Saga Did Anakin truly bring Balance to the Force?

"I wanted to have this mythological footing because I was basing the films on the idea that the Force has two sides, the good side, the evil side, and they both need to be there. Most religions are built on that, whether it's called yin and yang, God and the devil—everything is built on the push-pull tension created by two sides of the equation. Right from the very beginning, that was the key issue in Star Wars."

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

"If good and evil are mixed things become blurred - there is nothing between good and evil, everything is gray. In each of us we to have balance these emotions, and in the Star Wars saga the most important point is balance, balance between everything. It is dangerous to lose this. In The Phantom Menace one of the Jedi Council already knows the balance of The Force is starting to slip, and will slip further. It is obvious to this person that The Sith are going to destroy this balance. On the other hand a prediction which is referred to states someone will replace the balance in the future. At the right time a balance may again be created, but presently it is being eroded by dark forces."

--George Lucas, Time Magazine article, 2002

"As evil begins to take over, it pushes the Force out of balance."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"Anakin is very different in the end. The thing of it is: The prophecy was right. Anakin was the chosen one, and he does bring balance to the Force. He takes the one ounce of good still left in him and destroys the Emperor out of compassion for his son."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 221

"I think it is obvious that [Qui-Gon] was wrong in Episode I and made a dangerous decision, but ultimately this decision may be correct. The “phantom menace” refers to the force of the dark side of the universe. Anakin will be taken over by dark forces which in turn destroy the balance of the Galaxy, but the individual who kills the Emperor is Darth Vader—also Anakin. The tale meanders and both the prediction and Qui-Gon are correct—Anakin is the chosen one, and he did bring peace at last with his own sacrifice. Luke couldn't kill the Emperor himself, but he could make Anakin reflect on his life and kill the Emperor."

--George Lucas, Cut Magazine interview, 1999


"The dark side is always there. It is experienced daily by people. It is like a huge cancer, alive, festering—both a reminder of a moral state and, at the same time, symptom and symbol of a very sick society."

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


"The Midichlorians have brought Anakin into being as the chosen one who will balance the universe. The mystery around that theory is that we don't know yet whether the chosen one is a good or a bad person. He is to bring balance to the Force; but at this point, we don't know what side of the Force needs to be balanced out."

--George Lucas, Star Wars: The Making of Episode I, 1999


"It's not that they can't see the Dark Side coming, it's just that the Dark Side begins to envelop everything. It's like walking into a fog. The Jedi's ability to see lessens as the Dark Side grows."

--George Lucas.


"It was a virgin birth in an ecosystem of symbiotic relationships. It means that between the Force, which is sort of a life force, and reality, the connectors between these two things are what we call Midichlorians. They're kind of based on mitochondria, which are a completely different animal, that live inside every single cell and allow it to live, allow it to reproduce, allow life to exist. They also, in their own way, communicate with the Force itself. The more you have, the more your cells are able to speak intuitively to the Force itself and use the powers of the Force. Ultimately, I would say the Force itself created Anakin. I don't want to get into specific terms of labeling things to make it one religion or another, but basically that's one of the foundations of the hero's journey."

--George Lucas, Feburary 2005 issue of Vanity Fair, page 117.


"There is a hint in the movie that there was a Sith lord who had the power to create life. But it's left unsaid: Is Anakin a product of a super-Sith who influenced the Midichlorians to create him, or is he simply created by the Midichlorians to bring forth a prophecy, or was he created by the Force through the Midichlorians? It's left up to the audience to decide. How he was born ultimately has no relationship to how he dies, because in the end, the prophecy is true: Balance comes back to the Force."

--George Lucas, Rolling Stone Magazine, 2005.



"One of the themes throughout the films is that the Sith Lords, when they started out thousands of years ago, embraced the Dark Side. They were greedy and self-centered and they all wanted to take over, so they killed each other. Eventually there was only one left, and that one took on an apprentice. And for thousands of years, the master would teach the apprentice, the master would die, the apprentice would then teach another apprentice, the master, and so on. But there could never be any more than two of them, because if there were, they would try to get rid of the leader, which is exactly what Vader was trying to do, and that's exactly what the Emperor was trying to do. The Emperor was trying to get rid of Vader, and Vader was trying to get rid of the Emperor. And that is the antithesis of a symbiotic relationship, in which if you do that, you become cancer, and you eventually kill the host, and everything dies."

--George Lucas, Bill Moyers Time Magazine Interview; 1999.

