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Did G. Lucas ever intend to portray the Jedi as a flawed institution in the prequels? Or was it added later in the EU? — Page 3

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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.

Move along, move along.

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of_Kaiburr_and_Whills said:

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.

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I think this is a very valid point of view that I tend to agree with. I’m sure people will chime in arguing which interpretation is the right one, and it may be right, but it definitely feels like it has been muddled, arguably by Lucas himself as time went on.

But I personally think the ambiguity feeds into the Force’s religious connotations in-universe pretty nicely, since religions have fought wars over which interpretation is right, with either side claiming theirs is the Truth.

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of_Kaiburr_and_Whills said:

Want to add to my comment from earlier and explain some of my opinions behind this. The ultimate issue here is that Lucas thinks the Jedi are unquestionable ultimate heroes, but they did not come off that well for most of the audience, and I have to agree.

This is my biggest issue with the prequels, that Lucas did not really convey what he thought the Jedi to be very successfully. Yeah, we get a few lines of dialogue here and there, but nothing that really sticks with the audience unless they are thoroughly examining the films like we are. Of course even then there are still certain major plot points that don’t make the Jedi look too good. Anakin and his enslaved mother is a prime example. Why couldn’t the Jedi free Shmi? Why wasn’t Anakin allowed to see her for a decade?

Like yeah, you could try to explain that in different ways and try to reason it out, but on top of other scenes and plotlines, mixed in with a lack of clear details, its not looking too good. (And this is all coming from someone who grew up with prequels if that means anything.)

I tend to think the main culprit is the sheer amount of other things going on in the films. We really don’t get the Jedi explained as Lucas wanted them to. George Lucas is a talented guy, but I think the prequels would have been better off it were in two parts. One fully explaining the political issues, and another fully exploring the Jedi Order. Seriously, all of the ways Lucas describes the Jedi in the interviews I had brought up never come through that clearly in the prequels. Some things came through in The Clone Wars, but that doesn’t excuse much.

I used to try to reason out all of these things and try to see the prequel Jedi under the most positive light I could, but I always came to the issue that the films themselves don’t show these things. No matter how I tried to rationalize the Jedi’s decisions, and how much I listening to Lucas’ quotes that came out after the fact, they just aren’t present enough in the films.

Lastly, while Lucas is “Buddhist” and were influenced by extremely devoted Buddhist Monks, some consider the Jedi a bastardization of those ideas. So while he may have wanted to base some ideas off of Buddhism, him and his Jedi should never be used as a 1:1 metaphor for Buddhist people and monks. It is fiction over all, and many practices of the Jedi are certainly there for the story only.

Exactly.

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yotsuya said:

of_Kaiburr_and_Whills said:

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.

You don’t have to be a Jedi though. No one has to. To be a Jedi is a very specific commitment, just like being a monk is. Only a small fraction of Christians or Buddhists become monks or nuns. It’s even more important for them to have restraints than real life monks because they have insane levels of power and they’re a branch of both the government and the military. Note - I do not agree with the Jedi being depicted this way and I infinitely prefer the era before the prequels when Jedi openly had lovers, marriages, and children.

On a personal level, in my personal faith, marriage is a good thing including for clergy. However, we do have full time missionaries with similar commitments.
But going off of what Lucas was going for, it’s perfectly reasonable for monks to exist. For people that aren’t inherently suspicious of religion anyway.

As for Yin and Yang, that’s another thing that’s conveyed poorly, as that’s not actually what Balance in the Force means, but the very wording of “Balance in the Force” confuses people and leads them in some really silly directions. (You need equal good and evil, light side is about “lack of emotion” and dark side is about emotion, etc.)

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the Jedi, rather than teach how to have good relationships, just said not to have any.

Exactly, and that’s the main problem I have with the Prequel Jedi.

Being totally selfless is impossible. Love always requires a certain degree of possessiveness. If I love someone, I want to be with that person not only because I like him/her as a person, but also because the presence of that person makes me happy and makes me feel good. If the presence of that person didn’t make me feel good, then there would be no reason for me to engage in a romantic relationship with that person in the first place. In love, you have to give and receive. You give your love in the hope that your love will be reciprocated and that the exchange of that love will make you happy. A stoic love without attachment is simply not true love, but a generic feeling of relative interest. Like it or not, attachment is an absolutely natural thing that is part of human psychology. We are all attached to someone. It’s not right to kill someone to save a person we love, but at the same time it’s absolutely right to worry about those we love and wish they are well. If we find out that someone we love is in danger of life, then it’s right to try to save him/her. Not just because we want that person to be good, but also because that person makes us feel good. In life one cannot be either entirely selfless or completely selfish. You need a balance, and that’s what neither the Jedi nor the Sith (as well as George Lucas himself) have ever understood. Being concerned and afraid for the people we love is absolutely natural, we just have to learn not to let these fears dominate us and cloud our judgment. Expressing all emotions, even negative ones, is absolutely right, and that’s what the Jedi should have taught. Not teaching that attachment is something that should be avoided at all cost, but understanding that it’s natural, understanding that the negative emotions that arise from it are absolutely natural, and therefore learning to control them and not letting them dominate one’s judgment, basing on the personal situation and personal needs of every single individual.

I’m sorry, but “Be happy for those who turn into the Force” is not a balanced and human teaching, not at all. On the contrary, “Protect the ones you love, do everything you can to make them feel good, but if in the end you don’t succeed, then, only then, you have to learn to let go”, this is a deep, human and healthy teaching. But what did the Jedi do instead? To avoid the Dark Side at all cost, they simply preferred to bypass the problem. Instead of studying and understanding the personal situation and needs of each individual, and instead of teaching how to express your attachment towards others in a balanced and controlled way, they acted in an extremist way by eliminating the possibility of having any attachment. Instead of teaching to have good relationships, they simply forbade having relationships in the first place, teaching to repress any negative feelings. And what has this led to? It led Anakin to be immersed between two opposite extremes: pure passion and pure stoicism. They taught him to repress every negative feeling, leaving him unprepared for tragedies. And guess what, when people are unprepared to deal with a tragedy then, when a tragedy happens to them, they offen react violently. No wonder Anakin went completely crazy and turned to the Dark Side. They didn’t teach him to deal with his negative feelings in a human and healthy way, they let him be manipulated by Palpatine who fed his negative feelings by gradually teaching him to deal with them in the wrong way, and as a result the Galaxy has been completely fucked up.

