Saga Ghosting & Life After Death (Spoilers for CW: The Lost Missions, nonspoiler? speculation on the ST)

*don't

 

Saying stuff like...

...is the problem.

I tried that as well.

 

Again, I don't see how that's a problem. The first was an innocent question that was answered quickly, the second was in answer to someone else's question.

 

You'll have to talk to Darth Nub on that one.

 

Garrett Atkins - you know perfectly well what's wrong with repeated one-line swipes at the PT or any mention of TCW, or snotty remarks like "Who the hell cares what Dave Filoni thinks?". If you wish to be obtuse regarding this then by all means do so, but it'll be from the outside looking in. Final warning.

 

Mod edit: See you in 24 hours

 

I get the feeling the ST will delve deeper into spirits and Force ghosts if only for the reason that a significant chunk of the main characters are dead by the time ROTJ rolls around and Luke needs someone to tell him stuff. But apparently, according to S6 Yoda arc, one has to learn the ability to Force ghost, which is why Qui-Gon didn't exactly do it right because his training was incomplete so there was still a body when he died. Yoda / Ben did learn all the bits on how to do it. As for Anakin? Hey, he's the Chosen One so I guess he gets a pass.

The fact that being a Force Ghost is a skill one develops, not the fact that every Jedi disappears when they die, seems to be a theme Lucas had had for awhile. It's not the "get your Jedi card / now you're a Force Ghost"

 

I agree, it's something Lucas views as a specific skill, and it seems like he has seen it that way since at least ROTJ if not before... though at that time it might have been more of a Jedi skill and less of something that doesn't really tie in to what a Jedi is. I bet in the first movie, it was supposed to be something Ben knew because he was a Knight. Vader then didn't know it because he left before his training was complete. In the other movies it's not really clear, but we do see each Jedi who has died in the OT become a ghost. It FEELS very obvious.

In the OT, Yoda and Ben exude very Eastern vibes from their teachings, and because the commonality between them is that they're both Jedi, I think viewers took that to mean that those teachings are Jedi teachings. And those teachings, and Luke's development in the OT, are very close to what we have been shown and told of the ghosting wisdom (so far). The trials Yoda is sent on in the Clone Wars episodes are much like the ones he later puts Luke through. And Qui-Gon says the ghost trick is achieved through no-self, compassion (if I recall)... essentially identification with the Force/the all. Okay, so... Luke is taught that the Force is everywhere and is part of all living things - so of course he too is part of it. Throughout the OT, Luke learns to recognize the darkness in himself and move past it (fails in the cave, succeeds in the Throne Room). And he feels compassion for someone else - his father - and rejects, with no thought of his own self's safety, the notion of killing him. And this is when he says, "I am a Jedi, like my father before me." If those aspects of wisdom are not the definition of a Jedi, what is?

(I posted this elsewhere but I'm not sure if people took my meaning... which is mostly that I and others took the more mystical stuff to be the core of Jedi knowledge, and now we're being told that the Jedi of old, and even Yoda, didn't have that knowledge until sometime between the trilogies. It feels strange. Anyone here have some thoughts? Am I missing something?)

 

"This little scene where he burns his father's body, it wasn't originally in the script. But I decided it gave more closure in terms of Luke's relationship to his father, letting go of his father. Even though later on, as we get to the end of the movie, as he joins the Force, he was able to retain his original identity, it's because of Obi-Wan and Yoda, who learned how to do that: how to join the Force at will and then retain your identity. But it was his identity as he was when he died as Anakin Skywalker." - Lucas, ROTJ commentary

 

I just noticed that Anakin as a Force Ghost still has the scar in his face. I guess that means he doesn't have his right arm?

 

I agree, it's not a Jedi skill. But I think for someone to learn this, it needs to have a Jedi-type of relationship with the Force.

 

Hayden Christensen was doing costume and make-up tests when he was recorded for the 04 footage.

 

One of the things the films suggest, and that The Clone Wars makes explicit is the idea that the Jedi Order has grown stagnant and arrogant, that they have become a political tool rather than a spiritual order, and that in tying their fate to the Republic, as opposed to the Force, they've lost their way.

Sam Witwer, on the Rebel Force Radio podcast, talks about conversations between George Lucas and Dave Filoni during the making of The Clone Wars where they discuss the ideal nature of the Jedi. He likens them to philosopher-ronin, masterless samurai, existing without a hierarchy, putting their faith in the Living Force. Qui-Gon Jinn, in many ways, exemplifies this ideal, and we see in The Phantom Menace how often this brings him into conflict with the very hierarchical, very politically-bound Jedi Council. That's why Yoda ultimately becomes Qui-Gon's apprentice, because he knows he must, to borrow a phrase, "unlearn what he has learned."

That was George Lucas, speaking in 1983, and I hope that this blueprint is stuck to as we proceed into Episodes VII, VIII, and IX. Rather than the path the Expanded Universe has largely trod, where Luke essentially recreates the same Jedi paradigm that existed during the Clone Wars, Luke strikes me much more as the fulfillment of the Jedi's true potential.

With the release of the final arc of The Clone Wars, I feel good that this might be the case. Indeed, Yoda is cast in the role of Luke during Return of the Jedi, when he experiences his vision on Moraband that shows him the right path. It definitely feels like it was important for Lucas, before handing off the reigns of this story, to establish this fundamental element of who and what the Jedi are, what they truly can be.

