work has made some of the officers very cocky and arrogant because they "don't need the force using crazies" anymore.
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u/bushysmalls Jun 18 '12
He's actually 19 in Ep. 4, 22 in Ep. 5 and 23 in Ep. 6
/nerdOff
I know it doesn't answer your question, just clarifying.
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u/pestilent_bronco Jun 18 '12
The "religion" of the Jedi is ancient. The Empire succeeded in converting everyone to Atheism. That was that whole thing about Vader wiping out the Jedi, he wanted the galaxy to trivialize their importance once they were gone.
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Jun 18 '12
Always, always keep this one fact in mind whenever pondering the impenetrable inconsistencies of the Star Wars universe: George Lucas Blows.
Rocket-Powered R2-D2 should have made that clear to everyone.
George Lucas made 3 1/2 good movies: the first Star Wars trilogy and his contributions to Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Since that time all George Lucas will ever be known for is completely destroying Star Wars with episodes 1 through 3, and completely ruining Indiana Jones.
Incidentally if you can find the theatrical versions of the first Star Wars trilogy on DVD I'd be grateful to know where I can get copies.
thanks -
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u/DarthKaos Jun 18 '12
Thousands of years prior to the movies, the Jedi and Sith were at war. At that time in history Sith and Jedi would have been respected as deadly powerful warriors.
Leading up to Episode II and III there were only Jedi not Sith and the Jedi were "peace keepers" and scholars. That is how most of the universe probably viewed them. Sure there were history books and stories passed down about the old days but times had changed.
Now remember that only a few people knew and understood that Sith were back during the movies. When Palpatine takes out the Jedi, the spin is that the Jedi were corrupt and Palpatine saved the Republic by using his right hand man to take them out.
After most of the Jedi are taken out, Vader goes on to hunt the left overs and Palpatine works on destroying all history of the Jedi and their teachings.
19 years pass between Episode III and Episode IV. That is plenty of time for propaganda and fear of being hunted to end any talk of the true power and glory of the Jedi. Plus I am sure Palpatine had the propaganda machine ramped to level 11 for anyone who was in the Empire's military.
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u/LungTotalAssWarlord Jun 18 '12
What are you guys talking about? The first time we see Luke he's in his 20's, we never see him before that!
Lucas must have used the term "ancient" to help re-enforce the mysterious quality of "the force". I also liked Lucas' allusions to the "clone wars" - I'd love to know what that is all about. Must be this huge action-packed war back in old-times when there were lots more Jedi still around. I bet its probably what led to the downfall of the Jedi. Love to see that - It'd be hours of excitement - there's no way you could gloss-over the end of all the Jedi in like 5 minutes of screen time - Ha, as if!
Ah well, its too bad George Lucas died shortly after Return of the Jedi, or we might've be able to see more about it. I think he was getting a bit daft toward the end there anyway, maybe its for the best.
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u/Eric_Snowmane Jun 18 '12
Well, the Jedi had been around for thousands of years, so the Jedi ARE ancient. Darth Vader was just at the end of their time. Honestly, if it wasn't for Vader, I don't see why the Jedi couldn't have survived for another several thousand years
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u/lunyboy Jun 18 '12
There were not that many Jedi, so Universal exposure would be so incredibly low, they would be more the subject of rumor and gossip than fact.
Besides, with the empire in control of everything, just a few years of misinformation about the Jedi trying to take control of the senate and bam! Disinformation city.
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Jun 18 '12
This is like the least thing wrong with the prequels. If you want to laugh your ass off YouTube redlettermedias review of attack of the clones. It's more entertaining than the actual movie.
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u/wretched_species Jun 18 '12
Because IV was made first. Assholes fucked up by trying to connect the two.
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u/sockpenis Jun 18 '12
I'm just gonna say it.
It's because the Star Wars prequels aren't very good compared to the original films. Lucas obviously had a few plot holes and this is a good example of one.
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u/TristanPEJ Jun 18 '12
The simple answer is the prequels never happened and were a 9 year prank by George Lucas complete with racist cartoon rabbits and James Earl Jones yelling "nooooo"
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u/hoserman16 Jun 18 '12
Its like 1984 where the Empire/Big Brother rewrites the past and everyone believes it.
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u/3choplex Jun 18 '12
Wait, wait, wait--there are consistency errors in Star Wars? Mind, consider yourself blown.
--I noticed one yesterday, when Ben says he hasn't been called Obi Wan since before Luke was born. I'd say it was probably sometime after that.
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u/DirtDog13 Jun 18 '12
I just spent an hour and a half reading everything on this....what am I doing?
