Saga Star Wars Philosophy: Jedi and Sith

I meant that if he becomes a Sith, even if the others are destroyed, victory over the Sith has not been achieved.

 

In terms of authorial intent you seem to be very open-minded on the issue, when it suits you. Such that, when an interviewer says something it should be taken seriously - whether or not such is explicitly said in the movies yet....when the author himself says something it can be discounted because it wasn't explicitly stated in the movies (as you will argue later in this post). This seems an odd....some might say self-contradictory position to take.

No, you were questioning whether there must be anything analogous - that is what you asked and what I responded to. Revealed, your thoughts are. As for what you 'know' of the Force (or what 'we' know, whoever that 'we' is), in what way do you 'know' whether it is open or not to an analogy of the nature that I proposed (and is, in fact, a fair representation of how I viewed/view the Force)?

Indeed what is said within the dialogue is important, but quite what you intend to show by what is not explicitly said is a puzzle to me. For instance, you argue authorial intent on the third hand recount of an interviewer despite that what he describes is not explicitly said yet question Lucas' own words on the basis of what the character's don't explicitly say. Even more bizarrely, you hold (still) to the opposite position of the author's intent (despite your claims that they are imperative) despite that that opposite position is equally not explicitly stated within the movies.

Its not about what the PT shows. My point was to show why what we are shown of the Jedi in the PT is what, when back-projected onto the OT, can give the impression that 'genetic elite' was always 'obvious'. It si about the impressions one gets from the movies, and the distinctions.

And here you highlight exactly what I'm talking about. By back-projecting what we hear about Anakin from Qui-Gon (so that we see Anakin as using the Force without training) onto the OT it seems that, hey....we should have known that's why Luke was such a great bush-pilot. Without that back-projection from a PT scenario such a thing is not obvious.

It is a fictional universe. The Force is a fiction. There are no facts.

But you've just offered the example of Anakin using the Force without training- which is something that is not presented in the OT (unless through back-projection)

Why are you part-quoting again. I have not insisted upon Lucas' position. I highlighted that you were mistaken in conflating your own interpretation of the films as being equivalent to Lucas' intentions. In fact I think what the underlying problem is, is that you don't consider your view of the story as being an interpretation at all. You certainly appear to have no interest in arguing it as such.

Not in my version. In my version there is only Luke. Why is it himself that he discovers when he cuts down Vader? What do you think that is supposed to impart?

You claim that the only reason Luke did not get it is because Yoda is a bad teacher, but that is not what the scene is to convey. it is to convey that Luke still has much to learn. Telling somebody something and them nodding does not mean they have learned anything. It is common within tales of spiritual enlightenment that the student learns through experience. Luke is externalising the danger of the darkside, when it is exists within himself. That is what he didn't get and why Yoda shakes his head.

But it goes further than that. He throws down his weapon. Its not a matter of defeating Sidious and Vader. Not falling to the darkside is more important than defeating the physical Sith. The darkside is in what he chooses to do. The threat is not external. What really matters are his choices.

So...the Sith aren't evil? They don't represent evil?

 

Is it "my imagination" that people/SW fans sometimes over-inflate the importance of Jedi vs. Sith and Light-Side vs. The Dark-Side of the Force??? I don't think so.....

Gotta love the PT-shoehorn/back-projection. Where's the TESB-era evidence that 'all' Jedi started training at 10 yrs old or that even post-retcon Anakin (iow, Anakin-who-is-also-Vader) was intended back then to have started his training at 10 years of age? Indeed...

 

So are we saying there was no evidence either way in the OT era?

 

No. I'm saying that there's no justifiable reason to claim that TESB*** had established the PT's notion of training Jedi where Jedi's in general or Anakin in particular are training under masters at such a young age (10 yrs old or even younger). To extrapolate this from a scene where Yoda is clearly testing Luke's determination in becoming a Jedi like his father, is an extreme example of back-projection of the PT onto the OT.
Also, Anakin's age being explicitly referred to in ROTJ and in ROTJ-era canon materials, and said age conflicting with his age as the 1-6 story now stands is wrongly being construed - "where's the TESB-era evidence?" - as an 'innovation' on that films' part.

***judging by the film itself, film-related canon from that era, and script drafts leading up to the film

 

Such as Lucas' statements regarding the sides of the Force? Or do you now intend to accept them?

I don't. You don't either. That was the point. Of what use are analogies to basketball in argumentation, if no one knows whether or not the analogy has any validity at all?

Don't forget that Lucas' own statements and his pre-1977 scripts agree completely with what that interviewer said about the Force. So it's a waste of time to try to portray Bouzereau's portrayal as anything other than an expression of author intent, because the evidence shows that the two are 100% consistent. In other words, it's not just Bouzereau's crazy, irresponsible theory.

