The Star Wars franchise has a lot going on across its films, books, video games, animated series and, of course, the overwhelming amount of merchandise. Whether it’s part of the main canon or not, it all includes healthy doses of sci-fi, fantasy, action, romance, adventure and, at many times, pure and utter nonsense.
But as true fans already know, the nonsense is actually a large part of what makes the world of Star Wars so great. These stories don’t have to be serious and make sense all the time, and there’s a certain sense of entertainment and wonder in that fact alone. From the 1977’s Episode IV: A New Hope (then just Star Wars) to last year’s Solo, this franchise is nothing if not silly and nonsensical. Basically, if you’re not having fun with it, you’re doing it wrong.
That said, there are definitely some things that make even less sense than others — things that leave us all going, “Wait, what?” no matter how many times we watch them play out. While some of these situations do have fan theories attempting (repeat, attempting) to back them up, others don’t seem to have any reason behind them whatsoever other than someone at the time of production just shrugging their shoulders and giving a careless thumbs up. Still, it all makes for some great debate fodder among fans.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, there were 25 Things That Make No Sense About The Star Wars Franchise.
Lando Calrissian Becoming A Rebel General
Don’t get us wrong– we love Lando! He’s the ultimate cool guy of the galaxy and even outshines Han Solo in this regard (no easy feat there), and his love of capes gives him a stylish signature that even the queens of Naboo can’t match. But even though he’s a smooth talker, did he really manage to talk the leaders of the Rebellion out of their senses? Come on, making the guy a general in their forces just doesn’t match any kind of logical thinking here. The guy has a history of going to the highest bidder and betraying friends when it serves his own interests, so yeah, let’s just go ahead and make him a general. Sure, Lando did end up becoming the second person in history to destroy a death star and subsequently saved the galaxy as a result, but did he stay on the good side permanently?
So far, we have yet to see Lando Calrissian in any of the latest episodes of the series. So where did the general go? According to Nerdist, the 2017 novel, Star Wars Aftermath: Empire’s End by Chuck Wendig has Lando returning to Cloud City to help rebuild following difficulties the city faced after his departure.
Anakin Still Gets To Become A Jedi Ghost
Ah, how forgiving this far, far away galaxy must be! Though it’s never quite established where the souls of Jedi or Sith are really supposed to go once their bodies meet their end, it’s clear that being able to reappear amongst the living is reserved for only the rare few. Still, despite the numerous crimes that Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader committed both before and after his official turn to the Dark Side, all seems to be magically forgiven at the end of Return of the Jedi.
Now back in his younger, un-disfigured appearance, ghost Anakin takes his place next to ghost Yoda and ghost Obi-Wan Kenobi, who just smile on. Even if they aren’t considering the planets he helped to destroy, the Imperial guys he choked out or Luke’s arm, did they really forget about the younglings? Come on, Obi-Wan, this is the same guy who took your life in the first place.
Chewie Doesn’t Get A Medal
This is one of the biggest things in the original movies that doesn’t make any sense at all. At the end of A New Hope, Han and Luke are awarded medals for their role in destroying the Death Star. The thing is, Chewbacca was there too, and he risked just as much as they did. Yet during the medal ceremony, he receives no such honor. He does open his mouth at one point and makes a noise, but everyone just chuckles at him as if to say, “Oh, how cute! It softly growled at us!”. Was Chewie really trying to ask for his well-deserved medal from those jerks? If so, his request certainly went as unacknowledged as his role in defeating the Empire.
Adding insult to injury, the Wookiee doesn’t even get to stand on the same step as his human counterparts. Sure, by looking at the final shot of the group (see above) we can see that this was most likely done for aesthetic reasons.
Let’s Keep Building Death Stars!
Seriously, what is with the bad guys in the Star Wars franchise insisting on building large orbs of destruction that can be themselves destroyed? Since the first one had obvious flaws and was blown up by space pilots, let’s build another one that’s basically just like it! This time, we’ll just make that tricky vulnerable spot a little bit harder to get to, but don’t worry because it’ll still be there!
