13 Glaring Star Wars Plot Holes So Big They Might As Well Be A Sarlacc Pit
Look, from a pure writing standpoint, the Star Wars moves are not good. None of them. However, I still love them.
It’s not really about the acting or dialog (which is bad), it’s about the world being created. The Star Wars universe is awesome.
That being said, there are some pretty glaring plot holes in Star Wars that fans just can’t ignore. These are some of the biggest ones.
1. Obi-Wan Kenobi remained hidden for so many years on Darth Vader’s home planet by simply changing his name to Ben Kenobi. – u/cutsick*ss
2. Luke leaves home, freaked out at the deaths of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, but once they hit Mos Eisley, he NEVER even mentions them, the people that raised him and were basically his parents, again. He grieves more for Obi-Wan, who he only met days before. The emotional content of Star Wars has made absolutely no sense from Day frickin’ one. – u/ApexInTheRough
3. Why Luke could literally be openly living on his father’s home planet in his own name, with his literal aunt and uncle, and the Empire, run by Palpatine and Vader, both of whom knew about Tatooine and the Skywalkers, including the existence of Owen and Beru, just couldn’t figure it out. Like the kid is going to school, to the doctor, playing little league, etc. in Vader’s hometown with Vader’s family, less than 20 miles from where Ben Kenobi lived. How is he not known to the Empire? Either to try to train him as a Sith, or kill him. Leia I get, she’s on a different planet under an assumed name, Vader wouldn’t know the name Organa. He’s never been to Aldaeraan. – u/maiqthetrue
4. At the end of Return, after the Death Star was destroyed and everyone on Endor is celebrating we see a squadron of X-Wings making a fly-by and shooting fireworks. [And] that was the scene in the original edit. They won the battle and were celebrating. But then Lucas had to mess with that. He added new shots, where everyone across the whole Galaxy is celebrating. On Tatooine, on Naboo, on freakin’ Coruscant, which was the capital of the Empire. The Emperor’s death wasn’t the end of the Empire. Do you think something as big as the Empire would collapse the moment the Emperor died? Do you think the whole Galaxy would know about his death just a few hours after the Death Star was destroyed? Would they believe the rumors enough to celebrate his death? Would they, the equivalent of Space Nazis, celebrate the death of Space Hitler (when Space Hitler was at the height of his power) in Space Berlin? What happened with all those Empire-sympathizers in the Universe? Come on. The Expanded Universe showed clearly that the Empire didn’t fall, even if it took a huge blow. Disney retconned the EU, but TFA just reinforces that – The First Order arose from the remnants of the Empire. The Rebels celebrating on Endor after winning a huge battle and killing the Emperor is logical. The whole Galaxy openly celebrating because of a rumor, after decades of an Imperial regime, which DID have its supporters, seems just lame. – u/MauriceEscargot
5. This has always bothered me. In ROTJ Luke is asking Leia about her memories of her mother. Leia says she was always sad yada yada yada, Luke says he has no memory of her at all. But in the prequels we can clearly see that Padme dies immediately after giving birth and the twins are split up in the next scene. So how could Leia possibly have any early childhood memories of her? – u/[deleted]
6. When C3PO and R2D2 escape initially, the empire notices and targets the escape pod, but they don’t shoot it for not having life forms on it. The entire mission of the star destroyer was to get hold of the plans for the Death Star so the rebels couldn’t use it against them. The plans are not a life form, just data. Thus nothing should be allowed to escape from this capture no matter how insignificant. Never mind that Droids are known to exist in this universe and can transfer information even better than organic life forms. Heck, the escape pod could have just contained a floppy disk with the plans and maybe a rebel distress beacon. There is no good reason why that escape pod shouldn’t have been shot down. – u/mrbananas
7. Obi-Wan and R2 interact frequently in the prequels – given the timeline, it seems odd that Obi-Wan would have absolutely no recollection of R2. Unlike the droids (i.e., C-3PO and R2-D2) Obi Wan’s memory definitely wasn’t wiped. What gives? – u/Wolfe3030
8. One of the big ones for me is the fact that Vader tortured his own daughter for days and never picks up that she’s Force-sensitive or his own child. Yet Luke appears on the Death Star for 30 minutes and Vader’s like, “Hmm, I’m [sensing something].” – u/dcnerdlet
9. At the end [of Return of the Jedi], when everyone is celebrating the defeat of the empire, Luke looks into the woods and sees the ghosts of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and… Anakin Skywalker? I know that Anakin is Darth Vader, but Luke wouldn’t know who that was, right? Anakin’s ghost is a young adult — what Darth Vader looked like before Luke was even born, and Luke just smiles at him along with the rest. Maybe he just assumes he’s one of Obi-Wan’s friends? But why wouldn’t he appear as Darth Vader? Obi-Wan and Yoda both look like they did when they died (Obiwan’s ghost isn’t Ewan Mcgregor, it’s the old guy), so why doesn’t Vader? – u/onlyonebread
10. My favorite plot hole comes from Empire Strikes Back. At the same time as Luke is getting his Jedi training from Yoda, Han, Leia, and the droids are chilling in the asteroid field. Now, Jedi training normally lasts through most of childhood and most younglings don’t even become proficient with the force for many years. Since I’m pretty sure Han and Leia weren’t in that asteroid field for months or even years, it seems like Luke got a pretty good amount of training (enough to put up a pretty decent fight against Dart Vader) over the course of an afternoon. I guess running through a swamp and lifting some rocks is all there really is to it… – u/ifonlyiweresexy
11. In Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Ben (Obi-Wan), appears to Luke to instruct him to visit Yoda, who he says is, “the Jedi who instructed me”. But, of course, Qui-Gon Jinn instructed Obi-Wan, not Yoda. – u/okibelu
12. I’ve never understood why the Hoth base was so feebly defended on the ground. The Empire didn’t even have the element of surprise! The Rebels weren’t caught flat-footed and they STILL couldn’t mount a serious ground defense. The Rebels were humiliated by the onslaught of the AT-AT walkers. Even with the walkers suffering from a catastrophic design flaw, the Empire was still able to overcome the base defenses in practically no time at all. The Rebels were on Hoth long enough to build these massive orbital defenses. Why spend zero resources on ground defense? They built TRENCHES against what were essentially dry land battleships. I think we can imagine that the Empire had to land their attack forces far enough from the Rebel base that the Rebels couldn’t attack the landing ships without opening themselves up to counterattack. The walkers were slow as sh*t. So the Rebels saw the Empire star destroyers come out of hyperspace, send down landing ships, begin a slow march toward the base, and couldn’t mount more response than a few ground soldiers and what were essentially light fighter planes. No bombers? No canons powerful enough to penetrate the walker hulls? Why not build a DEEPER TRENCH a kilometer out from the base so the walkers couldn’t make it close enough to the base to target the generators? They would force the Empire forces to either attempt to fire from super far away and miss or land closer to the base and endanger the landing ships. You don’t even have to buy a trench. You can just dig one. No technology is involved. – u/saintandre
13. Sometime in between ESB and ROTJ, Lando Calrissian is able to go undercover in Jabba’s Palace and quickly rise up the ranks to become a trusted guard of Jabba. For at least some of the time he is there, Boba Fett is also on the scene. It seems pretty outrageous that a talented bounty hunter such as Fett, who has previously met Calrissian face-to-face, wouldn’t be able to make Lando in his pretty flimsy disguise. Furthermore, he almost certainly would know that Calrissian is now in league with the Rebellion after the fallout from the events at Cloud City. It seems pretty foolish to have him as one of the people charged with executing Luke, Han, and Chewy. – u/thebenron
