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I firmly believe that one of the reasons we are where we are is because people have never believed that things could get like this. They truly believed that we would have bread and circuses forever no matter who was in power. (See your local idiot who say stupid ass things like "all politicians are bad so I just don’t bother voting) And they believed that the only thing that would change would be little things that they personally care about (I.E. abortion or their personal taxes going down or the deficit, which most of them don’t know what it is or means yet they bring it up to sound smarter than they are). They did not consider that there was any way the president could do any of the things that Trump has done. This includes Democrats and liberals and even leftists to a certain degree. No one truly believed that somebody could go for such a power grab as the President of the United States. Even now there are people who don’t believe that there’s any way they could lose their right to vote. As Trump is constantly attempting to push through his Save Act which would curtail tens of millions of people’s ability to vote if allowed to be signed into law.
It’s extra poignant that the original tumblr post is from Feb 22, 2017
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It still makes no sense for the Jedi to be forgotten in the same time. Han Solo, a traveling pilot who is older than the Empire, speaks of the famous galaxy wide peacekeepers like they’re a fairy tale.
When the original trilogy was shot, the plan was for those events to be much older than they ended up being. Then 20 years passed and the plan changed when it came time to actually write and shoot the prequal trilogy. IIRC the Clone Wars was supposed to have been a thing that started like 100+ years before A New Hope was set. Jedi, with their connection to the force, were able to live significantly longer so even though Obi-wan and Vader/Anakin appeared to be around 60 years old they would have actually been much older than they appeared. Part of why Luke would be so surprised that Obi-wan fought in the clone wars, like wow, that was SO long ago. Also, the Jedi were supposed to be a pretty secretive sect of basically monks working behind the scenes, not be super public with a temple at the capital and constantly showing up to any major conflict in the galaxy as envoy’s of the government to negotiate peace… But then things change IRL and suddenly the clone wars were happening when Luke was born, so like, 16-18 years ago and now Luke looks like a complete moron.
As for the people saying the Jedi were such a tiny portion of the population, most people probably never met one and therefore it makes sense they are forgotten about in the span of a human barely clawing his way out of adolescence… They were a small population comparatively, but they are kinda made integral to the running of the galaxy in the prequals. Almost like major politicians. People might not have met one, but they’d have to live under a rock and not consume ANY galactic media or news to not know of their existence.
It’d be like if 1/4 of all senators or members of parliament or whatever all over Earth all carried swords 24/7 and could jump 30 feet straight up or levitate things with their minds. And they have existed and been a part of world governments for several hundred years. And they turn up anywhere there is major conflict and deflect machine gun fire with their swords and “negotiate peace”. And they all disappeared in 2010. And almost nobody now in 2026 has heard of them or believes they really existed or really could jump 30 feet. That’d be a really tough propaganda and censorship campaign to pull off since the majority of the population can still remember watching it live on TV.
I mean, imagine if Colin Powell had stopped the second plane on 9/11 by chopping a wing off the plane with his sword, and then levitated it safely to the ground with his mind - and it was caught by news cameras from every station live broadcast to the world. And then in 2026 people say they don’t believe he existed, or if he did exist he couldn’t do those things.
Yea, those people would exist (obvious from the flat earth movement) but they would generally be regarded as crackpots to the general public.
The Jedi existed during Han’s lifetime but he’d never met one before and, more pertinently, he used to be an imperial flight cadet, where surely there was propaganda making the Jedi seem misguided and unimpressive.
he used to be an imperial flight cadet, where surely there was propaganda making the Jedi seem misguided and unimpressive
Then he should be able to remember them at least
Propaganda can heavily skew perception
Also crazy that Darth Vader seems to be a well known person who works for the empire who literally has and uses force powers in front of people. Even if they never saw a jedi they would still know at least 1 sith is alive. Like how grand moff thought they jedi were real, but they just all died.
Hey, kid, it ain’t that kind of movie.
- Harrison Ford to Mark Hamill after he expressed concern about his hair instantly drying the moment he was no longer submerged in grey water.
Mujahedeen in Afghanistan went from freedom fighters to terrorists we must destroy in about the same time.
But we still know that Al Qaeda existed 25 years after 9/11
Chewbacca literally is hundreds of years old and knew Yoda. Wtf wouldn’t he just be like, “Yes they’re real Han. I saw one behead two colleagues for taking a personal call.”
During the height of the Jedi Order, there were about 10,000 Jedi across the galaxy.
In a galaxy whose population measures about 400 quadrillion (number is an estimate, pulled from some nerds on StackExchange), yeah, the Jedi may as well be a fairy tale. Your probability of actually meeting one, if you aren’t doing something big and evil that requires direct Jedi intervention, is astronomically low.
