My children LOVE all the Star Wars movies. My son specifically is absolutely smitten with the whole franchise, to the extent that every time we are trying to explain something to him, he finds a way to equate each element of the conversation to an event in one of the 6 Star Wars movies. “So you mean like the time the Chancellor was trying to convince Anakin to turn to the Dark Side and he became uglier and sicker, that’s what happens to us when we hold on to angry feelings?”
I remember the “orginial movies” with fond memories and have throroughly enjoyed sharing the Ewoks, Chewbacca, a handsome Harrison Ford and R2D2 with my kids. Unfortunately, for me, the family bonding has been somewhat marred by the blatant inconsistencies in the sequence of the 6 episodes. I realize that The Phantom Menace (TPM), The Clone Wars (TCW) and The Revenge of the Sith (ROTS) were made 30 years after the older A New Hope (ANH), The Empire Strikes Back(TESB) and The Return of the Jedi (ROTJ); which of course means that they will be considerably more impressive technically and in the area of special effects. But in watching all 6 I have come to the realization that there was little attempt made to even try avoiding the inconsistencies.
Although I am sure that there have been hundreds of notes and article written about this very topic in the world of fantasy and galactic novelty, it’s on my mind right now and since I have a minute, I thought I would share the things that I find most irritating about the “New vs. Old” Star Wars movies.
1. Princess Leia tells Luke that she remembers her Mother as being beautiful…but at the end of The Revenge of the Sith (ROTS), Queen Amidala dies giving birth.
2. Luke Skywalker was born at the end of ROTS and at the beginning of ANH he is merely a teenager; yet Obiwan has aged several decades. Anakin was very young when he turned to Darth Vader but at the end of the ROTS, yet Luke sees his father without a mask while he is dying and he is clearly more than 20 years older than he was when he put the mask on.
3. IN TPM little Anakin is friends with Padme, maidservant to Queen Amidala. Later in the next movie we find him meeting Queen Amidala again and she is referred to as Padme, with no explanation as to why she was pretending to be a servant in the first movie, even when he tried to say goodbye to his “friend Padme” and Queen Amidala said she would pass on the message when Padme returned…weird.
4. In TPM, Anakin leaves his droid C3PO with his mother when he leaves with Qui Gon for Jedi training. And yet, somehow C3PO ends up in the care of Princess Leia at the beginning of ANH.
5. At the end of ROTS, ObiWan and Yoda decide to hide the children from Darth Vader and the Emperor, and yet they choose to keep his last name as “Skywalker”, doesn’t really seems like a very good idea.
6. How do Yoda and the Jedi council know everything about everyone; and yet have no idea that Anakin is slipping to the dark side, that Chancellor Palpatine is the Sith, Anakin is married to Padme and she is super-sized pregnant>>>?
7. In TPM, Darth Maul and Darth Sidious are discussing that they will “At last have (their) revenge”, but their is no explanation as to why they are seekign revenge against the Jedi Council. Also if the Sith come in pairs, why does Darth Sidious have Darth Maul, Darth Tyranus and Anakin as his apprentices all within the space of one movie?
8. Why did ObiWan and Luke Skywalker both “have to face Darth Vader”? Why was that necessary? I don’t understand.
9. When Luke and ObiWan received the SOS message from Princess Leia through R2D2 and decided to go to Alderaan, why didn’t ObiWan mention that Luke had a sister and that this was her? According to the final scenes in ROTS, ObiWan was part of the decision to split Padme and Anakin’s twins and he would presumably have knowledge of the family she was placed with…and yet he didn’t seem to make the connection in ANH.
10. Why does Chewbacca have such a connected friendship with Yoda in the ROTS and heavily involved with the resistance movement and yet in movies 4, 5, 6 he appears to have no knowledge of the Jedi or personal interest in anything but making money with Han Solo?
I am positive that there have been other inconsistancies and issues throughout the 6 movies and specifically occuring in the gap between Revenge of the Sith (ROTS) and A New Hope (ANH). If I have missed things that have irritated or confused you also, please feel free to leave them here in a comment, as I’m sure somthing you catch will spark my memory! Thanks for bearing with me through my little rant….may the force be with you! 😉
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