Vladius

I have multiple layers of opinions and it’s hard to put them into a coherent whole.

Layer 1 - I am disappointed at what they did to the Expanded Universe, and at how they squandered their own potential. The main characters, the Jedi, the Force, the Clone Wars, etc. could have all been more interesting and closer to their pre-1999 counterparts in the original trilogy and the EU. This gets even worse the longer time goes on because the errors it made in depicting the Jedi and the Force have only gotten more extreme in the EU and in Disney canon until now very few people remember how they’re supposed to be.

Layer 2 - I really enjoyed them as a kid. I had a blast going to the theaters and watching them over and over on VHS and DVD. I was fully involved in all the video games and other extra material coming out around all the Clone Wars stuff, so I understand why people of my generation want them so badly to be “misunderstood masterpieces” or something, even though they’re not. My conclusion I’ve come to is that I really like The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith, and I really hate Attack of the Clones. I think the complaints most people have about the movies (myself included), other than the Jar Jar and bad humor in TPM, can be traced back to Attack of the Clones. The characterizations, massive gaps in logic, and CGI failings are truly awful and generated a lot of bad will.

Layer 3 - I have very specific ideas about what people think about the movies as movies. I don’t think that they’re meaningless or shallow cash grabs with no artistry, but I don’t think they’re Secretly Genius or Hidden Masterpieces or Flawed Gems or whatever gobbledygook. You can look at them as pieces of pop entertainment or as serious films or both, but you don’t have to go to extremes either way. They have good parts and bad parts. I think that ROTS is objectively better than the other two but I understand if people disagree.

Layer 4 - I have very specific ideas about what people think about the movies’ history. I was there. They were disliked and considered disappointing. People hated Jar Jar. People hated young Anakin. People hated Anakin/Padme. People thought everything with Jango Fett was pandering. Younger millennials and some zoomers who weren’t even alive at the time try to pull revisionism over this and say that it was a small minority of hater fans and everyone else loved it, but this is absolutely not the case. It’s strange but this is the only site where you can still get honest opinions about this. The movies are not popular now because they’re good, even if you believe they are good. They’re popular due to a mix of nostalgia, memes, and expanded media projects like video games. A lot of this was successful astroturfing. The biggest thing is The Clone Wars show, which isn’t even that good, that “fixes the prequels.” The same people who tell you that they’re great movies that hold up will also tell you to watch eight seasons of animated shows and read extra books and comics to get the whole story.

Layer 5 - I have very specific ideas about what people think about the ideas in the movies. In real life, as a very religious person, I don’t agree with the concept of total celibacy (as in abstaining from marriage.) However, I understand what monks are and why they do what they do, and I have lots of respect for monks and nuns and for other religious traditions in general. I believe that in Star Wars, the Jedi are objectively correct about the Force and how it works. I think that in universe, their rules were a good idea.
This is extra complicated because of Layer 1. The Jedi should never have been like this. It’s too confusing for people to grasp and it wasn’t done well, and it’s inferior from a storytelling point of view to everything that came before. If I put that aside though, I feel compelled to tell people that the Jedi were actually right about almost everything, within the context of the movies.
The hatred people have for the Jedi, the “cult” accusations, and the apologia the fans do for genocide really bothers me. It comes from a place of hatred and stereotypes for religion in real life. It also comes from pseudoscientific pop psychology ideas inherited from Freud, that emotions are inherently sexual, that they “build up” and “explode” if not given “release” and that self-control is unhealthy. It’s like people who say that the problem with school shooters is that they just weren’t exposed to enough porn. It’s disgusting.
So I credit Lucas for having some inkling of these ideas but I blame him for not actually grasping them or depicting them correctly. I think if the movies did any real-life harm (other than the harassment of some of the actors) then this is it. Anakin killing the younglings is meant to be ugly and sad, but it’s also in very poor taste. Not for the unintentional humor, for the unintentional messaging that they deserved it in some way.

Layer 6 - The dialogue and the memes are funny.

Apb123 said:

Opening Crawl:
Episode VII
RISE OF THE LAST JEDI

The time for peace is over, EVIL has been allowed to rise again in the galaxy. The FIRST ORDER, led by the evil Supreme Leader SNOKE have plunged the unprepared New Republic into disarray.

