Fun With Plot Holes: Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Training In “Star Wars”

I love Star Wars. It's possibly had a bigger impact on my life than anything else. I see its flaws as an adult but I still think, (the original trilogy), are great films. Still...there is something that's bothered me since I was a little kid: Luke Skywalker's Jedi training. When Luke begins his hero's journey into defeating the Empire, he's pretty clueless. He's basically a hick from the planetary equivalent of rural Mississippi. The only thing he can do well is bullseye womprats in his T-16 back home, so his blowing up the Death Star doesn't bother me. What does is how he becomes a mighty Jedi warrior in like 5 minutes.

At the beginning of A New Hope he meets Obi-Wan and begins his Jedi training. They hire Han Solo to take them to Alderaan and Obi-Wan puts Luke through a series of visionary lightsaber exercises...for like, two days. If the Millennium Falcon is traveling  at  significantly faster than the speed of light then it probably took only a few days to reach their destination. Then Obi-Wan is killed by Darth Vader. One teacher gone. We don't know how long of a period of time elapses between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. Maybe a couple of years? In that time, Luke has been on his own as far as Force training. But he doesn't seem to have progressed much. He can move things with his mind with great difficulty and is far from at one with the Force. He then goes to Dagobah to learn from Yoda. While it's true that we aren't sure how long he is with Yoda, it can't be that long. Han and Leia are pursued by the Empire as they leave Hoth, the same time Luke leaves for Dagobah. Now, The Falcon's warp drive breaks and they have to fly at sub-light speed to Cloud City. Let's suppose that at most they are flying for two weeks or even a month. Then Luke feels that they are in trouble once they get there and leaves Yoda. This means that by the time he confronts Darth Vader at the end of Empire he's had a whopping 3 months of training at the most.

But then in Return of the Jedi he is a badass (almost) master. It's the equivalent of taking a semester of biology and calling yourself a doctor. We know from the prequels that Jedi are trained from birth...which Obi-Wan totally could have done since he took possession of Luke after he was born. I understand that Yoda and Obi-Wan are in kind of a hurry for Luke to become a Jedi so he can defeat the emperor, but still that's no excuse for cutting corners. Obviously, Luke did pretty well as someone who barely knew what he was doing, minus that whole getting his hand cut off thing. Maybe I'm over thinking this...I really need to get a life.