That’s why I love the New Jedi Order created by Luke in Legends. It corrected the errors of the Old Order, understood what the problem of the old dogma was and solved it in the best possible way, that is, by teaching the Jedi how to have good relationships, indeed. George’s view of avoiding attachment at all costs is extremist, not rational and psychologically damaging, and I can’t believe there are people who unironically agree with him on this.

«This is where the fun begins!»
(Anakin Skywalker)

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I think this is a very valid point of view that I tend to agree with. I’m sure people will chime in arguing which interpretation is the right one, and it may be right, but it definitely feels like it has been muddled, arguably by Lucas himself as time went on.

But I personally think the ambiguity feeds into the Force’s religious connotations in-universe pretty nicely, since religions have fought wars over which interpretation is right, with either side claiming theirs is the Truth.

Very good point. For better or for worse, and like a real religion, the Force and the Jedi have so many different interpretations.

Move along, move along.

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of_Kaiburr_and_Whills said:

I think this is a very valid point of view that I tend to agree with. I’m sure people will chime in arguing which interpretation is the right one, and it may be right, but it definitely feels like it has been muddled, arguably by Lucas himself as time went on.

But I personally think the ambiguity feeds into the Force’s religious connotations in-universe pretty nicely, since religions have fought wars over which interpretation is right, with either side claiming theirs is the Truth.

Very good point. For better or for worse, and like a real religion, the Force and the Jedi have so many different interpretations.

Somewhat of an aside, but I always felt it was a missed opportunity that multiple Jedi sects/schools/denominations weren’t much of a thing. Yes, the EU did have Corellian Jedi, gray Jedi, etc., but for the most part, the Jedi were treated like a monolithic whole.

“The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order and in the assertion that, without Authority there could not be worse violence than that of Authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that anarchy can be instituted by a violent revolution… There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.”

― Leo Tolstoy

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I think the idea of ​​the Jedi not being perfect came from Lucas the EU showed two Jedi falling to the Dark Side before the Prequels Exar Kun and Ulic Qel Droma but i never saw a negative portrayal of the Jedi in those comics

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In fact EU material written prior to the prequels frequently had Jedi falling in love, getting married and starting families, in addition to there being no age restriction to joining the Jedi order and we even had some Jedi taking more than one apprentice at a time.

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fmalover said:

In fact EU material written prior to the prequels frequently had Jedi falling in love, getting married and starting families, in addition to there being no age restriction to joining the Jedi order and we even had some Jedi taking more than one apprentice at a time.

I think that is the version of the Jedi from older times. I think Lucas was deliberately layering in some things he might have observed from the older stodgy religions to make the PT Jedi a bit off. At their core they are still the same, but they are operating under stricter rules and some Jedi chafe at those rules, like Qui-gon Jinn. I think that the minor schism between Qui-gon and the council is Lucas showing us that the current Jedi order has imposed additional limits on itself. I think this is further illustrated in Anakin’s fall. I think this is shown in the films and I think it is reinforced by what Dave Filoni said that Lucas told him about the significance of Qui-gon’s death. Qui-gon is the master Anakin needed. He would have been the chosen one and would have brought balance to the force without the destruction that resulted. But he got Obi-wan. A perfectly capable master for any regular student, but not the master that Anakin needed because Obi-wan followed the council (and was on the council). Lucas was playing the story overly subtle in the PT and there is a lot that you can dig out that isn’t immediately obvious but is there in multiple places. I think the add campaign for AOTC partly shows this with the rules for being a Jedi that they used that Anakin obviously had problems following. Those rules, as they were in the add campaign (print and trailers) weren’t in the film, but are clearly part of the story. In the film we just see Anakin chafing at several rules and reference to attachments vs. love.

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Yes, Qui-Gon would have been a better master to Anakin, as he was a lot more laid back than the average Jedi, whereas Obi-Wan was very by-the-book.

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I talked about this in another thread so I’m gonna dump it here.

George Lucas inserted his own values and philosophy into the Jedi. He agrees with the Jedi all the time. Read any one of his quotes and he frames the Jedi as the ones in the right. Especially Yoda.

Here’s the deal about Jedi philosophy: attachment in Star Wars does not mean the dictionary definition of attachment. It’s the Buddhist definition: the inability to let go of things. Lucas has said the Jedi are allowed to feel emotions. They’re allowed to feel love. They’re allowed to care about other people and have emotional bonds. This is shown. Yoda admits he’s afraid for Anakin’s training (proving that Anakin being afraid wasn’t the problem, it’s that he wouldn’t admit it and repressing it that was the problem; hence, “Be mindful of your feelings.”). Yoda tells Padme he has warm feelings in his heart after she survives the assassination attempt. Obi-Wan is friends with Dexter Jester. Mace Windu vouches for both Dooku and Anakin in AOTC (Mace and Yoda cut Anakin more slack then Obi-Wan, in AOTC). Yoda cries when he feels Anakin’s in pain. The bond between a Jedi master and padawan is strong. Obi-Wan loves both Qui-Gon and Anakin. In The Clone Wars series, the Jedi council cares about Yoda when they think something’s wrong with him when he claims to hear Qui-Gon’s voice. Yoda calls Anakin his friend. Yoda, Plo-Koon, and Mace Windu are shown to be caring towards the clones. Tiplee openly shows sadness at Tiplar’s death. She loved her like a sister. The Jedi is supposed to be like one big family.

Should these things have been better clarified and emphasized in the scripts, and the Jedi made to seem more kind and empathetic? Absolutely. You shouldn’t have to read Lucas quotes (or watch a 7 season TV show) to understand the movies. But George Lucas being a bad writer doesn’t change the fact that the Jedi aren’t intended to be emotionless assholes.

The “no attachments” doctrine is about not letting your feelings interfere with a mission and being willing to let things go when need be. There’s a difference between selflessly loving someone and being in a possessive, toxic relationship. Obi-Wan loves Satine, in The Clone Wars, he even says, “It’s not that we’re not allowed to have these feelings, it’s natural”, but he doesn’t let it interfere with a mission like Anakin does. And when Satine dies, Obi-Wan lets her go. He doesn’t succumb to the dark side. He doesn’t close out his emotions. He feels his emotions but then moves on. When Bo-Katan tries to emotionally blackmail him, he doesn’t fall for it, because he can’t let his emotions cloud his judgement. The same thing happens after Qui-Gon’s death. He openly cries, but then moves on and honors his memory by training Anakin.

