19 years (the established time period between Episodes III and IV) is actually a pretty long time to be honest, and as soon as Palpatine became Emperor all Jedi influence in the Senate was eradicated. He sent out troops to hunt down and murder anyone who ever had knowledge of Jedi lore, and 19 years is a long time to be hunted. Only especially skilled Jedi like Obi-Wan and Yoda could ever have survived such a long-running period on the run. I think it simply became a case that by that time, there were so few actually accurate sources of the Jedi's existence (they had pretty much all been either murdered by Palpatine's forces or press-ganged into his forces so they couldn't divulge their secrets) that the majority of the galaxy who remained alive started to wonder if they ever existed at all. To be honest I actually prefer the concept of Midichlorians to the wishy-washy 'energy field that binds all things' nonsense, because it helps to ground the franchise into science fiction proper. I don't like the 'space fantasy' gimmick that they tried to make the Original Trilogy adhere to back in the 70s because it adds to the Flash Gordon campness that the OT already exudes. Still better being that low bar!
What about the former senators who directly worked with jedi? What about criminals like Jabba who clearly had experience with them? What about those random guys from the trade federation who were aware enough about Jedi and their powers to know they should only send droides at Qui-Gon & Obi-Wan? What about that alien-fly-thing who owned Anakin & knew that force tricks didn't work on him? On that note, what about various other sects of force users who weren't jedi/sith and were too small to be hunted down by Palpatine cuz they were just some local cult on some backwater planet? Knowledge of the force, and at the very least the jedi as a sect, should not have been that simple to completly exterminate. Not to mention it seems to have been quite widespread, at least among people of power like Jabba, Senators etc. If only because these would regularly have run-ins with them. Don't get me wrong, that the order is dismantled sure. It's even believable they've been hit so hard that there aren't more than a few stragglers left. But the complete removal of all knowledge is just kinda weird. Especially given how widespread it is and that certain races know they are more or less suspectible to it. Honestly the whole "palpatine was just that awesome at killing all jedi and surpressing all knowledge" just feels like a stretch. I like camp space fantasy The midicholorians I mostly dislike because so little is done with em. It's just sorta there for no apparent reason and then never mentioned again. Either go for magic space energy nonsense or go for space bugs that sit in your bloodstream. But regardless of what option you choose, own it.
You were taking too long! You should watch them. Episode II is the weakest of the Prequels, but Episode III is by far the best. Episode III (outside of the Anakin-Padme dialogue) is pretty solid. Ahsoka is significantly better than Jar Jar. As is Rebels, which has its moments.
*whispers ethereally into subconscious* watch The Clooooone Wars... Also we seem to have forgotten that there’s a far better thread to continue this discussion in!
Actually Han knew about the Jedi. The Imperial officers knew about Darth Vader's "religion." The only person who didn't know was Luke. His uncle is not going to tell him. Tatooine only has a few thousand people on it. They could plausible not know about the Jedi. The mystical knights who never bothered to fly to Tatooine and save them.
The guy who owned anakin who lived on Tatooine seemed to know enough about em to tell em to bugger off with their mind tricks. And he was just a random alien. And doesn't Han immeadiatly dismiss them as childerens tales? 20 years is a bit much to fade that far into the land of fairy tales. Anyway, point being is that the publicly available knowledge about the jedi seemingly completly dissapearing in 20 years is inconsistent at best, and an outright plothole at worst. Which was what bothered me most about the prequels.
If you want a good episode for a taster try S2E5 - Landing at Point Rain. I will now try to avoid continuing to derail this thread!
They would either have been forced to swear to secrecy by Palpatine on pane of death or be assassinated by him. Remember Palpatine was dictator for life. In Jabba’s case, he was alive during the Prequels era anyway (Hutts have a very long lifespan) and at that time their power was so great the Empire couldn’t afford to fight both them and the Rebel Alliance at once. They all were killed by Anakin in Episode III We don’t know how long Toydarians live for, so Watto may have died of old age by that time. Palpatine didn’t do it all on his own, he had dark-side-trainee Inquisitors and other followers to do a lot of his dirty work for him during the Imperial age. Rather than Palpatine himself destroying all knowledge of them, think of it as the entire Imperial armed forces doing it.
I’m still... 675 posts away. I’ve got my work cut out. However, I’ve recently managed to accrue 8K likes! Thanks to you all for your continued appreciation!
Really all of em? And all their confidants? And every senator family or ruling family of a world, both active and those fallen down a peck or two, who've been ruling for centuries and presumably told their succesors about the Jedi? And every royal guard organisation who've learned about their existance at some point and kept datafiles in case they ever needed to deal with a jedi? The prequels era was 20 years ago, I'd assume plenty of crimelords would still be alive, long lived hutt or not. And given that Jedi frequently get send to deal with particular nasty syndicates I'd assume especially the more powerfull ones would be aware of them. Plus, even a barely trained jedi would be worth his weight in gold to say a smuggling ring, imagine how easy it is to pass customs when you can just mindtrick them.So I'd imagine several of them would try to get a rogue jedi on their side, or to hide every force sensitive kid they come across to absorb them into their own ranks before the jedi find em. My point is more that they were two random lords within the trade federation. It's to illustrate how widespread the knowledge must have been. I'd assume he's not the last of his species. They can't even take down the rebels and you want me to believe they can thought police the entire empire? Every database, both private, corperate and govermental? Every crime syndacite that had to deal with a jedi or got its own rogue force user? Every naturally force sensitive race? Every force cult on every single backwater planet, some of which haven't seen space travel in decades? Every family of planetary rulers, galactic senators etc. with a lineage of centuries or millenia who's been told about the Jedi just in case? Every military who's either fought against or with force users? Every random individual who's had a personal connection with Jedi in the past ~50 years or so cuz they served as a mercenary/criminal/etc. connection for a jedi? The childeren of those individuals who got taught the cool story about that time dad killed a big alien with a magic space knight? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they can remove it from most official public records (some public records would probably escape them though, there's a 1.3 million planets after all, and only so many inquisitors). But private records or (secret) military records would be far harder to expunge, even with the help of his inquisitors. And that's just official records, that still does nothing to surpress the actuall knowledge people have. And 20 years is too short for it to fade into the realm of fairy tales, even if you just look at humans and ignore the races that can become 100's of years old or those that are so naturally force sensitive that anything less than wiping them out wouldn't be enough. 4