It is when you make the claim that "the PT portrays Jedi training distinctly from what we see in the OT".

Wrong. There are established facts. "Luke destroys the Death Star". Do you believe such a thing to be open to debate?

Then in your version there is no such thing as the Force? The Force does not exist? Unfortunately that is such an extreme diversion from the clear intent of Lucas' saga that it's not even worth discussing.

No, my position is not that Yoda is a bad teacher. Yoda is made into a bad teacher as collateral damage from Force revisionism. What you claim Luke was supposed to "get" is only fan invention. It has been contradicted by Lucas on multiple occasions. If Lucas does not believe in it, it was hardly the content of Yoda's message to Luke.

This seems to get the student and the teacher confused. Yoda is not there to learn anything. Because the role of a teacher requires that student misunderstanding be corrected, his lack of contradiction of Luke's description of the Force means that he is in agreement with it. This should not surprise us, because he is after all a Lucas mouthpiece and we know that Lucas' concept of the Force is identical to that expressed by Luke's question.

False. Palpatine is indeed external to Luke. If not for Vader's action in response, Luke's behavior would not have led to the removal of the threat of Palpatine. Lucas, unlike Deepak Chopra, believes in the existence of external threats, such as the Empire.

The light side and the dark side are not necessarily the aggregates of good and evil respectively. Something does not have to be the aggregation of evil to be described by the adjective "bad".

^ Read that again. In what way is "So... the Sith aren't evil?" an appropriate response? What in the above can be taken to imply that the Sith are not evil?

 

The question makes no sense in the context of what I wrote (and what you part-quoted). My response was about the manner in which you appear to flim-flam between authorial intent being primary, and then not - depending upon how it suits your interpretation. I think I have been pretty clear that authorial intent is not something that can be easily resolved and that we are - therefore - discussing interpretations.

That was the point? To highlight that we don't know? Well, given that my response was to say that we don't know, and that I was responding to "As far as we know they do not" it seems an odd way to make the point. Also that that was responding to your question of whether the Force "must be.."... As I explained, the analogy is to define, in the best way I can, how I understood/understand (an aspect of) the Force. In an interpretation of the Force that I see.

What you are really arguing here is that you do know, as you later highlighted with the use of the term "facts", so that wasn't the point at all.

Then why not simply use Lucas' own words?

Haven't you already asked this question, and have I not already answered it? Yes, yes I have. It is about how back-projecting what we are shown from the PT onto the OT. I even highlighted examples given. Have you read the full post or did you only read the parts you have quoted here?

You don't see the difference? really? There are clear events in the story which we might call facts - that does not then make the story factual. You understand that, yes? These 'facts' occur within a fictional universe - a fictional universe in which Luke's craft makes a sound in space - and all facets outside of the 'facts' of the story remain fictional. The Force does not exist except within the fictional universe. There is (really) no deep truth to be found. It is not a matter of scientific debate or testing. It exists in the imagination of the viewer.

But Palpatine is not the threat to Luke turning to the darkside. That is why he throws his weapon down. It is more important that he defeat the (internal) darkside than that he defeat the physical darkside users. And, what has Deepak Chopra got to do with anything?

 

Hey Twi'lekPrince.

I myself asked that questions among others as I've always believed there's a deep element of truth buried in the symbolism of the Star Wars saga.

George Lucas most certainly had a message to pass on. I have various articles which might be of interest to you or anyone else on this forum.

Here are some links to articles:
The Force: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Force
The Phantom Menace as Personal Mythology: http://www.theosophical.org/publications/1591
There's also the 'Jedi Manual' and other articles which I post on my Facebook 'Jedi Order' interest page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jedi-Order/233817650006852?ref=hl

If you prefer, I'd be happy to email you what I have on the subject.

 

The PT doesn't depict Jedi training. Thus, implications of a discrepancy between the OT's portrayal of Jedi training and the PT's portrayal of Jedi training - in service of a "back-projection" thesis, perhaps - have no actual support.

But first you said unequivocally that there were no facts. So it looks like your position on facts has changed. Now some things in the plot are facts, but presumably some aren't. So what rule is used to divide the facts from the "non-facts", for lack of a better word?

I don't quite follow that as a sentence. Of course Palpatine is not a threat to Luke turning to the dark side, because he would like to see Luke turn to the dark side. It's part of his agenda. As such, Palpatine is a significant part of the threat of Luke turning to the dark side, something which is made especially obvious when earlier in the same film he discusses his intent to turn Luke. I don't think that what we see of Luke's character indicates he was much of a threat in isolation, and in fact Palpatine's dialogue illustrates his own assumed importance in this regard.

