The Presentation of Jedi in the O-OT

I was wondering when people first watched the Original Classic Trilogy, what their perceptions of the Jedi were. In Star Wars, Obi-Wan describes the Jedi as "the guardians of peace and justice", but how did you expand on that in your own imagination? How did you expect Lucas to portray the Jedi at the peak of their powers?

Personally, I believed that the Jedi would be a collective body, with some sort of hierarchy of leadership, similar to the council we see in the PT. But unlike the PT council, I expected it to be a more loose gathering. Rather than all collected on a single planet, coucil members would be spread out throughout the galaxy, communicating via hologram rather than in person.

I thought that the Jedi would take on pupils that the force guided them too, similarly to how Qui-Gon stumbled upon Anakin. These perspective Jedi would have to have the right frame of mind and a selfless attitude for them to be accepted. Before they began there training they would be taken to a Jedi Master, like Yoda, to make sure they were suitable.

This brings me to what I perceived the difference to be between Jedi Knights and Jedi Masters. In the OT Obi-Wan always talks of himself and Anakin as Jedi Knights, and Yoda as a Jedi Master, so therefore there must be some sort of distinction. I thought that rather than actively going out on adventures, Jedi Masters would reflect more and be more reclusive. They would not use lightsabers unlike the Jedi Knights, as they would be too powerful to have use of them.

Those are some of the perceptions I had of the Jedi pre-1999. What were yours when watching the O-OT?

 

some of your ideas are the same ones i had.

I expected fewer masters, they i thought were teachers and council leaders.

I expected the council to be in one place but never imagined they'd answer to the senate.

I expected the Knights to be more a force of Samauri or Medievil Knights in that I expected them to be a form of Police force, not your local beat cops per se. Those would have been town guards in a medievil society. I didn't give it a lot of thought without influence by the EU but that was mostly between 90 and 95 and not really good books and most dealt with post RotJ only hinting at the PT.

I did not think the masters would use sabers and i still think it was a mistake to have yoda and sidious use them.

 

My vision was pretty similar to what we saw in the PT, except (as already said, only a few Masters). Even before the PT came out, I always assumed Yoda was the leader of the Jedi.

I can remember me and a friend pretending to be Anakin and Obi-Wan, fighting Bounty Hunters, and having to imagine what the two would look like in their younger days.

 

hehe bet you were suprised when you found out that Yoda wasn't head of the council or the jedi's undisputed leader or anything like that.

I was a bit suprised to see Mace making all the decisions and listening to yoda as if he defered a bit to Yoda's wisdom but not his athority.

 

I had always thought of Jedi as an amalgam of shaolin monk, zen master and Templar Knight. I obsessed in my youth in games and stories about all kinds of hero/warriors like Spartans and the Celtic tales from my own tradition, so when the PT came around I was ecstatic at the thought of seeing the greatest heroes of them all. I have to say as much as the OT is ingrained in my formative consciousness I felt the whole saga is ultimately about a weak, ineffective order and instead of a collection of greatness we spend the entire PT watching the slow death of characters I wasn't able to empathize with.

 

That's a good point. The way Obi-Wan spoke of the Jedi, it always seemed to me that the reason they were destroyed was because of Anakin's betrayal. They were effective in what they did, and if it hadn't been for Anakin turning they would have continued to be effective.

 

The Jedi in the Prequel Trilogy, as they are portrayed, are an embarrassment to the term Jedi from the Original Trilogy.

Instead of the wise, but headstrong characters, they just nod and follow Yoda (PT-wise). Just say:"The Dark Side coulds everything" and you move on.

Yoda in the Original Trilogy is what you would expect from a Jedi. Straight to the point, doing what is necessary for their survival.

 

I didn't have a well-defined view of the Jedi in the O-OT, as an order. They worked with the military, they were many and part of a well-established instituion, probably more peace-keepers in their use for military issues, had a hiarchy run by Jedi master, possibly a central master, too. That was about it. I didn't expect the "only one master to one student" rule.

 

I posted this a few days ago but I think it applies to your question, what do you think?

