History EarlyInstallmentWeirdness / StarWars

* In the cantina, Obi-Wan uses his lightsaber to lop an arm off a barfly, which feels suprisingly drastic for the calm, diplomatic Obi-Wan we knew in the prequels. After the release of the prequel trilogy, the presumable lecture here is that the Jedi Purge and his twenty years of exile have hardened him a bit, but is still odd considering the old Ben doesn't seem to be particularly bitter or angry otherwise. Moreover, the severed arm is then covered in blood, even though it's later shown that lightsabers also cauterize wounds. It was later [[{{Handwave}} Handwaved]] as this particular species (Aqualish) having BizarreAlienBiology that makes them bleed even after lightsaber wounds.

* The opening crawl says that the Rebels have "scored their first victory over the Empire". Both Legends and the new canon would go on to depict a lot more than one victory occuring prior to ''A New Hope''. Furthermore, calling the Battle Of Scarif a victory on the Rebel's part is a pretty big stretch, since, other than recovering the Death Star plans, they pretty much got their asses kicked, and most of the Rebels present died.

** Obi-wan hiding Luke on Tatooine makes sense in context of just the first movie: Tatooine is a far off backwater planet, so he probably assumed the Empire would never think to look there. With the desicion to make Anakin and Darth Vader the same person, it [[RetroactiveIdiotBall seems like one of hte WORST places to hide him,]] considering that Vader was from there as well. Later works would fix this somewhat with the explanation that Obi-wan figured due to his bad childhood and other bad experiences there Vader/Anakin would never want to go there again, as well as it possibly being a sort of ViolationOfCommonSense thing (i.e he thougt Vader wouldn't think to look there precisely ''because'' he figured Vader woudl think it was ''too'' obvious.)

* Darth Vader is the only villain in the Original Trilogy to have a lightsaber, which one could easily attribute to his status as a former Jedi. The fact that the Sith also use lightsabers as their primary weapons wasn't established until the Prequel Trilogy. This is especially notable when it comes to Palpatine, who tells Luke in ''Return of the Jedi'' that he is "unarmed", implying that he doesn't use a lightsaber, and who attacks Luke using only Force Lightning. Despite this, Palpatine is shown to have a lightsaber in ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' (along with a backup he used during his fight against Yoda after the first one was knocked out of his office window by Mace Windu, with Palpatine having even [[DualWielding used both sabers at once]] during his duel against Maul and Savage Opress in the ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' episode "[[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS5E16TheLawless The Lawless]]"). Supplemental material explains that the reason why Palpatine never uses his lightsaber in ''Return of the Jedi'' is because, by that point, he has become so proficient with the Dark Side of the Force that he no longer feels the need to use a lightsaber, which he had always considered to be a "Jedi's weapon" anyway.

* With the exception of Grand Moff Tarkin, all of the Imperial rank insignia are single rows of tiles of red, blue, and yellow, often mixed. ''Empire'' would introduce the more familiar insignia of a double row of red and blue tiles.