MASTER LUKE SKYWALKER’s Jedi Academy has been destroyed by KYLO REN, a powerful student, seduced by the Dark Side. In the aftermath, LUKE has vanished, and REY, the sole survivor of the academy, becomes the last beacon of hope for the resistance.

The FIRST ORDER has been preparing in the shadows for their attack and in a sinister twist, KYLO REN has captured REY, bringing her before SNOKE to reveal the location of LUKE SKYWALKER.

The resistance is racing to GENERAL LEIA ORGANA’s position on the planet CRAIT, but they are being trailed by the diabolical FIRST ORDER…

I like this so far but there are way too many all caps words, there should be two at most.

fmalover said:

YouTube user HelloGreedo made what is IMO the best critique of how Palpatine is portrayed. When he first appears in the OT he was inspired by the Roman and Chinese Emperors of old, but the prequels made him so goddamn evil, more akin to a mythological creature from the Underworld.

From what I’ve read about The Rise of Skywalker (I refuse to watch that movie), Abrams cranked up the whole evil entity to a ludicrous level.

I would argue he’s already there in the OT. He definitely had that impression on me as a kid. He’s so evil that he’s willing to let Luke kill him if it will make Luke become evil. I actually don’t like that about Dark Empire, it tries to retcon this into being because he has a clone body backup.

I liked Karpyshyn until he wrote The Old Republic: Revan tie in novel for the MMORPG. That made me quit reading his Bane books as well even though I liked the first one. It’s unforgivable that The Old Republic replaced KOTOR 3 and it’s also unforgivable what Karpyshyn did in the book with the main characters of KOTOR 1 and 2. They’re ultimately just jobbers who have to lose to the generic Sith (who are the opposite of what Kreia described at the end of 2) so that the MMO can happen 300 years later. All the setup is completely wasted.
I haven’t played the MMO but all the lore ideas coming out of it also seem really dumb. For example, Revan’s force ghost gets split into a light half and a dark half.

Yeah as far as role I think Lincoln and FDR are the most obvious parallels. Very popular presidents that also took in a lot of executive powers during a big war. With Lincoln it’s even more direct due to the war being a civil war about the secession of a Confederacy and the army being called the Grand Army of the Republic. If you count Julius Caesar and Napoleon, they are part of it too.

You’re probably talking more about personality though. For personality I think it would have to be a Roman politician, though I’m not familiar enough with them to pick one. He has the aristocratic bearing, the ambition, and the fatherly sense of concern for the Republic as an institution.

Superweapon VII said:

Vladius said:

Superweapon VII said:

I think the terms “light side/dark side” create confusion themselves, if we’re to understand the light side as being THE Force and the dark side as misuse/abuse of the Force. Saying the Force has “sides” implies an intrinsic dual nature.

I’m sure you’re aware of this but this is why the term “light side” is never actually used in the movies, original or prequel.

The “good side” is mentioned, though. Semantics? You be the judge. I still think use of “dark side” is a misnomer if the Force isn’t meant to be analogous to Yin/Yang. Lucas could’ve found a better way to describe the opposing philosophies of the Jedi/Sith.

I agree that he could have. That’s mostly what I’m complaining about, I just think people in the EU made it worse.

When Luke says that I think it’s more in just the moral sense like we would say it in real life, not indicating a whole new “side” to deal with. The delivery is so fast that it almost comes across as a Mark Hamill adlib.

Superweapon VII said:

I think the terms “light side/dark side” create confusion themselves, if we’re to understand the light side as being THE Force and the dark side as misuse/abuse of the Force. Saying the Force has “sides” implies an intrinsic dual nature.

I’m sure you’re aware of this but this is why the term “light side” is never actually used in the movies, original or prequel.

Spartacus01 said:

Vladius said:

You can probably glean this from all my other posts across the site, but the most damaging parts of the prequel/EU/Filoni system involve the portrayal of the Jedi, dark Jedi, Sith, the Force, and the dark side.
“Gray Jedi”, “balance in the Force”, “using both sides of the Force”, “J’edaii” or whatever they’re called (also “Jensaarai” lol) the “light side” and “dark side” being equal and neither good or evil, Mortis BS, etc.

