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1[[WMG: Someone guided Luke's ship to crash-land near Yoda on Dagobah.]]
2Luke is looking for a single life-form whom he's never met and only knows that he's ''somewhere'' on the planet. [[CaptainObvious Planets are really, really big.]] Luke lands on a bog in the middle of nowhere. That's one heck of a coincidence that he happens to be within easy walking distance of the life-form he's looking for. Except it wasn't a coincidence at all.
3
4There are a few candidates for who guided Luke:
5* The obvious one is Yoda himself -- he sensed Luke's presence, or even predicted he would come. Yoda finagled his way into the X-Wing's system with the Force and plonked Luke down into the swamp. It also sets up his SecretTestOfCharacter; by forcing the X-Wing to sink, Yoda can challenge Luke to get it back up again with the Force.
6* The second candidate is R2-D2, who's already in control of the ship's systems -- he knows Yoda from back in the prequel trilogy (and unlike [=C3PO=] didn't have his memory wiped) and had [[TheChessmaster planned all along to rendezvous with Yoda at some point]], so he knew where to land. He fakes the problems with the controls to obscure from Luke that he knew Yoda from before. R2's beeping on encountering Yoda in this case is not alarm by the [[StealthHiBye sudden appearance of a little green man]] but directly addressing Yoda and asking for his help.
7* Another candidate is some giant super-organism that takes up the entire planet. Yoda, being in tune with the Force, set up his new digs in the center of the super-organism. But the super-organism itself guides Luke's ship to land near its center, either consciously or by just emanating certain signals that indicated that its center is the best possible place to land.
8
9[[WMG: Lando was trying to get Han to leave Bespin with a minimum of fuss.]]
10Lando is trying to behave like a JerkAss to Han to drive him away from Bespin before Vader can spring his trap and capture him. On the surface, he's throwing out petty insults and hitting on a lady Han brought with him. And the more you know about the ExpandedUniverse (especially ''Scoundrels'' and ''Literature/TheHanSoloTrilogy''), the more you realize how Lando is deliberately referring to fairly personal and embarrassing things for Han. And ''Film/{{Solo}}'' lends some credence here, too (compare the hug Lando gives Han when he arrives at Cloud City and the one Han gives Lando right before he wins the ''Falcon'' from him). Vader and Boba Fett had beaten Han to Bespin and put a gun to Lando's head (perhaps even literally), so Lando couldn't tell Han straight up what was going on without risking himself. Han never catches on, and Lando begrudgingly invites him in.
11
12[[WMG: Yoda is the only StrangeSyntaxSpeaker in his species.]]
13This arises in part out of ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', which includes Vandar Tokare, a Jedi Master of the same species as Yoda who speaks using normal syntax. How to reconcile this? Several ways:
14* Yoda and Vandar are speaking different languages. What, you think [[{{Planetville}} the entire species speaks the same language]]? Makes no sense on Earth. Yoda's language has a different sentence structure, and he co-opted that to his understanding of Galactic Basic.
15* Yoda and Vandar are speaking the same language, but the sentence structure has changed over the years. Yoda is 900-ish years old, so he's using a more archaic version. Creator/GeorgeLucas apparently once said (kinda offhandedly) that this is what happened to Galactic Basic -- back in Yoda's day, ''everyone'' talked like Yoda. It's not unheard of for a language to change sentence structure like this over the years -- indeed, this is a big difference between Biblical Hebrew and Modern Hebrew.
16* Members of Yoda's species all have their own individual CharacterTics. Yoda's is his funny syntax. Vandar's is his bizarre sequential blinking habit.
17* Yoda's doing it deliberately as a teaching method. The idea is that you have to listen closely to what he says to understand it -- he's forcing the listener's brain to get off autopilot and ''focus'', much the same way you should when you use the Force. Luke and Ben even theorize he's doing this in ''Literature/FateOfTheJedi''. Of course, Yoda's probably been doing it for so long that he's gotten to doing it everywhere, even to people who aren't his students.
18
19[[WMG: Admiral Ozzel was a Rebel double agent.]]
20What Vader saw as Ozzel's incompetence was actually Ozzel deliberately sabotaging the Imperial war effort. When Piett found evidence of the Rebel base on Hoth, Ozzel dismissed it and tried to dissuade Vader from searching because he didn't want the Rebels to be discovered. Then, with Vader breathing down his neck, Ozzel had no way to warn the Rebels of the impending attack other than ordering the fleet to come out of hyperspace close enough to the system that they would be detected. He'd be a perfect double agent, totally BeneathSuspicion.
