ST The Reception of The Last Jedi vs The Empire Strikes Back

I think people sometimes forget, because of how much other Star Wars content they've enjoyed since TESB,.. that TESB really moved Star Wars further into fantasy terrain and new space opera terrain where Star Wars has remained ever since. The first Star Wars film is certainly a fantasy but one that didn't quite feel as much like one as the others did to a lot of people. The Death Star is obviously like a castle/fortress in Space and there's a princess and knights and the Cantina showed alien creatures and Obi-Wan disappears mysteriously and the Force is explained but it's almost like Star Wars restrained in comparison to the rest. It's slightly more grounded in comparison to the others (Except for RO of course which forgoes a lot of magic/fantasy aspects entirely). More time on the Death Star. More time plotting to destroy it. More time in the trenches doing so. More time spent with humans. Only primitive aspects of the Force explained or shown.

TESB basically doubles down on the fantasy elements and the space opera qualities. So, for any member of the general audience who liked Star Wars a lot but less so for the fantastic elements or the space opera qualities... TESB would have surprised and felt like this franchise moving more in the direction they didn't want which required more suspension of disbelief. Luke riding Tauntauns and encountering a monster like a Wampa. Luke using the Force to levitate an object. A little green goblin named Yoda who's a mysterious and wise old teacher that lives in a mysterious swamp planet and has enough magic to levitate an X-Wing. A visible force ghost that goes beyond just narration audio and is an actual ghost. The emperor's face seen often and incredibly ghoulish. More worlds. More aliens. More powers shown. More romance. A less happy ending without medals being handed out. The space opera reveal that the hero is related to the villain.

TESB was a much larger leap into fantasy and space opera than it seems in retrospect following ANH. Things continue from ROTJ through the prequels so it's easy to forget but TESB really was the one that took the most fantastic elements of ANH and made it clear that these aspects are even more important than the space combat fighting and the ship warfare and Death Star setting you all (the general audience) loved so much. These fantasy elements from the first film? They aren't just window dressing to Space Warfare. We're doing to go even deeper into them and even deeper into Space opera tropes from here.

I think TLJ shares some similarities to that jump in some ways. Obviously it's not as innovative. Nothing will be. However, I do think it doubles down on another aspect of space opera and fairy tale elements setup in TFA between Ben and Rey in a way that can divide people who didn't consider those aspects some of their favorite aspects of TFA and also does some world building and shows fantasy creatures on Canto Bight that remind some prequel haters of the prequels, and showcases new Force powers that are hit or miss with some people, and also puts the heroes into some pretty bleak situations and raises some unanswered questions that will need to be answered in IX just as some aspects related to Luke's ties to Vader needed to be answered in VI.

 

Based on the fact many of the logical flaws and shooting down of expectations that TLJ had been criticised for are often overlooked in TESB.

 

Every post-ANH SW movie can be argued to have shot down expectations. They all, every single one, has been criticized for that, both before and after the era of social media.

In terms of logical flaws, you'd have to be more specific for me to respond on point, but the arguments that I see equating TLJ and ESB could just as easily be made to equate TLJ with any SW movie.

 

That's the point - every one of these films has the equivalent of TLJs flaws yet it's the one that is being decried as the end of all things SW.

 

I think what's really missing is the sense of danger the OT had, Luke really struggled against ice creatures and Darth Vader.

Luke's co-pilot "I feel like I could take on the entire empire myself", then proceeds to die an unceremonious death by random AT-AT fire and his body is crushed by it stepping on him after the great pilot Luke Skywalker is shot down by random goons.

In Disney Wars the biggest danger is that the whedonesque quips won't land while Poe effortlessly destroys the Empire singlehandedly in an X-Wing.

 

Wait, that's who's point? Because the point I quoted specifically compared it to ESB, as does this thread itself.

I think that the characterization that TLJ is divisive because it doesn't meet expectations is made by those criticizing the criticisms of the movie as a way to diminish them. Every SW movie doesn't have the equivalent of TLJ's flaws. Every SW movie is different with criticisms specific to that movie. I would think that's a given.

 

I think it's clearly more divisive amongst fans than TESB ever was, but the critical reception is far more comparable.

The point being made is I haven't seen a criticism for TLJ that wouldn't also be leveled at TESB if it was given the same scrutity, but I can definitely see it having less flaws than a film like AOTC.

