The issue as many see with the Jedi’s approach is that they taught their students to essentially suppress any and all emotion that leads to the dark side. That’s unhealthy, and in the end we see that it leads to the dark side as well.
I don’t know if it’s “unhealthy”. It worked for 1000 years.
Try not to misconstrue Anakin’s mistakes as a result of the Jedi way. That wasn’t the case at all. Anakin was brought up the most un-Jedi way ever. He received late training. He had attachments to his mother. He disobeyed the Jedi code and got married. And he spent the majority of his Jedi life in battle. Of course he would turn to the Dark Side. He doesn’t even know what it means to be a Jedi.
Anakin’s mistakes reveal holes in the Jedi way. Watching the PT it is very clear that Anakin has never been trained on how to avoid letting his emotions rule him. I see it as a failing of the Jedi. He is too old to be trained in their view because the only way they have of teaching a padawan to stay clear of the dark side are their rules. Anakin falls because the Jedi both fail to detect the Sith master and because they fail to teach him how to truly avoid the temptation of the Dark Side. Think back to the OT and what Ben and Yoda use to teach Luke… don’t be like Darth Vader. I don’t know if Lucas deliberately built in that flaw to the Jedi, but it is there and very obvious. Anakin lacks the tools he needs to avoid the dark side. They take him from his mother and never let him go back. They don’t heed his dreams of his mother at all. They don’t comfort him on her death. They are cold and distant.
One aspect that I find now when I watch the PT is the color of the saber. Those who are polarized have blue sabers. Those who are closer to the middle have green sabers. Mace is the most legalistic of them and has a purple saber. Following the colors of the rainbow, that is furthest from the red of the sith. And yellow sabers popped up before Rey had one. They are held by those even more neutral than most active Jedi. So I really think the neutral aspect of a true Jedi is built into the saga. I found Qui-gon to be an ideal Jedi. His attitudes and what he says and what he does all point to focus on the mission and that he knows far more than he shares. He has no interest in interfering. If he was there to act, he would have freed Anakin and Shmi. But he was not there to free slaves. He is on a mission and the only interest he takes in because Anakin shows force sensitivity and has those high midichlorian levels. He thinks he is the chosen one at that point and THAT dictates his actions, not Anakin’s status as a slave. He tells the Queen that he can protect her but not fight a war for her.
It is that attitude that Rian Johnson repeated with Luke and his third training session with Rey (the deleted scene). So I don’t see where the ST has done anything new. All the stuff I keep saying comes from me watching the PT and the OT repeatedly for years. I’ve mentioned Abrams, Johnson, and Filoni becaue the have used what was already in the series. Filoni has consulted with George and worked with him closely with what he did in the various animated series. Abrams consulted with him on TROS. So there is a lot of George in what I am saying. But it comes through the filter of these others. But I think it happens to agree and paint a single picture of the flaws of the Jedi in the PT. George has said a lot of things over the years. Some of it agrees, some of it is contradictory. Some of what he has said contradicts what he put in the movies. So I prefer to take what has ended up on film as a better indication of George’s intentions. Some of what he says seems to be designed to avoid bad ideas.
For instance, you cannot have a good force user who solely uses the dark side. They are not balanced and are going to succumb to the temptations. But you can have a good force user who can tap into the dark side as needed to make use of that power in the service of good. like I said I don’t think the force is inherently good or bad, just part of nature. It is how it tends to be use and how it is used. The Sith use of it is evil. How we saw it used by the good guys in the saga is not. You cannot maintain balance if you give into the temptations of the dark side.
So I don’t see the Jedi we have seen as balanced. We may see something different a few hundred years earlier, but I think the problems with the Jedi go back to the split with the Sith (provided that piece of the EU stays accurate). It would be a natural turn of events for the Jedi to start teaching complete avoidance of anything pertaining to the dark side.
So I think the pure force is far more neutral and balanced that what we see in the Jedi. The Bendu is the best example of a being that is balanced in the force. I see the father/daughter/son trio as representing the force, the Jedi, and the Sith with the father again being a being balanced in the force. I see those three as part of Lucas’s Whills concept. The balanced, the light, and the dark. I personally would watch those episodes and use them as inspiration. Lucas had many ideas that never saw the screen and they might be Filoni’s interpretation of something Lucas shared with him. I don’t think he would have gone there without consulting George about it. So I think George’s ideas are in those characters. I wouldn’t say they are Whills, but they are related to them in some way. The Bendu might be as well. The whills should be something higher like those beings. They should be less affected by human sensibilities. They should reflect balance and nature rather than human passions.