Forced to explain

Not all "Star Wars" questions must be answered.

I say that as someone who, at age 8, determinedly wrote my own fan fiction — in scribbled longhand on legal pads — during the long, dark days between the 1977 original and "The Empire Strikes Back."

Life will, in fact, go on even if you don't know which planet Cloud City was on (Bespin) or what creature lurked in the Death Star garbage compactor (a dianoga) or why the rebels chose an icy hell like Hoth as their base (who knows).

But some issues have lingered all along, unaddressed questions that a viewer has every right to have answered without buying a library full of novelizations and reference guides. These aren't really plot holes; they're themes that need closure.

Ten open items on the docket, along with odds they'll be resolved in "Revenge of the Sith":

1) Leia. Yes, she kicked butt, but you get the sense George Lucas never quite knew what he wanted to do with her. (It's also a fair bet that when writing the original "Star Wars," he hadn't yet decided on her being Luke's sister.)

We eventually learn her backstory — raised as a princess on Alderaan by Bail Organa — but her purpose in the rebellion seems diminished after Luke appears. Perhaps Han Solo is meant to be her consolation prize, but (and no golden bikini comments here) why doesn't Anakin Skywalker's daughter get more of a role?

It's truly puzzling because Leia seems to have at least nascent Force powers. Unless there's some weird father-to-son midichlorian genetics at work, she presumably should have as much Jedi potential as Luke.

"You have a power I don't understand, and could never have," she tells Luke in "Return of the Jedi." He replies,  "You're wrong, Leia, you have that power too. In time, you'll learn to use it as I have."

Yet all she gets are hints and glimmers while Luke gets the full Jedi treatment. Why?

Odds of resolution: 3 in 10. Leia's appearance in "Sith" is likely to be limited.

2) Vader and family. When exactly does Vader figure out that Luke is his son, and why can't he sense a Force connection with Leia — especially when he tortures her in Episode Four?

One hole was tightened in Lucas' "Empire" DVD. In the theater version, the Emperor describes Luke as a "great disturbance in the Force," but doesn't really tie him to Vader.

In the new edit, the Emperor insists Luke is "the offspring of Anakin Skywalker."

"How is that possible?" asks Vader.

"Search your feelings, Lord Vader, you will know it to be true."

No, thanks. We're still wondering when Vader figures it all out.

Plus, if both Luke and Leia are spirited away soon after being born, how come Vader learns about one but not the other?  In one theory, Vader believes Leia died along with her mother. Why, then, would Luke have survived?

Which brings us to the matter of Padmé's potential demise. Luke has "no memory" of his mother. Leia says she "died when I was very young," yet remembers "images, feelings. She was very beautiful, kind, but very sad."  Unlikely, then, that Padmé dies in childbirth, though she presumably passes away while the twins are still babies, before Leia is spirited off to Alderaan.

The timeline of the twins' birth, separation and concealment is essential.

Odds: 7 in 10 on the twins and Padmé, 4 in 10 on Vader.

3) Politics. Lucas has never hidden his disdain toward politicians. It permeates "Attack of the Clones." (Witness Anakin's dictator-in-training rant while trying to woo Padmé. Bad form!)  But his political metaphors are clunky as he tries to merge his lords-and-knights theme with the legislative machinations of the Republic.

You sense Lucas is fascinated by medieval royalty, but can't quite make up his mind how he wants galactic politics to function.  Naboo, for instance, elects queens, yet apparently appoints senators.

Lucas seems keen to show democracy corrupted, with Darth Sidious holding the reins. Add in the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guild, banking clans and all the other loose affiliations in "Phantom Menace" and "Attack," and it should be no surprise the Republic is about to crumble.

If democracy is so cherished to the Republic, why is there so little backlash when Jar-Jar stands up in Episode II, and proposes to create an army and hand the Chancellor emergency powers?  Because the Sith control so many senators?

Sounds like Lucas was torn between cheap shots at politicians and trying to praise the democratic process. I'd like at least one political-textbook moment in Episode Three.

Odds: 4 in 10.

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