During the prequel trilogy we see jedi united through doctrine, working together for the common wealth of all the denizens of the republic and bound together by the force, yet the vast bulk of material including and beyond the saga is about individual dissent. Yoda sees Qui-Gon's defiance in Obi-Wan when he decides to take Anakin as his padawan, Anakin in turn is continually aggressive, angry and disobedient to the point of committing murder (of the sand people and Count Dooku). (Forgive me for mentioning the EU but a little latitude please) In the expanded universe Kyle Katarn refuses to join the new fledgeling Jedi order but still wields force powers and a light saber. Personal connections, we hear from Yoda, lead to the dark side which is presumably why they are forbidden yet Luke Skywalker marries, indeed so many things that are presented as forbidden are completely ignored, does forbidden translate as optional? Even personal dress becomes individual choice, I understand that Luke Skywalker's black outfit is mostly symbolic in 'Return of the Jedi' but he does not return to the traditional robes of the bloodline he has inherited after the battle of Endor. In the 'Jedi Academy' game and covers of the 'Legacy' comic books, Jedi appear as a shambolic, rag-tag collection of nondescript side-show performers, the only common identifiable seems to be the light saber which can be obtained from almost any junk dealer (as is evident from the 'Knights of the Old Republic' game). Around the time we, the viewer, jump (cinematically) into the Star Wars universe seeds of dissent and individualism at the expense of harmony have been growing for some time and lead directly to a dark side shift in the Force with terrible consequences. I had always thought of the Jedi as more Monk than warrior and they represented a vein of calmness and stability running through the entire Star Wars Universe yet this universal common denominator seems to be in a state of continuous flux which depends largely on the fancies of a particular author and not from official canon. Is it any wonder the Jedi fell so easily when they scurried across the galaxy at the behest of their political masters to deal with a taxation dispute(!) when surely their primary observance should be the will of the Force. I know that in our liberal democracy obedience is a dirty word but isn't the demise of the Jedi symbolic of the dangers of propagating the individuals rights and desires separate from the rights of society?

 

I never expected them to be so isolated and monkish. I imagined them actually having families and being more involved in politics and "policework", so to speak. It took a little while for me to warm up to the ultimate presentation in the PT, but I think it works. I still like Luke's new Order much better. The new Jedi seem more human.

 

I never had a clear vision of what the Jedi had been like in the old Republic. I only knew that there would be a lot of them and that Obi-Wan, Anakin and Yoda would be among them.
I was actually surprised to see Yoda in a position of "power". For some reason, it had never occured to me that Yoda might be one of the leaders of the Order. I guess it didn't even occur to me that the Order would have leaders.
Come to think of it, whenever I imagined what had happened before the OT, Yoda was never part of my vision. My focus was on Anakin and Obi-Wan. Yoda wasn't really anything more to me than an old Jedi Master in the swamps of Dagobah. That's because I never gave the pre-OT events much thought, of course. I might've begun doing so if it had taken a couple more years for Lucas to release the PT, though.

Regarding the Jedi Purge, I never imagined that the Order would fall because of Anakin turning to the dark side. He helped the Empire hunt down and destroy them, that's all. His betrayal was, for the most part, personal.





Betrayal - it's personal
/Flames

 

THE JEDI ORDER

I somehow imagined that the Jedi Order would all be hermits liek Yoda and Kenobi spread out across the Galaxy helping to keep peace and order in their respective geographical locations while communicating through the Force or some sort of sophisticated holonet.



ANAKIN SKYWALKER

I always imagined Anakin as being much older when he fell to the temptation of the Dark Side. And I imagined Luke and Leia's mother to be a common woman and not a noble or diplomat.

 

Well said! I think you summed up very well how I too felt about them after watching the PT. For so much of the PT, they were twiddling their thumbs and looking badly inept, but perhaps that was the point GL was trying to make all along. I just had a different vision in my mind when I first heard Obi-Wan talk about them to Luke in that cave on Tatooine. I had romantic notions of them being strong in all manner of ways and most importantly honourable. Funnily enough, I thought the Clone Wars cartoons had a great take on the Jedi, and I adored the way they were portrayed in the animated series. For that matter, the graphic novels do them a lot more justice then the films do as well, imo.

Oh and lavo, your second post in this thread was also great reading!

 

Thanks Dark one, those were my first ever posts and I'm really glad to find somewhere to vent and exchange my views. I'm a graphic artist and sometime comic book penciler and I love drawing Jedi so I had this idea about a single padawan taking on and completely destroying an entire battalion of the Empire, force powers to the max, taking no prisoners with some old school hack and slash action, no prophecies or 'chosen one' B.S. I'm almost finished and there is a lot of satisfaction being able to visualise characters with real power the way I hoped the PT should have shown.

Lavo

 

I do not view Anakin and Palpatine as the causes of the Jedi Order's destruction. I view them as mere catalysts of their final downfall. But I believe that the Jedi, themselves, were responsible for putting themselves in a position to be destroyed. In the end, they were their own worst enemies.

 

I thought i would never completely agree with one of your posts

but there it is, every word is pure truth!








J/K, we've agreed before but we've been having fun debating lately

 

The universe explodes.