He doesn’t enter a relationship with Satine because he has a commitment to the Jedi Order. If a Jedi wants to be in a relationship, they need to leave. “A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind.” And there’s no shame in leaving the Order. Dooku left and the Jedi still spoke fondly of him, let him keep his lightsaber (Dooku: Jedi Lost novel), and even built him a statue (in a deleted scene). It’s not a cult. Anakin should’ve either left the Jedi Order after AOTC or waited to marry Padme after the clone war.

The reason a Jedi can’t be in a committed romantic relationship is because they, on a daily basis, go on diplomatic missions in which billions of lives hang in the balance. The slightest imbalance in a Jedi knight caused by relationship problems could be a disaster. This is what the last act of AOTC is meant to show: because Anakin rushed in to fight Dooku because he’s angry about the dead Jedi and Padme, he ruined him and Obi-Wan’s chances at beating Dooku. Imagine if Obi-Wan and Anakin managed to keep Dooku at a standstill by working together, and then Yoda showed up. Dooku has no chance. The war is over. Literally in the scene on Dagobah in the original trilogy, Yoda is lecturing Luke on how the Jedi path is not just something you just do when you feel like it. It’s a lifestyle. It’s not like working at Subway, you literally dedicate your life to it.

Anakin knows the difference between attachment and love. As he says in AOTC and an episode in The Clone Wars when he lectures Ahsoka on the importance of letting go of attachments (in the Geonosis zombie worms episode). It’s not that he doesn’t understand the teachings or objects to them, it’s that he doesn’t have the emotional strength to apply them to himself.

The problem is that Anakin was willing to do anything to keep Padme from dying. He literally kills kids. He becomes possessive of Padme. He thinks of her as an object. He’s not turning to the dark side to save her, he’s doing it because he doesn’t want to live without her. He doesn’t want to feel the pain of losing her. He doesn’t care that he’s destroying everything she fought and cared about her whole life (he was betraying her too by joining Palpatine). He was shown that Padme could die (“Always in motion is the future”) and that there’s nothing he could do about it (for the sake of the plot we’re gonna assume there’s no such things as C-sections in Star Wars; which I mean, this is coming from the same guy who said “There is no underwear in space”, so it really ain’t all that hard to believe), but he refused to accept it. According to George Lucas, Plagueis could not actually cheat death. That was a lie. There was nothing Anakin could do except trust in Padme’s strength to make it through childbirth. If he had listened to Yoda and accepted that, then things would’ve been alright. It’s possible she would’ve survived, and if not, Anakin would’ve needed rejoice for the good memories he shared, honor her memory, and let go. That’s what the Jedi way is about. It’s really just about living a healthy life. It’s about not craving control over things you have no control over. Because that’s how you get greedy.

George Lucas obviously doesn’t think you should repress your emotions, never be emotionally attached to anybody or never get married. He’s a very emotionally open guy, he’s been married twice and has kids. He just used a different meaning of the word attachment, and people were (rightfully) confused.

A quote from George Lucas:
“A Jedi is never lonely. They live on compassion. They live on helping people, and people love them. They can love people back. But when that person dies, they let go. Those that cannot let go become miserable. That’s the lonely place.”

The fact is, and the entire crux of this whole thing is, George Lucas is not a great writer. He didn’t do a good job conveying that the Jedi can love people and the difference between attachment and love. Because he’s an excellent visual artist, but not a good writer. His specialty is experimental avant-garde cinema, which is why there’s so much visual storytelling in the original 6. But his dialogue is flat and utilitarian. Which is why the Jedi appear flat and utilitarian. Lucas doesn’t really care about nitty gritty continuity or writing great dialogue. He literally calls lightsabers “laser swords” half the time. The reason? Because he’s not really about all that, he really just cares about the themes, the mythological motifs, the story he’s trying to tell. The story he’s trying to tell is, “The dangers of not being willing to let things go.” (the other is democracies and dictatorships, but that’s irrelevant). It’s not about the Jedi. So he sticks to that bottom line. The Jedi are just the good guys. He expects you to take that for granted. Yoda is literally a vessel Lucas uses to convey his own philosophy. The whole, “Why didn’t the Jedi go back to Tatooine and free Shimi?” is just a plot hole, not a way to point out the flaws of the Jedi. He does make sure to have Qui-Gon try to free Shmi to show that he’s selfless and caring, but once she’s out of the story it doesn’t really matter. Because Lucas doesn’t really dwell on that stuff. He’s more focused on the overall themes. Shmi has to die for Anakin’s story arc. She leaves the story when she needs to and comes back when she needs to. It’s why he forgets that Leia should know her birth mother. Because to him, the visual parallels between Vader’s birth and the death of his wife/birth of his children was more important. He cares more about sticking to themes then continuity or the plot. Now, you really shouldn’t have to sacrifice one for the other, but again, Lucas is a visual, experimental filmmaker. He isn’t into all that. He cares more about mythological themes and concepts then plot holes or great dialogue writing.

My Star Wars Fan-Edits

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Darth Malgus said:

On the contrary, “Protect the ones you love, do everything you can to make them feel good, but if in the end you don’t succeed, then, only then, you have to learn to let go”, this is a deep, human and healthy teaching.

It’s funny because this is literally what Lucas thinks:

They can still love people. But they can’t possess them. They can’t own them. They can’t demand that they do things. They have to be able to accept the fact, one, their mortality, that they are going to die. And not worry about it. That the loved ones they have, everything they love is going to die and they can’t do anything about it. I mean they can protect them as you would ordinary protect, you know, ‘Get out of the way of that car.’ Somebody charges you with a gun, you knock the gun out, but there is an inevitability to life which is death and you have to accept that.”