Decades later, the First Order comes around and decides to do everything bigger and better than the Empire ever did. This includes Starkiller Base, which is essentially just a giant death star embedded into a planet. As soon as we saw it, we knew how well that was going to go for them.
Luke’s Entire Plan To Rescue Han In Return Of The Jedi
First, we’ll send in our two droids and offer them up as a trade bargain, because we secretly know that’s not going to work and he’ll just keep them anyway rather than destroying them. It’s not like C-3PO talks too much. Then, we’ll send in Leia in disguise, bringing in Chewie with her so we can get two more of us captured. Oh! Oh! Oh! And Lando will actually secretly be working at the palace the entire time for some reason even though Jabba most likely knows who he is, and Lando has a history of being a traitor when it benefits him.
But it’s okay, because Luke Skywalker is coming to save all of us. Basically, everything in this entire sequence of events only seems to actually work by circumstance. The fact that they succeeded is great, but it just didn’t make much sense.
Jar-Jar Binks Becomes A Senator
The character of Jar-Jar Binks is whole other can of worms that can be debated (and complained about) for hours if not days, but perhaps one of the biggest things about him of all that doesn’t make sense is the fact that he’s miraculously made a senator, and retains the position, for the remainder of the first few episodes in the Star Wars canon.
For those who will argue that this is all okay because of that theory that our pal Jar-Jar was really intended to be a secret Sith Lord, that’s fine, but it doesn’t negate the fact that a guy who was acting like a total idiot weirdo devoid of all social skills the entire time was elected into the Senate. In this far away and long ago galaxy, elected officials were supposed to have at least a little decorum and intelligence.
Monsters, From Outer Space!
From the worm guy living inside an asteroid in Empire to the giant squid guy in Solo, how are these things even alive or moving fluidly in no atmosphere? If we’re looking at this from even the slightest scientific perspective (which we know we really shouldn’t do anyway when it comes to the world of Star Wars), these creatures just shouldn’t be alive. According to this Fandom page, the Exogorth (asteroid space slug) is made up of silicon, which would indeed help make up for the fact that no carbon-based life form could exist in such an environment. The trouble here, however, is that there is actually no environment for it to exist in.
As we saw when Han and Leia exited the Millennium Falcon while still inside of the creature, there was inexplicably plenty of moisture in there. Moisture means water, which in turn means levels of carbon and oxygen. If the creature were indeed made from silicon, its chemical components would have oxidized upon coming into contact with these elements and turned rather quickly into hard, rock-like materials.
Queen Amidala’s Hair
Does our girl Amidala just have a miraculous variety of extensions and realistic lace front wigs, or does she really have that impossible amount of hair? Seeing as her successor also had ridiculously elaborate hairstyles, is it just a requirement for the queens to have tremendously long locks? With all the travel and the constant role-playing switches involved with being in this position, it just doesn’t make sense to have that much hair.
Furthermore, the expense of maintaining such elaborate styles doesn’t quite compute with the dire state of things around her. You mean she still has time to look amazing while fleeing her home planet, then change styles completely once on board her ship, then change again to switch places with her handmaid (and style that handmaid’s own hair just as elaborately), then change back? We doubt that.
The Queens Of Naboo
Speaking of Queen Amidala’s hair, let’s talk about the teenage girl underneath it all. She’s part of a long tradition of her planet electing a queen to lead them, and this person is almost always a younger girl. But why?
We’re all for ladies in leadership positions, but teenagers? It’s hard to believe that any 14-year-old is more capable to lead an entire planet than an older person with a solid political background or even management experience. Seriously, was Padmé Amidala even old enough to work when she got the job? Naboo’s political system doesn’t seem to make much sense at all, seeing as it just consists of them electing teenage girl after teenage girl to lead them, despite the fact that they obviously are not lacking in other demographics.
Do Droids Feel Pain?
