Star Wars/Headscratchers

This page now has the following archives : 2010


 * In ANH, why is Han Solo on Tatooine? When I first saw the film, I assumed he was hiding out on this backwater planet in order to avoid the intergalactic crime lord that he'd pissed off so much he was sending bounty hunters after him. Imagine my surprise, on seeing ROTJ, when it turned out that Jabba actually resided on Tatooine. It's not as if Han has gone there to apologise or offer compensation for the cargo he dumped. He's simply whiling away the hours in a dingy cantina. He's not even surprised when Greedo shows up to threaten him, so he obviously knew he was in trouble. It could be likened to someone ripping off the Vegas mob, then coming back to town to play the slots.
 * Tatooine is a whole planet, and Jabba is just one mob boss not some all-seeing overlord. Han probably expected to go unnoticed. As for what he was doing, he was looking for work - a wretched hive of scum and villainy probably has need for smugglers, it's also possible that he had recently taken a shipment to Tatooine.
 * It's more like someone ripping off a Vegas mob, then hanging out in Reno.
 * Han was quite capable of making another deal with Jabba in the first movie and the expanded universe suggests that Greedo was more a sign of Jabba's irritation than any real grudge.
 * Note that in the special edition (which only had a CG Jabba added in, the content wasn't changed), Jabba's displeasure at Han killing Greedo could be called "mild" at its most extreme. Clearly there's some amount of "sending a mercenary that hates you as a reminder of your debt is just standard practice" going on.


 * In Return of the Jedi how come Boba Fett didn't recognize Lando?
 * Lando had a mask on.

"Obi-Wan: That boy is our last hope. Yoda: No. There is another."
 * Why didn't the soldiers fire on the pod in ANH despite knowing that there could be droids
 * Presumably they didn't think that if there were droids, they'd be worth shooting at. I doubt the guys at the guns new yet that the Death Star plans had been jettisoned from the blockade runner.
 * The commanding officer specifically told the gunner to let it go as there were no life forms detected and it had probably short-circuited.
 * One would think that that would make it even more eligible for target practice...
 * Formal militaries generally don't act like a bunch of rednecks out on a drive. "Hey Jim-Bob, betcher I can nail that thar coke can from here!"
 * Also, when your boss kills people for making the wrong decision, the only safe thing to do is to avoid making decisions as much as you can.
 * Why couldn't the Force tell Vader that the presence he felt was children (Jaina did it with Allana in Invincible.)
 * "The Force is strong in this one," he says of Luke in the first film, even without meeting him in the flesh. Wouldn't it stand to reason Leia would show up on his radar in a similar way? More evidence that the revelation that Luke and Leia are siblings is an Ass Pull.
 * Vader could pick up on Luke because Luke was using the Force- there's no indication that he was at all aware of that one particular X-wing pilot until Luke started using the Force to guide him rather than his computer. Leia had no idea she was even Force-sensitive until Luke told her and certainly never used her powers in Vader's presence.
 * The out of universe reason is that despite what he may claim now, George Lucas pulled "Leia is Luke's sister" out of his ass in movie three.
 * Incorrect - Lucas pulled it out of his ass in movie two. Remember the dialogue between Obi-Wan and Yoda as Luke is leaving Dagobah to go to Cloud City:


 * Why wasn't Luke more upset about the death of his Aunt and Uncle?
 * People react to tragedy differently. Some break down into tears, some enter Heroic BSOD, and others get really pissed off. Luke was in the "get pissed off" group. Revenge was his motivation to defeat the Empire, until he meets Yoda and learns to be a Jedi.
 * In the Radio version C-3PO implies that Luke is weeping when he returns to Obi-Wan, but it's never stated explicitly.
 * Cynical explanation: Luke hated living with his aunt and uncle. Their deaths left him Conveniently an Orphan, so he was free to go travelling the galaxy with Obi-Wan.
 * Even if he'd hated them both, seeing their burned bodies ought to have at least merited a grimace of visceral revulsion. He was a naive young mechanic on a small farm that didn't appear to include livestock, so he shouldn't have been particularly blase about gore.
 * Remember that Luke lives in an area that has been getting regular Sandpeople raids for decades. This is very likely not the first time he's driven up to a burned-out farm settlement to find the inhabitants dead, just the first time it's happened to him.
 * People are so ridiculous about this stuff. They claim Luke clearly didn't love his adoptive parents or his friend because neither sparked thirty minutes of onscreen wailing and rending his garments, but call him an idiot for shouting "NO!" when his mentor is literally killed in front of him.


 * Why no air support at Hoth? Couldn't the Empire have just sent down fighters to help the walkers?
 * Planetary shield around the base.
 * The Rebels mention that the speeders had to be modified to work in the cold of Hoth, so it's likely the Empire simply didn't do the same for their fighters. Alternatively, they were holding the fighters in reserve to take on whatever fighter escorts the escaping rebel ships had.
 * If you take five minutes to consider the strategic outlook of the war and the tactical situation of the specific battle, it becomes obvious that in any interstellar war between space-faring militaries/civilisations (that is, assuming neither party has access to some kind of planet-to-planet teleportation technology), maintaining naval supremacy above a targeted planet would almost always assume a higher priority of importance than any form of ground assault. Ships sitting in orbit could either bombard the co-ordinates of the rebel base or maintain a blockade until more Imperial reinforcements arrive (or both). It makes sense to concentrate every vessel capable of space-flight above orbit, since the rebels have to get past them sooner or later. Remember that the reason the ground assault was really necessary was purely to destroy the shields of the base. Its extraordinarily unlikely that a fleet's worth of ground assault units wouldn't be able to manage that, but even if they didn't... so what? The rebels have to leave as quickly as possible, or the Imperial presence will just get stronger and stronger until escape is impossible. The argument could be made that the Empire needed a stronger assault force on the base because they also needed to take out that ion cannon, but firstly to my best recollection the Imperial force didn't know they had one until it opened fire (and therefore its a hindsight observation), and secondly it gives the rebels a much better chance at dividing and conquering their enemies.
 * A better question still: why didn't the Empire send some of those fast, agile ground assault vehicles from the prequels, rather than slow and cumbersome mechanical camels?
 * Possibly because they didn't handle well over ice or thick snow. The walkers might be ponderous but can ignore any terrain difficulty short of 'the ground can't hold up my weight'. Wheeled or tracked vehicles, maybe less so.
 * Sorry if this has been asked already, but why didn't Obi-Wan Mercy Kill Anakin after cutting off his legs and watching him catch on fire? Wouldn't that have been the compassionate thing to do, instead of screaming "You were my brother! I loved you!" and running away to leave him to die in agony? Are the Jedi against euthanasia? Did Obi-Wan want him to suffer? Or was it that he just could not bring himself to wield the killing blow (though of that's the case, he's kinda a hypocrite.)
 * In the novel it wss explained, that at that exact moment the Emperor was approaching, and Obi didn't have time to go down the slope and stab Ani. Sure, he could've Force Pushed the bastard into lava or hurled the sword at him, but he also fancies that yes, he cannot bring himself up to killing a defenceless enemy.
 * Why did the Executor start to plummet after the bridge went out? Wasn't there a backup bridge?
 * The most common theory (and a common explanation in the EU) is that the Death Star was putting out a strong artificial gravitational field in order to keep the Rebel Fleet from escaping into hyperspace. When the Executor's bridge was taken out, the ship (which was fairly close to the Death Star) got caught in its massive gravity well and pulled in before any backup controls could take hold.
 * The death star wouldn't even need an artificial gravitational field, it's the size of a small moon, it would have gravity all on it's own.
 * The Death Star II is about the size of Ceres, and should thus have a weak field of about 0.03g, assuming equivalent mass. ...amusingly, by definition, the Death Star II is less the size of a "small moon" and more a dwarf planet! Bring that up to Han Solo! "It's heading for that small moon!" "That's No Moon. It's a dwarf planet." "Actually, it's a space station."
 * Another possibility is that the Executor was in the middle of a maneuver that involved turning in that direction, and the pilot was killed before he could complete the maneuver and turn back away from the Death Star. A third possibility is that the pilot yanked on the controls in any old direction in order to try to shift the ship so that Arvel Crynyd's A-wing wouldn't crash into the bridge and kill them all.


 * Why is Darth Bane so utterly obsessed with the idea of betrayal to the point of being an obvious hypocrite? He rages against Kaan for replacing rampant individualism with some semblance of unity and a greater purpose, but in fact desires to be killed by a stronger apprentice for a greater purpose rather than his own gain? What's the difference, apart from Kaan's methods not leading to stupid amounts of backstabbing that always bring down the Sith?
 * Because people who are so blinded by their principles that they don't notice their own hypocrisy never exist...
 * He raged against Kaan because Kaan's Brotherhood was centred on a united organisation (with some Sith complaining that they had become a "dark parody" of the Jedi they so hated), but by the Sith's very nature, they would fight amongst themselves, make groups of weak Sith to take down strong ones then let that group degenerate and weaken the Order. Bane stopped this by only having two Sith.


 * In the original Star Wars, why does Obi-Wan let Vader kill him so easily? Okay, he becomes a ghost, so he it's not like he's completely gone, but wouldn't it have been better if he'd been around longer as a human to mentor Luke and explain him things? (As a ghost he seems to contact Luke only rarely.) I guess it's possible the lightsaber duel with Vader was such that he couldn't escape it, and he realized Vader was gonna win eventually... But even in that case, couldn't he at least have tried to fight longer to buy the heroes more time before Vader kills him? Now he just puts his saber down and lets Vader hit him. I know the real reason for Obi-Wan's death is that Alec Guinness didn't want to do any more Star Wars movies, but couldn't Lucas at least have written him a death scene that makes more sense?
 * Look where Obi-Wan is, where Luke and the rest are, and what's between them: A couple dozen storm troopers, a big shaft, and Darth freakin' Vader. Obi-Wan couldn't have disengaged from Vader and rejoined Luke and the others without taking up considerably more time, which would risk Luke and the others being captured and killed. He knew that Luke wouldn't leave without him if he was alive, so he made the choice to let himself die so he didn't delay their escape.
 * Sir Alec Guinness was actually pretty pissed when he learned that his character would die. He was definitely looking for a bigger role than "Go to the Dagobah system."
 * I remember hearing a rumor a long time ago about Obi-Wan dying because the actor didn't think that the movies would be successful and came back to play Obi-Wan's Force Ghost when he found out how popular the first one was, guess that wasn't true. Anyway Obi-Wan was clearly in an unwinnable situation given Vader and Stormtroopers being on both sides, and besides Vader would have stopped Obi-Wan if he tried to escape NO ONE was going to prevent him from getting his payback for what happened on Mustafar.
 * Not true: Sir Alec Guinness was about the only person working on the film who believed it would be a success, which is why he negotiated to be paid a percentage of the takings rather than a flat fee. He's said in interviews that it was his idea to kill off Obi-Wan Kenobi (which wasn't in the first version of the script); he said "I just couldn't go on speaking those bloody awful, banal lines. I'd had enough of the mumbo jumbo."
 * He wanted Luke to hate Darth Vader by letting the boy see his mentor die at Vader's hands. This would go along with the general effort to keep Luke from learning of his relationship to Vader, or to keep him from being tempted to join Vader or risk everything on an attempt to redeem him.
 * According to George Lucas, when he split his original story into a trilogy there was simply nothing Obi-Wan could do after fighting Vader without taking over the lead role from Luke. Of course, Lucas then had to invent a new tutor for Luke in The Empire Strikes Back, hence Yoda.
 * He did it to make a distraction so the others could escape (the reason he went to fight Vader in full view of the docking bay in the first place). He decides to let Vader kill him because he knows he's going to die soon anyway and it was a convenient way to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence so he could go on being Luke's mentor as a Force ghost. Of course Luke, being an idiot, ruins his mentor's sacrifice by letting out a Big No that attracts all of the stormtroopers' attention.


 * In Return of the Jedi, when Han Solo is leading the team of crack commandos who are heavily camouflaged and very stealthy, why do they bring along a shiny brass robot? No good reason, that's why.
 * They were divinely influenced by C-3PO to bring him to his worshipers, the Ewoks. Or maybe he was previously programmed as an assassin droid and the memories resurfaced? Though more likely is the writers wanted the C-3PO-as-Ewok-god plot point and either forgot or didn't care to work backwards from there to justify him tagging along.
 * Someone needs to translate for R2. The rest of the team doesn't seem terribly happy to be bringing him along anyway.
 * Perhaps they brought him along to translate for the Ewoks and convert them to their side, the Rebels being Genre Savvy and knowing that Underdogs Never Lose. A better question would be: why do they need a full-sized android to be their translator in the first place? Yes, he would be useful for diplomatic functions where they need a life-size representative (like Jabba's palace) but surely there's a handheld translator out there somewhere. Luke's X-Wing has a translator for R2.
 * Yes, Luke's X-wing has a translator, but they probably all do. The droid's like a co-pilot, and they speak a specific artificial language, which would be easy to translate back to Basic. Completely foreign languages ensconced in an otherwise-isolated culture...not so much.
 * Possibly they were planning to use 3PO as a distraction for the storm troopers, in which case his shininess would actually be an advantage. They didn't say this out loud because they knew he'd freak out if he knew their intentions, and they never did so because that Ewok who stole the hoverbike stepped up and did it first.


 * Why, in the thousands of years they had available, did the Republic and/or Jedi never think to get around to purging important Sith planets, like Korriban, from orbit? I mean, they serve no function other than to equip the Sith Lord of the day with some Ancient Knowledge o' Evilness. And just leaving them utterly unguarded, repeatedly? What on earth were these guys thinking?
 * They probably did sweep through each time and destroyed most of the Sith Holocrons, its just that they always missed one or two that were really well hidden. As for why no Base Delta Zero... of the dark side, such action is. Harm many innocent life forms with no dark side association living around the temples, it will.
 * The Republic did sweep through Korriban after Malak's army was defeated, and they found that without strong leadership the Sith had turned on each other and all of them were already dead. It's just that Sith architecture is easily capable of shedding anything up to and beyond orbital bombardment without much trouble, and if they want to confirm that everything has been destroyed, they have to send guys down there to check it out - and sending troops onto a planet that is dripping with The Dark Side is a bad idea.
 * Planets are large places. Unless you have a Death Star handy, in order to make sure you purged the entire planet through orbital bombardment, you would by necessity have to spend months or perhaps even years in a systematic shower of battery fire. And that's just to make sure you've covered the entire surface of the planet. In order to do the same for the underground, or even just to make sure you succeeded, you'd end up having to send millions of ground personnel treasure hunting. Its just not feasible. I don't see how you'd ever find politicians or high-ranking military figures who would agree that that was an appropriate use of time and resources. And that's not even considering the ethical question of whether its fair to be killing off all the life (whether sentient or otherwise) that populates the place.
 * The Republic DID bomb the hell out of Korriban after the Great Hyperspace War. It backfired: the survivors then saw the Republic and the Jedi exclusively as mass-murderers and believed Vitiate's propaganda of gathering forces before the sweet revenge. Some took the propaganda to heart and were frantically afraid of starting the new war against the Jedi, fearing that in case of failure the Republic will kill them all.


 * Is it just me, or do all of the worlds in the Star Wars Universe not have countries? I mean, it's always just some ambassador of the country, or something like that. They don't seem to have like, multi-cultural worlds. Everyone has the same culture. It's just weird.
 * Probably a consequence of only having one climate feature per planet. No climatic barriers to civilization expansion.
 * Also of note is that we know from Naboo that there are planets with vastly disparate civilizations sharing the world... and only one representative between them anyway. Planets with multiple countries probably compromise and agree on their common representative to Coruscant; Mass Effect has the best available detailing of how something like that would happen with modern Earth as an example.
 * It's federalism. Just as Alabama doesn't send its own ambassador to the United Nations, the various countries on any given world get together to elect a representative to the Galactic Senate. Given the large number of Senators in evidence under the current system, allowing one representative from each country of each planet would be terribly unwieldy.
 * Sometimes they do have countries, or at least independent political powers sharing a world. Uniting the Gungans and Naboo Humans to get over their mutual dislike was a major plot point in The Phantom Menace.
 * Simple: advanced technology means a high level of globalization and also allows terraforming, which is why developed planets have a single culture and enviroment. This may also explain why black and Asian people are so rare in the Star Wars universe.
 * When humanity gains space travel and the ability to colonize new planets the territorial divisions on the homeworld become irrelevant. With the emergence new "others" (to antagonize with) the different competing factions unite under one planetary representative system.


 * Why is knowledge of the Force referred to as a religion? For one, it's been scientifically proven, through the existence of Midi-Chlorians that it's not a religion, it's a science. Additionally, one of the main reasons religions are that, religions, is because there's no way to convince everyone. But the force...Vader uses the force on that guy, (Motti, I think?) basically proving that it's true....
 * I don't think this "basically proves that Jesus is real."
 * Knowledge of the Force isn't a religion. Using the Force and being a Jedi is the "religion". Also, I sorta resent the implication here that "religion" means "you can't prove it" or "not true."
 * Then you are just resenting grammar. "You can't prove it" is built in the very definition of faith... As for "not true," it's just a question of how credulous you are.
 * It's the simple premise that "religion=faith unsubstantiated by reason based on dogmatic tradition, science=testable and based on tradition of trial and error and records thereof." Jedi kinda sit on the fence--they're too based-on-what-can-be-proven-practical and substantiated by reason to fit real-world religious definitions, but far too dogmatic and spiritual about it to be scientists.
 * It may be true in real life that there is no real-world evidence for religion, but there is nothing inherent about the concept that says this needs to be the case. Plenty of religions have myths about their gods or prophets performing miracles, so if you accept that the mythology is true (which it clearly is in the case of the Force) then there must have been a time when real-world evidence was readily available and there is no reason in principle why the gods couldn't start up again.
 * The Force is a real, natural, observable and provable phenomenon in Star Wars, yes. But the Jedi and the Sith both have a bunch of dogmatic beliefs about it and how it should be used and how to live life and stuff, and that pretty much makes their practices religious; Jedi teachings in particular resemble Buddhism. So it's like sun worship or something, where the sun is real, but the rituals and adoration are religious.
 * I would agree with the above. The more precise comparison is "totemic religion" of the sort discussed by Durkheim in the Elementary Forms of A Religious Life. If we understand religion as "A system of collective representations, accepted by a moral community (Durkheim calles this a Church), that seeks to provide some kind of coherent framework for understanding what's around us," then Jedi is definitely a religion. The point is that religion is not defined by the presence of the supernatural.
 * Or to put it another way: certain individuals have the potential to develop telekinetic and psychic abilities, along with some enhanced physical abilities. That much is certain. Whether that ability translates to an "all powerful Force controlling everything," as Han puts it, that's divided between the light and The Dark Side in a cosmic struggle for dominance over the galaxy is another matter. And since the Jedi are so few compared to the galaxy's population, it's easy to imagine that the vast majority of people have never seen one, and dismiss the stories of their Force powers as just overblown urban legends.
 * Also considering that after the Purge there were only two known Force users, both of whom were in hiding and both victims of a government conspiracy, it makes a lot of sense. Palpatine probably spread a lot of misleading propaganda about the Jedi during the Purge too.
 * Only people who are ignorant of the Force (like Han and the Imperial officer who Vader chokes) call it a religion. (Well, and Tarkin does, but he seems to genuinely respect Vader.) Jedi themselves or people who know them well never do.
 * Really? "You thought that the corrupted remnants of the Republic, the machines spawned by technology that Revan led into battle were the Sith? You are wrong. The Sith is a belief. And its empire, the true Sith Empire, rules elsewhere."


 * Why does Palpatine need Anakin? By the beginning of RotS, he already has the power to destroy the Jedi Order and become Emperor. Yet he spends a lot of time and takes huge risks (he could certainly have died when Grievous's ship crashed on Coruscant) in order to turn Anakin to the Dark Side. For what purpose? Anakin leads the attack against the Jedi Temple and slaughters the leaders of the Separatists, but Palpatine could undoubtedly have accomplished these things without him. Even the novelization, which usually makes more sense than the movie, doesn't really explore the matter: it's vaguely suggested that Anakin would publicly denounce the Jedi Order as corrupt, but that certainly doesn't happen and it certainly doesn't change anything. There's also the fact that Palpatine expects Anakin to become more powerful than himself... and thus very likely to murder and replace him. In short, corrupting Anakin simply has more cons than pros. One possible and interesting explanation would be that Palpatine is doing this selflessly, for the good of the Sith: his main goal would not be to rule the galaxy, but to have a successor as powerful as possible. But I don't think such a thing is ever actually suggested.
 * He wanted Anakin on his side precisely because he was so powerful; it's probably safer in the long run to bring him to the dark side than let him continue to grow in power and possibly find/kill him. Palpatine wouldn't want to lead the attack anyways; besides being much more of a schemer in the prequels, it'd blow his cover as a Sith Lord. Finally, it's pretty much a Sith tradition to be a backstabbing cockbite; he probably expected him to try to off him at one point. Survival of the fittest s a key Sith trait, and if Palpatine couldn't hold onto his power, he didn't deserve it.
 * It is explained in Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader a novel that takes place immediately after the events of Revenge of the Sith that Palpatine wants Vader to reach his full potential, even to Palpatine's own peril. Palpatine believes that the limitations on Vader's power are not a result of his injuries but rather because he still has a remnant of Anakin's goodness left in him, because if the Force was a matter of the will and not of the flesh then Vader would be able to reach his potential if he could will himself to forget about his past. Palpatine wants Vader to reach his full potential so that The Dark Side as a whole can become far more powerful than ever before, he believes that with Vader's help true immortality and ultimate power can be achieved, so in the long run he wants Vader and himself to be the final two Sith Lords in history.
 * It's also suggested during his duel with Yoda: "[my new apprentice] will become more powerful than either of us." On some level, it seems that Palpatine really does hold to the Sith philosophy, and chose Vader not just for any strategic reason but because he's the strongest Force-user in the galaxy and has the potential to be an even stronger Sith Lord than himself.
 * Yeah, The Dark Side is the only thing Palpatine cares about more than himself. He wants what's good for the dark side of the Force much more than what's good for himself or the galaxy. But more than anything it's a great deal easier for him to successfully eradicate the Jedi if he has a man on the inside. Anakin would have known what the ideal time and entrance would be for the clone troopers to invade the temple, and he would have made their getting through whatever security measures existed a great deal quicker and easier. Not to mention that he would be intimately familiar with the layout of the Temple. For the invasion to be a successful sneak attack, too quick and extensive for anyone to get away from, the odds are much better if there's a Jedi involved. Finally, as strange as it sounds with all the grief, manipulation, and deception involved, Palpatine does seem to have a certain measure of genuine avuncular affection for Anakin. Note carefully the genuine horror when he says, "I sense Lord Vader is in danger," and the palpable relief when he finds that although he was too late to save Anakin the charbroiled fuck is still alive.
 * Also, one of Palpatine's greatest desires is to beat the Jedi. At everything. He preferred to leave many of the surviving Jedi alive to rub his victory in their faces, killing them only when doing so would further his other plans. He left the burned husk of the Jedi Temple alone for quite a while after Order 66 as a way of saying "I won, bitches." So when the Jedi have a Chosen One, he is going to steal that Chosen One. Just because he can. Just because it's one more way of showing he's better than the Jedi.
 * Even with all his power, Palpatine knows he's not immortal, and he's aging even before being deformed by his own Force lightning. It's likely that he doesn't want everything he accomplishes to be torn apart after his own death, even if ensuring it's not will entail finding a successor who may bump him off sooner than old age can.


 * "I haven't gone by the name of Obi-Wan since, oh, before you were born."
 * IV sets up that Obi-Wan's been using the Ben pseudonym before Luke's birth, while III seems to show that Obi-Wan's still called by his name even after the kid gets popped, albeit briefly, as he soon has to bring Luke to his home and then go into exile.
 * Same troper: Most people I know who've noticed this thought it was just a plot hole. How do I justify it? Simple, Obi is lying. After all, he'd have a whole lot more explaining to do had he told the truth and said "I haven't gone by the name of Obi-Wan since after you were born". What he actually says conceals the real story and sounds natural.
 * Maybe he just didn't remember when he'd last been called Obi-Wan, knowing only that it was a really long time ago. He's pretty old by this point.
 * He went by the name Obi-Wan for 38 years before Luke was born, and assuming that he started going by "Ben" after leaving for Tatooine, there were probably only a few days to a month before the name change, then nineteen years as Ben. Luke's birth is a pretty good cut off point, there's not really much point of saying "I haven't gone by that name since 16 days and three hours after you were born."
 * Right, he's not literally saying "I haven't gone by that name since before you were born", he's saying "I haven't gone by that name since before-you-were-born", using the phrase to describe the time period before Luke and Leia were born, when he was still called Obi-Wan. Luke's birth fell right on the dividing line between the Republic and the Empire, and the fall of the Jedi. Obi-Wan's former life and identity pretty much entirely fall under the "before Luke was born" side; that's all he meant.
 * And once again, I find myself wondering how it is that people can't recognize figures of speech and generalisations for what they are. Do you really expect everything anyone says to be the exact literal truth? If so, how in the flying hellfish do you communicate with other members of the species?
 * These are Star Wars fans we're talking about, dude. They'll analyze even the most insignificant things, regardless of how clearly unimportant they are to the casual viewer.
 * He says it like this: "I haven't heard that name since...oh, before you were born." The timing, the nonchalant tone, and the "oh" make it quite clear that he's answering off the top of his head and not bothering to remember the exact details. Pay attention to the delivery of the line the next time you watch the scene.
 * Exact Words. He went by Obi-Wan before Luke was born. He went by Ben immediately thereafter. Let's also assume that "Kenobi" is such a common name (let's say it's the galactic equivalent of "Smith", as "Antilles" seems to be) that nobody would notice.


