Question: How was Obi-Wan going to become more powerful after he was dead?
Answer: It is heavily implied that one who becomes a Force-Ghost achieves an untold level of power upon entering the state. Given that they have become a pure entity of the Force, it seems to back up the statement. Obi-Wan also becomes free to assist Luke in any case.
In addition to this answer, I think Obi-wan also became powerful because he "let go." He did not feel a need to defeat Vader on this occasion - he was willing to surrender the fight and "move on" to a new state. Something that Vader might not currently understand.
Answer: I agree with Darius Angel's comment. I also think Vader expected a certain sense of satisfaction after defeating his former master. In reality, though, he was still "owned" by the Emperor and was living with the consequences of his choices. Defeating Obi-wan did not change much for him. Obi-wan, however, gained the benefits that Darius Angel mentioned.
Question: There's a HUGE rumor that's been going around since Return of the Jedi came out: There's actually three more scripts (besides the prequels). Is there, in fact, a Star Wars: Episode VII, Episode VIII, and Episode IX? If so, what are they about?
Answer: While planning Star Wars, Lucas had a vague notion of doing a long series of movies inspired by old serials, then dropped that idea in favor of just one. When Star Wars became a phenomenon and sequels became feasible, Lucas revisited the idea. He thought of three trilogies along with some stand-alone "in-between" stories for a total of 12 films. By the time of The Empire Strikes Back's release, this was pared down to the 9 mainline films, going by interviews with Lucas and the cast at the time. By Return of the Jedi, Lucas had decided to end the saga there, with the option that he could revisit the first three at some later point. It's unclear if Lucas ever had any specific story ideas for the proposed sequel trilogy, and they never had any scripts. Producer Gary Kurtz suggested in an interview they would've been about Luke's twin sister (not Leia), though many fans are skeptical about just how much he would know about them. Of course since this question was asked a sequel trilogy was written and released.
Answer: This was long a long-standing rumour, but George Lucas always denied it. He allowed various authors to cover the history of that time period in book form - if he'd had any serious intention of doing films set in that timeframe, he wouldn't have done that. Since that time of course Disney took over the franchise and has announced new films, but entirely separate from the previous "expanded universe" of the novels, and not involving any ideas George Lucas may have had in the past.
Answer: I'm not sure how old this question is but it is a sequel trilogy. Episode VII : The Force Awakens is about a scavenger and former stormtrooper teaming up the Resistance to attempt to defeat the new First Order and Kylo Ren (Ben Solo). Episode VIII : The Last Jedi is about Rey finding Luke Skywalker who is in exile hoping that he would be left alone, and he tells the story of how he tried to murder his nephew who in retaliation, turned to the dark side. Episode IX : Rise of Skywalker is about the return of Emperor Palpatine and recovering Sith Wayfinders that will lead them to Exegol and kill him, with Billy Dee Williams returning as Lando Calrissian.
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.
Question: Has there ever been any sort of canonical discussion about the morality of droid treatment in any Star Wars titles? They're intelligent/sentient, are treated well by most people, even like friends/pets by some. And yet they also seem to casually get their minds wiped, or if they're destroyed many people shrug rather than mourn. Tools to some, valued comrades to others, it's just a bit all over the place. Idle thought really.
Answer: Lucas has gone on record as to the treatment of droids in Star Wars being a thought-provoking allegory for the way people treat minorities. I've never heard him specifically talk about how it's almost never commented-upon in-universe, but intentionally or not, I'm of the opinion that it's more compelling this way. Why doesn't anybody do anything about the way droids are treated? Well, go around asking people why they don't do anything about the way other people are treated and you'll quickly find out.
Answer: Not in the films, but several of the books removed from canon by Disney mentioned a "droids' rights movement" that decried memory wipes and other dismissals of sentience. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Droid_rights_ (movement).
Solo, which is canon, features a subplot about droid's rights. So not everything has been scrubbed regarding this topic.
Chosen answer: Nobody in the Star Wars universe, except on rare occasions, has shown sympathy towards a droid or any AI. Even though these robots learn, they don't really evolve beyond their programming so they aren't considered "alive" (unlike in other fiction like Wall-E), not even by the most sentimental of people. Organic beings develop attachments to droids, but mostly towards their usefulness, not because they like their personality, not even Luke Skywalker towards R2 or Poe towards BB-8. If they are destroyed, too bad. Memory wiping doesn't remove the droid's original programming either, and their way of talking and manners stay.