There’s exactly one YouTube channel (Geetsly’s) I’ve found that has a correct perspective on all of this, and every video that talks about it is swamped with the most cringey fanfic-tier comments about how both sides are wrong and UMM ACTUALLY THE JJ’EEDAIII (whose name those stupid Jedi freaks STOLE) WERE PERFECTLY BALANCED and if you went too far to one side they would banish you to the opposite moon until you got BALANCED again. Revan and Anakin and my OC Darklight Lightdarker can use the LightDark DarkLight GrayDark GrayLight LightLight DarkDark Side with no ill effects because they’re emotionally BALANCED.

This started with the prequels but EU writers and Dave Filoni made it much worse by making it canon depending on the story.

I think that you have the wrong perception of how the EU depicted the Light Side and the Dark Side of the Force. So, I would like to make some corrections.

In the EU, the word “Grey Jedi” was not used to describe Force users who use both sides of the Force at the same time. On the contrary, it was used to describe those members of the Jedi Order who, despite not using the Dark Side, at the same time don’t always followed the rules, and don’t always listened to the will of the Council. The word was used to describe the more rebellious members of the Jedi Order, and was never associated with the Dark Side of the Force. Never. And, it’s not like the word was often used, anyway. In fact, it was only used a couple of times through the entire EU. Furthermore, even though the Je’daii Order existed, and even though they tried to create a literal balance between the Light Side and the Dark Side, it was strongly implied that their ways were wrong, precisely because you can’t balance the Dark Side with the Light Side. In fact, the Je’daii Order fell apart.

When the EU was still Cannon, the Light Side was always considered as the true balance and the true natural state of the Force, and it was always explained that the Dark Side corrupts everything. Yes, some attitudes of the Jedi Order (and some individual Jedi) were criticized, especially during the Prequel era, but the Light Side in itself was never criticized, and being overly-attached was always seen as something negative that could lead to the Dark Side, even in Luke’s Jedi Order. Hell, in the Darth Plagueis novel, it was literally explained that Anakin was created by the Force as an automatic reaction, in order to stop the Sith from corrupting the Force itself. So, it was always implied that the Sith should be destroyed, because they corrupt the Force and create unnatural stuff, indeed.

It’s the New Canon the one that introduced the concept of “equal balance between the Light Side and the Dark Side”, not the EU. The EU always depicted the Dark Side as a cancer, and in all the stories that featured Force users who tried to balance the two sides, it was always implied that they were wrong. The problem is, though, that a lot of people on the internet don’t understand this, because they don’t actually experience the EU first hand. They just learn stuff from other people telling them, and from YouTubers who understand nothing about the EU themselves. And, because of this, we have people using the word “Grey Jedi” in the wrong way, and who unironically think that the Je’daii Order was correct, when they never managed to maintain the balance they wanted to maintain, precisely because such balance doesn’t exist.

Finally, this has nothing to do with the EU, but I wanted to point it out anyway. The Mortis arc in The Clone Wars was created by Lucas, not Filoni.

Edit: When I talk about the EU, I’m not including TCW into it. Yes, the first 6 seasons of the show are technically part of both Legends and Canon, but I prefer not to include TCW into the Legends timeline when discussing it. I see the show as being part of Disney’s New Canon only. The EU version of the Clone Wars is the one that was depicted in the Clone Wars Multimedia Project, while the Canon version is the one that was depicted in TCW. I prefer to maintain them as separate.

Yes, I know all of this. You’re preaching to the choir here. Unfortunately, in KOTOR they made Jolee Bindo a Gray Jedi in both senses, where he disagrees with the council because they’re prequel Jedi, but he’s also in the middle of the alignment spectrum and he has gray smoke behind him instead of blue or red. Even though he’s fully a good guy. They also added this second concept in a sourcebook for the Saga Edition RPG, the Jedi Academy Training Manual, which is a much-hated book for other reasons. Like I said, a lot of this comes from video games and got distributed throughout other things.

It doesn’t really matter where Mortis is from. If it was Lucas, then shame on Lucas. It’s the ultimate data point in creating confusion about Light Side/Dark Side = Yin/Yang and Anakin needing to be half good/half evil.

Superweapon VII said:

I think the notion of gray Jedi can work – if such characters are clearly portrayed as antiheroes/antivillains with questionable morality.

If that’s a temporary state. Eventually you should have to pick a side, because that’s how the dark side works. Usually these characters exist for video game purposes, literally just because force lightning is cool and you want to be able to use it without being evil. That’s fine for a video game, but when people try to start using that concept to make statements about philosophy in universe or in real life, it’s ridiculous.

