When you're developing a franchise, making sure that everything makes narrative sense is a surprisingly difficult task. It's made even more daunting when that franchise consists of nearly a dozen theatrical films and an ever-growing slate of television series. Such is the case with "Star Wars," which became one of the world's most popular science fiction properties when it debuted in 1977. In the 45 years since then, "Star Wars" has introduced countless new plotlines and concepts, but some of them don't exactly line up with the ones that came before them. These are "Star Wars" plot holes that still confuse fans.
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00:00An unlikely survival story, or lack thereof, in the sequels.
00:04A history with a droid that gets forgotten, a father that doesn't recognize his own daughter.
00:10Keep watching for Star Wars plot holes that still have us scratching our heads.
00:14In A New Hope, Luke Skywalker discovers that R2-D2 has a holographic message of Princess
00:19Leia pleading to Obi-Wan Kenobi for help.
00:22So Luke takes R2 out to find the hermit Old Ben Kenobi, and tells him that R2-D2 has been
00:27looking for his former master.
00:29"...Don't seem to remember ever owning a droid."
00:33As anyone who's seen the original Star Wars trilogy knows, however, Obi-Wan has a nasty
00:37habit of withholding important information from Luke for reasons that aren't quite clear.
00:42This is another of those lies, as the prequel trilogy shows Obi-Wan going on adventures
00:47with R2-D2 for years.
00:50Maybe Obi-Wan just felt that wasn't the best time to reveal his history with the droid,
00:54but it still would have been nice to see him show some kind of affection to a war buddy
00:57he hadn't seen in forever.
01:00By the time Return of the Jedi rolls around, Luke has become quite seasoned with the Force.
01:05Except during certain key moments when his mastery of the Force could have really helped.
01:09For example, during his battle with the Rancor at Jabba the Hutt's palace, he physically
01:13throws a rock at a control panel to kill the beast with the massive gate, when he could
01:17have just used his mind for that.
01:20Wasn't levitating rocks while doing a handstand part of his training with Yoda in Empire Strikes
01:24Back?
01:25There are plenty of other examples of Luke's convenient amnesia sprinkled throughout Return
01:29of the Jedi.
01:30You'd think that in a fight against a giant carnivorous alien, he would have instantly
01:34resorted to some Jedi guile instead of using his hands like a normal person.
01:39In The Force Awakens, after Finn has a change of heart about his commitment to the First
01:43Order, he frees Resistance pilot Poe Dameron from captivity and helps him commandeer a
01:48TIE fighter to escape.
01:49However, they're shot down by a First Order Star Destroyer and are forced to make a crash
01:53landing on Jakku.
01:55When Finn goes to inspect the wreckage, all he finds is Poe's jacket, and that's enough
01:59for him to come to the conclusion that Poe is dead.
02:02It's later revealed that Poe survived, with his explanation simply being that he was thrown
02:06from the TIE fighter when they landed on Jakku.
02:09Finn asks no more questions, but we have several, including, thrown where?
02:14There was no sign of him anywhere nearby when Finn was looking.
02:17We're all in favor of keeping Oscar Isaac around for as long as possible, but surely
02:21they could have come up with a better explanation than that.
02:25At the end of Revenge of the Sith, Yoda and Obi-Wan conclude that the newly-born Luke
02:28and Leia Skywalker must be separated and hidden where the Sith cannot find them.
02:33Leia is given to Bail Organa and his family on Alderaan, while Luke is sent to live with
02:37his step-uncle, Owen Lars, on Tatooine.
02:40Obi-Wan then heads out to the desert to live the rest of his life as a hermit and watch
02:44over Luke.
02:45But if you're trying to prevent the newly-minted Vader from finding his son, why would you
02:49bring Luke to Vader's home planet and place him with Vader's own step-brother?
02:53If Vader had gone home for any reason at all over those two decades, the entire galaxy
02:58would have been lost forever.
03:00Seems like a pretty big risk to take for no clear reason.
03:03In Return of the Jedi, Luke has a heart-to-heart with the Force spirit of Obi-Wan about his
03:07destiny.
03:08When Luke presses him on what Yoda meant about there being another, Obi-Wan tells Luke that
03:13he has a sister who remains safe in anonymity.
03:16Luke's Jedi instincts immediately tell him the truth.
03:19"...Leia.
03:20Leia is my sister."
