Saga Star Wars, Lucas and TMIS

Where. To. Begin.

As others here have pointed out there is a great deal of 'hindsight bias' that Lucas plays to. Was it his idea at the time to create an answer to some real spiritual emptiness he considered to have existed at the time? He seems to have been remarkably reticent at the time of making the films to speak about this phenomenon he was so concerned about. So, what is this phenomenon, is it real? I asked if you knew of any evidence for Moyer's statement of such as a matter of fact - all that you have offered in return is

"If Moyers didn't do his research, then he's a really lousy interviewer. So, Moyers just made it up that people thought that there was a spiritual aspect to the OT, back when it was made and released?" and "As to Moyers, what if it wasn't bias? What then?"




Of course the first of these is an answer to an entirely different question than what you originally asked. Let me remind you, you asked;

"Were these people wrong? Was Bill Moyers wrong in saying what he said, "One explanation for the popularity of Star Wars when it appeared is that by the end of the 1970s, the hunger for spiritual experience was no longer being satisfied sufficiently by the traditional vessels of faith." How could he come to this conclusion if there wasn't anecdotal evidence of it?"


Telling me I'm somehow mad for questioning whether people saw a spiritual aspect in Star Wars when that wasn't what I was addressing - nor was it the question you asked - seems a little..off. I'm addressing what evidence Moyers has for the statement you originally raised (and claimed Moyers must have evidence for)

So...no, you don't know of any evidence that Moyers is, you propose, working from. What sort of evidence might that 'fact' (that people were 'hungering' for a spiritual experience that they weren't getting through traditional vessels of faith) Was there a questionnaire, perhaps;

!. Do you feel hungry for a spiritual experience?
2.Do you feel that your appetite for that experience is satisfied by traditional vessels of faith?

But of course you've already, really, addressed the 'evidence' for Moyer's statement; it is "anecdotal" - really this is short-hand for, 'that's what I see'


And...on that. As with the change of focus I highlighted above, so with the general argument anyway. Somehow you've managed to pretend that anybody is arguing there was nothing of a spiritual nature in the OT. The real discussion is about the overtly religious iconography and symbolism in the PT (compared to the OT); in particular in terms of overtly Christian conceptions and within that the deistic nature of 'The Force' (The Force as Christian God, to be blunt about it)

The real argument that you are making is that this deistic, willfully conscious and interventionist God The Force is actually an aspect of the OT and that it is, in some way, a mistake on the part of those who didn't take that on for not seeing it. Rather ironically you linked to a site about Jediism, as being evidence for this "long noted ...religious similarities in the Saga" (is that based upon reaserch? What similarities, and how "long noted"?). The first line of that site refers to Jediism as being nontheistic - so your evidence that theistic Christian iconography is well recognised is.... a religion that acknowledges the Jedi as following a nontheistic set of beliefs. A religion that rejects the theistic beliefs you believe are glaringly obvious and, it seems, is based upon exactly the position we are told (by you) is 'wrong'.

As to another aspect of the discussion; whether this interventionist, deistic Force affects the ability of characters to make choices (which is something that Lucas actually spoke about at the time)... You tell us that even apples draw the Earth to them (according to Newton). Well, this is alarming; if we grow too many apple trees on one side of the Earth they might throw the Earth's orbit out, yes? But, of course, The Earth's gravity well dwarfs that of the apple...the apple actually operates within the context of the Earth's massive gravity well. And other apples are not diverted from their vertical passage to the earth in any meaningful way by each other. I don't think this is the analogy you are looking for.

But you have revealed the nature of an interventionist Force in other threads. Yoda can choose to face Sidious in ROTS but he is doomed to failure because....The Force - Anakin is the 'Chosen One' and only he can bring balance. So....yes Yoda can choose to face Sidious but his choice is meaningless, it makes no difference to the outcome, events are not contingent upon that choice. Qui-Gon may wish to tell the Jedi who Sidious is, about Order 66 but...he's 'not allowed'....How much more clear could it get that an interventionist Force diminishes the agency of characters and the importance of choice?

 

Except we've pointed out over and over and over and over and over again that people in the Star Wars universe can indeed choose whether or not to fulfill their destinies. They have a choice in the matter. Lucas himself has said so.