 * Why didn't Darth Sidious Force Storm the Rebel base?
 * "Force Storms" are an Extended Universe phenomena that doesn't exist in the films (where Palpatine can do Force lightning, but that's about it).
 * Which Rebel Base? Throughout the whole trilogy, he's never anywhere near the bases we see.
 * This gets into the realm of, "Is the Expanded Universe canon?", sort of argument. In the Expanded Universe Palpatine showcases the claim that he is the most powerful Sith in Galactic history by creating something called Force Storms, which as the name implies are storms of pure Force energy that function like tornadoes that consume and destroy everything in their path. The most powerful display of this power was able to destroy an entire fleet of Star Ships, which brings up the question that if he could destroy space fleets then the Emperor should have been able to end the Galactic War with the Rebellion all by himself. If you don't acknowledge the EU then you don't have to ask this sort of question and can just say that even the Emperor can't take on Armies entirely by himself.
 * "This gets into the realm of, "Is the Expanded Universe canon?", sort of argument." Doesn't matter, since it isn't an argument at all. The EU is canon. Period. The end. Lucas and his representatives have been quite clear on this issue. Any element of the Expanded Universe that doesn't contradict the films and hasn't been retconned by a later EU work is canon with both the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy. Regarding the Force Storm issue, Sidious is not omniscient. He can't send a Force Storm against a Rebel base or Rebel fleet he doesn't know about. Force Storms are incredibly powerful but also incredibly difficult to create and even harder to control. They're not something you can just wish into being with a snap of a finger. Even Sidious himself once admitted that once summoned he could not fully control a Force Storm. If he can get the same job done with a more conventional fleet of ships, there's no reason not to.
 * Except that this is self-evidently untrue: way too many things, including many that are critical plot-points, in the Expanded Universe contradict what happened in the movies for this not to be an argument at all, regardless of what Lucas or his representatives say.
 * The most likely answer seems to be that he just considered the Rebellion too trivial to waste that much power on and/or mundane scheming against them was just more fun for him. He certainly doesn't take the Rebels seriously at all in Jedi, because he considers his plan airtight enough there's no way for them to be an actual threat.
 * Besides, Palpatine has to know roughly where to send his power--no use accidentally blowing up his own Death Star--and also, why waste effort on a small movement like that, when your biggest problem is probably (if he is cunning) be focusing on eradicating Starkiller, the guy who, oh yeah, started the Rebellion, nearly killed Vader and Sidious single-handedly, and blew up a Star Destroyer without even trying very hard? Who cares about a little group of miscreants?
 * On the other hand, if the Emperor can singlehandedly crush fleets of ships, one wouldn't expect Vader's officers to be so flippant about his "ancient religion" and the limitations of the power it grants.
 * Pretty sure that the Expanded Universe establishes that it wasn't widely known that the Emperor was a Force-user, and in any case, he rarely used his abilities to their flashiest extent, at least before his rebirth in Dark Empire. It's probable that even the officers aboard the Death Star didn't know the full extent of his power. (Taunting Vader, who does use his telekinesis at least both frequently and publicly, and is known to be both a Sith and an ex-Jedi, is still stupid).
 * It's also worth remembering that Palpatine typically doesn't use his Force abilities when simple deception and manipulation suffice. Which is more useful to him, personally? The lives and ships of his troops, or his facade as a crippled old man? The destruction of the original Death Star barely slowed him down, but Luke forgot Yoda's advice about underestimating the Emperor, to his peril.


 * Anyone else bothered with how completely nonchalant Luke is about Vader killing Biggs? He mourns Obi-Wan, a guy he barely knew up until a few hours ago, but they made it pretty clear Biggs was a fairly close friend of Luke yet Luke doesn't even acknowledge his death once he docks back on Yavin ever.
 * Post-battle euphoria, which is extremely common and documented. An enormous amount was riding on that battle, and the fact that not only did Luke survive but he dealt a crippling blow to the Empire in the process, plus the elation of everyone else around him would be enough to sweep him up, at least for a bit. The realistic emotional response to that kind of a victory is intense euphoria, as the soldier in question both comes down off the adrenaline and has the exhiliration of both survivng intense combat and winning a battle and being congratulated by his fellows. He's got time to mourn later.
 * Which I get... if he ever did mourn Biggs. The guy is never, ever brought up again. It makes for greater motivation to despise Vader in Empire Strikes Back but from the end of A New Hope, it's as if Luke's childhood friend and idol never existed.
 * How would Luke have any idea that it was Vader that did it?
 * Identifying which Imperial fighter shot Biggs down would be entirely possible; General Riekaan and the base staff were watching the entire fight on their sensors, and both Luke and Wedge were flying nearby and survived the battle (and more importantly their R2 units survived the battle, meaning their sensor logs survived the battle). That gets them which Imperial fighter shot down Biggs, and as its a unique prototype model identifying the pilot as Darth Vader is not a significant task for Rebel intelligence. (If nothing else, the man's IFF would have been broadcasting Vader's call sign for the entire fight.)
 * Why would he be mourning three years later, which is the next time we see him, if he's been part of a Rebellion that's seen death and chaos and violence and death and more death and also death? He mourned him in the intervening three years; it would make no sense for him to be torn up over it three years after he'd died, when countless others have died as well.
 * Well the wikia says "Although deeply saddened by the loss of his friend, Skywalker did not grieve over Darklighter, for he could still feel him through the Force."
 * Also, you only have so much screen time in a movie, and you need to consider the moods you want to create and sustain. Luke's mourning, we may safely presume, did happen, but it was off-screen.


 * Is it ever explained (even poorly) how exactly Cloud City is able to float? Is the atmosphere really that thin (which would mean, assuming they are human, Luke & co. would not be able to breathe outdoors)? Is there some kind of mystical device that creates lift without any visible heat or light being given off? Granted, even for a modern jet plane one has a hard time seeing the exhaust, but Luke was hanging under there for a little while and I sure didn't seen anything resembling a "thruster".
 * Antigravity is extremely common in the setting to keep things afloat.
 * Repulsors. Same way landspeeders float and starships can lift off the ground without any visible exhaust.
 * The center pole that hangs below the city is the repulsorlift that keeps everything afloat.
 * And the center pole is made out of the stuff that black boxes are made out of.
 * So, essentially, a Jedi did it
 * No, a Jedi did not do it. Pay attention. Cloud City is held up by repulsor force fields.
 * Oh, you're no fun.

"The emotion for Force-choking someone is "I hate you specifically so much I want you to die twice." The emotion for Force lightning, a far less precise and discriminatory use of the Dark Side, is "I'M SO MAD I'MA GONNA BREAK EVERYTHING URRRAAAGH". This explains why Darth Vader can't use it — not just that his cyborg body can't handle it, but he's also way too mopey and tormented inside to indulge in Palpatine's exultant break-everything gleeful rages. Palpatine smiles, cackles, expresses sheer exultant anti-joy at the pleasure of being evil * all the time* ; Vader, by contrast, never seems happy at all."
 * So why exactly do limbs sliced off by a lightsaber seem impossible to reattach? In any Star Wars story where a guy who had his arm or leg cut off by a lightsaber and survived to tell the tale they never simply go to the doctor and have them put it back on, they either clone a new one or get a robotic replacement. Now if we look at the movies on their own Luke's situation is understandable since his hand got cut off by Vader and it fell into an abyss that must have been miles long, but the right arm of Anakin Skywalker is cut off and is simply left there to rot when they could have picked it up and reattached it. The only explanation I can think of is that lightsabers being blades of super hot plasma cauterize wounds thus closing them and preventing blood loss and infection, and this no doubt would make reattaching nerves difficult since you have to open the sheared flesh of the stub and missing limb and then proceed to reattach what is left of the nerve endings. However arms that have been severed much more brutally have been successfully reattached in our world, and in fact an arm that has had its wound closed should be more viable for reattachment since germs can't enter any sort of open wound and compromise the surgery.
 * You've got about an inch or so missing from the kerf of the blade, plus the layer of burnt flesh on each end of the cut. All of the "much more brutally" severed limbs still had all their bits, even if the larger chunks were merely hanging or needed to be completely reattached.
 * Actually, you can still re-attach a limb even with the missing inch or so. A friend of my family lost most of his left arm in a hay baling machine, it's been re-attached, whilst missing about four inches or so of it. If they can do it in real life, you'd think that they could in Star Wars. I guess its just to show us his slow descent into Darth Vader territory?
 * If you would lose several inches in length by reattaching the original, perhaps a cybernetic or vat-grown replacement would be preferable.
 * In the original trilogy especially, the tech may exist, but it's not necessarily available to the Rebellion. Even assuming Yoda could've retrieved Anakin's missing arm, however (not a given, when you remember that Dooku's fight with Yoda resulted in enough debris that Yoda had to abandon the fight to save Anakin and Obi-Wan), it's not like Yoda had dry ice with him. By the time Anakin could have received proper treatment, nerve damage would've been pretty severe. For a warrior like Anakin, the alternative of a prosthetic is pretty attractive.
 * In the SW universe, science has progressed far enough to the point that Luke's "artificial" hand is in every way as useful as a regular hand, if not more so. Therefore, from the medical practitioner's POV, what's the point to reattaching the original limb when it is much more dangerous and prone to infection? Granted, artificial limbs of Luke's caliber are likely prohibitively expensive for some, but it still makes more sense generally.
 * Simpler explanation for Anakin's situation, his arm was electrocuted during the later fight, or even crushed by some of the debris. Or maybe since they were on an alien planet, there wasn't an appropriate facility for it available to them.
 * It is widely explained in the EU that lighsabers cauterize flesh that they cut through. Simply put, the lighsaber burns and melts either side of the cut, causing 3rd degree burns and scar tissue formation. Perhaps it is too tedious a process to dig through all that mangled flesh and waste tissue in order to find the necessary nerve endings and other connection points. They probably figure it's easier to just work on the body portion and attach a robotic limb that will function a lot better than a reattached one.
 * Maybe limbs die before they can be transported with the victim to a medical facility. Besides, Artificial Limbs are just as good if not better, so why not?
 * It isn't impossible to reattach limbs cut off by lightsabers, just very difficult due to the whole cauterization issue. In the Young Jedi Knights series Tenel Ka loses an arm in a training accident when her lightsaber malfunctions. It's later stated that they might have been able to reattach it if her lightsaber hadn't exploded and destroyed her amputated arm.
 * If memory serves the only limb that could have been easily re-attached was Anakin's first lost arm. It seemed to be unharmed after being diced. Other than that we have some side issues for the rest. Both of his legs for certain, and likely his arm, were lost into liquid hot magma. Hard to salvage those. Luke had his hand cut off, and after that didn't it fall from the catwalk to hang out with Darth Maul?
 * Finally, remember that it has been calculated that the core of a lightsaber would have to be 2 million degrees Celsius to do what it does. Even though magnetic fields stop heat getting out except for the place where the blade is cutting, that's going to be about an inch either side melted and burned white hot, another inch cooler but still charred to ash, and another with third-degree burns, nerve damage etc. For a warrior such as Anakin, losing seven inches of his arm (one more for the width of the blade) when he could have one the right size which would work fine, is a no-brainer.
 * So why is it that Vader's robotic arms make it impossible for him to perform Force Lightning? The explanations I have heard is that if Vader were to generate it then it would short-circuit his arms and render them useless or that any lightning he generates would somehow reflect back on him and short-circuit his entire suit and cause him to suffocate to death without his iron lung functioning. The problem I have with the first is that it is quite possible to offer some form of protection against electrical pulses shorting out machinery, in our own world we have made EMP resistant technology so Vader should have something similar. The problem I have with the second is that a projectile shouldn't be reflecting back on you unless an opponent deflected it, beams of energy aren't like boomerangs, but the iron lung having to constantly keep Vader alive is understandably not capable of being reinforced with its already sensitive electronics so it being shorted out makes sense were he to be hit with it which is why he dies in Return of the Jedi.
 * I don't know of the movies themselves (remember, this is an ITJB page about the movies and the movies alone) ever establishing that he's incapable of Force lightning, but if he is then I think that's likelier to be due to the Emperor never teaching him than to anything involving his cybernetic condition. The master must reserve some tricks for himself lest the pupil learn too much.
 * Well the EU establishes that he can't, but from just a movie perspective the fact that we never see Vader use it seems to suggest there is something preventing him. Not that it really matters since Vader has 80% of the Emperor's strength and can do such amazing things as Force choking a guy on an entirely different space ship, he doesn't really need Force lightning but it would be nice if he could.
 * From the archives:


 * You didn't sense a bit of wry amusement at finding your lack of faith disturbing?
 * More specifically, the overwhelming majority of Vader's hate is directed at himself. He can Force-choke by hating someone specifically if he tries hard and focuses on them, but if he tried just letting all the hate out, since most of his hate is for himself rather than the world in general, he'd just electrocute himself, as opposed to Palpatine, who hates everything except himself.
 * If the emotion is "I'M SO MAD I'MA GONNA BREAK EVERYTHING URRRAAAGH", then how the hell can you aim it?
 * By pointing your fingers, obviously.
 * Is it necessarily your fingers? I haven't thought of that until now. It doesn't make any sense that The Force would just somehow gravitate to one particular spot on one's anatomy. Is it possible, for example, for a Sith to fire lightning out of his ass? Now that I'd like to see!
 * Chalk it up to Pstandard Psychic Pstance; from a mental/subconscious standpoint its much easier to aim something if you point at the target and from a visual standpoint it conveys the action much better than shooting it from you elbows or something.
 * It seems to head towards the nearest living being. At the end of Return of the Jedi, when Vader picks up Palpatine, the force lightning loops back on itself after leaving Palpatine's arms to strike Vader.
 * Amusingly, The Force Unleashed II shows that Vader can use Force lightning, and it appears to come out of his armpits.
 * No, he's redirecting the natural lightning found on Kamino. Vader can obviously redirect lightning or you could kill him with a single shock; he's subconsciously blocking all the time.
 * Since the Force comes from living things, you need living limbs to serve as conduits through which the lightning flows. If Vader tried to use Force lightning, it would have to go through from his stumps and through his cybernetic arms, which would screw them up.


 * Can anyone tell me why in ANH, Han's blaster is taking chunks out of what is supposed to be a concrete building, yet in RotJ, Leia takes a shot in the shoulder from a military grade carbine, but only needs a bandage rather than a prosthetic limb?
 * The shot actually hit the building next to her and the flashback wounded her. I remember seeing a gif of that somewhere.
 * Remember also that blasters are dial-a-yield. The Stormtroopers may have dialed back the power of their carbines to save ammunition, so instead of grenade-power detonations, they have much smaller blasts - enough to kill a lightly-armored Rebel trooper, for example, instead of needing to punch through heavy armor. It's also worth noting that Han's DL-44 blaster is heavily-modified for maximum firepower and energy output. In his line of work, he generally has time to squeeze off only a few shots, so he wants those shots to be brutally effective, i.e forcing Stormtroopers into cover while going for a quick getaway, or incinerating a bounty hunter instantly to the point where he can't shoot back.
 * Here's a detail of the SW universe often overlooked: the Stormtroopers we see are generally being used as cops. Border patrol officers at identification checkpoints, breaking up criminal rings such as Jawa droid theives and Corellian smugglers, investigating bar brawls, etc. Their main priority would be to bring back prisoners alive for trial, so yes, while intimidating, they'd tend to keep their blasters dialed down. Han is a smuggler when we first meet him. If somebody is chasing him, he wants that person DEAD-hence, as mentioned above, he's bought the most powerful pistol he could find.


 * So what are we supposed to assume the Star Wars universe is? A galaxy that had the human race be super advanced and interact with other alien species in the distant past before we crash-landed on Earth and went "stupid" for some unexplained reason, or is it set in the far future after the human race has finally become super advanced and is interacting with alien species at long last? The "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.", line seems to suggest that some sort of sentient species, perhaps humanity, is looking back on the overall Star Wars history and telling that story.
 * Actually...that's a pretty good answer...maybe the "people" who said "A long long time ago, in a galaxy far away" are the people telling the story, which WOULD be a long time ago, depending on how far into the future they are.
 * There's no real good explanation for it, but the most likely one is that some unknown, highly advanced alien civilization (and they do exist in the Star Wars Extended Universe) grabbed a bunch of human hunter-gatherers hundreds of thousands of years ago, and dumped them on a planet in the Star Wars galaxy. The other theory - that they coincidentally evolved to be exactly the same as Earth humans - is unfathomably preposterous by comparison.
 * Oh, you do not know what a can of Fan Wank you have just opened. Don't get a hardcore Star Wars fan started on whether primitive humans traveled from the Star Wars galaxy to Earth, or it's parallel evolution, or what.
 * There was a (cancelled) novel that would have answered this, and put THX 1138 in the Star Wars universe: Alien Exodus. On the 25th century Earth of THX 1138, three humans hijack a spaceship and flee the solar system, fall into a "cosmic whirlpool" that takes them back in time and to another galaxy, and land on Corellia. The humans we see in Star Wars are their descendants.
 * The Doylean answer, though: "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" is just a way of saying "What you're about to watch is a fairy tale set in space."
 * With a question like this, I think it is important for us to remember what the word fiction means...
 * I simply bring this up since in all the Star Wars stories I am familiar with no species, even humanity itself, seems to know where human beings came from.
 * ^^Star Wars is Science Fantasy, not Science Fiction. ^The wikia claims that Coruscant is the universally accepted answer, due to some parts of the sub-city dating back 100,000 years.
 * Okay and the difference is?
 * The fact that Star Wars rates an absolute 0 on the Mohs Scale, as compared to say 3 for Avatar, or 6 for 2001:A Space Odyssey. The Force is basically magic with another name, and the the starfighters seem to break about half the laws of physics, and that's only some of the worst of it.
 * Ok, but it wasn't necessary to bring up the distinction, the MST3K Mantra still applies...
 * Nonsense. Just because Star Wars uses softer science than some other franchises doesn't magically make it not scifi. It's science fiction. Accept it and move on with your life.
 * Space Fantasy is a subgenre of Science Fiction. The implication of the story being Space Fantasy, however, is that there is not and will never be an explanation for why humans magically exist in another galaxy thousands of years ago.
 * I always believed that Humans from our universe ( In a universe without fictional star wars) simply figured out the way to build spaceships that can travel long distances, and they all left the earth in mass quantities due to the planet becoming unstable. Somehow, they were sucked into the portal that brings them into the Star Wars universe. They all end up on different planets and crash. Since the technology for Hyperdrives is a few hundred/thousand/million years away, they are left to grow and evolve on their prospective planets. Some Humans stay humans, some evolve into the near human species due to the generic makeup of their native planets...
 * As I've explained already on the archives page, the movies are assuming the Infinite Monkeys rule and positing that in a universe as unknowably large as ours, there must exist somewhere out there a species unnoticeably different from our own, in worlds with a similar environment to ours. And yes, it is in the distant past, with civilizations older than our own which have had sufficient time to become more technologically advanced than ours because they started so much earlier.
 * Try this one on for size: who says that Earth humans have to be the forerunners of Star Wars humans? Maybe a colony ship was completely disabled, slipped through a wormhole, and crashed on Earth at some point in the distant past? Deprived of their technology and vast expanses of space away from any contact, they went native, and displaced the native hominids' place in evolutionary history. Thus, every instance of the Ancient Astronauts trope is simply a permutation of half-remembered snatches of the distant past. Sadly, there were no Force-sensitives on board; otherwise, our own history would be a lot more... colorful.
 * It's really very simple: at some point in the future of humanity on earth, we shall invent hyperdrive, allowing faster-than-light travel. All ftl travel though, by definition, involves time travel into the past. At short distances, i.e., within a single galaxy, this might not be such a big deal. But traveling to "a galaxy far, far away," at ftl speeds would inherently mean also time-traveling to "a long time ago."
 * I just had a massive Fridge Logic realisation. Near the end of Episode V when Lando and Leia save Luke and attempt to escape in hyperspace, it almost doesn't work and we are treated to Vader questioning the imperial admiral if he deactivated the Falcon's hyperdrive. I have a question about this decision. This was obviously done after Han and Leia had been captured, so why didn't Vader just ORDER THE FALCON DESTROYED SO THEY COULDN'T SOMEHOW ESCAPE? There was no need to keep up the appearance that the Falcon was still on the landing pad!
 * It's a movie, it doesn't have to make sense (and why they didn't just pull the main fuse and physically disable it is beyond me).
 * Deactivating the hyperdrive was a spur-of-the-moment decision made after Luke escaped from Vader. Vader suspected that they would go for the Falcon (easiest ship for them to use) and rescue Luke in it. Also, if the Falcon was destroyed or removed, Lando would have known about it. Its his city, after all. If the Falcon is intact, they're going to go for it, so they know which ship they've got Luke on, and can grab him while he's escaping. If they disabled the Falcon in an obvious manner, then Leia and Lando would end up using a different ship. Vader didn't order the hyperdrive disabled to prevent them from using it, he ordered it disabled because it was a trap.
 * But as Matt II mentioned, they could have "physically" disabled it from the inside, making it appear intact but unable to take-off. Problem solved.
 * If they had disabled it completely then they would have been unable to rescue Luke. Vader doesn't care about Leia and the others, but if they picked up Luke on a ship with no means of leaving the system it would make the real prize easy to catch.
 * Fair enough, that's logical, but wasn't there a way to completely wreck the hyperdrive? I know time was an issue, but couldn't they have removed certain vital components, making it impossible to repair?
 * Removing vital components would have been obvious; if Star Wars ships are anything like modern craft, the moment even a slight bit of gear is out of place a warning light flashes in the cockpit. Remove the components of one of the most vital systems on the ship, and you're going to get a big flashing trouble light on your consoles.
 * So remove the light too? And the flashing trouble with the trouble light light.
 * They've only got a limited amount of time to work, remember. Removing parts of the dashboard would have likely necessitated taking it apart, which they didn't have time for.
 * Oh, and how did Lobot know the hyperdrive have been sabotaged, and how did he know exactly what was wrong with it?
 * IIRC, Lobot intercepted the order from Vader and forwarded it to R2.


 * This is something that applies to the Star Wars universe as a whole, not just movies but even in the EU, is that if the Jedi are basically magical wizards with swords made of energy as an extension of that mystique then why do they always just stand there and let the villain spell out how they went about their dastardly plans? Sure the Sith probably have a degree of defense against Force powers since they can use the Force themselves but this doesn't explain why villains that can't use the Force aren't choked to death or blown away by a thought from the Jedi asking the Force to do that for them. And its even worse in regard to their use of lightsabers as once the lightsaber duels are won without the villain dying or they have the villain at their mercy before a duel could even take place they hesitate to just kill the bastard already because its "immoral". Why does no one think to just kill them already, and I don't care for "Well if the villain died like that then it wouldn't make for a good story.", nonsense I want an actual good reason for why this nonsense of letting the villain live keeps persisting, with a few notable exceptions. The Jedi shouldn't be using deadly weapons like lightsabers and attacking the villains with the Force if they didn't intend to kill them, how is what they were doing by fighting them in the first place any different from "striking them down in anger turning me to the Darkside." Isn't fighting in a war a negative thing from the get go? The whole thing is absurd what the Jedi are spouting.
 * Nobody ever said the Jedi weren't absurd. They're as human as anyone.
 * Does the concept of "minimum force" mean nothing now? Yes, they are using obviously lethal weaponry, but they generally attempt to use nonlethal force to take down their enemies - but they are prepared to use lethal force if necessary. Its the same thing basic principle that SWAT teams follow: they breach a building and take down criminals, and are armed with lethal weaponry that they use if necessary, but they always attempt to take suspects alive if possible. If a Jedi kills an opponent, it is because the Jedi has no other choice in the matter. So yes, if they take down an opponent and have them at their mercy, they hesitate to kill, because that enemy is defeated and they don't need to kill them now. Jedi defend and use minimal force, and never attack.
 * I understand that the Jedi are warriors of justice that fight for peace, order and security for the people of the galaxy and are supposed to have love for all life, even the lives of their enemies, but such mercy should have limits. Justice requires that bad actions receive retribution and that good actions are rewarded, everyone pays for what they do in time, the Sith should be no different. It annoys me that you have confirmed Sith or other assortments of villains that have caused wars or terrorist incidents that have claimed countless lives and yet the Jedi just go like, "OK he's bad but if I kill him I'll be bad too. So let's not do that." Cases like Darth Vader who never completely turned to the Dark Side and still had that little speck of goodness in them were redeemable, but men like Darth Sidious who despite all the evil he does has not an ounce of remorse in his soul should not be bothered with, mercy for a Jedi should only extend as far as how well the villain responds to reform. If the villain doesn't care then he should pay for his crimes, and besides if you were to imprison the bastard he would be executed anyway so why not kill him already to save the firing squad having to use some ammo.
 * The Jedi don't have a "no-kill" policy. That was just Luke's thing with his dad. In most other cases they don't hesitate to kill.
 * Yes they do. They only kill if necessary. Running around indiscriminately killing everyone and being generally Ax Crazy is a Sith practice.
 * Since when did the Jedi offer Sidious mercy beyond asking him, once, politely, to surrender? Mace Windu was on the verge of killing Sidious himself, after all.
 * The point was that there was always a hesitation, even if they did want whatever villain they had at sword point dead, and he who hesitates is lost. It is always the same damn argument, "It is not the Jedi way, or if you strike him down in anger then you will turn to the dark side (as if you could kill someone you fought for years on end in a war without anger), or that he can be shown mercy and be imprisoned." There is always someone to tell the villain's would-be killer that what they are about to do is wrong.
 * First of all, let's not turn this into a death penalty discussion; that can't end well...second, there's definitely a difference between fighting a war and killing your enemy, and standing over him after he's defeated and killing him solely because you're angry at the guy. Even if you argue they need to be killed, I don't think there are any sources to say a level-headed Jedi couldn't perform the deed. The fact that the executing is derived from vengeance and anger is what warps Jedi into the Dark Side, not the fact that they killed someone. Remember, Anakin was lauded by Obi-Wan for killing Count Dooku (Obi-Wan didn't know the tiny detail of "the guy was helpless and Anakin acted out of spite"). Or heck, look at Darth Maul in Episode I; that was an unquestionably good action on Obi-Wan's part. The difference there? Maul was still fighting.
 * And in regards to "they're in a war," using the Darth Maul example again, yes, Jedi are expected to kill their enemies. But just like in Real Life, there's a qualitative difference to being angry and killing enemies in combat, and capturing enemy soldiers/officers and executing them to satisfy your own anger. That doesn't fly here, either; it's not just a Star Wars thing.
 * And about the "why don't they just squish Force-insensitives if these guys can chuck Star Destroyers around" thing: I always imagined it like a video game, you can't really use the Force in a hail of fire, as you need to concentrate on not becoming a pile of ash.


 * Another issue: in Episode II when Obi-Wan fought Jango Fett, why in the name of the Force did he not just yoink Jango out of the sky with the Force?! It would've taken two seconds and he'd have been able to capture and question him! Instead, he goes running round trying to fight him.


