This is one scene that I wish the prequels didn’t undermine. It was cool when the Jedi were some mythological idea rather than people that everyone should’ve known from a decade or two ago.
I wonder if it’s meant to be imperial propaganda/censorship. Like maybe everyone knows deep down the Jedi were real, but it’s frowned upon to talk about it, because the Emperor is trying to erase them from memory.
It could also be that the galaxy is a big place and the Jedi were never that numerous. So even when they were a thing, most people would go their whole lives without ever seeing one. I can see how they would become semi-mythological in that case.
But we know the real answer is simply that Star Wars is not a franchise that values verisimilitude in worldbuilding or writing. It’s a fantasy world with a veneer of sci-fi.
the galaxy is a big place and the Jedi were never that numerous
Ding ding ding
DISNEY RETCONNED SO MUCH
The Jedi intentionally did not get involved in big matters, because they were never supposed to be leaders. They basically just tried to keep the peace. So if they did their jobs properly, not many people should know about them beyond myths and legends.
I mean honestly, who would believe you of you said you saw a guy wearing robes and welding a sword that looked like someone took the shot from your pistol and made it solid.
Coruscant was a planet that was almost completely covered by miles of the densest city you can imagine, the only natural spot left was a preserve for what was left of the natives.
Countless billions of people. There’s no way for them to even know for sure the exact number, due to sensor limitations, shielded areas, misreported census… You name it.
There were a few thousand jedi at most, most of whom were out on various pilgrimages, missions, journeys, research, whatever. Scattered all over, with the biggest concentration being the jedi temple.
And honestly, when was the last time you paid attention to the people inside your local mosque/church/synagogue/temple/crack den?
So yeah, most people would have only heard of jedi as some kind of legend, whispers of great deeds long past, and rumors of what they’ve done recently.
And really, even after the clone wars, I could see most people having no idea the jedi had major roles in the GAR. I don’t know the names of most generals in WW2, especially non-allied generals beyond a couple major battles. So if your world wasn’t ravaged by the war, why would you even care about some general in some war that didn’t really change your family’s lives much?
The empire also worked to scrub them from memory, repurposed the jedi temple, and people who grew up with imperial education on an imperial sector capital planet, the most you would have heard is the hushed whispers around a sleepover because you know you’re not supposed to talk about them. If you heard of them at all before entering the academy.
I blame Disney for a lot of decisions but that is not one of them. Lucas made them the generals for the Republic in the prequels. There is no way to argue they flew under the radar/were somewhat obscure after that. Throughout all the prequels they had an incredibly strongpresence/line of communication with the galactic government.
So if they did their jobs properly, not many people should know about them beyond myths and legends.
Except for the big galactic war like 20 years ago where the news would’ve been all Jedi General soandso defeats separatist forces in such and such planet, with news footage of the Jedi flinging around droids like ragdolls and flipping and cutting through them.
And then of course the 20 years of war movies after, that sure, due to Imperial propaganda would be painting the Jedi as sinister evil dudes preparing to take control of the galaxy, but they still would’ve been showing all their terrifying powers.
Jedi would be as well known as the F-117 Stealth Fighter is in reality. Do they know all it’s technical specifications? No. But they have an idea of what it does - indeed, a somewhat exaggerated idea, even, so the average person would think Jedi are even more powerful than they really were.
A sudden massive increase in the number of people who believe the MMR vaccine causes autism.
A global pandemic that large numbers of people:
Swear didn’t happen, or
Was artificially created, or
Was a hoax to encourage people to have vaccines that contain something sinister.
Widespread demonisation of an entire religion.
A sharp increase in people who don’t believe the holocaust happened.
A baffling increase in people who believe the Earth is flat.
In short, people are stupid and surprisingly willing to believe nonsense, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.
Were the Jedi actually magical? Nah it was just propaganda by a corrupt council. It was all special effects - seriously, a sword against blasters? Wake up, sheeple.
