Your Favorite Star Wars Plot Holes, Explained in Tedious Detail
On the anniversary of A New Hope’s 1977 debut, let’s look at how the fundamentals of storytelling save the iconic film from its biggest plot holes.
There are only two elements you need to get right for a good story: Characters and Worldbuilding. Everything else follows from there. Master those, and your story can withstand a tremendous amount of narrative abuse, from bad writing to cliched dialogue to gaping plot holes.
Speaking of which, today marks the 47th anniversary of the release of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (or as it was called back then, just Star Wars.) It’s still considered one of the greatest films of all time, and the Star Wars universe it spawned has delighted millions of imaginations for over four decades. Neither George Lucas’ lore-obliterating prequels nor Disney’s soulless cash-grab excretions have managed to tarnish its legacy, despite tremendous effort.
Why is this? How has A New Hope withstood the test of time while so many other entries in the saga faded from view as quickly as they appeared.
The answer is character and worldbuilding. A New Hope is so strong in these departments that it can survive not only the abuse from what came after, but also its own internal inconsistencies.
To prove this, I’m going to discuss three of A New Hope’s most commonly cited plot holes and show how both the character development and worldbuilding explain why you probably didn’t notice them the first time around, and why they might not even be plot holes at all.
Since this is the film’s anniversary and it’s the first one in the saga, I’m going to treat it as a self-contained narrative, as though none of the other entries exist — because at the time, they didn’t. I’ll also be ignoring the 1997 “Special Edition” version, which inserts a number of pointless, continuity-disrupting scenes, and just generally sucks ass.
What we’ll see is that, on its own, A New Hope is a surprisingly tight narrative in which every single scene works to build the coherent, fun universe we all know and love.
So let’s get started.
Plot Hole #1: The Galaxy’s Worst Gunners
At the beginning of A New Hope, after Princess Leia has hidden the Death Star plans in R2D2’s memory banks, he and C3PO manage to escape their beleaguered ship via escape pod. The Imperials in the Star Destroyer above see this happen and this dialogue occurs:
GUNNER: There goes another one.
OFFICER: Hold your fire. There’s no life forms. Must’ve short circuited.
Why wouldn’t they just shoot it anyway, just to be safe? Surely they realize a droid could be on the escape pod, and that it might have the stolen plans with it.
Perhaps not. This scene seems like a glaring plot hole, but it actually does a ton of worldbuilding for themes that will recur throughout the rest of the film.
One of these themes is the lowly station of droids in galactic society. From the very beginning, we’re shown that droids are basically an afterthought and not treated as equals. C3PO and R2D2 walk right through the middle of a firefight and none of the stormtroopers try to shoot them. They’re not important targets, so they’re able to walk away unscathed.
From then on out, we’re shown time and again that droids are seen more like work animals or appliances, second-class citizens at best, without true sentience or motivation of their own. They can be bought, sold, and stolen like property. They can be re-programmed for relevant tasks. They’re banned from establishments where living creatures mingle. Given this, it would be highly unlikely for someone to trust the fate of their entire political movement to a droid, much less a slow-moving, defenseless airline mechanic like R2D2. Keep in mind this is before the release of other films in the saga, where droids play a much more prominent role.
This logic might not make sense to us in real life, especially given the advancements of computer technology since 1977 but the film is very consistent about this, which is all that really matters in a story. By definition, any fictional world must have some breaks with reality but as long as the narrative sticks to the rules it creates for itself, we can effortlessly suspend our disbelief and follow the logic being shown to us.
Depicting droids as second-class citizens also does a lot of work to build the characters of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. Leia is shown to be a cunning and crafty rebel by choosing R2D2 as her unlikely courier for the Death Star plans. C3PO, a fellow droid, doesn’t even believe R2D2 has been given this responsibility until he sees Leia’s message at Obi Wan’s house. As for Luke, he’s the only human character who is friendly to the droids, which shows both his kindhearted character and his naivete. For example, when he takes the droids to the Mos Eisley bar, he’s told, “We don’t serve their kind here,” something all the other patrons seem to know, which tells us he’s still a green-behind-the-ears farm boy with lots to learn about the galaxy.