21* In one of the short stories in the 2020 anthology ''From a Certain Point of View'', Ozzel's last thoughts are of his wife wanting to join the Rebellion, so he may have at least been instinctively leaning in this direction.
22
23[[WMG: Admiral Ozzel was also an officer on the first Death Star and sucks at hyperspace.]]
24His last failure wasn't his first -- he has a habit of bringing things out of hyperspace at the wrong time, alerting the enemy to his location. He was responsible for doing this to the first Death Star, allowing the Rebels time to launch an offensive. Either he's a terrible strategist, a terrible pilot, or (per the previous WMG) a Rebel double agent. He escaped the first Death Star's destruction because he overheard the comment about the danger in the Rebels' attack patterns (the one Tarkin arrogantly dismissed) and bailed out -- he wouldn't have been the only one.
25
26[[WMG: Admiral Ozzel is a product of ThePeterPrinciple.]]
27He's been promoted to his level of incompetence -- he was good at lower ranks in the Empire, but doesn't have the tactical sense necessary of an Admiral. The problem is that the Empire is so stuck up on absolute loyalty, and so inclined to [[YouHaveFailedMe execute admirals who do a poor job]], that they needed to promote someone quickly, and Ozzel just happened to be next in line.
28
29[[WMG: General Rieekan, or someone close to him, is an Imperial agent.]]
30His defense did suspiciously little to stop the Empire's forces. If not for the improvised tow cables, the snowspeeders would have been completely useless -- Rieekan's original plan wouldn't have stopped a single walker. This failure would have ensured that the Rebels would have been routed on Hoth, a huge victory for the Empire. If it wasn't Rieekan himself, it was probably Crix Madine -- he defected to the Rebellion [[VideoGame/RogueSquadron between Episodes IV and V]], but you never know how sincere he actually was.
31
32[[WMG: Lando's wearing Han's clothes in the ending scene to stake a claim to the ''Falcon''.]]
33He [[LostHimInACardGame lost the ship to Han in a card game]], but he never stopped thinking the ''Falcon'' belonged to him. And those clothes were Lando's all along, having been left behind on the ''Falcon'' when he handed it over to Han. By wearing them, he's retaking the ship he thinks is rightfully his.
34
35Alternatively, Lando didn't have time to pack before the evacuation of Cloud City, and the only clothes he can wear are the ones Han's got lying around the ''Falcon''. Still gives him an opportunity to stake the proverbial claim.
36
37[[WMG: The AsteroidThicket is the remains of a planet.]]
38Alderaan is not the only planet to be [[EarthShatteringKaboom blown to smithereens]] by the Empire; a few others have met a similarly unfortunate fate. Since the ''Falcon'' encounters this AsteroidThicket shortly after abandoning Hoth (and it has to be nearby because of the ''Falcon's'' busted hyperdrive), one can further theorize that the Empire blew this planet up thanks to faulty intel -- they knew the Rebels were in the area, just got the planet wrong.[[note]]One popular corollary is that the thicket ''was'' Alderaan, but it's too easily {{Jossed}} -- it's in the wrong location and too important a world to escape mention in this situation.[[/note]] It might have happened even before the events of ''A New Hope'', with intel of a Rebel base of ''some'' kind in the area and an early test of the Death Star -- before they got their hands on Princess Leia and tried to extract the Rebels' location through torture. The Rebels then sneak in and put their most important assets on Hoth, where the Empire had already had a show of force -- essentially going RightUnderTheirNoses.
39
40The giant space slug hiding in the asteroid used to live on the planet. There are several explanations for what it might be; [[WMG/ReturnOfTheJedi another WMG page]] posits that it's a {{terraform}}ing creature (explaining why there's a frigging ''atmosphere'' inside it) and that the Sarlacc is a larval form of it. A different explanation for the slug absolves the Empire, too (at least [[NotMeThisTime this time]]) -- the slug is a geological parasite that incubates in the warm cores of planets, and when they reach full size, the tectonic disruption they cause shakes the planet apart.
41
42[[WMG: Vader's YouHaveFailedMe tendencies are largely limited to this period.]]
