Someone told me recently they had some kind of thing where the could watch “anything that was on TV, Ever!”
I told them, “Star Wars Christmas Special”. They didn’t get the joke.
Well, it SHOULD be!
This discussion makes me think of a question that either I never thought of before, or I forgot in the 40 years since the first trilogy (possibly I’ve forgotten the answer too - so forgive if this is a long-resolved issue): Is Obi-Wan’s story about Anakin made-up on the spot, or is it the public cover story for what happened? In other words, do people other than the Emperor think that this guy in the black mask (who no one had seen around before) killed the heroic Anakin, or is Vader’s original name well-known (even if people are smart enough to call him Psycho not Francis (lighten up, Francis) these days)? If the first, then Old Ben can be forgiven a bit for easing into the situation in his initial conversations with young Luke. If the second, then Ben was setting up Luke for a big fall, the first time Luke boasted of being Anakin’s son to someone in the know.
It’s not explicitly addressed in the movies, one way or the other.
The fact that Vader = Anakin is a surprise to Luke, but also to Leia (who had a lot more access to information, being a princess and Senator from a Core World, compared to a moisture farmer on the BFE Outer Rim). This suggests to me that it was likely not a widely-known piece of information.
I don’t think that Obi-Wan “made it up on the spot” – he specifically set up shop on Tatooine (as depicted at the very end of Revenge of the Sith) to keep watch over Luke. He likely spent the intervening 20 years anticipating the moment that he would tell Luke about the Force and the Jedi, and rehearsing the story that he’d tell Luke about his father and Vader.
looks at my avatar At least, that’s how I would have done it. 
I should have known you’d know! 
Makes sense. You’re right that “made up on the spot” isn’t the right way to describe what I mean - I should say “made up specifically for Luke’s consumption”). Leia’s lack of knowledge is pretty conclusive. Thanks.
Well, it was true…from a certain point of view. Vader did “kill” Anakin.
Even before the prequels, though, I don’t think the common man knew anything about these people. The Jedi were all but extinct by the time of ANH, and I doubt anyone had trading cards with their favorite Jedi. Even the concept of The Force seemed to have faded. I think the official story is Anakin is dead, along with every other (except two) Jedi. But no one can find the official story any longer.
Taking the prequels into account, when Anakin was a celebrity, the official story is he is still dead, but this time the official story is coming from the Emperor, not the Jedi (as there are none). With a note to not ask questions under threat of force choking.
I suspect no one in the Imperial military knows who Vader is, except as that guy to stay away from.
Obi Wan was lying to Luke, and blatantly so. I think he and Yoda had their own agenda, and they weren’t above manipulating Luke.
eta, for clarity: The official story is that Anakin and the Jedi are dead. The story that Obi Wan tells Luke is half the truth and half the official story. The official story doesn’t have Vader murdering them, I’d bet.
Agreed. The Empire undoubtedly spent the 20 years in between Episodes III and IV purging the “official” records, and rewriting history to remove the role of the Jedi in it.
WAG/fanwank follows: Palpatine was a powerful Force user; in addition to the above, he might well have been doing some manner of mass Jedi Mind Trick on the galaxy’s population, to alter the memories of those who had remembered the Jedi as the guardians of the Republic.
<glassy-eyed>
That’s how you would have done it.
We don’t need to see your papers.
Move along now.
It’s worth noting that, even AFTER the destruction of (both) Death Stars, in which a New Jedi played a key role, the title character in The Mandalorian (a guy who gets around a lot) had never heard of the Jedi, and the loremaster he confers with only knows of them from ancient stories.
And that dope on the first Death Star feels no compunction about mocking Vader’s Force religion. Some serious suppression of all Force/Jedi knowledge going on
I am expecting the story Obi Wan formulates will be addressed in his Disney+ show next year.
Yeah, they were in the picture book, the Marvel comic, and the paperback novelization. And the very first time I saw the movie, I knew in my gut that they had been there once, even though I had no direct evidence. But, as far as I know, they were never in release prints—I don’t know about previews.
If you start paying attention to the timelines in any of the Star Wars movies, you’ll quickly go insane, as they simply can’t be reconciled without copious amounts of fan-wanking. Luke’s entire initial Jedi training with Obi Wan takes place on board the Falcon on the way to Alderan. But if you watch the scene where he’s practicing with the remote droid, Han enters the scene acting like they’ve just now avoided the Imperial ships chasing them, and then the scene ends with the alert that they’re coming up on Alderan. It makes it look like the entire trip was quite short, but then, how did Luke and Obi Wan find enough time to do any kind of meaningful training?
And that’s just the first example! There are many others throughout the series.
To be fair, all Obi Wan did on the Falcon was make Luke aware of the Larger World. He learned how to “sense” things using the force. The only Jedi things he did was Use The Force to bullseye the exhaust port, not unlike womp rats. Meaning, he already was UtF all his life, (like his father) and Obi Wan just opened his eyes. And Obi Wan was helping with that even so.
He couldn’t probably even swing a lightsaber without chopping his own head off before he went to see Yoda. Let alone throw things or mind trick anyone.
He used the Force to pull his lightsaber towards him and chop off the Wampa’s arm at the beginning of ESB. Though I don’t know if you really need the Force for the second part, Han had no problem eviscerating a dead Tauntaun without any Force powers.
hmm. He did, didn’t he? Wonder where he figured that out from?
But I was exaggerating. Using a lightsaber as a knife isn’t hard - using it in combat is.
That’s actually a great question - he never saw Obi-wan levitate anything, did he? Just a bit of mind control and some weak saber fighting. And the whole speaking from the grave bit.
I think that use of the Force is probably largely instinctual. And it probably helped, rather than hindered, that Luke was only barely conscious at the time.
Zoltar shot first!
What about the deleted scene that has Sinbad as a genie?