Has Star Wars always made no sense?

[Elok]

"Long-lost daughter, I have found a way to smuggle information out about this horrible doomsday weapon that could kill trillions. Instead of a basic schematic, I have sent a holographic message of myself, and by a very roundabout way. Now, let me first spend several minutes waxing maudlin . . . okay, the Death Star has a flaw in that it doesn't handle direct hits to the reactor very well, which apparently is not obvious in this galaxy, so, uh--" [message interrupted]

"Yes, I, wheezy Forrest Whittaker, have seen the entire message! But I will hang out and die uselessly here!"

"Oh, my daughter! I finally have a chance, in this face-to-face meeting, to give you more than a vague hint about wrecking the giant murder thingy I helped make! I'd better . . . wax . . . maudlin . . . URK!"

There are other examples, but basically the whole plot of Rogue One fails to make any sense at all. But I view the original SW through rose-colored spectacles, so in the interests of fairness, was the first trilogy this utterly nonsensical? I mean in terms of plot holes, not the nonsensicality of the universe itself which remains basically constant. The prequels of course need not be mentioned, nor Ep 7. Luke's plan to rescue Han is flagrantly stupid in ROTJ, and the Ewoks' magic acquisition of medieval siege weaponry is a puzzler. Are there other cases of This Makes No Damn Narrative Sense, say in ANH or ESB?

[Egbert]

Star wars has always made no sense.

We see warships and fighters traversing the vast distances to engage in dog fights at such close quarters they see the whites of the eyes of their opponents. Just like a World war One movie of our heroic British aviators dogfighting the Red Baron.


Swords, called light sabres, are taken to gunfights. Apparently swords beat guns.

[Egbert]

However the sheer number of "splosions" more than compensate for all this absurdity. And Princess Leia looked very fetching.

It is explosions that matter, not details such as plot and realism and blah blah blah.

[Elok]

I see you missed the bit about "the nonsensicality of the universe itself, which is a constant." I don't know if the Ewoks' log traps and catapults go in that category or in narrative nonsense, so I might have broken my own rule there, but in general the actions of the characters in the original trilogy are consistent with their abilities and motives. Luke's Jabba infiltration being the obvious fustercluck of an exception.

[giblets]

I guess Lucas thought storming into Jabba's Palace and murdering everyone in cold blood would make Luke look like a bad guy.

[Elok]

Star Wars is a mashup of stuff George Lucas watched growing up, glued together with hope and held on the big screen. The conventions are silly, everyone knows that. But Princess Leia gives the plans to R2 only because she has no other hope, along with a brief message. Luke is frustrated by some hamfisted security she imposed to keep R2 from spilling his guts to anyone other than Obi-Wan, who is trusted because he's the only Jedi. Presumptively she originally meant to give the plans to the rebel government directly and not to a lone geriatric sorcerer, who was her last resort. Kenobi hires a smuggler, because smugglers are good at evading detection and he has no other options. Etc. These actions fit together.

Whereas in Rogue One, our heroes infiltrate an occupied moon to try and meet up with a rebel leader. They are a pair of humans and an unstable droid with two sidearms between them, and trying to keep a low profile. They are inadvertently caught in the crossfire when the imperial garrison is ambushed by a large force of said leader's guerrillas. Instead of running, or lying low until the smoke clears, they stick around taking potshots at random stormtroopers. How does this make sense?

[Elok]

I guess Lucas thought storming into Jabba's Palace and murdering everyone in cold blood would make Luke look like a bad guy.

Well, one gets the sense that Luke's general plan was "try to talk Jabba out of it, be prepared for violence anyway." Which'd be fine, except, uh . . . why did he have to give away the droids, and thus require him to beg or steal the droids back in the end? To smuggle in the lightsaber, maybe? But he doesn't have to worry about being searched on the way in, he alternately force-chokes and force-persuades his way through. It's a hard sell that he was anticipating having Jabba incarcerate the lot of them, R2 excepted. And couldn't he have thought of a plan that didn't require Chewbacca, the most formidable fighter, to be jailed regardless? How the hell was he planning to get Chewbacca out? Or was Leia supposed to spring everybody on her own, disguised as a bounty hunter? Couldn't Luke have disguised himself as a bounty hunter, and had an excuse to carry a crap-ton of weapons in plain view? No, that part of ROTJ is just silly.

[Egbert]

Whereas in Rogue One, our heroes infiltrate an occupied moon to try and meet up with a rebel leader. They are a pair of humans and an unstable droid with two sidearms between them, and trying to keep a low profile. They are inadvertently caught in the crossfire when the imperial garrison is ambushed by a large force of said leader's guerrillas. Instead of running, or lying low until the smoke clears, they stick around taking potshots at random stormtroopers. How does this make sense?

I saw that movie. The scene you described made no sense at all, it was absurd.

It was a jolly good gun battle though.

When watching Star wars, one ought not to be concerned about things making sense.

Instead one must look at all those explosions, and Princess Leia.

[Elok]

https://apolyton.net/forum/miscellaneous/off-topic/259878-the-splosion-nerdstuff-continuum

While I'm half-necro'ing that thread, I should mention an example I left out of the extreme nerdstuff end of the continuum: I once made the mistake of watching The Two Towers while my father was in the room. He pointed out, as the people of Rohan were traveling to Helm's Deep, that the movie was ridiculous because people at that technology level simply didn't have the means to carry adequate food and supplies for that large a group. Yes, Dad. Shut up, Dad.

[The Mad Monk]

You could have told him that, as a mostly nomadic group of horse warriors, they had all the food they needed drinking their mounts' blood, and mare's milk.

[Aeson]

Star Wars had alternative facts long before the USA.

"These are not the droids you are looking for"

[Egbert]

Alternative facts are wonderful as they go a long way to entirely abolishing epistomology. Epistomology can be really annoying as it tends allow reality to impinge upon desires.

I think using "alternative fats" has a number of disadvantages. These include:
- the possibility that logical errors can be identified
- analogies can be grasped
- chains of reasoning can lead to unwanted conclusions

It is best to completely dispense with facts and believe whatever one chooses to believe. Facts are dangerous.

[Proteus_MST]

Star Wars had alternative facts long before the USA.

"These are not the droids you are looking for"

And just like in our universe, it were primarily those with simple minds, who could be deceived by alternative facts, despite seeing evidence for the contrary at hand

[Elok]

His beliefs to the contrary notwithstanding, not EVERYTHING has to be about Trump.

[BeBMan]

Dunno if that qualifies, but here's my favourite silly scene from SW:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CHx1H2eUcAAVjTb.png

There's one equally great thing in STTNG, where someone managed to activate lotsa energy barriers in the Enterprise, and a couple unknown security guards stand in front of them, report about the matter to the bridge and touch the barrier repeatedly here and there with pointy fingers to have the "force field flashing up" effect. Probably thought the shield ceases to be a barrier 10 cm further down or so