“[Jedi Knights] do not grow attachments, because attachment is a path to the dark side. You can love people, but you can’t want to possess them. They’re not yours. Accept that they have a fate. Even those you love most are going to die. You can’t do anything about that. Protect them with your lightsaber, but if they die they were going to die. there’s nothing you can do. All you can do is accept that fact.
In mythology, if you go to Hades to get them back you’re not doing it for them, you’re doing it for yourself. You’re doing it because you don’t want to give them up. You’re afraid to be without them. The key to the dark side is fear. You must be clean of fear, and fear of loss is the greatest fear. If you’re set up for fear of loss, you will do anything to keep that loss from happening, and you’re going to end up in the dark side. That’s the basic premise of Star Wars and the Jedi, and how it works.
That’s why they’re taken at a young age to be trained. They cannot get themselves killed trying to save their best buddy when it’s a hopeless exercise.

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Beautifully put G&G Fan.

In fact, I think now that some of my opinions on this matter may have been too critical.

Move along, move along.

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G&G-Fan said:

Darth Malgus said:

On the contrary, “Protect the ones you love, do everything you can to make them feel good, but if in the end you don’t succeed, then, only then, you have to learn to let go”, this is a deep, human and healthy teaching.

It’s funny because this is literally what Lucas thinks:

They can still love people. But they can’t possess them. They can’t own them. They can’t demand that they do things. They have to be able to accept the fact, one, their mortality, that they are going to die. And not worry about it. That the loved ones they have, everything they love is going to die and they can’t do anything about it. I mean they can protect them as you would ordinary protect, you know, ‘Get out of the way of that car.’ Somebody charges you with a gun, you knock the gun out, but there is an inevitability to life which is death and you have to accept that.”

“[Jedi Knights] do not grow attachments, because attachment is a path to the dark side. You can love people, but you can’t want to possess them. They’re not yours. Accept that they have a fate. Even those you love most are going to die. You can’t do anything about that. Protect them with your lightsaber, but if they die they were going to die. there’s nothing you can do. All you can do is accept that fact.
In mythology, if you go to Hades to get them back you’re not doing it for them, you’re doing it for yourself. You’re doing it because you don’t want to give them up. You’re afraid to be without them. The key to the dark side is fear. You must be clean of fear, and fear of loss is the greatest fear. If you’re set up for fear of loss, you will do anything to keep that loss from happening, and you’re going to end up in the dark side. That’s the basic premise of Star Wars and the Jedi, and how it works.
That’s why they’re taken at a young age to be trained. They cannot get themselves killed trying to save their best buddy when it’s a hopeless exercise.

That is how it is supposed to work. When you are trained up from your earliest memories that that is the way, it is easy to live that life. Anakin came to the order late and did not have that base and the Jedi failed him in his training (let’s be quite clear, it is obvious that while Obi-wan was his primary teacher, all the Jedi were involved). What Lucas told Dave Filoni about the duel in TPM being truly a duel for the fate of Anakin, makes it clear that this was Lucas’s intent. The rest of the comments are about Jedi in general. But you have to look at the fallen Jedi as well as those who remained in the order to see what Lucas did. The Jedi training did not work for everyone and it periodically failed. It definitely failed Anakin, but also Dooku. Qui-gon was not aligned with the rest of the Jedi in some of these things. And his difference of opinion is what Anakin needed and didn’t get from Obi-wan or the Jedi order. So the Jedi are flawed, but their flaws are do not make them evil, just out of balance. Hidebound is the word that seems to describe them best. It means they are too wrapped up in the rules and history and are no longer able to adapt when odd things crop up, such as Dooku or Anakin.

I don’t usually read the novels or comics, so all I have to to go on in what is in the movies and tv series. Dooku’s fall isn’t covered in a significant way. Anakin’s is the one we can see and it is a series of errors. First the error to detect Sidious. He is right there and influencing Anakin the entire time. He spent 13 years laying the groundwork for Anakin’s fall. At the same time, the Jedi weren’t able to deal with Anakin’s fears and teach him how to let go. Now, some people just can’t learn something new like that so we could also blame Anakin for coming into the order with fear and Obi-wan for going ahead and training him (and we hear him blame himself in the OT), but Lucas’s comment about Anakin and Qui-gon make it clear that there was a way Anakin could have been trained and become a stellar Jedi and Qui-gon’s death took away that chance. That means that Anakin was not intended to have these issues, but that the Jedi and their ways (which Qui-gon differed with) are to blame for Anakin’s failure to be taught.

Rian Johnson tied into this in TLJ with what Luke was saying about the Jedi. And in that movie we see what the Jedi should have done - change. Learning from past mistakes is what makes a great teacher. If you haven’t made the mistakes, you can’t teach your students how to avoid them. The Jedi were all about avoidance without having the tools that all their order need to be able to avoid failure. Luke is once again schooled by Yoda that he needs to learn, not only from his own mistakes, but the mistakes the Jedi made, and be there for Rey. That is one reason I love that film. I feel it completes the Jedi tale. And then Rey runs off with the Jedi texts.

And going along with that, I’ve noticed an interesting pattern. In TROS we see Rey and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo openly use a force healing power. As I watch the previous episodes we can see it in ANH and ROTS as well. Ben revives Luke in the Tatooine canyon and Palpatine stabilizes Vader on Mustafar. In this ability you see the ultimate application of attachment and how it should work for a Jedi. Had Anakin known this, he could have saved Padme, though at the cost of his own life. A Jedi can use their power to heal, but at personal cost. Rey heals Kylo Ren (he was not dead yet, the wound was freash). Then Kylo Ren (learning the power the same way Rey learned from him) saves Rey, but she is drained so saving her costs him his own life. A Jedi with attachment risks themselves. They must be free from emotional entanglements. They can be in love, but they have to know how to let go. But in the Prequels, the way the Jedi teach this is to avoid love as it leads to attachment. Anakin was right, they are too love (compasion), they just have to be able to let go when it is time and that could be any moment. Qui-gon could have taught him that lesson, none of the other Jedi could.

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I still don’t really buy the idea that Qui-Gon would have saved Anakin. I know that was Lucas’ intent, but I don’t buy into it.

But we can’t turn back. Fear is their greatest defense. I doubt if the actual security there is any greater than it was on Aquilae or Sullust. And what there is is most likely directed towards a large-scale assault.

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Servii said:

I still don’t really buy the idea that Qui-Gon would have saved Anakin. I know that was Lucas’ intent, but I don’t buy into it.