I disagree. Maybe aesthetically to some extent but the story and writing are more inspired by classical fantasy stories. It’s a story about a poor farmer who joins a wizard on a quest to become a knight, save a princess from a dark wizard who serves an evil king. That’s a fairy tale.
And it’s also the modern canonical example of the Hero’s Journey/Monomyth structure.
If you’re talking about Tolkien, he wasn’t the originator of the fantasy genre. It existed long before him and was generally known for being very inconsistent in worldbuilding. His main innovation was inventing a style of fantasy worldbuilding which was actually realistic.
I agree with you on the bad writing, and destruction of cannon built through movie and book in the 70s and 80s. But it’s Disney’s bitch now, and will do whatever daddy Disney needs for money.
I’m probably in a minority, but I honestly think that whatever Lucas would have done for sequels would have been no better than what Disney did. I thought the prequels were god-awful and the best Star Wars movie was Empire, which was not his movie. Even Star Wars would have been nowhere near as good without Marcia Lucas’ involvement in the editing process.
Don’t get me wrong, George Lucas had some good ideas, but he’s had a whole hell of a lot more bad ones since then.
Lucas was good at special effects, writing and directing were never his thing. Star Wars is only a thing because of the pioneering methods he used to make people feel like they were part of this saga, not watching an episode of lost in space. He killed it all with the rereleases, and then erasing his original films from history.
There were millions of planets in the Republic, and only about 10k Jedi at any one time. The vast majority of people would never have seen one. The vast majority of planets would probably go generations between having one visit. It is entirely believable that most wouldn’t think that Jedi were real.
It’s been a while since I watched the prequels, but the idea I got was everyone knew the Jedi existed: they were major players in the galactic senate as you referenced. But very few people would ever get to see Jedis use force powers. They might see them brandish a lightsaber. Which to a culture who had space ships, blasters, and the ability to block lightsabers (even if the materials were rare), laser swords might have seemed antiquated and quaint.
And the powers the Jedi seemed to use in populated places the most often were mind powers which aren’t necessarily observable: even Luke watching Obi-Wan mind-trick a stormtrooper was baffled. Seeing Yoda throw ships around might be a thing only a handful of people saw in a century and became little more than legend.
Ooor I might be rationalizing a lot of plot holes without realizing it. :)
But very few people would ever get to see Jedis use force powers. They might see them brandish a lightsaber
Approximately 10,000 Jedi were in the Order at the start of the Clone Wars. At that time the galaxy was home to over one hundred quintillion (100,000,000,000,000,000,000) sapient beings. Almost no one ever saw a Jedi during their lives.
At that time the galaxy was home to over one hundred quintillion (100,000,000,000,000,000,000) sapient beings.
That…seems like too many. Earth will probably cap around 10B people. That’s 10B planets with Earth-like populations. A search says Coruscant has 1T people on it, so that’d be 100M Coruscants. But I have to assume Coruscant is on the outer edge of population densities. Most would probably be lightly colonized like most of the world we see in the movies.
But then Star Wars is well known for just being waay out there will numbers and not being even close to realistic. :p
Honestly, it may not be enough. People, including sci-fi writers, chronically misunderstand the scale of space and how populations could fill in that space in a true galaxy-wide civilization.
Estimates place the number of stars in the Milky Way at 100 billion. This would work out to 10 billion lives per star in the galaxy. That doesn’t seem unreasonable, when we know that ecumenopoli exist and smaller versions of them exist in much larger numbers. We also know that terraforming of otherwise non-hospitable worlds is readily achieved in the SW universe. On top of that there are 5-25 million different species of sapient life, bringing even more classes of planets into this calculation.
This is one scene that I wish the prequels didn’t undermine. It was cool when the Jedi were some mythological idea rather than people that everyone should’ve known from a decade or two ago.
Yeah they alternate between “everyone remembers” and the occasional “huh?”
