And for now the Trump Empire only has Stormtroopers, imagine the day they unveil Darth Vader.

The return of Darth Mitch.

Its always surprising how quickly good things can turn to sith.

Somehow, Darth Turtle has returned.

Absolutely, now deal sith it.

It's all bullsith.

damn, Franco outlasted the Sith empire.

Probably because the US didn't bail Palpatine out.

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.

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.

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).

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.

But even little Ani on backwater Tattooine knew about them, it doesn't add up.

You don't need to see a Jedi to know that they are real though

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"

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.

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?

look I just think George made some mistakes with the prequels

The Jedi aren't a galactic army, they're a precision tool used in specific circumstances.

Samurai armor? You mean darth muskrat, shit lord.

Yeah it's kind of all over the place. This is why prequels are, continuity wise, a pretty bad idea.

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.

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

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."

🤣🤣🤣

and i keep trying to tell you the farting horse-like alien was essential to the story

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™

You think there were mistakes with the prequels.

I think the prequels were a mistake.

We are not the same.

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.

To put it into perspective, we've got about 6 months to go before the 20th anniversary of the first iPhone being released.

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!

How many kids believe in Santa Claus vs adults?

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."

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...

Without the prequels we never would have met Darth JarJar

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.

That doesn't mean these numbers make any sense.

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.

No luck with those clone wars, then?

It's just the one clone war, actually

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.

Ensithification?

Heh, skulblaka know about dragons of course

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.

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.

He may have gone too far in a few places

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.

It's extra poignant that the original tumblr post is from Feb 22, 2017

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.

I used to think that as well, but the the sequels came out and I now wish we had more of the prequels instead