Ah, the age-old question of whether or not the machines mankind constructs can feel things. There’s inconsistency throughout the Star Wars saga on this very subject, and none of it makes any sense. We see droids of all types reacting in pain in various scenarios, from R2’s adorable robot scream at getting accidentally electrocuted to that poor droid that looks like a boxy trash can yelping at getting his feet branded in Jabba’s palace.
It even seems almost cruel that droids like R2 and BB-8 go with their flesh and blood companions into battle, putting themselves in peril to keep them safe and maintain the fighter ships they conveniently fit right into. Yet when C-3PO gets himself hacked to pieces by pig people in Empire, there’s nothing.
Obi-Wan Being Referred to As R2-D2’s Former Master
In A New Hope, Luke says, “I think he’s searching for his former master. I’ve never seen such devotion in a droid before. He claims to be the property of Obi-Wan Kenobi." The thing is, Obi-Wan never owned those droids at all. R2-D2 and C3PO, the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of the series, first belonged to Anakin and Padmé, then went to the Organa family (that’s how they ended up on Princess Leia’s ship). While Obi-Wan certainly knew them in his younger days, he was most certainly never their master.
Now, many fans like to point out that the older Obi-Wan says that he doesn’t recall ever owning a droid. While perhaps he didn’t ever “own” one, this still leads to some confusion when we go back and watch his younger self in the early episodes. As most notably seen in Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Obi-Wan definitely had his own droid that traveled with him to distant planets. Did all those years make him forget R4? Then again, this is the same guy who lied and said that Darth Vader killed Luke’s father.
Ewan McGregor Aging into Alec Guinness
Two great actors. Two men whose casting did not make sense timeline-wise. Look at Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan at the end of Revenge of the Sith and tell us that, just 20 years down the line, he’s going to age rapidly into Alec Guinness’ Obi-Wan in A New Hope. If this casting made actual sense, then one or the other would have to be considered acting at least 10 years beyond or below their actual age at the time of filming (and we’re just basing that off of the actors’ ages at the time of filming their respective movies. If we based this off of looks alone, the years between them would seem even more numerous).
Then again, maybe living alone in the desert for all that time was supposed to add another ten years on the character’s regular aging appearance. Either way, it’s just another silly little detail that Star Wars fans just have to embrace as being part of the franchise.
Chewbacca Never Being the Pilot
Oh Chewie, always the bridesmaid, right? Despite having decades more flying and technology experience than Rey or even Han (as established in Solo), Chewbacca the Wookiee just dutifully sticks to his co-pilot chair and never takes the lead.
We understood it a little better when it was just Chewie and Han flying together. After all, Han was definitely the brasher of the two, and he prided himself on being a great pilot. But Rey? Really? This is a girl who lived all of her formative years on one planet in the middle of nowhere and seemed to have spent far more time climbing around old abandoned ships than actually flying them. She’s already young and fairly inexperienced by human standards, but in Wookiee years she’s a mere infant. Still. Chewie seems to have no problem just letting her take control of the Falcon. It’s kind of weird and again doesn’t make sense, but then again, maybe old Chewbacca is just too set in his ways by that point to care.
Luke, The Orphan, Being Interested In Only One Of His Parents
Even before he found out the man was a Jedi, Luke only ever mentioned his father. There seemed to be no interest at all in who his mother was or what actually happened to her. Sure, it’s plausible that Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen told him that they never really knew his mother, but the fact is that they never really knew Anakin that well either. The whole situation feels a little odd, especially when Luke actually finds out that his father was a Jedi knight.
Did he not know that the Jedi were never supposed to marry or have families? If he didn’t, that’s a bit strange seeing as he so readily was familiar with what a Jedi was in the first place. Likewise, if he did know about marriage being forbidden among Jedi, wouldn’t he then have a whole lot of questions about who his mother was and how she got a Jedi to break his vow? When Luke does finally bring her up (very briefly) in Return of the Jedi, it’s pretty much as an afterthought.
Mace Windu’s Lightsaber
Lore has it that Jedi lightsabers are made from natural kaiburr or kyber crystals while the Sith used primarily synthetic crystals (both because the Jedi controlled the crystal mines and they also didn’t necessarily have the same kind of patience to shape natural ones). The synthetic crystals are more unstable, resulting in a red, orange or magenta color.