It’s a very distracting inconsistency for me tbh
I wonder if it’s meant to be imperial propaganda/censorship. Like maybe everyone knows deep down the Jedi were real, but it’s frowned upon to talk about it, because the Emperor is trying to erase them from memory.
It could also be that the galaxy is a big place and the Jedi were never that numerous. So even when they were a thing, most people would go their whole lives without ever seeing one. I can see how they would become semi-mythological in that case.
But we know the real answer is simply that Star Wars is not a franchise that values verisimilitude in worldbuilding or writing. It’s a fantasy world with a veneer of sci-fi.
Ding ding ding
DISNEY RETCONNED SO MUCH
The Jedi intentionally did not get involved in big matters, because they were never supposed to be leaders. They basically just tried to keep the peace. So if they did their jobs properly, not many people should know about them beyond myths and legends.
I mean honestly, who would believe you of you said you saw a guy wearing robes and welding a sword that looked like someone took the shot from your pistol and made it solid.
Coruscant was a planet that was almost completely covered by miles of the densest city you can imagine, the only natural spot left was a preserve for what was left of the natives.
Countless billions of people. There’s no way for them to even know for sure the exact number, due to sensor limitations, shielded areas, misreported census… You name it.
There were a few thousand jedi at most, most of whom were out on various pilgrimages, missions, journeys, research, whatever. Scattered all over, with the biggest concentration being the jedi temple.
And honestly, when was the last time you paid attention to the people inside your local mosque/church/synagogue/temple/crack den?
So yeah, most people would have only heard of jedi as some kind of legend, whispers of great deeds long past, and rumors of what they’ve done recently.
And really, even after the clone wars, I could see most people having no idea the jedi had major roles in the GAR. I don’t know the names of most generals in WW2, especially non-allied generals beyond a couple major battles. So if your world wasn’t ravaged by the war, why would you even care about some general in some war that didn’t really change your family’s lives much?
The empire also worked to scrub them from memory, repurposed the jedi temple, and people who grew up with imperial education on an imperial sector capital planet, the most you would have heard is the hushed whispers around a sleepover because you know you’re not supposed to talk about them. If you heard of them at all before entering the academy.
I blame Disney for a lot of decisions but that is not one of them. Lucas made them the generals for the Republic in the prequels. There is no way to argue they flew under the radar/were somewhat obscure after that. Throughout all the prequels they had an incredibly strongpresence/line of communication with the galactic government.
Except for the big galactic war like 20 years ago where the news would’ve been all Jedi General soandso defeats separatist forces in such and such planet, with news footage of the Jedi flinging around droids like ragdolls and flipping and cutting through them.
And then of course the 20 years of war movies after, that sure, due to Imperial propaganda would be painting the Jedi as sinister evil dudes preparing to take control of the galaxy, but they still would’ve been showing all their terrifying powers.
Jedi would be as well known as the F-117 Stealth Fighter is in reality. Do they know all it’s technical specifications? No. But they have an idea of what it does - indeed, a somewhat exaggerated idea, even, so the average person would think Jedi are even more powerful than they really were.
I’m not sure - just think…
Within less than thirty years there has been:
A sudden massive increase in the number of people who believe the MMR vaccine causes autism.
A global pandemic that large numbers of people: Swear didn’t happen, or Was artificially created, or Was a hoax to encourage people to have vaccines that contain something sinister.
Widespread demonisation of an entire religion.
A sharp increase in people who don’t believe the holocaust happened.
A baffling increase in people who believe the Earth is flat.
In short, people are stupid and surprisingly willing to believe nonsense, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.
Were the Jedi actually magical? Nah it was just propaganda by a corrupt council. It was all special effects - seriously, a sword against blasters? Wake up, sheeple.
Being fantasy has nothing to do with being consistent in worldbuilding, the godfather of the genre was VERY consistent.
Star Wars came more from serials like Buck Rogers than straight fantasy.
