CT Plot holes in the OT that weren't plot holes until they made the PT

I was just thinking exactly this. Star Wars starts the saga really well, and the plot holes begin with TESB, they continue with ROTJ...and it just snowballs from there.

I have written elsewhere on these boards of how much more striking Luke's decision not to kill Vader would have been had Vader not only not been his father, but the murderer of his father. How much more striking the choice Vader makes to save Luke would have been - not predicated upon his biological affinity with him but actually understanding what it was to be a Jedi.

The PT then would not have been the 'Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker', with all the archetypal elements (most damagingly, destiny) that entailed. We could have had movies that dealt with the Jedi without having to place responsibility for the downfall of Vader on their shoulders. We could have had Vader actually seduced to the darkside, rather than tricked into it.

So, yes, I agree with you, this is the beginning of the all of the plot-holes; everything else derives from that.

 

Okay, I didn't think I would have had to be politically correct when discussing Star Wars, but I'll give it my best try.

Most of my post was the definitions of words. You can't really say that's opinion. This isn't anything personal against you in particular, or possibly any of your posts, but something I've noticed which is in the key arguments of most posts made to defend something which really Star Wars would be better without that was in the PT (some dialogue, chosen one prophecy, etc.) and it's that you only accept your opinions, and ignore the opinions of others and the facts when the facts are the foundation of another's opinions.

 

The Jedi are not fully responsible for Anakin's downfall. But they did contribute to it. Why does this bother you? Are you saying that you want the Jedi to be flawless and therefore, not partially responsible Anakin's downfall? Why do they have to be so ideal? They certainly weren't in the OT. And Vader wasn't "tricked" into becoming a Sith. Yes, Palpatine manipulated him. But by the time Anakin decided to become a Sith, he had already realized that Palpatine was a Sith himself. The Jedi and Palpatine may have contributed to Anakin's downfall, but he is mainly responsible. His fear of losing Padme, more than Palpatine, the Jedi or anyone else, drove him to embrace evil.

Would you have prefer if the situation regarding Anakin's downfall be more clean cut? Less messy? Life isn't that clean cut. Neither are human emotions or nature. And a good writer would reflect this complexity in his or her stories . . . unless one is writing a story for only kids.

 

Not sure if this ones already mentioned or not... but R2 not recognizing Yoda, on Dagobah. Maybe they didn't meet for most of the PT, but they definitely did when Padme gave birth to the twins. But R2 didn't recognize him when he tried to get Luke's lamp back from Yoda.

 

Well the obvious ones are that in the OT the Sith didn't exist as they were never referenced in the actual films. By the same token the PT explains why there were only 2 dark side users and not a whole host of them.

The mother of course was never mentioned or at all important so the prominence of Padme who then is not mentioned again is noticeable.

The Clone Wars themselves are strange in that based on the PT they should really be called the Clone-Droid Wars.

Since Vader didn't actually become Skywalker until Ep V was made going in episodic order his story doesn't track in IV. Of course the same problem exists anyway without the PT as the Vader of IV simply has a different backstory and therefore is not the same character as he turned out to be later.

Ben calling Vader "Darth" is much wronger as Darth could conceivably just be a new name taken on but know it's a title.

That Owen Lars didn't recognize 3PO doesn't really work as if he was on the farm for a decade talking to Owen at time etc then he'd pretty much recognize him. Sure the units look alike and sound similar for other protocol droids but it's a bit closer than that.

Ben is made into an even bigger liar than V or VI already made him with the "your father wanted you to have this." Though this also actually work out in terms of him knowing the droids but he knows they don't know him anymore.

Yoda not wanting to train Luke who is too old is odd as he's the one who refused to train him from childhood in the first place.

Luke's very Jedi outfit in VI is not any longer. Actually his farmboy outfit is probably more Jedi-like since it was decided to make the Jedi all look like they were from Tatooine.

Not so much an "error" as such but Yoda's massive failure as the leader of the Jedi is something that was very lightly dealt with even in the PT while the actual events were of course never really gone into in the OT. The way the movies generally work is that so much back story is not mentioned or scantly so allows for all sorts of interpretations later.

 

Why would Owen Lars retain memories of a protocol droid he had not seen in twenty-two years? A protocol droid with a different color plating? Also, Threepio didn't introduce himself until he was alone with Luke.

The fact that Vader turns out to be Anakin Skywalker in Episode V doesn't have any real impact other than Luke realizing that Obi-Wan had lied to him. And I feel that Lucas and his writers covered this rather well.

So what is he going to do? Tell Luke that he left Anakin behind near a lava bank to die slowly? Why should Obi-Wan being labeled as a liar be considered a plot hole? Because he's a Jedi Master?

Considering Anakin's relationship with Obi-Wan and Palpatine, I thought Lucas did a very good job in portraying the former's daddy issues. Why was it necessary for Anakin to have a flesh-and-blood father? Because you don't like the Chosen One moniker?

I don't see how it badly affected the story. Could Lucas had refrained from using it? Sure. He didn't have to use it. Then again, I saw no reason why he should have refrained from using it.



I see that this thread really isn't about plot hole in the OT. It's about using the OT as an excuse to dump more criticism and bashing on the PT.

 

The idea of the Jedi not being without fault does not bother me. What I am getting at is that the Jedi are turned into a dogmatic order, holding more to rules than to intuition. The Jedi Order is not, imo, at all what one would expect from what we see in the OT. The reason they are portrayed that way is, again imo, because they must be in order to fit in with the 'tragic' fall of Anakin Skywalker. He, the tragic hero, must be presented with a path which channels him toward his destiny. The Jedi are portrayed as they are because Anakin must be a 'tragic hero'.

