A/V Episode VIII - THE LAST JEDI - Official Movie Discussion Thread

Feels a bit jerkish, it's holding people back from their potentials unless some kind of threat that need to be confronted appear. Also, why? If the Force can do that, why can't it turn of the ability to tap in to it on dark side users?

 

Because it's a natural system. It's the same way antibodies can't stop humans getting sick bit they can respond to sickness.

 

There's a Dark Side to the Force like there's a Light Side.

 

But that analogy don't really work since how antibodies work is that the body create more and more of them, not one superstrong.

I really don't like that duality. I prefer the Force more like Earthsea's magic.

 

I prefer a religious interpretation of the Force.

The Force is the Tao and God so it cannot be described.

But even touching it is enough to give one great knowledge and wisdom.

Jumping around is the least important element to it.

 

An analogy doesn't need to be 1:1 to be applicable. When a natural system is sick/unbalanced, it will often unconsciously correct itself through various mechanisms.

 

Sounds a bit too much like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (when one slayer is killed, another is activated).

 

Yup. Back in ANH, Luke could learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like his father because he was good-hearted and believed in the power of nature. Then the prequels tried to show a fallible Jedi Order which relied on tradition and vague old prophecies, but somewhere in there the prophecy-making took over, and now we have people demanding an explanation for Rey's good-hearted self-belief.

How could Broom Boy possibly use the Force without TRAAAAINING?!

Because it's, y'know, the power of the inner self. This stuff got way too complicated circa 1999.

 

I see it more as, "There's a Dark Lord, time to choose a hero to slay them."

 

Sorry, I' was a bit short: I did not mean that the Force was magic but that in Earthsea, "good" wizardry tries to be in harmony with the universe, while "bad" wizardry can lead to an upsetting of the "balance" and threaten catastrophe" - there is no good or bad, dark or light, chaos or law; there is balance and there is inbalance.

Can you expand on this?

You forgot the whole "the Force is strong in my family" part in RotJ or that we don't see Luke doing anything in ANH without training or guidance or that we are shown that he needs training to do the more impressive stuff (compare his "summon 'sabre" scene in ESB to the one in RotJ), also in TPM we are informed that Anakin is some kind of wonderchild with more natural talant then anybody they know of and all that he can do is to tap into the Force unconsciously.

 

I didn't forget it, per se, but that line in ROTJ would have had a lot more impact if it hadn't been a token excuse to let the audience know Leia has powers without actually bothering to make her a Jedi or really give her much agency in that story at all. But anyway -- the line doesn't mean that the Force is only strong in bloodlines.

And yes, Obi-Wan guides him, but look at the scene where he's training against the remote -- he fails at first, and as soon as Obi-Wan tells him to reach out with his feelings, Luke deflects the bolts. That doesn't suggest training is some labourious, years-long affair. It's a state of mind, and one that Luke takes time to get his head around.

As for Anakin, all we see of him is him tapping into the Force unconsciously -- but that's still an incredible feat, considering no other human is capable of Podracing like him. Besides, Broom Boy's usage seemed unconscious too, so it fits.

 

This sentence alone recaps why people find it hard to believe there were only 12 students in 30 years as of the ST. Unless the amount of Force sensitives in the galaxy is rarer than we thought or Palpatine killed all Force sensitives, neither of which are conveyed in the ST.

I remember Tolkien started work on a sequel to Lord of the Rings, then stopped since he realized it would be nothing more than a thriller. And he might have been right. After villains like Morgoth and Sauron, where could Tolkien go?

Star Wars' Morgoth was Palpatine, and their Sauron was Vader. Snoke and Kylo are the ST's attempts to outdark Palpatine and Vader, and I don't know if it's working all that well.

This is the reason the last time they decided to make ROTJ sequels, with the Thrawn Trilogy and Dark Empire in the formation of the modern EU, that Zahn didn't even bother trying to outdo the Emperor and Vader and gave us the completely different (and non Force using) Thrawn, and Veitch just brought back Palpatine.

 

I'm just saying what the new canon is.

TESB and ROTJ talked about bloodlines being important for Force strength.

That's exactly what Star Wars has been saying since the PT and into the ST.

Star Wars is saying balance is good/light/peace.

 

Quality over quantity. Luke taking twelve disciples, with Kylo being the thirteenth, works fine. I'd think Canon!Luke, with all of his worries over training future Jedi, would purposefully want to keep the number small, especially having understood that strength in numbers didn't do much for Yoda's Jedi.

Ehh, do they? What lines are you referring to specifically? They point out the Force is strong in Luke's family, but I don't think that necessarily equates to "bloodlines equal Force strength". Otherwise, why don't literally any of the other Jedi have important bloodlines?

