As a co-worker of mine likes to point out;
The first one had a small, unshielded exhaust vent that was exploited to destroy the thing. So what do we do with the second one? Why, we have a series of holes large enough to fly entire ships through to the center of the damned thing!
Admittedly the second Death Star was still under construction. But thinking the Rebels just couldn’t steal the bait out of the trap a second time? That one’s entirely on Palpy.
Of course even after being informed that the shield facility is threatened, Palpatine seems more concerned with Luke and Vader than the imminent destruction of the Death Star II and everyone aboard. Apparently by then he was confident his mind transfer scheme would work, and is obsessed with concerns of the Force over purely military matters.
As much as I love Star Wars, it is a bunch of made up crap. No part of it stands up to any kind of close analysis. It was intended to be enjoyed as a visceral popcorn experience, not studied and mulled over for meaning by fanbois for the rest of eternity.
What, we should talk about Star Trek?!?
I’m picturing my group of friends in 1977. We’re all hunkered down in theater seats, watching “Star Wars” (none of that New Hope felgercarb for us), complaining about some plot hole… and George Lucas (with jumbo popcorn) leans over our seats: “Shhh! It’s just a movie.”
What the creator intends and what the work is are not necessarily the same.
Yeah. That’s right. I got artsy-pretentious about Star Wars.
See Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus. 
I know nothing of any mind transfer scheme.
Yeah, both heroes and villains have to sometimes make less-than-intelligent decisions for the sake of having a plot (and without the benefit of audience omniscience).
Mind transfer… sounds a bit too science fiction-y, doesn’t it? I mean, this is Star Wars we’re talking about.
This is another example of why I, II and III suck. It has only been 20 years since the fall of the Republic and the Jedi order! It would be impossible not to know of the force and it’s use since they were a galaxy wide presence only two decades before. Hell even a slave kid on a backwater planet knew of the Jedi, this is well within Han’s lifetime. In SW Obi-wan’s tale of the Republic’s fall sounded like 50 or 60 years in the past, beyond the living memories of the principal characters.
How could it have been 50-60 years before when Luke’s father was killed at the time, presumably after Luke had been conceived?
What Han’s doubt indicates is that the Jedi’s were either not as integrated into society as Ep. 1-3 showed them, or they were completely discredited in the meantime in a convincing way.
Remember, too, the force shown in the original Star Wars is a much more subtle thing than what we see in the later movies, closer to the chi claimed by some martial arts mystics than the ass kicking tool it became.
This seems most likely. The Imperial propaganda machine would have painted the Jedi as a corrupt priesthood of charlatans that attempted to manipulate and gain control of the galactic government. Praise be to Emperor Palpatine for foiling their wicked plans!
Expanded Universe, hinted at in Revenge of the Sith: Palpatine and/or his former master discovered a way to transfer one’s conciousness into a cloned body, thereby having the potential to be immortal. In the Expanded Universe Palpatine survived the destruction of DS2 this way.
The first movie, to the best of my recollection, does not imply that the fall of the Republic and the “death” of Luke’s father happened at the same time, or that the (near) extinction of the Jedi happened as quickly as later movies would have it.
Actually, it was Episodes 1-3 that showed Jedi weren’t as widespread as previously thought. The sheer size of the Senate meant that billions, perhaps trillions, of residents lived with the Republic. While the number of Jedi probably numbered only in thousands. It’s likely that most people lived their whole life and died without ever being on the same planet as a Jedi.
For further proof, in Episode I Anakin thought Jedis were immortal. He got the comic book treatment of Jedis (and the ensuing urban legends) that someone living in a society with real superheroes gets. Han Solo would have been a toddler when the Jedi were wiped out. And the Jedi comic books would have likely been purged. To him, they may as well have never existed.
Wow! I never saw that Robot Chicken episode before.
Thanks for the link.
God that was amazing… so many quotes to steal from that.
This. I, II and III make vague references to the fact that the Jedi had so cut themselves from the rest of society that they were losing touch with the Force. That is why they were unable to discover the Sith Lord living right down the street, taking over the government. By the time of SW, the Jedi and the idea of the Force had been subject to an intanse PR campaign to discredit the Jedi and paint them as fakes and charlatans who had been leeches on society. This may be why General Motti feels comfortable dismissing Vader’s attempts to reover the Death Star plans, as well. Han is not the only SW character to doubt the Force.
Well, the Jedi do seem to be a bit mentally challenged about the whole thing.
“I know, since The Force runs in families, let’s require the Force-strong people who join us to not have families!!!”
:smack:
Whereas they should have been more like the Psicorps from Babylon 5, intentionally breeding their strongest people together to create stronger Jedi.
Indeed! And it’d be so easy to set up outlets for talented people eager to enter public service for the greater good, like the “(Imperial) Academy” that Luke wants so much to go off and join early in Episode IV, or even local LEO sub-groups of Stormtroopers.
Try this one out too, then 