5 Awkward Moments 'The Star Wars' Franchise Tried To Fix
For as much as people love them, the Star Wars movies have gotten rather awkward from time to time. There's stuff like Luke and Leia's near twincest, or everything George Lucas has said out loud since 1994. This universe isn't just made up of movies, though. It's also comprised of books, comics, video games, and even soul-destroying dance parties. Sometimes the Star Wars empire has circled back to try to make sense of the more unwieldy aspects of the franchise, to mixed results. Look at how ...
A Comic Revealed How Anakin Was Conceived
The Awkward Scene:
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In The Phantom Menace, young Anakin Skywalker brings a bunch of randos he's just met home for dinner. Surprisingly, his impoverished mom is up for feeding these mysterious strangers, and even confiding oddly personal information. When Qui-Gon gets all Maury Povich and asks who Anakin's father is, she replies that he ... doesn't have one?
Instead of chalking this up as a one-night stand, as most of us would, the Jedi master takes her at her word and guesses she was secretly impregnated by midi-chlorians -- the microscopic (and apparently horny) organisms that allow humans to use the Force. No one ever mentions this again, for some reason.
The Fix:
In a scene that was thankfully deleted from Revenge Of The Sith, Senator Palpatine reveals to Anakin that he "used the power of the Force to will the midi-chlorians to start the cell divisions that created ." In other words, he used magic sperm to knock up Ani's mom. But that backstory was recently made official by the comic series Darth Vader: Dark Lord Of The Sith. In the big finale, Vader goes on a psychedelic Force trip and witnesses Palpatine's creepy psychic insemination. The dude shows up like the Ghost of Christmas Future and puts a Force bun in Shmi's oven.
It's hard to say whether or not the Star Wars canon (or really, the world in general) is better with this image in it.
Related: This Is Probably The Dumbest 'Star Wars' Deleted Scene
Lucas Created Those Bug Aliens In Attack Of The Clones Because Of A Scene From Clerks
The Awkward Scene:
Luke Skywalker seemed more distressed that he couldn't pick up some goddamn power converters than he did after taking hundreds of thousands of lives by destroying the Death Star. But those were all evil Imperial types, right? But the second Death Star was still under construction when it got blown up by the Rebels. Surely a lot of the people killed were merely civilian contractors who probably didn't even have sinister British accents. This point was famously debated by Dante and Randal in Kevin Smith's Clerks.
The Fix:
George Lucas actually addressed this problem. In Attack Of The Clones, we learn that the disgusting bug aliens the Geonosians were the ones who designed the Death Star. In the DVD commentary, Lucas suggests that this resolves the complaint from Clerks, since they were "probably contracted to build the Death Star." Of course, this directly contradicts the previously established backstory that the Death Star was built by enslaved Wookiees. ( Some with diarrhea.)
Anyway, Lucas' solution was to make it so that the only contractors killed in Return Of The Jedi would have looked like cartoons from an insecticide commercial -- or as he puts it, "just a bunch of large termites." They sure seem sentient, and probably have families at home, but you're right, George, fuck those bugs!
Related: 12 Bizarre Inspirations Behind Star Wars Movie Characters
The Last Jedi Novelization Tries To Explain A Controversial Scene From The Force Awakens
The Awkward Scene:
A lot of people took issue with Rey's quick mastery of the Force in The Force Awakens, either out of toxic bro misogyny or more general confusion. Without getting into the Endorian space weeds about how powerful Rey is, in one perplexing moment, she mind-tricks a stormtrooper into freeing her from captivity. In retrospect, it makes you wonder why the Empire never hired Jabba the Hutt and Watto the Flying Stereotype for all their security needs.
How did Rey even know the Jedi mind trick was a thing? She lived in isolation, was raised by a bulbous garbage-monger, and thought Luke Skywalker was as real as Santa Claus until like a day before this scene.
The Fix:
Because only literature can fully poeticize Kylo Ren's glistening abdomen and Luke Skywalker's taste for lactating sea monsters, Lucasfilm released a novelization of The Last Jedi. The book takes time to explain just how Rey knew how to pull off this trick. In an earlier scene, Kylo tries to read her mind, but she turns the tables and starts reading his mind. The book reveals that in that moment, she had "seen more -- far more," and "even accessed some of the powers at his command." Kind of like "if his training had become hers." Great. Now no one ever needs to argue about Star Wars again.
