History EarlyInstallmentWeirdness / StarWars

EarlyInstallmentWeirdness is a given, due to the film being the first released, though perhaps with ''A New Hope''[[note]]Which, for all anyone knew, could have been the only Star Wars movie (it was originally released, and still referred to by some as simply "''Star Wars''", without the "''Episode IV: A New Hope''" name; it wasn't used until the 1981 theatrical re-release).[[/note]] it becomes more noticeable given that it is the fourth chronologically in a series of films, with the first three not produced for another 20 years. However, there are still a few bits that are ''particularly'' prominent, especially to the eagle-eyed viewer, because some of the background world-building wasn't as fully developed when the movie was first filmed. To wit:

* Due to the movies being made in TheSeventies and TheEighties, there is nothing akin to the Internet in the Star Wars Galaxy. This seems very odd, as if the Galaxy has invented {{MileLongShip}}s and FasterThanLightTravel, it's a little hard to believe they wouldn't have [[AliensNeverInventedTheWheel invented the Internet.]] The Prequels try to fix this by saying there is something called the Holonet, which is basically the same thing as the Internet.However, this [[VoodooShark raises the obvious question]] of why no one uses or even mentions it in the Original Trilogy, as even if the Empire removed it from civilian use, you'd think the Imperial military would still use it all the time.

* Due to the movies being made in TheSeventies and TheEighties, there is nothing akin to the Internet in the Star Wars Galaxy. This seems very odd, as if the Galaxy has invented {{MileLongShip}}s and FasterThanLightTravel, it's a little hard to believe they wouldn't have [[AliensNeverInventedTheWheel invented the Internet.]] The Prequels try to fix this by saying there is something called the Holonet, which is basically the same thing as the Internet.However, this raises the obvious question of why no one uses or even mentions it in the Original Trilogy, as even if the Empire removed it from civilian use, you'd think the Imperial military would still use it all the time.

** Read ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'' and you'll quickly realize that while later developments and retcons made sense of the oddities, at the time Creator/TimothyZahn was clearly writing under the impression that the Clone Wars was something involving the Jedi fighting ''against'' an evil army of clones that invaded the Republic. Similarly, the writers of ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'' thought the Clone Wars were fought over ''cloning ethics'' instead of being a civil war where a significant chunk of the Republic seceded. Some writers also seemed to think that the Clone Wars happened a lot longer ago than they did (around 40 years before the [=OT=] as opposed to the 20 or so that turned out the be the case), and/or thought they were a separate conflict unrelated to the Jedi Purge and the rise of the Empire.
** The detail about the stormtroopers being clones (as they originally started out as the clone troopers) wasn't revealed until the prequels. As such, a lot of the pre-prequel ExpandedUniverse assumes they were just normal soldiers, and in the Original Trilogy, they clearly have different heights, builds and voices, so they are not clones. Post-prequel [=EU=] works -- both ''Legends'' and canon -- would HandWave this by saying the Empire eventually discontinued using clones and started [[SlaveMooks conscripting random people]] for numerous reasons (the clones were too expensive to continue producing, they were running out of unmodified Jango Fett DNA to use, the clones' accelerated aging was catching up to them, they were rapidly dying in battle, many Imperials were prejudiced against clones and many clones began to rebel against the Empire.)

