CT Your powers are weak, old man

Is Ben weak in ANH (and if so, why?) or is Vader just taunting him?

Is this ever explained in canon or is it open to viewer interpretation?

 

Hmm...I always understood the line in the context that Ben is supposedly weak because he is older ("a young Jedi named Darth Vader...).

On the one hand Vader had plenty of excercise, while Kenobi probably preferred the time in exile to meditate.

An then there is the obvious weakening of Kenobi because of the destruction of Alderaan. Seemed to take a physical toll, but the ramifications of that have not been studied, IIRC.

 

The destruction of Alderaan and the years of living in a harsh desert climate would have decreased his powers.

 

Obi-Wan could still use Force-augmentation to bolster himself to sufficiently hold off the cyborg Vader. Remember that Vader is much stronger than most because of his cybernetics. Obi-Wan may have been out of practice and he may have been aged by the desert suns, but he was still tough enough to defend against most of Vader's blows. Obi-Wan, even in this state, was powerful enough to defeat many Jedi and Sith of the past. But he was well past his prime. His dueling and martial arts skills may not have been what they once were, and he may not be able to take the type of punishment he was able to take during the Clone Wars, but I, for one, believe that his Force abilities did not atrophy. He was trying to give Luke and the others a chance to escape.

 

Alderaan's demolition weakening Obi-Wan's powers is a new one on me. I never got that from the movie and frankly it seems like a fan invention.

 

As we've seen many times, age has nothing to do with force users ability to duel. They tap into the force and bolster themselves. Yoda walks around with a cane, yet when he has to fight, he's flipping all around the room. Dooku was old, yet can easily take on two younger Jedi at once. Palps was old, yet easily dispatches a bunch of Jedi masters. You get the picture.
So in this case with Obi, it's not that he's weaker, it's just that he knows his time is up. Once aboard the Death Star, he has sensed Vader and Vader has sensed him. He knows what's going to go down. From Obi's point of view, he has essentially completed his mission. He watched over Luke from afar, and now has set him on the path to become a Jedi. He's lowered the power to the tractor beam, and now he's essentially keeping Vader busy so that Luke and the others can escape. He doesn't fear death because he's learned the secret of immortality. That's why he just lets Vader cut him down at the end. His words to Luke prior to him taking leave of him to go deactivate the tractor beam, reinforce the idea that he knew what his fate was going to be.

 

In the second draft of ANH, Luke Starkiller's father is said to be weak and tired. His power had diminished quite a bit as the Bogan Force, aka the dark side, grew stronger. Thus he needed the Kiber Crystal to help him to use the Ashla Force, aka the light, again. In the third draft, Ben Kenobi tells Luke that his powers are weak now and combined with his injuries from years before, he is in poor shape to fight. When he agrees to accompany Luke to deliver the plans to the Alliance, Vader senses his power in the Force, but notes that it is weak now. This is a leftover of that in the final film, when Obi-wan's powers diminishing as he's grown older. But as the story evolved, this kinda got lost.

 

DavidSword79

Not a fan invention, excactly, but a speculation. Fact remains that Alderaan's destruction has a physical effect on Kenobi, almost as if he got close to a heart attack or stroke.

We just don't know whether that had a lasting imapact (like for the next hours or so) or not.

 

I'd assume it was just taunting. I think one should be careful not to read too much into things.

 

He was inactive for years as a Jedi.

 

He probably got weaker after all of those years in the desert. Not training or being as active on a day-to-day basis

 

How good would Joe Montana be in Super Bowl 51?

 

It seems to me that at the time GL imagined Force-users aging just like everyone else but changed his mind when he wrote AOTC.

 

Well, that's somewhat difficult to pin down. In the second draft, Luke's father was alleged to be three hundred years old. While Ben in the third draft was in his seventies. But in both cases, it wasn't age so much as the dark side growing stronger over the light. So it is difficult to tell if it was just age in the final film, or if it was the dark side being stronger over the light. Lucas really left it vague which is probably why he went the direction that he did by the time of AOTC.

 

Assuming Ben spent 20 years laying low and trying not be noticed in the hope that the Emperor would assume he was dead, he was probably not practicing his Force powers much. Using the Force has to cause a disturbance in the Force, and disturbances often get noticed, so I'd assume he was trying to keep his powers very very quiet. And if you don't practice your skills, they tend to atrophy. I think he'd need more than a couple of days to get the rust off and start firing on all cylinders again.