 

Han Solo killed by his own son.
Finn put into a coma requiring a Bacta suit.
An entire system destroyed.
Paige Tico killed.
New popular A-Wing pilot Tallie is blown up with an entire squadron.
Admiral Ackbar and most of the senior leadership killed.
Rey completely embarased by Snoke’s power and presented for execution while she pleads for her life after being mind tortured and later stabbed in the arm.
The death of Luke Skywalker.
A resistance movement reduced to the size of less than an NFL team.

And you think they’re playing it safe and want even more death and destruction and are calling it Disney Wars?

 

We are told the attack on the Dreadnaught was a failure but we are shown that the attack on the Dreadnaught was a huge success.

In ESB Luke didn't effortlessly shoot down all the AT-ATs while making quips, he was shot down in a serious, tense sequence. Luke is attacked by ice creatures and put in a bacta tank, the equivalent sequence with Finn is played for laughs. No sense of danger to the Disney characters, they are teflon, nothing sticks.

It's an issue pervasive in Disney Star Wars. Compare the actions scenes in the OT to the ST material. In ANH the MF struggled to fight against only three TIE fighters, in ESB they were forced to flee when chased by just three fighters but then in Solo, a prequel, we are shown Han effortlessly shrugging off TIE fighters while quipping about it. TLJ has the Falcon effortlessly shooting down dozens of TIE fighters. There's no sense of danger in these action scenes.

 

Precisely. And if you want, it's not just TLJ/ ESB. If any of the original films were released into the current fan climate, they would be shredded, for all the same things the most recent films are. NOt delivering on fan demands, cornball humour, "logic issues", "plot holes". But because we grew up with those films, we happily (rightly) absorbed those "issues" and either no longer see them, or view them as part of the charm. And it applies to the PT as well and those who grew up with those films. ESB was not feted as an insta-classic on release. It's elevation to best in the saga happened years later. If you apply the same IMO myopic scrutiny and expectations to any of the originals, you could rip them apart in the same way.

The PT is trickier, because I genuinely believe them to be largely several notches below all the other films on several levels (not all levels), but the same logic applies. Having watched each of the PT again in the last week, I think their reception would be even worse if released fresh tomorrow. And you only have to look at the reaction to the SE changes to see how much scrutiny these changes come under. Something has changed in the way we view movies. Partly it's social media, partly its the rise of cinemasins, etc.

But I do think people who feel TLJ is some kind of awful misstep should perhaps consider that the critical reception is so far removed from that perspective that maybe there is something else going on here. If TLJ was as bad and devoid of merit as its detractors claim, the reviews would reflect that. Instead, they reflect the opposite. That's not to say the film is without flaws, or that no criticism is valid, that's absolutely not the case, but I do think the amount of time we've had with the films we grew up with makes them to some extent impervious to certain similar criticisms that are now being lobbed at TLJ as if it somehow breaks the franchise.

 

I can't follow because we already got that in ANH: Sandtroopers riding lizards, Luke encountering Sandpeople and the Dianoga, Luke using the Force to deflect electric beams and the most mysterious of all, i.e. a character (Ben Kenobi) vanishing into thin air after he got hit by a lightsaber.
Since Kenobi's Force Ghost whispered into Luke's mind I don't think it's a stretch that we got to see his residual image in ESB (Seeing him sit on the nose of Luke's X-Wing in ANH would have been somewhat odd...).

What "logical flaws" in ESB? Please put these on the table.

There is only one I can think of, i.e. who comes that Boba Fett not only has his ship transferred from the Executor to the Avenger but wants to have his ship jettisoned with all the garbage? (As if he knew that Solo was there and would try to flow away unnoticed with that garbage).

 

Prior to ANH:SE, there was no plot hole. Consider that although Boba Fett was designed in 1978 and had test footage with Ben Burtt in white molds, he is not formally introduced in GFFA until 1980. Obeying a cosmological principal, Boba Fett is not special or privileged in terms of his origin story or how bad ass his rocket pack is. He gains the fortune to have gotten to Solo before his peer bounty hunters did. Contemplate a parallel universe where Lucas decided that 4LOM shrewdly watched Imperial data traffic and acted on a hunch, informed by some prior intelligence on the quarry, and hid out in the tail pipe section of some other SD, the... Dauntless. And then the remainder of ESB is about 4LOM's angle and 4LOM shows up in ROTJ. In Boba Fett's original favor, ESB presents the tantalizing hint that he and Vader have a history, since Vader tells him directly no disintegrations. So Boba Fett already is given street credit for being personally recognized by Vader.

