[Luis Dias]

Careful going too far down the rabbit hole on "feelings," especially based on bull**** in the prequels.  Obi Wan repeatedly tells Luke in the OT to trust in his feelings (this is in fact how Luke manages to destroy the Death Star in ANH) so while the prequel-era Jedi might be dicks about feelings, both Obi Wan and Yoda seem to have learned from that by the time the OT starts up ~18-20 years later.  Luke, OTOH, seems to have forgotten parts of that little lesson.

McIntosh specifically deals with this scene with Ben. When he mentions "trust his feelings", he follows it up by specifying his instincts. It's not about emotions, it's about your unconscious sensitivity towards the world.

I'm not saying that the OT had all of this entirely fleshed out, but I think he makes a good case here, by reminding us that Luke has to go against both Yoda and Ben regarding the matter of his friends. Yoda tries to say to him that letting his friends die is better if he respects what they are fighting for. Again, this shows failure of imagination of Yoda, or else, just a stark reminder of how robotic Yoda still thinks Jedis should be. How would Luke who had his friends killed by Vader ever be able to confront him in an emotionally stable way, especially knowing he possibly could have saved them? It works in the movie very well, but again, it never paints Yoda well in my eyes.

And Phasma better be dead.  It drives me crazy, because Gwendoline Christie is a fantastic actress and they utterly and completely wasted her in Star Wars, to the point that I feel sorry for her and want to kick the writer(s) that had anything to do with Phasma.

I fervently believe this arc was shoehorned into TLJ as a demand by toy manufacturers. There is simply no other explanation.

[Turambar]

The over-monastic dumb jedi are a creation of the prequels.  Since I don't consider the prequels and their related works to be of high enough quality to count as Official Star Wars, we don't actually know how the Jedi Order functioned, since clearly the version we were shown was too dumb to ever function.

[The E]

The over-monastic dumb jedi are a creation of the prequels.  Since I don't consider the prequels and their related works to be of high enough quality to count as Official Star Wars, we don't actually know how the Jedi Order functioned, since clearly the version we were shown was too dumb to ever function.

And the award for the stupidest post in this thread goes to .... Turambar!

[Luis Dias]

Since I don't consider the prequels and their related works to be of high enough quality to count as Official Star Wars, we don't actually know how the Jedi Order functioned, since clearly the version we were shown was too dumb to ever function.

Correction, you don't know how it works. But given how prone you are to choose your own canon stories, then make it up as you go along. Just don't expect a lot of discussion over it, unless it's brilliantly written in an original story of yours, in which case, I'm all for it.

And the award for the stupidest post in this thread goes to .... Turambar!

Come on it's not dumb, it's just a tad pretentious. I also managed to dismiss the prequels regarding anything for a long time too. What is pretentious about it is declaring that, because of his personal choice, therefore, no one else "knows" what "really" happened in the clone wars, etc.

[The E]

No, sorry, in a discussion in which we are talking about the text of a work (or, in this case, the actual movies and the world presented therein), saying "I don't think these movies count" is stupid. It's derailing at best, trolling and stupidly ignorant at worst. Even Trashman pretended to take this discussion seriously; What Turambar is doing here is worse than anything Trashman did.

[karajorma]

Okay, let's not make this discussion personal. I don't want to have to move a discussion about Star Wars to the politics board.


And saying "The prequels were **** and don't count" is a perfectly valid point of view based on the fact that the prequels were **** and therefore don't count. If you want to counter Turmabar's point, find examples from the original trilogy. There are plenty.

[Aesaar]

No, that's crap.  We're discussing the Jedi as presented in Star Wars.  You can't just dismiss 3 movies because they don't fit your opinion.  This just turns into a completely pointless headcanon comparison if you do.  Can I dismiss Return of the Jedi and say that the way the Empire was defeated by the Rebellion is dumb and therefore the movie shouldn't count, so the Empire is alive and well?

[Turambar]

The point is that in this thread, everyone has thought about how the Jedi would work FAR more than the people who actually wrote the Jedi for the works you're referencing. 

If we're going to have a good discussion, it should at least be based on something interesting, like what we all thought the Jedi were like before the prequels (and KOTOR) were even released.

[Aesaar]

Given that KotOR 2 was released in 2004 (and TLJ now), I'd say it's perfectly possible to have an interesting discussion on the Jedi even after the prequels were released.