Then there’s the lightsaber wielded by Mace Windu. It’s clearly purple, and it’s been stated by many sources that it either represents or even contains elements of both the Light Side and the Dark Side of the Force. Sure the lightsaber itself looks really cool, but this guy is on the Jedi Council and is supposed to one of the most revered members of the Light Side. Is it really a good idea to have him wielding such a weapon that could, at least in part, represent the Dark Side? Does this make sense?
The Parsec
Unlike when the first Star Wars movie came out in 1977 (and Google and the internet as we know it did not exist), it’s almost common knowledge now that the parsec measures distance in space. Still, the Star Wars franchise has firmly clung to it being a measurement of time, rather than a unit of distance.
On the other hand, people have attempted to explain this over the years as Han Solo not being wrong at all, actually referring to completing the Kessel Run in terms of distance (hey, he did technically take a shortcut, right?) It’s like going to your friend’s house that is normally 5 miles away and making it there in 3 miles via a back road. That makes sense, right? We nevertheless kind of like the idea of Star Wars not really understanding what the parsec is supposed to be.
Padmé’s Entire Relationship With Anakin
Come on, girl. If you’re mature enough and smart enough to be elected queen of your planet at only 14 years old, then you know that you can do so much better than the mess that is Anakin Skywalker.
Seriously, what exactly is the foundation of their relationship? That he called her an angel when she was 14 and he was 9? There’s not a whole lot of depth seen here, and the entirety of their relationship “development” in Attack of the Clones is still basically just him saying how pretty she is. Other than the fact that they both come across as shockingly oblivious to the world around them given their positions as a senator and a Jedi Knight, these two just don’t seem to have all that much in common.
Obi-Wan Calling Darth Vader “Darth”
We all know that by now “Darth” is a title, not a name. After all, in addition to Darth Vader, there’s Darth Sidious, Darth Maul, Darth Plagueis, Darth Atrius and numerous others seen throughout the Star Wars franchise as a whole. This is a title bestowed upon Sith lords, much like “Master” is for Jedi (though in the days of the Old Republic they had even more potential titles).
Why then, does Obi-Wan Kenobi keep insist on calling his former apprentice by this and this alone when they finally meet again years later in A New Hope? Having come into contact with plenty of Sith lords in his lifetime, there’s really no excuse for him not knowing this.
Princess Leia’s Changing Accent
We all know that one scene where Princess Leia is taken to the bridge of the Death Star and talks back to Grand Moff Tarkin in an inexplicable, yet distinctive, British accent. Jump forward just a few scenes later, and she’s back to being all American (yes, we realize no such nationalities exist in the Star Wars universe, but these accents sure do!).
There have been many fan theory-attempts to explain this over the years, but it most likely just comes down to being an odd acting choice that wasn’t caught in post-production. The scene itself is jarring enough because it’s the first time the Death Star is used to destroy a planet, and of all planets, it just happens to be Leia’s homeworld, but the changing accent adds a level of unnecessary confusion.
Obi-Wan’s Willingness To Teach Luke The Ways Of The Force
It seems that Obi-Wan seems to be having some memory challenges in his old age. Granted, it wasn’t exactly his decision to go against the concerns of the Jedi Order and take on young Anakin Skywalker as an apprentice to the Force all those years ago. But after his master, Qui-Gon Jinn, passed away, Obi-Wan seemed to think he was honoring his memory by continuing to train the boy. Nevertheless, we saw how it all eventually backfired, as Anakin just wasn’t emotionally strong or level-headed enough to turn away his own dark desires.
This resulted in the end of the Republic and the downfall of the Jedi Order as it was known at the time. But all of that’s in the past by the time the events of A New Hope roll around, and one would have thought that Obi-Wan had learned an important lesson. He’s nevertheless a little too willing to take on Luke as an apprentice Jedi, and it’s like he’s never even heard the phrase, “Like father, like son.”
