- 2 days ago
The Star Wars universe is vast, and with decades of lore, some details are bound to be misunderstood. This video explores 10 of the most common things that fans and casual viewers always get wrong about the galaxy far, far away.
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00:00Let's say you've gone on a search across the globe, checking under rocks and in caves,
00:04trying to find the most remote hermit in the entire world.
00:08When you finally stumble across them, you might ask,
00:11Oi, have you heard of Star Wars?
00:12Thinking they'll not have a clue what the hell you're on about,
00:15but it is a 100% chance that they would probably clap back with,
00:19Of course I have, it's Star Wars, what are you talking about?
00:23With a reach as far as that, then it's no wonder that little tidbits and factoids
00:28about this series have become universal knowledge.
00:32But that fame has also brought plenty of misinformation as well,
00:36leading to many so-called well-known facts being totally misunderstood.
00:40With that in mind then, I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com,
00:43and these are 10 things everyone always gets wrong about Star Wars.
00:48Number 10, the Ewoks are friendly little teddy bears.
00:51Yes, alright, I'll be the first to admit it, Ewoks are incredibly cute, adorable even.
00:56But so are bears, honey badgers, and dare I say even Wookiees,
01:01and that doesn't mean that they aren't going to try and rip you to shreds if given a chance.
01:07The general consensus on these little fellas is that they are the sweet, helpful, and friendly types,
01:13but that conclusion ignores plenty of warning signs given in Return of the Jedi.
01:18Assuming the best from these creatures completely forgoes that they are dangerous warriors with a penchant for devouring any meat
01:27they come across.
01:28And let's not forget that the first thing they tried to do with Luke, Han, and Chewie was to scram
01:34them down.
01:35Their more dangerous nature isn't even hidden, it's right there on the surface.
01:39If you look around the ensemble of these Endor Moon inhabitants,
01:43you'll see that plenty of them have adorned themselves with skulls and bones,
01:47using them for primitive tools and even decoration, like a predator.
01:53You know, from the movie Predator.
01:55They are indeed cute, but what kind of friendly creatures kill, skin, and keep the trophies of those that they
02:02have defeated?
02:03Simply put, the Ewoks are deadly, which is why those stormtroopers never stood a chance.
02:08Number 9. Starships travel at light speed.
02:11Everyone is familiar with the iconic visual of a starship flying off at light speed.
02:15Ever since Star Wars graced the silver screen,
02:18viewers have been obsessed with the image of the stars themselves pushing back as Han and Chewie punched the hyperdrive.
02:24However, a lot of those people interpreted this incredible form of space travel in the wrong way entirely.
02:31That's because most viewers, myself included,
02:33saw light speed and assumed it was the ship moving across the galaxy faster than light.
02:38But that's not what actually happens.
02:40Instead, the ship jumps in and out of an alternate dimension known as hyperspace.
02:45So rather than travelling across the real galaxy at breakneck speeds,
02:50you simply jump to this alternate plane of existence and then jump back out where you need to be.
02:55As a form of fast travel, this is by far the best way to do it.
02:58I mean, travelling at light speed would undoubtedly move you places,
03:02but in the vastness of the universe,
03:04even a ship travelling faster than light would still be a stone's throw in the ocean.
03:08The movies themselves even corrected this by switching from calling it light speed to hyperspace,
03:14but the confusion still remained.
03:16Number 8. Rey shouldn't have stood a chance against Kylo Ren.
03:20The frustration that some viewers felt when Kylo Ren lost in a lightsaber duel
03:25against the newly force sensitive Rey was well founded.
03:29At least if you take that final scene without context.
03:32I mean, on paper, it makes very little sense for a force wielder and experienced lightsaber handler
03:37at his best to lose to someone who'd barely even touched and activated a blade before.
03:43But the thing is, this scene does have context,
03:46and most people forget that Kylo Ren was not at his best during this fight.
03:50There were plenty of reasons why Ren and Rey's odds were on par.
03:54For example, bear in mind that Ren was sporting a few nasty injuries,
03:59including a side wound from Chewie's bowcaster and a slice on the arm from Finn.
04:04The bowcaster itself was repeatedly shown absolutely annihilating First Order soldiers with a single blast,
04:11and Kylo took a direct hit.
04:14The chances are he was also probably pulling his punches as well,
04:17as he openly told Rey that he wanted to train her.
04:20Thus, killing her wouldn't have been his primary intent in this scene.
04:24Finally, while he was experienced with his lightsaber,
04:28he'd never actually fought a fellow force slash saber wielder before,
04:32meaning it was entirely new territory for him to go head to head in a mortal battle.
04:37And all of this is without saying that Rey herself was presented as a capable fighter from the very beginning,
04:42especially with her quarterstaff.