03:23So how come Vader, who has far more training with the Force, never realized that Leia was
03:28his daughter during the time in A New Hope that he spent interrogating her?
03:32In the real world, it's probably because Lucas hadn't figured out Luke and Leia's relationship
03:36when he wrote A New Hope, but there doesn't seem to be an in-universe reason for the discrepancy.
03:42Return of the Jedi features the climactic battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader,
03:46as Emperor Palpatine watches on.
03:48Luke defeats Vader, but refuses to turn to the dark side, prompting the Emperor to electrify
03:53Luke in retaliation.
03:55That leads Vader to save his son's life by chucking Palpatine down the reactor shaft.
04:00Because cheating death is one of the primary perks of being on the dark side of the Force,
04:04Palpatine returns years later in The Rise of Skywalker, and explains his resurrection
04:08as simply being the result of unnatural means.
04:12While Sidious' resurrection is explained in more detail in The Rise of Skywalker novelization,
04:16this probably should have been given more attention in the films.
04:19Fan service can be done in a way that works within the plot's rules, but this just came
04:23off as cheap and lazy.
04:26Return of the Jedi features a scene on Endor in which Luke asks Leia if she remembers her
04:30mother.
04:31Leia says that she remembers certain images and feelings.
04:34She was very beautiful, kind, but sad."
04:41Unfortunately, this doesn't make any sense.
04:44As revealed at the end of Revenge of the Sith, Luke and Leia's mother, Padme Amidala, died
04:48in childbirth.
04:49This could be potentially explained away by the Force-sensitive nature that runs in the
04:53Skywalker family, with Leia absorbing some vague impressions of Padme from those who
04:58knew her, or something.
05:00Still, this is still a pretty big oversight, especially considering George Lucas wrote
05:04the scripts for both films.
05:06Jar Jar Binks is a member of the Gungans, a race of amphibious creatures that mostly
05:10reside underwater on the planet Naboo.
05:13Ostracized from his own people for his massive ineptitude, Jar Jar ends up palling around
05:17with Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace.
05:22Somehow, he manages to regain the trust of his people and is immediately promoted to
05:26the position of general when the Gungans join forces with Queen Amidala's army against the
05:30approaching droid forces.
05:32Eventually, in the following films, Jar Jar even rises to become a delegate to the Galactic
05:37Senate.
05:38But how could such a fool gain such political power and influence?
05:41Surely, no society would be so completely out of touch as to elect a candidate that
05:45incompetent for such an important job.
05:48It makes so little sense that some fans have theorized that Jar Jar may actually be a Sith
05:52Lord hiding in plain sight.
05:55In The Empire Strikes Back, Obi-Wan directs Luke Skywalker to go to the Dagobah system
05:59to develop his skills with the Force under Yoda, who Obi-Wan claims instructed him in
06:03the ways of the Jedi.
06:05However, in The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon Jinn is shown to be the one who trains Obi-Wan.
06:10And it's even said in that very film that a practicing Jedi can only have one master.
06:14So what gives?
06:16Obi-Wan has been shown to be pretty squirrely when it comes to the truth, and this is seemingly
06:20another example of that.
06:21Maybe he lied about his relationship with Yoda to encourage Luke to train under him.
06:26But Luke already trusts Obi-Wan.
06:28So what's the reason for the deception?
06:30Seems like liars are just gonna lie.
06:33At the start of A New Hope, Darth Vader's forces invade a Rebel Alliance ship to retrieve
06:37the Death Star plans in their possession.
06:40Luckily, Princess Leia manages to hide the plans in R2-D2, who evades the Galactic Empire
06:45in an escape pod.
06:46Empire officers notice the escape pod carrying the droids, but don't detect any lifeforms
06:51and assume it was simply a malfunction.
06:53Later in the film, though, we see Luke, Obi-Wan, Han Solo, and the others infiltrate the Death
06:57Star by hiding in the Millennium Falcon's hull.
07:00The Imperial soldiers read the ship's log, which specifies that there are no lifeforms
07:04aboard.
07:05Get me a scanning crew in here on the double.
07:06I want every part of this ship checked.
07:08That's apparently enough to satisfy the soldiers, but it begs the question, if they can scan
07:12a tiny escape pod that's rocketing away into space, why wouldn't they use those scanners
07:17to check a full-size ship that they just allowed inside the Death Star?
07:21Han could have just left a note on the control console that read,
07:23Nobody's home, and that apparently would have been enough to convince the Imperial soldiers
07:27not to use their proper scanning devices.