* Also, Palpatine's Sith name "Darth Sidious" is never said in the Original Trilogy. This is because the practice of the Sith using "Darth [_]" as a title for all members wasn't established until ''The Phantom Menace'' and was done solely to explain why Anakin Skywalker became known as Darth Vader after having turned to the Dark Side. A possible in-universe explanation is that this is because most people in the Galaxy, even many Imperials, were unaware that Palpatine was a Sith Lord until years after his original death. When Luke mentions Palpatine in a conversation with Rey in ''Film/TheLastJedi'', he calls Palpatine "Darth Sidious".
* 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", which implies that he doesn't possess a lightsaber and he 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.
* The general perception of Jedi and the Force is a lot different than in the prequels and pre-prequel ExpandedUniverse. Going by the original trilogy, you would think the Jedi were some small group that could be come to be considered a myth at some point, and especially that the Force is similarly esoteric. Most striking are Han's lines about the Force being a "Hokey Religion", and how he hasn't seen anything that would lead him to believe there is a SentientCosmicForce at all, even though he would have been 10-13 years old during the Clone Wars, during which Jedi routinely did supernatural feats in public, and his best friend Chewbacca fought alongside Yoda himself during the Battle of Kashyyyk. Hell, his ex-girlfriend Qi'ra even works for former Sith Lord Maul, though Maul doesn't make his appearance known until after Han leaves Crimson Dawn. Even if Han never met a Jedi in person nor directly witnessed any of this, it's a ''little'' hard to believe he wouldn't have watched, or insisted to disbelieve, anything on the news about the Jedi being involved in a galaxy-spanning conflict. Rather than a {{Muggle}} everyman understandably out of touch with the whole thing, it unintentionally makes him look like a stubborn FlatEarthAtheist instead.
* In general, while the concept of the Dark Side is developed in the later two films, no mention of a Light Side is present anywhere. The Force is talked about in a general sense, and Force-users who give in to their baser impulses and lust for power are said to have immersed themselves in a dark aspect of it, but no concept is present of a true dualism. The concept of the Light Side evolved later, in part due to extrapolations by EU writers from the prequel trilogy's discussion of how Anakin is fated to balance the Force (although the prequel trilogy actually makes no mention of a Light Side as such either). It only entered the films with ''The Force Awakens''. Additionally, the Force is talked about in much more passive terms than later works tend to; concepts such as the Force having a will, desires, plans, or direct influence on people have no presence in either the original movies or the early EU, which tend to instead depict the Force as "just" being a magical spiritual force that certain beings can interact with. The idea of the Force having actual agency of its own was first sketched out and vaguely entertained in the prequel trilogy, but developed into its modern form in ''Knights of the Old Republic'' - where it is [[UnbuiltTrope actually discussed rather than enforced]].
* The entire franchise has AerithAndBob tendencies, as some of the characters have names that sound like familiar Western Earth names, while other names are made-up and fantastical. However, the original trilogy had more of the former than later installments, especially among the main human characters: names like Luke, Ben, Owen, and Leia (the odd spelling notwithstanding) wouldn't have been out of place in a film set on Earth in present-day USA. The prequel trilogy is much bolder about foregrounding characters with highly exotic-sounding or downright fictional names: Anakin, Padmé, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Shmi can evoke real Eastern names, but are quite far from what a modern Western audience would be familiar with. Disney's sequel trilogy falls somewhere between those two extremes, as names like Finn, Rey, Poe, and Kylo sound vaguely like Western Earth names but would still be relatively uncommon in our world (and there is one character with a fairly common Western name, Rose). ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' (which was largely framed as a [[RevisitingTheRoots throwback]] to the original ''Star Wars'') also makes brief mention of a gang on Jakku called "The Irving Boys", which is the kind of name that one would expect to hear in the earliest installments.

* At no point in the Original Trilogy are the Jedi referred as an [[TheOrder order]] (they're simply called "The Jedi"), nor there are any hints about how they were organized or their hierarchy, if they had one, with ''A New Hope'' hinting that while they all worked to keep peace in the Galaxy, they mostly went on their own. Similarly, Yoda is never referred as their former leader, just as a very old and wise individual who trained Obi-Wan among many other Jedi, which would made one think he was just an instructor. In fact, it doesn't even seem like the Jedi ''have'' a leader, given that [[EarlyAdaptationWeirdness the Jedi in the pre-Rise of the Empire expanded universe that came before the prequels don't seem to have one]].

