[DarthWhatever]

Hi everyone,
new on here so i dont know if this has been covered before.
i completed my star wars dvd collection when sith came out and sat down and watched them in chronological order. there seem to be a few plot holes but on the whole it was an enjoyable experiance. but one thing struck me...how on earth can luke be a jedi?

when anikin was brough before the jedi council they refused to train him because he was too old, luke on the other hand must have been in his mid twentys and it was ok. i can understand that yoda/obi wan was desperate but even so! he has no master and yoda trains him for a few days? it cant be argued that he was with yoda for a long period of time because he leaves han and leia who then immediatly go on their adventure in the asteriod field, bespin etc which covers a time peroid of what? a couple of days? maybe a few more but even if it was a week that is still scant time for lukes training. he confronts vader, loses a hand, rescues han and pops back to dagobah and is told face vader again and you will be a jedi!!!

i enjoyed the PT but this was one area they spolit rotj for me (that and the ewoks of course!). anyone else share this view or am i missing something, maybe one of the novels discusses this problem. thanks for reading, craig

This post has been edited by DarthWhatever: 22 December 2005 - 08:33 PM

[Despondent]

If you're really in question, you can blame Lucas either way.

Akin to the nonexistent relationship between annie and palpy for the first two films, I would argue that it is best understood that it did indeed occur, but offscreen.

Welcome to the forum.

[DarthWhatever]

Thanks for the welcome Despondant.

But when did it happen offscreen? if luke went back to dagobah between esb and rotj why did he say i have a promise to keep to an old friend, which was clearly a reference to his departure from dagobah before he had finished his training? and if he hadnt gone back then did he train himself?
question, questions questions, how i wish i could sleep!!!
seriously though this is a great site.

[jariten]

it cant be argued that he was with yoda for a long period of time because he leaves han and leia who then immediatly go on their adventure in the asteriod field, bespin etc which covers a time peroid of what? a couple of days?

Its bad writing, thats all there is to it. They can pull the wool over your eyes if you dont think about it too much, but in reality Luke couldnt have been with Yoda for more than a few hours at most. Yet he was supposed to have learnt the ins and outs of Jedi-dom. Of course it couldn't have happened offscreen, there just wasnt the time for it.

It stinks, but there it is.

Glad you like the PT by the way. Stick around!

[Despondent]

I'm willing to accept the second act of ESB as being a couple of weeks. Some say a month, but we don't see enough for me to believe that. At the very least, four or five days. We see by Luke's little twirl while prancing with Yoda on his back that his abilities are developing. Why couldn't the new hope be given a crash course, seeing as how he's basically the David figure? And if he is the David figure, then less training would be appropriate. He's got the light saber and probably Ben's zapper ball thing to work out with.

Did the karate kid ever actually learn karate, or did he merely call upon muscle memory to win the big tournament? I'm not sure. I do know that the girl in Dirty Dancing learned how to do that big dance in a couple of days. Maybe before facing Vader, Luke stayed at a Holiday Inn express? I don't know. But I DO know that he crafted his lightsaber offscreen.

So according to you, Jariten; without hyperdrive the Millenium Falcon was in space a few hours, at the most?

[Darth Player]

Even the guy who kisses Lucas' butt, Rick McCallum states that Luke got the abbreviated training and that in the PT, we'd see the real deal (ha!). Going by what was onscreen, Obi Wan and Yoda are training Luke for a different task than Yoda and the other Jedi trained their novices. Although contradicted later with "he's more machine now than man" it seems they want to center the final confrontation on father and son instead of Sith/Jedi. I could understand hiding Luke in his infancy, but the training should have started sooner, but then again, when ANH was made, the mess of the PT wasn't there. In the PT universe, the Jedi were under the impression that they had as much time as it took to train other Jedi, whereas in the OT timeframe, there's more of a rush to get Luke up and running. How Ben and Yoda didn't prepare for the possibility of Luke running off in the middle of the training is odd as well, but then again, there wouldn't be an ESB in the way we know, and its the PT mess creeping back in. ANH was fast paced with all its edits to salvage Lucas' mess as a director so the notion about time is warped from there on in in the SW universe onscreen. Did the battle of Hoth take 10-15 minutes, about the same time as the pod race in TPM? I sure as heck hope not. I'd like to believe what we saw was from the main character's points of view, and so the reason it was all condensed from far bigger actions taking place overall. Even Homer's Illyad and Odessey take place over many decades, but if you read them over a weekend it doesn't mean that time was somehow condensed.

[Despondent]

Even Homer's Illyad and Odessey take place over many decades, but if you read them over a weekend it doesn't mean that time was somehow condensed.

[jariten]

This is why its bad.

Its amateurish.

If we're somehow supposed to first swallow the idea that the made it to another star system without lightspeed, theres absolutly no indication on film to suggest that that length of time passed for Luke on Bespin.

Nothing. If months have passed, show us that months have passed. Forget months, it looks like Lukes training, and the others' trip to Bespin took place all in the same day.