 

I know what the dark side is obviously, give me a specific way Palps and Vader were so much worse than others before them and how no one else after them is able to upset said balance again?? if it is their ability to take over the galaxy in its entirety so be it, just say so.....and if the rise of other bad people from time to time doesn't rise to the level of upsetting the balance of the Force, so be it....it's just the notion of the balance of the Force seems to indicate to me that perfect order has finally been achieved aka nirvana aka heaven and I personally wouldn't call the pop ups of evil throughout the EU perfect order

I do want to add I'm not really trying to say the prophecy wasn't fulfilled at the end of ROTJ, I admit it was fulfilled by all standards of what has been presented and by GL himself... my question is more along the lines of what kept it in balance afterwards with all the events of the EU that happened...that's why I'm asking what did Palps/Vader do that hasn't been or can't be recreated later?? and if it was, that would def. chip at the power of the prophecy itself

 

It doesn't matter what others before them did (if they did anything at all). It's not relevant. Nobody knows what happened. The prophecy, the concept of balance, etc, were not created based on what ended up in the EU.

 

yea sorry, I thought about "the before" after I wrote it and was going to edit it out but just hadn't

I've said this many times, I know the EU wasn't part of GL, I'm not saying any one person has to include it, they can totally disregard it if they choose, but for people like me that did read the EU, it does muck up the prophecy, the issue here is that people seem to want to say the EU didn't muck it up and I think it does

 

But that's an EU problem, not the movies, nor the prophecy, nor Lucas.

 

There will always be a Dark Side....but its greatest practitioners have been destroyed....for now.

 

Saga: Yes
Sequel Trilogy: Well, actually...

 

Psss. Sequel Trilogy is part of the saga...


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MeBeJedi I take my info from the films.and what they tell us the prophecy says. The wording does not dictate that when the Sith were destroyed in RotJ that balance was restored.

 

I'm hypothesizing that the third trilogy will use Anakin's dark deeds as an excuse to alter our view of the prophecy.

Anakin did bring balance, but his actions as Vader may have prevented that balance from lasting as long as it should have.

There are other possibilities, though. Such as: The Chosen One was meant to bring balance and then live on to ensure that it would last - but since he didn't survive, someone else will need to take his place. Enter Rey.
That's just a variation of the same idea, though.

Two months from now, I'm sure we'll know anyway.

 

It seemed like Disney flirted with it from the beginning. There's concept art of a Half Vader Half Anakin force ghost that was on the table for Ep 7 but scrapped eventually

Yep. Look no further than George Lucas who makes it clear that Anakin eventually fulfilled the prophecy.

 

Darth_Articulate wrote

Psss. Sequel Trilogy is part of the saga...

but belongs to nuCanon while PT and OT are George Lucas Canon.

And if that means considering only what Lucas intended to be valid, so be it. That doesn't make it canon. Also, if you are doing that out of respect for him as the originator of the series, you may want to also consider respecting his judgement, which was to trust KK and Disney with the canon.

IMHO you are obfuscating the issue. What Lucas intended for the PT and OT is valid and should remain untouchable and unalterable. Of course, Lucasfilm / Disney is entitled to continue the Saga and evolve canon the way they see fit, that must have definitely been part of the deal to grant them this artistic freedom.

Your third sentence doesn't make sense, sorry. Unless they told him that they were going to alter the concept of the Chosen One and re-interpret it to fit their intentions and he was okay with that, I rather believe Lucas might consider that his trust was misplaced. Should be interesting to see how these "Chosen One" issues turn out in December and whether George Lucas feels compelled to comment on the subject.

 

On the issue of respect for Lucas's intentions, I agree one hundred percent. But the reason I agree is because it is my *opinion* that this is the respectful route to take, *not* because *his intentions are canon*. That really is my only point and people are making it much, much more complicated than it needs to be. When Lucas made the choice to sell his company, he made the choice to relinquish all decisions about canon to another party. Anything that isn't explicitly part of the saga as is, is open to interpretation. Period. That is the chance he took in letting go and the price of that boatload of cash he got for doing so. Anakin being the Chosen One is not explicitly part of the saga. There is ample room for doubt. So If Disney makes it so that it turns out he wasn't the Chosen One after all, will that be disrespectful to Lucas? Maybe. Will it weaken the storytelling? Not necessarily. It's possible it might strengthen the storytelling. Will it contradict the established continuity of the previous films? Absolutely not.