04:45Number 7, Darth Vader's name is a spoiler.
04:48Myths about movie franchises get tossed around a lot,
04:51especially when the creator of that series adds fuel to the fire.
04:55This fate certainly befell the big bad of the original Star Wars trilogy,
04:59as it became common knowledge that Darth Vader's name offered up a massive clue about Luke's parentage.
05:05The idea goes that Vader's name can be translated in German to mean Dark Father,
05:11as the German word for father is Weta.
05:14But this falls apart almost entirely when you find out that the German translation for dark is Dunkel,
05:21and Dunkel Weta, yeah, it's not quite right.
05:24There's also a claim that you can do the same thing in Dutch,
05:27as the word for father is Weta pronounced Vada.
05:30And again, that sounds quite like the English word for father,
05:34but again, again, dark in Dutch is Dunkel.
05:38So, Dunkel Wada.
05:40I don't know, Jim, these translations seem a little bit shaky to me.
05:43Now, this myth, of course, is certainly entertaining,
05:47but it can also be burst right away by the simple fact that George Lucas himself
05:50didn't even intend for Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker to be the same person when he wrote Star Wars.
05:56This iconic plot twist was conceived during the creation of The Empire Strikes Back,
06:01meaning any vague translations are just pure coincidence.
06:04Cool coincidences, but yeah, coincidences.
06:08Number six, Captain Phasma was the first female stormtrooper.
06:12When fans found out Disney would be creating an all-new trilogy,
06:15it was obviously a cause for great excitement.
06:18The idea of more Star Wars films meant a chance to flesh out slash diversify the galaxy,
06:23and that's why it was so exciting to see the first female stormtrooper in Gwendolyn Christie's Captain Phasma.
06:29Except she wasn't technically the first.
06:33That's because the first named female stormtrooper to appear in Star Wars was actually called Jess Gistang,
06:38and she was part of the comic book series Star Wars Legacy.
06:41But on top of this, there were also plenty of references to female troopers across the expanded universe novels,
06:47and even the female death trooper DTF-16 in Star Wars Rebels.
06:51Additionally, while the stormtrooper extras were played by men in the original trilogy,
06:56there's no storyline implication that they were all male in those movies.
07:01Their armor is completely uniform, meaning any of those troopers could be women underneath.
07:06So yeah, this is nothing to take away from Phasma,
07:08who was undoubtedly the first on-screen live-action female trooper.
07:12It's just interesting that canonically, it was a little bit of a different story.
07:16Number five, Hayden Christensen was the wrong choice for Anakin Skywalker.
07:21Casting, as we all know, could be a very subjective matter.
07:24I mean, when Robert Pattinson was announced as the Batman,
07:27a huge portion of the internet lost their minds,
07:29and then the movie came out and everyone realized that,
07:32oh, this guy is awesome.
07:34Still, what works for some might not work for others.
07:37However, there are those rare occasions when everyone does collectively agree
07:41that someone was miscast.
07:43And unfortunately for Hayden Christensen, he found himself at the tail end of this,
07:48being universally loathed back in the day for his performance as Anakin.
07:53But did he deserve that backlash?
07:55Well, the title to this entry, of course, reveals that no, he didn't.
07:59And time has been kind to this actor.
08:02The prequels back then were mocked relentlessly for their wooden acting,
08:06and Hayden Christensen seemed to be at the height of that revolution.
08:10Audiences everywhere criticized his whiny voice and teenager-like personality,
08:15claiming that he was not a good depiction of a young Darth Vader.
08:19However, while it is true that his acting was wooden in those movies,
08:23he's hardly alone in that boat.
08:26So much of the acting in the prequels came across as awkward and stiff,
08:30with even decorated performers like Natalie Portman and Samuel L. Jackson
08:34struggling to reach their regular standard.
08:37And that's probably because it's been well documented that George Lucas himself
08:41cared very little about engaging with his actors in order to give them proper direction.
08:46He cared more about the visual storytelling,
08:50while the actors were mostly just left to fend for themselves,
08:53hence why there are so many performances that fall flat across those three movies.
08:58Number 4, Kyber Crystals Power Lightsabers
09:01Star Wars is a series populated with some of the coolest things sci-fi has to offer.
09:06Giant space battles, blaster rifles, gargantuan monsters, it really does have it all.
09:12Yet, despite all of those mind-blowing science fiction treats,
09:16it's the humble lightsaber that is undoubtedly the most iconic part of the series.
09:21Now, the inner workings of this remarkable weapon don't tend to bother most viewers.
09:25You just turn them on, make the noises, and voila, an instrument of death is born.
09:31However, one thing most people do know about the technical side
09:34is that they, of course, need Kyber Crystals to power up.