** The two combined also lead to one other bit of weirdness: Leia's captivity ''right next to her dad''. In the movie as shot, by itself, there's nothing odd because Vader and Leia aren't related at all, so he has no reason to take note of her beyond a tool for information. In the context of the rest of the movies and any EU material, even post-reset material, not only is it very strange that he doesn't notice a strong similarity to both Padmé and himself in Leia, but the Force should be all but screaming at Vader that he is related to Leia, even through the veil of the dark side. Note that Vader does react to feeling Luke and Obi-Wan's presences, although he never identifies the former as his son either, just as a particularly powerful Force-sensitive. ''Revenge of the Sith'' would establish that Anakin believed his and Padmé's child (not knowing she was having twins) had died as well when he accidentally killed her, and he didn't learn that his son had survived until sometime before ''Empire Strikes Back'' and never learned that Leia was the other, only that Luke had a sister after reading his feelings during their final duel.
** 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 was later 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).
** Owen and Beru do not seem to recognize R2 and 3PO in ''A New Hope'' even though ''Attack of the Clones'' reveals that 3PO lived with the Lars family for several years while Anakin's mother Shmi was married to Owen's father Cliegg, and R2 was with Anakin and Padmé when they visited looking for Shmi. While 3PO had a dull gray outer shell instead of his trademark gold-plated shell when he lived on the Lars' homestead, that still isn't quite enough to explain it away. Similar to Alec Guinness during the scene where Obi-Wan hesitates to tell Luke that Vader "killed" Anakin, Owen implies that he's owned a protocol droid before while examining 3PO and Owen and Beru's actors give each other concerned looks when Luke is talking about Obi-Wan and the droids, which helps to (retroactively) suggest that they did figure out the droids' identities and are trying to hide the truth from Luke. The scene where Owen orders Luke to have R2's memory wiped takes on a new meaning after watching the prequels.
** One last bit of relational weirdness is the implication that Anakin and Owen grew up together on Tatooine before Anakin left to become a Jedi, as Obi-Wan notes Owen wished Anakin had "stayed here"; the set-up doesn't even imply a step-sibling relation, but that Owen is Anakin's brother ''by blood'' (Owen's last name of "Lars" wasn't given until ''Attack of the Clones''). In the prequel trilogy, Anakin left Tatooine long before he even became Owen's step-brother, and was already a Jedi during their brief interactions in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones''. Also, while Owen saying he's afraid of Luke becoming like his father takes on a new meaning after ''Empire'', it had never been clearly implied that Owen was aware that Anakin is Vader. In ''Obi-Wan Kenobi'', Owen is under the impression that Anakin is dead. It's possible that he somehow found out the truth later (Obi-Wan initially thought Vader was dead too, and it's possible that he told Owen some time after the fact.), or knew that Anakin had turned to the Dark Side before his "death", but no EU material as of this writing elaborates on this. Even if Owen somehow knew that his stepbrother was Vader, his response is fairly subdued for what one would expect under such circumstances. There is also the detail that Beru claims to see "too much" of Anakin in Luke, despite the angry, brooding Anakin she met in ''Clones'' resembles very little the passionate but comparatively mellower Luke we get to see onscreen. In the original script, the easy read-in was that Beru knew Anakin from back when she, he and Owen were young and they grew up together before Anny ran off to be a clone-warring space wizard, and she's supposed to be wistfully talking about Luke's wanderlust and sense of adventure being the exact same as the not-yet-well-defined Anakin she knew.

** For those familiar with the fast-paced, high-flying lightsaber duels of later films (especially the prequels), the fateful final showdown between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker is... pretty stiff and rigid. Both are holding their lightsabers with both hands (Vader would primarily use one-handed strikes in later works). George Lucas originally intended for Jedi to wield their lightsabers with both hands and fight like traditional swordsmen, much like some of the heroes in old serials that inspired George. By ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', however, Luke and Vader's duel already involves a lot of jumping and often using one hand to fight with lightsabers, as shown in the Prequel Trilogy, though there were hints of it in their fight in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''. Another reason for the change is that in the first film, Vader’s regular actor David Prowse did the fighting scenes, while in the sequels, professional fencer Bob Anderson did them. According to George in the DVD commentary, the duel in ''A New Hope'' is retconned to be because Obi-Wan is old and out of practice and Vader is part-machine (and also wants to humor Obi-Wan and humiliate him).

* The Dark Side is mentioned exactly once, in passing, when Obi-Wan says Vader was "seduced by the dark side of the Force." In this context, there is no indication that the Dark Side is an actual thing unto itself, or that Obi-Wan's use of the term "dark side" is anything but a figure of speech, in the same way that one might refer to the dark side of drug use. Vader never boasts about the power of the dark side as he is wont to do in the other films, instead speaking of the Force in general terms or phrasing it as ''his own'' power. The idea of the Force being tied to emotion is similarly absent; the concept of Vader drawing strength from his anger is never mentioned -- he and Obi-Wan seem equally composed during their confrontation. Jedi being unflappably calm Zen masters and Sith being snarling, ruthless berserkers or hateful, arrogant egotists was a later development. As a result, no concept of a "Light Side" or of dualism in the Force is present in the first movie at all.