Whether or not Lucas feels in retrospect that his trust was misplaced is irrelevant. If Anakin being the Chosen One was not one of the explicit conditions stated for Lucas to sell his company, then Disney has every right, legally and morally, to contradict that idea. It's not incumbent upon Disney to pay homage to any conditions that weren't stated, either verbally or in writing, in the agreement and run something by Lucas for his approval. KK set him up with a position as "Keeper of the Flame" but he chose to relinquish it, because he couldn't bare to be only partially involved. That was his choice and the consequence of it is to take his approval completely out of the running. Lucas has no more legal or moral say in what is Star Wars canon. Anyone has the right to only watch 1-6 if they don't like what Disney does with the story,

 

Feel free to do so.... Doesn't change a thing.

 

Which things do they not change? They don't change what Lucas says he intended in interviews. But what Lucas says in interviews doesn't change the fact that his movies failed to state what he intended. Which is why he has to explain himself in interviews in the first place.

 

Its pretty clear even in the movies. All it does is take some thinking on making connections between the Saga.

The prophecy may have been vague but also clear on who will be the chosen one and what he would do for the Force. It's very simple.

 

It's simple if you choose to equate destroying the sith with restoring balance in the way that boiling a kettle of can be equated with raising the water's temperature to 100 celsius.

But the wording provided for the prophecy does not dictate that equation. You wouldn't say that someone boiled a kettle and raised the temperature of the water to 100 degrees because that would be a redundancy.

Therefore, it is not necessarily as simple as that. (Unless the author comes and tells you what they actually meant to say.)

If you consider that each invocation of prophecy refers to destroying the Sith and restoring balance, then it can only be definitely interpreted as a sequence of events, like - "put your pajamas on and get into bed" . It does not even ensure that one is a prerequisite of the other, like - "boil the kettle and make us a cup of tea."


Lucas's external clarification of the prophecy fulfillment is a product of the incorrect grammar being used in the movie, if the audience was supposed to intuit Lucas's meaning unambiguously. Misleading grammar is not a stimulating ambiguity unless the grammar is corrected within the text of the film for the character's and/or audience benefit.

I don't know if Lucas actually states that the force is in balance by the end of ROTJ, does he? Because even if he says that the prophecy is fulfilled by then, fulfilling the prophecy in the terms used in the film could also mean that destroying the sith will put in motion an assured and unstoppable turn of events that will result in inevitable restoration of balance to the force. So even if it is not in balance for another forty years after Anakin's death, destroying the sith fulfilled the prophecy since it will eventually result in the force being in balance

 

You were the chosen one! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the force... not leave it in darkness! -Obi-Wan Kenobi

 

Yep. I was going to include that in my post but I didn't think I needed to and it was a redundancy, since it definitely breaks the two concepts up into two separate sentences. It does not equate destruction of Sith with balance of the force. It only reaffirms Anakin's perceived chosen one status and its association with each concept separately and individually.

So Obi-Wan's explication of what was expected from Anakin is no different from the grammar in each invocation of the prophecy as I already described. It only associates Sith destruction and balance. It doesn't equate them. Lucas was forced to equate them in interviews after the fact.

 

We see characters in-universe doubting that Anakin is the Chosen One because of his actions but we, the audience, know the truth. We know the one mentioned in that specific prophecy is Anakin because he's the only one able to defeat the emperor. Not Yoda, not Obi-wan, not any other Jedi. Them believing Luke or Leia may be the Chosen One is a misdirection so that Vader's choice in RotJ can be a surprise to the audience because Vader changing side was not so certain. Vader killing Palpatine and sacrificing himself in the process thus destroying the Sith, whatever the next threat will be, they won't be Sith because Anakin destroyed them by fulfilling his destiny. That also mean Qui-Gon's prediction of Anakin being the Chosen one in episode 1 was true but no one knew at the time when and how he will bring balance to the Force.

 

They don't believe any of them is the chosen one. They believe them to be their only hope to face Vader and Sidious.

 

okay, then adding a new part to the prophecy that's never been mentioned feels cheap and just what it is, an add on after the fact

also, once again, that hurts the power of the prophecy that it didn't get fulfilled fully or that the fulfillment barely lasted 30 years, that's not how prophecies work....

 

The prophecy was cheaply tacked on to the saga in 1999.

 

I would actually agree with that in the sense it def. messed up everything

 

. So how DO prophecies work? Does Birnam wood need to remain put in Dunsinane forever to make it a legitimate prophecy??


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