* There's nothing to suggest that red lightsabers are ''only'' used by Sith, either. Expanded Universe material that came out around this time tended to assume that lightsaber color was entirely a matter of personal choice, with no relation to the user's alignment or affiliation, and there were a fair number of Jedi who used red lightsabers--Luke himself made a secondary, shorter red lightsaber that he used in tandem with his main, green one to counter Lumiya's lightwhip in the [[ComicBook/StarWarsMarvel1977 Marvel comic]], and in ''[[Literature/TheCorellianTrilogy Ambush at Corellia]]'' he gifts Leia another lightsaber with a red blade--as well as unusual colors like purple or yellow being much more common. Even after ''The Phantom Menace'' showed Darth Maul's lightsaber to also be red, the comics continued to suggest that lightsabers came in a greater variety of colors among both Jedi and Sith. It wasn't until ''Attack of the Clones'', which features a small army of Jedi using only blue and green lightsabers, that the idea that other colors were very rare and only the Sith used red became cemented[[note]]The reason for this, in Canon at least, is because kyber crystals -- the lightsaber's main power source -- do not take on a red color naturally and are attuned to the Light Side of the Force, taking on their color based on the wielder's personality, with blue and green being the most prominent colors. A blue blade signifies a "Jedi Guardian", or a a Jedi who focuses primarily on lightsaber combat. A green blade signifies a "Jedi Consuler", a Jedi who focuses on negotiation and Force connection. In order for a Dark Sider to use a kyber crystal, they must "bleed" it by using the Dark Side of the Force to bend the crystal to their will, which results in the red blade. Former Jedi who become Sith will either bleed their own crystals or take one from a Jedi they've slain. A Light Side Force user can "heal" a crystal that has been bled, which will cause it to give the blade a white color. Ahsoka Tano's white lightsabers were the result of her healing crystals taken from Inquisitors[[/note]]. Ironically, that film also debuted Mace Windu's purple lightsaber - when in the comics, toys and video games released after ''Phantom Menace'' but before ''Clones'', his saber was always depicted as ''blue''. This was due to Creator/SamuelLJackson requesting a purple blade during filming of ''Clones'' because he wanted his character to stand out[[note]]The in-universe explanation for this one is that purple lightsabers belong to primarily Light Side users who can tap into the Dark Side as needed without falling to it, and Mace is shown in various media to be able to do just this[[/note]].

* B2 Battle Droids uses the same comical, high-pitched voice as their B1 counterparts (especially evident when two [=B1s=] tries arresting R2-D2 early on). They sound rougher and coarser starting from the Clone Wars series.

** Obi-wan hiding Luke on Tatooine makes sense in context of just the first movie: Tatooine is a far off backwater planet, so he probably assumed the Empire would never think to look there. With the desicion to make Anakin and Darth Vader the same person, it [[RetroactiveIdiotBall seems like one of hte WORST places to hide him,]] considering that Vader was from there as well. Later works would fix this somewhat with the explanation that Obi-wan figured due to his bad childhood and other bad experiences there Vader/Anakin would never want to go there again, as well as it possibly being a sort of ViolationOfCommonSense thing (i.e he figured Vader wouldn't think to look there precisely ''because'' he figured it would be too obvious.)

** For that matter, there's nothing in this film indicating that Darth Vader, the separate character who is not Anakin Skywalker yet, is even ''[[AmbiguouslyHuman human]]'' at all. He's never referred to as a human and he's never seen without his mask or suit at any point in the film. All of the other unusually tall characters are aliens, so it's not unreasonable to assume that Vader might be one as well. We briefly see the back of his head in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' while his mask is being lowered into place, but he's bald, pale and covered in scaly scar tissue (which only later was revealed to be third degree burns). It's not evident that he's human until he reveals himself to be Luke's father and his ravaged face isn't shown until Luke unmasks him near the end of ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi''. Also, there is no mention or even hint that Vader is a {{Cyborg}} in the original film -- the first suggestion of him requiring the suit to live occurs in ''The Empire Strikes Back'', and Obi-Wan confirms that he is "more machine now than man" in ''Return of the Jedi''. Yes, the respirator sound helps define Vader's first appearance on-screen, but why he needs it is never addressed or dwelled on in ''A New Hope'' itself and in just observational context, it could be one of multiple things, such as him being an alien that can't breathe oxygen (a concept that would later be used for Jedi Master Plo Koon).

* The novelisation of ''Return of the Jedi'' introduced the idea that Emperor Palpatine is in fact ''beloved'' by much of the galaxy, when Vader contemplates betraying him and considers that his death would potentially make the civil war between the Empire and the Rebels even worse (which may relate to the quickly-abandoned idea set out in the prologue of the novelisation of the original ''Star Wars'' that the Rebels are actually trying to ''restore'' the figurehead Emperor's power which had been whittled away by corrupt courtiers and military officers). This idea was alluded to in some RPG supplements which suggested that on Courscant and the other Core Worlds, Palpatine is revered by the populace as a god. Some vague shades of this idea were retained in the prequel trilogy, in which Palpatine is a genuinely popular politician and declares himself emperor with the support of the senate, but Lucas himself would pour water on the idea that he was still revered by much of the galaxy, or at least the urban core of the galaxy, by the time of his death in the special edition release of the movie, with the addition of the scene in which Palpatine's statue on Coruscant is torn down by crowds celebrating his defeat.

