I loved Star Wars so much when I first saw it in the theaters. I had to convince my Dad to bring me, and he only caved in and brought me and my two brothers because , Time Magazine called it the greatest movie of all time. I collected the Topps cards, read the less than stellar Marvel Comics adaptation, and listened to the soundtrack (on what we called a phonograph.)
When I read the novelization by "George Lucas" (which I figured out was written by Alan Dean Foster in a bit of literary deduction) I was thrown by Obi Wan telling Luke that "even a duck must be taught to swim." and Luke's response: "What's a duck?" The exchange, a simple example of character building through dialog, seemed to violate the sense of continuity. It made sense that Luke wouldn't know what a duck was, he lived on a desert planet, ducks wouldn't last two minutes there. It pissed me off that Obi Wan did know what a duck was. This was "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." why are ducks known out there, back then?
I enjoyed The Empire Strikes Back and about half of The Return of the Jedi, but the bloom was off the rose. I started to realize just how half-cocked Star Wars was. It wasn't new, just new to me. In building his universe Lucas borrowed from vastly superior sources: samurai films, movie serials, Marvel Comics, etc. Everything became grist for his mill. "What's a duck?" became symbolic to me for everything I perceived to be wrong with Star Wars. I realized that the premise just wasn't thought out that well. The three newest movies made matters worse. When we see ducks on Naboo, I thought, "Lucas is just covering his ass. There were no ducks on Naboo before."
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