MaximRecoil said:
Obviously individual Jedi have limits, as evidenced by Luke's failure to fully lift the ship. However, Yoda made the claim and then demonstrated the claim; which establishes that size doesn't matter to Yoda's use of the force. There were many opportunities for Yoda to do some heavy, decisive moving in the PT and he didn't bother. Why not send the droid armies flying? Even if he had to do it in X-Wing sized sections of weight, that's likely a few hundred droids at a time.
But, if my options are either every Jedi in either trilogy are hopelessly stupid (including Yoda, who made the claim you're hanging this all on) or that the understanding of the Force you propose is somehow incorrect, Occam's razor points me fairly clearly to one of these options.
You're missing the point. Yes the examples imply stupidy on the part of the Jedi, and the writing is to blame for it. Write it so the power isn't unlimited, and write scenarios that can realistically pose danger despite the powers-as-defined.
(ps. I wasn't 'begging a question'. At the very worst I might be accused of suggesting a false delimma.)
There was no false dilemma. You were begging the question. You were assuming that the Jedi couldn't have been [written as] morons (which is the question), thus Yoda must not have meant his statement literally. You can't assume (beg) the question in order to establish the conclusion. You need to give actual evidence of your claim that Yoda was not being literal, because without that, it is simply a case of bad writing; and bad writing tends to make characters look like idiots by default.
You state yourself obviously individual Jedi have limits. Because they have these limits, there is no reason to assume they are stupid. Given the difference between what you claim the Force should be able to do and what they actually do with it, it makes much more sense to chalk that difference up to their individual power limits than it does to their stupidity. Since it is obvious from the films that Jedi have limits, the writing did not imply the Jedi had unlimited power.
Even if we assume the Force is a source for unlimited telekinetic power, knowing that Jedi have a limited ability to access this answers the questions about why they don't do certain thing much easier than assuming they're all dumb. I know my toaster is attached to a power grid that powers most of the San Juoaquin Valley, and yet I don't think my toaster is stupid because it doesn't heat my entire house. I understand it's obvious limits.
Yoda made a claim and then lifted a ship. He did not demonstrate the ability to use unlimited telekinetic power. At no point did he back up the claim "Size matters not" with quantifiable evidence of unlimited power. That he had unlimited telekinesis is an extraordinary claim, and I don't see any extraordinary proof in the films.
Let us assume, given the single most impressive feat of telekinisis evident in the films- Yoda stopping the metal thing Dooku dropped on Obi and Anakin. That effort made it impossible for Yoda to stop a fleeing Dooku, and apparently took a great deal of concentration and perhaps some physical strain judging from his expression. Is that the upper limit of the most powerful Jedi in the films? It's possible. He certainly never does anything like crush the Death Star. Non-existence of evidence is not evidence of non-existence, but given Yoda's character, goals, and apparent wisdom, him not using this power if he had it seems unlikely.
As to why Yoda didn't throw whole droid armies around, perhaps theres a fundamental difference between lifting something with the Force and Force pushing things in combat. I don't know, I'm not a Jedi.
And that's still not begging the question. I never assumed the Jedi can't be morons, just that given a choice between all Jedi being morons, or beleiveing that the way you describe a Jedi's power being inaccurate, it seems more likely that your claim that Jedi should demonstrate unlimited telekinetic power is innacurate.