Its a scriptwriting shortcut.

[Darth Player]

This is why its bad.

Its amateurish.

If we're somehow supposed to first swallow the idea that the made it to another star system without lightspeed, theres absolutly no indication on film to suggest that that length of time passed for Luke on Bespin.

Nothing. If months have passed, show us that months have passed. Forget months, it looks like Lukes training, and the others' trip to Bespin took place all in the same day.

Its a scriptwriting shortcut.

I think the X-Wing and other related craft in the SW OT universe have the ability to go into lightspeed because at the original end of ESB the fleet goes into lightspeed but Lucas changed it, the same way they did in ROTJ when they all met up at the rendevous point and made the dramatic jump alltogether. Stands to reason that in the passing interval the ships had the ability and no need to have the booster Obi Wan uses in ATOC.

And if the Emperor and Vader perceive a threat from Luke being Vader's offspring and all and being strong in the Force, they're gonna do whaever they can to interrupt his training as a Jedi so he's less a threat at that time instead of being more powerful later on and more difficult to convert to their side/kill.

It fits in a way with what was laid our before in that Luke wouldn't become a Jedi according to Yoda's dialogue in ROTJ until he confronts and defeats Vader (or dies trying as is underhandily implied I guess). Considering Palpatine took out three Jedi real quick in his office in ROTS with no major issues, if I were Luke, I sure as heck wouldn't be real keen on gaining any more tips from guys that trained lots of Jedi who all went down like suckas.

[CowboyCurtis]

Hahaha! Too true!

Not sure where to weigh in on all of this. First off, the hyperdrive. I have absolutely no problem with weeks or months passing on the MF while Luke is training. It works. Works a lot better than the time screw-ups in ROTS. Besides, what do we need to see happening on the MF? Leia is probably not any cozier to Han, C3P0 is still arguing with the computer and Chewbacca is still banging on the alluvial dampers.

No problem whatsoever.

What I do have a problem with is with ROTJ. Yoda and Ben beg Luke not to leave because his training was not complete. In ROTJ, he comes back and "Your training is complete." Ugh. What was wrong starting ROTJ off with Luke completing his training so that he was prepared to free Han? ROTJ has many problems, and as I've said before, it is the beginning of the decay of Star Wars.

[DarthWhatever]

"....What I do have a problem with is with ROTJ. Yoda and Ben beg Luke not to leave because his training was not complete. In ROTJ, he comes back and "Your training is complete." Ugh. What was wrong starting ROTJ off with Luke completing his training so that he was prepared to free Han? ROTJ has many problems, and as I've said before, it is the beginning of the decay of Star Wars...."
(not sure how to do the quote thing yet)



or at least mention in the opening credit scroll that luke had gone back to dagobah and completed his training. other than the `keeping a promise to an old friend` line it wouldnt have altered the rest of the story at all. when i first saw the film when it came out, when luke enters jabbas palace sillouteted in his cloak he seemed a powerful jedi, grown in the force since we last saw him. now that scene makes him look amaturish and somewhat of a pretender!

ive got no bones to pick with the PT, they`re not meant to be rocket science just fun movies. i can ignore a few discprepancies just for the sake of seeing a new star wars after all the years. but what disappoints me is having very fond memories of rotj cheapened by the PT. george lucas had 15 years to tinker with the new scripts but it seemed like "ok im doing the Phantom menace, got a couple of years to get this written and finished so lets get started" .all those years mr lucas had to tinker with the scripts and yet everything feels rushed.

[Despondent]

It's his intellectual property. He'll tinker for the rest of his life.

As far as the PT being fun movies; they didn't have that affect on me.

[barend]

i think what you're forgetting is that more time passed than what is shown...

while it looked like luke only spent two days training to be a jedi, it was really three.

[Giff]

Also, try to keep in mind the entire notion of time itself.

For us on Earth, 1 day is 24 hours and our years are based around our sun.

Now, perhaps Bespin's time and Dagobah's time are different.

Also....transit time. How long is that trip throught the asteroid belt, etc. ?

The films show them as if all the planets were conveniently lined up right next to each other....but even with the speed of hyperspace, I would imagine that it would still take some time. More than mere seconds anyway.

What I'm trying to say is that you cant judge their time in earth time.

unlesss of course earth time (hours, minutes, days) is spoken of...then we have a real predicament...dont we?

[Giff]

Case in point:

"Each day on Pluto takes 6.39 Earth days. Each year on Pluto takes 247.7 Earth years (that is, it takes 247.7 Earth years for Pluto to orbit the Sun once)." SOURCE

So for instance, perhaps it takes 15-20 days(or longer) on Bespin or Hoth or near an asteroid field or wherever to make a full year on the dagobah system.

you dont know the placement of suns and the way in which time is concieved. For all you know....Luke could have been on Dagobah for 9-12 months...assuming a year on Dagobah is even 12 months of 30 or 31 different 24 hour days...

See where I'm going with this?

This post has been edited by Giff: 06 January 2006 - 10:01 PM