43While the ExpandedUniverse likes to portray Vader as a relentlessly heartless overlord to his underlings, neither ''A New Hope'' nor ''Return of the Jedi'' show him treating Imperial officers that badly. He does Force-choke Motti on the Death Star, but that was because he openly doubted whether Vader's power was even real, and Vader wasn't ''that'' angry -- he was just taunting him, because he knows how easily he can prove Motti wrong. Notice how casually he stops when ordered by Tarkin.
44
45The reason he's so unforgiving and ruthless in ''Empire'' is that he's desperate to find Luke and lashing out at anyone who hampers that search. Following Luke's escape into hyperspace, Vader is informed by Piett that they lost the ''Falcon'' too, but Vader blows him off -- he doesn't care about the ''Falcon'', he just wants Luke. Note how the opening crawl describes him as "obsessed with finding young Skywalker," and Anakin showed similar obsessiveness in the prequels (''e.g.'' finding his mother, preventing Padme's DeathByChildbirth). But when Vader has no need to be so obsessive, he's more like what we saw in ''A New Hope'' -- intimidating, and cruel to his enemies, but not a BadBoss who kills his own men at the snap of a finger.
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47We can see Vader change back after his encounter with Luke at the end of this film. It's as revelatory for Vader as it is for Luke; Vader is shocked at how he cut off his son's hand, sees his son reject his offer of power, and lets him escape. He becomes more pensive -- and starts his slow journey away from the Dark Side.
48
49[[WMG: Leia knew she was Luke's sister all along.]]
50Now, the sibling relationship wasn't revealed until ''Return of the Jedi'', and really wasn't contemplated until then -- it's generally believed to have been a {{Retcon}}, cooked up for that movie as a way of resolving the LoveTriangle. But when Luke tells her they're siblings, she tells him, "Somehow, I've always known." But how? And how does that jive with her behavior in the previous two films?
51
52Well, in this film, she's quite clearly taken with Han but [[SlapSlapKiss easily annoyed by him]]. She only flirts with Luke to [[OperationJealousy make Han jealous]] and try to influence him to behave a bit less like a cad. That ''is'' a pretty long kiss, but Leia has ulterior motives; it's not indicative of {{Twincest}}. Luke finds the whole thing faintly amusing; he's not particularly interested in Leia (what with his ambition to be a space-monk and save the Galaxy and everything), but he goes along with it to needle Han. Chewbacca's behaving in pretty much the same way (and Leia ''does'' joke that she'd "just as soon kiss a Wookiee" -- maybe she's not joking ''that'' hard).
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54As for how she knew: The kiss "for luck" in ''A New Hope'' was a TestKiss. It quite clearly resulted in NoSparks. Same way it worked in ''Film/BackToTheFuture1''.
55
56[[WMG: The ''Falcon'' was jealous of Leia.]]
57It was acting weird on the escape from Hoth because it wanted Han for itself. Y'know, like [[Series/DoctorWho the TARDIS]]. What with all the droids clearly using advanced AI, why wouldn't a ship itself have one? Maybe not all of them do, but that's what makes the ''Falcon'' special.
58
59[[WMG: Han Solo was a nerf herder before becoming a smuggler.]]
60And this is common knowledge. This is why when Leia calls him a "scruffy-looking nerf herder", Han's only objection is to "[[ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne scruffy-looking]]".
61
62[[WMG: The Dark Side Cave contains [[Franchise/HarryPotter a Boggart]].]]
63The Boggart is a creature that takes the shape of the worst fear of whatever looks at it. Luke's was quite obviously Darth Vader. But Luke, by sheer coincidence, says "ridiculous" when he enters the cave and activates the spell that counteracts a Boggart -- turning it into something comedic. Hence why "Darth Vader" became something more resembling [[Film/{{Spaceballs}} Dark Helmet]]. And Yoda predicted all this.
64
65[[WMG: Luke's training on Dagobah took several years.]]
66This gives the ''Falcon'' enough time to travel from Hoth to Bespin with a busted hyperdrive, and it gives Luke enough time to actually ''learn'' something from Yoda. It doesn't take him just a few days of training to get strong enough to face Vader, doesn't it?
67
68It requires a few {{Hand Wave}}s, though. One is that the timeline gives one year between the battles of Hoth and Endor, but they never specified ''whose'' years -- it took several Earth years, which is the time period with which the audience would be familiar. The other thing is that it takes a ''long'' time to travel between systems without a hyperdrive, so the EU established the "Ison Corridor", a strip of systems unusually close together, including Hoth and Bespin.