In terms of the ultimate outcome, it really isn't. Imagine, if you will, that Vader is not there to defend the weaponless Luke from Palpatine's onslaught, or chooses not to do so. Luke dies. In that case, Luke has achieved the great task of not turning to the dark side, but failed in the task of defeating the evil sorcerers oppressing the galaxy. Palpatine lives on. The Sith live on. ( To bring PT stuff into it, the Force remains out of balance. )

If the rest of the beings in the galaxy all throw down their weapons simultaneously and refuse to fight oppression, how does that stop the Empire and the Sith? It doesn't. Evil people are only too happy to see their opposition simply give up. And it is made quite clear in this saga that the galaxy has a real problem in the form of the forces of evil having taken over. The internal moral alignment of Luke, or anyone else, is all well and good, but an acceptable moral alignment is not by itself enough to defeat tyranny. ROTJ only gets a happy ending because Vader kills somebody: the aforementioned external threat.

And though this has already been addressed, it bears mentioning that avoiding a fall to the dark side and destroying the Sith are intertwined: on a certain level these motivations are one and the same. If Luke kills Palpatine but turns to the dark side in the process, Luke has for all intents and purposes become the new Sith. Thus the assertion that one of these motivations is more important lacks a certain degree of meaning.

I'm thinking of the Revolver credits. Chopra seems to deny the existence or relevance of external threats, a position which might somehow seem valid in his life, but which has little to do with the reality experienced by many others.

 

Evil is dark?

 

Jedi = spiritual, nonphysical, soul > body

Sith = scientific, physical, technological, body > soul

 

I think the Jedi and Sith are a study in superficial differences. I am NOT one that believes Jedi = good, justice and Sith = evil, chaos like many. I have almost always been drawn to thw Sith. I strongly dislike the Jedi particularly since the PT.

I think Jedi = self-righteous, arrogant, misguided, blind Sith = ambitious, passionate

 

Isn't that idea - that the real test there is seeing the dark side within ourselves, and moving past it, regardless of the existence of other people who use the dark side - the point also of one of the events in the recent Yoda Clone Wars arc? I'd say that making that point is exactly what Lucas was (in ESB), and still is (in more recent materials), trying to achieve.

 

Indeed, the real test is the darkness within. But that darkness can be manipulated up to the surface by a Sith Lord trying to convert one who is trying to walk the path of the righteous. That's why Lucas said that he created Dooku to turn Anakin which paralleled Vader trying to turn Luke. Not to mention seeing a similarity between Mace, Palpatine and Anakin to Luke, Palpatine and Vader. Once the darkness within is conquered, the darkness from without can be defeated.

 

You think darkness is your ally?

 

Not another TCW reference.

 

After many, many years of thinking about, reading about and discussing this issue, I reckon the difference between the Jedi and the Sith boils down to one word: control.

Jedi: Some things can't be controlled, so let them go.
Sith: If you become powerful enough, you can control anything.

Pretty much everything else about them flows from this difference.

 

Jedi want peace.
Sith want power.

 

That's not bourne out by evidence.

 

It's in the Sith Code: Peace is a lie. There is only passion. Through passion I gain strength. Through strength I gain power... blah blah blah

 

I found it pretty obvious in ROTS that Jedi were peacekeepers; Sith, power hungry.

 

They do want power, but they also want peace through tyranny.

"One of the issues in all of this is the bad guys think they’re good and Lord Sidious thinks he’s bringing peace to the galaxy, because there is so much corruption and confusion and chaos going on and now he’s going to be able to straighten everything out, which maybe true but the price the galaxy is going to have to pay for it is way too much."

--George Lucas, ROTS DVD Commentary.

 

That's true. Palpatine said himself,"Good is a point of view." (I can't but help but think of the RiffTrax comment on that,"Some think that Nickelback is good." Haha) Fixing a corrupt system is one thing. Taking advantage of said corrupt system for your own personal gain is vile! The Sith and their ideas of "good" are just based on very loose moral ground. Then again I think morality is relative rather than universal. I guess that's why we'll always have stories of good vs evil. I think if you think the Sith are on the side of good, you must not enjoy Star Wars that much because in the end they are indeed destroyed. But it certainly is fun watching them try to win!

 

The whole thing with the Sith is that they didn't believe in democracy and disapproved of the Jedi sitting on the sidelines as servants for the Republic. That they should be the masters and rulers, because of their power. Because of the Force. Hence the two sides are in conflict with each other because of that.

 

It really comes down to your POV.