Related: THAT Controversial 'Star Wars' Scene Is Different On Disney+
The Awkward Scene:
Those of us who have watched the original Star Wars over and over again are intimately familiar with even the smallest background details, like how IG-88 is apparently made out of beverage equipment. Even the Special Edition crammed full of CGI upgrades forgot to make Vader's lightsaber not look like an old broom handle in one shot.
Similarly, there's an infamous moment in Star Wars in which a stormtrooper smacks his head on a door like a common Tim Allen character.
It's obviously a blooper, but come to think of it, concussions might be the best explanation for why all these guys are such lousy shots.
The Fix:
In real life, the reason this dude carelessly banged his helmet was that he had an "upset stomach," but a recent short story collection decided this needed an in-universe justification. From A Certain Point Of View retells the events of Star Wars from the POVs of a host of supporting characters. Most famously, one tale reveals that Greedo and Han Solo were secretly part of a gross love triangle. Then there's the story "Bump" -- which isn't about Sy Snootles' coke problem, but rather TD-110, the trooper who hurt his noggin.
The story reveals that TD-110 had just returned from a mission to Tatooine, and he was in fact the same stormtrooper we'd earlier seen get mind-tricked by Obi-Wan. He walked straight into the door because that's the moment the "fog cleared" and the poor sap realized he'd been brainwashed by a geriatric in a bathrobe. So there you go! With the power of expanded universe retconning, no movie need ever have even the smallest flaw to bother you.
Related: 6 Star Wars Characters Whose Backstories Are Total Madness
A Comic Added A Scene In Which Leia Finally Hugs Chewbacca
At the end of The Force Awakens, Han Solo tragically dies, fulfilling both the evil plans of the First Order and the terms of Harrison Ford's contract. When the Millennium Falcon returns to the Resistance base, Leia already knows this, and she embraces a despondent Rey. Which would be fine if, to do so, she didn't walk right past Chewbacca without so much as friendly nod.
Why would Leia ignore Han's best friend, whom she's known for three decades, to comfort some random girl she's known for like an afternoon? Director J.J. Abrams admitted that they made a mistake in blocking the scene, and didn't mean to give the impression that Leia was ghosting Chewie.
The Fix:
The comic Age Of Resistance: Rey flashes back to this moment, but adds a scene wherein Leia and Chewie move indoors and immediately start hugging the shit out of each other.
The reason they had to relocate instead of embracing near the Falcon is simply that Wookiee hugs apparently last longer than human hugs. Now maybe they can write a comic that explains why Leia consoled Luke after some old dude he just met died while she was mourning the loss of every goddamn person on her home planet.
A Novel Resolved Jar-Jar Binks' Depressing Fate
The Awkward Scene:
Pretty much the apotheosis of Star Wars awkwardness is the character of Jar-Jar Binks. Not just the veiled, seemingly minstrel-inspired humor, but also his abrupt disappearance from the prequel trilogy. The backlash was so strong that, despite clearly being set up to be a main character in the prequels, he only appeared fleetingly in Episode II -- which was, unfortunately, still enough time to inadvertently usher in three decades of space-fascism.
Last we see of the Gungan, he's at a funeral. Though several of his close friends have tried to murder each other by the end of the prequels, we never actually find out what happens to poor old Jar-Jar.
The Fix:
The novel Star Wars Aftermath: Empire's End finally revealed Jar-Jar's fate. While he wasn't gunned down in a back alley on Coruscant or ground into a Gungan Burger for the patrons of Dex's Diner, it's still kind of a bummer. The book pauses for an interlude on Naboo, where a ten-year-old boy chats with "the clown," a street performer despised by adults but beloved by local children for the way he "falls on his butt."
Yes, the clown turns out to be a haggard old Jar-Jar, who has been shunned by society for helping "the uh oh Empire." But for some reason, kids find him side-splittingly hilarious. Further proof that Star Wars doesn't take place in our galaxy.
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