Gaffer Tape said:
Bingowings said:
In the OT Jedi seems to mean more than just Jedi Knight.
I always felt the same way. And it was for that reason that it somewhat annoyed me in ROTS when Obi-Wan was made a Jedi Master. That seemed to come out of left field. Obi-Wan was a Jedi Knight. He fought. He was a warrior. He had been in wars in his youth. Yoda was a Jedi Master. He was a teacher. He was a philosopher. He was more spiritual. It seemed an important distinction to me as a child, but that distinction was done away with in the prequels.
Honestly, the prequels ruined Jedi completely for me. I loved the scenes early on in TPM when Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon entered in battle; those were the Jedi at the height of their fame, the galactic guardians. TPM portrayed them as awe inspiring warriors, but still with a sense of dignity and realism. They were stoic, thoughtful, restrained. Qui-Gon's reply "I can only protect you, I cannot fight a war for you" perfectly echoed who the Jedi were in the Original Trilogy.
After that, they became run of the mill action heroes. I was still hoping that the avalanche of material EU between TPM and AotC with over-the-top Jedi battling, that Lucas would ignore it; one of Jackson's few decent lines was at the begging of AotC: "We're keepers of the peace, not soldiers"! And yes, I though, no need to worry! Ugh...
Two hours later Jedi were, for me, forever demolished as the mystic warrior - philosophers from the Originals and became just superhero clones with lightsabers. There were more Jedi in the prequels than other character types combined. Honestly, look at the trend now - every Star Wars inspired game over the last decade has steadily involved into more and more visually overwhelming Jedi combat, every story seems to revolve around one of the "few" thousands of surviving Jedi during the reign of the Empire. It's devolved mostly to lightsaber mashing; lightsabers popped up so frequently in the prequels they're not interesting anymore. There's no more sense of excitement like when a character in the Originals ignites one.
You just expect fancy dancing around, with minimal immersion, plot and drama. It isn't that impressive as choreography after TPM (which was the high-mark in this regard).