 * A minor thing, but remember how in Phantom Menace Qui-Gon and Padme are invited to Skywalkers' house for a dinner. There is a large basket of apples on the table. Apples. So, a single mother and her little kid, both in servitude of a stingy owner of a ramshackle mech shop in the official arid asshole of the galaxy can afford fresh fruit on their table without any special occasion? What the hell?
 * How do you know there aren't massive greenhouses all over the city for the purposes of growing large quantites of fresh fruit? Have you ever been to Tatooine? It would actually make sense from a sustainability POV. What exactly do you imagine people on the planet eat? There are little indigenious species and little vegetation, so they are obviously growing something to feed themselves. That or they trade for all their food, which would still allow for fresh fruit being available, since this is a galaxy that has invented faster-than-light travel. Considering a whole peck of apples costs little more than $3 in modern-day Arizona (a desert) without said travel, I think this is more than acceptable.
 * Once again, Tatooine is an impoverished, dismal planet on the edge of the galaxy that is run by gangsters and where people have to farm for moisture to get water. It just doesn't go with an idea of lavish fruit crops. And most importantly, Anakin and his mother were slaves. We didn't see any fruits in the relatively well-off farmer family Luke lived in, and now slaves have them on a daily basis?
 * "Moisture" farmers actually use windtraps to grow crops, they don't farm the water itself. And I don't see why not seeing any fruits at one isolated farm means that fruit is some kind of rare commodity everywhere on Tatooine.
 * Moisture farmers totally do farm moisture. Check out the relevant article on Wookieepedia. And in my experience, local fruit can actually be MORE expensive than the imported stuff.
 * The simplest answer is this: Watto's not a monster, or even that bad a guy really. He knows how good the kid is with machines, so he rewards the kid and his mother with a little special treatment.
 * One that was sorta-given by the Novelization originates from a scene which made it into early versions of the script but didn't subsequently get into the final cut. When Anakin first arrives back home with Qui-Gon and the others in tow, there's a shot where Qui-Gon Jinn, standing with Shmi, reaches under his robe for something. According to the novelisation, Qui-Gon brings out the content of one of his belt pouches, which contain small, oval capsules that expand when water's applied to them to become regular fruit; he does this because he knows Shmi's a slave and unlikely to have the spare food around to feed a good six people without warning.
 * Fruit must be affordable to the Skywalkers because we see Anakin buy some for the Jedi with the coins he has in his pocket.
 * I'd just take it as a sign that Watto's a decent guy, for an unscrupulous merchant and slave-owner. He's wealthy enough to buy fruit from whatever merchants are growing/trading them on Tattooine, and he keep Shmi and Anakin's home stocked with food. As slaves, we can assume they're not allowed to own anything of their own; everything we see of theirs came from Watto.
 * To expand on this a bit: Watto seems to be willing to invest a lot more in Anakin than necessary. The kid appears to get very loose working hours and we never see Shmi work at all. They live in a separate house, big enough to accommodate a common room and at least two private bedrooms, and are physically healthy and well-nourished. If you allow me to go WMG for a moment, my thinking is that Watto might have been a good friend of Anakin's late father. After Mr Skywalker's death, he took it upon himself to care for the family. He took Anakin as an apprentice, hoping to teach him whatever he knows about running a business (that would also explain his reluctance to sell a child slave whom we never see to do much useful work at all). Maybe on Tatooine, the Skywalkers selling themselves into slavery was just the legally simplest way for Watto to "adopt" them?
 * That almost works. Watto could still just have a fondness for the kid, but Anakin was a virgin birth (Chosen One and all that) so the father angle doesn't make sense.
 * It's called a step-dad.
 * I think Wookiepedia lists them as sand plums, or something. I don't remember exactly, but I believe they grow under the sand somehow. This doesn't make much sense, now I come to think about it.
 * Possibly they're some kind of tuber that only taste like plums. In any case, who's to say those weren't really lousy, bottom-of-the-barrel examples of whatever kind of fruit they were? A civilization as advanced and venerable as that ought to be growing apples the size of bowling balls, due to thousands of years of selective breeding.
 * In the end of Episode 6 couldn't the Rebels just bomb the shield generator from orbit?
 * And wasted hours getting the ships close enough and aiming the shots, all while allowing "bullet-proof" space ships to take pot shots at you on a whim? Not exactly subtle...
 * They had, like, a lot of ships didn't they? Some of them bomb, other fight off the Empire, what's the problem? And what do you mean by bullet-proof?
 * They didn't have a lot at all compared to the Empire, so speed was essential. They needed to get in and destroy the Death Star as fast as possible to prevent being completely wiped out. By "bullet-proof" I was referring to the station itself, which would be completely invincible until the shield was down. Having to separate their squadron into two distinct forces had a much larger chance of failure then showing up with the generator already down (which was the intention) and going full-throttle against the Death Star.
 * True, but their plan relied on a rather wild hope that the generator wouldn't be dully defended, which failed miserably and would've doomed the whole operation if it wasn't for...ugh...Ewoks. Orbital bombardment looks somewhat more reliable to me. Besides, in the end it wasn't the capital ships that took out the DS but a squadron of fighters. But even discarding the idea of bombardment, wans't there ANY contigency plan in stock? Like a full scale assault on the generator with hundreds of troops and heavy weapons once it was clear that the covert operation failed. Nothing at all?
 * The generator itself is protected by its own impenetrable forcefield.
 * As noted above, Endor itself was fully shielded; the only way that the Rebel team could get down to the surface would be if they were cleared by the defense fleet to enter the shield. There's no other way to get troops onto the surface - especially after the assault began. Orbitally bombarding the shield would have been useless, as planetary shields are designed to take that kind of abuse and laugh at it.
 * In fact, if I remember correctly, the weapon devised to get around that sort of shielding? The Death Star.
 * It was never meant to be implied that their plan was perfect or even the ideal solution, but there are clear reasons why they chose it and not a straight rush in and start shooting. Ideally, the way their plan was envisioned, the shuttle got them down to the planet, nobody detected them, and they either deactivated or destroyed the generator swiftly while the armada shows up in orbit simultaneously. So in theory, the plan was sound. And really, I don't think they had time or resources for a "backup plan". It's a relatively small force of dedicated soldiers and pilots up against the might of practically the entire Empire. Think U.S.A vs. Malta.
 * The Rebel Alliance did not have the hundreds of troops, tanks, or warships necessary to mount the kind of assault you and so many others are talking about. Yes, the chances of success would be much higher if they sent a massive armada to bomb the living crap out of the planet, and a powerful force of armor and infantry would also stand to do much better than a small force of infiltrators, but the fact that they are "The Rebel Alliance" and not "The Astoundingly Well-Equipped Anti-Imperial Ass-Kickers" means that their options do not include those two infinitely preferable strategies.
 * Simple: a stealth mission would have a higher chance of success. The generator was guarded by the entire Imperial Navy. A small, land-based infiltration force had a better chance, just like how a small squadron of fighters had a better chance of taking out the Death Star than a frontal assault.
 * Fact is the rebels did not know a huge fleet was behind the corner waiting for them. Every information the Bothan net provided was leaked on purpose by the emperor. Rebels thought the death star was -relatively- low defended (the executor being there was no mystery though) because of the shield generator making a fleet unnecessary. If they really came in and attempted to destroy the generator through brute force the empire would have had enough time to respond to the attack with other ships in the area. Instead they tried to blow up the generator, drop in, blow the thing and get out before a serious response showed up, which is the usual Rebel hit-and-run MO. Also they had to move quickly because the intel they received indicated that DS weaponry was not yet functional, not yet, that is. Could not risk to wait. Must give credit to the emperor for a really well set-up trap, too bad he screwed it all up by giving fancy orders to his fleet (troops losing to a bunch of Ewoks wasn't exactly his fault though).
 * Isn't it strange that in the end of Phantom Menace, Padme didn't think of buying Anakin's mother out and freeing her? The boy helped save her planet, surely an idea to reward him would come around naturally. Moreover, Padme was there to see the dismal conditions Shmi lived in, surely she couldn't just forget about her completely.
 * I imagine Padmé is the type who doesn't believe in special treatment. While she could get Shmi freed, it wouldn't be fair to the other slaves. I imagine Padmé would be more likely to try and make motions in the Senate to get all the slaves freed at once. I wouldn't be surprised if she tried to do just that between TPM and AOTC, but once the issue of the Separatists came up, she had other things to focus on.
 * First, it's not "special treatment" (whatever the hell that is) - it's a reward. These are supposed to be special. Second, what other slaves? She knew none of them like she knew both Shmi and her son. Rule of empathy shall not be denied! Finally, your and mine ideas are not mutually exclusive. I totally sympathise with Padme dedicating her career in Senate to abolishing slavery among other good things - I just don't see how that prevented her from freeing one woman and making one boy (who, I'd like to reiterate, helped saving her freaking planet) happy right there and then. You know, saying: "I'll either make everybody happy or nobody!" is just a lame and mean excuse not to help anybody.
 * Her money was no good there, so buying Shmi was not an option. Of course if it wasn't for her staying, the Empire might have never come to fruition and Palpatine would be killed by Mace Windu.
 * Not exactly. Who told Mace Windu about Palpatine in the first place? The Jedi, in all it's awesomeness, never figured out that Palpatine was a Sith Lord. Even though he was rubbing it in their faces the whole time. "The dark side surrounds the Chanceller." Well no shit!
 * From what I understand, they thought the Sith Lord was someone in Palpatine's entourage, and Palpatine was his puppet. Now why is this in the middle of a discussion on why Shmi wasn't freed?
 * Sometimes these pages get mixed up as more and more people add in posts without puting them in the right place. And either way, you're exactly right. In the Revenge of the Sith Novelization the Jedi actually decide Palps can't be the Sith Lord out of hand because he already basically ruled the Galaxy anyways at that point.
 * Money can't have be the problem; there have to be currency exchangers somewhere in the galaxy, or she could barter something valuable in a pinch (or else sell it in exchange for whatever money they use in Tatoonie).
 * And Watto wasn't exactly in a good financial position after the podrace. He'd just "lost everything," so he would have been in the right frame of mind to sell his slaves.
 * Hey, she's got a planet to rebuild, an alliance with the Gungans to hammer out, loads of dead families to write to with death notices, and she never expects to see the kid again because the Jedi are supposed to be taking care of him. She either forgot and it got lost in the paperwork, or she assumed Obi Wan would have been on it.
 * The book expands on this somewhat, Watto genuinely did not want to let them both go because he favored them. Worth noting that even in the movie, Qui-Gon attempted to free both Anakin and Shmi, which Watto refused, putting it up to a chance cube. Qui-Gon couldn't peaceably force Watto to give up his property (as much as the others were loath to see Anakin and Shmi as property, they were his property) and just using Jedi powers to brute-force your way to get what you want, no matter how right you think you are, is exactly what Jedi are raised from infancy to never ever do. Something about the whole "dark side" thing. So, Watto made it either Anakin or Shmi, and while Qui-Gon wasn't afraid to use the Force to manipulate events to his advantage, he still had to make a choice. Anakin had great potential and Qui-Gon believed he was a Chosen One, whereas Shmi was, for whatever personal relationship she had to anyone, just an average woman. After Qui-Gon won Anakin via the chance cube scene, he wasn't exactly in a good position to try to take Shmi as well.
 * Which is why the question is, why didn't someone do it later when they were in a good position to free Shmi as well?
 * Someone like Cliegg Lars, who did exactly that?
 * So why didn't Darth Vader ever try to kill the Emperor during the 20 years between the two trilogies? I mean sure Palpatine is more powerful than him but I find it hard to believe his master's guard was up the ENTIRE TIME. The Expanded Universe tries to hand wave this by saying Palpatine learned his lesson through the murder of his master Plagueis, whom he killed while he was asleep, and learned to stay awake every moment of every day. This hand wave doesn't make sense as even Superman needs to sleep, so no amount of power should keep you up forever unless you have infinite power, which Emperor Palpatine does not have. Plus no guard Darth Sidious would have stationed while he sleeps would be any where near as powerful as Vader is. I find it hard to believe in 20 years Vader had absolutely NO OPPORTUNITY to kill his master.
 * Why would he do this. I mean, why would he try to kill the Emperor? What are his motivations for killing his own master? Does he get more power out of it? Does he somehow inherit the title of Emperor?
 * He achieves vengeance on the person who tricked him into becoming the monster that killed Padme. Remember, a Sith derives power from hatred, and the thing Vader hates most is himself, for obvious reasons- so, logically, he must also really hate the one who made him fall and do the deed. Also, its literally a Sith tradition to assassinate one's master- that's the official method of ascending from Sith Apprentice to Sith Master
 * Palpatine is killed, and the Empire tries Vader with treason and assassination and has him executed, since it is, y'know, a government. Sith or not is really irrelevant.
 * As was posted by the previous poster the Sith work under the premise that the Master should constantly watch his apprentice in order to prevent him from killing him and should he find a better apprentice replace the weak apprentice for the stronger one, and the apprentice should try to get stronger until he can kill his master and succeed him. The master is the one who wields the power and the apprentice craves it, this way both are constantly forced to reach new heights in order to survive, and Palpatine's ideal world would have both him and Vader being the top two Force users for all time and with his potential reach new heights and unlock mysteries of the Dark Side. However when Vader became injured Palpatine sought a replacement and so Vader in response has been planning to replace him as the Sith Master and Emperor of the Galaxy, not only so the Emperor can't kill and replace him but for ruining his life by taking him down the path he went. So it isn't a question of why he would want to kill the Emperor, the question is how.
 * Now onto the way Vader would become Emperor. For the poster who said it is a government and Vader would be arrested, not necessarily. There have been countless rises to power through assassination in history, and some with little to no opposition to the assassin. In terms of power Vader is the Supreme Commander of the entire Galactic Military, making him second in command to the Emperor so should he die the legal channels of the government would make him next in line for Emperor so killing him would benefit Vader. And Vader doesn't even have to make it an overt assassination should he be worried about retaliation, which he shouldn't since he controls the military, all he has to do is reach over at the Emperor with his hand and snap his neck, no finger prints, no blood, sweat, etc. to find and he can just say some assassin came in before he could stop him, among other possibilities.
 * I think it'd rather take more cunning than that; in a one-on-one fight, all Palpatine has to do is lightning Vader and he's basically dead. Keep in mind, he did kill the Emperor while he was distracted with Luke, and died shortly thereafter. As for killing him in his sleep, Palpatine is not Superman, and the Force is not solar energy; there's no reason Superman's sleep schedule should have any bearing on a Force user's. Also keep in mind that it's a big galaxy; it's not like Palpy and Vader are roomies. And something tells me slipping in without triggering any alarms to get Palpatine in lightning mode isn't one of Vader's strong suits.
 * It has been proven that lightsabers can block Force Lightning and there are ways to create actual barriers made of energy with the Force, so Vader has some form of protection against the Emperor short circuiting his suit with Force Lightning. Besides once the Force Lightning did successfully short circuit Vader's breathing apparatus the strength of the attack itself was not able to deter Vader from throwing Palpatine over the edge, so Vader is at least powerful enough to be able to withstand an attack from his master and once he has a hold of him his superior physical strength could easily break the Emperor's body. Being 80% of the Emperor doesn't mean Vader is weak, it means he is the second most powerful Sith in history seeing as the Emperor is the most powerful Sith ever. I brought up the example of Superman as he is practically a demi-god who can survive going through stars and can move planets, if that kind of power needs to sleep than Palpatine should need sleep. As for assassinating the Emperor Vader doesn't even have to do it in his sleep (which he could pull off since he knows how to hold his breath, he used it on Luke to ambush him), there are moments in the Expanded Universe and the films where he is literally just a few feet away from his master, Vader is a powerful and fast warrior a quick raising of his hand towards his master's neck and... SNAP! Not to mention what Vader could pull of with a lightsaber, if I recall correctly his mastery is greater than his master's. It would be that simple.
 * Remember how Palpatine had to use the clones to kill off the Jedi? Remember their main advantage? It wasn't their overwhelming numbers - it was their lack of emotions that shielded them from the Jedi precognition powers. Vader didn't have such advantage. Palpatine would've sensed his murderous intention, probably even in sleep (why not, the Great Force doesn't sleep). Next, you somehow suppose that Palpatine is NOT a powerful and fast warrior. I thought Yoda's example taught us that the frail constitution is not a hindrance to a Jedi. All in all, I guess, Vader only managed to kill Palpatine because the latter was distracted with torturing Luke.
 * This is contradicted by out-of-film sources that have the Jedi possess the ability to sense energy signals of clones, Yoda in particular has told clones to their faces he can feel an energy and a spirit inside of them that makes them unique to other clones. It was probably the heat of battle and the sudden change of heart that didn't allow the Jedi to notice the malice in time to react. Palpatine seems relatively aware of Vader's thoughts and emotions due to the Force bond he has with his apprentice so logically he should have some degree of preparation time in case of a betrayal, but this DOES NOT APPLY WHEN HE IS SLEEPING. If that was the case then Palpatine would not have been able to murder Plagueis who was his master while he slept. The fast and powerful statement was to do with Vader's actual physical strength and agility, Vader being a foot away from his master is akin to a person strangling a person with a gun before they can bring their gun out, sure if the gun comes out (in this case Palpatine's Force powers) then the attacker is screwed but if the gun wielder is killed before he can reach his gun then the weapon is useless. Vader is actually relatively swift, once he became adapted to the suit he was able to jump and run with some degree of grace and his strength due to his robotic arms is self explanatory, so a personal meeting between him and his master would be the perfect time to use those attributes of his. It wouldn't be without risk to Vader but not impossible to pull off.
 * Well, that's Yoda to you. Others just weren't that good. As for the sleeping part, you apparently take everything Palpatine told Anakin about Plagueis at face value. You shouldn't. And if the Force Awareness (or whatever the ability to sense intentions is called) is indeed on 24/7, this negates all the reasoning with respect to Vader's prowness. However swift you are, if the target already knows you're about to strike (and can electrocute you with its mind), you're screwed. And electrocuted. Finally, you seem to give the Emperor too little respect. The man managed to get the better of the whole Jedi order, not to mention the rest of the Galaxy, after all. Surely he could manage one whiny bitch in clanking suit.
 * Word of God from George Lucas confirms Palpatine's story about Plagueis in an interview he calls him a "super-Sith", and even the Expanded Universe speaks of Palpatine training under Plagueis until he learned that his master wanted to create life using the Force which Palpatine viewed as his replacement, and then he killed him in his sleep. According to Palpatine, Plagueis was so wise and so powerful in the Force that he could even save those he wanted to from dying, and allegedly was capable of creating life or was on the verge of finding such a power, a Force user so powerful that he had to kill him in his sleep in order to succeed. If his story is to be believed then even someone as aware as Plagueis was can't sense danger in their sleep, unless in the form of prophetic visions such as what Anakin had. I am not downplaying how powerful Palpatine is, I called him the most powerful Sith in the history of the Sith Order, which many sources claim him to be, I was simply claiming that no matter how powerful you are your guard can't always be up and even powerful Force users can take damage from opponents that are weaker than them. Besides if Palpatine was so aware all the time then he wouldn't have been grabbed by Vader and thrown over an edge of a reactor core to his death in Return of the Jedi, which is where the topic of why Vader didn't try something like that some time in the last 20 years comes from. Also Vader is not a "whining bitch in a clanking suit" (especially since his whining personality that so many infamously claim Anakin had in the prequels is gone once he becomes Darth Vader), he is the Chosen One who had the potential to be the most powerful Force user who ever lived and due to certain mistakes and injuries was reduced to a shell of what he could have been, but said shell is 80% as powerul as the Emperor is who as I said is the most powerful Sith that has ever lived. 80% of Palpatine is nothing to laugh at.
 * Lots of Real Life dictators ruled that long and even longer, somehow avoiding all attempts at their lifes (usually plentiful), despite lacking awesome Jedi powers. If the Plagueis story was indeed true, a reasonable assumption would be that Palpatin learned from his master's mistakes, like a good Sith should. Vader only managed to kill Palpatine because the latter was distracted with torturing Luke. And last but not least: Evil Never Sleeps. Nuff said.
 * The Rise of Darth Vader mentions this: "Unlike Plagueis, Sidious knew better than to sleep".
 * The Emperor clearly has some ability at mind reading (eg "I can feel your hatred"), so my guess is that he's constantly monitoring Vader and is ready to short out his suit whenever he senses a dangerous thought. Vader knows this and is biding his time for a moment when the Emperor is distracted enough to be killed, and in turn the Emperor is careful not to become overly distracted (hence why he doesn't force storm the rebellion bases). In the end the Emperor realized that the shield was down and they were all about to be obliterated, so he figured that should enjoy his final moments and fry Luke regardless of potential betrayal, Vader saw his opportunity and promptly murdered his master.
 * A lot of this is ignoring the fact that Palpatine bends the rules. He deliberately takes inadequate apprentices so they can never surpass him. Darth Maul wasn't a strong Force-sensitive; he could be trained in combat and was thus a threat to Palpatine's enemies, but not to Palpatine. Count Dooku was easy to lie to. Anakin had a leash around his neck with "Padme" inscribed on it, and after that's out of the way, Darth Vader is, for all the prosthetics and scariness, a cripple. Vader certainly wants to kill him, but he can't. It's not possible for him to pull it off. Palpatine, on his worst day, can still read Vader like a book, hear him like an audio-book, and see his intentions in James Cameron 3D. Remember Vader's speech to Luke in Empire, where he blatantly spells out his intent for the two of them to kill Palpatine so they can rule together as father and son? It's even given a Call Back in The Force Unleashed, where Galen realizes, "You never wanted to kill the Emperor," but Vader answers, "Not with you."
 * One thing that always bothered me about saying that Palpatine can take out Vader in one strike is that if this is the case then having an apprentice to help him kill the Emperor in a straight fight is pointless. Vader didn't disown Galen Marek because he was weak but because he didn't like the fact that he was becoming a good person and turning away from the Dark Side, The Force Unleashed II is dealing with the premise of Vader cloning Starkiller in order to have a more obedient version to command against Palpatine. All that aside whether he was going to use Galen Marek or his son Luke Vader can't help his apprentice if Palpatine takes him out of the fight with one burst of Force Lightning by short-circuiting his suit, unless Vader can actually deal a blow then the whole affair is of no good. Unless Vader was hoping to raise his apprentice to be stronger than the Emperor and let him fight his battle for him, which doesn't sound like Vader as he not only would want to participate in the assassination of his master but raising an apprentice to a level equal to or beyond that of the Emperor, even Luke who according to George Lucas has the same potential that Anakin once had, would take years. Logically Vader can at least hurt the Emperor, a guy who is weaker than you can still inflict pain on you or even kill you, and therefore the apprentice is there only so that Vader doesn't die taking the Emperor with him. This is showcased in the Return of the Jedi, had Luke been powerful enough then Vader and Luke could have killed the Emperor together, but as it was Vader had to sacrifice himself in order to kill Palpatine.
 * In short: Palpatine killed Plagueis because the latter was overconfident and believed he could afford to let down his guard, Palpatine took the lesson to heart so he never slept and Vader just isn't strong enough to take Palpatine, and only managed in the end because Palpy was intoxicated by the Dark Side while torturing Luke. Oh yeah, Power of Love.
 * Power of Love indeed. It's entirely possible that the whole reason Vader was even able to kill Palpatine in the end was (in addition to his distraction) the fact that his emotions at the time weren't aggressive. He wasn't feeling his overwhelming hatred for his master, he was feeling his love for Luke. Presumably Palpatine had trained himself to react to feelings of violence towards him, but, distracted as he was, he couldn't immediately process Vader's shift to positive emotion, digest the implications, and anticipate his attack. If you look at it in that light, it's entirely feasible that Vader spent the last twenty years trying to kill him and failing at it, since he presumably went about his assassination attempts in a very Sith way, and Palpatine was always the superior Sith.
 * Also, if Vader would be the logical heir to the Emperor's throne as has been suggested, being Emperor involves a lot of politics and social manipulation. Shadows of the Empire makes it quite clear that Vader hates having to deal with politics and politicians, who are always sneaking around jockeying for influence and power, and with the shadow-world of spies and secret agents. Vader is, frankly, a warrior, and it's stated that he'd rather fight with a lightsaber or starfighter than duel in a political ring. Also, Palpatine is a bit of a dick and has spent the last 30-40 years wrapping Annakin/Vader around his little finger. You're telling me that a man who can make several billion people forget seeing an 8km-long warship getting buried in Coruscant (namely Lusankya, a Super Star Destroyer that shows up in the X-wing novels) and specifically designed Vader's life-support suit to be a hassle and burden wouldn't have had other methods of keeping Vader in his place?
 * Unlike Palpatine, Vader does not want power for power's sake. He wanted power to save Padmé and rule the galaxy with her. With her dead, he would have no more reason to want to be emperor. Besides, after the events of Sith, Vader is probably pretty Lonely At the Top and Palpatine is the closest thing he has to a friend left. It was only when Luke came along that this changed.
 * Is there any evidence that Vader considers Palpatine to be the enemy? Palpatine's aparently been his friend since he was a boy, he gave Anakin his position on the council, always encouraged him even when everybody else was "holding him back", and in the end was the only person to offer any useful advice other than "Death is a natural part of life accept it and let go". From Vader's point of view, it's his own fault that everything came crashing down, and Palpatine was just a good friend who did everything he could.
 * Yes, there is. In the novelisation of Revenge of the Sith Palpatine asks him if he hates him and wants to kill him- Vader says yes, he does, and later in the film he tells Padme that he can get strong enough to defeat him. And in The Empire Strikes Back he tries to talk Luke into helping him overthrow the Emperor and rule the galaxy together, and there is no indication that he isn't serious. Vader is not stupid- he knows full well that Palpatine is not his friend. He tricked him into killing Mace Windu because he said he had the power to save Padme`- "whoops! I meant we might be able to find out how to save her", or as Anakin heard it "I lied, bitch". He also just found out that his so-called friend orchestrated that hugely destructive intergalactic war that he had just spent the last X years fighting and seeing people die in. He hates Palpatine; Palpatine ruined his life, and he's well aware that for all his talk about "peace" he is really motivated only by a lust for power. He goes along with him only to learn how to beat him, and because Vader really does believe in using The Empire for peace- he has to, because he needs to somehow drag some sort of victory out of all the disasters he is responsible for. In one of the comics a Falleen assassin tells him that he can't keep running from his crimes- Vaders response is "I have no choice", and he kills her, and that sums him up rather neatly.
 * I always thought Palpatine had some sort of mind control over others. He obviously wanted Luke to kill Vader, presumably so that he could be his new apprentice. It seems clear to me that surrendering to anger (the Dark Side) gave Palpatine power over the Jedi. Besides, Luke tries to persuade Vader to fight Palpatine, and his response amounts to "his power over me is too strong". He doesn't say "he's my master, I am on his side and I don't want to kill him". Heck, he stops just short of saying "I am entirely incapable of turning against him". Giving in to your anger does not seem like an abstract, moral victory for Palpatine (i.e. you kill your father/son/whatever, you are evil and therefore the Dark Side wins). It seems that Vader even acting against Palpatine required a heroic act of willpower on his part, when he finally did. Heck, that's why I figured Anakin became Vader in the first place. There is absolutely no reason for him not to say "what, my love died? You promised me you'd save her. No, I will not be your apprentice". The Dark Side seems to warp Sith mentally, they are not merely "bad guys". Otherwise, there is no reason for Luke to be at Palpatine's side after he killed Vader. He'd either kill Palpatine or get killed himself. And what purpose would it serve for Palpatine to have Vader killed, if Luke was not meant to replace him somehow?
 * There's also the simple problem facing Vader: Palpatine's a much better planner. He's perfectly willing to kill Palpatine (in fact, he mentions such ambitions to Padme), but it's all for nothing if Vader gets himself killed or sidelined in the process.
 * Lucas has stated that Vader being in the suit made him physically much weaker than Palpatine had hoped. Probably the estimate of Vader as being 80% as powerful as Palpatine might have been true if he hadn't gone and got himself all burned up, but afterward the percentage was way lower.
 * Lucas' exact words were that had Anakin never suffered any of his injuries he could have been twice as powerful as the Emperor, in his injured state Vader could only achieve 80% of the power that the Emperor wields. The way it is worded heavily implies that Vader is at that 80% power in the Original Trilogy.
 * So is it ever explained why there are so many aliens that are humanoid in form alongside normal human beings like us in the Star Wars universe? It can't be a coincidence that so many aliens look like humans and yet clearly have features that separate them from us, surely there is some sort of evolutionary chain between humans and aliens.
 * Yup. Precursors took human slaves from wherever it is humans originated, and brought them to all of their colonies, then died, leaving lost colonies behind. Some of the older ones were separate from other humans long enough to diverge genetically, Which set of precursors did it isn't quite clear, you practically can't walk ten light years without tripping over another set of 'em, and its highly probable that they all took human slaves.
 * This was brought up in the Archives page but I never could understand why Vader stays in that suit, iconic as it may be, for the entire Saga when he had alternatives to being a walking iron lung. There was cloning technology right there, and yet his limbs, damaged organs, lungs, and skin are never replaced with healthier cloned parts, this is somewhat handwaved by the fact that Dark Side energies apparently corrupt clone flesh for some reason and yet there are more advanced forms of cloning that prevent this problem, technology that Vader personally uses on his apprentice Starkiller. Vader was also given the option of being taken out of his old suit and put in one that would be far better in every way in comparison to the original, but considers it too risky as having his suit replaced would require everything to be turned off, including his iron lung which he needs to breath. It upsets me that Vader feels trapped in that suit of his when there were clearly ways out of it, options that he never experimented with. I could understand if he tried and failed, but Vader never even tried.
 * Remember, a Sith's power stems from his hate, and the thing Vader hates most is himself. Its entirely probable that whatever explanation he gave to others (and to himself), the real subconscious reason he stayed in the super-uncomfortable suit is self-flagellation.
 * Yeah but Vader's justification is irrational, you don't need to put yourself through physical pain or discomfort to prove you hate yourself. That kind of thing starts from within the heart, not the body. I agree with the statement that he has self-hatred because Vader said that he hated himself in a fight he had with a resurrected Maul, Maul grabs Vader from behind but Vader pierces Maul by putting his lightsaber through his stomach and as collateral through Maul's as well, Maul has a brief exchange with Vader before he dies for a second time; Maul: What could you hate enough to destroy me? Vader: Myself. However if Vader's self-hatred was that great you would think he would have have gave up on life long ago, Vader hates himself because of his failures but clings to life because he feels that he can reach greater heights than his present condition by killing his master and becoming Emperor, it would only make sense for Vader to make himself stronger by healing his body so he achieve the only goal he feels he has left to live for.
 * Its irrational, but that's why I said subconscious. He probably never admitted to even himself that that was why he stayed in the suit- he probably convinced himself on an intellectual level that it was due to the risks involved being too great, or being too busy, or dangers of clone tissue degeneration or something. And because he had convinced himself it was a logical-sounding justification, and not the subconscious hatred, rational arguement wouldn't really do much good in persuading him (lord knows I've run into a similar problem with my own psyche enough times). Basically, just assume he ain't thinking clearly and is just one huge bundle of self-hating neuroses, and it all falls into place. It doesn't make sense- but then again, psychological issues, especially ones driven by trauma, rarely do, and hate is often self-destructive and aimed as much inward as it is outward, even when they only admit the outward part to themselves.
 * Probably the most interesting story about Vader's self-hatred is when he uses it on himself... for healing purposes. In Shadows of the Empire Vader focuses on all of the hatred he has against himself, everything bad that has ever happened to him, and for his master Palpatine, and channels this into Dark Side energy which he uses to heal his old scars from Mustafar. Vader's skin is completely void of all scar tissue from the severe third degree burns he suffered and the damage dealt to his internal organs and lungs is reversed which allowed him to breath without his iron lung, but his regenerated body causes Vader to flashback to what life used to be like when he was fully organic, back when he was once Anakin and this causes Vader to become joyful and reverses the Dark Side induced regeneration. Vader's regeneration wasn't being held back by Vader, but rather by Anakin, the spark of good inside Vader prevented Vader from regenerating his body back to the way it once was because the more he became like his old self physically the more his memories of being the good man he once was as Anakin interfered with his Dark Side powers. Not cloning body parts to graft onto his flesh was probably Anakin's guilt affecting Vader.
 * Not to mention, we're talking about completely cloning Anakin then putting Vader's brain into the clone. Difficult and expensive, not to mention probably to advanced even for Star Wars. And about FU 2, I always thought it was original Starkiller all along, and Vader just wants to confuse him enough to turn him dark again, so he takes the almost-dead Starkiller, heals him, then uses the dark side to try and corrupt his mind. The bad clones were just that, and were supposed to just be powerful cannon fodder.
 * My bet is that Palpatine wouldn't let him- he designed that suit to be a hinderence to Vader to help keep him under control. Palpatine probably beat Vader over the head with 'this proceedure would likely kill you' when he caught word that Vader wanted the new suit until Vader gave in. Palpatine is supposed to be a manipulative bastard, and the person he needs to manipulate the most is Vader, his trusted and very very powerful second-in-command.
 * Alright, end of Episode V: is Lando wearing Han's clothes or not? And WHY?
 * There are 3 possibilities I've just thought of :
 * 1) It's a sort of 'uniform' traditionally worn by Independent Interstellar Traders. Or, if you like, Smugglers and Space Pirates.
 * 2) Lando's usual, expensive, wardrobe was inappropriate for his new role as a Space Pirate (too flashy and eyecatching).
 * 3) They are actually Lando's clothes. Remember, Han won the Falcon from Lando in a card game. Perhaps Lando's outfits were still on board and he's only now reclaiming them.
 * Well, the pants are standard Corellian military issue, according to the Han Solo novels (it goes on a bit about the red piping).
 * Lando didn't have time to pack a change of clothes when fleeing Cloud City so he would only have the clothes he was wearing at the time. It's a safe bet that Han had some of his clothes stored on the Millennium Falcon making them the obvious and possibly only option when Lando needed to change.
 * Simpler explanation: Lando is taking on Han's role in the Nakama until he is rescued. Naturally he's going to dress like him.
 * But that's the meta reason; I doubt Leia, Chewie and Luke held a meeting and said "okay, since Lando's temporarily assumed Han's place in the story, we'll dress him up like a Replacement Goldfish in the meantime. Come on Lando, let's go shopping!" In-universe, it could be any one of the three above reasons, or just a fashion sensibility than Han and Lando happen to share (if anything, Lando's original clothing as the administrator of Cloud City was probably out of the ordinary for him).
 * So does anyone even know that Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker in the general populace? You would think that Palpatine would like to use the story of a noble Jedi like Anakin defending the Republic from his rebelling brethren and being scarred and put in a life-sustaining suit in the process as propaganda. People like Yoda and Obi-Wan know who he is because they use to know him when he was a Jedi himself and know that after he became Darth Vader that he survived the volcanic scarring he suffered on Mustafar. The surviving Jedi and Dark Side users on occasion also claim to know Vader was once Anakin but how they know is never explained, either Obi-Wan and Palpatine shared their knowledge of Vader's identity to the Galaxy or Vader's mind is an open book to whatever Force user tries to pry through his thoughts which I find unlikely.
 * Most people don't know who Vader really is. Even Prince Xizor, who was powerful enough that he could have been a rival for Vader in position within the Empire, did not know Vader was originally Anakin.
 * Actually Xizor does know that. When he finds out Luke Skywalker's name, he realizes that was once Vader's name, and figures out they are related.
 * So if people don't know that Anakin is Darth Vader then what is the general perception of Anakin Skywalker in Galactic history? Is Anakin still viewed as a galactic war hero by the general populace despite being remembered as a Jedi, or did Palpatine not care to protect the memory of his apprentice's original identity since no one knew he was Darth Vader anyway? It is at least presented that people who fought in the Clone Wars with Anakin still remember him favorably, for example a fighter pilot who fought with Anakin Skywalker during the Clone Wars decided to choose Luke as the squadron leader on the basis that he was Anakin's son, it must be noted that said pilot had only ever participated with Anakin in one battle out of literally thousands that were fought in overall war.
 * I believe the general populace were told that Anakin Skywalker died heroically defending the Chancellor from Jedi assassins, and while I don't think that story was ever changed outright, it was downplayed as the Jedi became increasingly taboo. Luke, of course, wouldn't have been told anything about this by his aunt and uncle, and may well have believed his father and "the" Anakin Skywalker were two different guys with the same name until Obi-wan set him straight. Then, after the Rebellion was successful the truth got out, and Anakin's reputation for pretty self-evident reasons took a nosedive.
 * Tatooine Ghost has an image of Anakin Skywalker for sale in the auction house. A small scene ensues and it's shown that they, in fact, knew who Anakin was and that he became Darth Vader.
 * Really, what would they have to hide? What could be gained by pretending that Lord Vader is some new person?
 * Realistically, because that would kill The Reveal: if Vader's real identity were common galactic knowledge, then Luke should have found out years ago. Canonically, because Palpatine wanted a clean break between the person Anakin was and his new personality; several times in the EU Palpatine chastises Vader for retaining vestiges of his old self.
 * In A New Hope, Princess Leia wears a long white dress. She's in a space battle, captured by Imperials, tortured, dragged through a trash compactor, engages in various firefights and escapes from the Death Star, and that beautiful long white dress (not to mention her hair and make-up) remains perfect.
 * See, they just don't show all the times Leia has the men in the group stop so she can do a quick dress change, powder her nose, and fix her hair. Without her, they would have actually been in and out under 10 minutes. Oh, and Obi-Wan wouldn't have died...selfish bitch.
 * It just bugs me that Darth Vader, or I guess I should say Anakin as he was redeemed at this point, suffocates to death on the Death Star. Sure his iron lung was short-circuited but you would think that the space ship that Luke escaped on would have had medical technology that could sustain a person's general health and oxygen until Anakin could be brought to a medical facility and his suit and especially his iron lung repaired. I have watched the Return of the Jedi for years and yet when I watched it recently this struck me as odd, we have breathing masks in our modern day air crafts for goodness sake; you mean to tell me that in a universe that has faster than light space travel they can't afford to have some damn breathing masks, oxygen masks, or space suits that provide air for you to have where the airless void of space will kill you if anything happens to your ship?
 * Well A. what's the likelihood that a shuttle, picked at random out of possibly a whole bay of things will have a hyperbaric chamber, and B. it takes more than a breath-mask to overcome Vader's issues, remember his lungs are pretty-much shot without the equipment, plus he picked up a few bolts from Palpatine turning pretty-much into totally. Oh and C. he'd be brain-dead by the time Luke had got thing half-way back to the fleet, and D. he's a mass-murderer at best, so it's possible that someone would deliberately botch something anyway.
 * Yeah, you're making way too many assumptions for what a run-of-the-mill shuttle would have as far as medical equipment. In addition to the above, don't forget E. He never made it to the ship. Even if the ship was a fully staffed, fully equipped medical frigate, even Star Wars tech isn't going to be able to do much to a corpse.
 * A. This is explained by scientists who are researching the field of advanced space travel, noting that any ship flying through space is going to want to have full-fledged medical facilities on board because as vast as the universe is you may be wandering space for months or even years at a time depending on where you are headed (and that's if you have faster-than-light space travel) and some random escape pod with only an oxygen supply is not going to last you if it can't also provide food, water, and medical equipment to help you if you get injured or sick. Now granted this is just a small ship and there is a nearby fleet and forest moon for Luke to land on but it should at least have some sort of equipment.
 * B. Before Vader underwent his surgery he was put on a medical capsule that provided a breathing mask for his damaged lungs, obviously breath masks can at least sustain him until he can get to a proper medical facility in the Fleet. Besides breathing masks utilize sterilized and clean oxygen just like the air that was used in the chamber that Vader was repaired in, Vader can breath with purified oxygen, regular oxygen has pollutants that would infect his scarred lungs and he would die of infection and lack of oxygen.
 * C. Explained in part B.
 * D. Now this is a fair point that someone would botch Vader's surgery out of revenge for what he has done but we have the fact that Vader would be a political prisoner of the highest order for the rebellion, being the Supreme Commander of the entire Galactic military Vader has more inside knowledge on the Empire than anyone next to that of the now-dead Emperor himself. Vader's survival would end the war with the Empire faster than without him that is for sure, and Luke could plead this to the Rebels as a bargaining fee for his father's life and if not at least Anakin can be executed for his crimes knowing he helped the Rebellion end the war with the Empire.
 * E. Yes he did they where on the hanger door of the ship, Anakin told Luke to stop trying to save him believing that nothing could stop his death now.
 * Well A. that was a shuttle, not a long use spaceship, and so the changes of having anything more advanced than a medikit on board were fairly remote (when was the last time you saw a medical facility on a commercial airliner?), which answers both B. And C. as well. For D. looking at what happened after Rot J, I highly doubt he'd have had any value as a political prisoner since very few in the Empire actually liked him. And E. he probably aimed Luke at the nearest shuttle bay, not the best equipped.
 * A. Realistic space travel would require decades, or even hundreds of years, to go from place to place, when you have to wait that long to get to your destination then yes even your escape pods need to be fully staffed as if they were space ships in and of themselves. Now granted Star Wars isn't completely realistic but I would expect something medically relevant to be on ships even if they can get to where they need to go in hours or days. If A is valid then B and C should still apply. D. Since when did whether or not lower-ranked officers liked their commander translate to him not knowing anything about military operations? Supreme Commanders in our world dictate how wars are fought so Vader should be no different, Vader's rank means he can give orders that outrank any other officer's orders and his orders are ultimately the go-to orders that decide how the war is fought, as he is second in command to the Emperor himself, and would know the Galactic military inside out since he commands it. E. It was never said that Luke went for the best equipped, but I would realistically expect to see at least a spare space suit or breathing mask that would be used for the sake of survival if the void of space leaks in and sucks the air out of the ship.
 * Well space travel in SW takes place in days, not years, and this is a shuttle than can go dozens of light-years a day (assuming it takes a week to get to Endor), so the distance thing has no relevance, and furthermore, Luke grabs a shuttle, which, surprise surprise, would have to be completely outfitted to keep Vader alive, otherwise it probably only bandages and a few anti-biotics on board. Also, how much 'specific' information would Vader have that the rebellion didn't already know, and as for giving orders, the were Admirals prepared to openly rebel against unquestionable authority, there are a lot more who'd be prepared to rebel against Vader, especially in light of the fact that the Emporer died in mysterious circumstances. Oh, and as for equipment, Vader was a big guy, there was probably no way to get him into a normal space-suit, and no way to seal a normal space-suit helmet around his head.
 * Vader survived severe third degree burns and triple dismemberment through the use of a medical capsule, which surprise, surprise, had oxygen that sustained him until proper surgery could be conducted. Having a malfunctioning suit is better than being burned and having no suit, a supply of oxygen, which any reasonable air or space craft would need regardless of how far it can travel in whatever speed, should have kept his condition stable and that is all I have to say about that. How much do you think the Executive Branch of America knows what the President knows, they pretty much share information with each other on a regular basis so there are very few intelligence gaps between the President and his cabinet, Vader is the same way with the Admirals and the Emperor, and any rebellion he would face Vader would have crushed. Luke does have a lightsaber, a quick surgery via cutting off the robotic parts of Vader's body could allow a space suit to fit if there were no other oxygen supplies.
 * Hey, guess what? Vader was mortally wounded. He explicitly says that he's going to die, and his suit has onboard medical equipment that says, in much more technical terms, that he's going to die.
 * And the dismemberment of 3 of his limbs, severe volcanic burn scars, and the days of surgery that put him in his suit in the first place with no anesthetic weren't mortal wounds? Hell Vader in the expanded universe has been through all sorts of abuse, explosions, lightsaber wounds, severe blunt force trauma to his body, and had his armor broken down to the point his skin underneath is exposed and even had his helmet damaged and knocked off. He always got his suit repaired after each and every one of these incidents and continued on his Imperial business, and they were never written off as "mortal" wounds that would stop him, the Emperor as powerful as he was could not stop Vader from continuing his march to the reactor shaft that he threw his master down despite the barrage of Force lightning. That is a mortal wound rather than all the other stuff Vader has been through?
 * Well the dismemberment and surgery were no issue to his health, but he was right on the edge from breathing volcanic gases, and the surgery that saved his life probably pushed him too far over the top to survive without it.
 * The issue lies with the Rebellion. Even if Luke somehow managed to get Vader to a nearby medical facility, what's he going to say to everyone there? Think they're just going to drop 20+ years of hatred for Vader and work on a way to save his life just because Luke told them to? Of course, not to mention the fact that if Luke begged people to heal Vader, they'll think he's defecting. Vader did it because it was better this way. He dies redeemed and Luke can escape a hero.
 * Vader is the commander of the Imperial military and was Palpatine's trusted(ish) associate for decades. Can we say intelligence asset anyone? I would bet that if Rebel med techs could have saved him, they would have tried to. On top of that, you not only have the medical person's mindset of 'do everything you can to heal this person despite who he might be' and the little fact that the only real medical personell you see in the films are DROIDS, who would presumably not have much in the way of grudge-holding capacity...
 * A breath mask is not the same thing as an iron lung, folks. The mechanisms in the suit physically push super-oxygenated air into his lungs via a small hole in his trachea below his voice box so he can breathe. That's just been shorted out by Palpatine, along with probably most of the other mechanical equipment sustaining Vader, and his prosthetics. A fair number of his internal organs are cybernetics at that point too- including his heart- so basically anything short of a full stasis pod probably wouldn't have kept him alive long enough to get medical help.
 * Also, for what it's worth, I always got the impression that Vader wanted to die. Having killed the Emperor and reconciled with his son, he now has nothing left to live for.
 * Let's not forget that Vader took a *massive* amount of electricity when he was tossing Palpatine into the shaft. having your life support system completely shorted out when you can't even breathe on your own is bad enough to kill you, but add in being *Dragged* through the death star on top of it? Yeah, no chance.
 * Also, I don't think "Anakin survived Mustafar" can really be used to say he should have survived Palpatine's lightning. In real life, people survive horrific-looking injuries sometimes, and they sometimes die from seemingly mild injuries that happened to hit the right vital spot. Anakin survived for several hours after being burnt alive; that he only survived a few minutes after the force lightning shows that, regardless of the details, those injuries were even more serious and lethal than what happened on Mustafar. As for a likely reason why: the lightning didn't just turn his suit off, it fried all the metal along with every bit of flesh connected to it. His organs were probably roasted, his heart was likely going through massive electricity-induced arrhythmia and cardiac arrest, and that's on top of the damage that the suit no longer working was causing (and assuming force lightning doesn't have any corrosive dark-side effects that no medical science could deal with). As Anakin himself said when Luke protested removing the helmet (thinking that it'd kill him), nothing could have saved him at that point.
 * Also, the ravages of time. Anakin was a young, strong man at the peak of Jedi padawan martial arts training who willed himself to survive out of love for his wife. Decades later, Vader was an old man whose physical body hadn't been exercised in years (tell me how you're going to do cardio training with three prosthetic limbs?) who had just realized how much of an asshole he'd really been all that time, but saw redemption as a Force Ghost only seconds away.
 * Also, this isn't an RPG, where you heal up after getting beaten up after a night's sleep. Darth Vader's suit was all that was keeping him alive after Mustafar. Without that, he's boned. As demonstrated.
 * And don't forget, Palpatine sensed Anakin's agony when he got maimed on Mustafar, so would've brought a full suite of medical equipment, medical droids included, along when he retrieved him. Luke probably doesn't even know how to work whatever medical gear a standard shuttle would be equipped with, and if the gear is automatic, it probably wouldn't be programmed to deal with something as bizarre as a mangled, aging cyborg of a unique, probably outdated design.
 * There's one key point you guys seem to be missing here, in his first few days as a Sith Lord, Anakin was as strong in the Dark Side of the force as he would ever get (did you miss his bright yellow iris'?). The only thing keeping him going after Obi-Wan left him for dead was pure, blind, seething hatred for Sidious, Obi-Wan, Padme, the Jedi Order and each and every aspect of his life. After he calmed and realized what he had done to Padme, he was filled with a self-loathing that would haunt him for decades up until he saved his son from Sidious. At that point, he finally let go of decades of torment, sadness, and anger. He couldn't keep going because the anger that kept him 20 years earlier had left him long ago. He was just an, old, tired man who had finally been released of his torment and now just wanted to die.
 * Classic question I know but what was the reactor core for the Death Star doing in the Emperor's throne room? Some sort of twisted symbolism of how his throne should be near the "heart" of the Empire's military might? Regardless of his intent I wouldn't want to be near a reactor core if I didn't know how to stop the numerous technical issues that can come up in reactors.
 * They needed some way to kill the Emperor, and throwing him down a shaft was what they decided on.
 * George Lucas must have had quite a time explaining that plot point at the drawing board, "OK guys so the Emperor is going to be electrocuting Luke near his personal reactor shaft stationed in his throne room and then Vader now redeemed as Anakin saves his son by throwing him down said reactor shaft. Any objections?"
 * Because its nowhere near the reactor core. There's a tower on the Death Star's "North" pole where the Emperor's observation tower was located. The shaft in question is....just a shaft. When you get thrown down a shaft and fall hundreds of meters before hitting something hard and metallic, you tend to suffer instant death.
 * At the bottom of the shaft is a ball of pure energy, which looks exactly like the reactor core of the Death Star that Lando and company blast in order to destroy the Death Star. It is unlikely that it is a different core then the one we see destroyed, the fall would have killed the Emperor on impact but the pure ball of energy he fell into wouldn't have helped.
 * So if midi-chlorians are the genetic explanation for how much potential one has in the Force then are we to assume that it can be passed on like genes from parent to child? Like for example Anakin Skywalker had the highest count of these special cells in Galactic history and George Lucas said that had he never become Darth Vader then he would have been the most powerful Force user in history, but then George goes on to say that his son Luke could become what his father could no longer be. This sort of implies that you can inherit potential in the Force from your parents.
 * Yes, you can inherit Force sensitivity. Luke even says, "The Force is strong in my family." In the EU, all of Leia's kids become Jedi.
 * I guess to phrase the question better I should ask can Force sensitivity act like recessive and dominant traits? Like if one parent had 20,000 midi-chlorians per cell and the other parent had 10,000, could we say that the child may have the possibility of having the dominant 20,000 genes or getting the 10,000 recessive genes expressed? Does it work like normal physical traits like hair, skin and eye color, which are affected by the genetics of their parents, when it comes to Force powers? A perfect example of this idea is Anakin Skywalker, he had 20,000 midi-chlorians per cell but the mother of his children had no Force powers and yet George Lucas says that Luke can become just as powerful as his father which would imply that Luke has the same number of midi-chlorians. You would think that midi-chlorians counts would decrease with situations like these, that Luke instead of having 20,000 or more midi-chlorians he would have like 10 or 15,000 due to the genetics of his mother affecting his Force sensitivity, or are we to believe that the Force is still mystical and simply decides for itself how many midi-chlorians people get?
 * I believe it's been said (though this may just be Wild Mass Guessing) that the presence of midi-chlorians don't give one the ability to use the Force, but instead it's the other way around. Force sensitivity increases your midi-chlorian count. So while Force sensitivity can be inherited, I don't think it necessarily means that the child of two Jedi would automatically be stronger in the Force than the child of one Jedi and one ordinary person.
 * Well it is mentioned in the novelizations of the films that midi-chlorians can be increased as you become more knowledgeable and skilled in the Force, but there has to be a base count that denotes your potential ability to tap into the Force. What needs to be understood about midi-chlorians is that the amount that you have does not automatically make you super powerful, the amount that you have simply determines how easy it is for you to listen to the will of the Force and tap into its power, so just because you have as much as Anakin Skywalker doesn't mean that you automatically will be as powerful as your Yoda and Palpatine figures you still have to work for that kind of power, but the amount of time that you will have to work is reduced. This is why it must be asked if genetics affect midi-chlorians, it certainly is an interesting and worthwhile matter to discuss.
 * The term midi-chlorians seems to have been inspired by mitochondria, the real-life bearers of the biological "force". They multiply independently in your body cells, and you inherit them from your mother.
 * Where is the R&D? The Galactic Republic was around for about 25,000 years and had hyperdrive all that time, yet nothing really improved. The Force Users were actually a bit WEAKER by the time of the movies. Ships and technology were a bit more advanced and powerful, but not by much. Compare this to what humans have done just in the last 500 years or so in Real Life.
 * You're assuming that there are no scientific limits to technological advance. For all we know, the Star Wars civilization has discovered all of physics, and what remains of technological innovation basically consists of occasional improvements on existing technology.
 * Except that you don't even see that, things in the movie era are apparently not appreciably better than things in the KOTOR era, a time difference which, in real life, separates us from the middle bronze age.
 * You could probably say that the technology has hit a standstill because there isn't much that can actually be improved upon. I mean really where do you go after you have reached faster-than-light travel? Faster-than-thought travel? Laser weaponry is the same way, once you can fire lasers at your enemies then all you really need to focus on is how powerful you can make that laser and how you can fuel it, no one's going back to lead bullets after that. Space ships made by the Empire are much larger and advanced then anything made 25,000 years prior, the Death Star and Vader's personal flagship the Executor in particular can take on fleets by themselves so at least star ships increased in the grander of their design and power. The Jedi and Sith have data logs and personal teachings that have transcended thousands of years, the Force users of 25,000 years ago would not be as powerful as the preceding generations as everything that they learned would already be indoctrinated from a younger age. Not to say that there wouldn't be Force users that are stronger than present day Force users, but for the most part the present is more advanced in their teachings than the ancient Sith and Jedi. Darth Sidious, or Palpatine as he is also known, is considered the most powerful Sith who ever lived by the time of the films, and he was able to become that powerful because he became indoctrinated with all the knowledge from the entire Sith archives that has spanned thousands of years, and thanks to that he would floor even the strongest Sith of the ancient world.
 * Well as far as technology goes I would have thought that there would at least be few advancements in medicine, but apparently the only change here from 4000 BBY is the fact that everyone is using Bacta rather than Kolto. The same goes for hyperdrives, the Centurion-Class SD back in the era of Darth Kreia had a class 2 hyperdrive with a class 8 backup, exactly the same as the Imperial-Class SD from almost 4000 years later. In a much shorter time (ie, less than 1/20th that) humanity has moved from sail and oar powered ships that can manage a handful of knots downwind, to a nuclear power aircraft carrier than can maintain a speed of 2-3 times that for thousands of miles at a time without (metaphorically) breaking a sweat, and from surgery with rusty blades that would kill you as often as not to organ transplants that will keep you alive for many years afterwards.
 * Actually, the theme of rapid scientific development of humans as opposed to much more dragged one of alien species is rather widespread. In Animorphs, p.e. an alien admits that humans made a certain progress much faster than his own people did. Humans Are Special, anyone?
 * Yeah, but that was 3 times faster, not 20+ times, the difference is an order of magnitude, and he was only mentioning 1 (or 2) field(s), flight (and rockets), whereas SW seems to have gone static over pretty much the entire spectrum, and for a much longer time.
 * The short answer is that the tech level is secondary to the Space Opera. It's really that simple. There's been some token nods in the EU in the direction of tech development, but it's not really widespread among the creators.
 * Simple. The modern-day human writers who create Star Wars stories can't think of 'more advanced' technology. If you have the technology to sail on the ocean in a little wind-powered boat, you're not necessarily going to be able to imagine sticking a steam engine on it. All you're going to be able to do is make your little sailboat more efficient until you can actually imagine making a steam engine. The writers can't think of anything more 'advanced' than FTL travel, so they focus on refining FTL travel.
 * I know this has been debated to death but the way Padme died in Revenge of the Sith bothered the ever-loving crap out of me. Broken heart syndrome? Seriously? I know it is a real life ailment but if someone suffered from it that would seem to imply that a person has given up on life because there is no more hope, Padme had hope she had something to live for, Anakin was still alive albeit in the form of Vader and she had healthy children. Padme gave up on life because of a broken heart when there is still a life for her to lead with her new family? LAME. Even theories like Padme's airway was broken when Vader choked her or or a Force bond with her husband causing her to feel Vader's pain as he is being operated on, sound infinitely better than, "I have a broken heart, let me die."
 * To this, I have to respond with another question. Why do so many people insist that Padmé died of a broken heart when it is never said so in the movie? Sure, Padmé tells Anakin that he's breaking her heart, but it seemed pretty obvious to me that she meant in figuratively, not literally. Granted, the actually explanation for her death being that she lost the will to live is not very clearly defined, but no character, at any point, ever says that she's dying of a broken heart.
 * Because what else would Padme have lost the will to live from? A broken arm? There is a real life syndrome called broken heart syndrome that causes heart attacks, heart pain/weakness, and even manifests as heart disease symptoms, what is striking about this syndrome is that the person is an otherwise healthy person but for some reason their health just declines for apparently no reason. Doctors are still debating if it is a valid syndrome rather than some other health problem they can't track inside the body but it is starting to get into the mainstream, and some doctors will tell you that traumatic emotional events can indeed weaken the heart and that it is basically the person giving up on life and that lack of a will to live apparently can cause health problems. However whatever you call it, "a broken heart" or "lost the will the live", it is stupid that Padme just died so suddenly when there were things for her to hold on to life for, you know like her children. This paints Padme as weak.
 * The way I see it, the droid diagnosing it as "lost the will to live" thing isn't 100% truthful. The droid admits that it has no idea why Padmé is dying. And that's because it's an effect of the Force. I don't know if the Force is literally sapping Padmé's will to leave, or just pushed her to the brink of death where only the will to live could save her, or even that it has nothing to do with the will to live at all and the droid is just clutching at straws, but the fact is, one way or another, it's Anakin's use of the Force that's killing her and the droid has no knowledge of the Force and therefore no way of explaining it and so can only describe what's happening from the way it appears to him. It doesn't mean Padmé specifically is weak, I imagine any other non-Force sensitive character would suffer the same fate.
 * In the novelization, Anakin killed her through their Force-bond, drawing on her life to keep himself alive despite his terrible injuries. He didn't want to, he tried to cut the link, he tried to stop the drain, and he simply could not do it.
 * The droid was full of shit. Padme is strangled and slammed down onto a rock and dies within the hour and they still think it's because she's lost the will to live.
 * Well, Padme was unconscious for most of the duel. Then she's forced to go through child labor as she gives birth to two babies! Her body had been through hell. It's a wonder she held on for this long.
 * In the novelization, Anakin killed her through their Force-bond, drawing on her life to keep himself alive despite his terrible injuries. He didn't want to, he tried to cut the link, he tried to stop the drain, and he simply could not do it. Despite his best efforts. So now you know exactly why he gave out with a Big No when Palpatine said that he'd killed her.
 * Silly question I know but are there any Force performers in the Galaxy? I mean are there people who use the Force for the sake of entertainment like in a circus or something? Also there isn't much mention of Jedi or Sith using their powers for recreational purposes, it is like these people don't have a life outside of battling to the death for the cosmic balance between Good and Evil.
 * I doubt there are, I get the feeling that the force is considered a bit too 'sacred' to use for mere entertainment. There are IMO perfectly legitimate non-battle uses for it though, like pilots, engineers, doctors, that sort of thing, which would not only garner public support, but would also be a way to help fund the Order. Think about the way it works in Anne McCaffrey's 'Pegasus' series (not so much the 'Tower and Hive' one, by then they seem practically godly).
 * The EU actually has something called the Jedi Service Corps which does just that sort of thing - medical services, disaster relief, deep space exploration. Most of the members are apprentices who failed their training at some point and chose it as an alternative to leaving the order so they aren't as skilled as full Knights, but they can still use the Force. Beyond that though it seems that Force sensitives with useful levels of ability are just so rare that they can't spare the manpower for anything beyond their peacekeeping/diplomatic duties (and even then they're stretched).
 * Belt clips. In the Original Trilogy Luke's lightsaber had a little hook on it so it could attach to his belt. So did Vader's. It wasn't ever addressed, it was just a functional part of the weapon. Now, in the Prequel Trilogy, all the lightsabers no longer have belt clips, yet we still see the Jedi walking around with them strapped to their belts. But when they take them out to use them, or pose for publicity shots, you'll never see a clip attached to them. Why? Did Lucas really not want to acknowledge a functional means for the Jedi to carry their weapons? Did he feel that belt clips would have made them less imposing? It's not as though no one thought about it, since ILM obviously had to specifically make props with clips for the actor's costumes along with ones without for when they are being held. So a choice was made explicitly regarding whether or not the lightsabers should have belt clips. What really bugs me about this is that the original lightsabers feel so much more functional, so much more real, simply because they have those little hooks. It shows a practical side to this fantastic world.
 * They have some other way to attach them to their belts. The actors can walk around with them attached to their belts and remove them without hassle, so obviously they have something else that works. Don't ask me what. Magnets, maybe?
 * The point isn't rationalizing how they attach for the characters; it's about the fact that Lucas decided he'd rather replace a functional piece of hardware with an unnecessary effect. It's just another symptom of the greater illness of over-reliance on effects that plagued the prequel trilogy.
 * If your point is that finding some other way to attach the saber hilts to belts was another piece of unnecessary SFX, I feel that I must point out that the previous troper has a point: they obviously found some way to attach them without the hook anyway.
 * I think they have holsters for the sabers in the prequel trilogy. I'm watching The Phantom Menace right now, and it looks like everyone - including Darth Maul - has some kind of leather thingy on their belt for the lightsaber. So no, they didn't need to make extra hilts.
 * Look at the picture of Qui-Gon's lightsabre. You may notice a black protrusion on the underside. All the lightsabres in the prequels have this. It's a small circle that hooks into a special slot on their belts. It's actually more convenient for drawing a sabre quickly and it doesn't bounce around so much when the wearer walks around.
 * I concede your point and retract my complaint entirely. I was always convinced that they were just switching out props rather than using actual clipping mechanisms.
 * Ooooooh, so THAT'S what that little knob is for!
 * In fact, they're one of the few parts of the prequel lightsabers based in existing technology. They're called Covertec clips, and they're an over-engineered alternative belt clip for pagers and cell phones that just happens to be even better for attaching lightsabers to belts.

