PT so yoda , mace , and kenobi stand right next to sith lord

These all time great Jedi can't tell Darth Sidious is standing right next to them for YEARS. To me this is the most unrealistic part of the prequals. Has this ever been explained ? How could these great Jedi like Yoda and Mace Windu be held in high esteem when they couldn't even sense a sith lord inches away .

 

I have this conversation with my brother in law every once in a while

Bro in Law: so how come the Jedi can't sense that the Sith is right in front of them?

me: the dark side of the force has clouded their vision.

Bro in law: how?

me: *shrugs*

Bro in law: what I mean is: if he is clouding their vision, he is obviously using some kind of force cover up in front of them, how can they not sense that?

me: my own personal theory is that they can't sense Palpatine is a Sith is because Palpatine never uses the force in front of them, so there is nothing to detect.

Bro in law: I don't buy that.

me: yeah, neither do the folks on the star wars forum I frequent.

 

Looks at username....


Looks at post....

 

I dunno, I think it's a fair question

could have been put in a better way though I admit

 

It's a fine question but I don't think he really gives a crap about the answer........

 

I care.

My take on this is - One of Darth Sidious' greatest powers was the ability to hide in plain sight. I bet he wouldn't even show midichlorians in his blood. And the Jedi were so good at detecting the force for so long, they didn't think it was possible to hide it.

Like all the best parts of Darth Sidious' plan - he used the Jedi's strength's against them.

 

I'm perfectly glad you do

 

The dark side clouds everything. Sidious is the strongest in the dark nature of the force. The dark side is a more aggressive nature so it was able to overtake the Jedi's senses to the fact that the Sith Lord was right there. I understand why people have a problem with it but I never did. Sometimes you look around for something and you don't notice that it's right under your nose the whole time. That's what happened to the Jedi.

 

The Force is off balance. The dark side clouds everything because it's taken hold of the galaxy (war and all that jazz), not because Palpatine is actively using the Force to blur the Jedi's vision whenever they're looking at him.

 

Because cloaking himself from the Jedi is one of the things Darth Sidious is able to do. Obviously.

Of course it's unrealistic. It's the Force. It isn't real. It can do whatever the story requires it to do.

 

The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities that some consider to be unnatural...

 

also the jedi had in a large sense "lost their way". they had become arrogant and complacent by the start of the clone wars. the council was contemptuous of "politicians" and their ilk - they would never have imagined even the chancellor of being a sith lord. they were therefore highly susceptible to sidious' deception, which he planned meticulously and executed at the right moment.

it's the old power corrupts story. it probably could have been communicated better in the prequels, but the themes are there

 

References to this are all over the films even if no one spells it out directly.

Hard to see the Dark Side is
The Dark Side clouds everything
Blind we are (here used in context with the Kamino clone business, but it fits with further establishing that the Jedi aren't aware of things concerning the Force in general, and that it gets progressively worse over the span of the PT)

 

Could we conclude then that Yoda and Mace were not as powerful as believed or would any Jedi in history have been able to detect Palpatines true nature ?

 

I actually kind of love that Ancient Evil is just right there, chilling out IN FRONT OF THEM for over a damn decade, smirking his little smirks and saying ironic things and plotting away the whole time. I think it helps emphasize the idea that this guy is really, really, really bad and a very formidable foe, unlike anything these Jedi in this generation have had to contend with. They can't see him even when he's right there.

One of my favorite things in The Clone Wars series is how often they're like, "HUH! Who could possibly be behind all this?!" (An aside to museinwoodenshoes , this sometimes hilarious obliviousness is included in another of Satine and Obi-Wan's Greatest Hits from TCW, IMO. I love how she's like "That guy? Is bad news" after speaking with Palpatine for like 5 whole minutes, and Obi-Wan's like "Damnit, Satine, just let the man send troops to your planet against your will -- I'm sure everything will be fine!" Good job using your listening ears there, Kenobes! I'm sure Palpatine won't end up indirectly killing you both!)

 

Yes it was all explained in 1999 even before the movie came out.

I don't know how you've missed it for 17 years now.

I suggest you reference the title The Phantom Menace.

You will also note in the OT Vader is standing right beside his daughter and senses nothing and his son is on the planet below as is Obi-Wan.

 

If I had a dime for every time I hear that baseless claim...

 

He's just that powerful. /endthread

 

thread title sounds like the start of a joke. Fill in the rest:

so yoda, mace, and kenobi stand right next to a sith lord....

yoda says:______________

mace says: well__________

but then kenobi says _______________

help me out, im no good at jokes

 

One possibility is that Palpatine, when he was around the Jedi, tried to make sure they were concerned about something else (Qui-Gon's death, Padme's near-murder, the Separatists), then just ran silent. He didn't try to call attention to himself by explicitly using the Force.

This was sort-of hinted at in the ROTJ novelization by James Kahn. Written way back before prequel-era retconning, there's a bit between Luke and Palpatine that may have been scripted but not filmed, where Palpatine asks about Yoda, whom he apparently doesn't know. He asks if Yoda trained Luke and if he was still alive. Luke resists by not doing anything; he just pulls back and basically just exists to hide any thoughts on the subject. And it nearly works.

 

I think it all makes sense in story if they would just make a comic or something admitting that some point between 3 and 4, Palpatine became aware of the continued existence of the Skywalker twins and that Palpatine he a similar power to prevent Vader from blatantly learning about them until Luke destroys the Death Star.

 

Another in-universe explanation that seems to be built into the prequels is this idea that the Jedi have not even seen Sith for a thousand years. They didn't even know what to look for, similar to Luke looking for Yoda in Ep V.