Anakin at end of ROTJ

Uh oh. Sounds like something best left for debators of the canon. Great find, otherwise.

 

If you want to get technical, then the ENTIRE script and the novelizations are G-canon, meaning they are absolute.

NOTE: The only exception is the ROTJ novel, for obvious reasons....

 

An old Helpy Helper* has learned the path to anonymity. One who has returned from the netherworld of TheForce.Net. Our old "Future Changes" thread creator.

BAC!


(*no offense )

 

I do help, as I aim to please

 

This thread has been redeemed and it now appearing at the top of page one with Yoda and Obi-Wan.

 

ROTS Anakin and this thread have experienced redemption. Cool

 

I believe he and the Emperor learned it. The Emperor (in ROTS) talked about how his master learned not to die. This is the same thing, I believe. AS for the Emperor, he didn't have a reason to show up as a ghost at the end, but I believe he could do it.

 

Well, who else can decide but people with the power?

In this case, I am shocked that Obi-wan or Yoda would help him.

He tried to kill Obi-wan!

He also served a Sith Lord (jedi hate that sort of thing).

 

Well, imagine this: every Jedi that dies disappears ( and turns into a Force ghost ) for a thousand generations of Jedi history. Keep in mind that some of these miraculous events might possibly end up recorded by video devices of the time. This would make the evidence of the Jedi's mystical power pretty hard to ignore in the galaxy at large, no? In fact, when Han Solo proclaims the Force to be "simple tricks and nonsense", it would make him completely ******ed.

It works MUCH BETTER for it to have been a skill only known to Qui-Gon, Yoda, and Obi-Wan ( and then, of course, Luke and his followers ). Oh, and the Shaman. [face_alien_1]



Butt Edit: Can't say that word.

 

Except it doesn't work better. Because you still have a dead jedi clawing his way back from death to communicate the secret (and it's not even the same secret either) - this Shaman character doesn't exist in Star Wars - and have these jedi forming an exclusive club around it quite contrary to their character.

The best way for it to work is for Jedi to ascend only when they are in some way prepared for it at the moment of death (as is the case for all those in the OT), and for it to be a reflection of both a Jedi's power and his connection with the Force.

And I'd still like to know how precisely you think Anakin learnt this skill.

 

Well, it seems to me that the OT is clear that disappearing and returning as a ghost are not related. Anakin clearly doesn't disappear when he dies. Of course I totally discard the nonsense of subsequent movies and literature thereby bypassing this needless complication they bring to the story. I much prefer the idea of the disappearing being the INEVITABLE result of a Jedi being in tune with the Force to the extent that one physically becomes one with it while still alive.

As to the Force Ghost, well, my icon says it all

 

We'll see.

I don't think you get the whole Force ghost thing. It's not in any way contrary to their character.

If that's all it requires, many thousands of Jedi would have done it in the history of the Order. It would be a well-known phenomenon in the GFFA. Thus people like Han, who didn't believe in the Force, would not exist. And Vader would have known about it. Which he clearly doesn't in ANH.

I already said, you just don't accept it.

 

I doubt it. He's not in the movies.

Hmm... no, I said it's contrary to the character of these Jedi to keep the 'secret' of eternal life from every other Jedi in the galaxy. Why did QuiGon only approach Yoda with this teaching? This is the flaw in your explanation.

You have a problem with all these Jedi running around as ghosts, but your desire to keep the secret within such a small clique of Jedi presents those characters as selfish, quite contrary to the concept of the Jedi.

It's only your assumption that many thousands of Jedi would have achieved it. If we go by EU, many did, but they're not running around in the present. And considering the ghosts can only be seen by other Jedi, it's hardly the well-known phenomenon you make it out to be. Does Luke at any point tell the others he sees and hears Ben? No. Does Yoda blab that he's hearing QuiGon? Not until it serves as a deus ex machina. It's not hard to imagine the Jedi just not widely publicising these kind of things. And what's more, Han and Motti's comments are suspect regardless of the ability for the occasional Jedi to disappear in a puff, they were both alive at the time Jedi were running around the galaxy mopping up whole armies of droids single-handedly and doing a whole host of magical things.

Which is why I specify the power of the jedi and his connection with the Force. I would also add the necessity of having an equally powerful Jedi around at the time of death with which to anchor onself.

QuiGon is the big mistake here, and I don't think the convulated explanation works, because the fella dies before he can do any fancy force technique. That he returns indicates that ALL jedi can do so, because apparently there's this netherworld place where they all hang out. You still therefore have all these thousands of Jedi running around that you don't seem to like.

Actually no, you didn't. You've only said that he learnt it whilst alive. You haven't specified either the time or place.

 

Yoda wasn't around when Qui-Gon died.
Thus the anchoring theory isn't consistent with the films.

Just some admittedly crude and speculative math. 25,000 years of Jedi history. The number of active Jedi at any one time: that I do not have an average value for, although one example is the 10,000 or so by the time of TPM, if we go by Terry Brooks. But if even just one out of those thousands of Jedi disappears every five years, that's 5,000 instances right there.

Mostly deflecting blaster fire, leaping and swinging laser swords. It would be different if they had a long and well-chronicled history of magically disappearing upon death.


TLJ Edit: Edit your post if you have to add something

 

It's an elite club by circumstance, not by design. Either Qui-Gon tells Yoda because if anyone understands it it's him or he didn't have a choice in the matter. Or maybe a little bit of both, as his "Anakin No!" line in AotC comes across as a little random, but later Obi-Wan can be taught to commune with him.

That Qui-Gon can do this little trick at all, even after dying, isn't a huge mistake either. He discovered Anakin and teaches Yoda and Obi-Wan how to vanish and ghost. Obviously he's important and probably part of the prophecy. Of course the Force would put him into this unique position

just as it would Anakin.