69
70[[WMG: Yoda used to be taller.]]
71People [[MiniatureSeniorCitizens get shorter when they get really old]]. Yoda lived to be 900. When Yoda was young, he was 6' 5" and built like Creator/ShaquilleONeal. His shrinkage is just a bit more pronounced in his species like it is with humans. We've seen [[Manga/DragonBallZ Namekians]], [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E13LastOfTheTimeLords Time Lords]], and [[VideoGame/KerbalSpaceProgram Kerbals]] shrink like that when they age, so why not... whatever the heck Yoda is?
72
73[[WMG: Obi-Wan was being MetaphoricallyTrue because he wanted Vader dead.]]
74Obi-Wan was a witness to everything Anakin did to become Vader. He didn't think Vader was capable or [[MoralEventHorizon worthy]] of redemption. He feared that if Luke knew the truth, he would try to redeem Vader; but since Obi-Wan believed that to be impossible, it would just get Luke killed, or worse, turned to the Dark Side. Obi-Wan may also have been ashamed of the fact that he didn't MercyKill Anakin on Mustafar in ''Revenge of the Sith'' and wanted to make sure that Luke finished the job.
75
76[[WMG: The Cave encounter was an UnwinnableTrainingSimulation.]]
77Yoda tells Luke that in the cave was "only what you take with you." Luke took his weapons, and Vader appears before him. When Luke decapitates him, the mask explodes and reveals Luke's face. [[MortonsFork But even if Luke went in unarmed, Vader would still have appeared]] because what Luke truly took in with him was his deep-seated fear and anger, which Vader embodied. And if Luke wanted to become a Jedi, he'd have to learn to deal with them. Pretty much canon, but nothing like any regular Jedi training we see elsewhere.
78
79[[WMG: Hoth isn't a SingleBiomePlanet -- but it has extreme seasons.]]
80Hoth has a long and eccentric orbit that takes it pretty far away from its sun for long periods of the year. Come back in a few Earth years, and the frozen wasteland will be grassy plains, with tauntauns striding around in grazing herds and wampas stalking them, camouflaged by their short, medium-brown summer fur. That particular bit of Hoth where the Rebels set up a base is pretty damn bright, implying something along the lines of midnight summer at the poles. That makes it a perfect place in the middle of nowhere to hide from the Empire -- and also not a place to stay long-term.
81
82[[WMG: Yoda visited Dagobah in his youth and claimed it as his own private planet.]]
83The idea is that he visited it centuries earlier, perhaps when he was a Padawan, before the Jedi started archiving all the planets. When they did start archiving, Yoda sneakily removed it from notice so that he could claim it for himself. It turned out to be quite convenient for him once things started turning pear-shaped in the Republic.
84
85[[WMG: The sulfurous mineral-rich waters on Dagobah have therapeutic properties.]]
86Yoda, having suffered multiple strokes at his old age, chose Dagobah as his retreat to help him ease into recovery, giving him time to meditate more freely. This is why his strange syntax patterns aren't as pronounced in Episode V as they were in the prequels.
87
88[[WMG: Luke didn't conveniently crash where Yoda would be. Yoda used the Force to predict where Luke would crash and set up camp there.]]
89It's kind of a reversal of the "Yoda brought down Luke near him". He knew where the ship would end up, and deliberately moved to that location.
90
91[[WMG: Vader lost a card bet against Lando for Cloud City, but the Empire seized it, anyway.]]
92
93Vader was keen enough to know that Lando's weakness was gambling. He also needed an inconspicuous way to capture Luke and bring him to the Emperor. Additionally, the Empire needed Bespin's tibanna gas for their TIE fighters. So Vader and a small entourage met with Lando before the ''Millennium Falcon'' got there, and Vader offered to play Lando at Sabacc. If Vader won, he'd get Luke and his friends plus the city. If Lando won, Vader would just take Luke and Han, but he'd let Lando's gas mining operation continue without interference from the Empire. He'd also let Leia and Chewie stay with Lando. Lando won the round, but after capturing Han, Chewie, and Leia at the "dinner party," Vader reneged on the bet and called in an invasion, anyway. That's what he meant when he told Lando "I'm altering the deal!"

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