Speculation The role of Force ghosts in Episode VII

Anakin as a Force Ghost would be interesting. To see him interacting with Luke. Maybe giving advice to him.

 

What advice could he possibly give Luke? I've seen Revenge of the Sith. Anakin is about as sharp as a marble & you could fit whatever wisdom he has in a thimble.

 

Actually as someone who has fallen and know what it is like to live in the Darkside for what 20 plus years, I think yeah he'd have some good advice for Luke. It depends though on what direction they take the story in.

 

Here's the only thing he could tell Luke: "Don't be a complete idiot & overlook what's right in front of your flipping face".

 

Oddly enough, part of the point of the saga was the lessons he learned in the 20 years following Revenge, natch.

 

I only wanna see Luke if he gets killed off. However I strongly suspect Anakin will make an appearance and Hayden Christensen will bore us with bad acting from beyond the grave.

Highly unlikely but still a horrifying thought: Early ideas for ROTJ had Kenobi returning to flesh and blood life a la Gandalf. Could you imagine if...no! I dare not even speculate!

 

Well, I just watched it, and naturally was reminded of a true worthwhile lesson: don't watch these stupid prequels.

 

I'm watching them while dealing with two extremely sick grandparents. The prequels have been the only joyful part of the last two days. Different strokes.

 

I'm sorry to hear that. On two levels. One level of sarcastic jerkiness, and one of genuine sympathy & concern. Wishing you the best, man.

 

Thanks. Always room for a little sarcasm.

 

I don' really see force ghosts being a main thread in the new trilogy. There isn't really much call for it. There aren't any questions that need answering. Obi-wan became 'more powerful then you could possible imagine' by virtue of gaining eternal life/influencing luke in the trench run, on hoth etc. Lucas wasn't eluding to anything else. We don't need to explore this other 'plane' either.

I would be happy to see f.ghosts feature in a small way; luke returning after his inevitable death for example but, only if this serves some purpose

I don't think it's necessary to see yoda (his appearance in rotj was more of a 'bye bye, evrything's ok' then it was a return to offer luke obi style guidance or training) I dont even think there is a need to see obi-wan. The only loose end would be to explain where kenobi has gone. Luke would need to tie this up with a comment along the lines of' ben did what he was meant to do, I wouln't be a jedi without him but he left me a long tine ago'

This film will almost certainly be set 35/40 years after rotj. Do we realistically expect obi-wan to have stuck around that long?

 

I think Count Yubnub makes a excellent point. You're right that it isn't all Campbell, but a lot of it is. It is especially clear when we look at the full span of Anakin's life. We see the Apotheosis or "death" or coming pretty close to death on Mustafar, followed by a sort of "resurrection" at the end of ROTJ. The importance of Campbell cannot be overstated when evaluating this saga. If we follow Luke into becoming a Force ghost (another plane of existence as he states) then it would also follow many of the Campbellian arc. I think Anakin's journey in the PT follows that of Neo in many ways, so I agree with you that the Matrix has a lot of parallels. Anakin's is more of an anti-hero for much of the PT, but it is still very much there.

However, The-Eternal-Hero, I am interested in your view as to why you think Paganism is a bigger influence. I'm not sure I see it. Maybe it is there to some degree, but can you elaborate?

 

I don't have time to go too deeply into it, but if you look at Lucas's approach to fantasy starting with the "Ewok Phase" through Willow (and the book trilogy Shadow War Chronicles) to TCW, he's dealing with the content more overtly. The strain weakens with the PT, where he seems to have used the second half of HWATF to map out Anakin's journey, that of the "tyrant" Campbell calls "Holdfast". But with TCW Lucas seems to have again gone directly to putting the elements of sacred mythology on the surface. "Mortis" is the prime example, the entire story is told through iconography, symbols and metaphors. It would take a lengthy essay to get into all of this but if you read the books Lucas mentions, such as The Golden Bough, you can see pretty plainly what he's doing. Starting with the Ewok projects, Lucas was using "pagan" religion as a basis for stories and character types heavily. I strongly suspect that he was reading The White Goddess by Robert Graves (Graves actually turns up as a character in YIJ). Some of this involves Katie Lucas, I think she probably picked this up from her father, and is closer to it than she is to his favorite source, Eastern philosophy. Filoni turns to Katie whenever TCW deals with the Dathomir witches, he describes her writing as "witchy" and it dovetails nicely with Lucas's more pagan fantasies. I think this comes down to a creative artist using different methods to re-interpret the same material. With the SW features, the style is extremely formal, and the mythology is secondary to the story. With other projects, Lucas seems to be stretching his legs, exploring the psychological dimensions of fantasy more directly. It is this approach that has turned off a certain sector of SW fandom, who see SW as a sf-f hybrid, and see these explorations as "sword and sorcery" or "high fantasy". There is a definite difference in tone. In early outlines & drafts for the SW movies, esp. the OT, Lucas toyed with the idea of letting in these elements, but ultimately decided to keep them under the surface. I also see Lucas experimenting with the form of primitive myth, which is less structured than a highly developed myth; to look at them now with modern, western eyes, and compare them to classic epics like The Iliad etc., they seem chaotic and nonsensical. If you read Campbell's other books, and the works of his mentor, Carl Jung, and all of that associated literature, there's a school of thought that associates these fragmentary, "undeveloped" myths as being closer to the base psychological state of the human mind, what Jung termed "the unconscious". And if you study Lucas's work, he has always been interested in abstraction, in breaking ideas down and presenting them in counter-intuitive structures that are at first confusing to the viewer; his idea was that his myths would come from within a culture that isn't explained, the audience has to understand it through inference and context, like so many field anthropologists. I think he's well aware of what he's doing, and as we know, he's not afraid to experiment and see what happens, even if it makes for an "imperfect" film, in terms of classical dramatic structure. I'm pretty sure that the new films will shift the focus back to making the mythological concepts an underlying layer, and will adhere to the spartan structures of the original films, since that is what the biggest audiences prefer. I've tried to show some of the Mortis-type episodes to casual viewers and for the most part people just scratch their heads. I love the stuff but it's not what mega franchise saving blockbusters are made of.

