The problem with that is what Lucas told Filoni. It wasn’t just Anakin’s need for power, it is how he was taught that led to that. The duel between Qui-gon and Darth Maul was the duel for Anakin’s fate. Had Qui-gon won, Anakin would have turned out different. Qui-gon is portrayed as a rebel against the Jedi council. Anakin needed an unorthodox teacher teacher like that. Instead he got the by the book teacher in Obi-wan (his comments to Qui-gon both point out how out of step with the council Qui-gon was and how in step he himself was). That plus Palpatine whispering in his ear for thirteen years.
Also, the feeling I get from the PT is that the Jedi are flawed. I stopped reading the EU materials long before the PT came out so I have no clue if they support or contradict the impression I get from the PT itself. The flaw in the Jedi teaching does not lie in their dogma. It lies in the tools they teach their younglings and padawans to resist the temptation of the dark side. What we get is that they don’t teach them anything. They teach dark side abstinence and avoidance. So when the dark side comes calling, they have no defenses to resist it. Fear lead to anger which leads to hate which leads to suffering. Anakin is too old at 9 and has some fear of leaving his mother. So instead of addressing his fear, the Council doesn’t want to teach him. Obi-wan has what Yoda taught him as a youngling and what Qui-gon taught him as a padawan, but we clearly see that Anakin never loses his fear of losing the ones he cares about. There is this wonderful meme someone made of Grogu long after Din Djarin was gone that sums up what Anakin needed. It is not the attachment that is the problem, it is the fear of losing the attachment. Everyone dies so a properly trained Jedi must be prepared to accept the loss and carry on. If you don’t fear the loss, an attachment cannot lead to the dark side. One simple tool, though probably a hard lesson. So I’ve always felt the flaws in the Jedi teachings were there in the films without need to refer to an outside source. Though what Filoni had to say was very enlightening.
I’d argue that we don’t actually know Lucas told that to Filoni. (This is all my opinions and speculation of course.) Because yeah, Filoni said it and he worked with Lucas, but he’s his own person with his own ideas just like Gary Kurtz and Lawrence Kasdan were. Add that to the fact that everything Lucas has said, which I gave some examples of earlier, is in contradiction with what Filoni said, I genuinely cannot believe Filoni got those ideas from Lucas.
“The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that [Anakin] cannot hold onto things, which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn’t willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he’d have been taken in his first years and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn’t have this particular connection as strong as it is and he’d have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them."
I think its safer to assume that Filoni, being as big of an EU as he is, got a lot of ideas and interpretations from it, where lots of novels did raise questions about the Jedi because Lucas did not effectively convey what he was trying to say. Unless Lucas changed his mind on the topic of course, which with his history is completely possible, in which case I digress and will stand corrected.
I completely agree with you about the films and what they show, which is why I try to separate what Lucas said and understand it because it shows he didn’t do as good a job as he should have. It is easier for me to accept the idea that Lucas wanted the plot and story to show one thing, but the result was not what he wanted and its too late to try to fix it. The Jedi come off as a weird group who try to isolate themselves, seem to dismiss emotion, etc. and we get not clear reasons why, which makes us wonder why Anakin’s supposed love for his mother and Padme is wrong.
Also, Lucas’ idea of Attachment is not a bond nor is it love. It is purely greed, greed formed around people. These quotes sum it up well:
“Try not to confuse attachment with love. Attachment is about fear and dependency, and has more to do with love of self than love of another. Love without attachment is the purest love because it isn’t about what others can give you because you’re empty. It is about what you can give others because you’re already full.” — Yasmin Mogahed
“The problem is always that we mistake the idea of love for attachment. You know, we imagine that the grasping and clinging that we have in our relationships shows that we love. Whereas actually it is just attachment, which causes pain. You know, because the more we grasp the more we are afraid to lose, then if we do lose, then of course then of course we are going to suffer.
Attachment says: I love you, therefore I want you to make me happy. And genuine love says: I love you, therefore I want you to be happy. If that includes me, great, if it doesn’t include me, I just want your happiness. And so, it’s a very different feeling. You know, attachment, it’s like holding very tight. But genuine love is like holding very gently, nurturing, but allowing things to flow, not to be held tightly. The more tight we hold on to others, the more we will suffer." - Tenzin Palmo Jetsunma
So yeah, Lucas also failed to make it clear what exactly attachment was, because the only character we see in situations with family and a significant other is with Anakin, who also happens to be the one with attachments the films/Jedi are shunning.
To make it clear, I am a prequel fan. I grew up with them. This particular issue is the one flaw I find in these films and to me its a pretty big one because 1. I like knowing what storytellers want to do with their stories and 2. Because, as I’ve said, I think Lucas failed to deliver this point, and at the end of the day the general consensus and understanding of an art by the audience becomes the more important part.
I think Lucas did fail to deliver his points clearly. His story, the deep stuff, is too subtle. It is there, but you have to watch it several times and read about what he was trying to do, and some you don’t get unless you watch all 6 movies up to that point. I feel that the important point is similar to what you say. Attachment of the sort Anakin had is bad. But I think it is also clear that the Jedi, rather than teach how to have good relationships, just said not to have any. To totally avoid the temptation. I think that shows a failing in their teachings. And it is unfortunate that a significant deleted scene in TLJ repeats this idea as Luke trains Rey. But he makes it about the nature being intertwined with the Force. Anakin didn’t get this lesson. Luke did. And by get I don’t mean he wasn’t taught it. We don’t get to see Anakin’s training so we don’t know. But he didn’t learn it. A proper response to the though of Padme dying in childbirth would be that he would do what he could to prevent it, but if that was her fate then life goes on. Instead Anakin is clinging to her and it destroys him.
One thing I’ve found amusing is that Lucas has said that the force is not like yin/yang, but yet everything he has done with it is very much like the yin/yang concept. Even his talk of bringing balance to the force. So a lot of what Lucas says has to be taken with a grain of salt. I feel he lives in the world of “a certain point of view”. Sometimes I think some of our heated discussions are because some of us see through what he says to what he means and some of us take him as what he says is what he means.