You don't get to dismiss 3 movies because they mess with your headcanon.

[Turambar]

I'm not dismissing them because they "mess with my headcanon" though, I'm dismissing them because they are of such low quality that they are less valid than fanfic. 

When did they have an interesting discussion about the Jedi in TLJ?  I just saw them fail to go over even a fraction of the interesting discussion on the Jedi that happens in the books.

[karajorma]

No, that's crap.  We're discussing the Jedi as presented in Star Wars.  You can't just dismiss 3 movies because they don't fit your opinion.  This just turns into a completely pointless headcanon comparison if you do.

The prequels are objectively pretty ****. You have to admit that.

So if you want to claim something about Star Wars and can't find it in the orig trig, your sources are pretty suspect. If you're sourcing facts based on films you agree failed to fit the Star Wars universe, then how can you claim that arguments based on them fit the universe?

Can I dismiss Return of the Jedi and say that the way the Empire was defeated by the Rebellion is dumb and therefore the movie shouldn't count, so the Empire is alive and well?

No. Because if you try, I'll flat out point out why you've ignored everything in the other films in order to do so.

[Det. Bullock]

No no no, his regret is what frames him as somewhat redeemable, not as "he belongs to the dark side", a Sith does not regret, just takes what's theirs and to hell with everyone else.

You're talking past me or McIntosh's point. It's even moot, given Yoda's speech to little Anakin wherein he makes it very clear that his feelings towards his mother are dangerous and a source for concern and immediately censored. You personally might think that these emotions are not bad or are good to have, or whatever, but that's not what the movies are telling us. All the six of them clearly state that the Jedi should forgo all feelings altogether. I'd add that while it is true that no one is forced to be a Jedi, there's never been even a moment wherein this question is asked about Anakin. Why not? Why can't Kenobi just talk him out of this life that is eating his insides apart? Again, bad story telling, etc., but the point remains: the Jedi are terrible at dealing with Anakin's emotions. They give him terrible advice and worse instructions.

It's a common mistake among many people that watch Star Wars to think that while the Jedi way is flawed the Sith way is better *coz emotions*, they forget that Sith don't nurture emotions in general but mostly greed, hate and rage, fear as a gateway drug is not uncommon in these cases and it's a reference to nazism and similar ideologies who prey on primal fears to recruit.

It may well be a common mistake, I don't ****ing know why you have brought it up here. Perhaps another common mistake here is to misinterpret what I, McIntosh and The_E have been saying as "Dark Side is good coz they emote". Perhaps this mistake can be averted by actually reading what people are saying.

Love for a Jedi is something he must be careful not to spoil to the point that the now heavily institutionalized Jedi order of the old republic avoids it almost entirely (Jedis are shown to be friends with people and in theory could have flings, but not steady relationships, there are exceptions for members belonging to species whose numbers are dwindling), for a Sith is poison.

It's not "avoided", it's specifically stated that it is forbidden. Like priesthood, etc. But this is besides the points that were made. Anakin was mismanaged by the entire Jedi Council in such an infantile manner that there can only be two options: either they were incredibly stupid, rendering the entirety of the very idea of this elite Council a cruel hilarious joke, or they are so autistically incapable of understanding emotions and dealing with them that I'm even amazed they didn't self destruct earlier in this very same manner.

Mind you, this is not something that somehow McIntosh "figured out". This was obvious from the movies themselves from the get go.

Yoda would have probably put it differently if Anakin let go of his ambition and frigging told him everything.
The force vision of a loved one dying is not something that could be changed, the only way Yoda could tell him differently was lying, his message is not "do not grieve", it's just that it's a fact of life and nothing can be done about it.
Star Wars is a weird fusion of modern and ancient tragedy in that it's both destiny (or the will of the Force, or the Gods) and character flaws (like in a modern tragedy) that make it.

Every good spiritual master knows when their pupils are lying to protect themselves or their ego, and Yoda is supposedly the best of the Galaxy. I came off that scene thinking really bad of Yoda, how incredibly dumb he is not to see that Anakin was just trying to tell him something deeply personal that he otherwise really couldn't, and then went on to say the dumbest kind of words meshed in sentences. McIntosh is 100% correct here, sorry.

