Full Series The Jedi: Superheroes?

I know that we are talking about jedi here and maybe not sith, but then how in the world can Darth Bane with just a lightsaber in the third novel, go ahead and deflect every rain drop from a coming storm? Is that EU stuff maybe? Thats pretty impressive if you ask me. What about Exar Kun with that power amulet and force energy killing Freedom Nadd spirit? What about the reborn emperor and that super power force storm. The frist one used to teleport and the second one single handedly destroyed the New Republic fleet? Or what about Naga Sadow and creating the big massive space fleet in the Tales comic? That was some serious stuff. Looking at the movies and the new series, I don't think in hell Dooku or Ventress can do that and Sidious is using all his power to hide from the jedi coucnil, but if we beleive that the force is an entity, and the dark side clouds everything, then its the truning of the force to the dark side that is doing that instead of the one man ownder boy Palps. Very controversial stuff.

 

Haha why is he deflecting rain drops anyway? Is it acid rain or something? Or is he just trying to show off his wrist actions?

I totally buy your points though, unless everyone in the main saga is really weak compared to what comes before and after, the inconsistencies in what is and isn't capable through the Force is laughable.

 

I wasn't even going to. But would you say you've put those jokes in the...Frieza?

 

I need to come clean, I never watched a single DBZ episode.

In answer to your question: Yes. Yes I would.

 

Well, you know, you brought up a good point. In these boards there have been wars over this stuff. I always bring this stuff out beucase, we know what GL said about the force and the jedi, but the EU has brought out some big stuff. Stuff that as time keeps going, keeps changing what the die hards think something should be. Even if the stuff is not EU but introduced through a GL type sponsored media, it still changes the status quo from the late 1990's and early 2000 as we beleive star wars, the force, jedi and sith, and continutiy should be. This has brought out major flame wars.

Can we clone jedi? According to prior stuff no, but that changed somewhat with the Force Unleshed 2, and the god knows the next book from Kemp thats coming out.
Is the Emperor/Sidious the supreme master sith lord of the dark side? Well GL said he is, the EU has shown some expanded stuff, but my question is, if he is so powerful in ROTJ, why didn't he levitate back up when Vader through him down the shaft? Why? Was it GL, the story, lack of special effects, maybe there not that powerful, but then the EU is not right about him either type thing? All he did in the prequels, was just hide from the jedi, but the force if it has an entity moving to the dark side can blind jedi. Never really understood that, but it's there.
and the list can go on and on and on.

 

Cloning Jedi goes all the way back to Heir to the Empire.

 

The Luke clone...

Joruus C'Baoth...

Luke's characterization in that book...

That plotline was SO bad...

 

The poster above me implied cloning Force-users was something assumed to be impossible before The Force Unleashed II, so I just gave the oldest example I could remember of that happening. I remember loving the books when I read them, but that's not really relevant.

 

Well it's EU-stuff.... but how exactly he did do that?- Should be easy actually if you just use "force protect" meaning you shield yourself with the Force so you won't get wet- but that's just wasting your talent and "force pool"

Ouch i don't think it was bad it was nothing like saga naturally..... but better than some Mortis-crap or most comics at least most EU is much worse.... TFU2 was also quite a failure only thing i liked was depiction of Imperial Cato Neimoidia- wanna see Tarko in TCW but Starkiller's clone.... it was and plotline was and final duel was poorly done and game was far too short... idea of jedi clone was better but it was wasted in TFU2... and how they actually are gonna tie it up with ANH? Boba releases Vader but what happens to Juno and Kota?- no one died in TFU2 light side ending- is dark side ending canon then?.... but no way it had also one Starkiller alive....- all Starkillers have to die to makes sense with OT.....

 

There is a pro to the more powerful Jedi concept, in that it works better with the OT in my mind. I feel like the powers we see in the OT should be only the tip of the iceberg, that these ancient keepers of the peace we hear so much about, to live up to their legacy, should be very powerful and more importantly very idealistic. I feel that the odd bureaucratic ways of the PT Jedi hurt them more than their lack of power.
The old CW series, while making the Jedi more powerful than they ever were on film and causing discrepancy there, made the Jedi feel the way i would have imagined them before the PT. The sith too. Anakin and Ventress's fight is straight out of a Wuxia film, their actions defined by their emotions and visa versa, larger than life and yet personal. When Anakin finally unleashes his anger and strikes at Ventress so hard the ground beneath her falls, you can feel his darkness growing, unlike if that scene would have happened in TCW, where it would have just felt like the next part of a fight (and they wouldn't have had the cliff break like that).