But feel free to ignore this fact once again and continue arguing with yourself.

 

I just think of "will" as "the direction things are going in" in the force. Life creates the force and makes it grow. So therefore life influences the "will" of the force. If there is a lot of darkness in life, that will make the living force dark. It "partially" controls your actions, as Obi Wan explains to Luke.

The big answer to most fate questions is "partially". Yin Yang. In real life too. We have free will, and we are also subject to things out of our control. We can both determine fate and are determined by outside factors. Not either/or. Hard determinism is wrong, and so is total free will. You have more influence if you go with the flow of things and use them to your advantage. Like Qui Gon. And one can do even better than he did. He wasn't even fully trained in such things. Yoda was told he would have to practice this continually. He was fallible until death. Not all his advice was gold. Loyalty counts for something.

And Mortis was a receiver and amplifier of the force, as an analogy. Not either/or. There is a two way street between the force and living things.

"an interventionist Force diminishes the agency of characters and the importance of choice"

I agree. Of course, immortals do interfere. But they try to guide the mortals to the right choice on their own. How can anyone do the right thing if they are just told what to do? It would probably backfire.

 

But you overlook the examples only one Kenobi gave, Yoda made the choice to fight Sidious but the Force had already decreed that this would fail, no one but Anakin could kill Sidious.
Qui-Gon wanted to tell the Jedi about Sidious but the Force stopped him.
One choice is rendered meaningless, an other is stopped by divine intervention.

@Arawn_Fenn

First, Anakin DID at the last do what he was created to do, kill Palpatine.
Second you were making a general claim;

I gave a general example of where such a thing could influence the choices of the people involved.

A more direct example of this in the PT is the prophecy and Anakin being trained.
Let's say that there is no prophecy, the Force didn't make Anakin or any of that. Would Qui-Gon had been so determined to train Anakin? Probably not, Anakin would just be a gifted kid who is strong in the Force, nothing more. The Jedi council, while at first they rejected Anakin, they changed their minds and agreed that Anakin was the chosen one. Remove that and they would not have changed their minds. Assuming that Anakin would even have been brought to them, which is unlikely.

So IF the Force made Anakin and either directly or indirectly was responsible for the prophecy, that had an effect on the choices of the characters. Without it, Anakin would probably not have been trained and would have stayed on Tatooine. The effects of that would have been many.

No, because Anakin is called the chosen one later in TPM and in the other films as well, referring back to the prophecy and all that. Also, Anakin being created by the midis is the same as created by the Force. The midis are just middle men, the means for living creatures to tap into the Force and a way for the Force to speak to living beings. They are also microscopic life forms so they would not have the knowledge to alter human genes which would be needed to make Anakin male. Nor would they by themselves have a reason to just make Shmi pregnant out of the blue.
Anakin being created by the midis is stated directly in dialogue, Palpatine never directly says that Anakin was created by a sith experiment. That was in previous version of the script but cut. Same as Sido-Dyas, Owen being Obi-Wan's brother etc.
So Anakin being created by the midis/the Force is stated onscreen, the other is not.

As only one Kenobi noted above, the Force apparently stepped in and stopped Qui-Gon from telling the Jedi about Palpatine. That is influencing choice.
Creating Anakin and making him super strong in the Force, that will also affect choices. If Anakin had not existed, the choices made by the PT characters would have been different and many of the events would play out differently.

In closing, I agree that the were religious and spiritual aspects in the OT. Having faith was an important part in being a Jedi. But the ideas/concepts were more eastern, Buddhist etc.
The PT is more overtly religious and has more direct Christian parallels, virgin birth, prophesied savior and a deity that is more directly involved and taking direct action.
Which have begged the question why the Force just doesn't kill Palpatine directly if it wants him dead.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

Because of Luke. Not because the Force made him do it. Not because he gave the tiniest bit of a crap about the prophecy. The point is that until the intervention of Luke Anakin had no problem going against the so-called will of the Force. In the same manner Palpatine, like a typical Sith, has no problem going against the Force's will. Sith put their own wills above the will of the Force every time.

That's only a fan theory and not necessarily true.

Anakin is the "chosen one" in any event, regardless of how he was created. Lucas even says as much. Clearly the theory that Anakin was created by the Sith dwells in the context of the same continuity in which he is referred to as the "chosen one".

