Duel of the Fates is a great soundtrack, but I personally don’t think that it is as awesome as everybody say It is. And I studied music for several years.
I don’t like Padme. She loses the will to live because her heart got broken, despite having just given birth to two newborn children. Is being there for her vulnerable infants not enough to give her the will to live? Fuck them kids?
We could start a discussion about her death, but I personally am of the opinion that it would be a perfect waste of time. You don’t like it, while I’m able to rationalize it. Both opinions are fair. What I want to specify, though, is that there are plenty of Padmé fans who don’t like her death, and even say that it openly contradicts the essence of her character. Just like there are a ton of Mara Jade fans who don’t like the way they killed her off in Legacy of the Force, there are also a lot of Padmé fans who don’t like the way she died. So, liking a certain character doesn’t mean that you have to like the way that character died, because a character is way more than his/her death.
Padme’s only tolerable when she’s in action mode and doesn’t speak.
I still don’t understand why you hate her. Lol.
Eh, World Between Worlds is dumb in any case.
Yes, yes it is.
What I’m about to say might sound like a joke, but I’m serious.
If they will ever make an official “What if” animated episode (or movie) where Anakin doesn’t fall to the Dark Side and manages to live a happy life with Padmé, THAT will become the Canon version in my head. I will ignore Revenge of the Sith and subsequent works forever. Period.
I don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion though…
You’re proposing a scenario in which Anakin goes through with Padme’s proposal of running off to live a quiet life away from all the Galaxy’s conflicts raising a family.
Yes, a scenario where Anakin discovers and kills Darth Sidious before his nightmares and Order 66, and then leaves the Order after the Clone Wars to stay with Padmé on Naboo.
I know that everyone hates Padmé on the forum, but I genuinely love her. She’s my favorite female character from the Prequel era.
What I’m about to say might sound like a joke, but I’m serious.
If they will ever make an official “What if” animated episode (or movie) where Anakin doesn’t fall to the Dark Side and manages to live a happy life with Padmé, THAT will become the Canon version in my head. I will ignore Revenge of the Sith and subsequent works forever. Period.
I don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion, though…
Why would you exclude The Motion Picture and Undiscovered Country?
Because I find them to be boring, honestly. And I know that “boring” doesn’t automatically mean bad, but I never felt the need to take those two movies as an actual part of the story.
Every single show where Filoni had some involvement was mediocre at best, and totally bad at worst (except for the first season of The Mandalorian, which I genuinely liked). The Clone Wars undermines the Prequels, Rebels undermines the Original Trilogy, Tales of the Jedi was pure fan service, and I didn’t even bother to watch any other of the animated shows. In my opinion, the best content from Disney Star Wars is precisely the one Filoni is not involved with.
I still laugh every time a TCW fan tries to defend the show and Filoni. “Oh yes, TCW is the best piece of Star Wars since the Original Trilogy. Though, the first two seasons are totally bad, and even though the rest of the show is better than the first two seasons, there are still a lot of bad and skipable arcs. But guaranteed, the seventh season is a masterpiece, except 3/4 of it.”
From what I understand, the Force is not always passed through the blood. Yes, a person who is strong in the Force is more likely to have children who are strong in the Force, but that’s not a hard and fast rule. It can also happen that a person who is not strong in the Force gives birth to a person who has a large amount of midi-chlorians. This is true in both Canon and Legends.
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.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to attack you or anything. But I think that you are being guilty of the same extremism you are criticizing. You said: “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”, which is totally correct. But then, when it comes to the history of the movies and their appreciation by the fandom, you did the same thing you are preaching against: generalizing. Sure, I’m one of those millennials who were not around at the time, I became a Star Wars fan in 2018. But I don’t think that saying that everyone hated the movies is fair. I think that it is more fair to say that the fanbase felt very divided about them. I have known a lot of people who liked them from the beginning, just as I have known a lot of people who disliked them from the beginning. There were a lot of fans who liked the Prequels in the 2000s, just as there were a lot of fans who hated them in the same time period. Saying that everyone hated the movies is unfair to the people who always liked them. And they exist, denying their existence is unfair too. Furthermore, I have known a lot of people who became fans of the Saga only in recent years, watched the Prequels as adults, and liked them a lot. I’m one of them. So, to say that they became popular in recent years only because of nostalgia and the memes is a bit unfair too. I liked them when I first watched them. And I was already 18 when I watched them, so I didn’t have any nostalgia for them.
If not for Anakin being a greedy dumbass, i’d blame his fall completely on the prequel Jedi. They did everything they could to make him bottle up his feelings and be afraid of them, separate him from his only family and teach him that human bonds of compassion and affection were abnormal.
The Jedi were like a weird cult.
Had he been freed as a slave on Tatooine, he either would have been a pilot on a freighter making grain or water shipments, or a moisture farmer if not conscripted into the Imperial Navy. And probably not become Darth Vader, though its hard to say.