There are two reasons why you can see that this would have been the case. First, he is not quite in step with the rest of the order. Anakin needs something extra and this being out of step would have given Qui-gon a different perspective. We see this and Obi-wan even states that if Qui-gon would just conform he’d be on the Jedi Council. But Qui-gon is his own person. The other is that Qui-gon likely would have been more absent from Coruscant and separated Anakin from the influence of Palpatine. I think that when you put those two together that Anakin would have never turned to the dark side. Of course, given that we are talking about a prequel, that wasn’t going to happen. Qui-gon died in TPM for the same reason that Obi-wan did in ANH - drama and story. Adding in that having Qui-gon as master would have changed the outcome makes that story all that deeper. He made Qui-gon the master Anakin needed. And it sheds light on the flaws of the Jedi.

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yotsuya said:

That is how it is supposed to work.

It’s not “how it’s supposed to work”, it’s how it does work. George Lucas says of the Jedi, “They are the most moral of anyone in the galaxy.” He says Jedi are allowed to love. Not just Qui-Gon. All of them.

What Lucas told Dave Filoni about the duel in TPM being truly a duel for the fate of Anakin, makes it clear that this was Lucas’s intent.

No. Lucas didn’t tell Filoni that. Filoni made it up.

Here’s a whole post covering Filoni’s “Duel of the Fates” tangent. In short, almost none of it follows Lucas’ vision. It’s all his headcanon.
https://www.tumblr.com/david-talks-sw/678157778408374273/hi-this-came-about-because-ive-seen-a-few-of?source=share

The rest of the comments are about Jedi in general. But you have to look at the fallen Jedi as well as those who remained in the order to see what Lucas did. The Jedi training did not work for everyone and it periodically failed.

22 Jedi over a thousand years left. Three of them turned to the dark side. These are the exceptions, not the rule. It’s not the fault of the teachings, it’s the fault of the person who refuses to use them.

At the same time, the Jedi weren’t able to deal with Anakin’s fears and teach him how to let go.

It’s not that they didn’t try to help Anakin it’s that Anakin refused the help the Jedi tried to give him.

Rian Johnson tied into this in TLJ with what Luke was saying about the Jedi.

No again. Luke blames the Jedi for his mistake. His arc is realizing that it was his personal failing that led to Ben’s turn and not the result of the Jedi way. He even admits at the end that the Jedi should live on.

https://www.tumblr.com/david-talks-sw/675200100120903680/about-luke-the-jedi-and-attachment?source=share

And going along with that, I’ve noticed an interesting pattern. In TROS we see Rey and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo openly use a force healing power.

Force healing was not come up with by George Lucas. And even if so, force healing is a part of the Jedi way because it’s inherently selfless. So there’s no reason to bring it up.

But in the Prequels, the way the Jedi teach this is to avoid love as it leads to attachment.

George Lucas says otherwise, and in the prequels themselves, nobody says that.

Just admit this is your head canon. Everybody has them.

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G&G-Fan said:

https://david-talks-sw.tumblr.com/post/698315387285176320/so-why-is-mace-considered-to-be-unlikable-by-a

This is a good read, though I disagree with his notion that the Jedi being wandering adventurers would have made them less morally perfect. I get what he means, though. We look at the Jedi now from a wary adult perspective, but when I watched the prequels as a child, the Jedi were simply good guys and that was that. It’s when you get older that you start thinking, “Wait, why didn’t the Jedi do this or this?”

But we can’t turn back. Fear is their greatest defense. I doubt if the actual security there is any greater than it was on Aquilae or Sullust. And what there is is most likely directed towards a large-scale assault.

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G&G-Fan said:

yotsuya said:

That is how it is supposed to work.

It’s not “how it’s supposed to work”, it’s how it does work. George Lucas says of the Jedi, “They are the most moral of anyone in the galaxy.” He says Jedi are allowed to love. Not just Qui-Gon. All of them.

What Lucas told Dave Filoni about the duel in TPM being truly a duel for the fate of Anakin, makes it clear that this was Lucas’s intent.

No. Lucas didn’t tell Filoni that. Filoni made it up.

Here’s a whole post covering Filoni’s “Duel of the Fates” tangent. In short, almost none of it follows Lucas’ vision. It’s all his headcanon.
https://www.tumblr.com/david-talks-sw/678157778408374273/hi-this-came-about-because-ive-seen-a-few-of?source=share

The rest of the comments are about Jedi in general. But you have to look at the fallen Jedi as well as those who remained in the order to see what Lucas did. The Jedi training did not work for everyone and it periodically failed.

22 Jedi over a thousand years left. Three of them turned to the dark side. These are the exceptions, not the rule. It’s not the fault of the teachings, it’s the fault of the person who refuses to use them.

At the same time, the Jedi weren’t able to deal with Anakin’s fears and teach him how to let go.

It’s not that they didn’t try to help Anakin it’s that Anakin refused the help the Jedi tried to give him.

Rian Johnson tied into this in TLJ with what Luke was saying about the Jedi.

No again. Luke blames the Jedi for his mistake. His arc is realizing that it was his personal failing that led to Ben’s turn and not the result of the Jedi way. He even admits at the end that the Jedi should live on.

https://www.tumblr.com/david-talks-sw/675200100120903680/about-luke-the-jedi-and-attachment?source=share

And going along with that, I’ve noticed an interesting pattern. In TROS we see Rey and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo openly use a force healing power.

Force healing was not come up with by George Lucas. And even if so, force healing is a part of the Jedi way because it’s inherently selfless. So there’s no reason to bring it up.

But in the Prequels, the way the Jedi teach this is to avoid love as it leads to attachment.

George Lucas says otherwise, and in the prequels themselves, nobody says that.

Just admit this is your head canon. Everybody has them.

You seem to have ignored all the OT things I pointed out.

It is not just my head canon. It is there in the films.

I don’t agree that Filoni made it up. It is well documented how much he worked with Lucas directly. If he says that is what Lucas told him, I believe him.

There is an entire thread on this site about Lucas being an unreliable narrator because he continually changes things. The various edits to the OT and PT films aren’t the only thing he changes. After the OT was complete, he liked to claim that Vader was always intended to be Luke and Leia’s father when that is very obviously not the case. The films and the previous drafts of the scripts prove otherwise.

