The prophecy is coming true

Wow, this is interesting.

But it raises bucket loads of questions in my mind if its true.

My question is where do the Sith, two at the most, get the power to control the dark side in this way - masking the future for ALL 10,000 Jedi?

Huh?

And how is Luke able to overcome this?

 

Well, I would simply assume that the source of power for seeing into the future would also have a much more in depth ability for those commited to the Dark Side to mask the future.
That might very well be how Palpatine is able to keep himself hidden from the Jedi in TPM and why Yoda suggests that the Dark Side is hard to see.

EDIT: oh yes, I forgot, Luke.
I have no idea how he can overcome that, other then the implication that he's simply the son of the Chosen One.

 

Quote:

"Well, I would simply assume that the source of power for seeing into the future would also have a much more in depth ability for those commited to the Dark Side to mask the future."

I don't follow. Could you rephrase that?

I understand your other points though.

EDIT: Are you saying that those on the Dark Side have the ability to mask the future just as those on the "Light" Side have the ability to peer into the future?

If so, then would that mean only those on the Light side have the ability to see into the future?

 

No, you're getting it though.
What I'm suggesting is that those who dance around the dark side only to view the future such as Yoda can only see into the future.
Those who delve deeper into it like Palpatine can master the ability to see the future and events much more easily and with greater depth because of total devotion to the dark side.
In other words, he can hide himself because of his devotion to the dark side.

 

Luke doesn't see the future till after his failure at the cave.

The full text:

YODA: Concentrate... feel the Force flow. Yes. Good. Calm, yes. Through the Force, things you will see. Other places. The future... the past. Old friends long gone.

Luke suddenly becomes distressed.

LUKE Han! Leia!

The two packing boxes and Artoo fall to the ground with a crash, then Luke himself tumbles over.

YODA (shaking his head) Hmm. Control, control. You must learn control.

LUKE I saw... I saw a city in the clouds.

YODA Mmm. Friends you have there.

LUKE They were in pain.

YODA It is the future you see.

LUKE Future? Will they die?

Yoda closes his eyes and lowers his head.

YODA Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.

LUKE I've got to go to them.

YODA Decide you must how to serve them best. If you leave now, help them you could. But you would destroy all for which they have fought and suffered.

Luke is stopped cold by Yoda's words. Gloom shrouds him as he nods his head sadly.

EXT. DAGOBAH - BOG - DUSK

In the bright lights of the fighter, Luke loads a heavy case into the belly of the ship. Artoo sits on top of the X-wing, settling down into his cubbyhole.
Yoda stands nearby on a log.

YODA Luke! You must complete the training.

LUKE I can't keep the vision out of my head. They're my friends. I've got to help them.

YODA You must not go!

LUKE But Han and Leia will die if I don't.

BEN'S VOICE You don't know that.

Luke looks toward the voice in amazement. Ben has materialized as a real, slightly shimmering image near Yoda. The power of his presence stops Luke.

BEN Even Yoda cannot see their fate.

LUKE But I can help them! I feel the Force!

BEN But you cannot control it. This is a dangerous time for you, when you will be tempted by the dark side of the Force.

YODA Yes, yes. To Obi-Wan you listen. The cave. Remember your failure at the cave!

LUKE But I've learned so much since then. Master Yoda, I promise to return and finish what I've begun. You have my word.

BEN It is you and your abilities the Emperor wants. that is why your friends are made to suffer.

LUKE And that is why I have to go.

BEN Luke, I don't want to lose you to the Emperor the way I lost Vader.

LUKE You won't.

YODA Stopped they must be. On this all depends. Only a fully trained Jedi Knight with the Force as his ally will conquer Vader and his Emperor. If you end your training now, if you choose the quick and easy path, as Vader did, you will become an agent of evil.

BEN Patience.

Some heavy implications there. Does Anakin have a similar vision of a future he feels compelled to take preventitive action against? Is that where Obi-Wan loses him to the Emperor?

 

The Emperor had foreseen Luke coming to Vader in ROTJ. So I guess that rules out my theory that only Jedi and not Sith can forsee the future.