If Lucas then retroactively introduces Boba Fett in ANH:SE, then there is a problem of Boba Fett being a bit overpowered in terms of clairvoyance vis a vis the tracking powers of other bounty hunters, rather than only being stochasticly lucky. (Greedo 'found' Solo first. Solo 'ran into' (euphemism) a bounty hunter on Ord Mantell.) But for ESB 1980, nothing contradicts that Boba Fett merely got lucky, in the zero sum that five others did not, and their movies did not make BO and get much RT. So this requires eschewing an anthropic principle (or bobafettic principle).

 

In the spirit of the criticism of TLJ, the explanations of the following mustn't be drawn with too much inference, lest you are delving into 'headcanon' and 'writing it for the writer'. Note that I know that most of these points have a logical inferential explanations or are hyperbolic.

- Why does it take Obi-Wan three years, and when Luke is near death, to tell him to go to Yoda?
- Why doesn't that walker shoot at Luke before stepping on the speeder? Such terrible troopers.
- Why don't they just shoot that Iron Cannon at every ship? It's super effective.
- Why doesn't Empire have a stronger blockade? All they needed was some fighters to take down those transports.
- How is the gravity on that asteroid equal the gravity of Earth? They are walking around like it's normal ground. Are you telling me that asteroid is that dense? And if it was there wouldn't be an asteroid field around it.
- How does the Millennium Falcon get from Hoth and Bespin? It's clearly been assumed by most people that the hyperdrive is the way to travel beyond lightspeed. If they could without hyperdrive shouldn't this have been made more obvious?
- Luke only has, what, a month of Jedi training and he can already hold his own, somewhat, against Vader? Land a blow against him on his shoulder?
- Why doesn't Vader just use the Force to hold Luke in the Carbon Chamber?
- Obi-Wan as a Force Ghost? Bah, that wasn't in ANH - I assumed Luke was just hearing his mentor in a non-literal way. It takes all the weight out of death.
- Luke and Leia kiss but are related in ROTJ? Didn't they plan this thing? Why did Obi-Wan tell them?

 

I’m too lazy and too much in a rush right now to do a similar list but I did just find a shockingly simialr rant against TESB that really does contain a lot of the most common criticisms people who dislike TLJ have stated. I don’t necessarily agree with all aspects of either but I think it’s helpful for perspective because when we love something we are less likely to look at it this way then when something (Luke) made us angry enough to go far more critical than we normally might for Star Wars.

http://www.simplysyndicated.com/why-empire-strikes-back-sucks-gundark-poodoo/

 

I'll only attempt to answer ones I definitively know the solutions to as presented by the movies or other canon material:

• The Star Wars galaxy has a universal constant gravity on all celestial objects
• Luke was trained (for a month or whatever) by the most powerful Jedi ever, and Vader was severely limited in physical combat ever since he was reduced to his suit
• The Jedi are capable of spiritual transitioning, the same way many people belive humans are after death
• Luke and Leia didn't know they were siblings, and Leia was making a statement towards Han

Not too difficult. I'm sure there are still handful of little logical issues in TESB, but I don't think anywhere near what's in TLJ.

 

Here is another one, if Obi-Wan is dead, and it's implied that both the Emperor and Vader sense that Luke is being trained:

-When Luke lands on Degobah we see the Emperor state: 'There is a great disturbance in the Force."
-When Vader meets Luke for the 1st time in Bespin he says: "The Force is with you, young Skywalker. But you are not a Jedi yet."

So why doesn't the Emperor and Vader go all out searching for whomever is training Luke? If you cut the head of the snake then you really don't have to worry about the Jedi coming back. The point of bringing Luke in was to turn him AND to block him from becoming a Jedi: "The Force is strong with him. The son of Skywalker must not become a
Jedi."

Heck, even Snoke and Kylo know that if they kill Luke, then they don't have to worry about the Jedi: "If Skywalker returns, the new Jedi will rise."

And i'm pretty sure the Emperor and Vader know who remains. I mean, the Emperor sure does know:



So, if you really think about, the empire's plan makes 0 sense, they should've gone all out searching for Yoda and not worry that much about Luke.