But we were talking about the Imperial gunners, right? Even if we assume they take everyone else’s view about droids, why not just shoot the pod anyway, just to be safe?
Their inaction lays the foundation for another theme that recurs throughout the film: the Empire’s overconfidence.
Again and again, the Imperials underestimates their opponents to their own detriment. The Empire is so massive with its battleships and space stations that the idea of a couple droids posing any kind of threat seems absurd. Darth Vader is one of the only Imperials who expresses doubt over the invincibility of the Empire’s “technological monstrosities,” and even he doesn’t take the threat too seriously, as we see when he allows Han, Luke, and Leia to escape the Death Star with the stolen plans still in hand. (More on that in minute). And if Vader’s not too worried, why would a couple of no-name gunners stationed in the bowels of a battleship be?
Hence, the lifeless escape pod goes free.
By looking at the whole film, we can see how this plot hole makes sense in the narrative. Yes, it would still have been best practice to shoot the pod down but now we can understand why they didn’t — and even if that explanation is unsatisfactory, we can at least understand why it didn’t ruin our experience with the rest of the film.
Plot Hole #2: Is Princess Leia Stupid?
After the gang escapes the Death Star and fends off the TIE fighters that pursue them, Princess Leia deduces that the Empire let them get away in order to track them to the secret Rebel base. This dialogue occurs between her and Han Solo:
LEIA: They let us go. It’s the only explanation for the ease of our escape.
HAN: Easy? You call that easy?
LEIA: They’re tracking us!
HAN: Not this ship, sister.
If she knows the Empire is tracking them, why the hell does she still take them to the Rebel base? Why doesn’t she fly somewhere else, change ships, and then go to the Rebel base?
Well, let’s look to the characters and the worldbuilding.
We’ll start with Han Solo, who is ultimately in charge of where the Millennium Falcon goes and when. At this point in the story, Han hasn’t yet decided to join the Rebellion. He’s just in it for the money, which he desperately needs to pay off his debts to Jabba the Hutt.
HAN: Look, I ain’t in this for your revolution, and I’m not in it for you, Princess. I’m in it for the money. I expect to be well paid.
Think about it from his perspective. Back on Tatooine, Obi Wan promised Han 17,000 credits but only put down 2,000, promising the rest upon arrival at Alderaan. Now Obi Wan is dead, Alderaan is destroyed, and Princess Leia is hellbent on continuing her suicidal crusade. At this point, Han’s chances of getting paid are dwindling — Leia and the Rebellion might not even be around next week at this rate — so he has absolutely no reason not to take her to the base as soon as possible so he can get his cash and get out of there.
Now, let’s turn to Leia. She’s not yet friends with her rescuers and doesn’t trust their abilities. Nor should she. Han, Luke, and Chewie clearly had no real plan for her rescue and would certainly have been killed if the Empire hadn’t gone easy on them. But Han is cocky, and as we saw from the dialogue above, actually believes he earned the escape. Not great judgment. Every extra minute Leia spends with these guys is a minute they might bumble back into the hands of the Empire — and the Empire is everywhere.
This is where the worldbuilding comes in. Think back to the Tatooine spaceport, just before the boys take off in the Millennium Falcon. As the ship prepares to leave, we see stormtroopers talking to an informant, who directs them to the hangar bay. The Falcon barely manages to take off and is then immediately hunted by two Star Destroyers waiting in orbit. Tatooine is supposed to be a backwater, ass-end-of-nowhere planet, and yet the Empire already has a network of spies and ships at its disposal at a moment’s notice. There’s no reason to believe this wouldn’t be the case at some other spaceport as well, so there’s a decent chance our heroes would get caught changing ships on their way back to the Rebel base.
