CT Luke FORCE CHOKES Jabba's Guards!!

yup

 

Meh, I don't buy the "Luke is in danger of turning to the dark side" idea. The semi-Force choke and black clothes are just to show that he's a badass. In TPM when Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan step off their ship, they're also wearing hoods and walking about ominously, but you wouldn't say they're borderline dark-siders.

 

The difference is, before that we already had explicit dialogue talking about how Luke would be tempted by the dark side.

 

Well the Emperor also says "only together can we turn him to the dark side of the Force". It really only makes sense that Luke only begins to be tested when he's brought aboard the second Death Star. Also, if Luke were already on the precipice of the dark side, he wouldn't have spent all that time saying "I have to redeem my father, there's still good in him" to Ben, Leia and Vader himself.

 

After thinking about this a bit, I'm beginning to feel that most of the thread is looking at this from an overly-Watsonian perspective. The scene might not be meant to signify that Luke is walking the edge of the dark side in-universe as much as it's meant to foreshadow for the viewers that falling to the dark side will be a real threat for him during the movie.

 

Where is it said that the choke is a bad guy power?

Not in the films.

 

Yoda: "A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defence- never for attack."

 

OK. So Yoda was using bad guy powers when he slammed the Imperial Guards against the wall when he walked into Palpy's office? He was there to confront Sidious, just as Luke was there to confront Jabba.

Your example, although I understand what you mean, doesn't show that the choke is a "Dark Side" power. Any use of the force for attack would fall under your example.

 

It's probably easier to justify slamming an attacker than slowly choking them, though.

"Using the minimum amount of force necessary to protect oneself" so to speak.

 

Ambervikings91 I think you have a point. These days there is a category etc for everything. And everything is explained. It seems to be more ambiguous, classic example, the force was this ubiquitous presence that everyone just knew about and then in the PT they had to explain all about it.

 

Slowly choking? It only lasted a few seconds. And although it might be possible for one who's strong enough to snap someone's neck with the Force, I strongly doubt Luke was anywhere near that level or angry enough in that scene in ROTJ. At best, they were stunned and intimidated, at worst they were knocked out for a few minutes.

When I was younger, I saw this scene as two big, scary, intimidating guards that Luke just brushed aside while barely lifting his hand. If he really was so dangerously close to the dark side, why didn't Yoda and Obi Warn warn him as they had in ESB? All they basically said was, "Your training is done, you're ready. Now go kick some darkside ***! But don't lose your cool doing it."

Once again,, I saw it more as brushing aside two threats without causing serious harm or damage. Also, if he really was able to turn those guard's big, thicks necks into a couple of bent straws in a matter of seconds, he should've been able to pick up Vader and the Emperor, toss them out the window, and leave without a scratch.

 

Can't we just agree that choking people is cool as long as you do it to stuffy english guys and people in pig costumes? As in, don't do it to your wife or other Jedi. Which are literally the only force choke recipients in the entire saga who weren't asking for it.

Well, that was before the Jedi were turned into a pack of space losers that like to sit around in musty robes talking about how much being a feeling human being with a normal psyche is bad.

 

Yoda decapitated two clones with his lightsaber during Order 66. What's wrong with a force choke? I think the reason for killing is more important than the method.

 

From the moment Luke begins his training you can see that he is constantly being tested against the dark side. This is just anohter one of those moments. From the Cave vision, where is is warned about what he will become should be take the easy way out and give in to his hate for Vader, to the finally moment when Luke chops off Vader's robotic hand, only to realize that he had given in to his hate. That latter being Luke's defining moment in the trilogy. Here he is, faced with the same choice that his father had been given by the same man so many years earlier. This is where Lukd is shown to be a stronger character than his father, when he still refuses the dark side after coming to close to embracing it for the ones he loves.

 

I was bothered by the Jedi's excessive use of the Force for attacks in the PT, slamming droids around, throwing things, smacking guards into walls, etc. That contradicts Yoda's teaching that a Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack. Maybe this is a bit of a retcon, but I'm assuming that after 20 years of sitting in time-out thinking about what he's done, Yoda concluded that the Jedi were in error to use the Force in such a cavalier fashion, and that is one of the mistakes that led to their downfall.