To be honest, I really don’t stop to consider anything Lucas says that seems to conflict with the movies. And that tends to be quite a lot of what he says. So as far as I’m concerned, if you are listening to Lucas over the films themselves that is a non-canon head canon. The films disagree with him on a number of levels and what Filoni shared of his conversations with Lucas better agrees with the films than his own comments do. I referred to Filoni because what he has shared of his conversations with Lucas agrees with what I got out of the films long before he had done a single episode of Clone Wars. His comments add layers to the PT that agree with my own previous observations. Same with Luke’s comments in the ST. The only EU book I have read since the mid 90’s has been the Millennium Falcon book. I have largely ignored the EU so none of my observations have anything to do with the EU. It is only the the Saga films themselves. From the films I see the flaws in the Jedi. They are less than what they were. I think George often speaks of the Jedi at their height, not the Jedi just before their fall.

The films very much established that younglings are recruited before any bad habits can set in. Anakin is not that young. Luke is even older. With Anakin they try the normal youngling training and it fails. Fear is part of who Anakin is already and the teachings about fear fail. He needed teachings about anger and hate, not fear. Yes, he needed to work on his fear, but to stop any fall to the dark side, he needed teachings about anger and hate and that is never shown. The implication of his age and the various comments is that he is too old and the normal Jedi teachings don’t work. Fast forward to Obi-wan and Yoda dealing with Luke, they have adjusted their teachings to account for his age where they had not for Anakin. From a writing perspective with the PT being written later, that has to be a deliberate choice on Lucas’s part. He pulls the PT Jedi back to teaching to avoid fear. Anakin had fear, but Luke has anger. And yet Anakin fell and Luke did not? What is one key difference? What they were taught. You can see that Lucas analyzed what the failing with Anakin was and came up with something that Obi-wan and Yoda had fixed to teach Luke. You can see the difference in teachings in the PT and OT. The only reason for that is to show that the PT Jedi failed Anakin due to failures of their teachings. They could not adapt to Anakin’s age or inherent fear. Obi-wan and Yoda wanted to make sure that did not happen with Luke and trained Luke so that when Palpatine and Vader goaded him far enough, that he could come back from it.

In the films themselves we don’t see that in great detail, but what we see and hear shows a change from PT to OT in their methods. The only way you can arrive at a reason for that change lies in Anakin’s fall and their adaption to prevent Luke having that same issue. And that IS in the dialog. They make many references to Anakin as they teach Luke. This goes along with Yoda’s advice in TLJ - to learn from your mistakes. That dialog just puts to words what we already saw Yoda do. So it there was a mistake, that means the PT Jedi did something wrong. They failed in training Anakin. They failed detecting Palpatine and his influence. They failed in a number of ways and Obi-wan and Yoda train Luke differently in several key ways. The PT Jedi ways work for younglings, but they fail for those who are older. It makes you wonder how many older force sensitive beings the Jedi decide not to train. Their numbers are greatly reduced and they could use the additional recruits. But if they don’t know how to train someone older who has issues then it makes sense.

Anakin’s falls shows Yoda and Obi-wan a failing in the Jedi and they train Luke at 19 and 22 in a different way. He is attached to his friends. Rather than stop him from going, they using it as a teaching moment. They use it to further his Jedi education and build his ability to stay on the light side. And it works. A year later when he returns Yoda proclaims him ready for his final test. Luke is headstrong and does many things his own way, but in that moment when he looks at Vader’s severed mechanical arm and his own mechanical hand, those lessons from Yoda and Obi-wan dominate the emotions running through him. Their revised teachings worked. If the PT Jedi were right, there would be no need to show a difference in training. That there is a difference between the PT and OT is how you can tell that this is something deliberate that Lucas did. That is how you can tell what he told Filoni is accurate. That is how you can tell a lot of his interviews were BS. He didn’t want to make the mistakes other franchise celebrities had made. Shatner for instance. The PT celebrated Jedi and Lucas wanted to publicly encourage that. But when it came to the story, small failings in the Jedi are an integral part of it. They were not deliberately corrupt or out of balance or out of step. They were a product of the failings of the Republic. I would even say they were victims of Palpatine’s plot to take over. How long had he been working before TPM? Was Darth Plagueis working on it before that? The Sith wanted to bring down the Jedi so who knows how far back it goes. So the Jedi were victims of that Sith plot as much as Anakin was the victim of the flaws in the Jedi training.

The PT Jedi relied on recruiting them young and training them from a very young age and training them to avoid attachments and fear. That system did not work for Anakin or Luke. They failed Anakin, but they did not fail Luke.

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Servii said:

G&G-Fan said:

https://david-talks-sw.tumblr.com/post/698315387285176320/so-why-is-mace-considered-to-be-unlikable-by-a

This is a good read, though I disagree with his notion that the Jedi being wandering adventurers would have made them less morally perfect. I get what he means, though. We look at the Jedi now from a wary adult perspective, but when I watched the prequels as a child, the Jedi were simply good guys and that was that. It’s when you get older that you start thinking, “Wait, why didn’t the Jedi do this or this?”

It is layering. A interesting story for children and also an interesting story for adults. Children see only the glorious Jedi and adults see the cracks and flaws and how the Jedi fail Anakin which leads to his fall. Children seen someone giving in to anger and hate and turning bad. A very good moral lesson. Adults see lopsided teachings, an evil mentor grooming Anakin for an evil future, and a dogmatic religious order out of step with the times. Kids see a story about what not to do and Adults see a story about what not to do - both aimed at their age group. Brilliant story telling. If only the dialog and directing was so brilliant.

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yotsuya said:

You seem to have ignored all the OT things I pointed out.

No, I acknowledged them all, I just didn’t quote everything. You’re the one not reading or digesting what I said.

It is not just my head canon. It is there in the films.

No, it’s not.

I don’t agree that Filoni made it up. It is well documented how much he worked with Lucas directly. If he says that is what Lucas told him, I believe him.

George Lucas didn’t tell him that. Dave never even said George Lucas told him that.

I’m gonna link this again as you obviously didn’t read it. It proves that those things that Dave Filoni says was not George Lucas intentions.
https://www.tumblr.com/david-talks-sw/678157778408374273/hi-this-came-about-because-ive-seen-a-few-of?source=share

And he’s another post about how Dave Filoni differs in his view of the Prequels from George Lucas in many ways.
https://david-talks-sw.tumblr.com/post/698076989932929024/what-lucas-says-what-filoni-says

There is an entire thread on this site about Lucas being an unreliable narrator because he continually changes things. The various edits to the OT and PT films aren’t the only thing he changes. After the OT was complete, he liked to claim that Vader was always intended to be Luke and Leia’s father when that is very obviously not the case. The films and the previous drafts of the scripts prove otherwise.