They say attachment is forbidden, and Jedi powers aren't 100% reliable, especially if you don't have a special bond with someone and you aren't looking.
I didn't deny that the movies often fail to take the point across but if you move among the Lucas-supervised stuff outside the movies (the clone wars cartoon) a lot of these points are taken across much better mostly because the TV story arcs allow characters to flesh out better some nuances of the Jedi rules and powers and how they fail.
Hell, in the cartoon neither Yoda nor Luminara Unduli (which later we see utterly broken in an imperial prison in Rebels) notice when her apprentice goes full dark side until she almost gets Ahsoka executed after taking the fall for her crimes.

[Mika]

Been overloaded with work and it's only a couple of days from the New Year. I shudder to think what March will bring.

Back to the discussion. When I asked about MP-Ryan's opinion, I wasn't thinking about the possible absolute interpretation of the Force sides. For a long time I've already thought the Light / Dark side are related to the person himself, and as was said earlier here, Dark Side in its extremety is about losing self restraint, while Light side in its extreme is about logic overruling feelings. It's already so many years since I've seen the OT for the first time that I forgot it's possible to think about the Light / Dark sides as absolutes. Yes, I did play KOTOR2, several times. There, the story worked, but it's clear that the game was rushed out early. I'd have loved to see Atris in the party turning to Kreia if I recall one plot line how it was supposed to go. Kreia as she was presented was fine too.

My question to MP-Ryan was related to the Light / Dark side parallel to real world police officers, who do have some sociopathic tendencies (well, if I'm to believe the social sciences research and that's a BIG if), but the only thing that keeps them from turning from protectors to assailants is that they have a very strong moral backbone, i.e. they feel the temptation to do illegal stuff, but their mind keeps them from doing it. This of course has been mentioned several times in different movies in exchanges between the criminals and police (typical line: "you ain't so different from me!"), but I was wondering whether MP-Ryan has considered the Dark/Light side dichotomy from that point of view?

Star Wars movies having multitude of interesting philosophical undertones which is the thing that makes them interesting. Taking advantage of the Lucas' setup shown in the prequels is a good thing in the TLJ. However, ignoring Luke's story arc in the OT is not. I could believe young Jedi trainee Luke Skywalker initiating the light saber next to a kid, but not at that age any more, and certainly not after re-deeming his father. Momentary lapses of judgement are far more likely with young people instead of the old. That's simply not in-character. Luke had already learned this a long time ago. The story break up between TFA and TLJ is also quite noticeable. If Luke wanted to die in the island, why would he let his location to be discoverable in the first place?

I've already said I don't value ideas alone much, and that may sound strange coming from somebody in the R&D world and who is working in a Fortune 500 start-up. But that's the case: in reality, there's a boatload of ideas coming from every direction (or in some cases non at all) and it takes skill to determine which ones are actually worth pursuing. Some ideas do sound very promising, but become nearly impossible to execute well, and this is what you want to avoid. That's the place where TLJ also fails miserably. I see what they were trying to do. But while watching I also recognized they did most of it so poorly that the points are guaranteed to get lost, and likely reversed against the movie. Including the social commentary, which I found quite hilarious in a sense that several of the things they wanted to look as good were perceived as horrible (if IMDB reader reviewers are to be trusted), and all that for a good reason.

What it comes to JJ Abrams possibly not filling out the backstory of Snoke, tough luck! Rian Johnson, in that case it is still your job to flesh that one out. Given this is Star Wars, it was pretty obvious Snoke will die anyways, but how that happened and how it matters the grand scheme of things are important. Now, the audience doesn't have a faintest idea what's the impact of Kylo Ren being in charge, except that from what we have seen, he is going to run the First Order to the ground in no time. Snoke being offed at this point, I guess we are going to see JJ Abrams versus R Johnson cockfight in the ninth part.  How about we do something unexpected and kill Rey in the beginning of ninth installment? Nobody certainly would see that coming 

That is, if anyone is still interested enough in Star Wars to watch it. I certainly wont.

[Aesaar]

No, that's crap.  We're discussing the Jedi as presented in Star Wars.  You can't just dismiss 3 movies because they don't fit your opinion.  This just turns into a completely pointless headcanon comparison if you do.

The prequels are objectively pretty ****. You have to admit that.

So if you want to claim something about Star Wars and can't find it in the orig trig, your sources are pretty suspect. If you're sourcing facts based on films you agree failed to fit the Star Wars universe, then how can you claim that arguments based on them fit the universe?

