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Yoda's line of "He is too old! Yes, too old to begin the training" ?...

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 (Edited)

Hello,

In the OT Yoda says “Too old! Yes, too old to begin the training.” I always thought this was brilliant scriptwriting. Yoda is obviously nervous about training Luke and trying to avoid it. He grasps at a series of less and less substantive excuses which Obi Wan deconstructs. His last effort is this silly excuse that has nothing to do with anything. I loved it, it was great characterization for Yoda and a wonderful scene.

But then the PT establishes that there was an official age by which to begin training and people were screened out all the time. Now in ESB Yoda is saving one of his best excuses for last. The new context ruined the scene for me. MAYBE I just misunderstood how it was meant, but if so, Yoda’s delivery is inconsistent with what he is talking about. This change (which wasn’t necessary at ALL. And would have saved us the little kids finding the lost planet in II) completely drained the life out of that scene.

Sorry, I just wanted to gripe and didn’t know where else to file it. It’s nice to have listeners.

thanks
alexsunny

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I always felt like Yoda was testing Luke by being impatient with him. And like the trial he faced at the force cave he failed.

He also has some doubt that Luke would complete his training because of him being the son of Skywalker.

Luke is a bit of a hothead. Very impulsive and brash.

He is Anakin’s son through and through. Much anger in him like his father.

Kenobi seems to be the one who thinks Luke has the potential to defeat Vader and the Emperor, the same kind of pride that Kenobi felt over Anakin which led to him becoming Darth Vader.

Yoda knows Luke could easily fall to the Dark Side and into the clutches of Palpatine, and suffer his fathers fate.

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I don’t think there’s necessarily a problem here, for once. It could be that the Jedi did have an ‘official’ age limit to begin the training, but clearly these rules are out the window after their almost total extinction. Yoda’s excuse about age still feels to me like a last-ditch grasp at straws.

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I sort of agree with Neverar, I don’t really think the Jedi having an official age limit undermines the line in the OT. It’s still really dumb, though, and it feels like it’s a gross misinterpretation of the line in ESB, especially because Lucas was not the one who wrote it.

Reading R + L ≠ J theories

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SparkySywer said:

I sort of agree with Neverar, I don’t really think the Jedi having an official age limit undermines the line in the OT. It’s still really dumb, though, and it feels like it’s a gross misinterpretation of the line in ESB, especially because Lucas was not the one who wrote it.

It is very likely that Lucas wrote the original premise for the line in the second screenplay draft. Of course, the final line was written by Kasdan, but I doubt the idea was not already there in Lucas’ second draft.

真実

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Yoda’s line of “Too old! Yes, too old to begin the training”… - from 2004, a carbon copy of this thread (likely by a bot or WUM).
 

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