"Emperor: We have a new enemy: Luke Skywalker. Vader: Yes, my master. Emperor: He could destroy us. Vader: He's just a boy. Obi-Wan can no longer help him. Emperor: The Force is strong with him. The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi."
 * "After you have killed all the Jedi in the Temple, go to the Mustafar system. Wipe out Viceroy Gunray and the other Separatist leaders." You know, Anakin should really be thinking "Wait... how come you know where the Separatist leaders are and haven't done anything about it before now? Isn't it interesting how you could have ended the war at any time, but conveniently waited until I had been converted? It's almost like a... conspiracy."
 * "Anakin should really be thinking". Indeed, he should. Furthermore, he probably should've started to back at the times of "Aot C". Seriously though, I guess all other concerns in his mind were blotched out by a giant neon sign saying "PADME".
 * True, it's in-character for Anakin, but wouldn't a great chessmaster like Palpatine at least wait until after Anakin had killed all the Jedi in the Temple and then pretended they just got intel on the location of the Separatists? It'd still be somewhat fishy, but at least it would be better than "Oh, in addition to being a Sith Lord, I just happen to know where the Separatists are. That's not suspicious at all."
 * Anakin has already accepted these circumstances. He has know for years that the mysterious Sith Lord they had been searching for was the ultimate leader of the separatist movement and army and he knew that said Sith Lord had infiltrated the Republic Senate. By kneeling before Palpatine, Anakin is essentially conceding the following: "I know that you are the 'ultimate evil' that I, and my fellow Jedi, have been seeking for the last decade. I realize now that you manipulated the Trade Federation into invading the home world of my beloved Padme as a tactic to get the Republic Senate to elect you Chancellor. I know now that you created the separatist movement and lead the separatist army to war against the Republic only to facilitate your assumption of more power than any Chancellor has ever wielded and ultimately to gain absolute control over the Republic. Your agents have killed my friends - including the man who freed me from slavery. Your agent took my arm. Your agents have attempted to kill my beloved Padme countless times. Your war has killed (at least) millions of Republic citizens. You are, in fact, the personification of everything evil I have fought against since I left Tatooine. But, you say that maybe you can help me save my beloved Padme from some obscure possible death I have dreamed about although for all I know you simply put those images into my head to further manipulate me. By kneeling before you, I accept that although you are purely evil, I will take you at your word regarding saving my wife and I am willing to do whatever you ask to win your help, even if that means slaughtering children, my best friend and mentor, and anyone else you point to."
 * Anakin should really have gotten suspicious of Palpatine's motives when he told Anakin to kill Dooku instead of bringing him in for trial, and later when Palpatine told Anakin to leave Obi-Wan to his fate. Trouble is, ever since the death of his mother Anakin had been slipping toward the Dark Side, and none of the Jedi had been perceptive enough to notice (possibly due to Palpatine blocking them).
 * In A New Hope, a stormtrooper commander says "All right, men, load your weapons." Uh, what? Their guns are lasers. What would they have to load?
 * Blast weapons in the Star Wars universe use power packs that eventually need to be changed out or charged.
 * When does that line get said, I don't think I've ever heard it.
 * Just before the Millennium Falcon takes off from Mos Eisley.
 * Unless the gun is designed to be plugged into an outlet to recharge, it will need to have something loaded into the weapon to fire - and only an idiot would design a man-portable weapon that can't be reloaded when its power runs out.
 * Because it sounds cooler than "All right, men, safeties off."
 * "We have a new enemy, the young Rebel who destroyed the Death Star. I have no doubt this boy is the offspring of Anakin Skywalker." Then Vader says, "How is that possible?", as opposed to "Holy shit, my son's alive!" or "Wait, why aren't YOU surprised my boy's alive?" (Or questioning about the other twin)
 * Vader never knew there were twins in the first place. Secondly his reaction of "how is that possible" basically is his version of "holy shit, my son's alive".
 * Vader not knowing he had twins strikes me as implausible. They don't have ultrasound in Star Wars? He and Padme should both have known she was pregnant with a boy and a girl.
 * According to another page where this was brought up, the novelization of Revenge of the Sith says that Padme went to the doctor to make sure she was healthy, but wanted everything else to be a surprise.
 * Yeah, "How is that possible?" is basically the same as "Holy shit, my son's alive?" except the latter isn't the sort of thing Darth Vader would say. As to why the Emperor wouldn't sound surprised, if he was going to show surprise, it'd be when he found out. By the time he's telling Vader, Vader would presume he's taken time to confirm in some fashion so the surprise would have passed.
 * Fridge Logic here because Vader should have known Padme had twins because he would have been able to feel them through The Force. More likely, he is asking how his son can be alive when he assumes both children died when Padme did. When he reads Luke's thoughts on the Death Star II, perhaps he realizes Leia is alive as well.
 * The EU establishes that Vader interrogates a Rebel Officer concerning the identity of the pilot who destroyed the Death Star after the events of A New Hope. The officer utters, "Luke Skywalker" before Vader kills him, so Vader knew that his son was alive before the events of The Empire Strikes Back. Logically this means that his utterance of, "How is this possible?", is more Vader asking the Emperor why he lied to him about the death of his children than a genuine shock at the existence of his son.
 * Vader's had years to learn to maintain a reserved demeanor in his dealings with Palpatine. Such a sudden, amazed outburst wouldn't be consistent with how somberly the two of them interact all through the series.
 * I'm sorry, but what are you all talking about? Vader never says "How is this possible?" so far as I can recall. The actual exchange is as follows:


 * The only question here is why the Emperor refers to "the son of [Anikin] Skywalker" when talking to Anikin Skywalker, rather than just saying "your son," and the in-story reason is that "that name no longer has any meaning for [Vader]," and the writer's reason is so as not to spoil The Reveal. Vader never asks "How is this possible?"
 * Why does the Emperor call Luke "the son of Skywalker"? Because, as Obi-Wan put it:
 * "[He] was seduced by the dark side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was [Anakin] was destroyed."
 * Meaning that the Emperor knows what would happen if Anakin Skywalker reasserted himself, and is working to keep that part of Darth's mind submerged.


 * In Return of the Jedi, the Super Star Destroyer Executor loses its shields, and moments later an A-Wing crashes into the bridge. After this, the huge, gigantic, MASSIVE ship crashes directly into the Death Star, killing all on board. You're telling me that on a ship that size, there are NO redundant control systems? No damage control teams? No engineering section to say "Holy crap, we just lost the main bridge," and take control of the ship? That's just poor design.
 * If I remember correctly, the thing crashes less than a minute after the thing crashes into the bridge. Given the rest of the battle going on, it might've taken a few more seconds than it should have for the rest of the crew to realize what had happened, and they didn't have time to pull the ship out of the Death Star's gravity (it might also have been too close to that as well) before it crashed.
 * It's a 19 km long starship, the resources alone should have mandated a backup command centre if not a string of them. With a design that stupid they virtually deserved to lose it.
 * The Executor did have backup control centers, including a fully-functioning secondary bridge. It's just that the Executor was already in the Death Star II's gravity well and was being pulled into the station before anyone could react in time to save the ship. Watch RotJ again: The Executor starts falling immediately after Crynyd (the A-Wing pilot) crashed into the bridge, and within seconds is in a straight-vertical dive. Even if command and control was transferred to the secondary bridge, it would still take several seconds before anyone figured out what the hell was going on, or for the transfer of command and control between the two stations to finish.
 * I'm no scientist, but shouldn't the largest concentration of mass have been attracted to the DSII, rather than the smallest (that is, the tiny point of its nose)? Also, why did the ship suddenly disappear as it exploded? (sarc)
 * Don't forget the ship had the entire Rebel Fleet pounding on it. Maybe a combination of physical and ion damage prevented (or at least slowed) the transfer to the backups.
 * That's the most plausible explanation, because really, for a ship that size you should be running the battlebridge in full duplex, so that the changeover takes milliseconds.
 * "Concentrate all fire on that Super Star Destroyer!" Yeah, I'm fairly certain that was a contributing factor to Executor's destruction.
 * The battle in 'Showdown at Centrepoint' irks me, I mean, they take their badly outnumbered little battlegroup into the middle of the enemy fleet and leave their ace (the Planetary repulsor) totally unguarded. What was wrong with leaving the enemy fleet up to Ackbar's fleet, and keeping the Bakuran ships back in case the enemy does figure the game out and make a salient at Drall?
 * I'd chalk it up to bad writing. I mean, the main villain is essentially Han Solo with a beard.
 * Wouldn't the destruction of an object the size of the Death Star in orbit above it also have resulted in the destruction of the Ewok's homeworld in The Return of the Jedi?
 * Sigh.
 * Yeah well I don't care what the canon says, the death-star had a volume of like 2.5 billion cubic kilometres (taking account of the unfinished section, and even in 99% gets disipated across the galaxy that still leaves 25 million cubic km behind, and even if only 1% of that were to hit Endor then that's 1/4 million cubic km of debris. You'd have to throw out the laws of physics not to flatten half the nearside forests in Tunguska-like explosions or worse.
 * Canon-wise, the destruction of the reactor core apparently created a wormhole due to the exotic fuel used. Thus, most of the mass was flung about the galaxy, and the rest was shot down the Alliance.
 * You read the numbers right? 1/100th of 1% is still enough for probably extinction-level devestation. Hels, even 1/10,000th of 1% would a pretty serious issue.
 * The Alliance shot down multiple pieces of debris entering the atmosphere at varying angles and speeds? Really?
 * And wouldn't the re-entry friction of so much material actually have caused fires across the planet?
 * And how about the fact that any of the pieces that survived re-entry hit Endor would almost certainly been radioactive due to the Death Star's reactor being destroyed? Toxic wastelands,anyone?
 * WRT all of the above: Endor's planetary shield blocked all of the debris.
 * Well A) Endor had no planetary shield, it was protecting the Death Star, and B) the shield generator blew up before the Death Star did (in fact they had to blow the shield up to be able to get at the Death Star).
 * It is quite possible that there were not one, but two shield generators on Endor. One to protect the Death Star and one to protect that one. We don't see the other one becuase once they are on the planet, it's not relevant.
 * Except that we have nothing to suggest there were two shields on Endor. It's much simpler (and probably more accurate) to assume that Lucas just wanted the plot to go a certain way without necessarily thinking out all the steps.
 * No, there was a shield that protected Endor itself. That's why the rebels only sent a ragtag team on Endor: because access to the planet was severely restricted.

In this case, you might recall that Obi Wan more or less tells Luke exactly why he didn't say so when he's on Degoba in Jedi. They wanted to hide Leia from Vader's awareness, and the best way to do this is to keep anyone from knowing who she is. Remember that later in Jedi, Vader finds this information from Luke's head with very little effort at all--that is what Obi Wan was looking to prevent by telling him earlier.
 * Was there any good reason that Obi Wan failed to mention Luke and Laia's relationship to them when he was aboard the Millennium Falcon? Other than to surprise everybody in The Return of the Jedi?
 * "Ah, you see they aren't really family, From A Certain Point Of View", Obi-Wan has kinda an issue with telling people the truth, you might have noticed this.
 * Yes, we get it, you hate Obi Wan. That doesn't mean everything he says is a blatant lie, nor that the "Obi Wan is a liar!" is the answer to every slight inconsistency.
 * Maybe he didn't think he would die so soon and was waiting until they would have Leia on board so he could tell them together. Maybe he thought that if they knew, Vader or Palpatine could find out by reading their minds (like what actually happened) and then the Empire would know there were two Skywalker siblings. Or maybe he just plain forgot to mention it.
 * Actually, Obi-wan never knew Leia was there. He'd left to deactivate the tractor beam before R2-D2's hacking uncovered the records of her imprisonment on board the Death Star. The only time Ben saw Luke and Leia together since infancy was when he glanced over to the Falcon and saw the others escaping, and that was literally mere seconds before Vader cut him down. By the time he'd gained sufficient strength as a Force ghost to communicate with Luke again, he had more important messages to deliver than, "By the way, you really shouldn't be smooching that girl with the cinnamon-bun hair...".
 * Yes, he did know Leia was there. She kinda sent him a distress call in an astromech droid. You know how it goes.
 * No, he didn't. The "Distress Call" consisted entirely of "Get these plans to my father on Alderaan." Nothing about being captured and sent to the Death Star because she wrote the message before she was captured and sent there. Hell, when she made the message she was probably expecting to be killed anyway.
 * Out of universe answer: Lucas hadn't decided to make her Luke's sister at that point. In universe answer: He was trying to keep her hidden from Darth Vader as a backup in case Luke got captured or killed or turned to the dark side.
 * Why is the collapse of the Empire seen as a "good thing" at the end of The Return of The Jedi? The Emperor's only potential successor was also dead, so wouldn't everything simply collapsed in the ensuing power vacuum?
 * Because the Empire was a evil, Sith-backed totalitarian government based on racism, tyranny, and fear. There would undoubtedly be squabbling between warlords in the vacuum for a bit, but the Rebels would be able to take over, as they'd probably gain more support after Palpatine's death. And really, anything is better then a government that destroys planets to root out rebellion.
 * This always bugged me too. When you really look at it, was the empire really that evil? Prior to the establishment of clones, the Imperial Military could be interpreted as an all volunteer force of, presumably, millions if not billions if not trillions of people. Even after the introduction of clones to the canon, the EU establishes that the vast majority are volunteers. Volunteers who, based on their actions, believed in the cause they were fighting for. Countless stormtroopers and fighter pilots laid down their lives to preserve the longstanding order that the Empire had established. On top of that, the rebels are very few in number, which indicates that the majority of the civilian population of the galaxy is largely ambivalent toward the empire. In fact, if you consider the Clerks argument (civilian contractors on the Death Star II and personal politics), a large amount of the civilian populace actually supports the Empire.
 * In contrast, look at the rebels. What exactly were they fighting for? Perhaps I've stumbled upon a bit of Fridge Brilliance here. If you (tying in with an above sentiment of people in the future looking back) think of the events as a propagandized version of history, then the one-sided nature of the story (as in "Good vs Evil) makes a bit more sense.
 * *coughcough* Alderaan *cough*
 * The Empire used slavery on aliens and permanent conscription on humans as well. Imperial Stop Loss Order, or I'm Milking Scragged, Life Over. And the A New Hope radio drama mentions "reeducation camps".
 * RE: The Clerks argument and the 'civilian contractors', what a lot of people who cite it as part of a "was the Empire really that evil / were the Rebels really that good?" argument tend to forget / ignore is that in the very same scene, someone else essentially points out that those civilian contractors were working on a huge-ass battleship (called The Death Star, for cryin' out loud -- how big a clue do you need?) being constructed for the military of a powerful empire that was embroiled in an ongoing conflict, and had to know on some level the dangers they were facing and what they were potentially getting themselves in for even if they choose not to acknowledge it (and if they genuinely didn't know what they're getting themselves in for they are, at best, very naive). Volunteers or not, civilians or not, if you work building battleships during a war you don't get to cry foul if someone from the other side tries to drop a bomb on you to stop you building battleships. As for whether the Empire was bad just because it managed to get people to support / volunteer for it, that, frankly, means absolutely diddly-- hate to go Godwins, but people supported / volunteered for the Nazis. And most of them did so not out of genuine commitment but because they were terrified of the consequences of not doing so. Popular support (or the appearance of same) doesn't make you right / good.
 * Zahn's books cover this somewhat. In fact it was Zahn who invented the more "friendly" Imperial Remnant common in the "New Republic" EU publishing era (read: everything between Return of the Jedi and the New Jedi Order series). Many of Zahn's books ask the question; what would the galaxy have been like if the Empire weren't ruled by a crazy Dark-side-obsessed narcissist? His books also point out that the New Republic is also not perfect and pretty much all of the "New Republic" era is focusing on the massive fallout, wars, rebellions, and power struggles that take place after hte collapse of the Empire.
 * Why should everything collapse? In canon the Rebel leaders take a great deal of power in the new order (much like real life) and most of the galaxy would have had a long history of self-rule with just a twenty year blip of imperial rule. As for why it was considered a good thing...the Empire's murders, discrimination against nonhumans and tendency to blow up planets might have had something to do with it.
 * In The Empire Strikes Back...how long did it take for Yoda to train Luke on Degaba? It was shown not having been more than a few days and that was far less training than Luke's father received? Is Yoda just THAT GOOD?
 * Hard to say. Obviously you can't show that much training on a film without a montage, but it's never really stated how long it was, anyways. Beyond that, Luke went off half-trained, and quite deficient (compare him to some of the stunts other Jedi do in the prequels).
 * Yoda didn't think so. He told Luke that he had taught him everything that he could. WTH???
 * Not when he was departing the first time. When he faced Vader, he lost, and would've been captured if not for things completely out of his control, i.e. Lando.
 * "Everything that he could" doesn't necessarily mean everything there is to know. Yoda wasn't in any shape to teach Luke much about lightsaber combat, for example, and there's probably a lot of teaching that goes on in a young padawan's life that there just wasn't time for. Yoda was saying he's given Luke all the instruction that he could in the time he had, not that he taught Luke everything there was to know about Jedi.
 * There is no indication that Luke's training takes "no more then a few days." He is training for the amount of time it takes for the Falcon to fly from Hoth to Bespin at sub light speeds. I realize that Star Wars isn't exactly hard science, but we can assume that if it only took a few days to fly between star systems, lightspeed wouldn't be nearly as important as it's made out to be. We're talking possibly several months to a year, certainly a good deal more then a few days.
 * It's also worth remembering that Yoda's primary concerns weren't about teaching Luke how to use force abilities, but the philosophy behind the Jedi and the Force. Sure, battle meditation would probably be useful, but it's not much good to someone who can't resist the draw of the Dark Side.
 * Throughout the Prequel Trilogy. Can anyone give me an In Universe reason why all the battle droids are deadpan snarkers that sarcastically talk back to their commanders?
 * Fridge Brilliance / Truth in Television: Whoever designed the battle droids must've been someone who thought that they should have some kind of attitude/personality so that they could be interesting for commanders to work it. Just like some screenwriters in Real Life believe that having characters be snarky/jerkish is the only way to make those characters interesting, because they think nice personalites are boring, whoever designed the battle droids must've been had the exact same belief. So the designers might've made the battle droids deadpan snarkers becase they thought the commanders would find that more amusing than polite/emotionless battle droids. Considering the fact that Lucas was using the battle droids' snarkiness for comic relief, and since I always chuckled when the droids spoke, I'd say Lucas succeeded on that part.
 * The Droid Personality Virus is very, very, very far reaching.
 * Joke answer: They were built by the lowest bidder, who adapted video games for their responses. They're like when you poke the Starcraft Marine too many times.
 * Droids seem reasonably self-aware, and most are capable of emotion to one degree or another. For all intents and purposes, they're artificial lifeforms, yet they're bought and sold like slaves. Hell, poor C-3PO gets his memory erased, basically meaning that everything he'd ever learned or experienced was destroyed, yet Bail Organa orders it done like he's placing an order for new drapes. Doesn't anyone in the Star Wars universe care about how they're treating the droids? Even slavery of organic beings only happens on the outer rim planets, so clearly slavery isn't a universal practice. What the hell's wrong with these people?
 * The idea, though, is that it's not supposed to happen. Droids are routinely memory wiped specifically to prevent them developing personality.
 * Well, the droids are supposed to have their memory routinely wipe. This troper suspect the operators charged to wipe them didn't exactly liked their jobs and will slack off as much as possible and leave more than a couple of droids with their memory intact.
 * There are droids activists in the EU, and Naboo is noted for treating droids as equals. Really, though, Star Wars just seems to have a different sense of morality then us.
 * So were robots in Asimov's "I Robot". The keyword is "artificial".
 * It's Star Wars. The technology is there to support the story and characters, and nobody cares about the far-reaching social or moral ramifications of it.
 * Why do people keep making comments like this when they totally miss the point of this entire page?
 * This spoof video has a point (1:44). Why didn't Vader grab Luke with Force after the kid'd jumped into the shaft in Ep. V?
 * The same reason that Jedi/Sith fights don't just involve throwing each other around with telekinesis. You can block telekinesis that's directly applied to you.
 * Except that Vader was far more powerful than Luke was at that point, plus his son's hand had been severed and thus Luke's ability to resist would be negligible given the pain he would be in. I always felt that the reason why Vader didn't grab Luke with the Force was because he was hurt by the fact that his son would rather die than stand by his father's side, I know that if my family showcased some sort of disappointment in me, like Luke did against Vader, then I would be affected by it.
 * OP: Of course you would, but you are not an imperturbable, emotionally-scarred, evil cyborg (you're not, right?). Even notwithstanding that, it'd be very naive for Vader to expect that Luke would just leap into his embrace right away, especially after all the pounding, arm-cutting, Han Solo-freezing, Empire-serving and Alderaan-blowing up, and Vader was anything but naive. Next, family issues can be sorted out, unlike the consequences of a thousand-mile drop. Finally, what about Force Precognition? A deathwish should be a very strong emotion, surely Vader would sense it. And Vader did use telekinesis sucessfully during his fight with Luke.
 * Vader used telekinesis, but it was to throw inanimate objects around, he never picked Luke up. Given how ridiculously effective such a power would be if it really worked, the fact that he never used it suggests that Luke is strong enough to put up some resistance. After dropping down the hole Luke only needed to resist for a few seconds before he fell out of reach.
 * In the novel he used it directly on Luke (to push, not to pull, I admit, but come on). As mentioned above Vader was incomparably more powerfull than the boy even before all the beating and arm-cutting.
 * Force Push and Force Pull are two different powers. Pushing involves creating a concussive blast in the air which hits the target and knocks them down (in the prequels you can clearly see the shockwave), but pulling involves using the Force directly on the target. Force users are able to resist Force attacks against themselves, if you look at The Force Unleashed for example, throwing stormtroopers around with the Force is a standard tactic, but as soon as you face someone who is even vaguely skilled with the Force it becomes largely useless and certainly not something you can rely on to work if you only have a few seconds.
 * One word: Whiplash.
 * If Star Wars functioned with any normal sense of physics Luke would have splattered into a million pieces the moment he made contact with the cold, hard surface of that tunnel that must have been about a thousand miles below. I am assuming that the Force can cushion the damage that natural physics would have on a body so Vader grabbing Luke would have been no more dangerous than what Luke was about to fall to... his death.
 * If you look carefully you see that Luke gets sucked to the side into the vent, arresting his momentum, and after a fall of much less height than that. Vader was shocked for the second or two in which he might have been able to do anything.


