ST Less is More

I was thinking about this in regards to the Star Wars Fantasy Flight RPG, but I think it applies to the movies as well.

I think one reason the OT works better then ST is that Jedi and the Force aren't all over the place. Being a Jedi Knight and being able to use the Force is something special that only a few people are able to do. Two of those people are in charge of the Evil, Galatic Empire, and the other is the main hero learning to use this power to fight those 2 evil figures, and his teachers. The rest of the people and heroes are just "normal" people who bring other elements to the story - Han being a great pilot for example.

By going to back to a time when there are lots of Jedi in the PT, and making almost all the main characters Jedi or Sith or able to use the Force, those powers and abilities lose their mystic, and the characters are very similar in what they bring to the table, what defines them as characters, what they do when the action starts etc...

If Abrams and co. want to bring back the feel of the OT with the ST, I think having fewer Jedi/Sith/Force characters will be key to that. If there are (for the sake of argument) 3 characters who are the children of the OT heroes, instead of having 3 Force using, lightsaber swinging, Jedi, make 1 of them a Jedi while the others bring other elements to the table. Forget having 50-100 Jedi running around, have their be 3. Make them rare and special again and lets see more "normal" people dealing with extreme situations.

 

The abundance of Force users during PT makes sense from the in-universe point of view, as well as having in mind the timeframe of the movies. I don't think the problem is that there is so many of them, it's the problem that there really isn't any difference between them at all. They didn't really show us any new powers and made the Force feel more like a spellbook in a Dungeons and Dragons game or an MMO. You are a Master, you can push people this far. You are a Lord, you have now learned Force Lightning level 3.

In my view, there should have been some more variety in what the Jedi actually can do, add new powers or interesting abilities, not just limit them to shoot lightning, move things around, choke people. The notable exception being Yoda's absorbing Force lightning, which was rather cool.

On the other hand, this might be read as another layer of the Jedi's dogmatic approach. Here is this thing called Force, you use it for this, this, this and this, exactly like we tell you to, don't try anything else! They all wear more or less same robes, have two colored sabers, have the same powers. They are rigid in their beliefs and their use of their abilities, which in the end results in their downfall, in a way.

I don't mind the ST having an abundance of Jedi or Sith, they should just have more variety to them. Not have them uniformed in those silly robes, have a few more saber colors, have some interesting new powers, more flavor to it. Make them unique. Even if a guy has 45 seconds of background screen time, it would be awesome to see him do something unique, something that would indicate that he's an individual, not just a random bathrobed extra waving a glowy stick in the background.

EDIT - Also, I cannot stress enough the need to avoid the Starkiller-like overpowerdness in movies. That is just absurd. It doesn't even work well in a video game, in a movie it would be downright silly. New powers and unique abilities and approaches to using the Force do not automatically mean everyone has to be overpowered. There are subtler ways of making a Force user stand out.

 

I'd love to see just a few Jedi and no Sith/evil Force users.

 

I'm not saying it did or didn't make sense, but it does make for blander storytelling. There is a reason the original story Lucas came up put those characters in a position that they were rare as opposed to abundent.

The problem is just about every character we've seen, PT or OT, who is a Jedi or Sith, is defined by them being Jedi or Sith. Being a part of one of those groups is something that defines a person. Even Luke doesn't have time to be a great pilot once we past the first 20 minutes of Empire. In order to be a Jedi had to quite Rogue Squadron and was never in really in that position again. We are told Anakin is a great pilot but never really see it after the podrace, he is too busy being a Jedi.

Take the storytelling into the real world. If you have a Catholic Priest character or a devote Monk character, those life styles dominate that character andwho they are. Characters aren't/can't be a Catholic Priest AND the CEO of a multi. billion dollar company. You can't be a Monk AND a navy Seal. In the OT we had a Jedi hero, a Smuggler Hero, a rogue/con man hero, a princess hero, rebel pilots etc... It was much more varied and ultimately more interesting then having a bunch of characters all from the same background with the same abilities.