It certainly shouldn’t be something done on an organized scale or used as the ideal.

I don’t like any of the Legacy stuff but I think something like the Imperial Knights would be a good exception. They use the Force as part of a specific political institution, a cause that’s higher than themselves but not truly good either. Which is different from the normal “gray” concept of just using whatever you feel like because it works better for you personally, and getting away with it because you’re just better than everyone else.

You can probably glean this from all my other posts across the site, but the most damaging parts of the prequel/EU/Filoni system involve the portrayal of the Jedi, dark Jedi, Sith, the Force, and the dark side.
“Gray Jedi”, “balance in the Force”, “using both sides of the Force”, “J’edaii” or whatever they’re called (also “Jensaarai” lol) the “light side” and “dark side” being equal and neither good or evil, Mortis BS, etc.

There’s exactly one YouTube channel (Geetsly’s) I’ve found that has a correct perspective on all of this, and every video that talks about it is swamped with the most cringey fanfic-tier comments about how both sides are wrong and UMM ACTUALLY THE JJ’EEDAIII (whose name those stupid Jedi freaks STOLE) WERE PERFECTLY BALANCED and if you went too far to one side they would banish you to the opposite moon until you got BALANCED again. Revan and Anakin and my OC Darklight Lightdarker can use the LightDark DarkLight GrayDark GrayLight LightLight DarkDark Side with no ill effects because they’re emotionally BALANCED.

This started with the prequels but EU writers and Dave Filoni made it much worse by making it canon depending on the story.

Patali said:

fmalover said:

I say ROTJ marked the point George Lucas decided that Obi-Wan’s robes from the first movie were the official Jedi vestments, as evidenced by Anakin’s ghost, which retroactively creates a problem.

If Obi-Wan was in hiding why would he still be wearing the very robes that would give away his identity as a Jedi?

idk if Im in the minority, but if feels like Jedi is really what kicked off the prequel era, and really set in stone what the universe is, compared to “Star Wars” and “Empire” where so many possibilities were open and they could go in any direction

The prequels kicked off the prequel era. The time from 1983-1999 is full of the most imaginative expanded universe stories we ever had. The Jedi costumes are perfect examples of that. They weren’t standardized brown robes until The Phantom Menace.

NFBisms said:

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.

That may be true but I think people use “death of the author” way too often to justify bad interpretations. Lucas’s intent still has a lot of weight.

I finished reading Dark Empire 1-3 and I’m reading I, Jedi right now (which is also a retelling of the Jedi Academy trilogy.) It’s incredible how much it relates to this thread. Of the first Jedi in the new era, 3/4 of them are Jedi because their father or grandfather was a Jedi and the training was passed down to their kids. (Luke, Corran Horn, and Kam Solusar.) There is open discussion of people falling in love, getting widowed, remarrying, etc. Corellia has its own Jedi tradition, which was passed down through Jedi families.

The prequels are a giant swollen retcon, and not for the better.

I agree a little bit, but not much.
What I agree with - “it’s been wall-to-wall Sith vs. Jedi, “always there are two”, and “who are my parents?” ever since.” I think that everything was significantly handicapped, but not in Empire Strikes Back. It was partially The Phantom Menace, and then hard with Attack of the Clones. This was when the Jedi and Sith were standardized and heavily limited in what they could be or do, and Anakin/Vader was given a Chosen One status, not to mention the universe-shrinking with C3PO, R2D2, and Jango/Boba Fett. Further Expanded Universe stuff standardized the Force and turned it into a constant cycle where nothing ever changes and it’s blue lightsabers vs. red lightsabers vs. gray lightsabers forever. But that definitely didn’t happen in 1980, it happened in 1999-2004.

If we’re talking about surrealism, Return of the Jedi is arguably the most surreal and strange of the three. People complain about the droid torture room in Jabba’s palace, but that’s right in line with the odd, dreamlike feeling. “I am your father” is not a problem. There was no Chosen One prophecy yet, so there was nothing about Anakin or Luke that limited the storytelling possibilities for the rest of the universe.