** ''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 when he's relaxing in his home to Luke, or especially to Owen) 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).

* On a similar note, it's weird that Luke is living under his real name and with his father's relatives, given that he's supposedly being hidden from said father. Of course, the notion that Luke was being hidden on Tatooine didn't exist at the time this film was made. It was a retcon introduced by ''Return of the Jedi'' to reconcile Luke's upbringing with Vader being his father.

* During his chat with Luke Obi-Wan's ghost strongly implies that Vader's [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul cyborg parts are part of why turned to the Dark Side,]] saying that Vader is "More machine now than man. Twisted and evil." There's no evidence anywhere else in the franchise that having robotic parts turns you evil, and the prequels make clear that Anakin's FaceHeelTurn was completely unrelated to him becoming a {{Cyborg}}. Anakin had already turned to the Dark Side before receiving most of his cybernetics (all he had was his mechanical right arm). His slaughtering of an entire Tusken Raider tribe in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' (including the women and children) happened when he was still 100% flesh and blood.
* Emperor Palpatine's Force Lightning is portrayed as the ultimate Dark Force power and the film implies that it's a power only he possesses. Luke cannot defend himself against it at all, and the only thing Vader can do is take the brunt of it while tossing Palpatine down the Death Star's reactor pit. Later works in the franchise portrayed Force Lightning as a common Dark Side Force power (and even some Jedi were capable of using it in the pre-Disney EU), making Palpatine's use of it seem less impressive. Furthermore, ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' showed Obi-Wan blocking Count Dooku's Force Lightning with his lightsaber, while Yoda was able to absorb it with his bare hand and fire it back at Dooku. While one could assume that this is due to Dooku's lightning being weaker than Palpatine's, Palpatine's lightning is blocked by both Mace Windu (who managed to deflect it back at Palpatine with his lightsaber, resulting in the facial scarring Palpatine sports in ''Jedi'') and (again) Yoda in ''Revenge of the Sith''. This retroactively makes Obi-Wan and Yoda [[RetroactiveIdiotBall look like morons]] for not teaching Luke how to block Force Lightning (though in all fairness, Luke kept leaving in the middle of training, so it's possible that they never got around to it.) and Vader also looks dumb for not summoning Luke's lightsaber to block it (his own saber had fallen down to reactor shaft after Luke severed his mechanical hand.) Also, this raises the question as to why Vader never uses Force Lightning in the Original Trilogy despite nearly all other Sith and Dark Jedi being able to use it[[note]]It likely requires at least some degree of advanced Force training to be able to cast Force Lightning, hence why lower level Dark Siders such as Maul, Asajj Ventress and most Inquisitors are never seen using it. But Vader, who's more skilled with the Force than those aforementioned, should be able to[[/note]]. The EU later established that this is because Vader's cybernetics prevent him from being able to use Force Lightning.

* The Dark Horse comic adaptation of the film has the Droidekas Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan fight in the opening speaking a handful of lines, something that didn't happen in the movie and '''never''' happens again in either the films or their respective tie-ins.

* 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. Plus, he would have lost a lot of weight while trapped on Lotho Minor due to lack of food.

* ''VideoGame/DarkForces'', the first game in the ''VideoGame/DarkForcesSaga'' has some oddities. Kyle Katarn has ''no'' lightsaber or force powers, and the game is more of a straight FirstPersonShooter. You also can't save during a mission, unlike in the subsequent games.

* When Obi-Wan Kenobi is deactivating the Death Star's tractor beam the labels on its controls are in English. From the Special Edition onwards, they're in Galactic Basic instead. [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/0/0a/Aurebesh_2004.png/revision/latest?cb=20160916135445 See here.]]

* In Leia's message she sent to Obi-Wan via R2 she mentions that Obi-Wan "served under her father" in the Clone Wars. The way it's worded made it look as if Obi-Wan worked directly for Bail. When the prequels came around, it's shown that Jedi only take direct orders from the Jedi Council, and while Bail was shown to be among the most pro-Jedi Senators and helped Obi-Wan after Order 66, he was in no way Obi-Wan's superior. While Obi-Wan ''did'' work directly for Bail during ''Series/ObiWanKenobi'', by that point the Clone Wars were long over.