 

I would like if they do kill Luke to see him at some point, but I figure they will use it about as much as they did in the OT: a few voice over ghost and the occasional visable one.

I always took that more as how his death would make Luke rise to the occasion, more a metaphorical power than anything.

 

I posted this elsewhere.

How about when you become a force ghost, your journey back to become one with the force is one where it is from the END to the beginning. You begin to regress through the most spiritual moments in your life, much like reflecting on when you were most spiritual or had your toughest most trying moments. Your outer force ghost appearance reflects your age at that time.

This could cover why we had a younger Anakin, now a younger Obi-Wan, and how Yoda can stick around for a while. Eventually You fade away into the very spirit you were prior to taking on the form you just were. Circle of life. Moving on to next embodiement when the force needs you.

 

I think it's pretty simple.

Sidious goes on about how he's learnt a way to cheat death, however the more you look at it the more it's obvious that the only way to 'cheat' death is to become one with the force - and that is only possible if you 'let go' like Yoda did, like Obi-Wan did and ultimately like Anakin did.

The 'more powerful than you can ever imagine' line is a clear reference to being able to become one with the force and guide Luke to eventually turn Anakin back from the dark side.

 

I got the feeling from the movies that the sith had been looking into "cheating death" a lot longer than the Jedi had, so I think there is a good chance the sith learned it too (vader/anakin became a force ghost somehow).


Live, Love, Learn & Laugh

 

Anakin learned from Ben and Yoda, not the Sith. As a parallel to what is said in ROTS about cheating death: ghosting is not a skill you learn from a Sith.

 

In my mind, the very notion of Force Ghosts implies the existence of far greater aspects of the Force than those which are ever really explored in the first six films, albeit hinted at in Episode III. I'm hoping for the ST to delve into this greater mystery, including an expansion of the concept of balance and the nature of the prophecy, and even finally bringing the Whills into movie canon. And yes, I would like it if all or at least some of the Jedi who have achieved this state of being were integral to that story.

On a related note... why is it that everyone assumes that Qui-Gon is unable to take physical form as a Force Ghost? Just because we have yet to see him do so? That rationale seems like a fallacy, whether we ever actually see him in that state or not. He may not have disappeared upon his death, but his body was burned - same as Anakin's was, and both of them were able through some means to learn the secret after their deaths. I've long speculated that in the Star Wars universe, the tradition of cremation is passed down from an ancient time when Jedi possessed a greater knowledge of the Force which has since been forgotten, and that whether through that or straight up disappearance (for those who manage to learn the secret before their demise), the absence of one's former body in the physical realm is one of the keys to the ability to return from the netherworld of the Force.

 

I think there is a very high chance that Anakin comes back and guides Luke's child(ren) through the next saga.

This could explain Lucas's insanity with switching Sab Shaw with Hayden Christensen at the end of ROTJ. It really is the only explanation to do it.

And its not like Hayden is doing much nowadays (besides banging Rachel Bilson. How did he get her btw anyway??? He makes one crappy movie with her and he gets to tap that for the rest of his lfe?? Doesnt seem fair. He must have a huge...um...lightsaber...).

-C

 

Force ghosts seem like a must have for the ST, whether their role be small or large. I personally would enjoy seeing them so long as they're written into the plot well enough.

 

Is a force ghost the same as what Palpatine was talking about with Anakin in ROTS?



I like the idea of having an Anakin force ghost guide the hero like Ben did in the OT.

I would really like to see this incorporated into the ST.

 

I think you bring up a good point in that what Sidious was talking about was the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the wise. Darth Plagueis found a way to cheat death and to stop people from dying. Could this be related to becoming a Force ghost? It was certainly a reference to Anakin being created by the Force (using the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create life), but it could also be reference to preserving your consciousness as a Force ghost. This brings up an interesting point....

...Could Darth Plagueis have become a Force ghost? That would be a very interesting twist. That could mean there could be a Sith/Jedi battle on the ethereal plane where the Force ghosts reside??!?! To me, that could be an epic situation, and something we haven't seen before. Anywhere. It also opens the door for a way for the Sith to come back: through the teachings of Plagueis as a FG. Maybe I'm geeking out too much here, but it could be interesting if done right.

 

Apparently some people don't want to see a father and son interaction. So much for the hateboys.