The galactic empire (and the republic before it) spanned billions of inhabited star systems. If each world was billions or trillions of inhabitants that means the galactic population is 1018 or more people. There were only ~10,000 Jedi at their peak. The chances of any galactic citizen seeing a Jedi, unless they lived on Coruscant near the temple, are vanishingly small. They were mythical beings to almost everyone.
That’s what the scene implies. The whole scene makes no sense after the backstory that the prequels added.
The idea of the scene is that we, the viewer, have no idea what the force is yet. Just like character who learns the hard way. Because this is the first Star Wars movie and they haven’t even started calling it Episode 4 yet.
It makes much more sense when you view Jedi/Sith as the trope of the warrior monk who has achieved enlightenment. They have gained mystical powers beyond mortal ken etc, but mostly they used it to hit people with laser swords and public knowledge could dismiss a lot of that as physical training and conditioning.
You could also say that his lackey-force-choking binge hadn’t started yet, because in A New Hope he wasn’t searching for Luke, and in the intro crawl for Empire it describes him as obsessed. Maybe he hadn’t choked anybody till this one guy needled him and he realised he had to get the word out that he was a serious guy.
I consider Star Wars to be a movie that I have never seen for the “first time”. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t intimately familiar with every scene. I wish I could watch it now and not know what was going on.
Iirc one of the canon comic book series focuses on what vader was doing between III and IV and he was mostly in sith training and special jedi hunting missions for most of the time until IV and had minimal contact with the military. I still need to read it and am going off remembering the tvtropes page and a youtube video so don’t quote me on anything ever from now until the end of time.
It’s been a few years but I think Tarkin introduces Vader a few moments before the choke to the admiral (Motti is the name, BTW)
Even if he knew of Vader, knew of the force, he still didn’t really believe in it. If not shown to someone it is incredibly unbelievable. He definitely didn’t believe in the force being stronger than the death star, which was voiced and angered Darth Vader resulting in the choke.
Also, Motti was a pretty cool character. From the linked fandom page:
Whatever conclusions you ultimately draw about the incident taking place between myself and Lord Vader during yesterday morning’s briefing, he was wrong, and trying to crush someone else’s windpipe doesn’t make you any less wrong, if you’re wrong to begin with. Which he was. I do not concede the argument.
I’m going off what was in the movies and other than Coruscant there’s nothing to suggest there’s that many individuals. There are a lot of representatives in the senate but that doesn’t say much about how populated the planets are.
And, the Jedi had an actual HQ on the home planet of the republic, didn’t they?
EDIT: And as another counter-example, there’s not that many Secret Service agents but most people in Earth probably know they exist.
I am not familiar with star wars canon lore, but I am very familiar with astronomical data and I have a well-enough grasp of logistics. So I strongly doubt that any civilization would be able to administrate more than a few tens of thousands of star systems, no matter how efficient they are.
Suddenly that massive Galactic Senate Chamber seems cartoonishly tiny. Was the galactic Republic just a dictatorial empire to the high hundreds of millions of worlds/systems that didn’t have a senate pod from which to be heard/represented?
The Jedi by that point were as accessible as the heads of the Catholic Church. To most poor people throughout the galaxy, the Jedi didn’t give a shit about you or your suffering, notice how they didn’t do shit about slavery in the galaxy? To most people the Jedi were nothing but self righteous religious do nothings that live in a big palace
I know, I’m just pointing out it’s the same logic. My joke was that I was taking your joke too seriously, but I guess it didn’t come across.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
EDIT: Idk how to do my little shruggy guy on lemmy markdown. Does it read okay for everyone else? Three backslashes has worked on other markdown based forums I’ve used. Please people, lemmy needs lenny.
Edit 2: On further inspection this appears to be a Proton frontend issue. I’ll pursue it there.
Is it really so hard to believe a guy never met someone who only existed in tiny fractions of the galaxy 20 years before. I think its clearly a joke about people who are skeptical of religion (me).
It’s like asking storm troopers in the clone wars why would they shoot at a Jedi. They are people… Not droids. They made the logical leap a long time ago that the force is a fantasy and is to unlikely to exist, and by the time few of them saw it in real life… They couldn’t take back the first shot and were like… Fuck.
The main character farms water on a planet that is mostly sand, orbitting two stars. He trades with people who steal and refurbish scraps of metal, and gets shot at by people who ride around on giant buffalo like creatures that produce blue milk. I don’t think far away magics were taught in their education system when no one could perform them and his “uncle” only knows the religion as causing corruption and ending in the deaths of millions. Likely just thought of as fairy tales.
I’ve never met the Pope but people say he uses his special religious powers to turn bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ so they can consume it.
Fucking ballsy considering tons of Jedi existed when he was a kid.
“Tons”
The galactic empire (and the republic before it) spanned billions of inhabited star systems. If each world was billions or trillions of inhabitants that means the galactic population is 1018 or more people. There were only ~10,000 Jedi at their peak. The chances of any galactic citizen seeing a Jedi, unless they lived on Coruscant near the temple, are vanishingly small. They were mythical beings to almost everyone.
TBF a 9 yr old slaveboy on an outer rim planet knew what a Jedi was.
Yes, and with childlike naivety he believed those mystical heroes really exist.
An admiral of the imperial navy is above such childish myths.
Are you saying that scene was the first time that admiral ever met or heard of Darth Vader?
That’s what the scene implies. The whole scene makes no sense after the backstory that the prequels added.
The idea of the scene is that we, the viewer, have no idea what the force is yet. Just like character who learns the hard way. Because this is the first Star Wars movie and they haven’t even started calling it Episode 4 yet.