 

of course seeing as how i grew up on the PT, i can't really say. but for my 2 cents, when Obi-Wan describes what happened to the Jedi in a new hope, he makes them out to be these Great Warriors who stood for peace and justice, before the dark times.

 

What do we know from the OT?

- The Jedi were guradians of peace and justice in the old republic.
- They fought in the clone wars, so there was a military aspect to the Jedi.
- They were wiped out by the empire, helped by Anakin Skywalker.
- Jedi were trained at a young age.
- Yoda was a powerful Jedi Master.
- The weapon of a Jedi as a lightsaber.

That's not really much to go on, however if you look at the PT, all of the above is shown to be true.

- The Jedi were guradians of peace and justice in the old republic.
First shown in TPM when two Jedi are sent to settle the trade dispute with the Trade Federation and end the blockade of Naboo
- First shown when two Jedi are sent to settle the trade dispute and end the blockade of Naboo in TPM
- Shown at the end of AOTC and throughout ROTS, with the Jedi commanding the clone army
- The Jedi are wiped out by the clones in order 66 and Anakin takes clones to the temple to kill Jedi
- Shown in TPM where Anakin was considered too old and then shown again in AOTC where Yoda is training younglings.
- Fight with Dooku and Sidious
- Jedi have a lightsaber in every movie.

So what we know about the Jedi in the OT is shown to be true in the PT but there is no mention of how the Jedi operate in the OT which left it open to imagination for 20 years.

 

We see that he is a wise Jedi Master. I never expected him to be disproportionately powerful next to the other Jedi masters. Though I'm not *surprised* that that's the direction they went with, if you see what I mean.

On what do you base this? Yoda telling Luke that he is "too old to begin the training"? Luke was twenty two at that point - I certainly didn't expect *NINE* to be too old.

My two pence:

I didn't really expect Obi-Wan's Tattooine robes to become the basis of the Jedi "Uniform", despite Anakin appearing as a ghost in the exact same robes. (Call me stupid). In fact, I didn't really think that they'd have a uniform at all, or even be as unified a body as they were, and I certainly didn't expect the "Jedi Order" to be subservient to the Senate. I always got the impression that it was a very "loose" body, with no overarching council - scattered throughout the galaxy, each defending peace and justice in their own way, some through pacifism, others through battle etc etc.

So, whilst I knew *Obi Wan* would become a general, I didn't assume that this meant "all the other Jedi" would become generals too. Just that it was his way of contributing to the protection of the galaxy.

I also assumed that the Jedi Order would already be in great decline by the opening of the prequels, with Force sensitivity on an all time low - and that Anakin's "amazing strength in the Force" would be seen as the "Hope of the Jedi" (my prediction for the Episode I title... not that great, but I thought that I would mirror VI, II would mirror V and III would mirror IV)*... only for it to all go wrong when he was seduced to the dark side of the Force... this is... kinda what happened anyway in a sense.

I'm not suggesting my thoughts are better than what we got in the prequels, just that they were what I had speculated to myself.

* These are the titles I predicted back when I was a wee lad of eleven/twelve:

Episode I: Hope of the Jedi
Episode II: The Republic Fights Back (hahaha )
Episode III: A Sith Lord

Crap huh?

 

If Luke, a 20 year-old, is too old then they've have to be least teenagers. That is pretty young to me. Even though it came as a surprise to me that they were trained from infancy.

 

I agree that saying Luke is too old at 20 and then Anakin is too old at 9 is pushing it. I definitely get the idea that Jedi training can start at a point later than, oh, 5. Technically its not a continuity error, but it feels weird that 9 is too old.

Regarding Yoda's power, ESB makes a point to tell us he is powerful, but power and lightsaber fighting is different. He does not seem, nor was portrayed as a warrior type, where as Kenobi who we saw had a saber on hand at all times, was.

 

Well when I first saw the OT I never expected the Jedi to be what they are in the PT. I thought they would be a smaller group,maybe keeping lower profiles then getting involved with politics. Obi Wan made it seem like there would be multiple apprentices to one master,and that they were like older, slower but wiser men.

I never imagined Anakin Skywalker,Yoda,Dooku,Mace or Maul back then, It just never seemed possible.

 

Actually this is quite true. Had Anakin not interviened, Mace would have killed Darth Sidious ending the Sith Order forever. The Jedi would have assumed control of the Senate until they appointed a new Chancellor, and the Sepratist forces would have been crushed with no leadership. I also guess that the ARMY of the REPUBLIC would have eventually been decommishioned or turned in to a much smaller peacekeeping force.

This is assuming of course that Mace would have been successful after all and that Palpatine was not entirely faking his disadvantage, but let's do it for the sake of argument.