You say here that "they certainly weren't in the OT" but this seems to miss by a mile what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting that Vader being Luke's father is the first plothole that leads to all the others. What makes the Jedi less than ideal is that, they become liars; manipulators; bent on turning Luke into an assassin (or at least that is one reading).

They don't have to be ideal, but a little more cogency between the philosophically minded 'zen' inspired Jedi of the OT - ie their beliefs are based upon questioning and finding the answer yourself, and what we end up with in the PT (a particularly ascetic group of monks intent on following a strict set of 'orders'.. The two just don't match up.

You say he wasn't tricked, and then espouse how his fear of losing Padmé drove him to embrace evil... You're missing a couple of important links. He fears losing Padmé, and Palpatine convinces him he can save her through the use of the darkside - which of course, he doesn't (in fact he brings about her demise). I'd say that is tricked. It certainly isn't seduced.

No. In case you missed the point I was suggesting that the one turning wasn't Anakin at all. If it was another Jedi - a young pupil of Obi-Wan's called Darth Vader who turned evil - then he could have actually been seduced to the darkside, becoming engrossed in the power it gave him. The story would not have become the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker, with all of the 'pre-destined' guff that went with it. The Jedi would still play their part; in not recognising Vader's faults; in not recognsiing Palpatine for what he was; for allowing themselves to be dragged into the war. But those 'balmes' would be far more subtle. Are they really to blame for not seeing what is withheld from them? There is nothing childish about making a story about choice rather than destiny.

 

There's no trick. To tell someone that they can do something is not to promise a guaranteed outcome no matter what happens. For one thing, to save someone through the use of the dark side, Anakin arguably has to be at least present, and the power to save others from death isn't choke. There were no Sith present for Padme's death. Palpatine's offer to Anakin does not mean "join me and I snap my fingers thus making Padme invulnerable from harm from this point onward". It is not required to come equipped with a disclaimer, stating something like "by the way, if you choke her and then she loses the will to live while you're otherwise occupied in a different star system after having been dismembered, she'll still die". That kind of thing should go without saying.

 

Yep, he gets conned

 

Nope. There is no con. Poor little Anakin didn't get a perfect outcome, that doesn't mean anyone was tricked.

 

Also, the existence of a prophecy does not equal predestination. It is merely the result of the aperion's influence on spacetime. It should not be seen as fundamentally different from "he can see things before they happen". The PT is just as much about choice as the OT is. It's just that it's about bad choices while the OT is about good ones.

 

Well it's not a big thing but the fact that all the clones in the PT have the same voice yet in the OT none of them do? They were still clones of Jango so technically shouldn't they still sound like him and even the voice did change from different batches shouldn't the ones in the OT all sound the same....whew glad I got that major issue off my chest hahahaha

 

As far as I know the OT stormtroopers are a mix of clones and non-clones, and they probably have templates other than Jango.

 

Really...I thought Jango was the basis of the clone army and I know they had non-clones but surely Jangos clones would out number them 1000 to one?

 

It's one of those things that's best not to think about, once you pull on that string it unravels.

You wouldn't waste resources on a conscripted army or a volunteer army when you have a cloned one you can train from birth and exercise complete control over. They are bred to be soldiers.

The best explanation is that the clone army was disbanded completely for one reason or another.

 

Disbanded....man that would have cause so many problems when they attached photos to their job applications hahaha

 

It's possible that the empire would just destroy them. They are genetically manipulated to make them easy to control.

 

Why would they destroy a perfectly well trained army of obedient clones though? The more loyal troops they have the better

 

Well, conscripts are much cheaper and more easily replaced. Obviously inferior fighters, but significantly cheaper.

 

Like I said, it's a string best left unpulled.

What I'm trying to say is that, it's likely that the Stormtroopers would either be a clone army 100%, or that there was some reason clones were no longer desirable and that they would have been replaced by a regular force of either conscripts or volunteers. A mixed force doesn't seem likely. If clones are still acceptable, you would just make a clone army. It eliminates the need to train regular people with human individuality.

 

Are they? An empire controls the means of production. You might have clones producing clones.

And by the time of the events of the OT, you've had two decades to produce clones.

I do agree with you though, cost could be a reason why clones would become undesirable. It's hard to know what the economics of the situation would be.

 

It is impossible to know the economics of it, but the Empire would have to support the clones while they grow, while conscripts are supported by their families. Seems much cheaper. I'm sure you could produce clones in massive numbers, but it's hard to imagine them coming close to the production of an entire galaxy.

Time doesn't really matter, because the production needs to be constant. Two decades to produce new clones, two decades for the old clones to get old, dead, or otherwise unfit for combat.

One way a mixed group could exist is have the clones be elite units, like special forces, with the non-clones serving as standard infantry. I think the Stormtroopers were all supposed to be special forces (duh, based on German WW1 specialist troops), and the non-armored soldiers we see in the OT (guys in black uniforms) are supposed to be standard troops, but it's not really clear from just the movies, and the EU only made it less clear. I suppose non-clones who proved themselves exceptional could have been promoted to the specialist Stormtroopers. I don't know, this is all just speculation on assumptions and incomplete information.

In relation to the clone army, the way things ended up in the OT in comparison to the PT is not ideal imo, but not a plot hole, either.

Personally, I'd prefer battle droids, but that's not what this thread is about.

 

You bring up a good point about the sheer size of the galaxy. If they passed a law that every human male must serve for 4 years or something like that they could raise a massive army.

The more I think about it, the more I think my first post on the subject is wrong.