It makes much more sense when you view Jedi/Sith as the trope of the warrior monk who has achieved enlightenment. They have gained mystical powers beyond mortal ken etc, but mostly they used it to hit people with laser swords and public knowledge could dismiss a lot of that as physical training and conditioning.
You could also say that his lackey-force-choking binge hadn’t started yet, because in A New Hope he wasn’t searching for Luke, and in the intro crawl for Empire it describes him as obsessed. Maybe he hadn’t choked anybody till this one guy needled him and he realised he had to get the word out that he was a serious guy.
I consider Star Wars to be a movie that I have never seen for the “first time”. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t intimately familiar with every scene. I wish I could watch it now and not know what was going on.
Iirc one of the canon comic book series focuses on what vader was doing between III and IV and he was mostly in sith training and special jedi hunting missions for most of the time until IV and had minimal contact with the military. I still need to read it and am going off remembering the tvtropes page and a youtube video so don’t quote me on anything ever from now until the end of time.
It’s been a few years but I think Tarkin introduces Vader a few moments before the choke to the admiral (Motti is the name, BTW)
Even if he knew of Vader, knew of the force, he still didn’t really believe in it. If not shown to someone it is incredibly unbelievable. He definitely didn’t believe in the force being stronger than the death star, which was voiced and angered Darth Vader resulting in the choke.
Also, Motti was a pretty cool character. From the linked fandom page:
The audacity
If you want to play that way, technically using a 2000lb ton, you’d only need 20-30 Jedi for there to be “Tons”
I was looking for this kind of comment ready to make one if there was none. Thanks of absolving me of the duty.
More than that if the Jedi are Yoda-sized. Less if they’re Jabba-sized.
Hm, have Hutt-Jedi ever been explored in the canon or expanded universe? That sounds kinda interesting…
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Beldorion
I’m going off what was in the movies and other than Coruscant there’s nothing to suggest there’s that many individuals. There are a lot of representatives in the senate but that doesn’t say much about how populated the planets are.
And, the Jedi had an actual HQ on the home planet of the republic, didn’t they?
EDIT: And as another counter-example, there’s not that many Secret Service agents but most people in Earth probably know they exist.
I am not familiar with star wars canon lore, but I am very familiar with astronomical data and I have a well-enough grasp of logistics. So I strongly doubt that any civilization would be able to administrate more than a few tens of thousands of star systems, no matter how efficient they are.
The Senate chamber only holds like 2000 senators. So probably that many planets.
Suddenly that massive Galactic Senate Chamber seems cartoonishly tiny. Was the galactic Republic just a dictatorial empire to the high hundreds of millions of worlds/systems that didn’t have a senate pod from which to be heard/represented?
I wonder if you could improve that system by creating localised star sector governments, and divesting the currently centralized power to them?
Maybe it’s like the UN councils and the senate members are elected by the general assembly?
The Jedi by that point were as accessible as the heads of the Catholic Church. To most poor people throughout the galaxy, the Jedi didn’t give a shit about you or your suffering, notice how they didn’t do shit about slavery in the galaxy? To most people the Jedi were nothing but self righteous religious do nothings that live in a big palace
Found the imperial officer guys
Ah yes, “You have criticisms of liberalism so you must love Trump.”
I know someone will think I’m stretching with this but the parallels are so direct they can’t be avoided.
Bro it was a joke.
I know, I’m just pointing out it’s the same logic. My joke was that I was taking your joke too seriously, but I guess it didn’t come across.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
EDIT: Idk how to do my little shruggy guy on lemmy markdown. Does it read okay for everyone else? Three backslashes has worked on other markdown based forums I’ve used. Please people, lemmy needs lenny.
Edit 2: On further inspection this appears to be a Proton frontend issue. I’ll pursue it there.
It was intentionally absurd. I was planning on pointing out that Nuke the Whales is something an imperial officer would do. It’s all good fun.
Your shruggie seems ok on my end.
┐(´ー｀)┌
Right? And Han’s never heard of The Force.
Yea, I don’t think this George Lucas guy knew what he was doing.
Is it really so hard to believe a guy never met someone who only existed in tiny fractions of the galaxy 20 years before. I think its clearly a joke about people who are skeptical of religion (me).
It’s like asking storm troopers in the clone wars why would they shoot at a Jedi. They are people… Not droids. They made the logical leap a long time ago that the force is a fantasy and is to unlikely to exist, and by the time few of them saw it in real life… They couldn’t take back the first shot and were like… Fuck.
I think it’s hard to believe the fact that magic is a real thing wouldn’t get around in a common galactic civilization.
The main character farms water on a planet that is mostly sand, orbitting two stars. He trades with people who steal and refurbish scraps of metal, and gets shot at by people who ride around on giant buffalo like creatures that produce blue milk. I don’t think far away magics were taught in their education system when no one could perform them and his “uncle” only knows the religion as causing corruption and ending in the deaths of millions. Likely just thought of as fairy tales.
Do they not have the news on Tattooine?
I never said anything about meeting them. I’ve never met the Pope but I’ve heard of the guy.
I’ve never met the Pope but people say he uses his special religious powers to turn bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ so they can consume it.
I don’t believe that actually happens either.
George was good at story, not so good at worldbuilding, and he was only kind of good at stories by following the hero of a thousand faces archetype
Just because a man can lift the buddha statue doesn’t mean it’s god holding it down.
Yeah thanks yoda
“Just because the Buddha statue, a man can lift, a god is holding it down, it means not!”