Do the prequels do justice to Yoda?

I've been thinking about how Yoda is portrayed in the prequels. He never really succeeds in doing much. He is severly clouded by the dark-side, thus making him incapable of foreseeing the future.

He drawed with Dooku, at least in terms of the outcome. Yoda managed to save his Jedi friends, and Dooku managed to save the DS plans.

The Sideous duel is highly debated, so I will not go into detail here. I can only say that I'm of the opinion that Yoda was as strong as Sideous - but had an unfortunate ending. However, he still lost the outcome of the fight, seeing that he could not do what he set out to do.

Perhaps I'm missing some great event Yoda accomplished, but generally speaking I think Lucas should have displayed Yoda as more powerful. 900 years should count for something

 

Yoda was the Grand Master of the Jedi Order. He was the initial mentor to Obi-wan and Qui-gon. And because he realizes that things must change, he ultimately does the right thing by going into exile prepare for the future.

 

I agree on this part. He did the right thing by going into exile. But had he succeeded, he wouldn't have to. He didn't accomplish much as the Grand Master of the Jedi Order.

 

I believe George Lucas had the right idea with Yoda. Yoda is more of a mentor, a "wiseman" than a warrior. After all "wars not make one great" (or something like that).
However, the actor for Luke Skywalker (mind blank - Mark Hamilton?) was central in making Yoda a believable character in the original trilogy. As for the prequel trilogy, Yoda is a wise mentor and a good warrior, but I must agree that it is strange the Yoda couldn't see anything coming.

Lord Horus

 

Close, it's Mark Hamill

But I think that Yoda should have been portrayed as more powerful and that Dooku should have been losing far more definitively, though I think he unquestionably was. However I also think that the battle against Sidious was turning to Yoda's favor given that we for the only time in the saga see Sidious with genuine fear because he was defeated by Mace IMO but he was faking how weak he was while on the ground.

 

Yoda is far more believable as a character in the prequels considering he just fills Ben's role in the sequels. In the prequels I could believe he was a Jedi warrior. In the OT, it was a little hard too when he kept repeating dialog.

 

To me, this question is hard to answer.
What I mean is, what do we mean by "justice"?
Does the OT do Anakin Skywalker "justice"?

If Yoda falls, then Yoda falls - that is the story, and that is his character.
What we now know is that the experience of the PT is part of what made Yoda what he is in the OT.
He came through it, learned from it, and moved on.

IMO, we don't need to see him do great deeds in the PT, it is evident when we join the story, from his position and the respect he clearly commands, who and what he is.
What the PT shows us is that even the best can slip up.
"There is always a bigger fish."

It's not really a matter of doing him "justice" - it's just character progression.
In the OT Yoda is older and wiser, and ultimately becomes "more powerful than you could ever imagine."

He can only ever look great if we get a taste of what "not quite as great" is. The PT puts him in context.
In that sense, Yoda looks even better - because Luke succeeds where Anakin failed, and part of that is down to what Yoda gives him.
I wouldn't have ever wanted the characters in the PT to have been exactly as they are when we see them 20-odd years later, because we are supposed to be seeing what events brought them to where they are as ANH kicks-off.
It's supposed to be a journey - not a snapshot of continuous personalities.

 

Good post indeed.
I think, however, that Yoda is displayed in the OT to be very powerful, although it is not explicitly shown. In the PT we see how he battle Sideous, and is on par with him. He IS powerful in the PT, but he doesn't accomplish very much. In that sense the PT can be seen as the fall of Yoda. The OT as the rise of Yoda. It could very well be because of the force. Yoda did seem to gain the upper hand over Sideous: Perhaps showing himself even stronger than Sideous. However, he was "unlucky" and couldn't catch onto something, while Sideous could. If that is the case Yoda acts more as a representative of the entire Jedi order - they could do nothing - they had nothing to hold on to. The question still remains though, was that Yoda's fault? He sensed something about Palpatine in AOTC, but didn't do anything with it.

 

Q.E.D.

 

The PT made Yoda an even greater character than he already was in the OT.

 

Meaning?

 

Yoda has become a much broader character in the PT, but part of broadening his character arc out is to make him a deeply flawed character (like pretty much everyone on the PT) So, he is blind, he his quite remote and at times displays an arrogance that he doesn't mean to have, but has become endemic to the Jedi Order. And of course, ultimately he fails, which again is essentail in showing how and why he ended up in the swamp.

I personally wish his conversation in ROTS with Qui-Gon had been kept in, because that explains a large part of the transformation of Yoda between Episode III and Episode V. When he talked with Qui-Gon he essentially addmitted his failure and the fact that he hadn't understodd the "living force" as well as Qui-Gon, and pledged to become Qui-Gon's student, even though he is of course hundreds and hundreds of years older than Qui-Gon was when he died. And that shows a tremendous stregnth and humility on Yoda's part and the fact he could admit his flaws. That scene I believe would have helped soften the blow of Yoda's failure in the PT.

 

That could very well be. I don't feel Yoda was as arrogant as some, and you, argue. However, he didn't do very much. As I mentioned above, he sensed something with Palpatine, but did nothing with it - as if he didn't trust his own feelings. I like Yoda in the PT, don't get me wrong, I just don't think he came off quite as powerful as I thought him to... but then again, he held his own against the most powerful dark-side user.

 

Quod erat demonstratum - Latin for "so I have demonstrated" - it basically means "case closed", and I thought G_i_G's post was totally correct.


