Star Wars

Question: Maybe this will be explained in Episode III, but Leia is "princess" of what? The Rebellion? Of Alderaan? And who is her (fake) father that she mentions to Obi-Wan?

Answer: Leia was adopted by Bail Organa (played by Jimmy Smits in Episodes II and III), who was a member of a Royal family on Alderaan, so when she was adopted by Bail, she became a royal princess.

Cubs Fan

Question: One of the corrections says that there is a scene where Obi-Wan talks about duck with Luke. Where is this scene? I can't seem to find it.

Answer: There's no version of the film that this appears in, and I've checked the original, the special edition and the DVD release. I believe that it was in the original novelisation, but that the scene was either cut before release, or the author simply added it to flesh things out. In any event, it shouldn't be considered a canonical scene, so the correction in question should probably be considered invalid.

Tailkinker

Question: Did they change the CG Jabba the Hutt's appearance? It looked like he was a lot more green than in the original special edition. If they did, then why? I thought he looked fine in the original.

Answer: Yes, they have altered Jabba a bit - after he appeared in Episode I, they tweaked the model used in the special edition to bring it closer to what we've seen elsewhere.

Tailkinker

Question: Han Solo is famous for his Kessel Run, but can anyone explain to me what it is?

Answer: Near the planet of Kessel (the prison planet), there is a cluster of black holes (called the Maw). Smugglers will skirt by the black holes as an escape route, this route is called the Kessel Run. For further details (including an explination of parsecs), view this page: http://www.starwars.com/community/askjc/jocasta/askjc20020221.html.

Bruce Minnick

If you watch the movie, Solo, you will see the Kessel run, as it is an important moment in the film.

Shawn M. Milburn

Question: Why does Obi-Wan freely admit he is a Jedi, when he is supposedly in hiding from Vader? He sure made no secret of his last name.

Answer: It's a very large galaxy - Vader's hardly going to track down some old hermit living out in the middle of nowhere on a backwards planet based purely on a surname that, for all we know, might be quite a common one, and remember that nobody knows him as 'Obi-wan', only as Ben. The only person that he admits to being a Jedi to is Luke, who's not going to go running to the Empire to turn in a man who was a friend of his fathers. Everyone else seems to regard him as a crazy old hermit, not a Jedi Knight or anything like that. Okay, he cuts loose with his sabre in the Mos Eisley cantina, but (a) he's about to leave the planet anyway and (b) it's not as if he had a lot of choice. By the time that Vader might hear about it, he'll be long gone.

Tailkinker

Question: It's obviously simple to build a robot that can understand and speak English. Even droids working as short order cooks can speak English, as far back as Episode 2. So why can't R2 talk? He's a friggin' mechanic, he needs to be able to speak with the humans he works for. I know his primary function isn't communication but if 90% of the droids in Star Wars have a speech function surely R2 could have one.

Answer: R2's job is astromech droid and in-flight mechanic, which means that he's supposed to be locked into a fighter most of the time. When that is the case, he can communicate with the pilot through the computer (as seen in Empire Strikes Back, I believe). Since the builders didn't anticipate how much wandering around he would be doing, they didn't see a need to build in a speech function and instead spent that space on extra tools and repair programming. How many astromechs do you see wandering around the Star Wars universe and interacting with people?

Phoenix

Question: Obi-Wan can obviously understand Wookies, since he books passage on the Falcon through Chewie. So why does he never talk to Chewbacca again? It's like they forgot Ben can understand him.

Answer: Just because we don't see him talk to Chewbacca, it doesn't mean that he doesn't off-camera during the trip. The conversations that he has are with either Luke or Han - he could talk to Chewie but, from the storytelling point of view, it would just be extraneous material.

Tailkinker

Question: After escaping in the pod, Threepio says, "That's funny; the damage doesn't look as bad out here." But they're too far away to see the ship they were in; all they can see is the Imperial Star Destroyer that "swallowed" their ship up. Was this a humorous character-mistake by Lucas to show how erroneous Threepio can often be? Or could Threepio actually see the small ship the rebels were in (hardly looks possible, given the shot shown when he says it)?

Matty Blast

Chosen answer: Well, he is an android, and I doubt the designers would be satisfied at giving him just normal human vision. He probably has some sort of optical enhancements, which would be pretty necessary for any sort of technical work, and he does say that he's done that in the past.

RJR99SS

Question: Do the clones in AOTC and the storm troopers in the last 3 have anything to do with each other? The armor is little different between the two, and the stormtroopers are definitely more clumsy, but it's something I've wondered about... I know that by the time episode IV comes around, the clones are probably very old, considering the age progression, but I wonder if the empire still has them made. Maybe to be seen in episode III...

Answer: They are, to all intents and purposes, the same army, just with a twenty-odd year gap. The clones form the Republic Army - as it's now reasonably clear that the Republic becomes the Empire, the stormtroopers that we see in the original films are therefore the same army, just under a slightly different regime. The armour variation seems like a plausible alteration over the time period. The stormtroopers are, however, not clones (not as a rule, anyway) - they're conventionally recruited and trained soldiers, which probably accounts for their lesser effectiveness. But, yeah, to sum up, they're the same army, just twenty-odd years apart.

