Jedi Knighthood in five easy lessons!

[chris]

Don't ask me why I was thinking about this extraordinarily nerdy subject, but there is something about "The Empire Strikes Back" that I never realized until I was showering yesterday, thinking about my newly completed DVD collection of Star Wars.

It's a timeline issue, and it may be one that fans have gone over for years, but it just hit me: Luke gains all the training he needs to become a Jedi awfully fast. I mean, the storyline with Han and Leia going from Hoth to Cloud City couldn't have been more than a week before Luke decides to show up himself. Unless we are to believe they spent days in the mouth of that asteroid worm. Or that it took a week or more to get from the Imperial Fleet to Vespin.

Barring all that, Luke goes from annoying brat to being worthy to stand in the halls of the Jedi very quickly. Oh sure, he has to "face Darth Vader again" before he can become a Jedi, but is that all it takes? What's the point of having all those younglings at the Jedi temple from the time they're born if all you have to do is stick some fancy footwork in their heads and send them off to face a worthy enemy? Am I thinking too damn much?

[Jeff]

I used to think this was a problem, too. Maybe it is, since we both thought of it as such. I forget who it was (Justin, David, Tyler?) who suggested that it makes sense to say that it takes the Falcon a long time to get to Vespin because the hyper drive is out. It would help to know how far Vespin is from the astroid field. I think Han says something like, "It's pretty far, but I think we can make it." Even so, this is just a hypothesis, and it would have been nice to have some kind of reference to time in the film itself.

bespin.iqnaut.net/

This might help, but I haven't found the answer yet: www.nav-computer.com/

Maybe this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_galaxy

[Jeff]

They are in the Noad sector, right? I can't seem to find it. Maybe I got the name wrong?

Found it! Anoat not noad...

"Anoat
Located between the Hoth and Bespin Systems, the Anoat System consists primarly of three inhospitable planets, Anoat, Deyer, and Gentes. The Millennium Falcon passed through the relatively deserted system while escaping from the Empire. The three planets (including Gentes, home of the Ugnaughts) were abandoned sometime before the Galactic Civil War."

Read this: blogs.starwars.com/pablog/29
Down at the bottom: 8 months is the fan theory.

[kyle]

But if you'll remember, Yoda says that Luke has not completed his training. Luke takes off and says that he will come back to finish his training.

There is no timeline set in the movies that explains how much time has passed between "Empire" and "Return". This could have weeks, months, or years. I'm going to assume that Han was not going to melt out of being frozen in carbonite.

Luke could have in fact gone back to Yoda and completed his training.

Just my two cents.

[chris]

Eight freakin' months?! I knew I could count on the Star Wars nerds to have sussed this problem out. I can accept that amount of time for Luke's training, although I would have to fault Herr Direktor for condensing time in such a dramatic fashion. Although, it would have been even more annoying to have some kind of montage that showed the passage of time. How would they do that... do they have galactic calendars that could peel off the wall like in the old movies?

I've wondered at times whether Luke would have had to have gone back to Dagobah between Empire and Return, but then I remember what he says to R2 when they're going back and he's putting that glove on his damaged hand, "I have a promise to keep, to an old friend." Unless the screenwriter is for crap, then he'd be referring to the promise he made to Yoda and Ben when leaving Dagobah in Empire, implying that he hadn't kept the promise yet.

That said, what the hell did Luke do between Empire and Return? Yes, recuperate a little, fine; his dad did kick his ass. But did he just go to Tatooine with Leia and the droids and work out the plan to rescue Han? I mean, when we start with Return, Lando's already deep undercover in Jabba's palace, which had to take months to pull off. Was Luke just sitting around with the others, waiting for the right moment to strike? Was he doing his training himself? Or, was Obi-Wan appearing to him and continuing the training that way? If so, why no mention of it, and why is Luke so surprised to see Obi-Wan on Dagobah?

So many questions... so much time on my hands.

Update: A couple of sites I visited (including www.jedinet.com/timeline/index.asp) said that three years separated the battles of Yavin and Hoth, and one year separated the end of Empire and the beginning of Return.