At the end of the day, I think that Anakin’s fall can’t be entirely blamed on the Jedi, but it can’t be entirely blamed on Anakin either. I think that Anakin, Palpatine and the Jedi are all equally responsible for what happened. Trying to blame only one of them is too simplistic, in my opinion.
On the one hand, what happened is obviously Anakin’s fault, because he acted selfishly and recklessly. Nobody forced him to do what he did. He chose to do all those terrible things, despite knowing that they were wrong. So, of course he is to blame for what happened. On the other hand, though, I think that it is also fault of the Jedi Order. Yes, their teachings about letting go are fundamentally correct. You can love a person, but you can’t possess that person, it is unhealthy to think that you can be in control of everything. All of this is correct, of course. But, forbidding romantic relationships was a mistake, because having a romantic relationship doesn’t automatically mean being overly-attached to someone. You can be in love with a person without being obsessive, and you can be able to handle your emotions properly. The Jedi took the “no attachment” rule too literally. They tried to help Anakin, they were fundamentally good people. But they had a limited understanding of romantic relationships, precisely because they didn’t allow them. They were so blinded by their dogma, that they didn’t realize that Anakin was not like the other younglings, he needed more than traditional Jedi teachings. And I’m more than sure that, if the Jedi didn’t forbid romantic relationships, they could have taught Anakin how to handle his relationship with Padmé in a healthy way from the very beginning, thus preventing what happened. And well, of course it’s also Palpatine’s fault, because he manipulated Anakin for a whole decade, making him become a very proudful person, making him think he should always be in control of everything, and thus making him want to have more and more power.
So, I think that what happened is kind of everyone’s fault. As I said, I think that trying to blame only a single person (or a single group of people) is too simplistic.
I don’t think it’s a good idea. The car chase sequence is one of the few scenes where we can see Obi-Wan and Anakin acting like friends, it is a scene where we can see them teasing each other in a friendly way, instead of always having a rocky relationship. Unlike many people on the forum, I generally don’t have a problem with them having a rocky relationship, but removing one of the scenes where they act friendly towards each other is not a good idea. After all, you need a reminder that they are still friends, even though they have a rocky relationship sometimes. So, I personally don’t like the idea. Removing that scene could improve the pacing, but would not improve Anakin and Obi-Wan’s friendship. And the training dual from Kenobi is not enough to show their friendship, in my opinion.
I mean, I can understand the complaints of some people. I, too, would have preferred the Darth title to be introduced with Darth Bane. The appearance of the Sith as we know them from the Prequels, with Darth titles and red lightsabers, should have been introduced by Darth Bane, and should have died with Sidious in Return of the Jedi. But, at the same time, I can also live with it. Again, I, too, would have preferred if those things were introduced by Darth Bane himself, but I can live with it. So, I don’t understand why it is so much of an issue for other people on the forum.
I use the term “Light Side” for pure expository convenience. Lol.
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.
Well, like you said, he’s a good guy. Anyway, I wasn’t trying to defend Mortis. I just wanted to point out that it wasn’t Filoni’s idea. In general, I think that Filoni takes more credit for TCW than what he should. A lot of the contradictions TCW created with the Multimedia Project and the Prequels, as well as the more controversial mystical elements of the Force, were all Lucas’ ideas.
I mean i’m glad the Old EU Aka Legends has been left alone they haven’t gone back and given darth names to all the non Darth Sith Lords, or retroactively gave them all red lightsabers. And they didn’t edit the timeline or backstory Zahn had in his trilogy about the old Empire, the Clone Wars, they didn’t correct the ideas of the Jedi pre prequel to homogenize them with Lucas.
I mean, I don’t think they had any intention to do so, regardless. When they started writing the New Jedi Orders series, Lucas himself approved the idea of the Jedi being married, so they never felt the need to correct this. At best, they tried to insert Prequel references in the later novels, like the Legacy of the Force series and the Dark Nest Trilogy, but nothing more. And even when it comes to the Sith, I don’t think they had any intention of giving every Sith a Darth title and a red lightsaber. If I remember correctly, it was explained that these things were introduced by Darth Revan, so there was no need to retroactively modify the Sith from the Tales of the Jedi comics. And Lucas himself never wanted all Dark Side users to be Sith. He was the one who introduced Ventress in both TCW and the og Clone Wars, and she is not a Sith. As for the inaccuracies about the Clone Wars and the rise of the Empire in the Thrawn Trilogy, they tried to explain them in later novels, and used the Clone Wars Multimedia Project to portray events described in the Thrawn Trilogy, like the devastation of Honoghr during the Clone Wars.
Thanks for the clarification. It would seem certain YouTubers have done a great deal of damage to the fandom haven’t they?
Yes. But fortunately, in recent years, an ever-increasing number of YouTubers have been emerging, who focus exclusively on Legends content, explaining it in detail and helping to dispel many myths about the EU. One of these YouTubers is called Manda-LORE. I recommend his channel.