Anakin being created by the Force is never stated on screen, it's just extrapolated by fans from the suggestion that Anakin may have been created by the midichlorians. Just like Anakin being created by the Sith is extrapolated from the story that Darth Plagueis created life ( complete with sudden look directly at Anakin ). Qui-Gon only states a possibility and it is never proven to be the case. You continue to try to pass off character speculation as canonical fact.

Apples and oranges. That is an invalid comparison. Sido-Dyas and Owen being Obi-Wan's brother were overruled through contradiction by later material. Sido-Dyas was overruled by Sifo-Dyas being an actual Jedi with whom Obi-Wan and the others were familiar. Owen being Obi-Wan's brother was overruled by AOTC. Anakin being a possible Sith creation has been overruled by precisely nothing.

 

More like someone brings new information in and it may or may not present something that was not realized upon previous thought. That doesn't mean that you were wrong, but that you didn't have all the facts and when said facts are presented, it can open one's eyes and quite possibly see things in a different light. In this case, someone doesn't see something and when pointed out, whether or not it is desired, it is there.

There isn't much difference really. The only difference between the OT and PT is that the point of view is different, which allows for a broader range of storytelling and more exploration. Just because something was fine doesn't mean that one cannot add more to it. That's called world building.

The closest parallel is whether or not the concept of an afterlife exists. All the different religions have different ideas of what exists in the afterlife and whether or not the idea of ghosts, demons and spirits exist. And it is not just confined to religion, but within mythology itself. Take Gandaulf who goes from Gandualf the Gray to Gandaulf the White, the former when he was alive and the latter when he returns from the dead.

Except when said film refers to religion three times in the space of two hours, and in his development of said film, it has been documented that religion was part of the story.

Except as Lucas pointed out in his interview with Moyers that we don't have it all figured out ourselves. That many people don't know all there is to know. That we've come so far, but that we have more to go in order to understand. That it has to do with growth. In watching ANH, we see that Vader doesn't know how Obi-wan vanished and even thinks it is a trick. Which shows that even he didn't know everything there was, despite claiming to be a master now.

The notion that we don't know all there is to know about life, either because we haven't reached that evolutionary point, or we stopped trying to learn is a common element in life. In "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", there was V'Ger which had learned all there was to know about the universe, yet it still desired to learn more beyond normal comprehension. Mankind strives to learn and grow, but if it doesn't learn and grow, then it will never reach its true potential.

As I've often argued, Christ has a good press agent in the church and holy scriptures. Mythologies also feature the concepts of destiny, prophecies and saviors of divine origin. My point in linking to the Jedi religion was that there is a group of people who have been inspired by a religion from a film series. Regardless of their own personal beliefs, the idea that they see the Jedi Order and the Force is a religion is telling.

It is less the Force that Yoda fails and more that he was never powerful enough because by the time he faces Palpatine, the latter has become so powerful in the Force that no matter what, Yoda couldn't beat him. That preventing the Jedi Order from evolving, the Jedi became stagnant to the point where they were basically stuck in first gear. Palpatine tells Anakin that his Master had taught him everything there is to know about the Force. This is telling because he has gained a sizable advantage as a result of his mastery of the Force. Yoda hasn't reached that level because he stopped learning. The Jedi stopped seeking knowledge of the Force and thus they had limited themselves and becoming arrogant in their abilities has hurt them.

It's like in "Man Of Steel" where Jor-El tells Clark that he is powerful, but in order to know how powerful he is, he must continue to push himself. This is then shown with Superman learning to fly as he goes from leaping an eighth of a mile to going into space. He keeps pushing himself to see what he can and cannot do. Yoda and the other Jedi didn't, which in turn is why they cannot defeat the Sith.

More like Sith intervention. As Qui-gon said, he cannot tell Yoda, but he sends him on a quest to see where the answers are. We don't know if the Force is stopping him or the Priestesses are. But Yoda has an opportunity to learn which is the path to self discovery. But Yoda is later warned that in going to Moraband, the Sith will learn of his presence and try to interfere.