At the very least, it should've been a 2 prong event...logically this is how it should've happen:

Vader senses the force in Luke during the trench run...after the death star blows up, Vader and Palpatine should've pow-wowed in which they realize that Obi Wan can't help Luke anymore but perhaps Yoda is still around. I'm pretty sure with the might of the empire, they could've divided and conquered both, but instead, they ignore one of the biggest threats, Yoda.

OR PERHAPS, all these movies are flawed in their own endearing way and we should all realize that logic sometimes should go out the window especially if you consider there are 9 movies and 2 series that are layered and each one has to live within the confines of the other one and sometimes that just gets messy and frankly, in the end of the day, they are all flawed, and that's ok....

 

- Why does it take Obi-Wan three years, and when Luke is near death, to tell him to go to Yoda?

There is nothing in the ESB prologue or rest of the film it's three years. It's a suggestion of the ESB novelization, possibly the farmboy Luke first needed to develog social group skills before undergoing training.

- Why doesn't that walker shoot at Luke before stepping on the speeder? Such terrible troopers.

Luke's speeder had crashed, there was no reason the walker drivers had to anticipate another attack, they just left whoever survived the crash to the icy cold of Hoth

- Why don't they just shoot that Iron Cannon at every ship? It's super effective.

How do we know the ion cannon didn't shoot at every Star Destroyer trying to catch escaping Alliance vessels. However, after the first shots the surprise moment had gone and the Star Destroyers adapted to this kind of threat

- Why doesn't Empire have a stronger blockade? All they needed was some fighters to take down those transports.

According to the deleted scene the Empire destroyed 17 Alliance ships. We don't know how effective the Empire had been with its 6 Star Destroyers, possible that they destroyed most of the escaping Alliance vessels.

- How is the gravity on that asteroid equal the gravity of Earth? They are walking around like it's normal ground. Are you telling me that asteroid is that dense? And if it was there wouldn't be an asteroid field around it.

Apparently its denser material, assuming all asteroids were that dense those the farthest out would attract those in the center and vice versa.

- How does the Millennium Falcon get from Hoth and Bespin? It's clearly been assumed by most people that the hyperdrive is the way to travel beyond lightspeed. If they could without hyperdrive shouldn't this have been made more obvious?

I can't repeat this often enough. Just because it was impossible to "jump" into hyperspace it does not follow that the 'lower' gear shift of the hyperdrive was broken, too. Examples of FTL travel without hyperspace jump had been established by the probe droid, Luke's X-Wing (in ESB) and the refugee ship in AoTC.

- Luke only has, what, a month of Jedi training and he can already hold his own, somewhat, against Vader? Land a blow against him on his shoulder?

Already during his Encounter with Yoda Luke says "But I have learned so much" and Yoda doesn't object. In the deleted training scene Luke was trained how to use his lightsaber.

- Why doesn't Vader just use the Force to hold Luke in the Carbon Chamber?

Because he wants to test himself how powerful Luke actually is or not.

- Obi-Wan as a Force Ghost? Bah, that wasn't in ANH - I assumed Luke was just hearing his mentor in a non-literal way. It takes all the weight out of death.

On the contrary, Obi-Wan told Vader he'd become more powerful and what we experienced in those pivotal moments was a testament to that.

- Luke and Leia kiss but are related in ROTJ? Didn't they plan this thing? Why did Obi-Wan tell them?

At this point in time Lucas hadn't made up his mind, yet, whether they were supposed to be brother and sister. What we saw in ROJ was a premise change (and not the only one).

@City Councilman Binks

That backstory of Yoda you are referring to, didn't exist when ESB was made (ROJ novelization: "This Yoda," the Emperor mused. "Lives he still?"). Vader felt the Force in Kenobi and later in Luke because he was in the vicinity. Obviously Yoda was able to mask his Force signature, a popular theory is that the presence of the dark side cave on Dagobah helped him to accomplish that, so Vader and the Emperor would neither now about this Sith location and Yoda's presence there. Makes sense to me.

 

I shared this earlier but the Yoda and Obi-Wan "plan" actually makes very little sense if we stop and think about it. Less sense than what Luke is doing and why.

Spoiler

STEP 1: Defeat Darth Vader. Almost come to a draw with Darth Sidious.