 

If the argument genuinely goes that QuiGon existed in a netherworld where he was able to come back to communicate with the living, it stands to reason that he can communicate with the dead in the netherworld as well. Since all jedi go to this place after death, that leaves 20 years for QuiGon to teach other jedi in the death 'waiting room' - one of whom of course is Anakin. To say that these 4 jedi are the only ones with the power is just too selective, and ultimately makes Yoda and ObiWan even more like cowards since they could have helped other jedi to escape the purge at least in corporeal form.

And remember, it's not like QuiGon disappears and ascends right there. He doesn't pull some jedi mojo trick and evaporate. He just snuffs it. He develops the skill whilst dead, as further supported by the fact that he doesn't appear to anyone soon afterwards and takes 10 years just to get into contact with Yoda.

And what precisely is the secret? The mumbo jumbo in the deleted scene about compassion and no attachment? If this is the new official explanation, it's got to have a little more detail than just being a 'secret', especially since Anakin learns it with such remarkable speed.

The mysterious and confounding ways of the Will of the Force in other words?

 

So he was granted the ability by the will of the Force?

But the ROTS novel says "It cannot be granted. It can only be taught."

 

IMO he had knowledge equivalent to "Level 1" of the skill before dying.
The rationale for Qui-Gon not appearing as a ghost seems to be that he was not as advanced with the skill. If Qui-Gon learned everything after dying, and taught Yoda and Obi-Wan how to ghost, how can it be that he is not able to ghost?

There's a semi-obscure Lucas quote that's relevant here, I guess I have to go looking for it...

 

Um, no, because they're all dead. Qui-Gon "came back from the netherworld of the Force.", i.e. back from the dead. It's not Force limbo. You can't talk to the dead. Only to the living. Or the immortal. Dead Jedi are neither.

When would they do that? They have to stay in exile and seperated. It's a small miracle that even Yoda and Obi-Wan got together after Order 66.

He learned it beforehand (is that in the RotS novel?). An unknown reason for taking 10 years doesn't support anything. Except maybe that it took him, as the first Jedi in thousands of years to do it, a while to figure it out.

You make it sound like such a bad thing.

There's a reason why it's called a "secret".

 

It's not stated in the novel IIRC. Notably, also missing from the novel is the script's seeming implication that he learned it after death. But IMO things get deleted from scripts for a reason.

 

Except communication between a ghost and the dead is the only explanation for Anakin learning the secret, so you're in a bit of a quandry here.

Also, upon what are you basing this rule that jedi can only communicate with the living or immortal? Seems a bit limited.

They have to stay in exile? Why do you say that? You like the fact that Yoda and ObiWan throw in the towel after screwing the galaxy over?

It's irrelevant if he learned it beforehand in the pages of some novelisation (which isn't even canon anyway), he doesn't have time to do 'practice' it. TPM clearly shows no such concentration or weird secret jedi mojo going on. You know why? Because he's too busy imparting his last wish to ObiWan.

And if your explanation of the long gap until his reemergence was due to his refining of the skill then you're just saying that QuiGon had to refine the 'secret' himself (which contradicts the fact that he was taught anything of much worth). If it's a skill that can be learnt whilst dead, why is QuiGon the only jedi to have ever done it? Surely a thousand year old jedi hanging out in the netherworld would figure it out?

I guess a crucial question here is why is this valuable skill a secret at all?

It's not any more of an explanation as 'god did it'. Therefore pointless.

 

They should really make a movie called "Yoda and Obi-wan Screw the Galaxy Over".
That would be a good movie.

 

HUH? BTW, it wasn't in the novelization.

That's why it has to involve something that happened while he was alive... namely encountering the Shaman of the Whills.[face_alien_1]

 

It does not matter if he was in the film or not. He was supposed to make an appearance in the canceled Darth Plagueis novel and he was mentioned in the shooting script for Revenge of the Sith as well as the novel. The latter two sources indicate that it is the highest level of canon, meaning it's absolute until George Lucas himself comes out and says otherwise, hence "George Lucas" canon. If you'd like the official definition of that, it's the six episodes and anything directly provided to Lucas Licensing by Lucas (including unpublished production notes from him or his production department that are never to be seen by the public). Elements originating with Lucas in the movie novelizations, reference books and other sources are G-canon.

 

The highest level of canon is just the movies, followed by the EU. ALL out-of-universe sources, including Lucas' Thoughts of the Moment, are irrelevant. Characters left on the cutting room floor and the drawing board, and mentioned only in noteform simply do not exist.

Until the shaman is put back into ROTS, or into a EU book, he doesn't exist. Novelisations and scripts, due to their changeability, cannot be considered canon. It only creates mess (see the OT novelisations).


Arawn_Fenn - you're glossing over a lot of the criticisms of your argument here. The questions that have to be answered here are:

When and where did QuiGon learn the secret?
Why was he taught and no-one else?
Who is the Shaman and upon what plane of existence is he on?
When and how does QuiGon employ this skill in the throes of dying in TPM?
If QuiGon needs to learn and refine it himself whilst dead, isn't the secret he learnt in life more like 'advice'?
If QuiGon can meditate in a world between life and death, why can't other Jedi?
What is the exact nature of this secret?
Precisely how and when is it taught to Anakin?
Why have the Holy Three kept it amongst themselves when their kind is near extinct?

My problem with this new version isn't just that it makes no sense and is a convulated retcon, it remains distinctly undeveloped and relies on fan rationalisation.

Either you've misread my post again, or you need to speak to jedimasterbac who says it is.