Bingowings said:

Ben and Vader assume that Luke and Leia are 'strong in the Force' without training.

Stronger than Han or Chewie or Sy Snootles or Cliff Richard.

They don't assume anything... it is a fact that can be seen and sensed. Luke demonstrates his abilities throughout the trilogy. Liea shows her ability when she can sense Luke through the force on Bespin. And nothing in the trilogy explicitly states that they inherited their abilities from their father.

The quote "The force runs strong in your family" can be purely an observation of the facts that can be noticed.

Since you still don't get it... Luke, Leia and Vader all wear blue shirt. An observation of facts would be "Skywalker family wears blue shirts". Now does that explicitly tell you that they were born in blue shirt?

Leia doesn't though does she?

The assumption is made by both Ben and Vader that any offspring of Anakin's would be a threat to the Emperor (who knows this) because of their mutual Force strength.

CP3S said:

Did a little searching online and found this quote from the ROTJ novel,

" We fought ... your father fell into a molten pit. When your father clawed his way out of that fiery pool, the change had been burned into him forever — he was Darth Vader, without a trace of Anakin Skywalker. Irredeemably dark. Scarred. Kept alive only by machinery and his own black will ... "

I also found that in a pre-Empire Strikes Back interview with Mark Hamill, he mentions that he was told his character's father and Obi-Wan fought Darth Vader over a volcano, and both Luke's father and Vader fall in, with Vader managing to survive. 

Good work!

That explains where that all came from. I never read that book or caught the Hamill interview. But the details must have passed from one kid who had, to another, then another in those pre-internet days until it reached my school playground in the North of England lol

Hey, it's me. said:

Fantasy is fantasy but it stills has to stay true to its own rules? So why is it never explained how the sword ends up embedded in a solid block of rock and no one can pull it out? Fantasy has no rules. Human EMOTION is what draws us into fantasy stories, I find it difficult you fail to understand this? We buy into the fantasy element and suspend our disbelief because of the human element to these fantastical stories. Jedi didnt ruin the fantasy of the force, TPM did. I agree, Jedi was weak but it didnt ruin the mystique of the Force. 

In fantasy it doesn't need to be explained how the rules work it just has to stick to them.

So if the rule is that only the King can pull the sword from the stone and someone else does and the story doesn't bother to come up with an interesting loophole it's bad fantasy.

The PT introduced an explanation for some of the mechanism keeping the sword in the stone which was extrapolated by ROTJ saying there was an actual mechanism.

In Star Wars and ESB there wasn't a hint of a mechanism it was implied that Jedi abilities were learned abilities and anyone who wanted to and was lucky to find a teacher could do it.

It then makes sense for Vader and the Emperor to kill the teachers and gain a monopoly on that knowledge.

ROTJ turns it into a lineage thing (like Paul and Alia in Dune) and the PT explains to a degree how the lineage thing works.

In my opinion both undermined the mystical aspects of the Force and diminished the tingly magical awe of the concept.

Bingowings said:

Leia doesn't though does she?

The assumption is made by both Ben and Vader that any offspring of Anakin's would be a threat to the Emperor (who knows this) because of their mutual Force strength.

For the last time now... Anakin's offspring were a threat to the Emperor BUT in sense of triggering Anakin's return. The fact is that this is what actually killed Emperor.

On the other hand, possible inheritance of force powers (which you aim at) was never explicitly mentioned in the films NOR does it play any role in Emperor's eventual demise.

End of discussion.

Also for the last time Vader also assumes that Luke AND Leia have some innate strength to destroy the Emperor.

If Luke doesn't turn he will turn Leia (Vader doesn't make empty threats).

Sure he is hoping this will snap Luke and turn him to his way of thinking but if it doesn't Leia is clearly Plan B.

Even Luke says so.

He says to her that she is the last hope for the alliance because she has the magic wish power too.

Not Admiral Ackbar or Lando but his sister.

She has the ability (according to him) without Ben or Yoda to train her.

It was the talk of the playground for three years up our way.

"He must be lying to turn him around", "He must be telling the truth", "Obi-Wan wouldn't fib about that", "Ben Kenobi what a lying get!"

That revelation isn't the problem though, the problem is the whole Ben's ghost sitting on a log telling Luke that he and Leia are natural born Jedi (which Vader and Palpatine back up).

In ESB Vader and Luke have both been trained in the Force by Jedi Masters so they can both be Jedi and blood related coincidentally.

ROTJ is where that changed and the error was compounded by the PT.

Generally yes and I've had a fair deal of stick for saying it but in this case I'm specifically saying that the whole dilution of the emotional/mystical aspects of the Force (the wonder element of the story) was undermined at that point.

Anything the PT did just built on that initial miss-step.

Not to sound like a prequel apologist but Lucas saying in 1981 that Yoda (who had only been realized as a puppet up to then) is only a teacher shouldn't be binding. That doesn't necessarily make a warrior Yoda a good idea but his remarks back then shouldn't be taken as gospel.

CP3S said:

Okay, maybe we should move on to a different point of interest that hasn't been mentioned yet.

Lucas stated that the Emperor wasn't a Jedi (presumably, this included Dark Jedi, or what we now all know as a Sith). When did that change? It is revealed explicitly for the first time in ROTJ when he uses the force to undo Luke's binders.