STEP 2: Bring the son to the exact same place where the father has already been on the same planet he grew up and leave him with the exact same last name.

STEP 3: Do not train him at a young age for reasons that are never explained. Despite there being the perfect opportunity to literally raise him and train him yourself from birth to complete the plan you have for him... instead let him live a life where he becomes so adjusted to normalcy that the abstract portions of the Force are hard for him to grasp and your other partner in this plan (Yoda) tells you he's now too old to begin the training.

STEP 4: Lie to him and get him angry with revenge for his father so that he will finish what you started. Ideally, never knowing that the man he kills was actually his father, or that it was you who cut off his legs and helped make him more machine than man, and who could have easily killed him. Tell him his father wanted him to have this saber you just picked up after leaving him to die.

STEP 5: Pull out the Padawan helmet and orb trainers (Where did those come from?) at age 19 and give a very rudimentary description of the Force and tell him to use it. Great. Now risk all of this decades long plan by going to the place where Darth Vader is with him even though he's not ready at all and could easily be killed many times over along the way. Don't bother reaching out to Yoda, who's still one of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy, to help or update on how the plan is suddenly going forward despite the kid being brutally under prepared.

STEP 6: Let yourself appear to be killed by Vader in front of him, further pushing the revenge angle, and become more powerful than we can imagine but not really teach all that much from this position beyond the odd tip. Allow years to pass and risk countless other times when your new golden goose, who could have been trained earlier but wasn't, who's less of a Jedi than either of you, and who has very little training, could be killed and then... after another close call where he's dying out in the cold... tell him it's time to learn more and to abandon the war to train with someone who could have been training him earlier.

STEP 7: This guy is the guy who actually fought and nearly beat Darth Sidious but now he's just interested in snacks and fighting droids like a toddler. He's just been hanging out here doing nothing for decades while the Empire rose up and he thinks you're too old to begin the training. (Well, what was the plan then? Did these two even talk?). I guess they talked enough because there's no indication Yoda has any interest in telling him anything about the Emperor or how he fought him, and even less about who his father really was. Both of these guys want to send someone less equipped than they were at the peak of their powers to take on not only one incredible Dark Side user but TWO. And he's supposed to do this by himself even when neither of them could figure out a way to do it in twenty years.

STEP 8: Even though training him is so important that it's worth sacrificing the other hope in the story entirely (Leia) to do so... it's simultaneously not important enough for this training to happen earlier in Luke or Yoda's life at all. The possibility of training Luke at a younger age and all 3, with Luke at perhaps age 16, along side them, never crossed their minds but now that his friends and the other hope are in trouble... and some of the only people alive he truly cares about... he's expected to sacrifice them to continue training now.

STEP 9: Even though this entire "plan" is suddenly now at risk by the boy's refusal to listen to that advice... and is running off anyway... still don't tell him that the man he's about to face is his father even though it's literally the best possible moment for you to tell him this so that he doesn't run away and listens to you more. It's your last ace to play and you decide not to play it at all and to just allow him, and your entire plan, to possibly end in disaster after decades of sitting around.

STEP 10: Provide little help for him when he's made up his mind he's doing this. Even as he's thinking about jumping off a ledge to his death. No tips or suggestions like when you told him how to blow up the death star.

And the earlier link I shared raises some fair points about motivation, the Han subplot, the logistics of a vast empire being unable to squash the Rebels at Hoth, the logistics of relying on Tauntans over vehicles, the choice to introduce ghosts when they did, the choice to show Luke using the Force to levitate the saber when he’s never seen anyone do it before and we don’t see him working on that skill, the value of a chase, the sidelining of Leia from someone who both of the guys see almost as leading them at times despite being rescued in ANH to someone without a lot to do in TESB despite Vader being her dad too, and plenty more.

It reads similarly to some of the angriest criticism of TLJ and serves as a reminder that some things others love bother others a lot or seems cheesy or ruins suspension of disbelief that doesn’t bother others. That’s been the Star Wars experience for many aging fans as new films come out.

http://www.simplysyndicated.com/why-empire-strikes-back-sucks-gundark-poodoo/

 

I thought I had already provided an answer to your issues: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...e-strikes-back.50047638/page-13#post-54888658

Luke is the son of Darth Vader and given the special connection to the Sith Lord required a different training than your 'average' padawan. Kenobi assumed the role of devil's advocate in Yoda's plan.