* The film treats the two-on-one duel between Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Count Dooku as the first encounter between the three of them since the end of ''Attack of the Clones,'' and the duel between Obi-Wan and General Grievous as their first physical encounter period. While this was true when taking the 2-D ''Clone Wars'' miniseries into account, the 2008 CGI series ''The Clone Wars'' would establish that the relationships between [=Anakin/Dooku=] and [=Obi-Wan/Grievous=] would be personal to the point that the two duos practically became [[ArchEnemy arch-enemies]] with each other, having one major duel nearly every season: counting all the prequel-era works, they dueled a total of ''nine'' times (including the FinalBattle in [=ROTS=]).

* The film treats the two-on-one duel between Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Count Dooku as the first encounter between the three of them since the end of ''Attack of the Clones,'' and the duel between Obi-Wan and General Grievous as their first physical encounter period. While this was true when taking the 2-D ''Clone Wars'' miniseries into account, the 2008 CGI series ''The Clone Wars'' would establish that the relationships between [=Anakin/Dooku=] and [=Obi-Wan/Grievous=] would be personal to the point that the two duos practically became [[ArchEnemy arch-enemies]] with each other, having one major duel nearly every season.

* This film contains several utterances of "damn" and "hell", while the remaining pre-Disney films feature little to no cursing. ''Return of the Jedi'', ''The Phantom Menace'' and ''Revenge of the Sith'' contain no profanity at all, while ''The Empire Strikes Back'' contains only one use of "hell" and ''Attack of the Clones'' contains only one use of "damn". The sequel trilogy, and especially the live action TV series, would amp up the profanity quite a bit.

** The "former stormtrooper" origin for Boba is especially notable for providing yet more early weirdness, as old lore tended to describe Boba as wearing the armor of so-called "Imperial shocktroopers of Mandalore", showing not only an early conception of Mandalorians as being the EliteMooks of the Empire (an idea that got thrown out very quickly), but the entire existence of such "elite troopers" and the iconic Mandalorian armor that holds such cultural significance to them being a mere ''variant of stormtrooper gear''. All of this is the result of production changes during the filming of ''The Empire Strikes Back''; originally, there was a whole squad of elite soldiers menacing the heroes on Cloud City, but budgetary restraints and simple practicality led to the legions of shocktroopers being merged into a single bounty hunter who serves as Darth Vader's enforcer, thus creating Boba, who evolved into his own dude from there, while the Mandalorians as a culture would similarly be heavily reworked when they finally made into actually released products rather than just being an unused idea the movie writers had. Likewise, the concept of "elite" stormtrooper units would later be revived in significantly different manners with groups and characters like the Dark Troopers. Years later, ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' would riff on the whole matter by introducing the idea of Imperial Supercommandos, Mandalorian [[TheQuisling traitors]] who sold out to the Empire during it's occupation of Mandalore.

* Bib Fortuna is the first Twilek to be featured, and he looks a fair amount different than the rest. While they are usually rather colorful, his skin is pasty white. He also has [[RedEyesTakeWarning red eyes,]] fanglike teeth, and weird lumps on his forehead. As Oola (who's also introduced in this movie, and is the only other Twilek in the Original Trilogy) looks like a "normal" Twilek, it's likely they were originally intended to have BizarreSexualDimorphism, or possibly even be different subspecies. Bib's teeth at least were later explained by saying some male Twileks file their teeth into fangs to look scarier.