 

Vader was just smack talking Obi-Wan.

 

imo we need a kenobi spin-off film that shows kenobi getting injured on tatooine and not being able to receive sw tech medical help because he's in hiding. this would explain his weakness and advanced aging.

 

It's not as if it took Lucas 25 years to develop this, though. By TESB, he has Yoda citing his own age as a marker of experience rather than debility. So if we're to believe the Saga is consistent, we have to look elsewhere for an explanation of Kenobi's weakness in ANH. Either it's because as Sarge has postulated his powers have atrophied through neglect, or as Lt. Hija has conjectured, the destruction of Alderaan has dealt a blow to the light side of the Force, whence Kenobi derives his powers.

I think both ideas have merit, and are not mutually exclusive.

 

To answer the OP,

I think it is a combination of several things.

1) Obi-Wan was meant to be old, older than the PT now has him be.
Uncle Owen calls him "Old man". And the actor playing Owen was 60 at the time.
So if we assume that his age is the characters age, then a person who is 60 calls another person "Old man". This suggest that Obi-Wan is at least 10 years older than Owen.
Also, Tarkin was sure that Obi-Wan would be dead by now. Why? He would be a wanted man and if he had been caught and killed, news of that would get around and Tarkin would likely have heard of it. Obi-Wan was killed by a random accident or by some hostile person? He is a Jedi and a highly accomplished one, if I were Tarkin I wouldn't assume that he was killed by some mugger unless I had some evidence of that.
Again this suggest old age and possibly very old age.
Interestingly, Vader sort of defends Obi-Wan by saying "Don't underestimate the Force."

2) Vader wasn't Luke's father yet and he was intended to be a young character. "A young Jedi ..."

3) Vader hadn't finished his training under Obi-Wan when he left and now he feels more powerful and confident than the last time they faced each other. No, I don't mean RotS, I am going just by ANH here.
Vader made some attacks against Obi-Wan and after a few of them did he taunt Obi-Wan "Your powers are weak, old man." This ties in with his earlier taunt of being the master, now he has tested his old masters mettle and found it wanting.
Plus, as said, he is taunting Obi-Wan, hoping to make him angry and make a mistake.

So the line is partly due to Obi-Wan being old and at this time, 900 year old Yoda didn't exists yet. It is due to Vader testing his old master and finding him weak and Vader generally taunting Obi-Wan.

Slightly off-topic, I think the duel in ANH and what Vader says and how he acts doesn't fit that well with RotS.
There Obi-Wan dismembers Anakin and leaves him to a horrible death. Vader lives but at a very high price, the suit.
So every day is a reminder to Vader what Obi-Wan did to him, how he disfigured and maimed him and how he left him to die. In all, I think Vader should be a lot more angry than the film shows him to be. Yes he would have learned to not do stupid things like trying to jump over Obi-Wan but more intense hatred would be expected.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

I agree with the above, but perhaps because he felt so much rage during the battle at Mustafar against Obi wan and of course lost, he isn't going to make that mistake again. At least that's one explanation I have come up with to try to make it more cohesive.

 

I felt it was Vader taunting Obi-Wan for being gone for years, taunting him that the Jedi Order is extinct, and that Obi-Wan is a weak old man fighting for a dead ideal.

 

Obi-wan said before Alderaan's destruction that he was getting too old for this sort of thing and it is only when fighting Vader that his powers have diminished. As to Yoda, he himself is no longer going out there to fight either. Experience is one thing as Obi-wan has plenty of it. For the Sith, they're stronger because of the dark side.

Uncontrolled anger is what landed him in the suit in the first place. That's why in each duel, Vader is more restrained in his fighting and his anger. When he loses control, such as Luke smacking him in the shoulder, then he flips his ****.

 

Obi-Wan was like a ghost in ANH. Everyone thought he was either dead or on his way out. They may have forgotten about his Jedi abilities and skills. It proved really effective in outsmarting the Stormtroopers and maneuvering Luke into a position where he could reach his potential. Obi-Wan knew very early on that when faced with the presence of Vader once again then his days would be over.

 

Basically this. At the time of the film it was a taunt. In the novelization Obi Wan begins to perspire and blinks his eyes and to this Vader comments that he is weak. I didn't think much of that until the West End Games RPG where you have augment powers such as lightsaber combat. Then it occurred to me that Force users don't just break out the blade and fight as good as an Olympic fencer, they use the Force and go super powered into combat. We of course see this in the PT with the older folks.