 * Luke declares that his sister Leia is powerful with the Force, and she has three kids that are all strong with the Force. Yet she gets captured and has an up close and personal meeting with Vader during which he drugs and tortures her and he never has the slightest idea that she's a) kin or b) powerful with the Force.
 * You have to either actively look for a person's force potential (it involves psychic probing the reptilian forebrain, as I recall; you don't actively emit force waves and can't judge power from a distance like with Dragon Ball ki levels) or use a midichlorian scanner, neither of which would have occured to Vader to use, since as far as he knew, she was the daughter of Bail Organa and he had no reason to doubt it, and probing her for force potential would be a waste of time- it isn't policy to do it for every ID-confiremd adult prisoner, after all, or even any, as far as I know (what scanners they have are mostly used on Jedi-hunts and Emperor's Hand searches). As for her being kin... again, why would it occur to him to look?
 * He picked out his other kid on another ship. Granted, Luke is a trained Force user, but it seems like if there were any circumstances under which a latent talent might in some way manifest itself, drugged torture would be it. Plus, it just bugs me that he has this mystical connection to one kid while the other is literally invisible to him.
 * His other kid who a bit of basic detective work would have revealed to be named Luke Skywalker and living with Owen and Beru Lars, and was actively using the force in front of Vader. He probably knew what to look for with Luke, and was expecting it, and probably would have dismissed it as a coincidence if he hadn't been able to back it up with stormtrooper investigation records.
 * Vader felt the pilot who destroyed the Death Star use the Force, afterward Vader interrogated a Rebel Alliance officer to find out the name of the pilot and he told him that his name was Luke Skywalker. Vader realized that it would be a one in a million coincidence for a pilot to both know how to use the Force and have the same last name as him, he put two and two together and realized that his son was alive. Leia never used the Force in his presence and not knowing how to use it she wouldn't give off any sort of Force signature anyway, so that is why he never realized that Leia was his daughter until he probed Luke's mind and found it out in Return of the Jedi.
 * And didn't Luke declare kids strong in Force before they used it?.. Besides, Vader knows it was a war between Force users before it started, and tend to be dismissive toward those who aren't. Why would he not check "important" people for Force affinity?
 * Plot Hole was noted in Irregular Webcomic - "Hang on..."


 * So why did the Jedi only recruit members from birth, instead of at least waiting until they are young children?
 * Because it's easier to teach the younger someone is. If you can tell someone's force sensative from birth, and you want them to be part of an order of monks that forsakes things like familial connections, why would you wait until after they've formed strong familial bonds to recruit them? You know, exactly what happened with Anakin and caused the downfall of the entire Jedi Order?
 * You do understand that it sounds awfully like an indoctrination technique of some totalitarian sect? And Anakin would've been fine, if somebody (including him) ever bothered to free his mother and settle her in a nice, safe place, like Naboo.
 * Yes, it's a brainwashing/indoctrination technique. You can condemn the Jedi for doing so, but those are their reasons; to raise somebody from a young age with their values and turn them into superhuman soldiers/diplomats/generals through training.
 * Diplomats and peacekeepers, not generals. They hadn't had anything even approaching war since the Ruusan Reformation a thousand years before, and the Jedi explicitly eliminated their formal military branch after said reformation. It was the Clone Wars that forced a revival of the millitary aspect of Jedi, but it was far from usual during those thousand years. That said, it was for purposes of molding them to the proper mindset, just into Jedi philosophy and emotional attachment to life in general rather than specific individuals, instead of the soldier drone implications the phrase usually has. Anakin is a good example of why they wanted them properly indoctrinated.
 * Why did Mace Windu, after hearing from Obi-Wan's transmission from geonosis that the Trade Federation & several other entities of the CIS were to pick up a DROID ARMY, why did he still go ahead with sending over 200 jedi?
 * All he knew was Yoda was going to the place. He didn't know he'd succeed in getting the army, or getting them there in enough time to save Obi Wan, Anakin, and Padme and stop the Separatists.


 * The Death Star IIs construction. They way it was constructed seems completely illogical and impractical, as it's being built in a way that looks like it barely came out of battle.
 * What? What's wrong with it? How do you think you're supposed to build a moon?
 * They could start with building a frame, at least.
 * The thing was over 900km in diameter, building a frame first would have been immensely illogical and impractical given the size of some of the things they had to fit in there.
 * Why do you need a frame for something being constructed in zero G?
 * It might help when the thing you're building is large enough to have it's own significant gravitational field. However, anti-gravity technology in the SW universe once again makes this less of a counterpoint. Not to mention a big point in the space battle is that they got the main weapon online long before it was expected to be finished. They probably started with everything they needed for the big gun, and just built around it.
 * I think I've been over this before on the archives page, and it's the same reason why Randall in Clerks shouldn't have feared so much for the construction workers: it was obviously never meant to look complete, or at least not until after the Battle of Endor. Remember that they were luring the rebellion into a trap (no, I'm not going to say it). They wanted them to think that the Death Star was still too incomplete to be operational when in fact it was working just fine. The incomplete look was a large part of the ruse. They were good to go, as they proved. Probably afterward they would have brought the construction crew back but for the time being this was exactly how the Death Star was meant to be.


 * EU describes Palpatine as a racist, who hated non-humans. Now look at the movies. All his cabinet of aids consists of aliens. Mas Amedda and Sly Moore, and that Rodian guy, not to mention his dealings with Neimodians and Geonosians. In fact, I see neither him, nor his Empire being any more humanocentric than GR. Senators and moffs are still from different species, while troopers are still humans in white armor.
 * Hating other groups of people does not mean that you can't use them for your own purposes. For example Hitler looked down on the Japanese and he still coveted them as allies regardless during World War II, and even though he killed the Jews and other groups such as Gays, Gypsies, etc. he still used them for slave labor. I don't see any contradiction with Palpatine wanting a human dominated universe and still putting other alien species to his own purposes.
 * Prior to the rise of the Empire human supremacy (or "Human High Culture" as it's referred to in the EU) was a fringe minority position. Palpatine couldn't afford to come out as a human supremacist until he had secured his position as Galactic Dictator.
 * Or even simpler: when it was politically expedient to be Mr. Smiles the Lawkeeper, he played that tune, and when he thought it will be more useful to go for "human supremacy", switched without blinking an eye. And why would Palpatine do not act like this? For him it was all about obtaining and proving power - not even like "conventional" politicians do, but with clarity of purpose melting into all-out monomania - he does everything toward this end, up to and including infliction of severe permanent burns to himself.


 * In Empire, Han hides the Millennium Falcon by landing on the backside of a Star Destroyer's island...superstructure, whatever. The Falcon looks tiny by comparison. TIE fighters are shown to be very small--certainly not substantially larger than the Falcon. Yet late in ROTJ, a TIE fighter appears to explode against the superstructure and it's almost the same size.
 * Perspective. The TIE was closer to the camera when it kabooms, plus that particular Star Destroyer had an enlarged command tower, since it was serving as a communications vessel. Yes, one of the blasts from the X-Wing hit that SD, but a. Deflector Shields and b. The X-Wing probably snap-rolled left to avoid the TIE's debris, and it's final shot just went off during/after the maneuver.


 * Why does everyone complain about Luke's whininess? From my numerous watchings of the movies, and as a fellow 19-to-20-year-old, I'd say it's not to any particularly abnormal degree, especially when you consider the fact that this guy has the genes of an adventurous pilot/warrior and an Action Girl senator, and has spent his entire life as a farmer in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do...
 * But I want to go to Toshi Station to pick up some poooooooweer conveeeeeeeerteeeeeeeeeers.
 * You do realize that power converters is Star wars slang for strippers right?
 * What bugs me most is that so many people have labeled this as Luke's defining character trait, even though he pretty much stops whining the moment he leaves to search for Artoo. So two films and three quarters of a film are about him being a wide-eyed idealist, who gradually develops into a wise, noble hero, yet ironically, the fans all whine about him being whiny for the entire trilogy.
 * ^^Yes, because clearly one single sentence embodies his entire character. Let's completely forget about all the other traits he displays across three different movies and focus solely on that.
 * Because it's the first defining character trait he gets. Moral of the story: first impressions really do matter. Also, he does complain quite a bit in Empire, too, particularly when he's going through training with Yoda. Though those instances are much less grating than the first, it doesn't do a whole lot to deter people who maybe aren't paying close attention to his Character Development.


 * In A New Hope, why does Luke Skywalker, a simple farmboy, apparently just carry around a grappling hook?
 * He lived in a mountainous area. It's not unlikely he goes climbing now and then. Which grappling hooks are useful for.
 * I always figured the grappling hook came from the stromtrooper belt he was wearing at the time.
 * Because we see so many stormtroopers grappling onto things. However, I do recall one of the earlier "tech/art of Star Wars" books mentioning it being standard Stormtrooper equipment.
 * We never see stormtroopers using combat knives either. Should we therefore assume that stormtroopers never carry one of the most widespread and utilitarian tools ever made? The same tool carried by almost every soldier of every military on the planet Earth?
 * Yes? Without any evidence onscreen, I'd say there's no reason to assume they had knives. However, the grappling hook does make an appearance, and it seems like the most reasonable explanation is that it was from the trooper belt.
 * If you look closely, you actually see Luke taking out of a pocket on the belt.


 * In Revenge of the Sith when Yoda is determining who should fight Palpatine and who should fight Anakin he tells Obi-Wan to fight Anakin because he's not skilled enough to fight Palpatine. This bugs me because it was established in Episode II that Anakin's skill with the lightsaber was already Yoda's equal, and by Episode III he was better.
 * The only person who says Anakin is as good as Yoda is Anakin who, as we all known, is an arrogant kid. And the events of Episode II bear out that Yoda is better. Of the two, which is the one who forces Dooku into a retreat, and which is the one who gets his arm lopped off?
 * The actual quote is: Obi-Wan: If you spent as much time on your saber skills as your wit, you'd rival Master Yoda as a duelist. Anakin: I thought I already did. Obi-Wan: Only in your mind, my very young apprentice."
 * Going by the Expanded Universe Anakin by the time of Revenge of the Sith is listed as having tier 9 lightsaber skills, which is the pinnacle of lightsaber ability and a level that Yoda is also at. The lightsaber portion of the duel has potential to end in a draw but Yoda's Force power would spell victory over Anakin in an exchange of the Force. It should also be noted that Obi-Wan is listed as a tier 8 so the only thing that allowed him to survive Anakin's onslaught was his patience in waiting him out using a defensive style and then striking when an opening revealed itself. Had Anakin not provided that opening by trying to jump to Obi-Wan's higher ground then he could have won, it was Anakin's rage that cost him a duel he would have otherwise have won.
 * What. Anakin as good as Yoda!!?? Yoda could've polished his youngling's training sabers with Sir Whinybottom's saber skills!
 * Palpatine's main forms of attack seemed to be telekinesis and lightnings, not a lightsabre. Yoda seemed a bit surprised about the lightnings, but he probably knew for whatever reason (maybe that's how Sith Lords fight?) that Palpatine would be using these types of attacks, against which Yoda could protect himself better than Obi-Wan. So sending Obi-Wan to fight the guy who was mostly using the same method as he was, even if the guy was somewhat better with it, would make more sense than sending him fight Palpatine, against whose attacks Obi-Wan would have had no chances.
 * Okay, so why not both go to kill Anakin (*cough* epic curbstomp *cough*) And then both go and kill Palpatine? Yoda was on the verge of success after all and Obi0-Wan's pretty damn powerful himself, so why not?


 * In "A New Hope" As soon as she's captured, Princess Leia tell Darth Vader "I'm a member of the Imperial Senate, on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan." Why would she be on a diplomatic mission to her own home planet? I realize that she is, of course, lying. Still, that must have been her actual cover story. Wouldn't it have made more sense to say that she was on her way back home for a vacation or a family wedding or something?
 * It's not at all unusual to have a senator sent to his/her home state as part of official government business. In fact, they'd be the best person to send.
 * She's not Alderaan's representative. She's a Senator. She's expected to be neutral in Galactic affairs, not pro-Alderaan. As stated above, she'd be the best person to travel from Coruscant to Alderaan on a diplomatic mission. A better question is: How thoroughly is Coruscant penetrated by Rebel spies if they can whip up a full-blown diplomatic mission just to cover a transmission intercept? The only possible advantage that cover would confer over a private flight is diplomatic immunity, which they couldn't possibly have expected to really matter all that much, especially considering they dissolve the Senate entirely two scenes later. With just a casual reference by Tarkin, no less - it wasn't even a big deal then because the Senate was mostly a useless entity after twenty years of Imperial rule. A New Hope even directly states that their only real function was as a bureaucracy to allow the Emperor to exert control over individual systems. When that problem was taken care of by a slight shift in authority, the Senate was swept away, to the surprise of noone. Why, then, did the Rebel Alliance risk a cover that could be so easily checked for a benefit that was merely theoretical anyway?
 * Watching the prequels, I was under the INTENSE belief that Senators are representatives of their homeworlds, like the US Senate has two people representing their state. However, it is possible that in the interim twenty years the Imperial Senate was changed as you said so they'd have to be neutral. By New Hope, the Senate was essentially a giant rubber stamp for the Emperor, the Regional Governors, and the Imperial Navy.


 * The Jedi were all but destroyed, and Obi-Wan only managed to survive because he went into hiding for 20 years. And yet the first time we see him go out in public, he whips out his obviously Jedi weapon to break up a bar fight.
 * Well he was intending to leave Tatooine pretty soon. Maybe he figured by the time he got back from Alderaan, news about his actions in the cantina would have died down. In addition, he's preparing to train Luke so this scene is useful because it shows Luke just what a Jedi can do.
 * The first thing he does is go, "Oh, don't worry about the boy, let's just have a drink on me and forget about it." Then the other guy pulls out his blaster and starts shooting. What the hell else was Obi Wan supposed to do? The other guys forced a confrontation, meaning Obi Wan's choices were to intervene, which at that point required immediate and overt use of his Jedi abilities, or let Luke deal with it and probably get at best mugged, and at worst shot.
 * To be fair, just because Obi-Wan Kenobi was using a lightsaber doesn't automatically mean he's a Jedi himself. As far as the patrons knew, he just found a lightsaber from a dead Jedi's body and decided to keep it.
 * Yes, but either way it marks him. To quote Talon Karrde, who was confronted with the same issue: "You [are] either Luke Skywalker, Jedi, or else someone with a taste for antiques and an insufferable opinion of his own swordsmanship."
 * Yeah, tensions were too high at that point for something like a mind trick, so Obi-wan's options were pretty much bust out the lightsaber (which tells people he might be a Jedi) or overtly use the Force (which tells people he is a Jedi or something very similar). Neither option is great, but the first is marginally better, so it's what he had to go with.
 * Notice that everyone in the cantina gasps and takes a step back. They had to have assumed he was a Jedi. Or, worse, working with the Empire (EU has multiple lightsaber-wielding personal agents of Palpatine, remember). It was just the best option they had available, and they were leaving soon anyway. Note that the Empire does catch on almost immediately when someone basically runs off and tells the nearest stormtrooper that some odd old dude is waving around that there beam sword thing. The stormtroopers then immediately chase them to the Falcon and open fire. They must've known Obi-Wan was a Jedi.
 * Break cover or let a mission critical asset (Luke in this case) be potentially killed. Not much of a choice there. Using a lightsaber and no overt use of the force might let him keep his cover intact as compared to a overt use of the force that would blow his cover completely. (Although at the loss of the lightsaber.)
 * What cover? Sure, Kenobi's attempting to keep things on the down low personally, but Luke was openly wearing the lightsaber. Anyone in that cantina significantly older than he is -- say, the very people who pick a fight, or the bartender, or Greedo, or Han -- should be old enough to remember the Jedi. Anakin himself recognized a deactivated lightsaber as a child, and canonically several people there were not only his age, they were his acquaintances as children.
 * I don't know, Han, along with quite a few other people, seem to regard concepts like the force with disbelief (That Imperial officer who mocks Vader for following an 'ancient religion' comes to mind). Although that's more of a problem with Star Wars' rather tangled continuity. As for Luke, remember that he was born a few days after the Jedi purges began, and thus looks too young to fit the criteria for a renegade Jedi. Most would probably just figure that he's some junker who got lucky and came across an old lightsaber somewhere. Obi-Wan, on the other hand, fits the age group for a Jedi AND demonstrates that he knows how to use one effectively. That'd cast alot more suspicion on him than Luke.


 * Darth Vader is being treated by the medical droids, and his transformation into the masked, be-armoured Dark Lord is almost complete. His mask is put onto his face, still covered with open wounds. Shouldn't they let it heal first, or at least clean it or somehow bandage it up before attaching the helmet?
 * He's being treated by droids under the supervision of a Sith Lord. Making it as unpleasant as possible may be by design.
 * Darth Sidious did that on purpose, he felt that if he made the surgical process of getting Vader into that suit as painful as possible then Vader could draw on that as a means to strengthen his connection to the Dark Side. For goodness' sake Vader didn't even have anesthesia during the surgery so he felt everything that the surgical droids did to his body, I doubt having the armor applied to his skin while it wasn't fully healed mattered much to Vader's master.
 * Exactly. Remember how he screamed when the droid simply removed part of his clothing from his burnt skin? Imagine that, except they have to cut into him in order to fix his lungs, etc. For seven long days (check Wookipedia, Darth Vader's Armor). Vader would be awake for the entire procedure.


 * If you thought the bridge on the Executor was bad, how about the bridge on General Grievous' ship at the beginning of Revenge? Executor's bridge may have been exposed, but at least it was exposed on one side only. That bridge was exposed on all sides, almost all of which were windows, and it was sticking out like a sore thumb-while laser blasts were blowing holes all over the ship. Why weren't the clones aiming for it, anyway?
 * Shields. The end.
 * Not that hard to get past Star Wars shields.


 * "She'll make it .5 past lightspeed". On an interstellar scale, that's not very fast, is it?
 * Depends on the rating scale you're using. Could mean anything, really.
 * Discussed already on the archives page. Hyperdrives use a series of classes based on a decreasing scale. .5 is ludicrously fast by this standard. "Lightspeed" is simply slang for hyperspace travel.
 * The way that Han speaks of lightspeed in the original film strongly implies that according to these films' scientific outlook breaking lightspeed will automatically send you into hyperspace, where the ordinary rules no longer apply.
 * Also, Han uses parsecs as a unit of time; I know there are Fanwanks for this, but the obvious explanation is that he never studied physics, and is just full of it. He knows his ship is fast, and makes up numbers that he thinks sound cool.


 * Where/when did Luke Skywalker learn lightsaber combat? Was it on the ride to Alderaan on the Falcon, where he practiced against a little droid, or was it after Yoda was done making him balance stuff on his head? As the last Jedi, who would he train against to be able to hold his own against Vader in Empire Strikes Back, not to mention how crazy awesome he is in Return of the Jedi.
 * Mmm. Yoda didn't spend all that time making him balance on his head, you know. Lightsaber training is part of the deal.
 * Besides, in ESB Luke unltimately got shit kicked out of him, even though Vader didn't want to kill him. In Rot J he wacked a few thugs and then got his shit kicked out of him AGAIN and only bested Vader through berserker rage.
 * According to some EU materials, the Millennium Falcon's trip from the asteroid belt to Bespin took a few months on its backup hyperdrive. Why didn't he use this before? They wouldn't have gotten far before another Star Destroyer squadron found them. Anyway, we don't see what happens during the time between when Yoda lifts the X-Wing out of the swamp and when Luke has his premonition.


 * Why has noone ever made all six films into an incredibly long LITERAL Space Opera?
 * This sounds awesome!


 * An earlier entry from the archives has someone arguing "Many Jedi, quite possibly even the ones on the council besides Yoda and Windu, simply weren't good at lightsaber combat because, lacking the mindset and power of those two, there weren't any lightsaber-wielding opponents around for them to fight in the last thousand years. They only trained in blaster-bolt deflection." however I read at least one novel involving a Padawan Obi-Wan duelling a rival with training sabers. Surely the combat-able Jedi would constantly train against eachother in such a manner, and pit all of the styles against eachother? Apart from perhaps Vaapad, the most dangerous one. Or did they simply not bother, and they got what was coming to them?
 * Well Lightsaber dueling was technique and power based. Start on the road of power, the dark side does. Why urge a generation of increasingly arrogant jedi to become more outwardly powerful?
 * ...pretty much the entire point of the prequel trilogy is that the Jedi had grown arrogant and basically believed the Sith were extinct for good.
 * And they probably had basic lightsaber duel training (if nothing else, as a means of training in how to handle the weapon, especially around others) as padawans but not very serious training in dueling since it was considered unimportant. Note that some Jedi Masters were expert duelists, including Yoda and Mace Windu, so it's not like lightsaber dueling was a lost art - SOMEONE had to teach those two. Many different EU and some higher-canon sources indicate that there is more than one way to be a Jedi and not all Jedi have the same talents. Luke, for example, is more of a "warrior" Jedi who fights with a lightsaber and more basic Force skills and Force senses. Leia is more of a "diplomat" Jedi who uses her talents for, well, diplomacy, although she's not helpless in battle either just like Luke isn't helpless when it comes to actually talking to people. It's just their specialty. Yoda specialized in everything because he's Yoda, that's all (he's probably had the better part of 900 years to master all the disciplines). But why raise many Jedi from a young age (when they may be more open to a wider variety of skills and talents to place their focus on) to focus on the single least useful talents in a Jedi's potential arsenal? It's clear at the time of the fall of the Old Republic that most Jedi were trained either as warriors to fight against non-Force-using opponents (droids or small armies) or in diplomacy to keep the Galactic Republic functioning smoothly. Not to fight against a threat that was pretty much regarded as theoretical.
 * Also, while fighting other Jedi might be fun, it's not considered a Jedi life skill at that point. It might be comparable to asking a modern knight, say Sir Alec Guinness why he does not know how to use a sword.
 * well also Yoda(who is a Sentinel) is seen instructing younglings in the ways of the lightsaber in AOTC. We know that all jedi recieve initial instruction from a master, Anakin was one of the few exceptions seeing as how old he was, so why is it hard to believe that Yoda taught all of his students inward and outward strength?
 * In the previously mentioned book involving Obi-wan it certainly sounded like training in light saber combat was important, at least going by how the author described it. Of course that's the problem when you get to a vast expanded universe filled with material of dubious continuity. You easily get things like contradictory descriptions of training or three million soldiers apparently fighting a galactic war.
 * Hey, one million was apparently good enough in the AOTC novelization, and 10000 Jedi was supposedly an effective galactic peacekeeping force. These are from G-level sources, so it's not just the Expanded Universe.


 * So, according to Yoda, I'm supposed to be happy and cheerful in the event a loved one died? I'm suppose to just forget about them? If I told this to someone who was geniuingly afraid of a loved one dying, I'd deserve every last beating they give me.
 * People who die become one with the force and their bodies return to nature. Yoda wasn't saying to enjoy death, but not to see it as the end of the world either- simply as a natural and at times unavoidable part of nature, to be accepted and come to terms with.
 * You don't exist in a setting where you can actively converse with your loved ones if you're Force-sensitive, bro.
 * I also think the implication of Yoda's statement is that while the Jedi may strive to save lives, they don't believe in unnatrually extending life with the power of the Force.
 * The idea that you shouldn't mourn death is actually something common in Buddhism. Monks specifically urge families to not be sad so they don't interfere with the soul moving on. Yoda probably was trying to remind Anakin that death is part of being alive. Of course he did it in a rather stupid fashion that makes one wonder just how 'wise' he really is, but that's another matter.


