Star Wars Has Secretly Retconned A New Hope’s Jedi History

A New Hope achieved an incredible amount of world-building as the first Star Wars movie, but one key description of the Jedi’s history from the movie has subtly been retconned. Although Star Wars movies and TV shows are now well-known and have become a cultural phenomenon, A New Hope had significant work to do. At the time, the franchise was not yet established, and given how much George Lucas needed to introduce audiences to, it was no easy feat.

However, A New Hope remains one of Star Wars’ best movies and was generally successful in laying the groundwork for the franchise to come. Not everything the movie introduced has remained stagnant in the Star Wars timeline, though. In fact, one major insight about the Jedi’s history that Obi-Wan Kenobi provided to Luke Skywalker in A New Hope has secretly been retconned.

Star Wars Has Confirmed The Old Republic Faced Many Wars & Conflicts

In A New Hope, Obi-Wan Kenobi explained to Luke Skywalker that, prior to the Clone Wars, the Jedi and the galaxy had “over a thousand generations” of the Jedi serving as the guardians of peace and justice. This assertion implied that, for thousands of years, the galaxy had experienced peace. However, the Star Wars: The High Republic books have made it quite clear that the galaxy had faced various threats and conflicts throughout the generations leading up to the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

The Star Wars Book, written by Cole Horton, provided excellent context for Obi-Wan’s comment in A New Hope. The book explained that the Clone Wars were “the largest and most destructive conflict to face the galaxy in a millennium.” In so doing, The Star Wars book suggested that, rather than thousands of years of peace, the Jedi and the galaxy experienced considerable conflicts throughout that period, but they all paled in comparison to the Clone Wars in its scale and the extent of destruction. Perhaps more importantly, before the Clone Wars, the Jedi and the Republic also survived those conflicts.

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A Smart Retcon Makes The High Republic Fit With A New Hope

This subtle explanation in The Star Wars Book was a brilliant move. A number of retcons have emerged since A New Hope, many of them to address the ever-expanding Star Wars galaxy. However, this was a significant example because it reflected such an important aspect of the Jedi. For Obi-Wan to overstate centuries of history would be confusing, so it at best seemed more like a bit of a plot hole when The High Republic revealed how much had actually transpired in that period.

This distinction is likely to only become more important with time, as the upcoming Star Wars: The Acolyte TV show, set 100 years before Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, will no doubt uncover even more threats and conflicts the Jedi faced during this so-called period of peace. By explaining that this time was marked not by complete peace but rather by conflicts less significant in scale and damage done than those of the Clone Wars era, The Star Wars Book perfectly retconned the lingering plot hole regarding Obi-Wan Kenobi’s description of the Jedi in A New Hope.

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