In Episode 2, Obi-Wan makes the offhanded comment "Well, if droids could think there'd be none of us here", implying that droids do not actually possess artificial intelligence. R2-D2 seems to be a particularly unusual droid in that he is uncommonly resilient and steadfast, which makes his allies quite fond of him. Poe and BB-8 appear to have a bond that goes beyond simply being attached to the droid's usefulness, but like you say that appears to be a unique case.
Just because he said that doesn't mean they didn't have AI. They think for themselves, so they have AI. Just not as advanced as in other fiction.
The point is raised again later in the film when the cloners state that unlike droids, clones can think for themselves.
Question: If dates in the Star Wars universe are based on when events took place in relation to the Battle of Yavin, what date system was used up to and during the battle?
Answer: The Galactic Standard Calendar has been used consistently in the Star Wars universe for thousands of years and is, from its alternate name of the Coruscant Standard Calendar, probably based on the Coruscanti year length. Each new regime that has ruled the Star Wars galaxy has tended to reset the clock, as it were, so the Empire tended to count years from when Palpatine declared himself Emperor in 19BBY, during the events of Episode III. The Old Republic started their count thousands of years earlier, when it was founded. When the Empire fell to make way for the New Republic, they chose to start their calendar from the year of the Battle of Yavin, the year when they struck their first huge blow against the Empire.
Question: In Obi-Wan's home, he explains that Luke's father wanted Luke to have his lightsaber when he was old enough. But in "Revenge of the Sith", in Anakin's (Vader's) last fight with Obi-wan, Anakin's legs and right arm were severed and his saber was lost. So how could he give it to Obi-Wan to give to his unborn son if it was lost and Vader left for dead?
Chosen answer: Anakin's Lightsaber was never lost. When Obi-Wan cut Anakin down (when Anakin jumped at him), Anakin's lightsaber falls to the ground next to Obi-Wan and when Obi-Wan leaves, we see him pick it up.
And as far as "your father wanted you to have this", it's a lie. Remember that Obi-wan is spinning a yarn to Luke about his father to keep from revealing that his father is Darth Vader.
Well, he might have wanted him to have it, "from a certain point of view."
Question: What ever happened to Obi Wan's lightsaber? Did Vader keep it as a trophy, or just throw it away?
Answer: According to the Expanded Universe (now non-canon), Darth Vader kept it as a trophy in his castle on Vjun. It was found by Anakin Solo, stolen by someone who wanted to learn to be a Jedi, and eventually returned to Luke's Jedi academy.
Answer: While Han was in the Imperial academy, he was thrown into a pit to be killed and eaten by Chewbacca; however, the two of them ended up working together to escape.
Chosen answer: In the Star Wars Expanded Universe, Han was an Imperial pilot several years before the events of "A New Hope". Han refused a direct order to execute a group of Wookiees which included Chewbacca; Han was subsequently dismissed by the Empire. Chewbacca, however, was bound by a Wookiee tradition that dictates that they become the lifelong protector of anyone who saves their lives; thus, he quickly became Han's companion as well as his bodyguard and copilot when Han began his new career as a smuggler. That said, the Expanded Universe isn't canon, so we may get an "official" story in the Han Solo prequel film that's in production.
Question: Who has higher authority, Vader, or Admiral Tarkin? It seems like they have equal authority over the galactic empire. Shouldn't Vader have authority over Tarkin? Vader is supposed to be the Emperor's second in command.
Answer: Vader and Tarkin are assigned to totally different jobs. I think of it sort of like if the head of the CIA were visiting a huge army base. Vader appears to be focused on thwarting the rebels (at this point mostly through intelligence gathering and identifying spies) while Tarkin supervises the construction of the Death Star, and since Vader's current mission is about the Death Star plans their assignments intertwine for the time being and it's like two departments working together. Vader may well have more favor with the Emperor, but he'll defer to Tarkin while he's in his jurisdiction, so to speak.
Answer: Vader isn't second in command of the Empire; he's the Emperor's apprentice, albeit a very powerful one. Vader isn't in the "chain of command" so to speak. He's more of a tool the Emperor uses.
Answer: Tarkin is the commander of the death star and thus the supreme leader of the Empire's armed forces. Vader is more of a specialist, high in rank but not in charge of the military by himself, but probably successor of the emperor unlike Tarkin. You could see it as Tarkin being Heinrich Himmler and Vader being Joseph Goebbels in terms of hierarchy.
Question: When Luke has an argument with Owen and Beru and storms out, Beru says to Owen "He's too much like his father", to which Owen says "I know. That's what I'm afraid of". But if Luke is like Anakin (as Owen and Beru fear), then what caused Luke to not go to the dark side like his father did, if Luke had all this frustration of wanting more control in this movie like his father did when he was younger?