07:30The end of Revenge of the Sith sees Obi-Wan hand a baby Luke Skywalker to his new family
07:35on Tatooine, vowing to live in the desert nearby to watch over him.
07:39He kept his word for years afterward, living as Ben Kenobi, and only resurfacing when Luke
07:44approaches him with a message from Princess Leia pleading for Obi-Wan Kenobi's help.
07:48You know him?
07:49Well, of course I know him.
07:52He's me.
07:54But why would Obi-Wan only change his first name?
07:58He's one of the most wanted figures in the galaxy.
08:00Surely changing his last name to pretty much anything else would make more sense.
08:05As far as fake identities go, Ben Kenobi is one of the least effective aliases we've ever
08:09heard.
08:11The Force Awakens introduced audiences to Rey as the sequel trilogy's primary protagonist.
08:16At the beginning of the film, she's an orphan scavenger with seemingly nothing special about
08:20her.
08:21But she soon displays an inherent talent for the Force.
08:24That includes using a Jedi mind trick to convince a Stormtrooper to free her, and being able
08:28to handle her own in a lightsaber duel with Kylo Ren.
08:32Rey is not unlike Luke Skywalker in A New Hope in that she has some natural affinity
08:36for the Force, and must go on a quest to fully realize her potential.
08:40However, A New Hope at least showed Luke training to use the Force under Obi-Wan Kenobi's tutelage,
08:45and his struggle to master the Force is a big part of his character arc.
08:49Rey, on the other hand, demonstrates some advanced Jedi skills without any training
08:53or practice.
08:54Why is that?
08:55How is that?
08:56The movies don't seem interested in explaining much of anything.
09:00In A New Hope, Obi-Wan tells Luke that Luke's father was killed by Darth Vader, a former
09:04apprentice of his that was corrupted by the dark side of the Force.
09:07The Empire Strikes Back features Luke training under Yoda in the ways of the Jedi so that
09:11he'll be prepared to take on Darth Vader.
09:14But he wasn't prepared, especially not for the parental bombshell that Vader dropped
09:18on him.
09:19I am the father.
09:23In Return of the Jedi, Luke returns to Dagobah, where both Yoda and Force ghost Obi-Wan confirm
09:28that they always knew about Luke's relation to Darth Vader.
09:31We give Obi-Wan a lot of crap for withholding important information for no real reason,
09:36but it turns out that Yoda was an accomplice in his web of lies.
09:39But why?
09:40Obi-Wan told Luke that Vader killed his father from a certain point of view.
09:44Well, from reality's point of view, Obi-Wan straight-up lied.
09:49When Leia tries to convince Han to stay with the Rebel Alliance on Hoth, Han arrogantly
09:53declares that she really wants him to stay because she has feelings for him.
09:57To prove him wrong, Leia marches toward Luke and gives him a big ol' smooch on the lips,
10:01much to Han's annoyance and Luke's satisfaction.
10:04What started off as a seemingly innocent love triangle gets a lot more uncomfortable in
10:08Return of the Jedi when Luke and Leia discover that they're siblings.
10:12The weird part?
10:13Leia claims she's not surprised.
10:16"...Somehow, I've always known."
10:21We can't blame Leia for wanting to put Han in his place for his smugness, but surely
10:25there were definitely less incestuous ways of doing so.
10:29Like many of the other plot holes on this list, it's most likely that Lucas hadn't fully
10:33planned out the overarching story before working on each installment.
10:38Not too much has been explained about how lightsabers work in the Star Wars universe
10:42— at least not in the films.
10:44One of the few consistencies, though, is that because of their extreme heat, they instantly
10:47cauterize any wound they inflict.
10:50There was no blood splatter in sight when Luke got his hands sliced off by Darth Vader
10:54in The Empire Strikes Back.
10:56There wasn't any gore when Darth Maul was bisected by Obi-Wan Kenobi in The Phantom
11:00Menace, or when Supreme Leader Snoke was wedged into multiple pieces in The Last Jedi.
11:04However, there was definitely blood when Ponda Baba picked a fight with Luke at Mos Eisley
11:09in A New Hope, only for Obi-Wan to step in and slash his arm off.
11:13Chalk it up to Lucas once again making stuff up as he goes, because there was no gush of
11:17blood in Empire Strikes Back when the Wampa loses an arm in the same way.