So for my first post I thought I would find the plot hole in the sci-fi classic Star Wars: A New Hope. Growing up I loved watching the Star Wars movies, even if the new trilogy of my generation is far inferior to the original trilogy of the 1970’s and 80’s. Lazy Sunday afternoons consisted of trying to convince my parents to let my brother and I watch just one more of the movies in the series after already spending hours on the couch, plastic lightsabers in hand. As much as I loved the movies as a child, as I got older I started to notice things that were not consistent in the movies. In the first movie alone I found a few scenes and ideas that do not make sense in the Star Wars universe and movie.
In the beginning of Star Wars: A New Hope Princess Leia’s rebel ship is captured by the Empire and Lord Vader. In a desperate effort to not lose the details of the rebel base, Leia stashes the plans in a droid R2-D2 and sends him and his protocol droid partner, C-3PO to the planet Tatooine in an escape pod. As the pod flies away from Leia’s ship the Empire has the opportunity to blast it with a laser cannon, but opts not to as there are no life forms on board. Empire protocol is to shoot all escape pods fleeing from captured vessels, but as the TV show Family Guy points out in their spoof of Star Wars, are the gunners being payed by the shot? Just because there are no life forms detected why the Imperial gunner does not take the shot is a mystery. The Empire would not lose any significant power or wealth from one more laser shot being fired. Due to the Empire not taking the shot R2-D2 and C-3PO escape from the Empire, land safely on Tatooine, and cause the events of Star Wars to carry out. If the Imperial gunner had just done his job the entire plot of the Star Wars series is wrecked as Luke Skywalker does not wander out in the dessert, meet Obi Wan Kenobi, and begin his Jedi training; which ultimately leads to the fall of the Empire. Director George Lucas allowing the pod to escape because no life forms are detected is a major plot point that without this slip up by the Empire, causes the entire plot of the Star Wars franchise to collapse.
So as much as I love Star Wars this plot hole by George Lucas is widely criticized and made fun of. However, if you can get over this fault by the Empire, Star Wars is an amazing series of movies that I would recommend to both the casual movie watcher and movie fanatics everywhere.
Personally, I have never watched any of the Star Wars movies and even if I had, I probably would not notice the “plot holes” that you have described. Your passion blog idea is very unique because many people do not often seek out the imperfections in a movie that they have watched. It will give me new insight into movies I may or may not have seen.
Wow. I’ve watched the star wars movies but never really thought that with all of that content, there must be some errors in the plotline. I’ll be sure to continue to explore these mishaps. I would expect though that the reason for not shooting could be a valid one. Let’s consider this, say every time a pod was expelled from a ship, the empire just shot it down, it would be a huge waste of time and resources. Could you imagine just shooting trash or waste pods all the time solely to find out you did it for nothing? That protocol part of it makes sense. However, one thing which supports your claim is that it is in fact Leia’s ship, therefore anything coming out of that ship should be struck immediately unless under specific order from Lord Vader otherwise. Regardless, they got away and the movie continues!
Wow. I’ve watched the star wars movies but never really thought that with all of that content, there must be some errors in the plotline. I’ll be sure to continue to explore these mishaps. I would expect though that the reason for not shooting could be a valid one. Let’s consider this, say every time a pod was expelled from a ship, the empire just shot it down, it would be a huge waste of time and resources. Could you imagine just shooting trash or waste pods all the time solely to find out you did it for nothing? That protocol part of it makes sense. However, one thing which supports your claim is that it is in fact Leia’s ship, therefore anything coming out of that ship should be struck immediately unless under specific order from Lord Vader otherwise. Regardless, they got away and the movie continues!