Tailkinker

Question: Can anyone explain why Obi-Wan holds up his lightsaber and allows Vader to kill him. Is it something to do with why he comes back as a 'ghost', and so he can help Luke?

Answer: Obi-Wan sacrificed himself because he knew he wouldn't make it back to the Falcon. Vader and the Stormtroopers would have seen to that and the disabling of the Tractor Beam would have been discovered at any time. He also knew Luke would never leave without him, so he prepared himself for death, which why he and Yoda disappeared.

Answer: It does seem to be something along those lines, yes. There's obviously some reason why Obi-wan and Yoda simply vanished at the point of death, while none of the Jedi portrayed in the prequel trilogy films have apparently done so - this will hopefully be explained in the remaining film. A theory put forward in the books is that a Jedi at the point of death can choose to attach himself to another nearby Force sensitive, providing them with some of their strength and, as we see, guidance. If this does turn out to be correct, then it seems that Obi-wan realised that he himself would be unable to defeat Vader, but that Luke might be able to. As such, he chose to sacrifice himself to give Luke an extra edge in his adventures ahead.

Tailkinker

Question: I have the special edition widescreen on video, and still I have never spotted the stormtrooper who runs into a wall on the Death Star. This is supposed to be some kind of classic mistake, still I can't see it no matter how hard I try. Has it been deleted for the special edition? (Some claim that it hasn't, but I can't find it).

Answer: It was never taken out, but it can be hard to spot: the stormtrooper actually runs into the door of the control room where C-3P0 and R2-D2 are hiding. When they charge into the room, keep your eye on the door at all times; just before the camera starts to follow them to the left, you'll see the last one in bang his head.

Xofer

It also had sound added to it.

Question: While perusing an art book on this movie I came across several foreign movie posters where the Death Star is shown with the laser dish in the southern hemisphere rather than the northern (almost as if it were upside down). Anyone know why this is?

Answer: Judging from the movies, the laser doesn't seem to have much of an aiming system so the whole Death Star might need to rotate so the dish faces its target and in some cases this could mean needing to be "upside down". Just a hunch.

Phil Watts

Wouldn't an upside-down Death Star be problematic for the countless amount of Stormtroopers, Imperial officers etc. on it?

No more than for any other large planetary body. Either artificial gravity or it's large enough to create its own.

No, as demonstrated on the Millennium Falcon and star destroyers, the Star Wars universe has some form of artificial gravity.

David George

It's space, there is no up direction.

When there is gravity, there is an up and down. I think in terms of spaceships north is usually taken as up and south as down, relative to an astronomical body. But only because most maps are made that way. Determining an up and down helps with a sense of direction.

lionhead

Answer: Yes, it certainly seems that way. Tradition holds that Princess Leia's wince of pain at that point is actually Carrie Fisher's wince at Harrison Ford ruining the shot, or so she thought.

DavidK93

Question: Luke says to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, "If these new droids do work out, I want to submit my application to the Academy this year." What "Academy" is he referring to? Is it connected with the Empire or the Rebel alliance?

Matty Blast

Chosen answer: Its the Imperial Naval Academy. Many of the Star Wars heros (Han Solo, Biggs Darklighter etc) all went to the academy then defected to the rebellion. Luke wants to get away from Tatoine and has his heart set on adventure like his friend Biggs.

roboc

Question: How can hyperspace work without hitting or going through stars? The Spacecrafts don't turn, so how does it work? This is a problem with most movies with a hyper drive scene.

Answer: Because a computer calculates a path where the ship will not collide with anything. Han Solo even says this to Luke about "ending his trip real quick." This is why it's possible.

David Mercier

Question: Is Han Solo brain-dead, or does he have the biggest cojones in the galaxy? From what we see of Greedo trying to kill him, there really isn't much explanation for why he is found screwing around in a bar on the home planet of the mobster who has it in for him. He couldn't have possibly known that the special edition scene with Jabba could go so well in his favor. I can't think of an explanation.

Answer: Han is still under the impression that he can pay Jabba off, and, as his meeting with Jabba implies, the Hutt is still willing to cut him a little slack, so he's not actually wrong. As such, he needs work - the cantina is one of the best places to find opportunities to get money - as, indeed, he does, by meeting Obi-wan and Luke.

Tailkinker

Question: Is it me or after Owen says shut up to C3P0, he says to Owen shut up, sir?

Dr Wilson

Chosen answer: No, he says "Shutting up, sir."

tromatic

Star Wars mistake picture Video

Other mistake: When the stormtroopers break into the control room, the stormtrooper on the right of the screen hits his head on the door frame. On the DVD release they've added a thump when he hits it. (01:18:55)

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Trivia: The Imperial officer's uniforms were patterned after the uniforms of Nazi officers to add to their "villainous" image.

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Question: During the trash compacter scene, Luke gets sucked under by the one-eyed monster thing, which leads to Han and Leia trying to find him. But if the water's only about knee deep, why is it so hard for him to be found?

Answer: Presumably because the monster has pulled him through the lair of whatever they are standing on into whatever space the rest of the body of the monster lives in. Obviously, the monster doesn't live in the part of the part of the compactor that does the compacting or it would be already compacted.

Myridon

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