I'll give one more Star Wars example. If Luke had been on Endor he could have mind-tricked the guards inside the bunker into opening the door and letting him in. But he wasn't there, Han, Leia and Chewie were there. They had to come up with a way they could get in, so Han conned them, and when he tells Leia he has an idea, you sitting there wondering what he has in mind. That same situation in the PT, unless Anakin and Obi-wan and Mace and Yoda and Qui-Gon and every other supporting character is gone, the method to get in is going to be the same, simple, easy way in.

 

Yeah, because the good church never exploited people through their two thousand-year old company and earned tons of cash

Well, what you're saying is not a problem related to how many Jedi or Sith we have, it's related to how they are portrayed. As I said, that's why I would hope they show more individuality for the Jedi in the ST.
Even within the context of being a "full time Jedi" you can have more variations and not make it seem bland. He can use Force in different ways than the same old we've seen.

 

Well I agree with your middle bit about the 'dogmatic' Jedi. Whilst I think Lucas made it abundantly clear that the Jedi, as a group or individual, could harness powers beyond the reach of other mere mortals, I don't think his intention was to make the Jedi look 'cool' or 'interesting'. They should of course be interesting cinematically, and that is one of the dilemmas Lucas had to face I suppose... because they do come across as being dour, drab, preachy, bureaucratic and reactive (as opposed to proactive). So what I suppose the prequels lose, in terms of making the Jedi interesting/charismatic cinematically (although I'd argue that at least Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Yoda are 'charismatic), they gain in making the Jedi's fall from grace narratively believable... and the line "hokey religions" relevant.

 

But they have established who and what Jedi and Sith. Even Luke had other elements of his character swallowed up by the fact that he was a Jedi. And the fact that hte Force is so powerful, it would over shadow a lot of other talents someone might have/ Why try to con someone when you can mind trick them? Why to be stealthy when you can make people look the other way? etc...

It also doesn't get away from the varied ways different characters deal with different situations. In the PT the force was much more of a crutch and fix all. Except for Padme, every hero could use the mind trick or jump high etc... If the Solo's have 2 children, why not make 1 unable to use the Force? Make a character with a completely different set of talents and abilities they use to contribute and problem solve? If you are going to have some kind of climatic lightsaber fight, isn't it easier to have 1 good guy, 1 bad guy who can do that, while the other characters do other things?

 

I heard Darth Vader wiped out all of the Jedi in between III and IV!

 

I don't think the absolute desaturation of individual characterization from the Jedi did a thing to make the Purge more understandable or believable; what it did do is rob the Purge of any emotional resonance with the audience - how can we possibly be expected to care when they're killed if we never cared about them when they were alive?

 

The audience loves people who refer to themselves as "the audience." It's goofy fun! Try it now, in the convenience of your own home!

 

This thread brings me to exactly what makes the Rule of Two so awesome. It makes each and every Sith unique and threatening.

 

I think you over simplify the point... We, the audience, care about Anakin, Obi-Wan and Yoda... they are the main window into the Jedi order. We don't have to like the Jedi order, or what they've become, to feel empathy for their obliteration... and what this means for the galaxy. Could there have been further 'emotional resonance' if the Jedi, as a whole, were more appealing/more 'human'? Almost certainly... but as I mentioned earlier, I think this was a dilemma Lucas had to face due to the outcome we had to reach - namely that by the OT no one respects or misses the Jedi (apart from perhaps Bail).

 

I really don't buy this logic. Did we feel this way about the Harry Potter movies? "They all use magic. How boring." I don't think so. The characters tended be individuals and their use of the magic was often related to their individuality.

In a war movie, do you feel bored because you're watching an ensemble cast portray a platoon who all have the same "rifle powers?" No. It all depends on how they soldiers are depicted.

So, less may be more, but only because it's easier to make two or three people distinct versus twenty or thirty. What this really suggests is that if you have ten Jedi or Sith in the ST, you work harder as a writer to make them unique.