I guess there really is a reason the Dark Side is called... the Dark Side.

 

One reason why Luke can see the future and see through the mask may be that there is no mask.

Remember, Darth Vader is using Luke's friends as bait. It's not very useful if you keep the bait in the boat. You have to put it in the water where the fish can see it.

So why would Darth Vader capture Lukes friends, torture them, and have the Emperor use the force to hide that from Luke's vision? He wouldn't.

 

Do the Sith deliberately probe the future with the darkside while Jedi wait for the visions to come?

Otherwise, it does put a new twist on Luke's vision on Dagobah.

 

*bookmarks thread*

I'll keep a close eye on this one.

 

Yoda tried to see what was going to happen to Luke's friends on Dagobah, so I don't think so.

 

Very cool stuff! As it has been said earlier, this definately has some great implications. Have you ever wondered what the draw to the dark side is? If this continues to unravel itself then it would shed great light on the character of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader (especially after we get a glimpse at some of the deleted scenes on the Ep1 DVD).

Now we can begin to understand what Vader meant on Cloud City as he was trying to turn Luke and said, "If you only knew the Power of the Dark Side." Way to go PD! Keep it comin' man!

 

Always in motion is the future.

I thought this was the reason why the jedi couldn't see the future. Why isn't the future in motion for the dark siders? What's the difference? I don't get this...

 

Wow, this discussion is becomming very interesting. Hey Mort, it looks like you and I got quoted in connection to this spy report in the Ep II news/rumors section.

I have to agree that Vader deliberately made the future "clear" to Luke so the empathetic young Jedi would walk into his trap.

 

This series is incredible! George Lucas is a genious for creating such intertwining plots and details like what we have here. I have tried to distance myself from Star Wars, but how can I resist the Clone Wars? It ties in to the Dark Force Rising series of books beautifully. I know that this is so off topic, but I just had to say that things like you people inquiring about the details that Lucas laid out is wonderful. I will now be a regular member of these message boards! I remember what makes Star Wars so special and intriguing.

 

This is how I interpret all this.

Yoda is slowly becoming more aware of the fact that in Anakin's case regarding the prophecy of the Chosen One, it entails that the dark side will rise and bring about dark times for the galaxy. This 'mask' that he believes he can not see beyond is Palpatine, the dark side, and the dark times to come. Foreseeing the future isn't condusive to the dark side as Jedi such as Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Qui-Gon have pointed out in the movies.

"But Master Yoda said I should be mindful of the future."
-Obi-Wan Episode 1

"He can see things before they happen. It's a Jedi trait."
-Qui-Gon Episode 1

"Through the Force things you will see other places. The future, the past, old friends long gone."
-Yoda Episode 5

The Chosen One will bring balance to the Force. But there will be dark times before that can happen because in those darkest of times you must start over and be reborn.

A frequent theme in Japanese anime is the end of the world. In one particular anime, the dawn of a perfect world was believed to be near. But in order to reach that perfect world, utopia, the old world had to be totally destroyed and all life had to begin again. I think Lucas is following this same line of thinking. The Star Wars galaxy won't be totally destroyed, but close to it. A reign of darkness will prevail and only when that happens can the prophecy be fulfilled with the help of Luke.

Simply put when you're at the lowest point(the Empire), there's only one way to go and that's up(the Jedi return).

So in closing, I think Yoda and Mace are starting to only really understand that balance will be brought, but it won't be as simple as some may have thought. And the inability to clearly see into the future is because the dark side will play a very large role in the coming years. If Yoda is the Jedi who is the most mindful of the future, then he should be the first to be aware that something terribly wrong is on the horizon.

 

Sorry, I have to get in on this one! Please bear with me.

