Star Wars doesn't get enough credit for incorporating the zeitgeist into its general vibe. Moptop farm kids, space truckers, weirdo hermits out in the boonies, assertive women, Indigeneous peoples... these were pretty counter culture back when Lucas was writing most of this and making people on the fringes of society be the heroes is a pretty radical notion. Of course it's aided by some Judeo-Christian precedence and Jack Kirby's ideas laying the groundwork.

I remember reading in a piece in an old issue of Film Threat that made the argument that Star Wars was a white trash movie. Luke is living on a farm with his aunt and uncle because his dad was a criminal who killed their mother, he drives the the outer space equivalent of old beat up Firebird, etc.

This might have been discussed, but if Obi-Wan knows and has interacted with R2-D2 and C-3PO in episodes 1-3, how come he doesn’t remember them at all in episode 4?

I don't know that this has ever been discussed before!



Yeah, I know, technically it was the ownership comment, but he acted as if he never saw those droids before in his life.

Because...

1. Obi-Wan decides to stick with the technical truth: he does not recall ever owning a droid and that is all he thinks is necessary, from a certain point of view.

Or

2. Obi-Wan wants to protect Luke and Leia from knowing the whole story of their origins and identity to one another because they're not ready and to say more would lead to more questions, from a certain point of view.

Or

3. Obi-Wan is a really good stone face when it comes to the whole truth because of the above reasons and/or because of his Jedi training, from a certain point of view.

Or

4. Obi-Wan is coy by nature and he really enjoys playing things with a wink and a nod, even if it's to R2-D2 because it's funny, from a certain point of view.

Or

5. Obi-Wan never knew them or he always knew them but kept it to himself when one movie came out 22 years after the other, even though they came out of sequence, and it became obvious that to some extent they would have to cross paths in the past in terms of the story, so the writer, director, and actor decided to do their best portraying Obi-Wan's personality in the prequel films as close to Obi-Wan's personality in the original films as they possibly could, with the hope that people would know Obi-Wan's personality well enough to see that he can simultaneously tell the technical truth, protect Luke and Leia and thus the galaxy, use Jedi training, and be his good ol' coy self when a farm boy innocently says, "Well then, the droids do belong to you," even going so far as to make a special effort to demonstrate that C-3PO's memory is erased and R2-D2 zips his lip because he is the smartest character in the entire Star Wars saga and he knows how to keep a secret.

Take your pick.

Quite some theories. Not that you thought of it too much.

Why do you think if Obi-Wan knows and has interacted with R2-D2 and C-3PO in episodes 1-3, how come he doesn’t remember them at all in episode 4?

Both prequel and sequel trilogies suffered from this. When you've got roughly seven hours of time to tell your story, what you spend that time is critically important. Spending an act finding parts for your ship to take off shouldn't have made it past the conceptual phase. But probably the worst offender in this area has to be TLJ as it spent 2.5hrs on what should've been summed up in the opening text - " the Resistance has escaped the eye of the First Order and settled on the planet Crait" Boom, now you move forward with your story. That two of your main leads don't actually meet until the end of the 2nd film is one of the most ridiculous things of the sequel trilogy. (which there are many to choose from)

Maybe Obi Wan did some embarrassing shit around the droids and he just wants to keep the conversation moving along in A New Hope.

I always got the impression from Obi-Wan (and Alec Guinness) that he did recognize the droids and that, since they had found Luke, something big was going down.

Which is why he then takes him back to his his home, tells him about his father, and whips out the old lightsaber.

Bad writing.

truth.

like the Leia remembering her mother... at the end, they could've had the camera linger a little longer on Padme and Leia looking at each other, like imprinting, or perhaps she puts her hand on her head as she dies or something. nothing against Luke, it could've just been the twin she happened to fixate on the moment she died. something little like that would've made that line in Jedi not be so blatantly bad in retrospect.

Technically, Kenobi didn't know C-3PO. The droid's memory was wiped since Ben last saw him so the C-3PO he knew didn't exist anymore ... from a certain point of view.

The same could be said of ESB if you're only concerned with the "big picture" aspect of governments and factions: "The Rebels largely escape the Empire's assault on Hoth." It's the character development that make those films.

You seem confused about who the leads are in the sequel trilogy: it's not Luke and Leia.

Chewy knew Yoda and I am sure that Luke would have told them all that he was going to look for him after Hoth. Chewy could have been like "don't trip over the dude cuz he short" or something so Luke would look out for him.

Dude, not even R2D2 knew Luke was heading off to see Yoda after leaving Hoth, and he was Luke's navigator.

The big issue is that when Lucas crafted the prequels, he wanted to include various characters and such from the original trilogy, and didn't really care that much about maintaining continuity. With the original trilogy, he just made it up as he went, and the backstory was so sparse that narrative shifts and new developments didn't have much to contradict. Like, we didn't even know Leia was adopted until the reveal in ROTJ that she's Luke's sister. Even with that, it makes Luke and Leia's kisses in the previous two films seem sort of eeeewww, but at least the characters were as in the dark as we were. The other continuity issues could be hand-waved away with a "certain point of view" speech from a ghost. However, with the prequels, the full original trilogy was already there, and so just making it up as he went along created a lot more continuity issues. There's something to be said about not being so concerned to tie up every backstory thing in a pretty little bow, like the Solo movie did, but it's also clear Lucas wasn't as familiar with the original trilogy as many of the films fans are.

It's what Spiderbite said:

This is the best point - Obi Wan stumbles upon Luke (who he's been watching over for several years now) in the company of a golden protocol droid and a feisty, blue astromech - he knows that shit's going down, or as Qui Gon put it, he's encountered "a vergance in The Force".

Poe and Rey aren't introduced until the last part of TLJ. It seems possible they could have met in the time between everyone returning to the Resistance Base after blowing up Starkiller Base and then Rey leaving to look for Luke (it's not clear how long that is, very likely just a day or so) so with all that was going on, it's possible they just didn't meet.

No, no. He can answer for himself. That way we know it was a genuine question and he has thoughts on the answer, too.

That's really a problem caused by TFA though, since it has Rey popping off to find Luke before showing Poe and Rey together, if it really is a problem at all. What was TLJ supposed to do, have Rey pop back to the Resistance just to squeeze in a Rey and Poe scene at the beginning, to then have Rey go back to Luke?

It's pretty well known that Poe was supposed to die at the beginning of TFA during the escape with Finn, but Oscar Isaac didn't want to play another character that died right then, so they squeezed in his return at the end of that film. It's not clear from TFA if they thought Poe was even going to be a lead at that point, or even appear in the sequels, so that TFA rewrite didn't include anything to show Poe meeting Rey.

That's true, but it's still more of an indictment of TLJ that they didn't figure out a better way to get the three leads together sooner.

I wonder if it would have worked for Luke to have sensed Leia's injuries from being sucked into space and grudgingly agreed to go back with Rey and Chewie just to see her, while still pushing back on training Rey.

"Oh shit, Leia is in trouble...oh she flew back to safefy, nevermind. Now back to being a grouchy old fuck."

Oh boy. Wait till he watches the TV show . . .

Get the three leads together?! I'd have been happy if they had just gotten the ideas for the three movies together!