Bruh. George was saying this stuff about the Jedi AS THE PREQUELS WERE COMING OUT. He said it when The Phantom Menace came out, when Attack of the Clones came out, and when Revenge of the Sith came out. It’s even in the audio commentary. And if you ask him now, he’ll say the same shit. There’s no retconning going on here.

To be honest, I really don’t stop to consider anything Lucas says that seems to conflict with the movies. And that tends to be quite a lot of what he says. So as far as I’m concerned, if you are listening to Lucas over the films themselves that is a non-canon head canon. The films disagree with him on a number of levels and what Filoni shared of his conversations with Lucas better agrees with the films than his own comments do. I referred to Filoni because what he has shared of his conversations with Lucas agrees with what I got out of the films long before he had done a single episode of Clone Wars. His comments add layers to the PT that agree with my own previous observations. Same with Luke’s comments in the ST. The only EU book I have read since the mid 90’s has been the Millennium Falcon book. I have largely ignored the EU so none of my observations have anything to do with the EU. It is only the the Saga films themselves. From the films I see the flaws in the Jedi. They are less than what they were. I think George often speaks of the Jedi at their height, not the Jedi just before their fall.

No, what you’re doing is refusing to re-interpret the films under the lens that George Lucas wanted you to interpret them in. You’re so attached to your head canon you refuse to see it any other way.

The films very much established that younglings are recruited before any bad habits can set in.

Yeah, the Jedi are taught not to repress their fears, taught to love things but not become attached to things, and are taught to let go. From birth. These are healthy things. If a Jedi doesn’t learn to let go of their fear, they will give into it and that will lead to the dark side.

With Anakin they try the normal youngling training and it fails. Fear is part of who Anakin is already and the teachings about fear fail.

Because Anakin refuses to follow the teachings. It’s not the training that fails. Otherwise why do all the other Jedi not have these problems? If Jedi are just bottled up emotions ready to explode, why don’t more fall to the dark side? The ones that do fall are the ones that refuse to follow the Jedi teachings, that let fear and greed consume them (Anakin and Dooku).

He needed teachings about anger and hate, not fear.

He needed teachings about all of those.

In The Phantom Menace, Anakin doesn’t need to be taught about anger and hatred because he doesn’t have it yet. He’s just a sweet, kind kid. But he is repressing his fears, and that needs to be dealt with. He will become angry and hateful if he continues on this path of bottling his fears.

The implication of his age and the various comments is that he is too old and the normal Jedi teachings don’t work.

He’s too old because he’s already old enough that he’s fallen into the habit of repressing his fears. Anakin keeps refusing that admit that he’s afraid. If you drag someone to therapy and they keep refusing to do the therapy and refuse to admit that anything’s wrong, nothing’s ever gonna get done.

Not ONCE does George Lucas blame the teachings on Anakin’s turn to the dark side. He blames Anakin for not applying the teachings.

“The fact that everything must change and that things come and go throughout life and that he can’t hold onto things 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 year 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.”

“Anakin wants to be a Jedi, but he cannot let go of the people he loves in order to move forward in his life. The Jedi believe that you don’t hold on to things, that you let things pass through you, and if you can control your greed, you can resolve the conflict not only in yourself but in the world around you, because you accept the natural course of things. Anakin’s inability to follow this basic guideline is at the core of his turn to the Dark Side.

https://writerbuddha.tumblr.com/post/652270734706688000/george-lucas-on-attachment-from-1999-to-2021

Fast forward to Obi-wan and Yoda dealing with Luke, they have adjusted their teachings to account for his age where they had not for Anakin.

No. Yoda says that fear is one of the things Luke needs to be wary of.

“Anger, fear, aggression, the dark side are they.” He also repeats this in Return of the Jedi.

Also, when they’re trying to stop Luke from recklessly leaving to save people he isn’t ready to save, they’re teaching him to not give into his fear.

Also, LUCAS HIMSELF literally says, “The key to the dark side is fear.” IT’S RIGHT HERE. READ.

This is HIS OWN PHILOSOPHY. Unless you wanna make up some bullshit that his philosophy changed between the trilogies (which again, is proven wrong by Yoda warning Luke against fear), there’s no change. The Jedi aren’t “adjusting their teachings”. It stays the same.

HE EVEN SAYS THAT IT’S LITERALLY CORE TO STAR WARS. He just told you to your face that you misinterpreted the whole point of the Star Wars saga. And you’re still in denial XD

From a writing perspective with the PT being written later, that has to be a deliberate choice on Lucas’s part. He pulls the PT Jedi back to teaching to avoid fear. Anakin had fear, but Luke has anger. And yet Anakin fell and Luke did not? What is one key difference? What they were taught. You can see that Lucas analyzed what the failing with Anakin was and came up with something that Obi-wan and Yoda had fixed to teach Luke. You can see the difference in teachings in the PT and OT. The only reason for that is to show that the PT Jedi failed Anakin due to failures of their teachings. They could not adapt to Anakin’s age or inherent fear. Obi-wan and Yoda wanted to make sure that did not happen with Luke and trained Luke so that when Palpatine and Vader goaded him far enough, that he could come back from it.

If you read quotes from George Lucas he never differentiates the OT and Prequel Jedi. They’re just Jedi. And Luke is following the standard Jedi path, not a new one. This is your head canon.

In the films themselves we don’t see that in great detail.

That’s the crux. You’re filling in things in a way that Lucas doesn’t intend for you to because he writes things in a straightforward and blunt manner that doesn’t tackle all of the intricacies.

This goes along with Yoda’s advice in TLJ - to learn from your mistakes. That dialog just puts to words what we already saw Yoda do. So it there was a mistake, that means the PT Jedi did something wrong. They failed in training Anakin. They failed detecting Palpatine and his influence. They failed in a number of ways and Obi-wan and Yoda train Luke differently in several key ways.

And yet George Lucas goes on and on about how Anakin’s fall was not the Jedi’s fault. So no, Yoda did not fail Anakin. Yoda saying “The greatest teacher, failure is” is just talking about The Clone Wars and not seeing Palpatine. Not Anakin.

