ST The Force, the Chosen One, Balance, and the ST

"Oftentimes, I flip flop on everything I say, so quoting me all of the time is rather pointless. Now excuse me while I make pointless changes to the extended Blu-Ray cut of Red Tails that combines it with the SW saga like I always intended."

--George Lucas, Your Mom's House, 1492

 

Will be interesting what twist is brought up in the ST for this.

 

I wish that the prophecy was that Anakin would "bring light to The Force", not "bring balance to The Force".

 

why does the force need to be in balance and what does that mean?? To me balance means that the light side is in power and thus there is harmony. If it means equal amount of light side and darkside energy( ying/yang) then truly Anakin's sacrifice did not bring the force into balance because most of the dark was then destroyed. So What is balance?

 

What is balance without equal amounts of light and dark?

 

Balance for GL means the light has a little dark in it which is necessary for their coherence and existence.

 

I thought I would add this to the discussion...


(This is a basically a copy-paste of this answer I already provided to the linked question, the question itself may not be an exact duplicate, but I feel this answer completely answer this question)
What the Jedi Order call "balance" is not the middle point between dark and light side, its the absence of Dark Side use :

Traditional Jedi were keen to keep the Force "in balance". They attempted to achieve this by destroying the Sith and denying the dark side—essentially "keeping balance" by restoring the Force to its natural state, as they viewed the dark side as "corruption".​

- Wookipedia article about "The force" section "The Jedi Order" paragraph 2​

Also, about the Chosen One prophecy :

The idea of balance of the Force, a central tenet of the Jedi Order, refers to the ideal state in which the Force exists in nature, i.e. as the light side. The presence of the dark side corrupts and destroys this natural balance, and the Jedi viewed it as their duty to restore it.​

- Wookipedia article about the "Chosen One"​

Finally As from Georges Lucas's intention :

Many fans incorrectly assume that balance refers to an equal mix of both light and dark side users. However, as George Lucas explains in the introductory documentary for the VHS version A New Hope, Special Edition, this is not the case:​

"[...] Which brings us up to the films 4, 5, and 6, in which Anakin's offspring redeem him and allow him to fulfill the prophecy where he brings balance to the Force by doing away with the Sith and getting rid of evil in the universe..."​

In an interview, Lucas compared the difference between the light and dark sides as being like the difference between a symbiotic relationship and a cancer. A symbiotic relationship is one which benefits both parties and in which neither is harmed, whereas a cancer takes without giving back, eventually causing the death of both parties​

 

Actually- the quote was about the dynamic between Sith Master and Sith Apprentice:

"And for thousands of years, the master would teach the apprentice, the master would die, the apprentice would then teach another apprentice, 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."

 

Personally, I think the prequels could have done without all that unnecessary Jesuschristification of Anakin. I get the feeling GL only did it because he couldn't figure out a convincing way to show a good man transition to a rampaging murderer without having him be progressively more bitchy and murderous, so he invented a divine 'good guy' prophecy to make it seem artificially more poignant.

The PT narrative doesn't exactly fit with what we learn about Vader's past in the OT, either. We learn from Ben that Anakin was a super duper top notch guy, who tragically succumbed to the dark side, that the difference between Anakin and Vader was so extreme that his good persona was completely demolished almost indefinitely. In the PT we see Anakin going down a dodgy path pretty much from the get go, with him doing some pretty terrible stuff pretty much off his own back. Lucas tries to make this feel more tragic by way of the Christlike prophecy, because all in all Annie was a bit of a horrible guy from the get go apart from that. His fall from grace would have been more tragic if he'd actually been a more noble and compassionate guy along the same lines as Luke, who simply got tricked by the devil, instead of all the over the top 'I AM GOING TO BECOME AN EVIL DUDE' stuff that was constantly happening with his character.

 

This is like the best post on this thread.

 

I think the prophecy was fulfilled by Luke, and that Luke is the true chosen one. I'm guessing they won't speak much of the prophecy in the sequels.

 

Prophecies don't switch chosen ones halfway.

 

If the galaxy is not at peace and the Republic has yet to rebuilt, then we have to assume Anakin either didn't balance the Force or else he simply set a longterm process going that his heirs would eventually see through to completion.

I don't think people should read the prophecy too literally anymore (or ever) -- when Lucas came up with the idea, it was meant for a six film Saga. No matter how you cut it now, with an ST, the prophecy has to be reinterpreted in a larger, more general way.

Personally, I have no problem with this statement: Anakin was the Chosen One but Luke the real hero of the Saga. Anakin is too much of a tragic hero to be the hero. Luke's arc is much cleaner and free of child murder.

 

They do if they're written by Lucas.



Heyooooo

 

I think Anakin DID fulfill the prophecy.

The Jedi order is gone. The Sith order is gone. All that is left is Luke, who is not a "Jedi" in the Prequel sense, he's something else, he walks the line between the light said and the dark side. There is only the Force.

The Galaxy still being at war, and no New Republic really has nothing at all to do with it.

Make no mention of the prophecy in the ST. Just don't bring it up.

 

I disagree. If putting the Force back into balance doesn't have anything to do with actual events in the galaxy, like war and peace and corruption, then who cares if it is balanced or not?

Lucas understand this and someone a few pages back (I believe in this thread) quoted him to this effect.

To balance the Force (life) suggests an equal effect on galactic events (you know, living beings doing things).

 

All that is left is Luke, who is not a "Jedi" in the Prequel sense, he's something else, he walks the line between the light said and the dark side

sorry but that is stupid. Luke defeated the dark side when he let go of it in ROTJ. So how can he walk the line? That is not Luke to me.

 

It's like Frozen! Luke uses love to control his dark side powers!

 

All we really know from the movies, is that the prophecy says someone will bring balance to the force. There's no indication that it actually talks about the personality of the person who brings balance, and how much of a good guy they are.

Anakin seems like so much more of a bad guy than Luke, because the Jedi Order have a different standard of what "good" is.. Luke doesn't have someone harping on him about attachment all the time - the level of what's acceptable in his situation is different. So, to the viewer Anakin seems worse, because we're seeing it through the eyes of the Jedi Order moreso. Sure, he killed Dooku.. But Mace was going to do the exact same thing to Sidious for the exact same reasons.

As a side note, there was a post from someone on here in another thread who watched Star Wars for the first time in order of 1 to 6. They pointed out that the Chosen One prophecy actually worked really well to trick them into believing in ROTS that Anakin will do the right thing no matter what (not knowing he becomes Vader). The hints to him having issues appear to be a bait-and-switch tactic to someone who's watching the episodes in order.

 

You cannot defeat a metaphysical energy field.

 

Unless you destroy the generator.

 

Or you just retcon the **** out of it.

 

The generator of the Force. I wanna see it.

Retcon the Force out of Star Wars? Nah, there have been enough Star Trek movies.

 

We need more obviously. More money too.