** ''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 when he's relaxing in his home to Luke, or especially to Owen) 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).

** Owen and Beru do not seem to recognize R2 and 3PO in ''A New Hope'' even though ''Attack of the Clones'' reveals that 3PO lived with the Lars family for several years while Anakin's mother Shmi was married to Owen's father Cliegg, and R2 was with Anakin and Padmé when they visited looking for Shmi. While 3PO had a dull gray outer shell instead of his trademark gold-plated shell when he lived on the Lars' homestead, that still isn't quite enough to explain it away. Similar to Alec Guinness during the scene where Obi-Wan hesitates to tell Luke that Vader "killed" Anakin, Owen and Beru's actors in the original film give each other concerned looks when Luke is talking about Obi-Wan and the droids, which helps to (retroactively) suggest that they did figure out the droids' identities and are trying to hide the truth from Luke. The scene where Owen orders Luke to have R2's memory wiped takes on a new meaning after watching the prequels.

** Related to the above, there's also the problem of Owen and Beru not recognizing R2 and 3PO in ''A New Hope'' even though ''Attack of the Clones'' reveals that 3PO lived with the Lars family for several years while Anakin's mother Shmi was married to Owen's father Cliegg, and R2 was with Anakin and Padmé when they visited looking for Shmi. While 3PO had a dull gray outer shell instead of his trademark gold-plated shell when he lived on the Lars' homestead, that still isn't quite enough to explain it away. Similar to Alec Guinness during the scene where Obi-Wan hesitates to tell Luke that Vader "killed" Anakin, Owen and Beru's actors in the original film give each other concerned looks when Luke is talking about Obi-Wan and the droids, which helps to (retroactively) suggest that they did figure out the droids' identities and are trying to hide the truth from Luke. The scene where Owen orders Luke to have R2's memory wiped takes on a new meaning after watching the prequels.

** Vader never reacting to the presence of R2-D2 and C-3PO — two droids he knew personally since childhood, having built the latter and once considered the former his best friend — is also pretty bizarre in hindsight. The reason, of course, is that Vader as written in ''ANH'' had no idea who these droids were and didn't care beyond the fact that they were carrying important intel. It also helps that Vader and R2 never directly encounter each other (Vader does blast R2 while firing at Luke's X-Wing during the Death Star Trench battle, but they are too far away from each other for Vader to recognize R2.) and Vader's only encounter with 3PO was during Han's carbon freezing in ''Empire'', where Vader was a bit preoccupied. In addition, it's understandable that Vader wouldn't immediately recognize a dime-a-dozen protocol droid he hadn't seen in over twenty years. And even if he did recognize 3PO, it's easy to assume that he's just choosing not to acknowledge 3PO since he [[ThatManIsDead doesn't like being reminded of his past]]. As for 3PO, his memory had been wiped after the events of ''Revenge of the Sith'', so he wouldn't remember Anakin Skywalker at all much less know that he's Darth Vader.

* Yoda was originally depicted by a physical puppet which looked very different than the one used in the original films or the digital version used in the subsequent prequels. It was replaced in the 2011 Blu-ray release by the same CGI model used in the rest of the prequels.

* The first film suggests that the primary form of FantasticRacism seen in the setting is against droids; in particular, the Mos Eisley cantina explicitly forbids them from entry in a scene with parallels to segregation. The Imperials do refer to Chewbacca as a "thing," but it's ''Leia'' who refers to him as a "walking carpet," and the Imperial spy at the cantina is clearly an alien with an elephant-like trunk. Later Expanded Universe materials tended to use nonhuman species as a persecuted class under the Empire instead, and the cantina's no-droids policy is established as less about hating droids and more not wanting any possibility of them recording anything that goes on in the cantina.

* Also, the Tusken Raiders were referred to as "sand people" in ''A New Hope''. The name change likely came about due to "sand people" (and other variants) being a derogatory term for Middle-Easterners, though the Tuskens are still sometimes called "sand people" in later works, such as Palpatine referring to them as such in ''Revenge of the Sith''. Perhaps it's considered a slur in-universe as well.