 

My favourite part of that whole fight was Anakin's victory yell at the end.

 

A Wikipedia article states that the jedi are partly based on th Xia of chinese legend.
"literally means ?wandering force?, but is commonly translated as ?knight-errant? or less commonly as ?cavalier?, ?adventurer?, ?soldier of fortune?, and ?underworld stalwart?. The term ?wandering force? refers to the way these men solely traveled the land using force (or influence through association with powerful people) to right the wrongs done to the common people and the monarchy if need be. Youxia did not come from any social class in particular. Various historical documents, wuxia novels, and folktales describe them as being princes, government officials, poets, musicians, physicians, professional soldiers, merchants, and butchers. Some were just as handy with a calligraphy brush as others were with swords and spears."

 

my goodness i hate that.... it's ridiculous it makes me laugh though

I don't think jedi need to be superduper heroes they are cool enough in PT but apparently many fans had completely different picture of their powers than what Lucas had.... it's odd since even in ANH we see jedi master in action and that's nothing like CW-jedi.... far from it.... there is some balance need to be found between overpowerful and too powerless- it is great to see jedi sometimes using the Force well in TCW (like Saberthrow in VOT) but i'm also fine with PT-jedi who can be defeated by Jango Fett kind of badass-characters... Cad Bane need to be killed though he have already defeated enough jedi

 

I do think Jedi should be able to be killed by bad-ass non Jedi, but that just means the bad ass non jedi need to step up their game. In a story, anyone can defeat anyone if written/filmed correctly.
And the masters we see in the OT are old, retired, exiled, out of practice-just a faint reminder of what was. That's part of why it's disappointing to me that they're really about as good as Jedi in their prime.
I don't think PT Jedi should have been CW in strength, i don't have a problem with CW but i don't think it'd work in any form but animation. But i do think they should have been a little more heroic and mythic in the PT, unless they made it that the elements of the Order that feel wrong purposefully hypocritical. It's hard for me to buy it when people argue that the faults i see with PY Jedi were on purpose because it was supposed to show how they needed to change, it's just not presented that way. And since star wars is at least partly for kids, although things shouldn't be dumbed down you shouldn't have to read novels and discuss on message boards to understand the plot/morals.

 

They should focus on more flaws of the jedi in this show- they're simply boring if they have no flaws and apparently they have- jedi need to be fleshed out as individuals with conflicting views and internal moral conflict- not bunch of Yoda clones "Let go you must all you fear to lose- dark side i feel clouds everything yeeeesss" Yoda represents one view ok- other jedi should have their own versions without being automatically evil or corrupted like Dooku or Anakin-clones with attachment-issue..... there is much more views about the Force good guy/hero can have and searching for the good and right choices- it is not always rooting for the Republic and slicing battledroids of evil CIS-people- it should be more complicated..... we need militarist jedi (Kota?), some radical Qui-Gon type- still in the order but having personal views that conflict with the council (Anyone), married Ex-jedi with children(Kento Marek?), some secret jedi-romance revealed- (Shaak/Ki-Adi , Kit/Aayla)
something dirt at least- some violent jedi who gave up to Dark side and committed atrocities against seppies?......

 

Well not to bring up old stuff, but the EU is really whacked with this stuff. All those continuty buffs and defenders of books and comics, swear that it is gospel. Well lets see, In the conitnuity line we have the Kevin J. Anderson books....... Does anyone remember Dorsk 81 and what he did to channel what 17 other jedi's powers together? To force push a bunch of Imperial II class star destroyers to the other side of the galaxy? Yeah, he dies at the end becuase....get this too much force power usage. We never saw that in the movies at all from the prequels to the original trilogy.

One thing I did love about the Heri to the Empire trilogy was that the stories were not over the top, and there was always checks and balances, and the force was an after thought just like in the movies. No question about being super powered god or anything like that. In fact, some consider those three books as the best sequels to the original trilogy due to all characters being involved and the way things were protrayed.

Now back to another super force power, what about luke in the Champions of the Force book, when he get knocked out and in spirit assists the young jedi in fighting the creatures. Common, thats far fetched if you ask me, we never say Obi-Wan come back and help him in ROTJ in fighting Vader or deflecting the lighting from the Emperor. And no, let not talk about deleted scenes or stuff written in the script was drooped or not used.

