# So Leia just happened to be around the corner from Tattooine?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** movies
**Created:** [September 17, 2020, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841 "2020-09-17T15:21:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/1 "2020-09-17T15:21:35Z")
Something that never occurred to me in all the times of watching SW, until I was recently reading a children’s book version to the kiddo. And now I can’t stop thinking of it.
The start of it all (opening scene of New Hope), Leia’s ship Tantive IV is overtaken by Vader’s star destroyer, which has been chasing it.
The ship was neither coming FROM nor going TO Tattooine. It was headed to Alderaan. And there’s no in-universe indication that any “good guys” influenced where the Empire overtook the ship.
So the fact that Leia could have been captured anywhere in the galaxy — but happened to get captured close enough to what happens to be the neighborhood of Luke and also where her father grew up that the escape pod carrying the information can land there and get the entire franchise going is…_incredibly_ convenient.
I guess this is a long way to get to the point that space dramas require kinda ignoring the fact that space is really, really, really, really big… but driving across the country and getting pulled over next to the house that happens to have your long lost twin brother in it is a bit much.
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### Author:  [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/2 "2020-09-17T15:26:54Z")
She was going to Tatooine specifically to recruit Obi-Wan. She literally states it in the [video she gave R2.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUaxXsqGeFI#t=2m33s)
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/3 "2020-09-17T15:27:20Z")
She was heading to Tatooine to contact Obi Wan. She sent R2D2 down with the message only after being “pulled over by the cops”.
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### Author:  [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/4 "2020-09-17T15:37:55Z")
Did they originally set off with the idea of bringing the plans to Obi-Wan at Tattooine? Or was that only the plan when it was clear they were being overtaken?
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/5 "2020-09-17T15:40:06Z")
> [@johnspartan](#):
>
> Did they originally set off with the idea of bringing the plans to Obi-Wan at Tattooine?
No; she was trying to bring the plans back to her father on Alderaan, as he was one of the founders of the Rebellion. She loaded the plans into Artoo, and sent him to find Obi-Wan, with the instruction to ask Obi-Wan to finish the mission (bring the plans to Alderaan).
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/6 "2020-09-17T15:43:15Z")
With the additional information provided by _Rogue One_, we have to consider the possibility that while the original original plan may have been to go to Alderaan, when they realized that their getaway from Scarif (? going from memory) wasn’t going to be clean, they might have said, “Well, Tattooine’s closer, maybe we can make it there before we’re boarded.”
But, I agree, if you’re only going by what’s in Episode IV, it does seem awfully convenient that they’re way out at Tattooine for no apparent reason.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/7 "2020-09-17T15:47:43Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#):
>
> But, I agree, if you’re only going by what’s in Episode IV, it does seem awfully convenient that they’re way out at Tattooine for no apparent reason.
As already noted, there was a very good reason for being at Tatooine: to find Kenobi and recruit him to join the Rebellion.
The full text of Leia’s hologram (bolding mine):
> [@](#):
>
> General Kenobi. Years ago, you served my father in the Clone Wars. **Now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire.** I regret that I am unable to present my father’s request to you in person, but my ship has fallen under attack and **I’m afraid my mission to bring you to Alderaan has failed.** I have placed information vital to the survival of the Rebellion into the memory systems of this R2 unit. My father will know how to retrieve it. You must see this droid safely delivered to him on Alderaan. This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.
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### Author:  [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/8 "2020-09-17T15:58:22Z")
In Rogue One, Bail Organa and Mon Mothma specifically discussed bringing Obi-Wan into the Rebel Alliance, and Bail said of the person he’d send “I trust her with my life.” So that was clearly Leia’s original mission. If the main fleet had been able to escape with the plans, instead of them being slowly handed from person to person onto the Tantive IV, Leia would have been going to Tatooine regardless.
It is true however that the opening crawl of ANH says “Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans”, so there is some contradiction there.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/9 "2020-09-17T16:28:00Z")
As @kenobi_65 (how appropriate!) says.
The plan all along was to go to Tattooine, pick up Obi-Wan, then proceed to Alderaan. And that plan is made plain in the very first episode; no retconning required.
As to the opening crawl, that the trip home had a stopover planned is a detail you wouldn’t reasonably expect in a stage-setting summary like that. So not a contradiction, just a omitted detail.
Although if you read enough “plot summaries” on imdb, you’d get the impression that anything less than the full script is an abridgement too far.
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### Author:  [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/10 "2020-09-17T16:33:24Z")
leia racing home was true…from a certain point of view.
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/11 "2020-09-17T17:04:48Z")
The “my mission to bring you to Alderaan” bit had slipped my mind. I consider this to be the definitive answer to the argument.
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### Author:  [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/12 "2020-09-17T17:10:54Z")
A more interesting question is why was the only copy of the Death Star plans on the same ship picking up Obi-Wan? Why not put them on a ship going straight to Alderaan, or even better, make a bunch of copies and put them on a lot of ships? The ending of Rogue One explains this pretty well - the Rebel fleet was about to get its collective ass handed to it, the ship that received the plans was currently being boarded by the most terrifying person in the Empire, so the only thing they had time to do was give the plans to Leia.
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/13 "2020-09-17T17:18:02Z")
_Rogue One_ makes Leia’s protests to Vader in EpIV even more brazen, she literally escaped being boarded 10 minutes prior.
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### Author:  [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/14 "2020-09-17T17:30:43Z")
Never argue _Star Wars_ trivia with a guy who picked Kenobi as a username.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/15 "2020-09-17T17:32:26Z")
I once won a trivia game at GenCon, in which the final question was “what was the serial number on the cell where Princess Leia was being held on the Death Star?”
3263827
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### Author:  [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/16 "2020-09-17T17:37:10Z")
Well, you should have lost. Leia was being held on level 5 detention block AA23. Cell 2187.
3263827 was the trash compactor unit they were stuck in.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/17 "2020-09-17T17:38:11Z")
You’re right, it was the trash compactor; I mis-stated in my previous post, and the question in the triva contest was, indeed, about the trash compactor. (I blame advanced age, and multi-tasking. 😃 )
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### Author:  [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/18 "2020-09-17T17:39:33Z")
Ok, as long as you don’t try to pull that “certain point of view” crap.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/19 "2020-09-17T18:42:48Z")
With a man like our **kenobi** all he has to do is mutter under his breath “Judges: these _are_ the answers you’re looking for.” Next thing you know, he’s the trivia champ!
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### Author:  [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2020, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-leia-just-happened-to-be-around-the-corner-from-tattooine/920841/20 "2020-09-17T18:43:23Z")
Despite Luke’s claim that Tatooine is the farthest planet from the bright center of the universe, it sure seems to be central to everything all the time throughout various generations of Star Wars.
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