I had a discussion with one of my good friends a few weeks ago on a topic very much related to this one. We were discussing Christianity and psychics. You know TV psychics! In the bible, God says not to listen to the false prophets or to go to sorcerers who forecast the future. The reason being is that these people are tampering with a power that can only lead to their ruin. In other words, the devil, Satan, Lucifer, etc. is the one giving them the "power" to foresee the future. BUT it's not really seeing the future. What they're trying to do is to manipulate you into making their "predicted" future come true.
So, now: The Jedi can see into the future but they choose to only see into the immediate future. "Keep your concentration here and now." "Feel. Don't think. Concentrate on the moment." To see farther into the future, would mean treading too close to the darkside because by seeing a specified possible future a Jedi might be inclined to actually make that future come true. "Always in motion is the future." The Sith on the other hand see a specific future and then set forth to make it come true. The price they pay is that they get tunnel vision. Otherwise, Palpatine would have foreseen Vader's return to the Light side. Or he would have foreseen that Han was going to find a way to take down the shield. Also, Vader would have foreseen the Falcon showing up to help Luke destroy the first Death Star. etc... The reason that Palpatine can operate under the noses of the Jedi and be undetected is simple. He simply pulls the force close in on himself and minimizes his "aura." Same thing Ben does on Tatooine. Same thing Yoda does on Dagobah.

 

<<The Sith on the other hand see a specific future and then set forth to make it come true. The price they pay is that they get tunnel vision. Otherwise, Palpatine would have foreseen Vader's return to the Light side. Or he would have foreseen that Han was going to find a way to take down the shield. Also, Vader would have foreseen the Falcon showing up to help Luke destroy the first Death Star. etc...>>

GREAT post Dolf! Wonderful observations.

 

I'm having real problems with this.

Allow me to elaborate.

1. The belief that seeing the future is condusive only to the Jedi. Then why, in ROTJ, does the Emperor uses this ability to forsee that Luke will come to Vader?

2. This "masking" Sith deal. Is this really new? The dark side is hard to see cause... ummmm let's see - it is the DARK side. I always thought THAT's why it was referred to as such. I think the explanation to the mystery of why the Jedi can't sense them, as well as the meaning behind Perfect_Dark's lines, lies in that simple fact.

3. Jedi waiting for visions to come? Yoda peered into the future to see the fate of Luke's friends. He was unable to.

3. I also don't agree with the notion that the peering into the future skates on use of the dark side. If Yoda screams that use of such things such as anger and hate leads to the dark side so you are to avoid it, why would Jedi then be taught to dangle so dangerously over the edge by using this technique?

I agree with Storm5, I always figured Yoda meant that the future is always in motion and that is why it can't be seen.

EDIT: Didn't get to read your post before I posted Dolf. That line of thinking makes more sense.

EDIT: Then again, I'll stand by my second point.

 

The Dark Side is masking the future because Yoda feels the Sith are up to something but he doesn't know what exactly.
The Dark Side masking the future like a black cloud totally contradicts the living force theory.

 

Wow - cool news! It's great when spies throw stuff at us and say "SPECUALTE!"

I like everything you said Dolf. It seems to make perfect sense. I like "tunnel vision." Cool wording.

Can't wait for more from ya, PD!

 

I too don't think that seeing into the future necessarily has anything to do with using the dark side. Yoda was encouraging Luke to do it, it was part of his training. Yoda told him that he could see those things when his mind was calm. Luke only stopped doing it when he lost his concentration.

I don't think we should take Qui Gon's statement about the here and now to be representative of the Jedi and the light side of the Force in general. It seemed like he was at odds with Yoda regarding that.

It's also possible that we're taking the Emperor too literally when he says he forsees everything. He definitly has that power but a lot of his forseeing could have simply come from his ability to plan all these events out and know their outcome through his genius and foresight, not necessarily by seeing everything through the Force. I mean obviously he didn't forsee everything, right?

 

C'mon folks, seeing into the future is not a dark side only ability. The Jedi using that skill all the time to make better decisions. The Sith use it to take advantage.

 

I think the implication here is not that seeing into the future involves using the dark side, but rather that in order for Yoda to gain insight into what the Sith are up to, he must himself delve into the dark side to attempt to discern their motives or plans. I believe there was a report a while back that referes to Yoda being away in meditation "probing the dark side".

 

What AJA said. Otherwise a lot of things in TPM wouldn't make sense at all: Qui-Gon not disappearing, the living force, etc...

 

I concur.