In junction with what I’m saying though, it’s more like - I’m personally not a stoic buddhist, so that’s where I would disagree with Lucas’ admiration of those ideas in his work. At the very least, would be disinterested in it. If an audience is discomforted with detachment valued in that way, I do think there is space left by Lucas to feel that - you just wouldn’t be a Jedi in his world.
And again, this is where I feel like it’s always discussed so binarily - as “good” and “bad” interpretations. Flawed institutions, unwieldy pedagogy, and slavish dogma, etc. can be separate case study in the work from philosophical beliefs. It’s not contradictory for Lucas to posit those things and still come out believing Jedi are good. But could they be Good in the time/space he depicted? Exploring what can go wrong with tangible incidence, is not the same as exploring what is wrong with abstract ideas. And we always keep circling back to confusion over that messiness, when the messiness is almost the point. It’s war and politics considered over serial adventure, we’ve always known that, it comes with the territory.
But beyond that, the OT has the focused thematic answers from those questions one would be looking for anyway. Luke Skywalker has friends he cares about and succeeds through the love of a son to his father. You couldn’t be a prequel Jedi, but detachment is considered with far more balance with the whole saga in mind.
That’s another area where people get really tripped up. You’re not supposed to be a Jedi in real life or live their whole philosophy in real life. 99%+ people in the Star Wars universe are not supposed to be Jedi. Anakin didn’t have to be a Jedi and he certainly didn’t have to stay a Jedi; if he really wanted to quit to be with Padme he could have. Most Catholics and Buddhists are not monks or nuns and it’s not a requirement for anyone to be.
And absolutely zero people in real life have the Force or the dark side (not just negative emotions, a supernatural power) to deal with. Jedi rules are directed at this very specific tiny, tiny fraction of the population with extremely important high level responsibilities and psychic powers that are heavily influenced by emotional state. People who voluntarily choose to live these rules.
This midwit thing where people think they’re too smart for the Jedi drives me nuts. The idea that the Jedi are just too dumb to understand that people have negative emotions sometimes and that that was the point of all this. No one told them all the pop psychology we have about “venting”!
You can and should relate to the concepts of delayed gratification, discipline, patience, endurance, inner contentment, etc. but that’s nowhere in the same league with the movies expecting you to become a monk.