A Star Wars timeline curiosity

[Vympel]

The SW.com Databank says that Obi-Wan was 25 years old during the events of TPM. So, 10 years later, in AOTC, he's 35 years old. 3 years after that, in ROTS, he's 38 years old.

19 years passes from betwee ROTS and ANH.

You can't seriously tell me Obi-Wan Kenobi was only 56 in ANH!

Just for interests sake, Anakin, on the other hand, was 9 in TPM, 19 in AOTC, 22 in ROTS, and only 41 by the time of ANH.

If we look at Alec Guinness' real age when he did ANH, he was at the most 63, depending on what year his scenes were shot and how long it took to shoot ANH (which I don't know). So- 7 year gap in between the official databank entry and what the actual age was. Saying the Obi-Wan was 32 years old in TPM is unacceptable (a 32 year old Padawan? BS!)

Aged badly due to living alone in a hovel in the desert?

[Stofsk]

*snip dates and times and maths*

Don't you just hate it when this shit is so trivial a problem that it could have been corrected if someone had done a simple chronology? Incidentally this ties into your previous idea in the other thread, I'll elaborate when I get the chance to, but essentially TPM would have been much improved if instead of showing us a young 20 something Obi-wan as a Padawan, we see him as a 30 something Jedi knight, escorting Qui-gon - a Jedi Master - rather than him being his teacher. During the course of the Naboo Crisis, they meet Anakin Skywalker - a 20 something mercenary pilot who's bombing run at the end of the film destroys the command ship and wins the day.

Jesus, so many lost opportunities...

Aged badly due to living alone in a hovel in the desert?

What other options are available? The only other thing I can think of was Obi-wan dableling in the Dark Side for a bit, thus causing accelerated aging, but that doesn't gel with his character. Your idea is more plausible. Then again some people age badly - maybe Obi-wan was younger than he looked?

And I really need to get to sleep.

[vakundok]

Anakin's 20th birthday was just at the start of AotC (according to its novelisation). If I remember well, the ANH novelisation mentions that Kenobi's face was affected by very cold weather.

[Rogue 9]

Cold weather? On Tatooine? Yeah, deserts get cold at night, but not that cold.

[vakundok]

Cold weather, which was radically different from that of Tatooine. Kenobi had at least 19 years to live off-Tatooine, even if it does not happen in ep3.

[JME2]

It's possible that Obi-Wan, even with the Force, wasn't living the best of lifestyles on Tatooine and that this could account for his apperance in ANH.

[President Sharky]

Odd, the databank is known to be full of discrepancies and errors. My Star Wars Encyclopedia states that Obi Wan was born 60 BBY, may I remind you that this encyclopedia does have the correct Anakin Skywalker birth year of 41 BBY.

[Stravo]

The combinatioon of living out in the Desert and the stress and grief of watching the Jedi hunted down and killed could age a man.

[Dooey Jo]

Perhaps Obi looks so old because he went through hyperspace in a ship with malfunctioning statis fields? That could make him age faster...

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Intentionally changing his appearance to avoid being recognized?

[Captain Cyran]

The combinatioon of living out in the Desert and the stress and grief of watching the Jedi hunted down and killed could age a man.

That's what I always figured it was.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

It's possible that Obi-Wan, even with the Force, wasn't living the best of lifestyles on Tatooine and that this could account for his apperance in ANH.

Not the best lifestyle, eh?


He seemed to have aged an additional ten years, like a rock star or something. It must have been all those drugs and hookers he was abusing. And the booze. And the Hagen Daas.

It's amazing he was able to stay sober through the whole first movie.

[JME2]

It's possible that Obi-Wan, even with the Force, wasn't living the best of lifestyles on Tatooine and that this could account for his apperance in ANH.

Not the best lifestyle, eh?


He seemed to have aged an additional ten years, like a rock star or something. It must have been all those drugs and hookers he was abusing. And the booze. And the Hagen Daas.

It's amazing he was able to stay sober through the whole first movie.

So he's the Kieth Richards of Star Wars, is that it?

[Spanky The Dolphin]

This seems to get brought up every other month or so.

The general consensus is that it's a combination of personal aging, harsh environment and perhaps diet, and stress and depression.

[Stravo]

Can you imagine how backed up Kenobi must have been in that desert for 18 years?! Unless he frequented the Mos Eisley whore houses...would sort of expain his hatred for the place when he showed it to Luke.

"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." Bastards gave me crabs. Should have worn a rubber. "We must be cautious."

One of the ANH deleted scenes has Kenobi walking by a house of illrepute where one of the pimps ask "Hey, Old Ben, want to show us the levatating reverse cowgirl?"

Nah....most likely he was just jacking it nine times a day and trying to make himself believe that 18 years on a desert planet wasn't nearly as bad as 18 years on a swamp world.

[Mange]

It's possible that Obi-Wan, even with the Force, wasn't living the best of lifestyles on Tatooine and that this could account for his apperance in ANH.

Yes, perhaps he was too fond of Jawajuice.

[Isolder74]

The combinatioon of living out in the Desert and the stress and grief of watching the Jedi hunted down and killed could age a man.

Its been said he felt the deaths of all the other jedi as Vader hunted them down one by one. So its possible that his look could a mixture of enviroment and stress.

Also the feeling that this whiole thing all HIS fault might have something to do with it.

[Darwin]

Saying the Obi-Wan was 32 years old in TPM is unacceptable (a 32 year old Padawan? BS!)

Why is that so unbelievable?

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Because it's not very likely at all. Jedi training up to knighthood seems to normally take about twenty years, so for it to take Obi-Wan more than thirty to become a Jedi Knight seems rather absurd.

But that would be if there was actually a continuity break, which there really isn't. Kenobi just looks almost ten years older then one might think he should when he's in his mid-fifties, which isn't unreasonable in the least when the the last twenty years of his life are taken into consideration.