Palpatine senses that Yoda is there and seeks to stop whatever it is he is up to. In doing so, he prevents Yoda from finding the truth. Yoda has decided that learning about who Sidious is not as important as he thought it was. That he has to be willing to give up everything, including the Jedi Order and himself, in order to save Anakin.

But Luke only does so because the formerly mortal Obi-wan tells him to. Obi-wan who as he said, would become more powerful if killed by Vader. Obi-wan now guides Luke as part of the Force. They still have to figure things out on their own, which has never changed with the PT and the introduction of a belief in what the Force is. Not to mention what Han says about a mystical energy controlling his destiny and Obi-wan only smiles at how little Han really knows.

 

Even the way the Force is shown in the PT it isn't a god. A mortal can't impose their will on God. The way it's conveyed in SW it's a very flawed supposedly spiritual tool. However, spirit and choice are not at odds like many claim. Mortals always have choices. They may not be pleasant ones but they are there and that is shown just fine in SW.

 

Some of Obi-Wan's lines and expressions might be taken as supporting the notion:

"It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense"
(Obi-wan gives Han a Look)
"I suggest you try it again, Luke. This time, let go your conscious self and act on instinct."

"I call it luck"
"In my experience there's no such thing as luck."

"Damn fool, I knew you'd say that."
"Who's the more foolish - the fool, or the fool who follows him?"

 

You say "didn't have all the facts"...meaning that....ermm, these "facts" (that we didn't have) are introduced after the fact in the PT. They are being retrospectively super-imposed onto the story that didn't have those "facts". Do you know why the OT didn't have those "facts"? Because they weren't "facts" in the OT, the concepts didn't exist at the time in the OT. They were invented in the making of the PT. Nobody watched it "wrong", nobody was missing something because the thing we are supposed to have missed are later "facts" which are being projected onto those movies.

Oh, there are huge differences. In the OT it is the characters, their choices, their development that is the story. The development of the characters is portrayed through their choices. In the PT the characters are driven by unseen forces - their choices are rendered irrelevant. That the Jedi are intended (apparently) to be portrayed as in some way culpable is not based upon their choices (which they make to the best of their abilities given the circumstances they find themselves in) but are about some greater notion of having 'lost their way', 'given up on their principles'...an argument only sustainable on a vague but insistent notion of their not being as the Force would have them...

Lip service is given to the idea that - no, Anakin's turn is his choice......always followed with a "but". Because Anakin's turn isn't about his choice, it's about the Jedi, the Senate....it's about 'The Force'...

Thanks for not addressing the point at all. You are arguing that the PT iconography (Christian inspired virgin birth, chosen one etc.) are there for all to see in the OT....that somehow there are a few of us who simply didn't have "all the facts" and so...missed it. As evidence you cited Jediism, which - as you rightly point out - is (clearly) inspired by the Jedi...and yet that religion is based on an absolute rejection of all the iconography you claim is in the OT. It seems that those inspired by the 'religious' ideas of the Jedi were inspired by the very same reasons I talked about in the OP - that they consider Jediism to be exactly the opposite of what you are arguing we should always have seen it as.

You appear to be dancing between arguments.

Here's what you said in another thread on this issue;

"Yoda made his choice to go confront Sidious, just as he made a choice to run away when he realized he wasn't going to win and could never win. Yoda senses that Anakin has gone rogue when Mace was killed and his faith in the prophecy has been shaken. His only resolve now is to do what he was trained to do, which is try to stop the Sith and it was wrong, because he could have been killed and no one would be there to train Luke. The Force hasn't made the choice for him, but presented a solution. A path to take or to not take."

But more than that, you said;

"Faith in the Force means that they have to trust that everything that has happened has happened for a reason and that it can work itself out. Anakin's greater destiny is that faith. That he can save the galaxy because his best destiny is that he wants to save people."


Just read that and tell me a) how that is in any way the same argument, and b) how that is not an imposition of the will of the Force over choice? Which version of events do you actually ascribe to, what is it that you actually take from the story?

Why does he have to choose to save Anakin though? Because...

"Faith in the Force means that they have to trust that everything that has happened has happened for a reason and that it can work itself out. Anakin's greater destiny is that faith. That he can save the galaxy because his best destiny is that he wants to save people."


