The 10 Dumbest Moments In All of Star Wars
Happy Star Wars day and May the Fourth be with you! Since 1977, Star Wars has excited the minds and fantasies of fans young and old. Though really just a simple hero’s journey, the combination of sci-fi, cutting edge effects, and classic character tropes has earned Star Wars a secret Sith-Armada sized legion of fans. While many sites today will be celebrating the best the series has to offer, I’m going to take you through some of the worst. From comics to games, to films, these are the top 10 dumbest moments in all of Star Wars.
As a special challenge to myself, I’m going to complete this list without mentioning The Phantom Menace. That means no midichlorians, no Jar Jar Binks, no ‘Are you an angel’, and no pod racing. Here we go!
10. The Secret Sith Armada
Leading us off is definitely the most recent event to place on the list. Episode IX’s secret Sith armada is not on the list because it’s a terrible idea. Emperor Palpatine having a back-up plan in case Darth Vader betrayed him is right up his alley and should be up the alley of ANY Sith master. The problem with the dread fleet of Exegol is in the execution. Star Wars, by its very nature, asks you to suspend your disbelief.
But I’m sorry, those ships took millions of people to staff and I’m expected to believe no one called home? No one’s conscience got the better of them when they were told they would be destroying every planet in the galaxy? I think the reason it makes me mad is there was a tailor-made solution. Droids. How fitting and full-circle would it have been for Palpatine to have a fleet commanded by a droid army at the end? Instead, and pardon the bad joke: They’re just…. people.
9. The Crying Mountain
I’m not going to beat up too heavily on the crying mountain for one simple reason. Even as far as Star Wars goes, it was clearly a kid’s book. A young kid’s book. Situated in one of the Ewoks books, Mount Sorrow sits on the forest moon of Endor. The mountain could either blow people off its summit or cry healing tears on them.
And that’s all I’m going to say about the actual book. It was a young kid’s book, and it didn’t hold much entertainment value for anyone. It’s not offensively bad, it’s just not interesting to anyone over the age of 6. Is it one of the dumbest Star Wars moments truly? I guess, but it’s not nearly so offensive as some of the stuff we’ll be tackling next.
8. Darth Vader’s Magic Sith Glove
This is a classic example of why I always tell Star Wars fans not to ask too many questions. When you ask questions, you inevitably get answers in this series and they inevitably make you angry. This was the answer to everyone’s burning question after The Empire Strikes Back, how did Vader stop Han’s blaster shots? Wait, no one was asking that? They all just assumed it was the force? WRONG!
As we would later learn in the comics, Darth Vader actually has a magic Sith amulet embedded in his gauntlet. The indestructible amulet of Lord Skere Kaan allows him to block any kind of shot fired at him. But again, what was wrong with the explanation of “he used the force?!” You have magic plot armor powers literally baked into your story. USE THEM! Here’s an idiot explaining a little more about it.
7. Darth Andeddu
So we all know that Sith lords use names that sound like bad things. Obviously, Darth Sidious is Insidious. Darth Tyrannus is a tyrant. Darth Plagueis probably was a COVID-19 super spreader. So what do you suppose Darth Andeddu was? Considering his name kind of sounds like ‘undead’?
If you guessed he’s an evil Sith lich capable of resurrecting and controlling force zombies, then you win. Or you read the book. If it’s the latter, then like me, you lose. I know I just talked about using the force as your explanation for things, but this was an example of them just saying the force lets you do anything. You’d think maybe you’d at least get an interesting story out of this where a Jedi master gets resurrected as a zombie. You’d be wrong.
6. Anakin and Padme’s Romance
I swear, I could write a list of the dumbest Star Wars moments using just Attack of the Clones. It stuns me how many people out there try to defend the god-awful romance scenes between Anakin and Padme. ‘But they’re teenagers! It’s supposed to be cringey!’ Yes, it should be a little cringey. Cringey and poorly-acted are NOT the same thing. If rumors onset is to be believed, George’s idea for making cringey teenage romance was to have Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman do it in one take. I’ve also heard a rumor that they pretended they’d never acted before as a prank and George loved those takes. I don’t know if either is true, but it really doesn’t matter.
Here’s what gets over-looked in the defense of these scenes. YOU’RE MAKING A MOVIE. PEOPLE SHOULD WANT TO WATCH IT. If I get to those scenes, and would rather turn it off than continue, you have failed as a film-maker. It really bummed me out because I don’t think Hayden or Natalie are bad actors, quite the opposite in fact. That was just an example of a director failing his cast.
5. The Yuuzhan Vong
This is another one where I agree with the premise in theory. A species that is immune to the force could be an interesting idea. But it really flies in the face of everything that Star Wars has taught us. The force is an energy field that binds together all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us and keeps the universe together. Enter the Yuuzhan Vong, a humanoid creepy looking species of alien that travels on organic spaceships.