As for everything else, I think that if anything Star Wars is still a big sandbox setting that can tell many stories. Giving the rules for how blasters and hyperdrives function provided a foundation for those stories. Star Wars is full of military sci fi stories, political stories, crime stories, adventure stories, weird mystical stories, and everything in between. There is plenty of strangeness and surrealism. You can fit pretty much any story you can think of within Star Wars. Just invent a new planet, set it there, and you’re good.

I’m less bothered by referencing KOTOR given that the entire setup of both this version and the actual sequel trilogy ended up being a different version of Dark Empire. If anything I don’t like that it references The Old Republic MMO and the goofy idea of Revan’s soul splitting in two halves.

Channel72 said:

BedeHistory731 said:

I’d want to push back on that. This view is also heavily informed by modern rejection of religious institutions, colored by decades worth of abuse scandals and cults getting exposed (e.g., Scientology and the Unification Church). The “cult that captures children and brainwashes them” doesn’t seem so unreasonable after watching Jesus Camp or any numerous videos of indoctrinated fundamentalist children. The Jedi also acting as an added branch of government doesn’t help much, given how religious institutions have invested in candidates over the years. Hell, I’m not surprised Jedi molester stories aren’t more common within AO3 fanfics.

The intention may have been noble to show monastic life in a positive light, but the execution in the films has left things open to this more critical interpretation. I wouldn’t say it’s wrong at all, but rather just operating off of what has been presented in the media/real-world context. It’s a bit of that post-Catholic scandal/post-911 antitheism of which the internet has long enjoyed.

I agree with all this - it’s just bizarre that apparently George Lucas really believed he was portraying the Jedi in a positive light. The interpretation most people on the Internet seem to adhere to - that the Prequels purposely portray the Jedi as a flawed institution (like the Catholic Church or something) - is almost certainly incorrect. Multiple interviews with George Lucas reveal that he believes the Jedi and their anti-attachment philosophy was correct, and the only reason Anakin fell was because he gave in to his fear of loss.

I agree, with the added complication that in the context of the movies they are right. They come off looking bad to people who want to go “ooooh, not a good look” but they’re right about almost everything.

I liked these a lot when I watched them. My main issue is that they would be too dense to make into real movies. There are just too many characters and scenes. They would work better as novels, but then you would lose things like the cast and the novelty of Keanu Reeves showing up.

From everything they’ve said about the show it’s about how the Jedi suck so bad, so I doubt it.

Robots don’t have souls in real life but Star Wars droids absolutely do. It’s just one of those tensions that never gets resolved so that the setting can continue to exist.

I like this a lot and it’s similar to how I imagined it. I will say that if the prequels did one thing right, it was the concept of Palpatine manipulating both sides and deceiving everyone. I really don’t like the execution in Attack of the Clones and how dumb they made the Jedi to make it happen, but overall it’s a good idea. I would like it if he’s still manipulating Atha Prime and the Clone Masters with a sort of Sidious persona in the same way he did with the Separatists in canon.

So in yours, I think it’s a little bit too obvious to have Palpatine openly belong to an Imperial Party and Antilles Organa to know exactly what he’s doing. I think it works better if he’s a safe, unassuming, middle-of-the-road politician who lets others do everything for him. If I remember right, that was actually how the Emperor was described in the novelization of the original movie, until he actually appeared in ESB and became a main character.

BedeHistory731 said:

Vladius said:
There’s no broader discussion of Christianity and Buddhism or exactly WHY monks do what they do. It’s all judged through the lens of 21st century hyper-individualistic modern western culture where everything is about sex and doing what you want, when you want, screw everyone else.

I’d want to push back on that. This view is also heavily informed by modern rejection of religious institutions, colored by decades worth of abuse scandals and cults getting exposed (e.g., Scientology and the Unification Church). The “cult that captures children and brainwashes them” doesn’t seem so unreasonable after watching Jesus Camp or any numerous videos of indoctrinated fundamentalist children. The Jedi also acting as an added branch of government doesn’t help much, given how religious institutions have invested in candidates over the years. Hell, I’m not surprised Jedi molester stories aren’t more common within AO3 fanfics.

The intention may have been noble to show monastic life in a positive light, but the execution in the films has left things open to this more critical interpretation. I wouldn’t say it’s wrong at all, but rather just operating off of what has been presented in the media/real-world context. It’s a bit of that post-Catholic scandal/post-911 antitheism of which the internet has long enjoyed.