The Force. Because it is Anakin's destiny. I'll niote here that you skirt around a couple of issues. You say it may be the Priestesses rather than the Force, but you've also said that the Priestesses represent the Force...so what is the difference? And you narrow what Yoda is fighting for...saying he has to give up himself and the Jedi...what about the galaxy? Those who will be oppressed by the Sith, who will be murdered, exterminated, tortured, enslaved...

But in terms of the discussion, the difference between the OT and the PT's valuative notion of choice, in terms of these PT 'choices' it is because...the Force, or the Force interferes if a wrong choice is taken.

An interventionist, willfully conscious Force absolutely alters the importance of personal choice. There is simply no way around that. As Samuel Vimes has already pointed out, the choices that the Jedi make are driven by the prophecy. They would not make the choices they make were it not for the prophecy (which is, as Lucas informs us, true). And it is "true" because

"Faith in the Force means that they have to trust that everything that has happened has happened for a reason and that it can work itself out. Anakin's greater destiny is that faith. That he can save the galaxy because his best destiny is that he wants to save people."

EDIT: Just to say....omg..it's become all 'magical' now, casting spells in 'ancient tongues'. Could it get any further removed from the OT? Really?

 

This isn't about me. This is about understanding the nature of the story. There is evidence that there was more than what was first seen. It would interest you to know that once upon a time I used to say that the Jedi weren't a religion myself. Up until three years ago. Know what changed my mind? It wasn't a Lucas quote. No, it was a conversation that I had with a guy on a different board, talking about the Saga during the re-release of TPM and the Blu-Ray release of the Saga. He had pointed out something that I hadn't considered before about the Jedi Order, which resulted in my reassessing my earlier belief. Something to consider.

What does it matter if it is preachy or not? Does it even matter? Why it is an issue that the Jedi Order is a religion? I know that you dislike religion, but would it really bother you if it was.

It's no different from other forms of religious discrimination, even when it is an officially recognized religion. What about monks who wear robes going into said shop, would they be discriminated because they're told not to wear their robes on the off chance that they might steal something?

I didn't say they were more important. I've pointed out that the idea of people recognizing the Force and the Jedi was modeled after religion isn't that far fetched.

To which I have two replies.

1. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

2. How do we know that Obi-wan isn't partially a manifestation of the Force speaking to Luke? We've been told that those who die transform into the Force.

Why? Why hate him for his religious beliefs?

Why would it ruin his character? If anything, it would ruin your view of him. Note that Han does change when he says, "May the Force be with you." And note, if it was the same as good luck, then why does Han not repeat that to Lando? Or Major Derlin to Rogue Squadron and the ground troops? Both only say, "Good luck.". Lando is the same way. Leia doesn't say it to Luke, just that her kiss was for luck.

 

Speaking of an 'interventionist' Force as now part of Star Wars:

The trouble is, it's not even a consistent interventionist Force, at that. It's like Samuel Vimes and others have said earlier: if the Force supposedly 'wants' the Sith and especially Sidious destroyed, why can't it destroy Sidious on it's own?

Furthermore, a scenario where one side - the Sith and especially Sidious - is super powerful* compared to the other side - The Jedi - doesn't square imo with an interventionist Force.... unless one can come up with a plausible reason why an interventionist Force would favor Sidious over Yoda, Obi-Wan, or the Jedi as a whole.

*more likely, this phenomenon is a manifestation of the "Strong As They Need To Be" or "All-Powerful Villain" tropes in fiction.

 

I'm not just talking about the PT. ANH refers to the Force and the Jedi as a religion. I know that Lucas didn't change that dialogue. I know that in the first two drafts of ANH, that Lucas referred to the fall of the Jedi as a holy war and that the Jedi were created by a holy man. So some people missed these things originally. It happens. What the PT did was explore that concept further.

People don't exist in a vacuum. Things don't happen in a vacuum. Anakin turns because he made bad choices, but the guidance that he needed in making those choices fall on those who tried to teach him to make the right choices. For instance, you teach a child to understand proper gun safety. And while that child will make a choice to follow those teachings or not, it still falls to the parent to make sure that they understand the responsibility in the first place. If a parent doesn't take certain measures, or the proper measures, then they're as much at fault as the child who doesn't listen. Or doesn't consider the seriousness of the situation.