I’ll even credit the Yuuzhan Vong for the success they saw as villains, conquering most of the galaxy. However, the creators really wrote themselves into a corner. By creating a race that was effectively immune to the abilities of a Jedi, what are the heroes supposed to do? Enter in some hyper convenient plot elements to allow the Jedi we know to be more effective, a deus ex machine solution to the overall problem, and you get the disappointing ending to a weird run of the comics.
4. Rotta the Hutt
What list of dumbest Star Wars moments would be complete without this trainwreck? The highest entry on our list from a movie, Rotta the Hutt comes to us courtesy of the Clone Wars movie that launched the TV show. Obi-Wan and Anakin, along with his padawan Ahsoka Tano are tasked with securing an alliance between the Hutts and the Republic. To do so, they must find Jabba the Hutt’s son Rotta.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFxFZCrq9pU
There’s a lot to hate about what happens. From the numerous fart jokes to the Truman Capote Hutt that we meet. Everything about this movie was really bad, but Rotta is at the heart of it. When Jabba sees Rotta again at the end, he holds him up with both arms and it really looks like he’s about to eat him. This character would make my top 10 best Star Wars moments list if Jabba had just devoured him in front of a horrified Anakin and Ahsoka.
3. Darth Vader Steals The Alderaanian Crown Jewels
This story really did make us ask a lot of questions. Who thought this was a good idea? Why does an elected monarchy have crown jewels? What’s the interest rate on a loan during the rebellion look like? The premise of this comic was that Princess Leia was trying to secure a loan for the rebellion to purchase more ships and supplies. Darth Vader didn’t want that to happen so he…. also tried to secure the loan?
Well, of course, Princess Leia proves the valor of the rebellion and gets the loan. But it doesn’t matter because the whole thing was secretly a ploy by Vader to steal the Alderaanian Crown Jewels. I’m not making that up, that’s the story. This is really the first offensively stupid concept on this list, and it makes my blood boil just thinking back to it. To see the political intrigue of Star Wars boil down to trying to get a loan just cheapens the whole premise and easily earns a slot on the dumbest Star Wars moments of the all-time list… Next!
2. Skippy The Jedi Droid
We see a lot of different Jedi throughout the Star Wars pantheon. We see humans from many different planets, Togruta, Twi’lek, Mirialan, Zabrak, Dathomiri, Thisspiasian, Cereans, and many other species take up the lightsaber. Heck, we even see a Wookie, Mandalorian, and Hutt Jedi at least once. But you have to really scrape the bottom of the barrel if you want to locate a droid Jedi. And scrape the bottom I did.
You might be surprised to know that if you’ve seen the original trilogy, you already know who Skippy the Jedi droid is. Do you remember the R5 unit that Luke and Uncle Owen purchase from the Jawas in Episode 4? You guessed it. That’s Skippy! Skippy becomes force sensitive in Jabba’s palace and has a vision of his future with Luke. At first, he’s overjoyed to play a part in Luke Skywalker’s story, but he foresees it ending in disaster. So, to save Luke, he shorts out his own motivator. Luke takes R2-D2 instead and the rest is history. Here’s an idiot talking about it.
1. Cade Skywalker
I can already feel the hate. Can we talk about the number of fans out there who complain about Rey being a Mary-sue, while simultaneously loving Cade Skywalker? Neither of them is Mary-sue’s by the way. Cade Skywalker is the ultimate Star Wars power trip fantasy. Coming at us from the Legacy story, Cade is a descendant of Luke Skywalker and is incredibly powerful. I’m going to describe him the way I imagine he was pitched in the writing room.
Cade is a Jedi, who gets to use light side and dark side powers. He joins the Sith to learn all of their cool powers and then leaves. Also, he gets to sleep with Darth Talon, who is a super sexy red Twi’lek. Oh, and he also has a blaster shotgun. Also, he has the hottest girlfriend in the universe. No, Darth Talon isn’t his girlfriend, they just do it. His girlfriend is a new race of pink alien girls that give off a pheromone that makes them incredibly hot to everyone who looks at them. Also, he’s super handsome.
Listen, I’m all for the Jedi fantasy. Who doesn’t want to be a magical space wizard with a laser sword? Cade’s biggest flaw is that he doesn’t like his destiny? So he takes drugs to cut himself off from the force? I’m not saying Cade doesn’t have struggles to overcome, he does. Some of his stories are actually pretty decent. But unlike most of the stuff on here where everyone agrees it’s bad, I have to listen to too many people hold this up as an example of great Star Wars lore. That earns it an extra level of loathing in my book and the number 1 slot on the list of dumbest Star Wars moments.
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Written by: Kali Sloan | CheckpointXP
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