Of course, I go for the “Anakin is basically a school shooter” philosophy and argue that Palpatine radicalized a long-vulnerable person down the path of the dark side.

I completely agree and I say that a lot. It’s absolutely based on however you feel about religion in real life. I think Lucas could have done a much better job of establishing why the Jedi are the way they are and steering clear of those kinds of stereotypes. I can accept that he wanted the Jedi to be nuanced and imperfect, but it’s distasteful how much he made them look stupid, and “creepy” to modern audiences.

Spartacus01 said:

Vladius said:

NFBisms said:

Vladius said:
What I mainly don’t like is all the insane real world baggage that gets dragged into it. The Jedi are like an ascetic Buddhist FBI that is also a fourth branch of government and also the leaders of the military and also diplomats and also bodyguards. The Republic is the Roman Republic but it’s also the United States during the Civil War and also the United States in modern times. The Senate is the Roman Senate and also the United Nations times a million. The enemies of the Republic are the Confederates from the Civil War and also modern international megacorporations. Anakin has aspects of Christ but is not perfect like Christ and ends up being the Antichrist.
All of the religion and philosophy in Star Wars is both Christian and Buddhist, Western and Eastern, per Lucas. Which means that it has both traditional good and evil, and suggestions of Yin and Yang “balance” stuff, without distinguishing between the two.
This all leads to confusion and really, really, really bad takes from fans about what it all means. Stuff like you should be equally good and evil, or that Anakin committing genocide on the Jedi was good and they deserved it. And then you have a bunch of EU writers, Disney writers, and Dave Filoni encouraging this.

I think this is actually the strength of the prequels as they are IMO.

Lucas challenges preconceptions of The Story with every subsequent movie starting from “I am your father” in ESB; where the PT contradicts the OT is intentionally in conversation. To me, what’d even be the point of these if the story were only the genre tropes and archetypes we could extrapolate from the OT? The “insane” real world baggage is what makes them worth handling in detail at all. It moves the needle from fairy tale to mythology. It’s not meant to be instructive.

Whatever analogues are in that mix shouldn’t be 1:1, otherwise then we would just be talking about Catholicism. Falling in line to real life historical or contemporary example is a hacky commentative form anyway; the only reality that demands consistency in fictional worldbuilding are the sociological and theoretical mechanics. Any philosophy or culture can be made up in that context, and should. That allows space to work with empathy / thought that real world sensitivities make difficult. If you’re looking for specific analogy, of course it’s incoherent. Of course all of this couldn’t really exist. But the exercise is about how something works, not what they are.

Your mileage may vary on what the difference is, but to articulate how I see the difference: Lucas isn’t writing about the United States or Christianity (just as examples). He’d be writing about hegemonic imperialism and the sociology of principled beliefs. From there your personal engagement is your personal engagement. The murkiness of What It All Means™ is a feature not a bug. I like that we can all have different perspectives about it.

My problem is the lack of different perspectives. The orthodox fan view right now is that the light side = no emotions, the dark side = strong emotions, and the gray side = emotions in check. The Jedi are a cult who kidnaps and brainwashes children into having no emotions. When you force people to have no emotions, the Freudian id takes over and makes them turn to the dark side and snap and commit mass murder, and that’s your fault. For these fans (most of them online), there is no other perspective. There’s no dialogue or moral ambiguity. They took black and white, introduced “gray”, then called the gray white and everything else black.
Never mind that gray is nonsensical and involves being half good and half evil. You can have a little bit of turning into a gray-skinned yellow-eyed genocidal cyborg monster, as a treat. (This is how they describe Anakin in the Ahsoka show.)
It’s blatantly false both in and out of universe, but there is no disagreement about it. This is the consensus. In Dave Filoni shows and other stuff, it’s canon. There’s no broader discussion of Christianity and Buddhism or exactly WHY monks do what they do. It’s all judged through the lens of 21st century hyper-individualistic modern western culture where everything is about sex and doing what you want, when you want, screw everyone else.