I think it's great what Lucas did to Yoda, Obi-Wan and Anakin in the PT. I also like the fact that the Qui-Gon conversation was kept out - I don't think Qui-Gon was the ideal Jedi.

Qui-Gon and Yoda are set up as the 2 polar ends of the Jedi Order in the PT; by the time of ROTS and especially ANH, Obi-Wan is right in the middle, and Yoda is much closer to the middle.

 

Well, thats the point, Yoda WASN'T as powerful he he probably used to be before the PT started. Because of their flaws the Jedi are becoming/ have become increasingly blind to the evil that emerging around them. I believe part of the force coming back into balance was actually to have the Jedi fail and go away and get in touch with the Living Force. Qui-Gon understood what was happening, I think, but otherwise the Jedi arrogantly believed they were destined to be the Guardian's of Peace and Justice forever.

 

The PT certainly suggests that the actions of individuals can influence the Force to be darker or lighter.

By letting corruption, greed and complacency rule in the Republic, the Jedi allowed the Dark Side to grow so strong that they lost their way.

Sidious never could have triumphed without the Jedi allowing the Dark Side to grow.

Could the Jedi have found Sidious? I don't think so. But if they had continued to fight evil in all its forms, their vision would have been clearer, and Sidious would have had a more difficult time.


The Living Force and the Unifying Force are symbiotic - one needs to see the forest AND the trees to be a complete Jedi.

Qui-Gon was focused on the trees; Yoda and Mace on the forest.

 

But, to be fair, aren't we seeing him through Luke's eyes?
"The Jedi are all but extinct, there fire has gone out of the universe."
And yet here is Luke, on some weird dreamlike planet that he was led to in a delirious vision, face to face with one.
Wow - a Jedi Master!
What the PT does is say - look, once there thousands of Jedi Masters, thousands of guys like Yoda.
And between them, they could not see the banana skin they were about to tread on.

It's an interesting comparison.
Luke learns of Yoda in a dream-like state. From a ghost.
He seeks out Yoda of his own volition.
He ends up on a weird planet, teeming with life - if the Force had a home it would be Dagobah.
It is magical, mystical, and even terrifying place.
Yoda is alone and eccentric.
His first lesson in the Force for Luke is a simple moral one - and it involves no presumptions and probing on his part.
He gets Luke to display his anger and impatience by playing dumb.
The lesson? - never judge a book by it's cover.

Compare it to Anakin's first contact with the Masters.
Sat in their ivory tower, Anakin is brought to them.
Coruscant itself is awe-inspiring and exciting to Anakin, but it is everything that Dagobah is not.
Cold, impersonal, cluttered, busy and teeming with industry and technology - it is a metaphor for every cyberpunk nightmare vision of the future. Affluent. Mechanical.
Hey, it's almost the kind of place you would expect a Sith Lord to thrive.
Encircled by figures who - far from the crazy parasite Luke meets - seem stately, serious, and self-important.
And Anakin's first lesson in the Force?
That the Jedi know what is best - they can see who you are and what you are without giving you a chance to show it.
The lesson? - Well. I think it is Yoda who learns: never judge a Jedi by it's future.

Yoda's failure in the PT is, if anything, symbolic.
Remember who you are and where you came from.
The Jedi can't see the wood from the trees, they have lost touch with reality.
I don't see it as Yoda's fault, it's just the way things have worked out.
Sloth has set in.
It's no coincidence that Obi and Yoda "get back to nature".

It seems to me that it is the Jedi of the OT who are humbled - not the PT.
The PT just shows how and why that is so.

 

I really enojoyed Yoda in the PT. However, the one thing I wanted to see a bit more of (and only got a glimps of) was him training Jedi.

 

I had a similar thread on this in these boards a couple months ago. I was wondering if fans would have the same reaction to Yoda if the saw him for the first time in the PT rather than the OT.

I think the reason we like this character and stick by him is because of what we saw of him in TESB, and to a lesser extent ROTJ. I think that in the PT he's cool because he and Mace are the only Jedi aside from our heroes that are focused on. Also, because he's tiny and jumps around whupping butt.

 

I know everyone says the Jedi were arrogant and sedentary. However, when the Jedi followed the code they did nothing wrong. It was when they deviated from the code that bad things happened. According to the code, they should not have joined as generals in the war. They were forced into that posistion. It was Sideous who was brilliant - don't forget that. We see that Yoda is on to him in AOTC - but why only the glimpse? When OBW told them that Dooku had told him that a sith lord had control over the senate, Yoda should have put things more together.

 

Abso-flibbin'-lutely smashing points GiG.
I don't mean as counterpoints to Rossa's views, but as ideas in and of themselves.

 

The prequils don't do justice to Yoda at all. They turn the character into an abonination by changing him from a mysterious mentor and realistic alien, to a plethera of marketing and a mess of cgi.

 

I so couldn't stand Yoda after the PT. Mostly because of the bad advice he gives Anakin in ROTS, and, well, Yodaman. Need I say more? It's bad enough he's turned into a video game character, but at last we see that the lightside really can't come up with anything better than a lightsaber combat to fight evil, not after 800 years.

 

It's bad enough he's turned into a video game character

Its already bad enough, almost everything is turned into a video game character nowadays.

but at last we see that the lightside really can't come up with anything better than a lightsaber combat to fight evil, not after 800 years.

That's right. Luke threw away his lightsaber (in ROTJ) prefering not to take the aggressive stance. Yoda upon losing his, decided that better not be aggressive and wait patiently.