* There's zero mention of Jedi being not allowed to marry or form outside attachments prior to the Prequels, and the Jedi's treatment of the Force in general seems a lot less dogmatic and rigid than how the Prequels would portray them. Compare and contrast Anakin's angst over keeping his marriage to Padmé a secret in the Prequels to older EU works like ''ComicBook/TalesOfTheJedi'' featuring scenes where Jedi Masters openly encourage their students to date and get married. Later works would notably make this one into a genuine part of the story, portraying the more rigid, emotionally-repressive Jedi of the Prequels as being the result of a minority hardliner faction taking power in the Order following the events of ''Tales'', with older Jedi like those of the Old Republic and newer ones like Luke's Order not being nearly so dualistic and opposed to attachment.Relatedly, in the ''Literature/JediAcademyTrilogy'', Luke starts a new Jedi school, and doesn't have any rules against his students having relationships (indeed, he himself marries Mara Jade eventually), although this could be explained as Luke just being a more "liberal" Jedi than the Old Republic Jedi Order leaders were.

* There's zero mention of Jedi being not allowed to marry or form outside attachments prior to the Prequels, and the Jedi's treatment of the Force in general seems a lot less dogmatic and rigid than how the Prequels would portray them. Compare and contrast Anakin's angst over keeping his marriage to Padmé a secret in the Prequels to older EU works like ''ComicBook/TalesOfTheJedi'' featuring scenes where Jedi Masters openly encourage their students to date and get married. Later works would notably make this one into a genuine part of the story, portraying the more rigid, emotionally-repressive Jedi of the Prequels as being the result of a minority hardliner faction taking power in the Order following the events of ''Tales'', with older Jedi like those of the Old Republic and newer ones like Luke's Order not being nearly so dualistic and opposed to attachment.

** ''Production-wise'', of course, this is all backwards - what happened was that Obi-Wan was so distinct, impactful and memorable that his appearance in ''A New Hope'' more or less set "The Jedi Look" in stone, and they all follow on from that. In fact, going by the visual language of the film by itself, the intent appears to be that he's dressing locally (compare his outfit to Luke's when he's relaxing in his home, or especially to Owen's) and just throws on a hooded cloak when he's abroad (which is a fairly sensible idea in an environment as harsh as the named-in-film Jundland Wastes). Obi-Wan uses that outfit for the rest of the film (both logically, since it's what he left Tatooine in, and also just as a cost-saving and viewer silhouette-identification measure) and then shows up in that outfit as a Force ghost, since that's what he passed on in and is what Luke (and the viewer) would recognize from ''ANH''. So the intent appears to be that, if anything, perhaps a "Jedi Knight" would be expected to look a bit like ''Vader'', albeit maybe slightly less oppressively dark, possibly something similar to [=Ralph McQuarrie's=] early concept art of Han as a fellow in light armor and a cape. The Jedi were conceived of as being very samurai-like, and the armor was often part of the badge of office for a warrior caste such as that, so nobody in the film as shot has a reason to take much note of "Ben" as anything other than just another old, sun-weathered, tunic-wearing local on Tatooine. They don't expect him to use Jedi mind powers, and ''really'' don't expect him to bust out a lightsaber (and in fact, him doing so is what really puts the troopers on their trail).
*** With the surname, meanwhile, the "destruction of the Jedi" is a lot more vague in ''ANH''; Order 66 was decades away from even being conceived, as were Inquisitors. It's easy to assume that either the Empire thinks Kenobi is already dead, or at least as written here doesn't have a detailed list of every Jedi ever and thus he simply slipped through the cracks, something which has been consistent with several further Order 66 survivors in both ''Legends'' and Disney's continuity.
** Where this all got sticky was first in the immediate sequels -- when we meet Yoda, he's also wearing a very simple robe (which makes sense for a hermit living in a swamp with nobody else around at all) and does draw a visual connection to Obi-Wan, but it's not yet explicit this is how Jedi "look". ''Return'', however, did two things: it introduced Palpatine wearing a robe not unlike Jedi ones, but black (thus reinforcing ''Empire''[='s=] insinuation as Vader being an anomaly, not a standard Jedi/Sith look), and then at the very end, it introduces Force Ghost Anakin wearing '''identical''' robes to Obi-Wan. Visually, this is clearly meant to signal him being redeemed and fitting in with his old friend, and ''would'' square with him being from Tatooine (thus keeping the through-line from ''ANH'' consistent in visual design), but it's just so easy to look at it and assume "aha, this is what Jedi Look Like™ and what they wear habitually as part of their office". This is what the visual designers of various ''Star Wars'' products, from the various EU/Legends properties through to the prequel trilogy, ran with, and led to ''ANH'' retroactively gaining an inconsistency that doesn't really exist in the film by itself.

