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Ever wondered about the true fighting prowess of the Ewoks or the complex emotional lives of droids? This video explores the major plot points and character details that are often ignored in the Star Wars universe.
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00:00The Star Wars franchise has been around for a whopping 45 years, with 11 live-action films
00:04hitting cinemas during that time, plus the animated Clone Wars feature. That's quite a lot of movie,
00:09and yet there still hasn't been enough screen time to give every tiny detail the attention it
00:14deserves. A recent Reddit thread discussed that very subject, with Star Wars fans bringing up
00:18various details that were either explored too little or not explored at all. I'm Emil from
00:23WhatCulture and these are 10 Star Wars details that are almost never mentioned.
00:2810. The Impact of Owen and Beru's Death on Luke
00:31The final scene of Revenge of the Sith shows Obi-Wan Kenobi handing an infant Luke Skywalker
00:36to Owen and Beru Lars, who go on to raise the boy like he's their own. In A New Hope,
00:40Owen and Beru are murdered by Imperial soldiers, with Luke stumbling across the grisly sight of
00:45their charred corpses after returning from a chat with Obi-Wan. Though Luke is visibly shaken when
00:49he discovers what has happened to Owen and Beru, he immediately sets out on the path to becoming a
00:54Jedi Knight, and the impact that their deaths surely had on him is never mentioned again.
00:58Luke seems sadder about Obi-Wan's death, a guy who he barely knows, than he does about the deaths of
01:03a
01:04couple who, for all intents and purposes, were his real parents. With their deaths being so brutal,
01:09you'd imagine the image of their crispy bodies would gnaw at his insides constantly,
01:13especially considering he never got to say goodbye, or thank you, or anything. From a certain point of
01:18view, it's quite cold. 9. How Palpatine built a Star Destroyer fleet without anybody noticing
01:25How? How do I even? Let's do it anyway. Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker did such a bad job
01:32of
01:32explaining things that you had to go and play Fortnite if you wanted more context of the story.
01:36Even when the movie did explain things, these explanations were lazy, such as Poe's regularly
01:41memed line about how Palpatine has risen from the grave. Somehow, Palpatine has returned.
01:47Thank you, JJ. Clays things up. Something else the movie doesn't explain is how exactly Palpatine
01:52managed to build a massive fleet of souped-up Star Destroyers, a hugely important detail that
01:56the movie glosses over entirely. Where did he get the materials? How did he equip each ship with the
02:01planet-killing laser? How, on Exegol, did he finance this whole venture? With this fleet being the
02:07centrepiece of Palpatine's plan, it's unforgivable that the movie doesn't even try to explain
02:11it. And though extra backstory is available for those who want to do some homework, it's
02:15a total head-scratch for folks who only watch the films.
02:198. Droids can possess human levels of sentience Some of the most beloved characters in Star
02:25Wars are droids, with the likes of C-3PO, R2-D2 and BB-8 delivering many highlight moments in
02:31the movies they appear in. Despite this popularity though, something the movies never really discuss
02:35is that droids can possess incredibly high levels of sentience and yet they're often treated as
02:40emotionless, disposable or even just as jokes. Take C-3PO in Return of the Jedi, who seems terrified
02:46at the prospect of working for Jabba and even expresses self-doubt, wondering aloud if he did something
02:51to warrant Luke leaving him behind.
02:57Oh, 3PO, come here, give me a hug, if you can feel it.
03:01In that same movie we even see a gonk droid screaming with pain while being tortured, which
03:06makes you think about all the other times droids have been damaged or mistreated and how they
03:10must have felt. Though the concept of droid rights was touched on in Solo A Star Wars Story, it's an
03:14issue the movies have never done justice, despite the crucial role various droids have played in almost
03:19every single film. Droid rights now!
03:237. Ewoks are highly skilled fighters
03:26Mention the Ewoks to a casual Star Wars fan and they'll probably start talking about how adorable
03:31they are, which is fair enough. Just look at their fluffy little faces. But look, something people
03:36never talk about and something that, if their reputation as lovable plush toys is anything to go
03:40by, the movies haven't made clear, is that the Ewoks are among the most skilled fighters in the Star Wars
03:45galaxy. Just look at how they completely outclass the technologically superior empire in Return of
03:51the Jedi. They coordinate their ambush outside the shield generator perfectly, starting off by using
03:56R2 and 3PO as a distraction and following this up by forcing the Imperial troopers to split up and
04:01run into the woods, right where the Ewoks want them. And that's not to mention how bloodthirsty they are,
04:06with the little beasts fully intending to dine on Han until 3PO's magic convinces them otherwise.
04:11The Ewoks look fairly harmless and the majority of their scenes are played in a light-hearted way,
04:16which greatly distracts from their brutality and combat efficiency. Teddy bears, they most certainly
04:21are not.
04:236. The destruction of the Death Star brought the Empire's followers closer together
04:27The destruction of the first Death Star at the end of A New Hope was a huge victory for the
04:32Rebel
04:32Alliance, but if you look at it from the Empire's point of view, then it was nothing short of an
04:36act of
04:37terrorism. The movies never touch on the fact Luke murdered millions of innocent people when he blew
04:41up the planet killing machine. All those janitors, technicians, what about the chefs, who were only
04:46working for the Empire because it was a job or because they were too scared to leave. Further still,
04:50it's highly likely that this mass murder actually brought people from the Empire closer together,
04:54and possibly even galvanised the additional support for the Empire across the galaxy.