It was basically established in ESB when the Emperor contacted Vader that he was a Force user of some sort, hence the slightly baffled Kasdan:

Kasdan: Was he a Jedi?

Lucas: No, he was a politician. Richard M. Nixon was his name. He subverted the senate and finally took over and became an imperial guy and he was really evil. But he pretended to be a really nice guy. He sucked Luke’s father into the dark side.

Kasdan: The Force was available to anyone who could hook into it?

Lucas: Yes, everybody can do it.

Kasdan: Not just the Jedi?

Lucas: It’s just the Jedi who take the time to do it.

Well, the Emperor certainly took the time to do it - "There is a great disturbance in the Force." (it could of course be argued that he just wasn't a Force user back when he snared Anakin)

Bingowings said:

Also for the last time Vader also assumes that Luke AND Leia have some innate strength to destroy the Emperor.

If Luke doesn't turn he will turn Leia (Vader doesn't make empty threats).

Sure he is hoping this will snap Luke and turn him to his way of thinking but if it doesn't Leia is clearly Plan B.

Even Luke says so.

He says to her that she is the last hope for the alliance because she has the magic wish power too.

Not Admiral Ackbar or Lando but his sister.

She has the ability (according to him) without Ben or Yoda to train her.

It doesn't have anything to do with inheritance.

Vader actually experienced/felt Luke's strength in the force. He didn't make any assumptions.

When he said to Luke that perhaps Leia will turn if he won't... it doesn't explicitly say that he will use her powers nor that she is even strong in the force. It was just a threat.

When Luke says to Liea that she is the only hope for Alliance, he doesn't make an assumption that she inherited force powers. He too experienced/felt her having them.

This thread turned from i hate the prequels to i hate return of the jedi really fast.  And i pretty much could see it coming.

I wonder if Rinzler's book will even shed some light on how much of the film is Marquand and How much is Lucas.  How much second unit directing did Lucas really do did he really  direct the picture as people have long accused etc.

When Jedi made more money than Empire did Lucas feel vindicated?  When it found a larger audience of children who hated Empire because it was slow plodding and boring and too adult did he feel like he had his finger on the pulse of his audience and understood them better than Kershner?

I like Jedi but i also realize  if a picture makes more money does not necessarily mean it is critically a better film.  Is so the Bayformers trilogy and the star wars prequels are some of the best films ever made alongside Kingdom of the crystal skull.

imperialscum said:

Bingowings said:

Also for the last time Vader also assumes that Luke AND Leia have some innate strength to destroy the Emperor.

If Luke doesn't turn he will turn Leia (Vader doesn't make empty threats).

Sure he is hoping this will snap Luke and turn him to his way of thinking but if it doesn't Leia is clearly Plan B.

Even Luke says so.

He says to her that she is the last hope for the alliance because she has the magic wish power too.

Not Admiral Ackbar or Lando but his sister.

She has the ability (according to him) without Ben or Yoda to train her.

It doesn't have anything to do with inheritance.

Vader actually experienced/felt Luke's strength in the force. He didn't make any assumptions.

When he said to Luke that perhaps Leia will turn if he won't... it doesn't explicitly say that he will use her powers nor that she is even strong in the force. It was just a threat.

When Luke says to Liea that she is the only hope for Alliance, he doesn't make an assumption that she inherited force powers. He too experienced/felt her having them.

So when he says that she is the only hope for the alliance, has the same power as himself and in time will learn how to use it as he does (even though he is going on a mission where he expects to die) he isn't saying she inherited Force powers. She just mysteriously had them more than anyone else for some reason that has nothing to do with the fact they are siblings directly related by blood to another powerful Force user and she will learn to use them all by herself... righty ho.

I'd just like to say that the Force was pretty much established as a pantheistic phenomenon at least as far back as TESB (life creates it, makes it grow, blah, blah, blah), so this entire argument just comes off as dumb to me - the Force is clearly both mystical and physical (or the mystical is just another side of the physical; whatever floats your semantic boat).

If you believe in the occult magic can be both mystical and require physical objects to work and have physical effects.

Before ROTJ the magic of the Force was like magic in Buffy (a hidden mystical  knowledge that with training and the right aptitude can turn anyone into a powerful sorceror).

ROTJ made it more like Harry Potter (blood lines etc).

The PT explained some of how the heredity stuff worked with fantasy science.

This is a significant loss to the series, that sense that it could have been you in that x-wing cockpit.

Luke is just some ordinary kid from the middle of nowhere in the first film.

By ROTJ he is the offspring of royalty and pure blood wizard.

It's like Doctor Who, back in the sixties and seventies kids could imagine that the Tardis might land outside their house and the Doctor might take them on an amazing adventure.

Now 'contemporary Earth' is a fantasy realm where everyone knows that Daleks are real and London/Cardiff gets blown up by aliens every Christmas. It places hurdles in front of that immediate suspension of belief leaving ROTJ and the PT a less awe-inspiring place.

Hey, it's me. said:

timdiggerm said:

Hey, it's me. said:

Bingowings is an ignorant twat.

Well this is no way to discuss things on a forum.

I've been addressing his questions but he's chosen to ignore me rather than debate his point. So to me, he's ignorant. And I feel my point is valid. So he's a twat as well.

You're lucky a moderator didn't notice this.

Unlucky!