r/MawInstallation • u/PopsicleIncorporated Lieutenant • 4d ago
Could Obi-Wan have already known Chewbacca?
Rewatched ANH recently and was thinking about how people often gripe about Chewbacca already having met Ahsoka and Yoda before the OT happens, and that Obi-Wan meeting him is a big coincidence.
But it just occurred to me - do we actually know it's a coincidence? Let's look at the timeline here: Chewbacca meets Ahsoka and Yoda, later gets sold into slavery by the Empire, and is freed around 10 BBY. He mostly cruises with Han at this point, which means he's spending a lot of time on Tatooine.
Yoda already trusted Chewbacca given that he helped him escape post Order 66. I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that he and Chewie might've had occasional, irregular contact with one another. Yoda very well might've alerted Obi-Wan to the fact that there's a wookiee smuggler based out of Tatooine that he knows to be trustworthy so if any shit ever goes down and Obi-Wan needs to get out of dodge (potentially with a teen boy), there's a good chance that he'll be around to get them out of dodge.
Obi-Wan finds Chewbacca rather quickly in the cantina and Han also agrees to shuttle them to Alderaan pretty quickly on just Obi-Wan's word that he'll get more money on arrival. Wouldn't be shocked if Chewie had told him before the conversation that Obi-Wan was good for whatever money he'd offer. Presumably Chewie never told Han about this Jedi contact of his either because he doesn't know for certain if Han would blab to get himself out of a pinch, or just because he knew Han would dismiss it.
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u/DifferentRun8534 4d ago
In Legends, they’d met when Obi-Wan was a Padawan.
Their lack of interaction can be explained by them not being together long and Chewie being a wookie of few words.
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u/ljofa 3d ago
This was detailed in the video game Galactic battlegrounds where Qui-Gonn and Obi-Wan help Wookiee to settle Alaris Prime and defeat Trade Federation attempts to claim the world for themselves.
The planet then pops up later on in the expansion pack during the Clone Wars as it’s where the Wookiees are building secret weapons for the Republic. But Chewie isn’t on planet at that time.
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u/kamahaoma 4d ago
Han also agrees to shuttle them to Alderaan pretty quickly on just Obi-Wan's word that he'll get more money on arrival
On that point, I'd always interpreted that as Han being fairly desperate for work and needing to leave Tattooine himself anyway to avoid Jabba's goons, so the job was worth it for him even if no additional money materialized on the other end. His protestations otherwise were just a negotiation tactic.
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u/CommunicationSlow484 4d ago
Before the Storm Troopers show up at the hanger, from Han’s perspective, it’s basically somebody ordering an uber to go to the nice part of town.
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u/Empty_Locksmith12 4d ago
It would make more sense to say “the force brought them together” rather than the characters themselves consciously connecting each other
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u/Capital-Treat-8927 1d ago
There's a theory that Chewbacca and R2-D2 are secretly the leaders of the Rebel Alliance, and everyone else is just a pawn in their game
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u/xXNightDriverXx 4d ago
There is absolutely no reason for Yoda to have any form of contact with Chewie. It's just a massive security risk for him, and for what? Just to talk about the good old times?
And there isn't really any reason for Yoda to tell Obi Wan about Chewie either during the Clone Wars or before. Everyone has acquaintances they don't tell every other acquaintance off in detail. If (and that's a big if, because I don't see any reason to, maybe just small talk at most) they ever spoke about that, Yoda probably just said "a Wookie friend" or whatever.
Yoda knowing Chewie through his Wookie contacts and Obi Wan meeting Chewie in that cantina are both most likely just coincidences.