04:59Though this angle was somewhat explored in 2017's Star Wars Battlefront II game, the movies never take the
05:05time to ponder such interesting details, with the ramifications of the Rebels victories never being looked at from the
05:11opposing point of view. It almost makes you want a Taken 2 style spin-off, where the father of a
05:16murdered Death Star employee hunts down Luke to enact his revenge. Go on Disney, you know you want to.
05:225. The Jedi are incredibly rare mythical beings
05:25The Jedi are prominently featured throughout the entire Skywalker saga, from Obi-Wan and Anakin in the
05:30prequels to Luke in the originals and Rey in the sequels. This ends up giving off the impression that
05:35there's a Jedi on every street corner, making it easy to forget that in actual fact they are mythical
05:40beings, and that the vast majority of people in the galaxy have never actually seen one.
05:45Luke Skywalker. I thought he was a myth.
05:48Because we follow one of these lightsaber-wielding heroes for each of the nine core movies, it does
05:53feel they're way more common than they actually are. Remember, the Jedi Order is fairly reclusive
05:58during the prequel era, and pretty much extinct for the next six movies.
06:024. The dark side of the Force isn't inherently evil
06:06Force users are divided into two camps, the Jedi and the Sith, or the light and the dark.
06:12The movies draw a firm line between these two camps, telling us that the dark side is evil,
06:16and that light, well, is… right. Jedi want that on a t-shirt.
06:20While most on-screen evidence points to this being true, a notion that isn't fleshed out is that the
06:25dark side in isolation isn't necessarily evil. Rather, it's the users of the dark side who abuse its
06:30power for their own selfish or chaotic intentions. Look at someone like Count Dooku. Though he wields
06:36the dark side of the Force, he hasn't let emotions like anger and hatred corrupt him,
06:41like they have for so many other Sith. Instead, he uses his dark side abilities with control.
06:46He's clearly far more level-headed than the likes of Vader and the Emperor,
06:49proof that dark side users need not become mustache-twirling megalomaniacs.
06:54And then there's Dark Vectivus, who also practiced the dark side but never let it consume him and could save
06:59off that destructive temptation. Despite what the movies might tell us, wielding the dark side doesn't
07:03automatically mean that a person is evil or that they will always succumb to the lure of power.
07:08It just depends on the person.
07:113. How Maz Kanata acquired Luke's lightsaber
07:14When Maz Kanata pulls Luke Skywalker's blue lightsaber from a box and hands it to Finn in The
07:18Force Awakens, Han Solo asks her where she got it. Her response? A good question, for another time.
07:24In hindsight, her refusal to give an explanation feels startlingly similar to Poe's,
07:28somehow, Palpatine returned. Sorry, I can't even say any more.
07:32And though this particular detail arguably isn't as important, it's nonetheless frustrating that the
07:37movies never reveal how Maz acquired a lightsaber that was presumed lost deep within Cloud City.
07:42Some fans have headcanonized that because Maz was a pirate queen, she acquired it via her
07:46connections to the smuggling world. After all, she's lived a long life, so had plenty of time to
07:50stumble across it. Other Star Wars media has discussed the lightsabers post-Luke Fate 2,
07:55revealing that a random Ugnaught found it on Cloud City and kept it from being destroyed.
07:59But as for how it made its way into Maz's hands, that's a good question, for another time.
08:052. Dismemberment makes Force users less powerful
08:07Though the whole midichlorian thing has been largely swept under the rug in recent years,
08:12it's still part of Star Wars canon. Midichlorians which live inside the body's cells are linked to
08:17force potential, so the higher the midichlorian count, the more force potential an individual
08:21will have. So what would happen if that count was suddenly reduced? In a 2005 interview, George
08:27Lucas himself spoke about that idea, discussing how dismemberment would affect a Jedi or a Sith's
08:32force abilities, stating Anakin actually became less powerful after Obi-Wan chopped him into bits.
08:38Lucas went on to explain that the Emperor viewed Luke as a primo version of Anakin,
08:42simply because his body was more intact, and this was why he offered the younger Skywalker the chance to
08:46join him. Despite this idea coming straight from the horse's mouth, not a single Star Wars film
08:51has ever delved into it, which is bizarre considering how the franchise's two main characters both suffer
08:56dismemberment at various points. 1. The Severity of the Republic's Geonosis Defeat
09:01The arena battle in Attack of the Clones is a terrific spectacle, but the ramifications of
09:06its outcome are severely underplayed throughout the rest of the prequels. To recap, Jedi Master Mace
09:11Windu leads a strike team into the Geonosis arena to rescue Anakin, Obi-Wan and Padme,
09:15only to be met by an army of battle droids. An all-out brawl ensues and many Jedi are slaughtered,
09:21with the survivors being rescued by Yoda, who whisks them away with some rather handy gunships.
09:26Despite hundreds of Jedi entering the arena, there's only a handful of them left when Yoda
09:30shows up, meaning a vast majority of what was supposed to be the most formidable fighting
09:34force in the galaxy was killed within minutes. Even worse, Mace tells Yoda before the battle,
09:39I'll take what Jedi we have left, implying the ones in the arena were all the Jedi that remained.
09:44Weirdly though, the rest of the prequels failed to convey how catastrophic it was that so many Jedi
09:49died in such a needless manner. I'm afraid to say there's not much we can do about this now,
09:54but let's just hope that Palpatine somehow doesn't return.