Actually, I've come around to liking Revenge of the Sith.  It's very, very flawed, but there's a great story in there, and it manages to be interesting.  I like it a lot more than TFA.  Also, the novelization is very, very good.  I most certainly do not agree the prequels failed to fit the Star Wars universe.

And lol, "your sources are suspect if it doesn't come from the OT".  I'm sorry, what?  It's all Star Wars.  You don't get to decide what is or isn't valid just because you happen to dislike some of it.  That's literally what headcanon is.

No. Because if you try, I'll flat out point out why you've ignored everything in the other films in order to do so.

  I don't see how 'ignoring everything in the other films' is any different than ignoring the prequels.  They're all equally official.

I'm not dismissing them because they "mess with my headcanon" though, I'm dismissing them because they are of such low quality that they are less valid than fanfic. 

RotS is better than TFA, IMO, and I think the novelization is better than RotJ.  Oh ****, I guess your opinion isn't fact.  You're dismissing the prequels because you don't like them, and the direction they take the universe isn't the direction you want it to take.  There is no objective reason to dismiss them, only your own personal taste.

[Phantom Hoover]

No, sorry, in a discussion in which we are talking about the text of a work (or, in this case, the actual movies and the world presented therein), saying "I don't think these movies count" is stupid. It's derailing at best, trolling and stupidly ignorant at worst. Even Trashman pretended to take this discussion seriously; What Turambar is doing here is worse than anything Trashman did.

so i guess the question of how much ~the text~ of the sequels acknowledges the prequels at all is not a valid discussion according to you

[Phantom Hoover]

like if your basis for the prequels being part of THE TEXT of TLJ comes down to extratextual disney corporate directives then lmao @ you playing the aggressive literary criticism gatekeeper

[Aesaar]

like if your basis for the prequels being part of THE TEXT of TLJ comes down to extratextual disney corporate directives then lmao @ you playing the aggressive literary criticism gatekeeper

Pretty sure saying "the prequels aren't good enough to be Real Star Wars" is also "playing the aggressive literary criticism gatekeeper".

[Phantom Hoover]

turambar was pretty clear that he's talking about his own personal read of the star wars universe! it's you and the e who have declared that this is Not Allowed

[Aesaar]

No, he declared that we don't know how the Jedi Order functions because the prequels suck and are invalid.

The over-monastic dumb jedi are a creation of the prequels.  Since I don't consider the prequels and their related works to be of high enough quality to count as Official Star Wars, we don't actually know how the Jedi Order functioned, since clearly the version we were shown was too dumb to ever function.

Which is just a way to shut down discussion because this way we don't really have enough info to discuss the topic unless we go into Legends (and even then, so much of the Legends EU was built on the prequels).

I may as well say the Empire never fell because the way the Rebels defeated the Empire at Endor was dumb, therefore it didn't happen.  It's exactly as valid.  It's just headcanon.

[MP-Ryan]

You can't ignore the prequels.  While they're terrible - Revenge of the Sith is significantly less bad than the others, but it's still not good, and I'm sorry Aesaar but you've completely lost me if you think it's somehow better than TFA - they come from Lucas himself (for worse, frankly) and are therefore relevant to understanding Star Wars as a whole.

Frankly, Star Wars is comic book, and not a very consistent one.  People who treat it as if internal consistency should actually be a thing are missing this; the universe does not have a consistent, logical set of rules or backstory, and that is why literally every film has some kind of inconsistency with the others, even of their own era.  It's meant to be interesting, and fun, and contain some philosophy, but too many people are guilty of treating Star Wars canon as some kind of immutable standard and the series has never done that.  Frankly, ignoring the entire EU is a good thing BECAUSE of this - the EU actually tried to establish canonical consistency, and that's what inevitably leads to this notion at the newest movies are terrible and non-representative of Star Wars.  The new movies, with all their thrills, glaring flaws, cheese, and fun are perfectly in line with all the others.  I know ESB gets treated as some phenomenal gift to film, but sit down and actually watch it as a film sometime.  It's not internally consistent, Hoths battle sequences make for great film but make NO sense if you think about them, the dialogue is ****ing awful, the fan obsession with Bobba Fett given his actual role in the film is ludicrous, and Yoda makes it abundantly clear that the Jedi are in many ways lying assholes.

Every single film - with the possible exception of A New Hope, being the first - breaks down under series analysis, especially canonical analysis.  There's little point in nitpicking them to death.