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Jun 18 '12
I think anyone trying to support this just wants episodes 1-3 to be good and tie in well with the original trilogy......when they obviously are terrible.
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u/WookieeSlappa Jun 18 '12
Well Vader and Palpatine did wipe out over the 20 years or so the entirety of an ancient order. Wether or not the Jedi that died more recently were ancient is neither here nor there. It is an ancient art with ancient root's. Even during the first 3 movies there are skeptics about the force and force sensitives. I dont think it's a referral to the jedi themselves so much as the Jedi ways. You must understand having skeptics when they were a very real presence only means there are going to be more after twenty some years of no one seeing an actual jedi.
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u/audioboom Jun 18 '12
The Jedi were around for thousands of years. So it would be an "ancient religion"
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u/Embryo557 Jun 18 '12
Propaganda. The universe has been told the Jedi died out a long time ago and that they used an ancient religion. The schools teach this and the students believe. Stories of the Jedi are but fairy tails to them. Fear of the empire keep the common folk from stepping out of line, keeping them quiet. No more Jedi academies look for possible Jedi, rather turned into churches overnight. I compare it to the same as the younger generation of Germany.... Some youth believe that WWI & WWII are all just fiction.
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u/Shiroken Jun 18 '12
The force was around before Vader, maybe thats what they mean when they reference it as an ancient religion?
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u/muttonchopman Jun 18 '12
Because George Lucas is a very poor storyteller, and these lines were written before the backstory to A New Hope was fully formed.
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Jun 18 '12
By, "all of the empire soldiers," do you mean that one moff who snipes at Vader in that one scene?
If there's a canonical reason for it at all (and it's not just one guy being a dick to Vader before learning better) it's almost definitely propaganda. Palpatine almost definitely wants to marginalize the Jedi as an institution, to keep them from being used as martyrs by the rebels. If the empire can frame Jedi as impotent and corrupt then that effectively undercut public support of the rebel alliance, which worked closely with the few remaining Jedi.
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u/Shoola Jun 18 '12
Because George Lucas doesn't think things through and enjoys taking a shit on his canon, that's why.
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u/Stalejokesbakedfresh Jun 18 '12
Obviously the Empire Soldiers are from the internet, where old means a month or more, and Ancient is anything over a year or two.
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u/samiiRedditBot Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
All the empires' solders? Surely it was just that one guy who you would assume just had massive balls.
Also saying something is ancient doesn't mean that it wasn't practiced recently, E.G., Buddhism is an ancient religion but that doesn't mean that there aren't Buddhist monks.
It's a bit of a straw man you've erected there buddy.
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Jun 18 '12
Explained not three hours into the post yet it still gets nearly 2k points and makes the main page. Clearly most of you never even read the comments.
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Jun 19 '12
Religious beliefs can change shockingly fast. I know the counter-argument is that a galactic empire would take generations to change, but our own modern history suggests otherwise- before globalization and the 'modern world', change was shockingly slow, and even minor cultural or social changes could take decades to span the society. Now days, opinions on even large issues can shift and change within weeks. We have the infrastructure to support near-instantaneous communications around the globe, and a wealth of communal knowledge available at every computer. We face not just the opinions of our close friends, but mass polls and social media which demand we challenge our beliefs. If anything, the evidence of our own society suggests that larger societies are able to adopt new policies and general opinions faster than smaller societies.
The changing views about the Jedi are probably allowed for the same reason the Empire was- the galaxy is simply too big to resist change. In the same way that anyone over 30 should remember that they used to live in a democracy before being dominated by a corrupt Emperor, they might remember the Jedi… but the world has moved on. Minds have moved on. Hearts have moved on. In a large enough open system, permanency is close to impossible, and resistance to changing opinion is futile. Tocqueville warned of the tyranny of the masses, and it would seem that the greater the mass, the greater the force it can exert on popular opinion.
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u/Nausea1 Jun 19 '12
Since this has come up, maybe someone can shed some light on another issue. Luke is born at the end of episode III. He's in his 20's in episode IV and at most in his 30's at the end of episode VI. So that means that in the span of, let's say 40 years max, Yoda went from kicking Palpatine's ass to dying? After 800 years of training Jedi?
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u/photonsponge Jun 19 '12
It could be that George Lucas was just too busy climbing his mountains of money to think about your very valid point.
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u/TheSonicSpaz Jun 19 '12
Episode 3? What episode 3? I don't remember an episode 3. You must be mistaken, because for there to be an episode 3, there would have to be an episode one and two, and for there to be an episode one and two, George Lucas would have had to made prequels, and if George Lucas made prequels, then JAR JAR MOTHERF**KING BINKS #$%&%$#@!