This argument would be greatly helped if they weren’t constantly having all the characters run into each other in all the shows. It makes the universe feel smaller. But I do get what you’re saying and it’s my explanation for the “regular people don’t believe in Jedi anymore” thing. Along with the empire actively suppressing any support of them the whole time.
What works against that argument too is how politically active the Jedi are. Like a Jedi’s actual job up to the fall of the Republic is to be a galactic peace officer. Now I may have not ever met a KGB agent, and I have never lived while the KGB was still a thing, but I know they existed and had a huge impact on geopolitics. It’s just not possible that only 20 years after the rise of the Empire and the fall of the Jedi that everyone in the Star Wars galaxy would forget something like that.
Typically they are portrayed less as “KGB” and more like diplomats/mediators/peacekeepers (prior to clone wars where things went of the rails). Look at Ep 1. They sent 1 Jedi and his apprentice to deal with the trade federation blockading an entire planet. Over the course of those events the Jedi primarily dealt with the leaders of the two factions (most of whom were dead by the end of the prequels). Regular people wouldn’t have a ton of encounters with them when they operate that way and even if they did they didn’t see a lot of them “in action”. People did know of the Jedi but not the extent of their ability because the majority of them never witnessed anything like that. There would of course be isolated incidents where a Jedi helped a town or whatever and the people saw them but the empire would have mopped those up pretty quickly so even those having witnessed them would know to stfu about it.
But even little Ani on backwater Tattooine knew about them, it doesn’t add up.
Little skulblaka in backwater USA knew about dragons, but I had never seen one before or successfully convinced anyone that they were real despite a wealth of unrelated cultural works depicting them.
If I were asked to make up some numbers about it, I’d expect that maybe 60% of the galaxy had probably heard of a Jedi before. But none of them had ever seen one or met one. Nor had anybody they knew, or anybody those people knew.
People like Han Solo who frequently travel between planets and systems would probably be more likely to run into someone who had actually had dealings with a Jedi before. But also, maybe not. Han mostly runs with lowlifes, while Jedi usually interact with major story protagonists and/or antagonists, government officials and Sith and the like.
So it’s entirely possible that ‘everybody’ knew about the story of the Jedi, but they were so rare that most systems would go generations without ever interacting with one. Unless that system was involved with the Sith directly, in which case they probably have been told in briefings that the Jedi are both real and likely incoming, and also in which case many of the citizens of said system may not live to escape and tell anyone else about being rescued by Jedi.
Heh, skulblaka know about dragons of course
People like Han Solo who frequently travel between planets and systems would probably be more likely to run into someone who had actually had dealings with a Jedi before.
Jabba had direct dealings with Ahsoka and Anakin, but I can see younger people writing off the stories of force powers as just exaggerations.
They’re like intergalactic police, imagine if people claimed interpol agents could do magic, you’d think they’re making stuff up.
Of course, that doesn’t explain “Conan Antonio Motti” making fun of the force directly to Vader’s face, and getting force choked in return. That can’t have been the first time Vader had ever tried to murder an underling like that, yet he still acts like it’s made-up nonsense.
Of course, that doesn’t explain “Conan Antonio Motti” making fun of the force directly to Vader’s face, and getting force choked in return.
look I just think George made some mistakes with the prequels
He may have gone too far in a few places
You think there were mistakes with the prequels.
I think the prequels were a mistake.
We are not the same.
I used to think that as well, but the the sequels came out and I now wish we had more of the prequels instead
Without the prequels we never would have met Darth JarJar
and i keep trying to tell you the farting horse-like alien was essential to the story
🤣🤣🤣
How many kids believe in Santa Claus vs adults?
So if each planet has 10 billion people that’s 40 million senators. That room was big but I’m not sure it was that big. And also that’s one Jedi for every 40 trillion people? What good would that do even in the best case scenario?
The Jedi aren’t a galactic army, they’re a precision tool used in specific circumstances.
That doesn’t mean these numbers make any sense.
There’s also just so much more implication to “The Clone Wars” than what we actually got. When you ask me to imagine clone wars, I picture something like that David Tennant Doctor Who episode; countless clones, vat grown and thrown against waves of other opposing countless waves of clones. A self perpetuating war going on for longer than anyone can remember.
What we got was plastic toyset Clone-troopers™ fighting plastic toyset Droid Army™
No luck with those clone wars, then?
It’s just the one clone war, actually
Han acknowledges they exist, but dismisses their powers as “tricks and nonsense”.