 

I see that issue brought out a lot, but it's something that I never saw stated from Lucas. In fact, whenever Filoni talks about the perceived problems of the Jedi during the prequels, it's never attached to the common "that comes directly from George". It's indeed stated in the movies that some Jedi have become arrogant, but the order seems to be aware of that, and that arrogance is never tied to the way the order is established. In fact, when making the prequels, something that George was very interested in doing was to show how the Jedi Order works and is supposed to be because we never got that idea with the OT.

Also, the fact that they serve the Republic doesn't mean they don't "serve" the Force as well. For them to have any legitimacy as keepers/guardians of peace and justice, there needs to be a tie to the government.

 

"I would like to see our society mature, and become more rational and more knowledge-based, less emotion-based. I'd like to see education play a larger role in our daily lives, have people come to a larger understanding—a “bigger picture” understanding—of how we fit into the world, and how we fit into the universe. Not necessarily thinking of ourselves, but thinking of others.

Whether we're going to accomplish this, I'm not sure. Obviously, people have a lot of different dreams of where America should be, and where it should fit into things. Obviously, very few of them are compatible, and very few of them are very compatible with the laws of nature. Human nature means battling constantly between being completely self-absorbed and trying to be a communal creature. Nature makes you a communal creature. The ultimate single-minded, self-centered creature is a cancer cell. And mostly, we're not made up of cancer cells.

If you put that notion on a larger scale, you have to understand that it's a very cooperative world, not only with the environment, with but our fellow human beings. If you do not cooperate, if you do not work together to keep the entire organism going, the whole thing dies, and everybody dies with it. That's a law of nature, and it's existed forever. We're one of the very few creatures that has a choice, and can intellectualize the process.

Most organisms either adapt and become part of the system, or get wiped out. The only thing we have to adapt to the system with is our brain. If we don't use it, and we don't adapt fast enough, we won't survive."

--George Lucas, Academy of Achievement Interview, 1999

"One of the main themes in the film is having organisms realize that they must live together, and that they must live together for mutual advantage—not just humans but all living things—and everything in the galaxy is part of a greater whole."

--George Lucas, “The Mythology of Star Wars,” Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth DVD, 2001

So the relationship between the Jedi Order and the Republic is a lot like the relationship between the Gugnans and the Naboo. They both need each other in order to achieve a balance that is optimal. The problem in the PT era is that the Jedi have worked closely with the Republic, without evolving and adapting and this leads to decisions that hurt the whole system. The people become self-interested and the Jedi were too busy fighting a war that ended a long time ago, which is why they cannot see the truth that they've already lost. That Palpatine got to be where he's at because of their failure to adapt. It's not that the Jedi Order was wrong to work with the Republic, but there needed to be a better balance with trusting the Living Force and that lack of trust put everything where it was.

"The overriding philosophy in Episode I—and in all the Star Wars movies, for that matter—is the balance between good and evil. The Force itself breaks into two sides: the living Force and a greater, cosmic Force. The living Force makes you sensitive to other living things, makes you intuitive, and allows you to read other people's minds, etc. But the greater Force has to do with destiny. In working with the Force, you can find your destiny and you can choose to either follow it or not."

--George Lucas, quoted in L. Bouzereau, Star Wars: The Making of Episode I, 1999

 

But to what should they "evolve and adapt"? What could they, as an order, have done differently to prevent what happened? I'm not saying they were perfect, but it's not like their structure and views were wrong. At least, I don't see anything in the movies that supports that...

 

The proof is what they do with Luke. They let Luke live with his family which not only hides him, but it teaches him compassion and selflessness in a way that was different from the Jedi Order. He also relies more on his instincts which results in his trusting the Living Force than the Jedi before him.

 

I'm not sure that's proof of anything. They let Luke live with his family out of necessity. His parents are gone. And what was wrong with the way the Jedi Order taught compassion and selflessness? What did Owen and Beru did different? He didn't decide to save Vader because of them or their teachings.

So did Qui-Gon (and I'm sure he's not the only one), who was raised in the Order.

 

The Lars acted as Luke's parents and raised him as a normal person, who understood responsibility and compassion that comes from a parent's love. Something the Jedi couldn't teach him. That kind of unconditional love is what drives him to save his father.

Qui-gon was considered something of a maverick in the Jedi Order, which is why Obi-wan got on his ass for stopping to take Jar Jar with them and then mocking Qui-gon for picking up another "pathetic lifeform". Qui-gon was different because he choose to be different and look at the larger picture, without losing sight of the smaller one in front of him. That's why he could retain his identity and not the rest of the Order until he taught them.

 

I still don't see it. I don't doubt that they taught him good values, but Luke's will to save his father was never related to the way he was raised by the Lars. At least there is nothing in the movies that hints that way.

I know, but my point is that he was that way and was raised in the Order. And I'm sure he was not the only one with such views within it.

 

I mean, they do literally become an army for the Dark Lord of the Sith. I'd say that indicates a pretty major flaw in their structure.

 

They were "deceived by a lie". If an "evil" leader uses the police to supress a riot that he created behind the scenes, does it mean there is a problem with the police or their structure? I think that's strawman. What kind of structure should they have adopted that could prevent what happened?

 

Then that flaw would be their attachment to the Republic and its government.

 

So the problem was that they served the Republic and its people?

 

It only became a problem when the leader of the Republic turned out to be a Sith.