Two ways of looking at this I think: At worst that line now seems like it is an omission on her part, but it is still accurate that he served Bail Organa in the Clone Wars, and really whatever she says there doesn't change the storyline in ANH at all (I could also say if I wanted to justify it more that Leia doesn't know whether Ben might go back to hiding after he helps and doesn't want her knowledge of him seeming like anything more than "my Dad sent me" to protect herself). The one thing coming out of the Obi-Wan show that does impact ANH more to me is that Leia seems somewhat unbothered when Ben dies, but then again her whole planet just got blown up and she was recently tortured an yet she is making wisecracks about Chewbacca being a walking carpet so...her emotional state is likely off. It should be noted she has no actual dialog with Kenobi at all - I might agree more if she had a conversation with him and they did a "nice to meet you" thing as compared to hastily recorded message.
It's a valiant justification, but (for me personally and no one else maybe) I can't square the circle. We tend to default to our personal experiences and relationships even over more meaningful or important connections. Just in terms of how people talk, Kenobi's show causes it to make no sense at all for Leia to basically refer to Ben as her dad's friend and not the guy that protected her and developed a Wolf-and-Cub bond with her.
This is plenty of years later and Vader 100% knew Ben was around and active back then (on account of Ben almost slicing Vader's face in half), so there's no point in playing coy still and pretending it never happened or they don't know each other. It's just incredibly strange.
You're 100% correct that it doesn't change the story. But it also doesn't -jive- with the story, and that's still a problem to me.
The other way is more pragmatic in that there are already a half dozen things in ANH that future films/shows make odd, from Vader killing Luke's father to Luke crushing a bit on Leia to Vader being subservient to Tarkin to no Emperor being seen despite playing a huge role in RotS, so in the grand scheme of things this is pretty minor - its not like everything is airtight in the OT as is.
Oh no, I definitely agree. The OT contradicts itself a bit, for sure. And that's an issue. The -bigger- issue (in my mind) is when more shows and movies come along that compound the contradictions and make them even worse, or add new ones. Tarkin being in charge of Vader makes a lot of sense within the context of Tarkin being like a general and Vader being a 'knight' that's kind of outside the chain of command. Everything created post-OT damages the credibility of that argument, though.
If it were me adding to the continuity of Star Wars, I'd be heavily invested in, at the very least, avoiding contradicting the OT or adding more confusion to things from the OT wherever I possibly could. For instance -- Leia shouldn't have been in Obi-Wan's show. That fixes the 'Leia doesn't know Ben' problem. And you could basically still make the exact same show without it being Leia in the 'Cub' role.
Honestly, if you hadn't (I assume) seen SW so often, would the disconnect between that line and the Obi-Wan show even have registered?
Impossible to say, of course. I think... maybe? It depends on the 'when' as much as the 'how often.' Right? If you took someone that never saw Star Wars ever in their lives and knew nothing about it and got them to watch every show and movie in chronological order within the span of a couple of weeks - would they pick up this or that contradiction or problem? Obviously that depends on the astuteness of the watcher, but I believe the answer is a general 'yes.'
Especially if you factor in that the people most likely to really sit and watch this much Star Wars is going to be some type of nerd prone to deep-diving the material anyway.
Sure, its not like I'm saying I don't like Lando, so therefore I pretend he isn't in the story while watching TESB - that would require mental gymnastics* and be kind of absurd. But after consuming the ST, I can decide that even though I know that is the story in terms of the IP holder, I can prefer to think the story ends with everyone living happily ever after and the last real thing is RotJ. There should be some logic, either a clean stopping point, or a change in creators, etc., to support the "I'm good" reaction. If someone said they thought ANH works as stand alone film and rejects everything else, I could accept that position.
Absolutely.
What I meant was that it becomes harder to do that post-OT. For instance, if you don't accept the ST as canon, what do you do with anything that relies on the ST going forward? If there's a new trilogy about Rey that you really like - how do you square that circle against your not accepting the ST as canon? Or does one simply accept that they will never watch anything Star Wars ever again besides the OT to avoid the potential of having that problem?
The example I've used stands; I could choose to let go of my beloved Qui-Gon and just pretend the PT doesn't exist. But they reference FUCKING MIDICHLORIANS in Mandalorian. So now Mando can't exist for me either, or I have to do these weird mental gymnastics where I start picking and choosing specific -lines of dialogue- to pretend don't exist, and stuff like that. It becomes a lot harder when you move past just 'OT only' sort of head-canon.
I'm satisfied writing her experience with Ben as a child off as something she doesn't bring up to protect one or both of them should R2 get captured. His history in the clone wars is safe to bring up. I dunno, it's not as world breaking to me as Leia being Luke's sister.
I can't think of a single reason why sending an R2 unit to go find General Kenobi is okay, but that R2 unit having the information that Kenobi once helped Leia and they used to know each other isn't okay. 'You knew my dad' - safe. 'You knew me' - danger zone. No offense intended, of course, but that just makes absolutely no sense to me.
The droid stuff gets so fucking weird and complicated. And it's a conversation seemingly no one wants to have about Star Wars; Is Star Wars pro-slavery?
Because droids are sentient, right? It certainly wants us to react emotionally to their sacrifices. But whenever them remembering stuff isn't convenient, it's also cool to just wipe their memories like they don't matter. And also they are absolutely enslaved to fleshies. Solo decided to deal with this and it was just... so weird and definitely did not help either side of the conversation.
