When the first Star Wars movie hit cinema screens 45 years ago, it started a worldwide phenomenon. The franchise, valued at $70 billion today, would come to include comics, video games, novels and even theme park attractions.
The original trilogy of films, released between 1977 and 1983, is hailed by fans as some of the franchise’s finest work. But it’s not perfect.
As an antidote to the scores of articles paying tribute to the fifth-biggest grossing media franchise of all time, here are six Trilogy scenes that just don’t make sense, but we love it anyway.
When the Stormtroopers miss every shot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09VTanKXsWs
The Stormtroopers are supposed to be the fearsome foot soldiers of Darth Vader and later, we find out, of The Emperor. But should we really be afraid of them when their shot accuracy is so poor?
The scene in the Jawas’ sand crawler in A New Hope is famous for a shootout where the troopers miss half of their shots, just after Ben warns Luke of their fearsome shooting skills.
What’s more, Darth Vader doesn’t even punish them for it, even though other victims received the Force Choke for less!
When Luke survives falling hundreds of feet
The climactic moment when Luke Skywalker duels with his father, Darth Vader, is one of the most memorable film scenes in history. The precarious location on Cloud City means certain death for the person unlucky enough to fall down its internal shaft…or does it?
When Vader gets the better of Luke and pushes him toward certain death, he offers him a lifeline: he reaches out his hand to his stricken son. But Luke rejects it, letting himself fall back hundreds of feet to his doom.
But wait…what’s that? Luke gets up, unscathed from the fall. Maybe Luke got lucky, but it would have to be luck on the scale of landing the winning lottery numbers in this case. Given the character has no supernatural powers at that point, it seems a little unrealistic, to say the least.
When it turns out Luke and Leia are brother and sister
Now this is a controversial one but hear us out. One of the most famous plot twists in cinema history, when we learn that Darth is Luke’s father, has several branches, some of which are a little unnatural.
Take, for example, when we find out Luke and Leia are actually twins. It’s safe to say that nobody could see that coming, but that’s because it seemed so unlikely. It just felt a little contrived.
The plot twist even caught the actors involved off-guard. Mark Hamill famously tweeted a photo of his reaction when he found out about the twin situation, which begs the question: if the actors are this shocked, then surely it’s a little too left field?
When Boba was killed by a blind smuggler
Boba Fett enters the trilogy with a fearsome reputation: the greatest bounty hunter in the Galaxy. But how does his time come to an end? Getting killed by a blind smuggler.
That’s right. In Return of the Jedi, hottest shot around is brought down by an opponent who can’t see. Not the glorious end one might imagine.
Still, Boba lives on in other forms, including The Book of Boba Fett produced by Disney.
When Luke stares into the deadly light saber
Speaking of deadly foes, the infamous light saber is known to bestow immense power on the warrior who holds it. It will also blind anyone who stares straight into it.
When Ben Kenobi tells Luke about his father and the Clone Wars at the start of the trilogy, he hands him a mysterious metallic pole. Yet he doesn’t warn him about the saber’s blinding light and Luke stares straight into it when the beam comes out.
Shouldn’t Ben have said something? And why doesn’t Luke go blind?
Luke’s miraculous jump
Luke’s showdown with Darth Vader is a climactic sequence that had fans glued to the screen. But where exactly does the young Skywalker get his abilities from?
OK, he may have had some training by this point, but not enough to explain an incredible superjump out of the carbon freezing chamber.
Still, we’re happy to go along with it if it means we get one of our favorite battle scenes in return.
Just…Ewoks
Now, we don’t want to knock Ewoks too much. The small, furry creatures are an iconic part of the Trilogy, and have spawned two of their own movies, an animated series, books and games.
But aren’t they a little…childish? One theory is that the creatures were introduced to appeal to kids watching the movies, but they look a little out of place in movies featuring the fearsome Darth Vader.
Still, the Ewoks continue to be popular with Star Wars fans today, so what do we know?