What about Kyp pulling the starcrusher from the depths of who knws what. Of course with the help of a spirit that should not be able to do anything with the force...absolutly nothing. And pulling a ship that weighs a lot from the "G" forces of that storm where they hid the ship? Wow, thats really ridiculos. Not even Anakin with 1,000,000 midis should be able to do that.
So in the end, are they super heroes or what? Nope, they are as GL meant them to be refuular swords man with a little teelekinis, nothing else. The rest is bs

 

Vong333 -- all of those examples you gave of over-the-top Jedi powers in the EU came from a single author -- Kevin J. Anderson. Most EU fans I know regularly denounce that guy's stuff for being over-the-top -- he's not representative of the entire EU's take on Jedi as a whole, or even the average.

 

IMHO the average Jedi should be akin to extremely well trained representatives of their species with a little extra "oomph" from the Force. A foolish man would still be a foolish Jedi, in other words, but with insight and strength from the Force, Jedi should on average be better than the average non-Jedi and seem invincible enough to the vast majority who have never encountered Jedi before.

MORE powered than SUPER powered.

 

Eh, that is just one step away from "let's make the Jedi incompetent redshirts." Either they are superpowered, or unpowered; badass or worthless cannon fodder. There really isn't a middle ground.

Enemy armies really should need a few hundred soldiers just to contain one. Not ten. More like five hundred.

 

Can't they be Badass AND conflicted? This is a problem i see often, like people that think you can't have a good Superman story because he's near-invincible. There are a lot more flaws out there than physical ones, and a lot more ways to fail than to lose a fight. All it means is that writers have to be creative and think outside the box, deeper about the motivations of their characters.

So for Jedi, they could be near mythical in power, firmly idealistic in their code and more Knight-Errant than knight of the round table, and still be complex individuals. Each one is following that code for a different reason, with a different take. And with all that power, things are bound to go wrong sometimes (Vader, for one). And if their opponents were more worthy, it wouldn't hurt so much to have them be so strong.

 

Conflicted badasses are a great type of badass. But they actually have to be badass. Not redshirts.

 

The Jedi can be seen as a sort of Deconstructed/Reconstructed version of my aforementioned Xia/Knight-Errant type, with those that fall being the deconstruction while those that stay valiant being a reconstruction. There is a fine line between enforcing, policing and intervening, and this idea of a wandering warrior who rights wrongs can be twisted or be shown as truly heroic. Really, the concept is a lot more nuanced than people give it credit for, both anarchic and fascist depending on how it's done, and Jedi, with their vast power, could easily showcase a wide range of takes on that. And in some ways they already do, but they could go so much farther.

I feel this relevant to this thread because i feel that this archetype is more important to a superhero than superpowers. Batman is just as much a Superhero as Superman because he's a modern version of this trope. So yes, i do think Jedi should be superheroes. I also think they should be generally quite powerful, but more importantly, they should be this, wherever on the scale of deconstruction to reconstruction they lie.

Also, couldn't this thread be on Saga or Community? This is a larger issue than just TCW.

 

I like your points and the reference to the Xia.

Yeah it probably could, I just feel most at home in LACWAC if mods can transplant this thread into there, that'd be great, it's obvious that it's an interesting topic to everyone and moving it would only get it more attention.

I'm also very happy that everyone has been kind enough to contribute towards the debate, regardless of my measly 1 star or Feb'11 join date. It's nice that unlike so many other forums, newcomers are welcomed with open arms and accepted into the community without discrimination or exclusion.

 

Bah saying that there isn't a middle ground is just excuse to avoid compromise - "there is no middle either you agree or you're wrong"- oh yeah you are quite an extremist once again- superpowered jedi can use entire galaxy to smash another superpowered sith and that means they are actually gods with no limits - so there definitely is a middle ground and you know there is just the right area

- it's all about balance once again and by denying the existence of "middle ground" between two extremes you really are making yourself very irritating- such an inflexible opinion is something i cannot agree.... my opinion is that jedi shouldn't be superpowered but not incompetent either- so little bit more power than in TCW but less than in Kevin's books or CW- there is the right area.... and if you say that area don't exist then you apparently are wrong since it's usual in EU and also in movies themselves or so i see it... even TFU manages to stay mainly in that area if we ignore the gaming part....

 

Yea, i for one do think there can be a middle ground. CW, as i said, worked great for me but only because it was animated and stylized-it would not fit in any other medium, save maybe a video game. I do think they could be considerably more powerful than they are in TCW without reaching that level however.

Although i do think that 5 forcechokes at once is a biiit much, and Ventress did that in TCW. That wasn't really because of the power involved and more the signature feel of the forcechoke, just doesn't feel right to be done to more than two people, and should usually be done to one person at a time.