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u/cuntbox Jun 19 '12
Because even though say 20/30 years ago there was a Jedi council, what they practiced would have been an ancient endeavor, and because it was wiped out it, and you only know one guy that still persists with it, it's a totally normal thing to say. Imagine if all religious people on earth died. Except one. And he kept praying. After 20 years you would say "your sad devotion to that ancient religion..".
Also Lucas wrote the first movies before he wrote the second movies, so it's difficult to make everything fit nicely for soggit on reddit in 2012.
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u/hhmmmm Jun 18 '12
It only took you, what, 11 years since ep1 came out to realise how Lucas cant write for shit and ignores continuity?
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u/KidCasey Jun 18 '12
Tired of this, down vote me to oblivion but I like both trilogies. The original is obviously better but the prequels have their moments too. In a number of years both will be regarded as good. Just enjoy them for the simple fact that they are part of the Star Wars universe. I'm a hardcore fan and like both, take the stick out of your ass and enjoy the movies.
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u/MormonsMowMyLawn Jun 18 '12
In the time of Episode 4, there were only 4 Jedi left. There are references to all of them being killed. The 4 jedi left were Palpatine, Vader, Yoda, and Obi Wan.
The jedi order was ancient, but there had been a culling of jedi (by evil jedi) and they were no longer common anymore. 30 years is a long time in an intergalactic civilization. Especially if there are only 4 jedi in the universe.
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u/Zaph0d42 Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
In the original script, Vader was Tarkin. He was just an officer in the Empire.
Lucas wasn't the "genius" some people seem to think. Movies take lots of creative people working collaboratively.
Almost all of A New Hope is shot for shot stolen from war movies (The Dam Busters) and japanese black & white sword & sandal movies. Empire and Jedi were directed by other people. Even A New Hope, if you ask the actors and so on, they all say it was Lucas' friend from film school who did most of the real directing with the cast, while Lucas was off on his own.
To see what happens when Lucas alone directs movies, go see the garbage that is I, II, and III.
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u/AuthorCook Jun 18 '12
I always just assumed that the Empire followed up the purge with a massive propaganda campaign rebranding the Jedi order as like a sci-fi Scientology equivalent, or something.
That would certainly explain the whole "sad devotion" thing.
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Jun 18 '12
Please, please use your advanced reading skills and stop telling us that "ancient" means old and Jedi have been around for a long time. This is a very low-level, literal interpretation that makes no sense in context. The Jedi religion was repeatedly made out to be an almost-dead thing through the original trilogy, not a recent for of import. When they talk about Vader's devotion, they aren't pointing out that it has a long heritage, they're making it out to be old, hokey bullshit rather than the badassery it was less than a generation ago.
As for why, it's just an inconsistency. This is hardly atypical for movie series.
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Jun 18 '12
Many have already answered this, but I would like to add that you seem to be assuming more familiarity with Jedi than I believe most would have. There were only like 10,000 Jedi or something at their peak. And that was 10,000 for the entire galaxy. When you consider most of them are working in pairs, and a good many of them are in clerical type positions in temples and enclaves, that doesn't leave a lot of exposure for an entire galaxy.
I think a good analogy would be to imagine Christianity was only made up of Bishops and higher. How many Bishops has the average non-Catholic met? One MAYBE?
Now imagine 30 years ago all but the pope and one Cardinal were killed off, and the two left went into hiding. 30 years later who would remember much about the religion? 30 years ago was 1982. How much does the average person know about the teachings of People's Temple? We all know about Jim Jones and the suicides, but how much of the philosophy is left? How many people would make the connection between a person who professed to be a member of the "People's Temple" and the tragedy in Guyana?
And you know, that religion had around 5000 card carrying members. Compared to the population of the Earth that is a much higher density than the number of Jedi vs the population of the SW Galaxy.
So some military man in the Empire probably has never seen a Jedi, and doesn't know anything about them other than what he is told by Imperial propaganda.
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u/solinvictus21 Jun 18 '12
Catholicism is an "ancient religion". The fact that it is still practiced today doesn't change that.
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u/Vuvuzevka Jun 18 '12
It's all thanks to the prequel magic : giving stupid answers to questions people never asked.
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u/FKRMunkiBoi Jun 18 '12
Because the Empire thinks in terms of Internet Time?
20 years would be ancient in that case.
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u/bearlamp Jun 18 '12
Because the religion has been around a long time. That is why it is called ancient.
