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Why Didn't Qui Gon Gin's Body Disappear Like Obiwan's and Yoda's?

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I know this site talks about the original trilogy but my question centers around 2 things that happened in the original trilogy that didn’t make much sense regarding 1 event that happened in the newer trilogy. I just recently watched episode 1 with my husband and I noticed that Liam Neesan’s character Qui Gon Gin was murdered by Darth Maul however, his body was burned.
Typically this would make sense except in “A New Hope” and “Return of the Jedi” when Obiwon was killed by Vader, his body vanished into the force. When Yoda died in his tree house on the Dagobah System in front of Luke, he vanished as well.
That being the case, based on the original trilogy, Jedis vanish when they die. In episode 1, why didn’t Qui Gon Gon vanish? I’ve always wondered that.

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Because George forgot to watch his old movies before writing the newer ones.

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There is a scene in ROTS with Yoda and Obi on the Tantive, which explains this very thing. Yoda, Kenobi, Qui-Gon and Anakin are the only Jedi so far in to come back in ghost form, not all of them.

reylo?

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Mocata said:

Because George forgot to watch his old movies before writing the newer ones.

No?
Qui-Gon was the one who discovered (possibly re-discovered) the pathway to life after death, as per ROTS.

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Also anakin comes back as a ghost but Vader doesn’t disappear when he dies.

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Possessed said:

Also anakin comes back as a ghost but Vader doesn’t disappear when he dies.

Mocata said:

Because George forgot to watch his old movies before writing the newer ones.

Ceci n’est pas une signature.

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Frank your Majesty said:

Possessed said:

Also anakin comes back as a ghost but Vader doesn’t disappear when he dies.

Mocata said:

Because George forgot to watch his old movies before writing the newer ones.

But Yoda disappears when he dies in the very same movie.
You guys have an irrational hatred.

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(Speculation) Anakin didn’t learn to become a force-ghost the same way that Yoda and Ben did, he only turned into one because he was conceived of the force.

(Canon) Qui-Gon didn’t complete his training with the Force Priestesses so he was unable to manifest physically, only as a voice.

I suppose my argument is that they both turn into force-ghosts, but not the same way that Yoda and Ben did. Yoda and Ben’s method required the body to “disappear”.

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Possessed said:

Also anakin comes back as a ghost but Vader doesn’t disappear when he dies.

It’s not relevant to the films themselves, but the common explanation I’ve heard (and it is the Occam’s Razor explanation in-universe, maybe less outside of it) is that Vader’s disappearance happens off-screen, between when his death scene occurs and when his armour is burned. His body was never cremated, just his armour.

The EU explanation for Qui-Gon was that he didn’t complete his Force Ghost training before he died, meaning he can only either manifest as a voice or in locations where the Force is strong.

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KumoNin said:

There is a scene in ROTS with Yoda and Obi on the Tantive, which explains this very thing. Yoda, Kenobi, Qui-Gon and Anakin are the only Jedi so far in to come back in ghost form, not all of them.

Well since two of those four disappeared and the other two didn’t, I fail to see how a scene in ROTS explains anything.

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Originally Anakin wasn’t going to come back as a ghost. He shoved the Emperor in some lava and that was it.

It seems like people are really embracing the new characters. In fact, the big question people ask me now about Star Wars is, “Are Finn and Poe gay lovers?” And really how the f*ck would I know? My second husband left me for a man, so my gaydar isn’t exactly what you’d call Death Star level quality. ----Carrie Fisher

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TV’s Frink said:

KumoNin said:

There is a scene in ROTS with Yoda and Obi on the Tantive, which explains this very thing. Yoda, Kenobi, Qui-Gon and Anakin are the only Jedi so far in to come back in ghost form, not all of them.

Well since two of those four disappeared and the other two didn’t, I fail to see how a scene in ROTS explains anything.

Qui-Gon is the first guy to figure it out though.
He “learned the path to immortality, and returned from the netherworld of the force”. He learned to manifest sometime after death, not before. So no disappearing.

As for Vader in ROTJ they either goofed, or Anakin had to learn from the rest of them after he died, since he likely never learned it in life, unlike Yoda and Obi-Wan who learned it from Qui-Gon.

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So Qui-Gon figures it out. So he didn’t disappear. That doesn’t make any sense to me (he figured out before he died?) but let’s go with it for a moment.

Obi-Wan is next. He didn’t figure it out, even though Yoda told him Qui-Gon figured it out and that Yoda would train him to do it to. So he disappeared.

Yoda goes next. He didn’t figure it out…somehow. So he disappeared.

Anakin goes last, and he figured it out before he died, so he didn’t disappear.

What?

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Chlorine said:

or Anakin had to learn from the rest of them after he died, since he likely never learned it in life, unlike Yoda and Obi-Wan who learned it from Qui-Gon.

If he learned from the rest of them after he died, how did he manage to not disappear when he first died? Did he get a time machine and go back to keep from disappearing?

This whole explanation is super tortured.

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You are the one confusing it.
Yoda states that Qui-Gon learned the path back AFTER he died and he taught Yoda, who teaches Obi-Wan.

Yoda and Obi knew the secret before they died, and they disappeared.
Qui-Gon and Anakin didn’t know how to come back before they died, and so they didn’t disappear.

Simple stuff.

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Ok fine, it’s still amazingly tortured, or at least amazingly retconned. Even if your solution makes sense, there’s nothing in the films to indicate that Lucas had any intention of that being the reason the four deaths happened the way they did. You’re just making assumptions, and even if there’s nothing in the films that contradicts your theory, there’s also nothing in the films that supports your theory.

The obvious reason is because Lazy Lucas, was Lazy.

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ray_afraid said:

Chlorine said:

You are the one confusing it.
Yoda states that Qui-Gon learned the path back AFTER he died

Simple stuff.

Isn’t it a little too late to learn to the path to immortality after you’ve already died?

Apparently not in this fantasy setting, as Yoda says earlier in ROTS that the dead “transform into the force”.

Not any more out there than Gandalf getting sent back by Eru(?) if you ask me.

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TV’s Frink said:

Ok fine, it’s still amazingly tortured, or at least amazingly retconned. Even if your solution makes sense, there’s nothing in the films to indicate that Lucas had any intention of that being the reason the four deaths happened the way they did. You’re just making assumptions, and even if there’s nothing in the films that contradicts your theory, there’s also nothing in the films that supports your theory.

The obvious reason is because Lazy Lucas, was Lazy.

Eh, I disagree. I think that’s the type of thing his OCD gets stuck on, and that he wants to make consistent.
He has talked about not caring so much about things like 3-PO having seen Owen before in comparison to things involving what he considers relevant to the themes of the saga.

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Threepio at least has a memory flush to explain not remembering being on Tatooine before. Owen must have eaten a lot of mushrooms to forget ever having a fussy protocol droid that belonged to his stepbrother. 😉

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Where were you in '77?

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He never technically says he doesn’t remember him, just that he doesn’t need him. =P

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My headcanon for Owen not remembering 3-PO is that

  1. The odds are so astronomical that 3-PO would show up at his doorstep 20 years later in a Jawa sandcrawler that he doesn’t even consider that it could be a droid he once owned
  2. most protocol droids sound similar (TC-14 sounds prissy too).
  3. 3-PO is a different color to when he owned him
  4. He doesn’t even have the droid for any period of time before he before dies (as in, maybe he would have remembered eventually).

Point 1 is the big one though.