A major problem with Bail Organa’s story from Star Wars Legends was brought into the current canon by the Star Wars TV show Obi-Wan Kenobi. Bail Organa, along with Mon Mothma and Padmé Amidala, planted the seeds of the Rebel Alliance before Palpatine’s coup, thanks to their formation of the Delegation of 2000. Once the Republic became the Empire and the Jedi were all but destroyed in Order 66, however, Organa and Mothma feigned loyalty to the totalitarian regime while secretly continuing to form a Rebellion that could restore the democracy of the Republic. Unfortunately, different properties in both the canon and Legends continuities make Bail Organa’s evasion of the Empire questionable, to say the least.
Bail Organa was a well-respected representative in the Imperial Senate, despite the Senate being merely a façade. By the events of A New Hope, Bail Organa was succeeded by his adopted daughter, Princess Leia, though the two remained active as co-founders and leaders within the Rebel Alliance. Leia was long suspected of being part of the Alliance by the start of A New Hope, but her luck finally ran out when Darth Vader discovered Leia’s role in the theft of the Death Star plans and promptly captured her. That Bail Organa was not similarly arrested in both continuities is baffling, considering the events of two specific properties.
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Bail Organa Escaped Execution For High Treason In Star Wars Legends
Force Unleashed
The Force Unleashed, a 2008 multimedia project in the Star Wars Legends continuity, establishes that Bail Organa, along with other prominent Rebel Alliance founders Mon Mothma and Garm Bel Iblis, were captured upon officially forming their faction during the Corellian Treaty in 2 BBY. The Rebel founders were personally brought before Emperor Palpatine and slated for public execution, only to be rescued by Galen Marek (codenamed Starkiller), who sacrificed himself to ensure their escape. While Bail Organa survived, the Empire would be fully aware of his founding membership of the Rebellion, which should have significantly impacted his story between Force Unleashed and A New Hope.
For the most part, Star Wars Legends maintained a consistent continuity for nearly 40 years. While continuity snarls were inevitable, Lucasfilm creatives and overseers ensured the overwhelming majority were smoothed out by retcons. Although The Force Unleashed ties into established Legends lore, such as visually depicting the Corellian Treaty and including Garm Bel Iblis, it interferes with other elements of the continuity and wreaks havoc on Bail Organa’s history. Organa ought to have been one of the Empire’s most wanted individuals, yet he lives safely in his palace on Alderaan, even interacting with Lord Tion (a high-ranking Imperial elite) mere days before A New Hope.
Obi-Wan Kenobi & Bail Organa’s Clone Wars History Explained
Obi-Wan Kenobi’s TV series, like A New Hope, references Obi-Wan’s Clone Wars history with Bail Organa, but when did Kenobi serve Organa in the war?
The Empire Knows Of Bail Organa’s Connection To Obi-Wan Kenobi
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Legends was the official Star Wars continuity for only 6 more years after The Force Unleashed, so the franchise never had a chance to properly work out the multimedia project’s continuity issues. The current Star Wars canon began with a relatively clean slate, with the original six Skywalker saga movies and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (the latter never having truly fit into the Legends timeline) being its first properties. Bail Organa’s story between the prequels and A New Hope was no longer problematic – at least until the release of 2022’s Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney+ series, which had the Imperial Inquisitor Reva lure Obi-Wan Kenobi out of hiding by kidnapping Princess Leia.
The fact that Obi-Wan took the bait and rescued Leia meant that Bail Organa was not only in direct contact with a Jedi Knight, but he could summon one of the Empire’s most wanted Jedi. Even with Reva fleeing the Empire at the end of the series, the Inquisitors – and thus Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine – would be aware of Organa’s connection and direct contact with Kenobi. Kenobi takes place in 9 BBY, meaning the Empire never acted on this knowledge and arrested Organa for nearly a decade, restoring a comparably problematic element of his history from the Legends continuity. Despite this, A New Hope arguably resolves this issue.
How Star Wars Canon & Legends Resolve This Issue
A New Hope
A New Hope, like the rest of the original trilogy and prequel trilogy movies, is part of both the canon and Legends continuities and presents a potential fix for Bail Organa’s issue in both Star Wars timelines. The Imperial Senate allowed the Empire to maintain control of the galaxy through bureaucracy, at least until the Death Star’s construction was complete. Bail Organa’s treasonous activities were known to the Empire but not to the public, to which he was a beloved Senator and Alderaanian nobleman. The Empire would simply spy on him until the Death Star was operational, after which they would act against him, which they did by destroying Alderaan. In this, Star Wars finds its Bail Organa fix, though it continues to be merely a loophole for what both canon and Legends have accidentally done to the character’s untold story.