Again, Christ has the best press agent, but he isn't the only one who is of divine birth. You wouldn't call Zeus's children Christian would you? But there's something else that you're not considering. The Jediism movement wasn't formed around the notion of the Chosen One. It was formed because of the overall beliefs of the Jedi Order, rather than a significant event. And while Christianity does have its own savior, there is more to it than just that.

He had to choose what was more important; winning an unwinnable fight or escaping to train someone else that he was foretold that he would train. Yoda chooses to run because of what he was told. He put his faith in Serenity who told him about Luke. It was 50-50 either way as to what he would do. He just had to decide what he should do, which he had done before.

The difference is that we don't know which it is. We know that they have knowledge of the Force that the Jedi do not. They are willing to pass this knowledge on to the Jedi, but they want to be sure that these Jedi were worthy of this knowledge. They could be the ones driving the actions, but they could also be speaking on the Force's behalf. Yoda and Qui-gon had to choose to believe that what they had to offer was worth learning. If they choose to not believe, then they weren't worthy.

Because what Yoda desired would lead to his undoing. What Yoda had desired was to prevent the future from coming to pass and doing so for selfish reasons, which was to save the Jedi Order. Each test on Moraband centered around the same result, which was join the dark side to save the Jedi Order. Free Sifo-Dyas and he would learn who Darth Sidious was. Give into the dark side and save all the Jedi, when he sees all the dead Jedi. Save himself in order to find out who Darth Sidious is so that he can stop him, or save Anakin who was foretold that he would be the one who stops the Sith. Yoda had to make a choice and he chose to reject the dark side and ultimately give up the Jedi Order by putting his faith in Anakin. Yes, bad things will happen to everyone else. That is life.

But they still make individual choices. Anakin chose to save his son at the expense of his own life, rather than letting Luke die so that he could continue to live and serve Palpatine. His choice would wind up having a bigger boon.

But how does that ruin him that he believes in the Force?

No, it wasn't. My point was that Obi-wan is a Jedi and knows far more about the Force than Han does. That's why he smiles to himself, instead of giving a long lecture or walking up and smacking him upside his head like Mark Harmon does on "NCIS".

You do know the origins of the concept of ghosts and it's ties to religion.

How could Lucas ruin something that was already part of the story to begin with? Doesn't it strike you as weird that in the first draft, there is no energy field. No super powers to be exploited. Yet, within that draft, "the Force of others" exists. What is the Force of others if it was not a super power to be exploited, as Lucas first wrote, compared to what he would start to create? Why would he write that the Jedi Order was created by a holy man?

 

Right...so again, just to be clear: why is the Force Prophecy/Chosen One thing even necessary?

If your argument - where above you say, "the so-called will of the Force" - is to say the the 'will' is just really the desires of the Jedi and the Sith that they both project onto the Force....well, some of us on these forums might be inclined to agree with you.

Right...but darth sinister brought it up and used it as part of his argument, so Samuel-vimes and others are responding to that.

 

Obi Wan helped Luke blow up the Death Star. He was an immortal. In fact, an immortal helps Luke far more than any immortal helps during the PT. There is only one scene in the PT where an immortal helps anyone, as opposed to at least 5 in the OT.

As to the "will of the force."

Obi-Wan: "Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him."
Luke: "You mean it controls your actions?"
Obi-Wan: "Partially. But it also obeys your commands."

Just because something has a will doesn't mean that nothing else does, and it controls everything else.
Raise your hand if you are a hard determinist.

 

Seems the point is some see religious elements in SW and others reject them. To each their own.

 

I'm aware that due to many recent hard determinism presentations and articles that many people are attributing the concept of free will to religion in recent years, and determinism to science, but that's a factual error. Historically, free will and determinism were not associated with religion or science, nor should they be now. After all, religion often cites "God's plan" just as often as it cites free will, and science cites both determinism and free will as well. How often have you heard people say it was all in God's plan when someone dies? That's a very deterministic idea. And many, many scientists believe in free will, while of course acknowledging that we are subject to factors outside of our control. So I wouldn't say that these concepts should be considered religious. Greek tragedies tend to deal with the question of free will vs. fate, just as Episode 1-3 do.

