In the beginning of Episode 4, a new hope, C-3P0 and R2-D2 get into an escape pod by order of the princess to get the death star plans to Obi Wan. They launch, and you get a scene with 2 guys in Vaders Star Destroyer operating a gun turret with obvious orders to destroy any escape pods. They see the one go and the guy is JUST about to vaporise it when his idiot partner goes “hold your fire, theres no life forms.” Firstly, wtf does that matter? Your orders were to destroy escape pods. Secondly, if those tow had JUST blasted that pod to smitheriens, the whole galaxy wouldva changed:
The droids and the Death Star plans wouldva been vaporized. So when the imperials found the rebel base at Yavin, they would not know about the exhaust port. In desperation, they wouldve tried a full scale assault, but of course that would fail, because thats what the Empire made the DS for. The bulk of the rebel fleet, its base, and its key people, wouldve been destroyed.
Luke Skywalker wouldve never found Obi Wan, and spent the rest of his life in quite desperation as a loyal subject of the Empire.
Obi Wan wouldve died alone as a crazy old hermit.
Han Solo and Chewie wouldve remained outlaws and smugglers. Eventually captured or killed by Bounty Hunters for Jabba the Hutt. This time though, with no friends to save him.
Princess Leia wouldve remained on the Death Star. Interrogated, tortured, and pumped full of truth syrum until her will as a human being was completly eliminated. After the Empire had picked her brain clean she would then be sold into prostitution to a high level Imperial officer.
Two anonymous henchmen couldve saved the Empire that day by just firing that gun. How unfortunate.
Of course, the only reason the Imperials found the base at Yavin was because of the tracking device they planted on the Millenium Falcon.
Probably not. Luke’s best friend had left to join the Academy and then found his way to the rebels, Luke might very well have done the same thing. In any case, once Luke made it to the Academy, given how good his piloting skills were, he’d no doubt have drawn the attention of a certain Darth Vader (assuming, of course, the Academy’s computers weren’t programmed to look for the name Skywalker on the roles of prospective students and e-mail 'em to Vader the moment one of them tried to register.), who’d pick up Luke’s Force abilities and try to bring him over to the dark side.
Possibly, but doubtful. While this contradicts the above scenerio I’ve posted, I seriously doubt that Obi Wan would sit quietly in the desert waiting for Luke to come find him. (You think it was an accident that he was out wandering around when Luke decides to get bashed on the head by a Sand Person? Ha!) [Obi Wan]The Force Surrounds us and guides us.[/Obi Wan]
Possibly, but then again, Han might have found the money to pay Jabba off. Or at least found a place to hide out.
Much as I might wish to be said high level Imperial officer, I feel quite safe in saying that Princess Leia would have offed herself before too long in order to prevent that from happening.
What I don’t understand is, Vader Had Leia, and never had any idea she was his daughter. I’m sure the interrogators must’ve ran some kind of imperial tricorder over her and found some very familiar DNA in her cells at sometime or another.
While we’re at it, why didn’t Vader ever get an internal organ transplant? He’s stuck in that suit because it’s a mobile Iron Lung! We assume that in Episode 3’s fight at the lava pit (or whatever it is) not only does Anakin/Vader get his arms and legs burned off, but also burned his lungs breathing in the acrid lava fumes. I’m sure the Empire’s #2 Man has access to the galaxy’s medical databanks…containing detailed files on citizens’ genetics and tissue types…and have some schmoe bumped off for his healthy innards.
True. I think that in the end, the only thing that would’ve been significantly different is that Leia would’ve been killed. Remember that she was the better hidden of the two; they make it sound like Darth Vader and Palpatine were well aware of Luke all along, but Leia took just about everybody by surprise, because she was raised by Jimmy Smits.
Exactly. I’m a little curious to see if the third movie makes any attempt at all to explain how Luke was “hidden” for so many years. Initially, the conceit was that Tatooine was such a backwater planet that no one would think to look there. Of course by now, it seems that Tatooine is the one place in the galaxy where everything of interest happens. And it’s Darth Vader’s home planet and one of his frequent getaway destinations.