I don’t want to play the part of the devil’s advocate, but can you really blame the fans for this? I think that Lucas is to blame, not the fans. In the Prequels there is no indication whatsoever that the Jedi philosophy is not based on suppressing emotions. On the contrary, every time we see the Jedi do or say something in the Prequels, you always get the impression that repressing emotions is exactly what they do. Add to that the fact that the Jedi forbid marriage and romantic relationships, and you have the perfect formula for misunderstanding. If Lucas was not able to properly convey his message, then it’s not the fault of the fans, it’s Lucas’s fault. And even if Lucas had succeeded in conveying his message correctly, it doesn’t mean that people should not be contrary to the Jedi philosophy, because you can still be contrary to the idea of celibacy. I’m a collectivist and an anti-individualist myself, but I’m still contrary to celibacy.

I agree 100% and I think I mentioned that in one of my posts. It is Lucas’s fault.
I don’t believe in celibacy in real life either. However I’m willing to accept that it makes sense in the context of the Jedi, and I think that’s established in the prequels, though it could be done much better. Going back to pre-1999 though, they’re even better without that issue.

NFBisms said:

Vladius said:
What I mainly don’t like is all the insane real world baggage that gets dragged into it. The Jedi are like an ascetic Buddhist FBI that is also a fourth branch of government and also the leaders of the military and also diplomats and also bodyguards. The Republic is the Roman Republic but it’s also the United States during the Civil War and also the United States in modern times. The Senate is the Roman Senate and also the United Nations times a million. The enemies of the Republic are the Confederates from the Civil War and also modern international megacorporations. Anakin has aspects of Christ but is not perfect like Christ and ends up being the Antichrist.
All of the religion and philosophy in Star Wars is both Christian and Buddhist, Western and Eastern, per Lucas. Which means that it has both traditional good and evil, and suggestions of Yin and Yang “balance” stuff, without distinguishing between the two.
This all leads to confusion and really, really, really bad takes from fans about what it all means. Stuff like you should be equally good and evil, or that Anakin committing genocide on the Jedi was good and they deserved it. And then you have a bunch of EU writers, Disney writers, and Dave Filoni encouraging this.

I think this is actually the strength of the prequels as they are IMO.

Lucas challenges preconceptions of The Story with every subsequent movie starting from “I am your father” in ESB; where the PT contradicts the OT is intentionally in conversation. To me, what’d even be the point of these if the story were only the genre tropes and archetypes we could extrapolate from the OT? The “insane” real world baggage is what makes them worth handling in detail at all. It moves the needle from fairy tale to mythology. It’s not meant to be instructive.

Whatever analogues are in that mix shouldn’t be 1:1, otherwise then we would just be talking about Catholicism. Falling in line to real life historical or contemporary example is a hacky commentative form anyway; the only reality that demands consistency in fictional worldbuilding are the sociological and theoretical mechanics. Any philosophy or culture can be made up in that context, and should. That allows space to work with empathy / thought that real world sensitivities make difficult. If you’re looking for specific analogy, of course it’s incoherent. Of course all of this couldn’t really exist. But the exercise is about how something works, not what they are.

Your mileage may vary on what the difference is, but to articulate how I see the difference: Lucas isn’t writing about the United States or Christianity (just as examples). He’d be writing about hegemonic imperialism and the sociology of principled beliefs. From there your personal engagement is your personal engagement. The murkiness of What It All Means™ is a feature not a bug. I like that we can all have different perspectives about it.

No, I get all that. My problem is the lack of different perspectives. The orthodox fan view right now is that the light side = no emotions, the dark side = strong emotions, and the gray side = emotions in check. The Jedi are a cult who kidnaps and brainwashes children into having no emotions. When you force people to have no emotions, the Freudian id takes over and makes them turn to the dark side and snap and commit mass murder, and that’s your fault. For these fans (most of them online), there is no other perspective. There’s no dialogue or moral ambiguity. They took black and white, introduced “gray”, then called the gray white and everything else black.
Never mind that gray is nonsensical and involves being half good and half evil. You can have a little bit of turning into a gray-skinned yellow-eyed genocidal cyborg monster, as a treat. (This is how they describe Anakin in the Ahsoka show.)
It’s blatantly false both in and out of universe, but there is no disagreement about it. This is the consensus. In Dave Filoni shows and other stuff, it’s canon. There’s no broader discussion of Christianity and Buddhism or exactly WHY monks do what they do. It’s all judged through the lens of 21st century hyper-individualistic modern western culture where everything is about sex and doing what you want, when you want, screw everyone else.