This is the stuff of tragedy, myth, and the hero's journey. I really like how George Lucas made the force something that would partially control you but also obey your actions, because it allows the viewer to ponder what was in control of the characters and what was not. I don't consider that to be a religious element, since it's also an element of scientific research.

 

No, here's how it goes, essentially:

George Lucas: Characters in Star Wars have destinies.

You: What? So you're saying they have no free will?

George Lucas: No, they have free will. My definition of destiny includes the concept of free will.

You: But that's not my definition of destiny! Therefore, even though we basically agree on pretty much everything, I'm going to pretend we disagree because your personal definition of the word "destiny" happens to be different than mine.

------

And around and around we go.

 

darth-sinister I am aware of the early drafts...that just really ties in with what I was getting at with the OP, with the thread itself. TMIS

The early drafts are a cacophony of ideas, there wasn't really a cogent story that was being made from them..there were too many ideas. That was one of the problems that Lucas was having in creating his story, why he brought others in to help him write those stories. A part of what the screenwriters, directors etc did was in paring those ideas down to a cogent set of stories. The OT was a success in part because of that.

Saying that in the OT the Jedi were created by a holy man is no more meaningful than saying Obi-Wan was a cyborg, or Han Solo was reptilian, These were ideas from the drafts, but never made it into the movies. The movies are not the drafts...and in fact the drafts are not even coherent with one another...so that they can't possibly be expected to tell us anything of the actual story.

What Lucas appears to have done with the PT is to have revisited those drafts and decided he could just dump all of those ideas that were pared away back into the story...when it was the paring away of those many ideas that made the OT. He hardly makes things easier by dumping those ideas in on the fly, making this 'complex' tale up as he goes along. What has resulted is an incoherent clamour of ideas that ask more questions of each other than there are answers.

But, as it has become clear, there is one idea in particular, that Lucas has run with...and it is this concept of the prophecy, of Anakin being the 'Chosen One'...the idea, in fact, of an interventionist, willfully (human like) conscious, deistic Force as persona or character. I will say again that idea does not exist in the OT. Nor, as an aspect of that, is there in the OT a notion of an ages old battle between Sith and Jedi (there are no Sith in the OT) - the OT is not angels vs demons.

An aspect of this which is entirely in opposition to the basic notions of the OT is in terms of choice, of how that interventionist Force impacts upon the concept of choice. I will return to this quote to try and underline how much of a difference this makes;

"Faith in the Force means that they have to trust that everything that has happened has happened for a reason and that it can work itself out. Anakin's greater destiny is that faith. That he can save the galaxy because his best destiny is that he wants to save people."

In the OT everything happens for a reason. Alderaan is destroyed because Tarkin chooses to destroy it, using the Death Star - which exists because the hierarchy of the Empire chose to create it. Luke destroys the Death Star because he chose to take part in the attack against it. He got that chance because Biggs chose to vouch for him, and because Han chose to intercede for his friends rather than just take the money and run.

Everything happens for a reason in the OT and those reasons are the choices that characters make.

The major difference between that and the PT conception is that

" everything that has happened has happened for a reason and that it can work itself out."

It can work itself out.... - Choice is irrelevant, 'it' will work 'itself' out. In this PT context the reason everything has happened is...The Force. It is "Anakin's greater destiny" that to be understood as what will work that out. There is no choice to be made but "faith"

But it gets, imo, much worse than that with the TCW arc that you have been describing because here Anakin's 'destiny', the Force's 'will' is achieved through Anakin's turn. The Jedi are 'to blame' because...because the Force has set a riddle that the Jedi cannot answer and so, the Force will have the galaxy under the rule of the Emperor, and all the suffering that entails. So, not only was Anakin's fall not his choice, but was actually a part of his "greater destiny"

This is most assuredly not the Force of the OT which was an energy field, a matrix of all life, in which it was the responsibility of the individual to operate.

KenW you bring up this line "Partially. But it also obeys your commands." which I have seen brought up many times in such discussions. It is introduced because it is the only indication at all in the OT that hte Force might be seen as having a will, of having in some way an interventionist, deistic attribute. But...it is brushed over. Look at the words (and, in fact listen to them) in their context and it becomes clear that aspect of the Force is dismissed very quickly - what actually matters is what you choose to do within it.