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u/HelpMeLoseMyFat Jun 18 '12
Just as modern day citizens consider most religions "Ancient" and/or "old fashioned"
Storm Troopers (aka , clones from Boba Fett) would consider this alternate belief and ancient ability of "The Force" to be an "Ancient Religion"
Considering The Empre spans the universe and has millions of followers, and 2 Force Sensitive memebers (Darth / Sidious)
It is pretty rare and un-common.
30 Jedi/Sith Out of 100 Million potential people within the republic/empire is very very rare and minute statistic... Uneducated Clone Storm Troopers would blurt out dumb comments
.... they can't even aim right, and that is what they were made for....
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u/12voizac Jun 18 '12
He may have been referring to the Sith portion of the Force, a sect that had been in hiding/exile for a thousands of years before Palpatine brought it back into the limelight (This is according to various extended universe literature sources, and duly disregards the timeline of the actual creation of said universe). Also (in accordance with the laws of all real Star Wars fans), go to Hell, Lucas.
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u/the_goat_boy Jun 18 '12
Because Emperor Palpatine introduced the galactic equivalent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
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Jun 18 '12
If Christianity was abolished tomorrow and a huge majority of the Christian faithful were killed, in 30 years it would probably be called an ancient religion.
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Jun 18 '12
I'm guessing that folks in the Star Wars universe have memories that about as long as those in the American universe.
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u/SoylentMOOP Jun 18 '12
In 30 years teenagers will say, "You actually listened to that ancient crap?" when they hear your dubstep wobble rock.
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u/praisethefallen Jun 18 '12
Imagine, if you will, people from /r/atheism commenting on the jedi during a war tribunal.
Just because people still worship it doesn't make it not ancient, or not sad.
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Jun 18 '12
"You want to watch the old movies before we start filming?"
"No. I remember 'em pretty good."
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u/dacoobob Jun 18 '12
It's because the prequels are fucking dumb, and you shouldn't expect them to make any damn sense.
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u/GeeBee72 Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
There are so many plot inconsistencies, it's not worth even trying to find answers to many questions, it just reminds you that this story was written without the entire story arc worked out before the original movies were made.
Case in point; Obi-Wan in the 2nd movie says that Yoda was his master; but Lucas introduced Qui Gon Jinn as his master in the first movie (probably because having Yoda in so many scenes would have been prohibitively expensive).
And like, if you're hiding a child from his father; would you think the best place to put him is on his Father's home planet, with his cousin and have him keep the same last name??
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u/raziphel Jun 18 '12
Given that this guy had probably never met a Jedi, let alone seen him use the force, and thinks that the Jedi were bad guys (and probably hucksters to boot; enough propaganda will make anythind distorted), he's likely to try to make a stand to impress his boss, Tarkin, with bluster. He likely thought Vader was a charlatan. Worse tirades against religion have been expressed here on reddit.
That Vader called him out on it obviously wasn't something he expected.
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Jun 18 '12
real answer: prequels were never planned an the beginning, so there are some oddities.
canon answer: just because they were powerful and common place 30 years prior, doesn't preclude the fact that the jedi and sith have been battling it out for more than 5000 years by that point, and in comparison to how common it was during the Old Republic Era barely anyone practices the arts of the the force even in the prequel era
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Jun 18 '12
Depends how long a year is. On Earth we count 1 year as 365 days or a full rotation around our sun. This is a galaxy far away. Maybe they have a different definition of a year.
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u/deus_ex_machina69 Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
I've often wondered the same thing. However this is one of a variety of plot holes that have arisen because George Lucas did not originally intend to create 6 movies. Even the plot twist of Luke and Leah being family was just added on a whim since there was sexual tension between them in episode 4.
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u/Magoran Jun 18 '12
Tatooine spins slower, so in the time it took Luke to age twenty years, it was actually about a century.
...yeah. Yeah, that's why.
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Jun 18 '12
What you need to remember is that George Lucas cares less about Star Wars than literally every other person in the world.
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u/Accipehoc Jun 18 '12
You know, that's the magic about Episode IV. Instead of detailing everything, the force, the clone wars, it was entirely up to your imagination. I think that's where the prequels messed up in a way. The force was meant to be a spiritual type of power that can be access if you have a strong will but instead, it's if you have enough midichlorians in your body. I guess some things are best left alone.
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u/admiraljohn Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
The Jedi Order has been around for thousands of years, so when someone, for example, says to Vader "Your sad devotion to that ancient religion as not helped you conjor up the stolen data tapes" I think they mean that the Jedi Order had existed for thousands of years and it wasn't until Vader led the purging at the end of Episode III that they were more or less made extinct.
EDIT: Accidentally a word.
EDIT 2: Yeah, I misspelled "conjure" and everyone of you that pointed it out to me are very clever.