Why is Force choking Dark Side while lightsabering heads off isn't? Remember where the Force comes from: Life creates the Force and makes it grow. Using the power of life to cause death twists the Force back on itself, perverts it. There is a reaction to every action, and the reaction to perverting the Force is darkness and death, as seen in the decaying bodies of darksiders. Physical attacks like lightsabers, blasters, rocks, or fists do not draw on the Force for their destructive power. Unjustified and excessive killing without calling on the Force will certainly darken the soul of the killer, but not so quickly or dramatically as calling on the Force to kill.

 

I've never thought that there is a line between dark powers, and light powers. Luke chocking the guard is no darker than Yoda slamming the Palptine's guards against the wall. Could a jedi use Force chocke, and Force lighting? I don't see why not, as they are force powers, and the force is the force. Now, do Jedi's use these powers? I don't think so; but it's not because they can't, it's because these powers are frowned upon since they tend to be sadistic in nature. They are also a slower death than Being decapitated by a sword.
What you have to remember is that Luke got a crash course in Jedi training, and the jedi code. When he chocked the guards, he saw it as a way to get in unnoticed. I don't for a second think that Luke using this power signifies he is close to falling to the Dark Side. He is simply using the force.

 

He is definitely force choking them but my interpretation of that scene is that he is only knocking them out, not killing them. Essentially he was being more merciful than if he had whipped out a blaster or lightsaber and done them in (and yes, I know at this point of the movie, R2 is carrying his lightsaber, but I am just using that as an example).

 

I know, I mean, look at Anakin. Is not like his emotional self didn't lead to his fall to the dark side...Those damn Jedis..

 

This doesn't seem like much of an issue to me. The way I see it, the guards were in his way, and he temporarily choked them to distract them while he waltzed past. Quick, simple, and not excessively violent. I think the outcry over this moment is more due to the fact that, unfortunately, the scene cuts away before we can see if the choke did indeed kill the guards or if it went away once Luke was past them. And some interpret it as the former, while I interpret it as the latter, mostly cause I don't want to believe Luke would callously kill like that.

This brings up a bigger point, which is that the Old Jedi were a pack of hypocrites when it came to using violence, and that was one of the things that drove Anakin up the wall, because they were never consistent with their values, whereas Anakin desperately wanted more of a steady set of rules to follow. That's why he was so rebellious and such during the PT: he never really knew what lines he couldn't cross, so decided to just not worry about it. As we saw, it didn't turn out very well for most.

This is one reason I greatly admire Luke as a Jedi: he understood that the Old Jedi were magnificently messed-up failures as pacifistic monks because they didn't stick to their own rules (they freakin' accepted the job of generals during wartime, for goodness sake!). He realized that a proper Jedi would balance pacifism with violence when needed, not claim to be anti-violence when every time a threat came up, out comes the lightsaber (admittedly, this was probably due to Lucas trying to appeal to the lightsaber fans by giving them so much usage in the prequels, not bothering to notice how out-of-character it is for the supposedly-pacifist Jedi).

As for Yoda's line about using the Force "only for knowledge and defense"...wouldn't take it too seriously. This guy was, after all, renowned for being the greatest warrior in the Old Order. What's that, Yoda, "War's not make one great", yousa spake?

 

Anakin pulled out the force choke frequently on TCW, while still identifying as a Jedi. Luke is simply showing the same dark streak.

 

The royal guards threatened Yoda with their pikes, to which he shoved them out of the way. Yoda never uses the Force in combat unless he's attacked first, or about to be attacked. Luke walks in and uses the Force to choke the guards, rather than just talking to them or using the mind trick. No, Luke isn't on the verge of turning right then. But it is a tell-tale sign that Luke isn't 100% normal in ROTJ, using the Force that aggressively. The second is when he decides to use the blaster to threaten Jabba.

 

I just assumed it was a case of "Hey, what if I try THIS!", and Ben/Yoda were too busy dead to tell him it wasn't good etiquette for a light-sider.

 

Luke already knows that using the Force aggressively can lead to the dark side.

 

On the Yoda deal, I really gotta admit, I always figured Yoda was really just too pissed to really deal with "light side rules" at that point. I mean, the entire Jedi Order had just been, for all intents and purposes, destroyed, and he had almost been killed himself. The guy was really not having a good day.

 

A Jedi is above getting angry like that. Mace had to be goaded into getting as angry as he did. Yoda, who was far older and more experienced, had a better handling of his emotions.