09:38And consequently, many have interpreted this to mean that said crystal
09:42is actually the power source of the saber, but that's not quite right.
09:46The Kyber Crystal is indeed the beating heart of the weapon,
09:50but it's not the mechanism that actually powers it.
09:52Instead, it's a component of the blade that has energy transmitted through it
09:56by the actual battery of the machine, the diatium power cell.
10:01So if you want to put your own lightsaber together, and first off, good luck with that,
10:05you'll get nowhere with just the crystal and a hilt.
10:08So don't forget that power cell.
10:10Number three, Vader's body didn't disappear after his death.
10:14This point of contention has bothered fans since Return of the Jedi.
10:18The climax of the original trilogy, of course, saw the death of Darth Vader slash Anakin Skywalker.
10:24Yep, something felt a little bit off with it,
10:27as while the bodies of Obi-Wan and Yoda disappeared upon their deaths,
10:31the same thing didn't happen for Vader.
10:34Well, Anakin's body did disappear, it just took a little bit longer than the others.
10:39When looking at the funeral pyre Luke made for his dead father,
10:43you'll notice that it's only Anakin's mechanical components being burnt,
10:47with no biological part of him shown at all.
10:50Now, this evidence admittedly might feel a little bit tenuous,
10:54as there's a chance that his body was still underneath his mask.
10:57But that's where the expanded universe comes in.
11:00It's confirmed in the book Champions of the Force by Kevin J. Anderson,
11:04and the original databank formerly from the Star Wars website,
11:07that Anakin's biological body did disappear,
11:11and that the items Luke burned were, in fact, Vader's suit and mechanical features.
11:16Of course, the introduction of the Disney sequel trilogy officially ended the canon of the EU,
11:21but despite that, there have been no retcons for this detail in the new trilogy,
11:26so that canon should stand.
11:28Number two, Stormtroopers can't aim.
11:30There are plenty of in-jokes among Star Wars fans.
11:34Hawking fun at Darth Vader's dramatic nooooooo,
11:38imitating Yoda,
11:39and joking, of course, about Luke and Leia's accidental incest,
11:43are chief amongst the best.
11:45But nothing compares to the mockery that Stormtroopers get for their so-called terrible aim.
11:52And at a glance, it does make perfect sense to accuse these soldiers of being poor shots,
11:56as yes, they never actually managed to hit any of the main characters,
12:00but let's not forget that these Troopers are the standing army for the most powerful empire in the galaxy.
12:07And there's plenty of evidence to suggest that clones slash Stormtroopers are decent shots and good shots at best.
12:14The iconic Order 66, for instance, showed them hitting their targets with stark precision for the most part.
12:19Plus, in A New Hope, they managed to kill plenty of Jawas,
12:23with Ben Kenobi even uttering the memeable phrase,
12:25only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise.
12:29And those are just a few examples.
12:31The truth is, they are only bad shots when it comes to catching the central characters,
12:35because, of course they are,
12:36if they shot them all, there'd be no movies,
12:38and you can never underestimate the power of plot armour.
12:42Number one, Luke, I am your father.
12:44No, being a franchise fan often brings about plenty of debate,
12:48with one of the most compelling questions being,
12:50what is the series' most iconic moment?
12:53But while most fandoms can argue about that until the sun goes down,
12:57pretty much every Star Wars fan knows that it's the shocking reveal
12:59that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father.
13:03This moment had a huge impact on popular culture at large,
13:07with parodies all over the place,
13:09and almost everyone remembering that iconic line,
13:12Luke, I am your father.
13:14Except, of course, that's not actually what Vader says at all,
13:17and instead, this line seems to be a big old slice of the Mandela effect.
13:22And that's because the actual dialogue went a little bit something like this,
13:25Luke says that,
13:26he told me, he told me you killed him,
13:28and then Vader replies,
13:30no, I am your father.
13:32Cut to poo a mind-blown Luke having an absolute screaming fit.
13:36So yeah, while it might not sound as cool in isolation,
13:39the line was a response to something that Luke had said,
13:42rather than being an explicit declaration.
13:45Even so, it does feel strange to say the line without the name included.
13:48So yeah, this is a weird one.
13:50It's a truly bizarre example of everyone getting something wrong,
13:53but all just agreeing to do so together,
13:55because it sounds a little bit better.
13:58So that's our list.
13:58I want to know what you guys think down in the comments below.
14:00Did you already know about all of these Star Wars facts,
14:03and are there any things that people get wrong that I missed off here?
14:06While you're down there as well,
14:07could you please give us a like, share, subscribe,
14:08and head over to WhatCultureStarWars for more lists like this on the regular.
14:12Even if you don't though, I've been Josh.
14:13Thanks so much for watching,
14:15and I'll see you soon.