 

Since we are talking about storytelling issues it really feels like a missed opportunity that Leia isn’t better incorporated into the ending in a family saga where she’s literally the twin of the main hero and the spitting image of the woman whose death lead Anakin to becoming Darth Vader in the first place.

They left some dramatic potential on the table with regard to that. I’m not going to say I know how they could have worked it in better but to me it really is a shame that Leia has to learn her dad is Vader, and that her brother is Luke, and then have Luke come back and tell her he died but that Luke was right from Luke exclusively. This becomes one of the most meaningful moments of Luke’s life and Leia has to go through the whole thing second hand.

If there could have somehow been a way where both twins are brought before the Emperor and Leia’s first Force moment was in that throne room too to try and protect her brother that could have been really magical. Even something as simple as seeing Luke being zapped and Leia reaching to the saber and it slowly moving toward her from the Force before the Emperor stopped it could have been really powerful and showed how adrenaline and instinct can guide her power.

The Emperor could have then Force choked her briefly while also zapping Luke and those moments would harken back to when Padme was choked and the twins were born. Vader then realizes he won’t watch anyone else he cares about be killed and takes out the Emperor and both twins try to rescue him and he tells them both nice things. There are so many beautiful things Anakin could have said to Leia. About how she has her mother’s eyes or how her mother would have been so proud of her fight and they leave all of that dramatic potential related to Leia and Padme on the table. And if he’d have been able to say that then his last message wouldn’t have been trying to kill two birds with one stone and he could have said something even better to Luke than he does about how some day they will meet again. I get misty eyed even imagining an unsmasked Anakin having even better moments with both before the end.

Instead she has to hear her entire family arc and her father’s last words from Luke and worse than that... Has to go through life thinking perhaps that he is saying “You were right, Luke, and Leia was wrong.”

 

^
Making “the other one” Leia via last minute bloodline explanation was clearly a cop-out in ROTJ. It was criticized for a good reason, though I and I think a lot of fans in the end were still glad it turned out that way because it opened ways for more different kinds of stories with Leia in the EU that otherwise could’ve fallen into “Rebel leader and mother and that’s it” stagnancy. Even in the new EU, a fan-favorite novel Bloodline wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Leia and Vader’s sudden canonized connection.

However, I do find it very frustrating that despite that, the new movies decided to go with “Rebel leader and mother and that’s it” for the continuation of her story. I don't quite understand why they bothered to show she can use the Force when she doesn't use it at all to save other people, or to provide Force-related guidance to others, or heck, face other Force using opponents. Like, her rare ability to use the Force is completely redundant, when it should be a big deal. It retroactively makes her request to Han in TFA (and not go with him to try to reach to her Force using son) look like an even more puzzling decision.

Moreover, her “mother” status is hardly an important detail in the story aside from that one scene where she served as a prop to show Kylo’s conflict. While in ROTJ she never knew her father and thus lack of interaction with him, albeit disappointing, it wasn't a big deal, in the ST she is the woman who raised Ben Solo and yet she hardly exists in his story. Two movies in and she had zero screen time with him. Even when he was just outside of the Crait base, she didn't bother to go face him and take matters into her hands. It’s a damn shame, huge waste of potential and massive sidelining of a character that should be one of the most, if not the most important person in Kylo Ren’s life, and now there is no way of fixing it.

 

If only RJ would've known that Carrie Fisher was going to unexpectedly die...i mean, that really is all that is missing in your post.

 

I covered that in the last sentence.
But my post was about how they severely under utilized her in the existing movies with the story they came up with. Fisher's unfortunate passing doesn't change the fact that, to me, that they made very puzzling decisions regarding her character's role - or absence - in many situations where every other character has faced her own son but her, or every other Force using character used the Force is saving-the-day situations but her.

 

If you don't think they were teeing her up for Episode IX, then how in good faith, do you even make this argument?

 

I don’t know the story of IX and neither do you, but I do know that if the story involved “oh I remember we have this character that can influence Ben Solo more than the others (but never bothered to use her before) and can use the Force to do save the day (but never bothered to use her before) that would be retroactively fixing.

They created a story where there is a very important Force using mother and neither JJ and RJ bothered to do anything minimally important with her in their respective “we’re making up as we go along, there is no planning” scripts.

Even Shmi has a more significant role in TPM and AOTC.