OT plothole I hadn't thought about

http://www.cracked.com/article_16625_p2.html

Cracked.com is hilarious, just btw, but i was reading this list of gaping plot holes, and they have this to say about star wars episode 5. Stumped me. How do we explain that one?

#1.Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

We had to make this number one, not because of the size of the plot hole, but because it's friggin' Star Wars. That's right nerds, the indisputably best one of the series has a pretty gaping hole of its own.

The Plot:

You know the plot. Don't play that game.

The Hole:

So there's the famous sequence where Luke gets trained by Yoda on Yoda's shithole of a planet. To break up the sequence, the film cuts to the Millennium Falcon getting chased by the Empire to Lando's cloud city. When they arrive, they get captured, at which point Luke has finished his training.

Well, that doesn't work. Were they chased for months? Or was Luke trained in an afternoon? Either we were spared some extended scenes on board the Millennium Falcon featuring starvation and debates about when they'd have to eat Chewbacca, or becoming a Jedi is easier than getting a cub scout merit badge.

Pictured: The entire Jedi training process

The latter explanation seems more plausible, as it just reveals Luke to be an even whinier ***** than he seemed. Talk about ungrateful, he's getting taught God-like abilities in about six hours, and he complains through literally every single one of them. It also means Yoda's insistence that Jedis start their training as young children isn't because the training's such a long arduous process, but because he's amused by the idea of children knowing how to choke each other with their minds.

Now it's true that when Luke tries to leave, Yoda insists the training isn't over. But when Luke returns to Planet Shithole in Return of the Jedi to finish it, Yoda waves him off and tells him there's nothing else to learn.

Then it turns out the final test Luke has to pass to become a Jedi is to defeat Darth Vader, the most powerful Jedi in the universe which kind of seems like a huge leap in difficulty after his one-day training session. That'd be like if the final stage of your driving test was to win the Indy 500.

So to answer the question, at what point did George Lucas stop paying attention? It looks like it was part way through the second movie.

I love Cracked...

I don't remember the exact length of time that Luke spent on Dagobah, but it was longer than what it seemed like in the film. Han is flying on sublight engines to travel from planet to planet, so it is understandable that it takes forever to get to Bespin and travel through the asteroid field. We also don't know how long Han hid out in the asteroid.

ESB just kind of gave us the sequence of events, not how long it took.

I didn't realize they traveled from planet to planet. Makes sense then. I had thought they decided the only safe place to go was Bespin, so they flew straight there.
The whole reason for going there was because the hyperdrive was out, so that could very well explain THAT time lapse. If they took months getting there though, how did Vader just happen to just show up right before they arrived?

I guess that falls under huge coincidences, and we always must allow for plenty of those.

Probably because Vader did actually know where they were headed, took him time too.

well all explanations aside, this always was indeed one of the biggest oddities in the whole series making the jedi training seem like nothing, I think Lucas later on just thought 'ah screw it, if you got a lot of midicholoreans (or whatever it's called) you become insta-win'

I didn't quite mean they were planet-hopping, Truejedi. But from Hoth to the asteroid field to Bespin by sublight thrusters? Not a speedy trip, even for the Falcon.

And they forgot the fact that Luke trained on his own for several months between ESB and ROTJ...

The Falcon getting to Bespin is by far the bigger plot hole. Luke is still a Padawan until the very end of ROTJ anyway; he's hardly an uber-Jedi.

Still kinda strange how the barely trained Padawan got a hit on Vader. Inretrospect, Luke is far more powerful than what he seems to be. After seeing the kinda stuff in TFU, the fact that Luke actually managed to hit Vader is impressive. And plot-strange.

Originally posted by truejedi
I didn't realize they traveled from planet to planet. Makes sense then. I had thought they decided the only safe place to go was Bespin, so they flew straight there.
The whole reason for going there was because the hyperdrive was out, so that could very well explain THAT time lapse. If they took months getting there though, how did Vader just happen to just show up right before they arrived?

I guess that falls under huge coincidences, and we always must allow for plenty of those.

LOL, don't you know? with the force, there are no coincidences....

Cracked is the shit. And, anyway, we all know that Luke doesn't become a real Jedi during the events of the OT. It's plausible that 'your training is complete' simply means that he is emotionally ready to face Darth Vader.

It's plausible that Yoda and Obi-Wan were lying about there being no good in Vader, possibly thinking about Padme's 'there's still good in him' line. Perhaps they simply wanted him to attack Vader with his full strength? Perhaps they anticipated Vader would be emotionally conflicted fighting Luke? Perhaps they anticipated the Emperor would encourage Vader not to go all-out on Luke's ass?

There are many plausible explanations. I'm 100% sure, though, that Yoda never thought for one second that Luke was truly powerful enough to face Vader on equal terms.

And especially not the Emperor. When they were looking down from Force Heaven and saw Luke about to get killed by Palpatine without having taken out either him or Vader, they musta been PISSED.

Or disappointed at how stupid Luke turned out to be.

Unless they knew Vader would turn on his master, which is rather unlikely. Or not.

Yeah...

When he threw his lightsaber away they probably facepalm'd.

"All that training, for nothing it was. Now wholly ****ed we all shall be."

Yeah, though they- after witnessing Luke's pathetic personality first hand- probably didn't give a **** about what was happening. So it was more like "A good show this is. Pass the popcorn, young Kenobi, you must."

Originally posted by Lucien A
Still kinda strange how the barely trained Padawan got a hit on Vader. Inretrospect, Luke is far more powerful than what he seems to be. After seeing the kinda stuff in TFU, the fact that Luke actually managed to hit Vader is impressive. And plot-strange.

TFU's mistake then. GL is very clear on the matter- Vader is crippled.

Being 80% of Palpatine, which Lucas also said, is pretty impressive.

For a lousy cripple.

I hate the percentages concept that GL arbitrary busted out. Because Vader is 80% of Sidious, does that mean his Force pushes have 80% of the total force that Sidious' do? How do you quantify 80% of Sidious?

And which Sidious does it mean, RotJ or DE? It better mean RotJ, cuz that's just ridiculous otherwise. 50% would have been more appropriate.