[Sarevok]

The combinatioon of living out in the Desert and the stress and grief of watching the Jedi hunted down and killed could age a man.

Sounds plausible. It is a good theory.

[Kurgan]

I think the problem is that I suspect Lucas originally intended (long before he made any prequels) that the "middle part" of the story would take place a longer time after the "first part."

Remember how he "all thought" the Empire lasted longer than 20 years?

Anakin looks to be in his 70's, Obi-Wan in his 60's. Palpatine is super duper old, etc.

The Jedi are forgotten.. it's been a long time. Perhaps 50 years, since the Old Republic.

Fast forward, Lucas wants Anakin to be a little kid. Okay, no problem, but then he shortens the gap between the two trilogies and boom.. problems.

So now we're left with the need to retcon the ages of the characters.

Does using the Force make you age faster?

Did some of the main characters take a lightspeed trip with/out time dilation turned on?

Did somebody get frozen in carbonite and not age or something?



There is still the slim chance that more time goes by in ROTS than we know of at this point. I speculated that the "harry potter scene" we all have heard will be the last scene in Episode III might take place "some years after" the main events in the rest of the movie. That might help to explain the extra time.

But, will Lucas actually do that? I begin to doubt that he'll remember, what with all the time spent on juicing up the special effects in the OT and hyping this latest movie. But it would be a satisfactory solution, even if it's just Lucas explaining it on the commentary track of the DVD. They don't have to show Obi-Wan's face clearly, just have him walking up with the baby in his hands saying "here you go Owen" and do the whole thing in silouette. Then you can have the mandatory 18-20 years for Luke/Leia to be that age in ANH and explain the ages of the other main characters without having to make them all look younger in the OT or leave it unexplained why they aged several years out of nowhere.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

There is no need to concoct a retcon explenation, because there is simply no contradiction.

Besides, having RotS occupy a longer span of time in no way would be a "solution" to the "problem". Try using common sense in your ravings, Kurgan.

[Kurgan]

Besides, having RotS occupy a longer span of time in no way would be a "solution" to the "problem".

(Emphasis mine). Why wouldn't it be a solution? All it would do is shift the "official dates" of the other prequel films, since we don't have any "stardates" quoted on screen.

There is no need to concoct a retcon explenation, because there is simply no contradiction.

Ok Spanky, you tell me how old the characters are in the prequels and then how old they are in the OT, since there is "no contradiction."

And this may very well be cleared up by ROTS and/or the new OT DVD's, but until then, be my guest...

[Knife]

You're all going off of the age of the actor and then expecting the character to mirror that age. This does not need to be the case. Old Ben being in his 50's is believable, if just barely, even if Sir Alec was in his 60's.

I know Sabastian Shaw was even older but that doesn't make Vader older than Ben. In fact, since Ben was Anikin's master, you'd expect him to be younger.

It is obvious, though, that earlier Lucas expected a larger gap between Republic and Empire. The EU seems to take on that theme since the 'clone wars' were long ago and most if not all knowledge of Jedi is wiped out. That would have been hard with in living memory of alot of people. Hell, Han was suppost to be late 20's to early 30's in ANH, so he was 10 or so and should have been able to remember the 'war' and the old Republic, not to mention the Jedi.

[Kurgan]

Agreed about the gap.

As to the apparent ages of the characters (disbarring any "well in Star Wars they have incredible plastic surgery technology and people live super long life thanks to advanced medicine!" stuff that just complicates things), is this part of suspension of disbelief?

I mean, yes, obviously there are difficulties involved with showing vast passages of time with the same characters in a series of films. Even though the OT was made over a period of 6 years (well, not including all the time George piddled around with scripts before ANH), they are "officially" taking place over a period of 4, in-universe.

But now we have the prequels taking place over a period of 30 some odd years(!).

Still, is it reasonable SOD (remember, visuals trump dialouge, right?) to assume we're seeing a 40 year old man, when we're seeing a 70 year old actor? (ie: one who appears to be in his 70's, not somebody who's had a face lift and dye job), or a 60 year old man when we're supposed to be seeing a 50 year old?

So we have some "fixes" that seem to be in the background. There's the "well the Dark side makes you age super fast" thing, that might not be unique to Palpatine. He almost looks like an alien in ROTJ anyway, I mean if you hadn't seen him before when he was "younger." But how does that explain Obi-Wan? Sure maybe the Clone Wars and all the junk that followed really took a toll on the poor guy, but how did he hold up so well in the 10 years between TPM and AOTC? He looks like he only aged a couple of years. And having Anakin as a Padawan (when he was barely a Knight himself remember, and with opposition from the council at first) couldn't have been that easy either. Or does being a Jedi make you age faster, period? Then again, what if Anakin grew up fast from using the Force? Okay, that's too complicated!

Maybe Obi-Wan is just a freak occurence. Maybe Anakin zapped him with some bad juju in their final duel that made his hair turn white and get a few extra wrinkles.

Then there's the rumor that Lucas is putting in Hayden for Anakin's ghost in ROTJ. Okay fine, there may be some reason for that (and not changing the ghosts of Obi-Wan or Yoda). Fine, but that doesn't do anything for Anakin's face under the mask. Okay, so maybe the Dark Side and his injuries and treatments just make him look 30 years older than he really is.

Then the rest of the stuff is just believing that the Empire is so successful that they can make everybody (except a tiny group of agitators) forget everything that happened in the last 20 years, and change everything in a galaxy wide society in such a short time.

Then again, maybe the Jedi like to keep their students as Padawans for a long time (or Obi-Wan sucked). Which makes Luke's career even more amazing than it already was ("too old" ha!). He not only skips the first 20 or so years of training, he completes the course in 4!