When George Lucas decided to tell the story of Star Wars by beginning in the middle of the Skywalker Saga, he didn’t predict that many continuity issues would come back to haunt him after returning to depict what came before the rise of the Galactic Empire. Though in fairness, he didn’t much care about such problems to begin with.
That’s left some big continuity errors in the messy canon of a galaxy far far away, mostly stemming from the creator’s decision to bring back key characters from the first three movies and give them a role in the Prequel Trilogy. Namely, C-3PO’s journey through the saga has always been tricky and confusing, to say the least.
In a recent interview though, actor Anthony Daniels has addressed the problem of his character’s appearance in the original movies and why Obi-Wan seems to not recognize the golden droid in A New Hope despite their time together as companions during the Republic Era and the Clone Wars. As the legendary icon implies, he doesn’t really care about this particular error and this could very well have been a simple indifference from Ben Kenobi.
In his own words:
“I don’t know, I mean…. one droid looks like another, I guess. You’d have to ask a major fan that question.”
Fans have long wondered about these continuity errors and tried to explain them with tidbits of information from other parts of the canon, but the resoundingly obvious answer is that all these issues are essentially plotholes that the producers were too lazy to properly handle in a consistent manner.
Of course, the new Obi-Wan spinoff series that’s currently in development for Disney Plus might manage to retcon this issue by confounding the Jedi Master’s memories and fill in the gaps that still leave many questions to be answered in his story. Until then, though, Star Wars fans have to find another way to suspend their disbelief and somehow overlook this particular plothole.