Jabba calls Luke’s power a " Jedi mind trick"
So Jedi’s existence is acknowledged, but their abilities are considered apocryphal.
I always interpreted Han’s “simple tricks and nonsense” line to be referring to his destiny, not the Jedi. But I suppose referring to the Jedi makes more sense. Ford’s inflection just pushed the other way.
Hokey religions and ancient weapons < a blaster by your side.
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I think our perspective is a bit skewed because they’re the main characters. Even on Corusant during the height of the clone wars, average people just see the jedi as “guys with laser swords.” They don’t understand anything about the force or how it works, and it’s literally Jedi central. Out in the outer rim, most people probably haven’t seen a jedi and they would seem a lot more like fairy tales (or at least exaggerations so great that they might as well be completely false).
Out in the outer rim, most people probably haven’t seen a jedi and they would seem a lot more like fairy tales
Anakin was able to spot one instantly, and he was a slave on a planet so divorced from the Republic that they didn’t even take credits.
Han acknowledging the Jedi as a fairy tale would be an improvement, but in A New Hope he just straight up says “I’ve been all over the galaxy and never heard of any shit like that”
I actually agree with basically all your points. But the Han Solo fan and pedant in me has to protest one claim.
Han acknowledging the Jedi as a fairy tale would be an improvement, but in A New Hope he just straight up says “I’ve been all over the galaxy and never heard of any shit like that”
Han doesn’t say he’s never heard of the Jedi, rather he echoes the apparetly prevalent view point of Admiral Motti from earlier in the movie, referring to the Force/Jedi as a “hokey religion”. And then goes on to talk about it like it’s a bullshit legend:
I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe there’s one all-powerful Force controlling everything. There’s no mystical energy field that controls my destiny. It’s all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
Which, all the other massive plot holes in the prequels aside, would make sense in context. Canonically, Han was about 10 when Order 66 happened. So the fact that he has heard of the Jedi and the Force, but believes it’s all superstition and tall tales checks out.
Now, that I can get off that soap box… Yeah, the Prequels kinda felt like they were written by someone who had only heard the story of StarWars through the telephone game…
You’re surprised a slave child on a backwater world read stories about magical knights with laser swords coming to save people… and remembered them?
Seriously?
I’d say he is 100% the MOST likely type of person to remember stories about the Jedi. The Jedi are like Santa Claus.
Yeah it’s kind of all over the place. This is why prequels are, continuity wise, a pretty bad idea.
Han would have been a child when the Empire came to be so he’d have little memory of the Jedi, if at all (this is aside from the script chances of a young Han Solo supposedly on Kashyyyk during RotS). Plus the propaganda arm of the new Empire likely would have painted Jedi to be tricksters, the enemy etc.
But as for anyone of drinking age and above, if they were keeping up with the Republic news of the Clone Wars there likely would have seen a lot of. Eww of the Jedi Generals…unless Palpy had the foresight to completely gloss over the Jedi involvement
Most people never saw a Jedi. Jedi are so rare, they’re literally one or two per planet. A quick search claims 1 Jedi per 10 trillion beings, so roughly my 1 or 2 per planet claim. Add to that the Jedi just didn’t interact with the general populace and they become a fairy tale at the same time they exist, making Han’s attitude is easy to understand.
You don’t need to see a Jedi to know that they are real though
Its always surprising how quickly good things can turn to sith.
Ensithification?
It’s all bullsith.
Absolutely, now deal sith it.
And for now the Trump Empire only has Stormtroopers, imagine the day they unveil Darth Vader.
The return of Darth Mitch.
Somehow, Darth Turtle has returned.
Yeah it will be barron trump in a black suit of samurai armour. That guy’s pretty imposing
Samurai armor? You mean darth muskrat, shit lord.
It also makes references to “the before time, in the long long ago” ala South Park / Star Trek a whole lot more relatable.
Going back a little further than “the inauguration,” it just so happened that my kid was born in 2017 very close to the first inauguration that slowly built up the BS until Covid.
2016 and earlier feels like it could legitimately have been a previous life that I can still remember – and my wife and I are living in the same house and drive the same two cars as the few years before that!
damn, Franco outlasted the Sith empire.
Probably because the US didn’t bail Palpatine out.
To put it into perspective, we’ve got about 6 months to go before the 20th anniversary of the first iPhone being released.
My head-canon here is that time in the Star Wars universe is measured by something smaller than human (earthling) scale. Like if Coruscant has a 90-day year, or some short-lived species had an outsized influence on measuring time and/or standardized the galaxy’s calendar. Or maybe humans are one of the most long-lived species around. So, one or two human generations works out to be “a long time ago.”