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.
Basically for me the EU ends with the Thrawn Duology. I like Ben Skywalker, and Luke and Mara getting together but everything else i pretty much hate. Was the Bantam era perfect far from it. Still prefer it over Del Rey, Superweapon of the week and all.
In my opinion, ending the EU with the Hand of Thrawn Duology can be a respectable choice, but I personally don’t agree with it. While I don’t like what they did with the NJO and subsequent works, at the same time I also want to see Luke at the head of a functioning Jedi Academy, and what they did in the Jedi Academy Trilogy was not enough for me. So, I prefer to end my personal EU timeline with the Young Jedi Knights series. The plots developed in that series are pretty good, the power levels are not absurd, and the Galaxy is at peace at the end of the story, with the clear implication that the new generation of Jedi will eventually replace the old, and will help to maintain peace and justice throughout the Galaxy for several millennia.
I suppose I’m the only one who also accepts the post-1999 EU? Well, even though I still don’t like anything set after the Young Jedi Knights series. Lol.
Can I have a link?
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.
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.
In Legends (specifically, in the comic adaptation of Attack of the Clones), Anakin actually wanted to leave the Jedi Order for Padmé. However, she told him that it was his duty to protect the Galaxy and help the Republic in the war. So, Anakin wanted to leave the Order to stay with Padmé from day one, but Padmé’s pressure and his own sense of duty towards the Republic prevented him from doing that, at least until the end of the Clone Wars. Also, every time I watch the Prequel Trilogy, it always gives me the impression that Anakin wanted to leave the Jedi Order after the end of the war and the victory of the Republic. Yes, it was never clearly stated in the movies, but I’ve always taken it for granted, even before finding out that it was openly stated in the old Expanded Universe.
Anyway, I think that, even though Lucas’ opinions have to be taken into account, it doesn’t mean that you have to agree with him 100%, even when it comes to the Jedi. In fact, the Expanded Universe writers portrayed attachment as a dangerous thing that can lead to the Dark Side, just like Lucas said. But at the same time, they also explained that a Jedi can be married and have a family without being overly-attached to his partner or his family. For example, here there is a quote from Ben Skywalker:
“That’s what attachment is, isn’t it?” Ben [Skywalker] began pacing again, and words finally poured from him like water running through a shattered dam. "It’s not loving somebody. It’s not marrying somebody. It’s not having kids. It’s being where, if something goes wrong, there’s nothing left of you. It’s where, if she goes away, you start functioning like a droid with a restraining bolt installed. Mom wouldn’t want you to be this way. So why are you?”
(Legacy of the Force: Fury, by Aaron Allston)
So, you can agree with Lucas on the dangers of being overly-attached to someone, but also disagree with him on the notion that the Jedi need to be celibate in order not to be overly-attached. And I personally am of the opinion that Lucas himself would not care if you disagree with him about that. I mean, he clearly shared this same point of view before the completion of the Prequel Trilogy. In fact, he was heavily involved in the development of the New Jedi Order series, and gave the authors of the novels a lot of input on how the Force works, what means to be a Jedi, etc.
We all know that the Jedi rules are quite different in the New Jedi Order, even though the basic policy about attachment remained the same. And given that Lucas himself - at first - approved the idea of the Jedi being married in the New Jedi Order, I think that he would not blame you for thinking that the Jedi can be married and have families, even though he doesn’t share this point of view anymore. If you told Lucas: “Hey George, I agree with you about the dangers of being overly-attached to someone, but I’m of the opinion that a Jedi doesn’t necessarily have to be celibate in order to avoid that danger”, then I think that he himself would tell you something like: “Well, I think that the important thing is to be aware of the dangers of attachment. Everything else doesn’t matter”.
My personal Star Trek Canon consists of the following:
Any other Star Trek movie or series is just fanfiction.
I’m not entirely against the idea of bringing Darth Maul back from the dead. However, I don’t like the way it was portrayed in TCW.
In my opinion, it doesn’t make much sense to bring Maul back during the Clone Wars era. No one mentions him in Revenge of the Sith. No one mentions the fact that he is still alive and is now ruling over Mandalore, although it should be an important thing. So, talking from an in-universe perspective, you can reasonably assume that no one had any clue of the fact that he was still alive by the time of Revenge of the Sith. Therefore, if you want to bring him back so badly, you should do that after Revenge of the Sith itself.
If I want a good story where Darth Maul comes back, I prefer to read the Old Wounds comic. It makes much more sense, because it happens after the end of the Clone Wars themselves, and it’s a side story that doesn’t have any impact on what came before and after it. And, even though it was technically never considered Canon to begin with, it can actually fit perfectly in the same universe with the Prequel Trilogy and the Clone Wars Multimedia Project. So yeah, Old Wounds is superior to TCW, in my opinion.