I disagree. Maybe aesthetically to some extent but the story and writing are more inspired by classical fantasy stories. It’s a story about a poor farmer who joins a wizard on a quest to become a knight, save a princess from a dark wizard who serves an evil king. That’s a fairy tale.
And it’s also the modern canonical example of the Hero’s Journey/Monomyth structure.
You can disagree as much as you’d like. Lucas said the main inspiration was serials.
If you’re talking about Tolkien, he wasn’t the originator of the fantasy genre. It existed long before him and was generally known for being very inconsistent in worldbuilding. His main innovation was inventing a style of fantasy worldbuilding which was actually realistic.
Misinformation and propaganda can make a society forget a lot…
Maybe, but after that film, it seems like everyone’s heard of the Jedi and the Force.
I agree with you on the bad writing, and destruction of cannon built through movie and book in the 70s and 80s. But it’s Disney’s bitch now, and will do whatever daddy Disney needs for money.
I’m probably in a minority, but I honestly think that whatever Lucas would have done for sequels would have been no better than what Disney did. I thought the prequels were god-awful and the best Star Wars movie was Empire, which was not his movie. Even Star Wars would have been nowhere near as good without Marcia Lucas’ involvement in the editing process.
Don’t get me wrong, George Lucas had some good ideas, but he’s had a whole hell of a lot more bad ones since then.
Lucas was good at special effects, writing and directing were never his thing. Star Wars is only a thing because of the pioneering methods he used to make people feel like they were part of this saga, not watching an episode of lost in space. He killed it all with the rereleases, and then erasing his original films from history.
There were millions of planets in the Republic, and only about 10k Jedi at any one time. The vast majority of people would never have seen one. The vast majority of planets would probably go generations between having one visit. It is entirely believable that most wouldn’t think that Jedi were real.
You’d think a guy wouldn’t get into Vader’s inner Death Star circle if he didn’t believe in such things.
Sycophants and idiots are exactly who end up in leadership in dictatorships. Admiral Motti probably believed all the propaganda.
Really? We always seem to circle back to the same three.
It’s been a while since I watched the prequels, but the idea I got was everyone knew the Jedi existed: they were major players in the galactic senate as you referenced. But very few people would ever get to see Jedis use force powers. They might see them brandish a lightsaber. Which to a culture who had space ships, blasters, and the ability to block lightsabers (even if the materials were rare), laser swords might have seemed antiquated and quaint.
And the powers the Jedi seemed to use in populated places the most often were mind powers which aren’t necessarily observable: even Luke watching Obi-Wan mind-trick a stormtrooper was baffled. Seeing Yoda throw ships around might be a thing only a handful of people saw in a century and became little more than legend.
Ooor I might be rationalizing a lot of plot holes without realizing it. :)
Approximately 10,000 Jedi were in the Order at the start of the Clone Wars. At that time the galaxy was home to over one hundred quintillion (100,000,000,000,000,000,000) sapient beings. Almost no one ever saw a Jedi during their lives.
Imagine you think you see a jedi and you find out it’s just a Nightsister…
That…seems like too many. Earth will probably cap around 10B people. That’s 10B planets with Earth-like populations. A search says Coruscant has 1T people on it, so that’d be 100M Coruscants. But I have to assume Coruscant is on the outer edge of population densities. Most would probably be lightly colonized like most of the world we see in the movies.
But then Star Wars is well known for just being waay out there will numbers and not being even close to realistic. :p
Honestly, it may not be enough. People, including sci-fi writers, chronically misunderstand the scale of space and how populations could fill in that space in a true galaxy-wide civilization.
Estimates place the number of stars in the Milky Way at 100 billion. This would work out to 10 billion lives per star in the galaxy. That doesn’t seem unreasonable, when we know that ecumenopoli exist and smaller versions of them exist in much larger numbers. We also know that terraforming of otherwise non-hospitable worlds is readily achieved in the SW universe. On top of that there are 5-25 million different species of sapient life, bringing even more classes of planets into this calculation.