Finally, let’s also consider what we know about the Empire’s leadership. During the conference room scene with the Imperial officers, Darth Vader and one of the generals cast doubt over the Death Star’s invincibility. Vader even chokes a guy who criticizes him for this. So the Empire is at least aware of the possibility of the Rebels finding a weakness. It stands to reason that somebody on the Empire’s staff would be furiously pouring over the space station’s schematics, looking for that weak spot. This is confirmed later in the film when an officer informs Grand Moff Tarkin that a potential vulnerability has been discovered and asks if he’d like to evacuate.
Although Princess Leia has no direct knowledge of the Empire’s deliberations, she must assume that they’re trying to find the same weakness she hopes her own analysts will find. It’s a race. If the Empire finds the vulnerable spot first and fixes it, the Rebellion loses their only hope. She has to get those plans to them before time runs out.
So, no. Leia’s decision to fly directly to the Rebel base isn’t stupid. It makes sense based on what we know about the characters and the world they live in.
Plot Hole #3: Where’s the Emotion?
This one applies to both Luke and Leia. Both experience traumatic losses — Luke, his adoptive parents; Leia, her home planet and everyone she knows there — but neither of them show much emotion about it. Luke is upset about his Aunt and Uncle for one scene and then happy-go-lucky the rest of the film (until Obi Wan dies, who also gets only a single scene of mourning). Leia, on the other hand, is never shown grieving at all, despite having lost much more.
Pretty shitty writing, right? Maybe not. Again, the characters and worldbuilding give us the context we need to make sense of this.
From the very beginning of the film, we’re shown that this is not a gritty drama steeped in cynical realism. The first quarter of the movie is spent almost entirely with R2D2 and C3PO, bickering like an old married couple and generally providing comic relief despite their desperate situation. At the same time, Darth Vader and the Imperials convey a cold and menacing presence, which makes us feel there are real consequences for the protagonists. The rest of the film strikes a similar balance, whether its Luke almost getting his ass kicked by Tusken Raiders or Han Solo cracking jokes in the Death Star’s prison bloc.
This is actually one of the reasons most people consider The Empire Strikes Back to be the best film in the trilogy. It’s darker and more emotional, with higher stakes and existential challenges. But since A New Hope sets a lighter tone early on, it would be inappropriate to have elongated scenes of depression and trauma.
The only reason we see Luke mourning at all is because he’s the main character and these moments represent important changes to his journey. The murder of his adoptive parents represents the point in the narrative where he can no longer return to his old life. The death of Obi Wan represents the point where he must rely on himself alone, having lost his mentor. These are important changes that affect what happens next in the story.
Leia, on the other hand, is already on her path and the bad things that happen to her don’t change her goals or motivations. Her behavior is informed more by her character and surroundings. She’s tough as nails and good at bluffing, as we see from her first line of dialogue, where she basically tells Darth Vader to fuck off. This is just after he’s choked a man to death with his bare hands. She’s also good at reading people. When Luke bumbles into her prison cell disguised as a stormtrooper, she can tell before he even takes his helmet off that he’s not a professional. Immediately after this, she meets the brash Han Solo and his monstrous Wookie friend, neither of whom seem to like her very much at first. She instantly surmises that these doofuses have no real plan and takes charge of the rescue mission herself. Even when they’re safely away from the Death Star, they’re still pretty much strangers, and Han Solo begins going off on how he just wants to get paid.
None of these situations would be appropriate for wallowing in sadness, especially for a strong woman who’s committed herself to a hopeless rebellion. Perhaps she cried for her lost planet off screen in her prison cell or during the ride back to the rebel base. It might have been nice to see a scene of her mourning but we ultimately don’t need it to understand who she is and what she wants. The behavior we do see from her is entirely consistent with the state of the world and people around her, as it is with Luke.
Convinced? You don’t have to be to still have fun.
Even if you think these explanations are just some nerdy, pedantic bullshit from a guy who’s obviously spent too much of his social capital in the wrong places, the point remains that these plot holes don’t detract from your ability to enjoy A New Hope. It gets the most important elements right and that’s all that really matters. Because of this, you can sit back, enjoy the ride, and feel good when it’s over.
Just as people have been doing for 47 years — and will do for countless years to come.