** The one saving grace is that Jedi tend to be associated with arid worlds such as Tatooine, Jakku and Jedha. Jedha in particular has been strongly associated with early Jedi history, so it makes sense that Jedi would continue to wear this clothing through tradition. Further, a Jedi wearing their hooded brown cloak is usually treated as an effective way to appear anonymous and indistinct. Of course, this isn't exactly ''obvious'' when watching.

* Darth Maul's characterization. It can be a little hard to see ''TPM'' Maul (an [[TheQuietOne extremely terse, quiet]], and mysterious brute who wordlessly follows Palpatine's every whim) played by Creator/RayPark and voiced by Creator/PeterSerafinowicz as the same dude as ''The Clone Wars''-onwards Maul (a brash, talkative, emotional, and intelligent TragicVillain fighting to be his own man) voiced by Creator/SamWitwer, even if one takes into account his SanitySlippage and CharacterDevelopment. Even their heights are different! Compare the rather short and stocky build Maul has in TPM to his appearance in ''The Clone Wars'', where he tends to tower over most people and has a pretty lanky, if toned, build. That, of course, is a bit justified since he was cut in half and robotic legs were built for him at least twice, and he would have lost a lot of weight while trapped on Lotho Minor due to lack of food.

* The opening crawl says that the Rebels have "scored their first victory over the Empire". Both Legends and the new canon would go on to depict a lot more than one victory occuring prior to ''A New Hope''. Furthermore, calling the Battle Of Scarif a victory on the Rebel's part is a pretty big stretch, since, other than recovering the plans, they pretty much got their asses kicked, and most of the Rebels present died.

* The film treats the two-on-one duel between Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Count Dooku as the first encounter between the three of them since the end of ''Attack of the Clones,'' and the duel between Obi-Wan and General Grievius as their first physical encounter period. While this was true when taking the 2-D ''Clone Wars'' miniseries into account, the 2008 CGI series ''The Clone Wars'' would establish that the relationships between [=Anakin/Dooku=] and [=Obi-Wan/Grievous=] would be personal to the point that the two duos practically became [[ArchEnemy arch-enemies]] with each other, having one major duel nearly every season.

* ''Literature/TheLandoCalrissianAdventures'' came out inbetween ''Empire'' and ''Return'', and, similar to ''Splinter'', has a fair amount of weirdness. There are several details which [[EarthDrift seem too Earthlike for the setting,]] such as Lando smoking a cigar at one point. The Galactic Empire is referred to as the ''Centrality'' a few times, something that never happens again. In ''Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of Thon Boka'', Lando has to help save the Oswaft, a race of ''huge'' (around 500-1000 meters across) manta ray-like creatures that live in outer space and have natural hyperspace travel, from the Empire. While he succedes in saving them, they [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse never show up again,]] even though you'd think they'd help him out with things like the Battle of Endor or the Yuuzhan Vong War. Finally There is a Dark-Side user named Rokar Gepta, who is ''not'' a Sith, but rather the [[LastOfHisKind last of]] the [[EvilSorcerer Sorcerers Of Tund]] who has a Force power named ''Torture By Chagrin'', which [[MindRape forces the victim to relive all the painful and humiliating moments of their life.]] This power doesn't show up again until ''ComicBook/StarWarsLegacy'' (which is chronologically over a hundred years later), with Darth Maladi using it, even though you would think Palpatine, being the supposed greatest Sith Lord and Dark Side user of all time would have access to it.