The 8-Min Jedi
Because who's got time to complete the full training?
Welcome back! I use this Substack as an excuse to play with action figures—but in order to have something to say about them, I also consider how these figures can serve as prompts for fiction and TRPG writing.
This comes from a recent post by Jason K Pargin1, asking the question many of us have struggled with about The Empire Strikes Back:
Just how long was Luke training on Dagobah?
The difficulty with the answer is that any amount of time seems incongruous with the other plotline of the film, the escape of the Millennium Falcon. Since they both have the same start and end points, they both must have taken the same length of time.
By most accounts, this would seem to be a few weeks (as the likeliest answer) to at most two months.
And even that’s padding the downtime on board the Falcon. I mean, who knows how long they’re hiding inside that asteroid—a week or more, making repairs? Then flushed out and on their way to Bespin, they’re still traveling without hyperdrive, so another week or so to crawl through space, I guess?2
Other Training
For comparison:
Basic Training for the U.S. Army? 10 weeks.3
Basic Training for the Marines? 13 weeks.
To become a Navy SEAL? Well, that’s an additional 6 months of BUDS (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training) on top of Boot Camp and Special Warfare Prep School.
Even Basic Training in the French Foreign Legion takes 4 months (with the note that it can lead to French citizenship over time or if wounded under the provision: Français par le sang versé; that is, “French by spilled blood”).
According to Star Wars canon, Jedi training starts with infants, and lasts around 15-20 years.
The Magical Clock of Dagobah
Clearly there’s a disconnect. Regardless of how much Luke has learned so far (and if two weeks on Dagobah seems short, his training with Ben Kenobi in A New Hope seems to last all of two hours), it’s too much of logical bridge for even Luke Skywalker to swing across.
Two weeks is just not enough time for any realistic amount of training.
But! Since Empire Strikes Back has always been my favorite movie, I’ve always tried to reconcile its problems.
I grew up reading Marvel’s G.I. Joe comics, where they’d give out “No-Prizes” for seemingly errors in story logic or continuity that were given semi-plausible explanations by fans. Man, I always wanted one of those prizes, and used to write in all the time to win one. Sadly, no luck there…
Here goes my version of a No-Prize.
Yoda does a fair bit of meditating. At some point, he not only foresaw Luke needing him for training, but also how little time he would have to train him. And every minute of that training is critical; without Luke successfully taking on Vader, the fate of the entire galaxy is lost.
Yoda thought through his options, but in any version where he makes a more open play to train Luke, he’s found out by the Emperor and the whole thing’s blown. So Yoda can really only come up with one workable plan.
It isn’t perfect, and it’s a huge sacrifice for himself, but so be it…
Of all the planets to hide on, there’s something about Dagobah—whether with the planet itself, its Dark Side Cave, or even Yoda’s own massive mental efforts (if you thought raising an X-wing was impressive, try affecting the gravitational field of an entire world); but in any case, time runs slower on Dagobah than rest of the galaxy (that’s why the second Luke enters its atmosphere, his instruments go nuts).
When Luke arrives, let’s say he actually stays there for a full 10 weeks—or maybe even longer, possibly months. A year? Enough time to learn to use a lightsaber well enough to go toe-to-toe with Vader and Force-jump his way out of a carbon-freezing chamber.
Meanwhile, only two weeks have passed in the rest of the galaxy.
Yet while this allows Yoda just enough time to train Luke, Yoda is stuck on Dagobah. He still can’t leave. He doesn’t want to reveal himself and tip his hand to the Emperor that the Son of Skywalker has been training with him, and may now be even more of a threat to the Empire after all.
The problem is, Yoda was already old when he escaped to Dagobah. The years waiting for Luke to get there have aged him immeasurably faster. By the time Luke is finally able get back in Return of the Jedi, a year or more may have passed, what with all the planning for Han’s rescue. On Dagobah, Yoda has aged that much faster as well (and quite noticeably).
He waited, wanting to be there to finish Luke’s training, but could only hold out long enough to say his final goodbyes.
A sacrifice made for the good of the galaxy.4
And Now, a Quick Word from our Sponsor
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Really good stuff, IMO. I’ve recently been hooked on his content.
Granted, without hyperdrive, a trip to another star system would probably take hundreds if not thousands of years, but that’s a different problem altogether.
This is all minimally researched, BTW. I’m sure my numbers are off.
If only Luke had understood that himself in Empire.
And it’s already ranked in the top, uh, 50k projects there! Well, it started off in the top 70k, so there’s a bit of progress for you!
Plausible! Give this man a No-Prize.