 * Would a left-handed Jedi / Dark Jedi / Sith have any advantage or disadvantage against a right-handed one?
 * In sword combat if you are right handed then you are more easily able to reach your opponent's left side, if your enemy is left handed then the right handed combatant has to adjust his horizontal slices so that he now has to hit the right side which gives his left handed opponent an opening. In fact Palpatine was known to switch his lightsaber from his right to his left hand in the blink of an eye to throw his opponent's off in just such a manner.


 * Ok, the Hutt species Hat is that they're criminal lords. What about them seems to lead them entirely into pursuing careers in illegal enterprises? How do they even manage to have the influence they have; they're all barely mobile slugs.
 * By this reasoning, Queen Elizabeth of England shouldn't have any power. I mean, I'm fairly certain that in a 1v1 arena type situation, I, a 25 year old male, could take her out. She could never have ruled a country on her own. There's more to power than just physical domination. Hutts are criminal overlords. They don't need to be physically impressive when they can snap their fingers and hundreds of people will do their bidding.
 * They're smart, and they know how to get wealth and strategically apply it. In other words, they're good at getting other people to do their dirty work for them. They're also really hard to kill and live for centuries, which certainly doesn't hurt.
 * Where is it said they're really hard to kill?
 * They are NOT hard to kill. If Leia could so easily choke Jabba to death than the rest of the galaxy should have nothing to be afraid of, asking the question of how they became so feared is a valid criticism.
 * Leia killed Jabba because he was stupid enough to chain an Action Girl to his own body. Hutts have very thick skin, a digestive system that can handle most poisons, and can't themselves be digested even by the Sarlacc, a borderline Eldritch Abomination. They can be killed, obviously, but a lot of conventional methods either don't work or take a lot of effort.
 * Also, remember that Leia is an untrained Force-sensitive. During moments of strong emotion its entirely plausible that her physical attributes would be boosted, possibly beyond normal human maximum; that is the very first thing pretty much anyone learns how to do when touching the Force instinctively.
 * They're good at finances and wielding money. They don't need to be physically mobile or powerful in a society where hired guns are commonplace and most weaponry is handled by a flick of a switch.
 * Before Republic Hutts were dominant force in Galaxy so being crime lords is step down for them.
 * In real life people who became rulers normally gained their influence by giving their allegiance to a greater power than themselves. From there they would conduct personal tasks for these kings or queens such as fighting in their wars, taxing citizens, being a healer, or giving useful advice of some sort, and in exchange their superiors would give them political power or wealth and this would extend to their families and then they would become a ruling family of their own as time went on. The Hutts being slobs of flesh and blood as they are slugs can't fight in wars and would be killed if they tried to, they don't appear to care about healing people since they are corrupt crime lords so they obviously never served that role, so the only things left are that at one point they gave useful advice to a ruler of some sort or used their knowledge of money to exploit the financial system. The Hutts could never have gotten such power on their own as they are immobile slugs, someone would have had to have given it to them.
 * The expanded universe has a few mentions and examples of Hutts being pretty dangerous in close combat. Of course that's the expanded universe so exact canon is always difficult to establish.


 * To qoute a Lets Play of a Star Wars Rebellion about the Bothans: "How can they ever get within 500 feet of an imperial compound without someone going "Hey, look, a giant fucking bipedal cat!"?" How, exactly, are Bothans such good spies? Okay, so in the EU they have a couple of other hats besides spying, but what is it that makes them good spies in the first place? Do they have a genetic power to turn invisible?
 * Yes. And on top of that, see below.
 * There's a lot more to spying than just sneaking around. In fact, it's generally a bad idea for an agent to be within line-of-sight of whatever they're trying to observe. Bothans specialize in SIGINT and ELINT (Signals intelligence and electronic intelligence). Essentially, they're experts at hacking into files and breaking into secure data networks, and intercepting data and breaking encryption. Less James Bond, more ECHELON and the NSA. Even when you're gathering HUMINT (human intelligence, which is traditional eyes-on-the-ground spying) agents generally operate through local contacts instead of going out and spying on enemy activity personally. A Bothan spy group probably won't even be on the planet they're observing, instead sitting in orbit or on a moon or at the far end of a hypercomm channel observing and collecting data being sent to them by agents of another species on the ground or drones.
 * I believe it is possible for Bothans to be invisible or at least camouflage themselves. In Battlefront II there are a few places were Bothans can ambush you and take you out before you know what it was that got you.
 * Plus: the Bothans actually kind of sucked at spying, at least in the films. Many Bothans died stealing the falsified information that Palpatine deliberately let them have.
 * Palp couldn't let them have it too easy, or it'd be obvious it was a trap.
 * Actually, those Bothans weren't killed via spying. They were killed capturing the information through direct action. Shadows of the Empire specifies that the Bothans took heavy losses assaulting the ship carrying those plans, as the Empire was using some new kind of missile that was resistant to anti-missile fire.


 * For A New Hope, why did they go directly to the Rebel base? Leia openly stated that they were being followed. So why didn't they fly to a relatively distant planet, make multiple copies of the Death Star plans on different machines and send those machines to different locations. There was no need to lead the Empire to the base so quickly.
 * What makes you think they had the time or resources for that? The Empire is big. Any stop at a place that isn't Rebel controlled runs the risk that some Empire agent is going to be there and catch you. And there's the tracking beacon too, so any time you stop? The Empire is catching up. The most important thing at that point was to get the plans into Rebel hands before anything else could happen to them.
 * They clearly had enough time to get to the base, have a team analyze the plans, have a meeting with all of the pilots present, pay Han, get the fighters ready and intercept the Death Star before it was in range of the moon.
 * Most of which probably only took a few hours altogether. And besides, had they gone anywhere but straight to the rebel base, the Empire would quickly realize their plan's not working and so just recapture them. Leia had a miraculous second chance at delivering the Death Star plans to the Rebellion, and she figured losing the Yavin base would be worth it.


 * Yoda's been alive for 900 years and he still hasn't learned proper Basic sentence structure?
 * Yoda is a bit of a trickster. Maybe he can speak proper Basic. He just likes to mangle syntax.
 * Maybe he's a trickster but, you'd think he'd knock it off in a combat situation when ordering soldiers around. Being clear about exactly what he wants them to do is pretty important.
 * Basic live language is. Grammar structure over 900 years may change. Archaic version he speaks and by Translation Convention difference between KOTOR and films you hear not.
 * Do people in this universe not realize how absolutely revolutionary cloning technology is, that it would change medical procedures FOREVER? Limbs that have been lost can be cloned and transplanted, cloned skin can be grafted on to heal scars, burns, and aged skin, and if organs begin to fail then those can be replaced too. Not to mention Palpatine's method of transferring his soul into a clone body. Guys like Darth Vader using technology like this could become completely whole in a short period of time and people in the long term could essentially sustain their bodies' forever. I can understand if it is expensive but I never even hear anything about the rich using it, it seems like a waste of technology to me.
 * Cloning technology is used quite extensively in the EU.
 * All I ever hear about is cloning used on Storm Troopers, medical treatment on heroes and villains seems to be limited to bacta and cybernetics.

"Red Leader: Keep your eyes open for those fighters. Red 10: There's too much interference. Red 5, can you see them from where you are? Luke: No sign of any--wait, coming in .35."
 * I don't know if this has already been asked, but... how come Obi-Wan looks so old in A New Hope? According to Wookieepedia, he was 57 when he died, but he looked much older. I know that Sir Alec Guinness was 63 when he played that part, so it's not much of a stretch, but in Phantom Menace you have a 60 year old Qui-Gon, played by a not-yet-50-year-old Liam Neeson, and he ceirtainly looks *a lot* younger than Guinness, so... any guesses? Does the EU address this? Is it explained somewhere?
 * My guess is that Qui-Gon was living at the height of the republic, with Jedi health care and generally good conditions. Obi Wan, however, spent his later years living in a hole in a backwater planet.
 * Stress could also factor into it, I mean just for reference look at the appearance of a U.S President at the beginning of his term and after. You have to consider Obi-Wan's predicament, the entire Jedi Order was destroyed as an organization with only a few scant survivors across the galaxy, his best friend Anakin betrayed him and he was forced to cut him down in battle only for him to survive as a shell of his former self as Vader, and is on the run from the Empire in fear for his life. You try not growing a few gray hairs after an ordeal like that.
 * Challenge Accepted!
 * Keep in mind that he's spent the last twenty or so years living on a desert planet. With that much sun, people (humans, anyway) just don't age very well. Owen was just forty-two at the time of his death, and in my opinion, he looked far older than his years.
 * Why doesn't Vader get a better cybernetic suit? I'm not asking for an Iron-Man suit like in the Comic Books as I know Vader would prefer to rely more on the Force than technology, but Vader could easily modify his suit and cybernetics so things could be more comfortable for him. In fact if I remember correctly I think an Expanded Universe source claimed that Vader was going to do it but was afraid that the surgery might kill him, though you would think that after years of being in his current suit his wounds would have healed to the point where a second surgery wouldn't be as risky. Plus even if it was too risky a periodical upgrade could have been conducted safely, you know like they retro-fit him with new limbs first, then move on to his lungs, and so on and so forth until he has a new cybernetic body suit.
 * The Emperor is a prick who intentionally gave him an ill-fitting mildly disfunctional suit in order to cause pain and suffering, in order to make his dark side usage stronger.
 * Why doesn't Vader try taking the initiative on his own? I would say 20 years of suffering in the same suit and all its limitations would have allowed him to milk all the "Dark Side energies" that would have been produced by his negative feelings. Hell even if Vader did get a new suit he still has reason to be angry since he isn't a fully organic human being which is obviously much more comfortable. That isn't an excuse to not improve his living and combat situations with a new suit, and besides the Emperor knows as well as Vader does that until he can become a fully organic human being again Vader won't have the power to overthrow Palpatine. Neither of them should have a problem with the surgery.
 * The person Vader hates the most is himself. On some level, he probably feels he deserves being miserable and stuck in a low-quality life-support suit for the rest of his life, particularly since it doesn't impeed his duties (thereby keeping him from feeling an immediate practical need to upgrade).
 * Why is Vader Tarkin's subordinate? Isn't he supposed to be the Emperor's right hand man? And why there isn't another Grand Moff after Tarkin's death?
 * Formally, Vader outranked Tarkin, being Supreme Commander of the Imperial Navy. Tarkin was pushing his luck in talking back to Vader so much; Vader bided his time, because the Empire needed Tarkin just then. Tarkin felt he was a rising star in the Empire, since the Emperor had wholeheartedly adopted his big idea (the Death Star) and his political strategy (crush the slightest sign of resistance with overwhelming force). Maybe Tarkin felt that he was about to become the Emperor's new right-hand man. And Tarkin just had an overconfident personality in general; that's what killed him in the end.
 * According to Wookiepedia, Ardus Kaine took over as Grand Moff of Oversector Outer after Tarkin's death.
 * Also, Tarkin is the Death Star's commander, and the whole project was his baby to begin with. That probably plays a big role in why Vader defers to him so long as they're both on board (though had Tarkin done anything / ordered Vader to do anything that the Emperor really didn't want, Vader certainly wouldn't have gone along with it- and per some sources, Palpatine put him there in the first place to make sure Tarkin didn't let the station's power go to his head and decide to become The Starscream, something that happened in the radio play). Oh, and there were plenty of other Grand Moffs both contemporary with and after Tarkin- he was just the most prominent and important (both politically and to the story).
 * I always took it that Tarkin and Palpatine went back a ways, career wise, and met when they were both young men and found they had similar political philosophies. Tarkin consequently would've been an ardent supporter of Palpatine even before the Empire was created. In short, Vader was Palpatine's right-hand man and apprentice, but Tarkin was his friend, his old college roomie, if you will. Special privileges come with that, including getting to boss around your old political crony's walking iron lung cyborg enforcer dude. ... And then of course Tarkin's backstory and history with Palpatine were emphatically not expanded on in the prequels, completely jossing this personal pet theory.
 * Actually, we do see a Captain Tarkin in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars cartoon, and while not an old college roommate, they were both middle-aged men when they met, he does mostly fit the bill you described. It just adds that he also knew Anakin, probably meaning he wasn't bossing Vader around so much as sternly telling Vader to stop killing his underlings to keep up appearances) and Vader agreeing more like someone doing him a favour rather than obeying a command.
 * If Vader has quite literally known Starkiller since he was a child, and he appears to be a man in his early to mid 20s meaning that they have spent probably about 15 or so years together, how is it that it is so easy for him to dispose of him? I mean Vader only knew Luke for about 4 years and in the movies it is portrayed as if to kill Luke would be the hardest decision in the world for him to make like it would be soul-crushing. Realistically I would think that Vader should have a greater emotional attachment to Starkiller since he raised him from when he was a boy. Is it because Luke biologically being related to Vader more clearly represents what kind of family he could have had with Padme and thus wants the last remnant of his love's genes to carry on, or is Luke simply THAT special that only he could reawaken the good in his father?
 * Vader probably kept Starkiller at arm's length on an emotional level. Right from the very start, he planned to use him as a tool, nothing more. The rips and cuts on Starkiller's first outfit certainly implies some abuse was involved in his training. It's also possible that when he learned his son was still alive, he actively wanted a good relationship with him, simply because he was all that was left of Padmé. It's also possible that they may have had some connection through the Force due to their relation.
 * "To protect you both from the Emperor, you were hidden from your father when you were born." I kind of understand Leia being hidden, but they didn't go to too much trouble with Luke really, did they? He's living on his fathers home planet, with his family, in their old homestead. His surname hasn't even been changed!
 * Well, would you think to look there?
 * More seriously, its been stated that Vader is incapable of going to Tatooine in person now (it brings his heart rate up too much for the suit to be able to handle), and he's the only one who'd really like to FIND the kid(s), if they're still alive. The Emperor may have, and probably did, know from Stormtrooper investigations, but kept it from Vader to keep Vader's angst/despair/hopelessness levels, and thus controlability, at maximum.
 * In Episode III we see that the construction of the Death Star has begun soon after Luke's and Leia's birth. In Episode IV the Death Star is used for the first time, and Luke and Leia are now about 19 or 20 years old. So it took 20 years to finish the Death Star? Okay, it's huge, but couldn't a galactic Empire still have had it made a bit faster?
 * I believe Word of God is that the Death Star seen at the end of Episode III is, in fact, a smaller prototype and not the final product seen in the original film.
 * Wookiepedia seems to disagree with that. Apparently it really did take 20 years for the Empire to build the damn thing.
 * The Force Choke is a Sith/evil technique, isn't it? So why does Luke use it nonchalantly on the pig guards at Jabba's Palace?
 * I think the idea that Force Choke as a purely evil technique was more a development in the EU by people who saw Vader choking the crap out of people but missed Luke's own actions. Currently, at least in the RPGs, Force Choke is a neutral power, just one that's easily abused towards the Dark Side. Luke is effectively using a telekinetic choke hold to disable his opponents nonlethally, while Vader is actively trying to crush his victims' windpipes.
 * The idea of Force techniques being outright evil from the start is stupid and very short-sighted. It should always be based on the intent of one's heart rather than the technique itself, for example the Force Lightning technique that Palpatine uses could easily be used to jump-start someone's heart if they were dying. Besides you mean to tell me that using the Force to telekinetically throw someone across the room isn't "evil"? Not if it that "evil" is being directed against a villain it isn't, that application of the Force to fight evil should be considered good.
 * Sith Lightning isn't actually lightning- it's the raw energy of the Dark Side, weaponized, and only superficially resembles electricity. I highly doubt it could restart someone's heart, and if any Force technique can freely be labelled "evil", it's this one. Choking someone, however, is just a particularly application of telekinesis, one of the most standard powers in any Force-usere's repertoir. Considering Luke didn't do any lasting damage to the guards, and in fact only used the power as long as it took to get past them, I doubt it was a problem.
 * "That boy is our last hope." "No. There Is Another." Umm, Obi-Wan? You know there is another. You were there when Padme pushed the kid out of her hooha. 20 years later, that kid sent you a transmission during A New Hope, addressed to you by name, so you know she's alive. And, if I recall correctly, you let Senator Organa keep her because his wife was barren, which creates high odds that Leia is their only child. So: what's up with the Plot-Induced Amnesia? Why is Yoda telling you this?
 * Even if the Organas had other children, Obi-Wan was there when Padme named her "Leia", so he should know who this "Leia Organa" is. This is stretching it a bit, but I guess it's possible that Obi-Wan knows who Leia is but doesn't consider her to be their "hope", since she hasn't yet shown any other force sensitivity, whereas Yoda, being more attuned to these things, knows she has the same potential as Luke. On the other hand, I'm not sure how that would work, since it doesn't look like Yoda has even met Leia ever since her birth. Maybe Obi-Wan is a bit of a sexist and simply doesn't even consider the idea that a girl might defeat the Empire?
 * By this point a fair amount of time has already gone into training Luke. If he died, Leia would still be there, but the time left would be even shorter. Obi-Wan was already dead and Yoda died a few years later, so they wouldn't have been able to do as much if they had to start over with Leia.
 * But the above only begs the question: since Obi-Wan and Yoda knew where both Luke and Leia are, why didn't they start training them earlier? According to Episode I, a Jedi's training should begin much earlier than when s/he is 19. Okay, Luke's a bit of a wild card, maybe they were afraid he'd turn to the Dark Side like his father, but Leia had already shown her resourcefulness and anti-Empire conviction, so shouldn't she be prime Jedi material? (Again, this might just prove that Obi-Wan was a sexist and didn't consider Leia worthy of Jedi training.) Or would Obi-Wan and Yoda have not trained Luke at all, had the Empire not intefered on Tatooine? Wouldn't it be more dangerous to let Luke and Leia discover Force on their own, with no knowledge of what it is, and possibly turn to the Dark Side?
 * Luke was in the custody of his aunt and uncle, and Uncle Owen clearly did not want Luke to start training as a Jedi, so unless Obi Wan was going to kidnap him, not much he can do there. As for Leia, who, precisely, was going to contact and train her? Obi Wan was in hiding, so was Yoda, and they'd have to expose themselves pretty openly to start training a sitting senator and daughter to the planet's ruler.
 * If Leia would've started the training when she was a little kid (as Episode I tells us is the Jedi tradition), she wouldn't have been a senator yet. And who's to say Obi-Wan or Yoda needs to come out of hiding to train her? She could've been sent to a "summer holiday" on Dagobah or Tatooine every year. Somehow I doubt the Emperor was secretly spying every kid of every ruler of every planet in the Empire for no proper reason at all, so the risk of Obi-Wan or Yoda getting exposed would've been pretty low.
 * Summer holiday to a nothing-but-swamp planet with no civilization, infrastructure, and glowing with the Dark Side (that's why Yoda picked it), or a nothing-but-desert planet with little civilization and infrastructure that's at the ass end of nowhere and is run by crime lords? Suuuuuuure, nothing suspicious about that.
 * It would only be suspicious if the Emperor was actually spying Leia, but why would he be doing that? He doesn't even know Padme's kid(s) survived. And if Tatooine or Alderaan are too suspicious, either Obi-Wan or Yoda could've taken a trip to some other remote planet and train Leia there.
 * Bail Organa is known for his anti-Imperial stance, it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn the Empire was spying on him and his loved ones.
 * It would be suspicious because Leia's father is a Senator who it's known has sympathies to the Jedi. She's the princess of a planet--that sort of thing is going to make it really really hard to sneak away without anyone knowing. I mean, look at how the paparazzi hound celebrities here on Earth. There's also logistics of communications to consider. Obi Wan and Yoda would've had to send a message to Bail about it, set up the meetings, etc., each step of which risks exposing them to the Empire. Plus, Obi Wan and Yoda didn't necessarily know that Leia was Force Sensitive.
 * In Episode III Senator Organa himself is certainly able to do all sorts of suspicious stuff (meeting and contacting Jedis) without the Emperor finding out, and this is at the time the Emperor is actively searching for and excecuting Jedis. So if her father could do it, why not Leia? And Yoda at least clearly knows Leia is force sensitive, why else would he say that "there is another" hope? Since there's no implication that Yoda ever met Leia after her birth, he must have picked it up when she was a baby.
 * Organa does all that over the course of maybe a couple of days, right when Palpatine first takes power, and before he can really solidify his anti-Jedi efforts. Remember, at that point, his Plan A was to have any Jedi who was missed by Order 66 drawn to the temple to be killed, not "actively searching for" them. Palpatine might have taken over the Empire, but he wasn't in a place yet where he could get away with imprisoning and executing Senators yet, and he doesn't know there is a Rebellioni in the works. By the time Leia is old enough to have started Jedi training, that status quo will have changed, and you can bet he was keeping some kind of eye on Senators that were against him.
 * Okay, if we suppose that Obi-Wan and Yoda can't train Leia without the risk of being caught, and wouldn't have trained Luke if his step-parents hadn't died, which made him join the Rebellion, then what exactly were they planning to do? Just lay low until they die of old age, and let Palpatine expand his Empire? Even if the Rebellion is gaining strength, Episodes IV and VI seem to suggest that they can't defeat the Emperor without a Jedi on their side. So wouldn't it be better for Obi-Wan and Yoda to at least try to train Leia and/or Luke rather than do nothing at all?
 * I think it's pretty obvious that one of the main reasons Obi-Wan was on Tatooine was to keep an eye on Luke. But judging from the way Uncle Owen talked about him, it was clear that he wasn't going to let Obi-Wan near Luke anytime soon. Possibly Obi-Wan even tried to contact Luke a couple of times and was shooed away by Owen, so he decided to wait until Luke was older and could come to him on his own.
 * When Han goes into the carbonite, his arms are bound, but not when he comes out. What happened to his restraints?
 * Maybe they were biodegradable?
 * How come Han Solo didn't pay off Jabba the Hut with the reward money he got from helping Luke blow up the Death Star? Sure, he has been busy working with the rebels ever since, but it's not like he wire the money over or something. Don't tell me the galaxy has the technology to build hyperdrives but not wire-transfers.
 * Given that he's a known smuggler who was already wanted by the Empire, and he's paying a known crime lord with physical cash given to him directly by the Rebel Alliance, wire-transfers are probably not the best idea. That'd be like Don Corleone paying a hitman with a check with the memo "For whacking Vinnie" on it.
 * I love this line.
 * According to the five-part comic The Rebel Thief, Han did use his reward money to send Jabba a crate of Sith treasure, but Jabba just said "Hmmm. I accept Solo's most generous gift! As for calling off the bounty, tell Solo...'Fat chance!'"
 * At the beginning of Empire Strikes Back Han informs the rebels that he is leaving citing the need to pay back Jabba in order to get the bounty taken off his head as the reason. Presumably since hes been too busy helping the rebels to return to Tattoine and pay back Jabba hes also been too busy to spend any of the reward money he gained towards the end of New Hope and its still on the Falcon waiting to be delivered to Jabba. Unfortunatelly for Han he doesnt get a chance to go pay Jabba back as the rebel base gets attacked before he can leave, he gets chased all round the galaxy by the imperial fleet, and probably the imperial forces confiscated anything of worth aboard the Falcon when they captured the gang at cloud city. Either that or Londo found it first.
 * Another explanation is contained in the Marvel Star Wars comics, where Han and Chewie were robbed of the money after leaving Yavin IV and had no choice but to return to the Rebellion.
 * At the Battle of Yavin at the end of "Episode IV: A New Hope," Luke is about to be shot down by Vader when Han comes out of hyperspace and shoots Vader and the other TIE fighters off of Luke's tail. Great, but two other groups of Rebel fighters had made attack runs on the thermal exhaust port before then: the flight of Y-wings from gold group, and then a first flight of X-wings led by Red Leader. So why didn't any of the X-wings from red group try to shoot Vader off of gold group's tails, and why didn't Luke, Biggs, and Wedge try to shoot Vader off of Red Leader's tail? Consider the following exchange:


 * Well, that's great Luke. Now, why don't you try doing something about it? Especially since Luke, Biggs, and Wedge were pretty much just hovering there, doing nothing.
 * In the time it would take them to get to them, it would already be too late, especially considering that there was so much AAA fire in the air that they had to fly down the trench in the first place.
 * How do you know it would have taken too long to get to them? It didn't take Han too long, and they could have at least tried. Also, there's no evidence that there was too much AAA or that it would have taken too long. In the film, when Red Leader is making his attack run, you can see Luke, Wedge, and Biggs just flying along above the trench. If Vader could fly into the trench and catch Red Leader, there shouldn't be any reason that Luke couldn't have flown in and caught Vader.
 * Luke tries to help them--"Turn to point-oh-five, we'll cover for you"--and Red Leader tells him to stay put; he knows that Luke and the others are the last chance should he fail and doesn't want them to possibly blow it helping him.
 * He tries to help after Red Leader had already completed his attack run, missed, and flown out of the trench. Why didn't he fly into the trench after Vader and try to shoot Vader and the other TIE fighters while the attack run was still happening?
 * Because they had been ordered to stay where they were. Remember the scene before Red Leader even starts his attack run, where General Dodonna orders him to split Red squadron in half and keep the second half back out of range as a reserve element, to be used only if Red Leader's trench run fails? That's what Luke, Wedge, and Biggs are doing.
 * Also, why the hell are we blaming Luke for this decision making? Luke is flying his first mission for the Rebellion; he's not only the junior-most officer of the three but the guy with the single least seniority in all of Red Squadron. The commander of the trio is almost certainly Wedge, as presumably he's the senior pilot of the three ; the only reason Luke is flying in the lead is because he's the designated marksman for taking the shot at the exhaust port.
 * In the opening crawl of Episode IV, it says that the Rebels' first major victory was the stealing of the Death Star plans, but in The Force Unleashed II, the rebels blow up many a Star Destroyer and take DARTH VADER prisoner. Why exactly does this not count as a victory?
 * "Major" victory is the key word here. The destruction of a few Star Destroyers is meaningless, the Empire's fleet has billions of star ships and numerous Star Destroyers. The Death Star on the other hand is pretty much the flag ship of the Empire's fleet, it has the power to destroy entire planets so any move towards the Rebels being able to destroy it, which they eventually do by the end of the movie, is a major victory for them. As for Darth Vader's capture well obviously he escaped in order to be able to appear in the original trilogy thus turning that "victory" into a defeat, besides there are a few notable hints given in the game that Darth Vader let himself be captured in the first place.
 * Why didn't Bail Organa tell Obi-Wan about the start of the Rebellion? He's still a powerful Jedi Master, and he also has two other Jedi Masters presumably willing to train Luke. Why wait 2 years and have your daughter do it?
 * It seems that knowledge of the rebellion is fairly common knowledge even on a remote planet like Tatooine so Obi-Wan already knew. Why he wasn't involved in it and why he and Yoda didn't put more effort into training Luka and Leia...is a very good question. The best answer is just that a lot of details from the first three movies (especially the first movie) simply don't make sense when you see the events of the prequels (especially the third prequel).
 * Some people above were debating about a new cybernetic suit or cloning to fix Vader's injuries but amusingly there are a bunch of real world medical solutions that could make life easier for him. For example Vader's lungs could be fitted with prosthetic sponge-like gel that given enough time would be absorbed by the flesh of the lungs and would expand up and down like organic lungs would, or lungs can even be transplanted, getting rid of the need for the respirator. We also have stem cell medicine that takes the healthy cells from your skin and within a matter of days can cure burned skin as if the burn had never occurred. Are we to reasonably believe that if we can accomplish things like this in real life that Palpatine didn't have access to stuff like this when he was repairing Vader in a society with super-advanced technology?
 * Palpatine wanted a loyal servant, and Vader wanted to heal his lungs himself. They could have very easily replaced the lung damage, if only through cloning, but neither of them wanted to.
 * Yeah, typical responses. Can't we just accept that Status Quo Is God and that no one wants Vader's condition to improve? Obviously if the Vader we know from the Original Trilogy had been cured the story as we know it would change, and no one wants that.
 * Ignoring how a lightsaber actually works, scientists have determined that for it to be able to cut through reinforced steel with such ease it would have to be at least 4 million degrees. Logically one might then wonder; how do users of lightsabers not outright set themselves on fire the moment they ignite them or at that heat be incinerated into ash beyond recognition? The Force can't explain it because if the Jedi and Sith could conjure up enough energy to prevent being burned by the lightsaber they should be outright immune to being struck by one, the difference in heat energy between being struck by a lightsaber and being near one shouldn't be significantly different. Furthermore average human beings without the Force have been known to use lightsabers as well. This is all very odd.
 * The energy arc the lightsaber uses is very, very efficient and lets no waste heat out. This is actually explicitly described in the EU when one Jedi is assembling a new lightsaber; a properly designed one does not release waste heat.
 * How? It should be impossible to create any form of mechanism that can 100% cancel waste energy, short of the crystal that powers the blade being outright magic.
 * Precisely: it's magic.
 * Star Wars tech is really, really, really efficient. Remember, this is a setting where they built a planet that can kill other planets. Twice. with brute force energy beams so efficient and effective that they can be fired within a dozen meters of their operators with no risk. Waste heat is not an issue in this setting.
 * About Darth Vader's helmet; why did Palpatine design it so that it can only see in infrared images? Wouldn't it have been far more productive to make it so that his visor can see in color for combat situations? Infrared would only be useful in environments where visibility is poor like in pitch black or in snowy weather, which would make it cool if his helmet could turn that feature on when he needed it. Everyday life on the battlefield seeing in that mode would make comprehending the environment and who is friend or foe extremely difficult. Plus how is he even suppose to be able to recognize the faces of those under his command? To top it all off it just seems cruel to make it so he can only see in red, it only enhances the feeling of being trapped in a mechanical coffin and is counter-productive to him not succumbing to despair. The Force must do wonders if it can help Vader past all these problems.
 * "It just seems cruel" and "is counter-productive to him not succumbing to despair" is probably what Palpatine was aiming for. Despair is how he keeps Vader under control, after all.
 * Despair is quite the opposite of what you want a soldier to have, as any real world Military Force would tell you, if all a soldier can do is dwell on a traumatic experience then he is useless on the battlefield unless he can learn to channel it, which to be fair Vader does succeed in doing. Also people that fall too deeply into despair tend to lash out emotionally on others, which is probably why Vader kills his own officers for their mistakes, and this only leads to further problems in a Military Chain of Command. Hell over time Vader would come to resent Palpatine for limiting him in the suit and if he ever found a way around it would try to kill his master. Are all of these potential problems really worth it? Palpatine is far from sane if he thought all of this was in any way productive.
 * That's probably why Palpatine spends half the original trilogy trying to replace Vader with Luke.
 * "Palpatine is far from sane if he thought all of this was in any way productive". Um, megalomaniacal sadism isn't exactly an uncommon trait among Sith Lords.
 * Basically the answer to all of the "Why does Palpatine do X if it is gonna cause problems?" is "Palpatine is a prick who likes torturing people in all sorts of interesting ways just for shits and giggles". It's kinda his thing.
 * Pretty much. All he cares about is himself, not how to make someone's life as comfortable as humanly possible. If he cares about others, it's about how they can serve him. He knows that with one word, he could arrange to have Vader be put in a suit that would make his life a bit better, if not more. He just doesn't want to. After 20 years of living with an angsty, robotic toy, he got tired of it and wanted to find another apprentice.
 * Where does Sidious get the lightsaber he uses against Yoda from? Mace Windu kicked it out a high-story window onto the streets of Coruscant. Did somebody find it and intuit that it was Palpatine's?
 * Probably had a spare. Palpatine has been a Sith for decades, he had ample opportunity to create more than one while he served under Darth Plaqueis. Those buildings are miles high, it is highly improbable that the lightsaber would even survive a fall of that height or even if it did that a search effort would be made for it.
 * Per the novelization, he did indeed have a spare.


 * How did the Dianoga live in the trash compactor? Wouldn't it get crushed?
 * Did you forget that the reason Luke survives that scene is because Dianoga lets him go and GTFO's from the trash compactor as it starts up? Whatever the thing is, it evidentally has enough sense to get out of dodge when the crushinating starts.


 * Obi-Wan says in V/VI that Yoda trained him. Cue Episode I, wherein Qui-Gon trains him. I know that Yoda's still alive and Qui-Gon's dead, but Qui-Gon can come back from the dead and is the one who taught Obi-Wan/Yoda how to do it. Why the change?
 * Yoda trains all the Jedi apprentices as little kids, as seen in Episode II. As teenagers, they get paired off in a master/apprentice relationship, like Qui-gon and Obi-wan's. So Yoda is the (or rather, a) Jedi Master who instructed Obi-wan.
 * And keep in mind that Anakin and Obi-Wan's lifelong relationship isn't the norm for a padawan. Normally, Yoda trains a young Jedi and, when they're almost ready to become a Jedi knight, they first become a padawan (which is why Obi-Wan said "I thought I could teach him as well as Yoda -- I was wrong," since the council skipped over that part with Anakin). By the time Obi-Wan joined Qui-Gon, he was already trained so far as using the Force, fighting with a lightsaber and controlling his emotions went. Plus, Obi-Wan's only trying to give Luke a sense of Yoda's credentials as a mentor. There's no need to muddle up a message being delivered to an already half-conscious Luke with "you will go to see Yoda, the Jedi master who trained me as a child, until I finished that part of my training and was then apprenticed to Qui-Gon who further taught me as a young man, but he's dead and you won't be meeting him unless his Force ghost makes an appearance, because he's the one who figured out how to do that you know, but anyway... hey Luke, are you even listening?"
 * Between Episodes III and IV, why did Yoda decide to move to a remote planet and basically do nothing at all to fight the Empire? In Episode III we see he would've had a good chance of defeating the Palpatine, but after that he just gives up? When the Rebellion started, couldn't he have joined them, or at least offered them his advice? Now Luke has to actively search for him to get his help. I guess you could say that after the events of Episode III Yoda became bitter and pessimistic and didn't care about the fight anymore, but that doesn't really fit his character.
 * Yoda and Palpatine are roughly equal in terms of skills, but with the dark side ascendant Yoda did not have the power to actually defeat Palpatine; the movies imply this, and the novelization of Sith outright says it. Yoda and Obi-Wan both knew that their best hope lay in Anakin's (The Chosen One's) kids, so Yoda went into exile on a remote, little known planet (hidden by the emanations of the dark side cave, per The Thrawn Trilogy) in order to wait and train Luke and/or Leia when the time came. If he'd fought, Palpatine would have certainly devoted all his effort and resources to taking him down, so sooner or later he'd almost certainly be killed, and then Luke never becomes a proper Jedi, and- well, you can see where this is going.
 * Still, Yoda really could have been more active. In particular, he could have fought with the Rebels. Not by appearing on the battlefield, of course, but by using his force powers (such as battle meditation) to help Rebel forces.
 * Battle meditation? You mean the very, very rare ability that only very few Force users could have used to any reasonable degree? The ability which Yoda was never hinted at being able to use?
 * Actually, Yoda used battle meditation on at least two occasions-during his mission to Vjun and during the battle of Kashyyyk.
 * There doesn't seem to be a good reason why Yoda and the rebellion didn't have some kind of facility built there specifically to teach Luke and Leia from childhood. Even if we justify it by the distrust of Jedi in imperial times Bail Organa certainly seemed on good terms with Yoda and it should have been obvious that they were going to need new Jedi fast.
 * Force Heal seems to appear erratically. In the original trilogy, it makes no appearance, though that can be for the most part explained by the fact that there's never an opportunity to use it. It doesn't appear in the prequel trilogy either, except for Darth Plagueis, who seems to have an extra-special version of it, and by Vader to himself in III, which raises the question of why Anakin didn't use it on himself after chucking Palpatine down the shaft. Other than that, it appears in video games as a power, including in KOTOR, when it's clearly an actual Jedi power and not just a game technique like a health/Force bar. Why does it only appear when the plot wants it to?
 * Not all Jedi are healers; haven't played KOTOR, but in the EU books, it's presented as a fairly specialized power. Also, pretty sure Vader felt he deserved to die at the end of ROTJ- after killing the Emperor and reconciling with Luke, he has nothing left to live for.
 * Force skills don't just appear. They have to be learned, just like anything else. Luke probably had no clue how to Force heal, and Anakin probably was not very good at it and may have wanted to die anyway.
 * Couldn't Obi-Wan have tried it on Qui-Gon at the end of episode I or Padme at the end of episode III, though?
 * What makes you think he could do it at all?


 * Excuse me if this one's already been done to death, but during the Sarlacc pit fight in RotJ, why does near-blind Han ask Chewie to pass him the blaster so he can shoot the tentacle that's grappling Lando? If Chewie can hold Han's weight up with one hand in order to pass the weapon to his partner, why couldn't the Wookiee have fired it at the tentacle himself? His vision wasn't impaired, and his manual dexterity is good enough to work on the Falcon's electronics without difficulty.
 * In the Expanded Universe, Han is repeatedly described as the better shot. The two have worked together long enough that Chewie probably knows that.
 * Because Han has a giant ego and always assumes he is the best person for the job, any job, regardless of actual ability. By the time Chewie had talked him out of it Lando would be in the Sarlacc's belly. Plus Chewie probably still holds a little bit of a grudge against Lando for the whole betraying them to the Empire thing. Sure he might not actively do anything, but if the half-blind Han either misses and lets Lando get eaten, or nails the traitor by accident, hey I bet the Wookie wouldn't be losing much sleep over it.


 * When does Obi-Wan actually say he hates flying in Episode IV? It's mentioned near-obsessively in the prequels, but I don't remember when it comes up in the original trilogy.
 * In the Prequels, he is actually flying, as opposed to being a passenger as in New Hope. Also, his remarks about hating flying mostly occur when he is flying in combat situations (read: Battle of Coruscant), a far cry from his flying experience from A New Hope. Could be that he simply hates flying, but has no qualms about being a passenger.
 * There's one thing that I don't understand about duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan on Mustafar. I get that they're fighting on equal terms because Obi-Wan uses the defensive style AND he knows the style of Anakin very well, having trained with him for past 10 years. What I don't get is the part they use force against each other. Anakin had "exceptional skills" before he was full fledged Jedi. since then, his skills doubled, he mastered Count Dooku, became "a far greater Jedi than [Obi-Wan] could ever hope to be". He was the chosen one, the potentially greatest force user ever, one of the best there was, even if still inexperienced. So, it would be most logical to assume that, even if he doesn't have the years of experience like Obi-Wan, he's connection to force and therefore it's use is greater. So, during the duel, they're trying to forcepush each other: a very Powerful Jedi and the more Powerful Sith, who now became even stronger due to the Dark Side, who's very angry, boosting the Dark Side powers even more and what happens? The struggle ends on equal terms, they both push each other with same force. How does that happen? Does that mean that Obi-Wan was far greater Force User before Anakins turn? Everything implies that he has long surpassed his master, but if he couldn't best him even with his Dark Powers, he would be much weaker than him while he was still on the light side, wouldn't he? And experience doesn't play a role here - It's a basic power - sue the Force to push someone. Nothing that needs being wise or something.
 * He's also extremely emotionally conflicted and unbalanced at that point. One might imagine that putting a damper on his Force power (since both Jedi and dark side users require some sort of concentration to pull off their effects).
 * Why did Windu decide to hold the Idiot Ball/Jerkass Ball so tightly in the Revenge of the Sith? In Attack of the Clones, he's the one who defends Anakin from Obi-Wan-s concerns. And that was when he acted as an arrogant, wangsty teenager. In RoS, Anakin became much stringer, more levelheaded, respectful to his master, acts much less arogant and clearly matured. And now Mace Windu decides to antagonize him, don't trust him and question him being the one. Had he not acted like such a Jerk, Anakin wouldn't stop trusting the Jedi. So, Basically, What the Hell, Hero?, Windu?
 * Yoda does give Windu a brief What the Hell, Hero? reaction when the latter starts talking about handpicking a new, more Jedi-friendly senate after they've taken down Palpatine. There's an implication that the strain of the war was getting to Mace and making him a little edgier and quicker to react with anger, which would explain why he was more patient with Anakin in the second movie, when the Clone Wars were only starting.


 * During Revenge of the Sith, when Sidious got hit by his own force lightning, why wasn't he seriously injured or killed?
 * Force lightning doesn't kill or inflict permanent injuries immediately- it mostly causes extreme pain and kills slowly, and Sidious didn't keep it up long enough to be lethal. Besides, it's his lightning- it's entirely possible that he is more resistant to his own power than someone else would be, though that's just WMG. He gets a faceful of his own lightning again in ROTJ and it doesn't kill him or do any visible damage, after all.
 * If you mean the arrest scene, then I'm pretty sure the lighting horribly disfigured him and almost killed if Anakin didn't intervene.
 * He was disfigured, yes, but I don't think it was anywhere close to lethal- he was playing weak so he could blast Windu when he wasn't paying attention, and Anakin gave him the opening. The power he brings to bear then, and the way he comports himself in the subsequent scene, suggest he's largely fine, apart from the disfigurements.


 * After Obi-Wan was knocked unconcious by Dooku on the Invisible Hand, Dooku caused a balcony to collapse on his legs. Shoudn't that have crushed Obi-Wan's legs? Or was the balcony made of very light material?


 * The boarding of the Tantive IV... Okay, so they are supposedly the elite 501st Stormtrooper squad or somesuch, but seriously. They're coming through a doorway. A narrow doorway which can fit maybe two people side by side. Are you seriously telling me that a couple of dozen people with guns can't just shoot constantly into said doorway and thus murder anything that even thinks of trying to come through? Had they had the mentality of the prequel trilogy, this would probably have set up a scene where after having many troops mown down trying to get through, Vader strolls through with lightsaber in hand casually blocking all the shots and cutting down the defenders. That would have been cool, and would have introduced the "guys with laser swords and magic power" conceptquite nicely.
 * If you pay attention during the fight, you'll notice that most of the Tantive IV's crew recoiled from the blast as the door blew off. The Stormtroopers rushed inside, and then Tantive IV's crew recovered and started firing. By that time the Stormtroopers were already inside and a number of Tantive IV crew had already been killed. The Stormtroopers also had sheer fire superiority and armor that protected them for the most part, whereas the Tantive IV's crew had no armor. Look closely while the battle is raging right then: the blaster bolts are creating fairly intense explosions when they hit the walls, and near-misses are killing the unarmored crewmen whenever they hit via shrapnel. A couple of Stormtroopers were killed, but the majority of the Tantive IV crew holding that position were killed and in the confusion and smoke and noise, they were routed and withdrew. This is actually fairly realistic, as lightly-trained, poorly-armored, and lightly-armed ship crew fighting heavily-armored boarders with heavy weapons and solid discipline will break first. (Yes, I know Stormtrooper armor is shit elsewhere in the movies, but in this scene it actually seems to be working pretty well.) The only Tantive IV crewman to actually retain enough discipline to keep a cool head and return fire effectively is the first one to lean out of cover and drop the first Stormtrooper. Then he dies and the rest are routed by sheer enemy firepower.
 * These guys were ship crew and honor guard - neither well-equipped nor well trained for this sort of action. They would perform well against badly organized pirates with equal equipment, not armored, determined and trained marines pressing any advantage. While the Stormtrooper armor is vulnerable to heavier personal weapons, at least it  protects  from weaker blaster pistols and   shrapnel of near misses. And their helms apparently have sensors capable of  seeing through the smoke. And the above applies even to mediocre Stormtroopers, let alone elite units. Elite is needed to have a good chance of actually capturing passengers rather than end up with everything and everyone blasted to cinders in crossfire.
 * Special operations units and SWAT teams face this same tactical problem all the time -- 'room full of bad guys and only one door we can enter through'. Assuming that they can't arrange for the enemy to be taken by surprise the solution they then fall back on is the same one the Empire used in this movie: blow the door, temporarily flash-blind the defenders, then use the moment of disorientation to get through the door fast fast fast and overwhelm the opposition with speed and shock.
 * Plus, look at it from the stormtroopers' point of view. In front of them are a squad of Rebels that they have at least an even chance against, given that the stormtroopers possess equivalent #'s, at least equivalent training, and superior armor. And behind them... is a pissed-off Darth Vader. Now, if you were one of those stormtroopers, which direction would you be charging in? Answer: Away from the dude who, as far as I am concerned, is the invincible god of death and towards the dudes I have at least a fighting chance of killing.

At the end of "Attack of the Clones", Dooku meets Sidious at his secret hideout in Coruscant. Dooku is standing very close to the parading clones. Um, why is standing in full view of hundreds of Republic soldiers? Also, why don't the Clones notice him standing there?
 * What? What are you talking about? There wasn't a clone trooper within miles of Count Dooku. Sidious's hideout is in the middle of an almost completely abandoned industrial area. The clones were marching at some kind of airfield. Dooku is nowhere to be seen.
 * Those two scenes aren't even occuring at the same time or place...
 * Agreed. The Dooku/Sidious scene happened at least two-three scenes before the clone march thing.


 * Would Vader's suit provide a longer life-span than what he normally would have had? I mean would the cybernetics make it so his body could survive longer than its natural limits? In the Star Wars universe 100 years is apparently the average human life-span, and Force Users being able to maintain their youth and physical abilities longer than normal humans, there have even been cases of human Force Users living almost as long as Yoda (however rare that may be). I imagine cybernetics plus the Force is like a treasure trove as far as life extension goes.


 * What exactly was Luke intending to do when he threw away his lightsaber and defied the Emperor?
 * He was intending not to fall to the dark side.
 * Holding onto the lightsaber was a temptation for Luke to strike down his father. When he saw Vader defeated and with his twisted form he knew that holding onto the lightsaber was a trap. To strike down his father would lead him to the dark side and would force him to become a twisted and evil slave of the Emperor just as Vader had been. Throwing away the lightsaber was symbolic of Luke's lack of desire to fight.
 * Which would have had the ultimate goal of getting himself (the last Jedi in the movies) killed and with the Emperor's intervention quite possibly destroying the rebel fleet. Yet one is giving in to the Dark Side and the other is the good thing to do.
 * A possible result, not the "ultimate goal". He was standing up for his principles.
 * Having the lightsaber wouldn't have made a difference at that point anyway, which is why throwing it away is just symbolic of Luke standing up for his moral principles and means that Luke was going for a Doomed Moral Victor gambit at that point. Emperor Palpatine was much more powerful than Luke was at that point, the Force Lightning that he uses was more potent than any other Dark Sider that had ever lived and could easily have knocked it out of Luke's hand. In a battle of the Force Luke was hopelessly outmatched and could do little but just sit there and suffer as Palpatine tortured him to death, only Vader had enough power to deal any harm to Palpatine. Unfortunately due to Vader's suit and its weakness to electricity attacking his master was a death sentence.
 * Wait, wasn't the Force Lightning a surprise? Maybe I solved this myself...he threw away his lightsaber, not expecting the Force Lightning, because how would he have known about it?
 * Even if Luke didn't suspect the Force Lightning nevertheless he should have realized that for Palpatine to be Vader's master, who knows how to use the Force, then he would also need to know how to use the Force. The lightsaber toss was a symbolic action for Luke, he was embracing the peace of the Jedi. Luke asking for Vader's help was him trying to reach out to his father one last time and as he soon realized Anakin loved Luke more than his Vader persona was capable of hating and more than his own life.
 * Historically is there a reason in-universe why the lightsaber was created? Why did the first Jedi (or Sith) decide, "Oh you know what's missing in my combat arsenal? A super-heated plasma blade that can cut through virtually anything, let's go ahead and make that!" How does any Military force make the logical leap from plasma pistols and rifles to wanting to make plasma swords? Was it an accident that they just stumbled upon the crystals that power the lightsaber or did they actually go out of their way to make one?
 * If I remember correctly, the Force users that eventually became the Jedi and the Sith were on only one planet and orginially used normal swords. I think somebody got the bright idea to make the things glow, not sure if it was plasma or not. I guess it developed gradually out of that as regular weapons shifted from solid to plasma rounds. It was a modern, for them, improvement of the sword rather than an odd outgrowth of blaster weaponry. Honestly, if you could get the lightsaber to work, it is a great military weapon, even in the hands of a normal person. It can cut through just about anything. It probably only weighs about as much as a flashlight. A small one could be used as a bayonet. It actually is quite a good weapons system.
 * A medical question: Does Vader die from asphyxiation/suffocation, or was it the toxins in the air that polluted his weakened lungs? The Star Wars Wiki (or Wookieepedia) talks about how in sterilized air chambers Vader's lungs could process air but under normal circumstances his lungs would get infected from toxins in the air which is why he wears the respirator. The generally accepted answer is that Vader's lungs were just so weakened in general that breathing unassisted by the respirator was impossible. Which answer is more responsible?
 * He needs the iron lung in his suit to breathe properly.
 * He died from suffocation, because Palpatine had just shortened out his iron lung as the former was about to toss him down the reactor. Without the iron lung, Vader suffocated to death because he couldn't get enough air in to survive.
 * Does the Emperor ever actually deal in social gatherings, like real life World Leaders do, in order to foster a certain political image of himself? His presence in the Original Trilogy comes off as a very secretive and shadowy kind of guy that only comes out to participate in Galactic affairs when it is of the utmost importance (such as overseeing the construction of the Death Star, or converting Luke to the Dark Side). Also I wonder if poor ol' Vader would ever have to attend any such gatherings, I understand that he hates scheming and politics in general. As rulers those two don't seem the sociable type.
 * Per the expanded universe, he's got another underling- Grand Vizier Sate Pestage- whose main job is to speak for and reprsent him in public. Palpatine himself is a largely distant figure, though he's strongly emphasized as a good and wise leader in Imperial propaganda.
 * Okay... so why exactly do all the battle droids in Episode I shut down when the control ship is destroyed? They're not getting energy from it--just instructions. If C-3PO and R2D2 can make at least functional decisions on a battlefield without the assistance of a super-control station, why can't all those battle droids?
 * I'd guess that the battle droids' "brains" were on the ship; unlike R2 and C-3PO, they can't function on their own.
 * Yeah- the battle droids are all wired into the central computer so that they can't rebel against the Trade Federation (that's a big part of why they use droids in the first place, rather than living soldiers). R2 and 3PO are independent droids unconnected to any central mainframe in the first place. Notably, however, later versions of the battle droids fix the problem, as outlined in the ROTS novelization- as opposed to shutting down, losing contact with the control ship's computer causes them to default to a list of standing orders, allowing them to continue to fight, albeit at reduced efficiency.
 * "Standing Order Number One was, appparenty, 'Kill everything that moves.'"
 * Because if expendable parts of the hardware carry only a tranceiver, it gets cheaper. C-3PO is a protocol droid - representation/luxury item. R2 is an astromech droid - milspec/emergency hardware. B1 is a low-end attack drone. It never demonstrated traits that could lead to believe it was designed as "battle droid", or anything other than a repurposed industrial waldo, sometimes controlled by a living operator and sometimes by the cheapest computer of adequate class the cheapskate Trade Federation could find, without software that could require much of dedicated development. Hence the chatter - it runs on crude templates and badly filtered learning. It's the whole doctrine of TF: they aren't well equipped to wage a war, so they throw into dubious ventures a lot of resources as cheap as possible per unit. If they get lucky - nice, if not - cut the losses.
 * I understand that space is a very big place but seriously, how did the Empire manage to build a Death Star without anybody noticing? Unless they were always leaving it at the extreme far end of nowhere that's actually dangerous and they're lucky nobody exited hyperspace inside this moon sized thing that wasn't supposed to be there!
 * As far as I understood it, the Empire moved the Death Star around quite a bit. Any area that it was moved to was probably declared a no-fly zone.
 * Also, space is big. Try to comprehend how big the sun is in comparison to yourself. Stop, because humans can't really manage that. Then try to scale up to an entire galaxy. For reference the Milky Way galaxy might hold between two hundred and four hundred billion stars. The orders have to get written down somewhere so someone might notice a ludicrous amount of building materials, engineers and ships being moved around but actually figuring out where the materials were going and what they were for would be incredibly difficult task on a galactic scale. It's probably more a sign of the sloppiness of the Empire that the rebels managed to find out what the Death Star was before its public debut.
 * Being fair to the Empire, when you suddenly place buy orders for enough warship construction material to make over a million Star Destroyers with your enemy would have to have a stupefyingly incompetent intelligence service to not notice something. It's an artificial structure the size of a dwarf planet. Even for something the size of the Empire, that kind of construction budget is going to be a nontrivial fraction of the GDP and you just can't move that huge a mass of money and resources in total invisibility.
 * So the Stormtrooper tracked the droids to the Jawas and from the Jawas to the Lars farm. How did they not know about Luke? Why wouldn't they have left a squad behind to wait for him to go home? They had no clue R2 ran away. As far as they knew, Luke was with them doing his chores and they'd be back for lunch or dinner.
 * They didn't know he was there. It's not like they'd necessarily have records of every inhabitant of an out of the way moisture farm, and Owen and Beru knew he wasn't home, and they weren't going to tell them there's one more person in the farm that they missed.
 * They did, however, make an unforced error in this sequence -- the troopers presumably searched the house looking for the plans, and any competent search would have revealed that three people lived there, not two. (The married couple of course share the master bedroom, and there's another bedroom with signs of occupancy such as an unmade bed and dressers full of clothes, but you only killed a middle-aged man and his wife -- so what does that leave?)
 * Fun fact! Mercilessly slaughtering the people who own a home doesn't give you instant psychic knowledge of the rest of their family's whereabouts.
 * While the local Imperial garrison likely would have known exactly how many people live at the farm (it's a totalitarian state and those tend to want to keep track of their population, and we already know that Tatooine traffic checkpoints check ID cards from everyone in the car which implies the planet has an up-to-date ID registry and census), Vader's troops dropped directly from orbit. And apparently were too arrogant to check in with the locals before doing their raid. Which is entirely plausible.