I am okay with all the weird political and religious imagery mashups. What I am not okay with is the confusion between Good and Evil and Yin and Yang. That’s stupid. It’s based in a lack of understanding of what good and evil and Yin and Yang are supposed to be, in both traditions. I don’t think Lucas intended this but it’s his fault. He was really clumsy with this and didn’t correct it. “Balance in the Force” is such a misleading phrase and there is no reason it should have been put that way. That is the source of this cancer. (It’s that, and video games where you can use force lightning without consequence because it’s cool.)

It also makes the setting really boring because nothing ever matters. “Balance in the Force” for these people means equal light side and dark side, so there’s always going to be mass death and suffering to swing the pendulum back and forth and every victory (including the Chosen One’s) is just temporary and meaningless. Kreia in KOTOR 2 was intended to be a criticism of this idea and the direction Star Wars was heading at the time, but this type of fan that I’m talking about thinks she was objectively right about everything and had no ulterior motives, and they like the setting being boring.

Spartacus01 said:

Vladius said:

This is the fantasy I always have in my head. I really hate arguing with people about the prequel Jedi, balance in the Force, gray Jedi, Mortis, etc. when none of that crap existed before 1999. Jedi were so much more interesting. They could wear whatever they liked, go wherever they liked, serve causes they wanted to serve, could have families and children. They were much more like feudal knights or samurai. You could easily imagine different factions of Jedi, differing takes on Jedi philosophy and the Force, and non-Sith Jedi villains like C’baoth. There was no Chosen One prophecy, so Luke’s adventures after RotJ were just as eventful and important as anything before.

People who are into the prequel Jedi are easily impressed by what they think is Lucas subtly criticizing problems that he made up. They have no concept that their ideas are stuck in a box when compared with all the possibilities that were getting explored pre-1999. Even KOTOR takes the wild and crazy Tales of the Jedi era and crams prequel Jedi into it.

I do think Palpatine was intended to be a Sith, though. Once the Sith and the concept of Sith Lords existed, I’m fairly certain that Vader and Palpatine were integrated into it.

Even though I am a Prequel fan, I pretty much agree with this. I, too, would have preferred if the Jedi were depicted like in the pre-1999 EU, especially like in the Tales of the Jedi comics. No Chosen Ones, no Balance of the Force, no strict rules against marriage and romance in general, and no Mortis. Like, I don’t mind the Jedi being depicted as a centralized Order who participated in the Clone Wars, had a unified philosophy and served the Republic, but I think that the rule against marriage and the Chosen One Prophecy shouldn’t have been introduced, and that they should have found another cause for Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side. Without the Chosen One thing, the Balance of the Force and the rule against marriage and romance, I think that the Force and the Jedi in general would be way less controversial today.

Yeah, don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of things about the prequels. The Chosen One thing might be worth it just for Obi Wan’s scene at the end of ROTS. That’s incredible. Qui Gon, younger Obi Wan, and Mace Windu are great characters. The Jedi Council, as used in the movies, is a good concept.

What I mainly don’t like is all the insane real world baggage that gets dragged into it. The Jedi are like an ascetic Buddhist FBI that is also a fourth branch of government and also the leaders of the military and also diplomats and also bodyguards. The Republic is the Roman Republic but it’s also the United States during the Civil War and also the United States in modern times. The Senate is the Roman Senate and also the United Nations times a million. The enemies of the Republic are the Confederates from the Civil War and also modern international megacorporations. Anakin has aspects of Christ but is not perfect like Christ and ends up being the Antichrist.
All of the religion and philosophy in Star Wars is both Christian and Buddhist, Western and Eastern, per Lucas. Which means that it has both traditional good and evil, and suggestions of Yin and Yang “balance” stuff, without distinguishing between the two.
This all leads to confusion and really, really, really bad takes from fans about what it all means. Stuff like you should be equally good and evil, or that Anakin committing genocide on the Jedi was good and they deserved it. And then you have a bunch of EU writers, Disney writers, and Dave Filoni encouraging this.

Pre-1999 you could talk about individuals and characters and their traits. Each Jedi was unique, both visually and in their behavior. Now it’s all about a “flawed institution” that people somehow think exists with an analogue in real life. Mostly it just comes down to whatever stereotypes they’ve heard secondhand about the Catholic church that they assume to be true. Wow, the prequels are really a brilliant critique on… this fictional amalgamation of 30 different things that could never actually exist, plus psychic powers.