The PT Jedi ways work for younglings, but they fail for those who are older. It makes you wonder how many older force sensitive beings the Jedi decide not to train. Their numbers are greatly reduced and they could use the additional recruits. But if they don’t know how to train someone older who has issues then it makes sense.

They do know how to. It’s the same way you teach a youngling. The reason they train them so young because learning it when you’re young is way easier. But in the end, Luke went through the same teachings and it worked. Anakin just refused to follow the teachings. The difference between Luke and Anakin isn’t the teachings, it’s the fact that Anakin refused to apply them to himself and while Luke accepted them and overcame his flaws. When Anakin was given a choice to give into his fear, greed and hate or to let go and overcome it, he does it at every turn. He gives into his thirst for revenge against the Tuskens and Dooku and gives into his fear of losing Padme. Luke overcomes his fear that his friends will die and his anger towards Darth Vader and chooses to have compassion for his father instead.

Luke is headstrong and does many things his own way, but in that moment when he looks at Vader’s severed mechanical arm and his own mechanical hand, those lessons from Yoda and Obi-wan dominate the emotions running through him. Their revised teachings worked.

Luke’s arc in Return of the Jedi is to OVERCOME his headstrong methods. Him throwing away the lightsaber is REJECTING the dark side, REJECTING his anger and being calm and rational. His rampage against Vader wasn’t a good thing, it was a flaw he needed to overcome, and he did. And that’s the only example of Luke being reckless in ROTJ. In the plan to save Han Solo and when he faces Vader to try and turn him, he’s completely calm, calculating, and rational. Look at him when he’s talking to Jabba the Hutt and Darth Vader. He’s literally stiff as a rock. In fact, the scene in which he’s talking to Jabba in ROTJ mirrors Qui-Gon’s conversation with Boss Nass in The Phantom Menace. Because both scenes are of a Jedi rationally trying to peacefully negotiate and the other refusing to listen.

If the PT Jedi were right, there would be no need to show a difference in training. That there is a difference between the PT and OT is how you can tell that this is something deliberate that Lucas did. That is how you can tell what he told Filoni is accurate.

Then why did Lucas give the Prequel Jedi his own philosophy? Like actually?

That is how you can tell a lot of his interviews were BS.

Conspiracy theory bullshit. “He was lying to cover something up!”, you can say that about anything. “NASA said the Earth is round, here is the proof” “They’re lying to cover up Flat Earth!” Same shit. If you have to resort to conspiracy theory nonsense that everything Lucas says is to cover something up then you know you lost.

As it’s not JUST in interviews. It’s in the audio commentary, in “The Making of…” books, in The Star Wars Archives by Paul Duncan, in lectures he gives at Universities (once again proving that Jedi philosophy is also HIS philosophy), literally anywhere you can see George Lucas talk about Star Wars. He comments about this so much that literally the only thing short of it is actually talking to him in person.

The PT celebrated Jedi and Lucas wanted to publicly encourage that.

Why would he want people to celebrate people he intentionally portrayed as corrupt? He certainly didn’t want people to celebrate the Sith or the state of the Senate in the prequels. He outright has called Darth Vader “pathetic” twice (which like, I’m a Darth Vader fanboy, he’s my favorite character, but he’s right. He might be the most powerful force user and a badass, but the man lives a sad life, he’s constantly suffering). You know, the most worshipped character in all of Star Wars. If he’s spewing bullshit to appeal to the fans why does he continue to defend fucking Jar Jar Binks? The most hated character of all time? This literally doesn’t make any sense.

Tell me, how does it make any sense that Lucas literally gave the Jedi his own values and philosophy, which I’ve proven over and over, if the Jedi are meant to be flawed? Actually, I want to know? The answer is it doesn’t make sense. Because he’s not just talking about what the Jedi are teaching, he’s literally talking to you as himself. He’s giving you lessons that are exactly the same as Yoda’s.

But sure, bring up the same stuff I’ve debunked over and over and rationalize with conspiracy theory nonsense. Or maybe just admit that it’s your head canon.

My Star Wars Fan-Edits

Author
Time
 (Edited)

yotsuya said:

It is layering. A interesting story for children and also an interesting story for adults. Children see only the glorious Jedi and adults see the cracks and flaws and how the Jedi fail Anakin which leads to his fall. Children seen someone giving in to anger and hate and turning bad. A very good moral lesson. Adults see lopsided teachings, an evil mentor grooming Anakin for an evil future, and a dogmatic religious order out of step with the times. Kids see a story about what not to do and Adults see a story about what not to do - both aimed at their age group. Brilliant story telling. If only the dialog and directing was so brilliant.

George Lucas has said over and over that the films are made specifically for 12 year olds. Over and over. Why would he incorporate something that’s apparently so essential for the story that would go over their heads? Especially when 12 year olds are supposed to be the main audience? He literally says that the optimal age to watch Star Wars is when your 12. How does it make any sense that essential parts of his films would not be able to be digested by children? Because the answer is that it’s not. That’s something you made up. Why would he make the films so that Yoda is obviously meant to be the all-wise mentor figure and the Jedi the good guys? Because he wants children to use the Jedi as a moral basis. He wants children to learn Jedi teachings, AKA his own philosophy.

https://www.tumblr.com/david-talks-sw/692774762606379008/because-these-movies-were-made-for?source=share

Also Palpatine grooming Anakin is so obvious children would be able to see it. That’s not something only an adult would be able to see. That’s why you will see adults complain how about obvious Palpatine’s manipulation is. “Why is Anakin so stupid, why can’t he see he’s being manipulated?”, “Why’s Palpatine so obviously evil?” The answer is he’s making it obvious so that children can pick up on it.

The reason people project these alternative meanings on the prequels is because they’re films for children, and therefore will make it more complex then it actually is in a desperate attempt to make the films appeal to them more. Not that the prequels aren’t complex, but the fact is, “The Jedi are good, the Sith are bad” is a still a bit too black and white for some adults. So they have to make it “You see, Jedi ideology is actually somewhat wrong, they say you can’t ever be afraid or attached to anybody, what assholes!” when that’s not what Jedi ideology is. But people wanna cling on because the idea that the Jedi are morally perfect is boring to them. Adults project flaws onto the Jedi because they can’t relate to morally perfect characters like children can.

My Star Wars Fan-Edits