Top10 Star Wars Details That Were Clearly Not Planned

We couldn’t tell you the odds even if we wanted to. Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the Top 10 Star Wars Details That Were Clearly Not Planned For. For this list, we’ll be looking at the plot points and other elements about the “Star Wars” franchise that were obviously tacked on instead of being planned from the beginning. Since we’ll be dealing with some important plot points, there may be spoilers ahead, though really, who hasn’t seen the “Star Wars” movies already?

Anakin Skywalker uses a lightsaber during the Clone Wars. However, after turning to the dark side, he loses it in a duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi. Years later, Obi-Wan gives Anakin’s son, Luke, the lightsaber. Ever further down the line, the enigmatic alien Maz Kanata passes the weapon onto Finn, which eventually ends up in Rey’s hands. With us so far? Good, because we actually left something out: Luke lost the lightsaber when Darth Vader cut his hand off at Cloud City. While Rey ending up with it is a cool way of passing the torch, there are still a few holes that need to be filled here.

#9: Boba Fett is Basically a Prototype Stormtrooper

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A badass looking bounty hunter, Boba Fett is a character fans have wanted to see more of for decades. However, fans were understandably surprised when they finally learned more about the enigmatic figure in the “Star Wars” prequels. Boba is actually a clone of his “father” Jango, who also happens to be the template for the clone army that became the backbone of the Empire’s stormtroopers. Huh. We did not see that coming – and we’re pretty sure George Lucas didn’t either! It really comes across as a ham-fisted way to tie elements of the franchise together.

#8: No One Remembers R2-D2

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R2-D2, the lovable little astromech droid, encounters a large number of characters throughout the franchise, starting off stationed on the ship Queen Padmé Amidala uses to flee Naboo. He then proceeds to go on many adventures with Anakin and Obi-Wan, even tagging along to Tatooine, Luke’s future home world. Yet, no one seems to recognize R2 in the original trilogy. C-3PO is a bit more understandable, given that most protocol droids look alike and he changes his appearance over time, but R2’s remains the same, and rather distinctive, all the way through.

#7: The Death Star Was an Inside Job

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In the first “Star Wars” film, the Death Star, one of the most powerful fictional weapons ever devised, is famously destroyed by a single shot to a specific weak spot. However, in “Rogue One” this is finally explained as being the result of sabotage. Galen Erso, one of the weapon’s chief designers, sabotages the development by including the flaw that allows its relatively simple destruction. While this explanation does make sense, it’s hardly likely that George Lucas intended for it to be an inside job from the beginning, considering it took nearly forty years, and someone else’s script, to explain it onscreen.

#6: Leia Remembers Her Mother Who Died in Childbirth

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In “Return of the Jedi,” Luke asks Leia about her mother (who unbeknownst to her, is their mother). Leia replies that she doesn’t remember much, as she was very young when her mother died. That’s certainly true, as Padmé died in childbirth. Now, granted, it’s likely that Leia meant her adopted mother, who she believed at the time to be her real mother. While it’s not a plot hole, it still could have been executed better on Lucas’ part. Padmé didn’t have to die; she could’ve just gone into hiding from her husband who tried to kill her and their unborn children!

#5: C-3PO Was Built by Anakin Skywalker

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If we had to pick two characters from the first three “Star Wars” films who seemed the least likely to share a history together, it’d have to be Darth Vader and C-3PO. In “The Phantom Menace,” it’s revealed that young Anakin Skywalker built the fussy protocol droid. He not only spends years with C-3PO during the Clone Wars, but also meets the droid again many years later without recognizing him. George Lucas clearly liked creating symmetry in his story, but that comes at the price of making the galaxy a really small place, and at the expense of our sense of disbelief.

Speaking of weird symmetry, the prequels establish that just like Luke, Anakin Skywalker is also from Tatooine, and dreams of escaping the desert planet for a life of adventure. While the parallels are nostalgic and comfortably familiar, it does raise the question of why Obi-Wan would choose to hide Darth Vader’s son on his home planet. When you put someone in witness protection, you don’t send them to the hometown of whoever you’re hiding them from, without so much as changing their name! Sure, Anakin hated Tatooine, but that’s a big risk to take with Luke’s life.

#3: Darth Vader Being Luke’s Father

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Arguably the most famous plot twist in movie history, and yet it’s one that wasn’t originally going to happen at all! The first screenwriter Leigh Brackett intended to have Luke meet the spirit of his dead father while training with Yoda. However, George Lucas went another route, which, while it worked out more interestingly, was certainly not planned for or set up very well. And don’t give us any of that “from a certain point of view” nonsense! Even the final shooting script didn’t have this plot point in it, instead featuring the revelation that it was Obi-Wan who killed Luke’s father.

Prior to the first prequel film, the Force is depicted as a pseudo-religious concept that binds the universe together. However, “The Phantom Menace” reveals that a person’s strength with the force can be measured by testing someone’s body for midi-chlorians – intelligent microscopic life forms that have a connection with the Force. Yet, the original trilogy had people treat the Force like a quasi-mystical concept that hardly anyone believed in. So, if there’s a test that proves its existence, why don’t more people believe in it?

#1: Luke & Leia Being Siblings

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Skywalker familial relations really seem quite ad-hoc in retrospect. “Return of the Jedi” reveals that Luke and Leia are brother and sister, despite little buildup previously. In fact, the first two “Star Wars” films seemed geared more towards creating a love triangle between Leia, Luke, and Han. Leigh Brackett’s original “Empire” draft also called for Luke to have a sister, though it wasn’t Leia; instead being a character called Nellith. Regardless of the seeds in “Empire,” though, we doubt very much whether George Lucas intended them to be siblings from the beginning, particularly given that kiss “for luck.”