* Also, the Tusken Raiders were referred to as "sand people" in ''A New Hope''. The name change likely came about due to "sand people" (and other variants) being a derogatory term for Middle-Easterners, though the Tuskens are still sometimes called "sand people" in later works, such as Palpatine referring to them as such in ''Revenge of the Sith''.

* The Tusker Raiders were portrayed as [[AlwaysChaoticEvil all bloodthirsty assholes who attack people for no reason.]] This was mostly played straight in the prequels as well, although Anakin wiping out an entire tribe (including the women and children) is portrayed as his StartOfDarkness, which means they at least weren't ''born'' evil, if the ChildrenAreInnocent. ''VideoGame/StarWarsKnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' would go on to make them more sympathetic. Namely, when the other races first discovered Tatooine, [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything they almost wiped out the entire species in order to colonize the place.]] While they are still portrayed as a very warlike and xenophobic race, they at least now had a FreudianExcuse, and were implied to be nicer before their bad encounter with the first aliens (from their point of view) to come to their planet.

* Yoda's [[StrangeSyntaxSpeaker signature odd grammar]] is at lot less extreme here. He sometimes talks with normal word order, and it's implied to be partially ObfuscatingStupidity, as he doesn't want Luke to know who he is at first. The next movie has him talking the same way, confirming it really is his normal speaking style, but it's still fairly subdued. It's not until the prequels that he seemingly can't speak a single sentence like a normal Basic speaker.

* The Tusker Raiders were portrayed as [[AlwaysChaoticEvil all bloodthirsty assholes who attack people for no reason.]] This was mostly played straight in the prequels as well, although Anakin wiping out an entire tribe (including the women and children) is portrayed as his StartOfDarkness, which means they at least weren't ''born'' evil, if the ChildrenAreInnocent. ''VideoGame/StarWarsKnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' would go on to make them even more sympathetic. Namely, when the other races first discovered Tatooine, [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything they almost wiped out the entire species.]] While they are still portrayed as a very warlike and xenophobic race, they at least now had a FreudianExcuse, and were implied to be nicer before their bad encounter with the first aliens (from their point of view) to come to their planet.

** The detail about the stormtroopers being clones (as they originally started out as the clone troopers) wasn't revealed until the prequels. As such, a lot of the pre-prequel ExpandedUniverse assumes they were just normal soldiers, and in the Original Trilogy, they clearly have different heights, builds and voices, so they are not clones. Post-prequel [=EU=] works -- both ''Legends'' and canon -- would HandWave this by saying the Empire eventually discontinued using clones and started [[SlaveMooks conscripting random people]] for numerous reasons (the clones were too expensive to continue producing, they were running out of unmodified Jango Fett DNA to use, the clones' accelerated aging was catching up to them, they were rapidly dying in battle and many clones began to rebel against the Empire.)

* Also, Palpatine's Sith name "Darth Sidious" is never said in the Original Trilogy. This is because the practice of the Sith using "Darth" as a title for all members wasn't established until ''The Phantom Menace'' (and was done to explain why Anakin Skywalker became known as Darth Vader after having turned to the Dark Side.) This can be handwaved due to most people in the Galaxy, even many Imperials, not knowing that Palpatine was a Sith Lord until years after his original death. When Luke mentions Palpatine in a conversation with Rey in ''Film/TheLastJedi'', he calls Palpatine "Darth Sidious".

* This film contained several uses of "damn" and "hell". With the exceptions of one literal use of "hell" in ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and one use of "damn" in ''Attack of the Clones'', the rest of the original trilogy and prequel trilogy films wouldn't contain any profanity whatsoever. The sequel trilogy and live action TV series would amp up the profanity quite a bit.

* This film contained several uses of "damn" and "hell". With the exception of one literal use of "hell" in ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and one use of "damn" in ''Attack of the Clones'', the rest of the original trilogy and prequel trilogy films would feature no profanity whatsoever. The sequel trilogy and live action TV series would amp up the profanity quite a bit.

* This film contained several uses of "damn" and "hell". The rest of the original trilogy and prequel trilogy films would feature little-to-no profanity whatsoever. The sequel trilogy and live action TV series would amp up the profanity quite a bit.