Answer: Luke, despite his typically youthful frustrations, has been raised in a loving family environment. Compared to his father, who was separated from his mother at an early age, leaving her in slavery, raised by the strict Jedi Order, ended up in a secret marriage that he was unable to acknowledge and had a Sith Lord working on manipulating him from the age of ten onwards, Luke's frustrations are nothing.
Question: I read that Mace Windu was originally going to be in this movie. Does anyone know if this is true?
Answer: Sort of. The name "Mace Windu" dates back to the very first story treatment that George Lucas wrote in 1973, however the character bears no resemblence to the distinguished Jedi Master of the prequel trilogy. In the rough draft, the name is given to a brother of Leia's, while a later draft has the character as a friend of Luke's. The name was ultimately dropped from the script entirely, only to be reintroduced when choosing names for the Jedi council members decades later for the prequels.
Question: I never understood why the officer who is disrespectful to Vader in the meeting (on the Death Star) calls the Force an "ancient religion". If I remember correctly, at the moment, Vader only mentions the Force, not the Sith or Jedi. Since it has only been 19 or 20 years since the Jedi were defeated, wouldn't the Force still be something that a lot of people, around age 35 and older, could remember and have knowledge of?
Answer: Following the Force has been going on for millenia - "ancient" by any standards, so his description is hardly unreasonable. Yes, there will be plenty of people old enough to remember when the Jedi were around, but that doesn't mean that they're under any obligation to show respect for it, particularly as the public perception is that the Jedi died as traitors. Motti regards Vader with contempt, seeing him as a throwback, clinging to an ancient, outdated and reviled superstition. Hence his disrespectful and insulting attitude.
I believe Palpatine also took steps to discredit the idea of the Jedi as superhero with Force powers (pretty sure I read that at some point). If Motti had never seen a Jedi in action before, he might have bought into those ideas and not considered the Force to be a real thing, or at least not what it is was said to be.
Question: Why was Han Solo ever promoted to general, given that he typically ran from a fight?
Chosen answer: First off, he didn't always run from a fight. He was a prominent member of the Rebellion and excellent pilot and underworld contact. Second, he was one of the heroes of the Battle of Yavin and several other battles. This is going to get him influence. Third, a general needs to be someone with the courage to run away and not keep after a lost cause, especially as outgunned as the Rebels were.
Question: Why is Han so skeptical of the Force? I get that he himself has never witnessed anyone use it, but he would have been alive during the Jedi purge, and surely he knows that Chewbacca fought alongside the Jedi on Kashyyyk. Additionally, is there any reason Obi-Wan wouldn't have demonstrated Force powers to Han on the way to Alderaan other than he didn't feel the need to prove it?
Answer: Han describes force powers as "simple tricks and nonsense." He has never seen any Jedi doing anything particularly super-powered. Even if Chewy did and told Han it is still reasonable for him to be skeptical and to think his friend is exaggerating. Han simply thinks the stories about Jedi are overblown. A good way to think about it would be to examine how ninja are presented in popular culture versus how they were in reality. The stories surrounding ninja are greatly exaggerated to the point of absurdity, applying immense fighting ability and oftentimes magical powers to normal men. The difference is jedi actually had magical abilities while ninja did not.
Answer: To answer the second part of your question, Obi-Wan has Luke demonstrate the Force in front of Han by putting a blinder on and fighting the remote. Believing he has made his point, Obi-Wan comments "You see!", to which Han replies that Luke's success was against a remote, and that fighting a living person was completely different. So even after being shown something that is completely impossible without the use of the force, Han still chooses not to believe.
Well Han also dismissed Luke's success with the remote as luck. If Obi-Wan used the Force to steal Han's blaster right from its holster, would Han just dismiss it as magic? Is there such thing as magical powers in the Star Wars universe independent from the Force?
Oh, I absolutely agree with your point. But I always took this scene to mean that Obi-Wan isn't trying to win an argument with Han or prove anything to him. He's trying to teach Luke about the force. He doesn't really care what Han believes and is dismissive of his comments. Luke believes he felt the force using the remote and that's what is important.
There actually is, or so I believe. The nightsisters, also called the witches of Dathomir, that appear in The Clone Wars-series. They used dark magic.
Question: Do magnetically-sealed rooms serve any purpose other than repelling blasters?
Answer: Outside the convenience as a plot device, it could also be explained as a way of preventing inadvertent damage caused by compacting something explosive. Remember, it's not just the door that was magnetically sealed, but the entire compactor.
Answer: It could be a security measure to keep anyone/anything from opening the doors, or it could be a way of preventing anything from escaping the room (clearly live things get in there).
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.
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