How Long Did Luke's Training On Dagobah Actually Last?
After the chaotic escape from the destruction of Echo Base on Hoth in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, the remaining Rebel Alliance forces scatter, promising to rendezvous at a previously agreed upon location. It is here that the main protagonist group splits. Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and C-3PO leave on the Millennium Falcon. Luke Skywalker and R2-D2 leave on Luke’s X-wing starfighter. While the Millennium Falcon heads for the rendezvous point, Luke decides to head for the planet Dagobah to find the wise Jedi Master Yoda.
What we see in The Empire Strikes Back is an extended montage of his training. We are not actually told explicitly within the film how many days pass. No change in seasons is apparent. At first glance, we do not even know if Dagobah has seasons or if it is just one long wet season all the time. Some astute minds have tried to determine how much facial hair Luke was able to grow during his time on Dagobah .(Not a good method to mark the passage of time as he would have access to a shaving kit or cutting instruments.) Some argued that Luke spent several months on Dagobah. Others said it was mere days. This author had always thought it was less than a week, a crash course in everything Jedi. In this latest thought exercise, we will look into how long Luke’s training on Dagobah actually lasted.
Let’s see where Luke’s training fits in the timeline of The Empire Strikes Back. Luke is on Dagobah from the time he leaves Hoth up until the time he heads for Cloud City to rescue his friends. He does not appear to take any detour between Hoth and Dagobah. With the urgent need to reach his friends who are in danger, we can safely assume that Luke does not take any detour between Dagobah and Cloud City either.
Immediately after Hoth, the Millennium Falcon attempts to jump to lightspeed, and discovers that its hyperdrive is damaged. This narrows down the amount of traveling they can do. They can neither hop to the other end of the galaxy nor make any side trips anywhere else. This is the reason why Han decides to head for Bespin, as it is the closest place to their current location where he has an acquaintance. After they land on Bespin, the group probably spends one or two days enjoying Lando’s hospitality before being turned over to Darth Vader (who, according to Lando, “arrived before you did”). The group is then interrogated by Darth Vader while he works on reconfiguring the carbonite freezing system in preparation for Luke’s arrival.
The original point of divergence between the two groups occurs at the end of Battle of Hoth, with Luke heading straight for Dagobah, and the Millennium Falcon slowly heads for Bespin. The two groups converge again at the end of The Empire Strikes Back with the Millennium Falcon’s escape from Bespin happening almost simultaneously with Luke’s arrival on Bespin and his duel with Darth Vader. We are also assuming that Luke’s vision of his friends happens in real time right when they encounter Darth Vader, and Luke leaves Dagobah immediately after experiencing the vision. We can then surmise that the amount of time Han, Leia, and Chewbacca are in Darth Vader’s custody is roughly the same as the time it takes Luke to travel from Dagobah to Bespin. Thus, Luke’s time on Dagobah is roughly about the same as how long it takes the Millennium Falcon to travel from Hoth to Bespin.
The most straightforward way to calculate the amount of time it takes for the Millennium Falcon to travel from Hoth to Bespin is to divide distance between Hoth and Bespin by the sublight speed the Millennium Falcon is travelling (time equals distance divided by speed). As the distance between Hoth and Bespin is not published anywhere, we will also have to make more estimates. A deleted Reddit user posted their calculation 4 years ago that Bespin is estimated to be 1,150 lightyears from Hoth. Wookieepedia tells us that the Millennium Falcon has a sublight speed of 75 MGLT (megalight) per hour. However, MGLT per hour is a measure of RELATIVE sublight speed among different starships in the Star Wars universe, it is not clearly defined in terms of a distance per hour that we can use in our calculation. If we are then to assume that the ship is traveling at its known atmospheric speed (the speed the ship travels in a planet’s atmosphere as opposed to much higher speed in space) of 1,050 kilometers per hour, it would give us about 1.03x1013 hours or 4.32x1011 days (assuming 24 Earth hours in one Earth day) or about 1,183,561,644 years (assuming 365 Earth days in 1 Earth year). This figure is several times more than the average lifespan of a human or any known humanoid alien, even if we are to account for the difference in a Star Wars galaxy day compared to Earth day. We will have to take a different approach in estimating the time the Millennium Falcon takes to travel from Hoth to Bespin.
According to Wookieepedia, the Millennium Falcon has roughly 2 months' worth of crew consumables. We know that the Millennium Falcon does not (and cannot) make any pit stop between Hoth and Bespin. Assuming the ship is fully stocked upon its departure from Hoth (as Han and Chewbacca are set to leave the Rebel base right before Battle of Hoth), and accounting for the crew’s ability to stretch their at most 2-month supply with a voracious Wookiee onboard, this author could safely estimate that it takes no more than 8 to 10 weeks for the ship to reach Bespin. How does the Millennium Falcon make this trip so fast without their main hyperdrive? Perhaps they utilize a little of their much slower Class 10 backup hyperdrive to hobble along to Bespin. Perhaps piggybacking on the Imperial Star Destroyer allows them to travel through hyperspace for some time.
In summary, this author concludes that that Luke spent about 8 to 10 weeks training on Dagobah at best. This could potentially fall in line with a passage from the story "There Is Always Another" from From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back. The story itself is from Yoda's point of view:
"'But I've learned so much since then!' Luke protests, and I resist the urge to snort. As though carrying Yoda on your shoulders and eating his terrible cooking for a few weeks makes you a Jedi."
One's definition of "a few weeks" may vary. Was this enough time to train a Jedi? Given the training plus the adventures Luke endures between this and Return of the Jedi, it seems so. Yoda does tell Luke in that film, "No more training, do you require. Already know you that which you need."