 

So the main Jedi in the PT are Anakin, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Yoda and Mace. The rest are peripheral and unimportant at an individual level. So for me I'd posit that the Jedi characters that count (the ones mentioned previously) are all unique and distinct in their own right.

 

The background characters in Jabba's palace were peripheral and unimportant at an individual level; same with the background characters in the Mos Eisley cantina; and yet damn near every one of them was distinct and interesting. Half the reason these films work is because even the background characters, people who mean absolutely nothing to the plot of the film, are made to appear as though they have lives that could be every bit as interesting to watch as the ones the cameras are following, and because the universe we are presented with is made to appear so interesting that you would be equally amazed if you look around the corners the camera just quickly panned by. I'd think the Jedi characters deserved the same consideration; in fact, I'd think the fact that these characters were Jedi meant that they probably deserved more consideration.

Every character counts if I'm to suspend my disbelief and accept the "reality" of this world I'm presented with. It only takes one to take me out of the movie.

 

I agree the personalities are distinct. I guess some people want more distinct powers and uniqueness in look. Only Anakin of those four really dresses much differently, but I think that's an obvious point that Lucas is making in the PT: The Jedi are a rigid order that values unity. Although Qui-Gon shows that you can have some degree of ideological resistance.

So I think the look is meant to convey uniformity, and I think we might have something different in the ST to reflect more individuality amongst the Jedi, but that's because (if it happens), it will be Luke's Jedi, not the old order.

As far as force powers, I'm not sure what can be done here. If you start creating a vast amount of different powers, you run the risk of turning Star Wars into the X-Men. That's a bad thing, right?

 

Less is more, that's why I decided not to elaborate further.

 

The OP has a good point. The whole idea of being a Jedi becomes less special when there's a couple hundred of them running around on screen. And please don't talk to me about how "that's a couple hundred in a galaxy of quadrillions of beings." The viewer is only going to care about what they see. In the OT there were 3 individuals who wielded lightsabers (sorry, Han doesn't count). It made those characters special and relatively unique. Now I understand that the PT had to follow the rules already established in the OT, but it does devalue the "special-ness" of being a Jedi when they are all running around all over the place. The ST would do well to keep it to a minimum. I'm thinking no more than a dozen or so.

 

I loved seeing the Jedi in the arena fight. I'm not really sure why others don't. I thought it was a "special" event to see them. There was nothing like it in the OT.

If you want every film to feel like the OT, maybe just watch the OT?

 

When I mentioned Force power variety... for me personally that's something based on how I understood the Force and how it was presented. It is supposed to be this field that is everywhere, in everything, everyone. Something that binds the universe together, the very fabric of the universe. And then it comes down to it that in fact it's not that deep, because when you figure out the way the universe works and how you can play around with it... all you can do is push objects around clumsily, shoot lightning, choke people and jump really, really high. That being the case as far as the movies are concerned.

I found that to be somewhat disappointing, when all is said and done.

 

More powers may be interesting. I don't know. I guess it depends on what they are.

EDIT: I guess I should ask: what sorts of new powers would make sense? And, would they make sense on screen, as well?

I had a new force power if you recall, in one of my plot ideas, that A Chorus of Disapproval dubbed Death Stare, which still amuses me greatly.

All the Sith meditate or chant some creepy almost cultish sort of thing and focus their power through their Master who channels it in some destructive fashion.

Or what about possession? I love demons.

 

I disagree totally. You are being selective again and you conveniently fail to acknowledge the wealth of background characters in the PT that have been painstakingly designed, selected and fashioned... be it the wookies, poggle and the confederacy conspirators, the denizens of the club on Coruscant, the pod racers or the characters in the diner.

What further granularity/understanding do we get, for example, of the Empire or Sith in the OT? We just get a couple of imperials being force chocked by Vader and a brief meeting in a Death Star conference room (ANH). Lucas is using pretty much the same story telling techniques in both trilogies... I'd posit that there's much more insight into the daily running of the Jedi order and their practices in the PT (be it the role of the council or training younglings) than there is of the imperials in the OT. It's fine to have a preference, but I think one should be less selective when picking it apart.