 

Jedi Purge.

 

Is that directed at my last comment? What I meant was, why don't any of them come from important bloodlines, if that's necessary for Force strength?

 

It was not important to the plot to state Obi-wan or Yoda's backstories, until the PT, where midichlorians are introduced. Plus they have the whole monk-vibe going for them.

 

That doesn't respond to your point about bloodlines being necessary for Force strength. We know none of the Jedi have important bloodlines, because they're all taken from their families as infants. If their parents were Force-strong, they'd be in the Order too.

 

I didn't say necessary. It's also still a factor in the PT, with Qui-gon asking who the father is. I never said it was necessary.

And I don't think the Jedi can be everywhere at once, monitoring the galaxy.

 

Just how high quality are these students though? We count 12. Luke says a handful left (presumably to become Knights of Ren). If we take that literally, it means 5 quickly converted to Kylo's cause, and the other 7 didn't have the quick-thinking or self-defense ability to flee (I don't want to blame any victims but this is a fictional scenario, and presumably the other students had lightsabers or self-defense blasters of some sort).

So practically 50% of Luke's students fell to the dark side easily from a sole Kylo and his lightsaber (remember Leia endured horrific torture under sophisticated torture droids in ANH and didn't break--and she wasn't even aware of her Force powers yet. Disney has never detailed Raddus' death and the destruction of the Profundity, but I have also deduced that likely non-Force using Raddus and the surviving Profundity crew were tortured to death refusing to reveal Yavin 4, and Disney didn't release this info as this is way too dark for a franchise aimed at kids). I don't see how this is quality over quantity.

 

Even before we turn "a handful" into "50%" that scenario requires a few assumptions about something we actually know very little about. How old were Luke's students, for example, and how long had he been teaching them? This isn't Legends, where the first students at Luke's praxeum were full-grown adults with sufficient independence to make their own choices. Maybe Luke, in following the wisdom of the old Jedi, was teaching children, and maybe those who went with Ben didn't "convert to his cause" as much as do what they thought they needed to do to stay alive, with their corruption coming later.

 

Which is what I'm saying. Bloodlines aren't important for Force strength, as all but one example in the films prove.

 

They are important, as lines in TESB and ROTJ and TPM show. Just not necessary.

Also, like I said, the 10,000 Jedi can't monitor the birth of every strong Force-sensitive everywhere. And perhaps they only ask to take one child from known Force bloodlines, and not the siblings, so they can continue. For example, they might have left Obi-wan's siblings alone, but his great-aunt might have been a Jedi. Rebels seems to indicate that most are given new names upon becoming Jedi, with Caleb/Kanan. Plus Jedi can have sex as long as they don't get married and attached. Anyways, it doesn't really matter, we just know it's a Saga them that bloodlines are important for Force sensitivity, even if not a necessity, it's why everyone from Qui-gon to Yoda to Luke mentions it.

 

It's interesting that Legends worked out because it looked like Luke was improving the Order (before the PT showed us how backwards it was), training people who could make up their own mind and allowing marriages etc. If Luke went back to training kids even though they don't realize what the cost of being a Jedi entails (and it seems with Broomboy they are going to go this route), it feels like Luke and possibly Rey will take the worst elements of the PT and repeat it.

Even Marvel's new canon comic book Anakin and Obi-Wan has Anakin point out that at 9 years old he really wasn't prepared to make an adult choice about signing up for life with the Jedi.

So basically we have Kylo running around with a lightsaber telling his classmates: "Come with me if you want to live."

The Visual Guide shows Luke knows his Jedi will be a target. Why would he train kids? Why would we assume Kylo's classmates are drastically younger than him?

If Kylo "forcibly converted" his classmates, I guess they'd eventually break, but I don't see Kylo having the time to do this the night of his slaughter.

In retrospect, it does seem odd that Leia was in one piece in ANH. After thinking on what Vader likely did to Raddus, I'm guessing he chopped off one appendage after another and other non-vital organs while Raddus screamed "I'll never talk! Never-ARGH" (It's what I would do if I were Vader). Vader then probably had a slow cookout while Raddus refused to talk and the stormtroopers eventually had some deep fried calamari for dinner that day. Vader probably then repeated the process on any other Profundity crew, and this is probably why Disney never detailed what happened to Raddus and the Profundity in any source.

But again, this is time and effort in breaking people that Vader has, but which Kylo doesn't have given the scenario we are given. If Luke's students really were kids (and I assume Luke is aware of the extreme interrogation methods of the Dark Side), it seems even more reckless on Luke's part to recruit kids, not less. The canon visual guide shows Luke knew full well his Jedi would be a target by enemies.