Right again; I thought it was pretty well implied by the first movie that Ben was just waiting around looking out for Luke until he came of age. (Of course if he was “too old” by Empire time, then it would’ve made more sense to start training him earlier. George!!!)
Yep, remember that at the beginning of Empire he was trying to leave because the bounty hunters were getting close. If anything, his getting sidetracked with the Rebels for a few years after the first movie was the thing that got him into really deep trouble with Jabba.
This is a pretty interesting idea, though – have there been any “Elseworlds”-type alternate histories for the Star Wars stories? Considering how many SW comic books have been written I’d be surprised if they hadn’t hit on this yet.
There is a Star Wars : Infinities series, which does the AU thing. I can’t remember offhand though where they break off from canon. I’m sure its on www.starwars.com somewhere.
There’ve been two Infinities series so far. In the first, Luke’s torpedoes miss their target, and the DS survives. Nifty series, but the ending was lacking.
In the second, which hasn’t wrapped up yet, Luke becomes a Hamill-cicle on Hoth, and dies before the Empire gets there. Looks pretty good so far.
Aren’t you choking on gnats while swallowing camels, here? Yes, the stormtroopers’ reasons for not destroying the escape pod were thin. But what reason at all do the “well trained” stormtroopers have for being completely and utterly unable to shoot anyone who matters despite firing en masse, at very short range, on several occasions?
Well, it would have made a big difference, but not a Rebellion-crushing kinda difference. As Tuckerfan pointed out already, Yavin would have remained hidden from the Death Star without the tracking device placed on the Falcon.
Yes, you could argue that probe droids would have found them eventually, as on Hoth, but even then, it was really Luke’s fault. As proof, ESB…
Honestly, Luke was like a Force-powered spotlight screaming “HERE I AM.” Without him, the Empire would have been tracing thousands of leads for years. The Rebellion would have kept themselves hidden as they always had.
And eventually, as Guinastasia pointed out, Wedge would have figured something out and blown up both Death Stars.
It may be merely a “military discipline thing” that kept the fire control officer from allowing the gunners to blow up the pod. After all, it wasn’t on their target list. Hence they don’t shoot because they weren’t ordered to.
2)Han and Chewie probably would have gotten along fine if they hadn’t had to help out Luke and Obi.
3)Look, just because a couple of DNA samples might be in the Imperial databanks doesn’t mean their scanners would have gone a weeping-and-beeing to tell the technician. Its probably not the first time a couple of officers have been related, you know. And heck, why would they have scanned Leia’s DNA anyway? There wasn’t anything important about it.
4)I have no idea what website it was, but one analysis based off of Vader’s injuries and the appearance of the Emporer’s Force Lightening hitting him says it isn’t reasonable he has serious and permanent nerve damage.
Oh not this AGAIN!?!?
Geez, if it bothers you this much, just repeat “The Force was not with Them” five hundred times.
I finally got around to seeing Send in the Clones yesterday. As I was watching the scenes of trees mating, ie the wooden flirtation between Anakin and Amidala, the little Tom Servo in my head joined in.
Amidala: You’ve changed so much since I last saw you.
Anakin: You’re exactly the same.
Servo: That’s because they didn’t recast her part.
Seriously, tho, best explanaton anybody can offer is that Luke’s force-powers, midichlorians, or whatever, didn’t really “activate” until Ben started training Luke. (Odd, isn’t it, that only Ben felt Allderaan’s destruction…)
And if Wedge hadn’t blown up the Death Star, Porkins would have.
Because… they were ordered to? Y’know… the whole plot twist about how Luke, Leia, & Co. were allowed to leave? “They let us go, it’s the only way to explain the ease of our escape”? “I’m taking an awful risk, Vader… this had better work”?
Yeesh. Didja even watch the movie, or were you just flipping back and forth between it and Voyager?
They weren’t letting them go on Tatooine, and they still couldn’t hit the broad side of the Millinium Falcon (actually, they did, but ignore that and continue reading my post). They also failed to kill anyone on Cloud City, and only grazed Leia on Endor (besides killing some teddy bears and random rebels in green). Its easier to claim that they can’t see anything wearing their helment like Luke said, or clone defeciency over time.
