Saga The prophecy of the Chosen One...

Because that's what Obi-Wan says!

He says,

"You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!"

The film makes it explicitly clear that the Chosen One was prophesied to destroy the Sith and thus bring balance to the Force. What do you not understand?

It never said that the Chosen One had to be a Jedi, just that the Chosen One would destroy the Sith and that this would bring balance to the Force.

 

The problem is that ROTS makes up the whole "Destroy the Sith" stuff, after the first two films are explaining it's ""Bringing Balance to the Force," which assumes, two Jedi, two Sith.

 

It does not assume anything of the sort. NOTHING ROTS states conflicts with earlier information. You can't just throw out an explanation the movie provides because it doesn't fit with your pet theory and then declare that the movie makes no sense.

Go back and read my post about homeostasis = balance, Sith = cancer, and Jedi = immune system and you'll understand how it makes perfect sense.

Destroying the Sith IS bringing balance to the Force. The films never indicate that balance means # of Sith = # of Jedi. That is purely of your own invention.

 

But we have no idea if we're watching TPM or AOTC what "Bringing Balance Back to the Force" means becuase they don't explain until ROTS (apparently)

 

The balance of the Force is not a balance of Force-users.

 

And that's a problem…why exactly?

In Harry Potter, Rowling tells us at the end of the first book that Voldemort wanted to go after Harry for some reason that Dumbledore can't tell Harry yet. It's not until the fifth book that we find out that this reason is the prophecy and what it states.

There's no requirement to have all the information laid out in the very first film. You're arbitrarily creating this rule.

 

It's a problem because "Bringing Balance to the Force" means destroying the Sith, yet that's creating an imbalance Light/Dark. How is bringing balance destroying one "faction."

Talk about black and white. The prophecy was a terrible idea in the first place.

 

It's the balance of the Force, not the balance of the Force-users.

 

No it isn't.

Bringing balance to the Force is equivalent to bringing a body back into homeostasis, into a healthy state of being.

The Sith are a cancer. You can't be healthy with a metastatic cancer. The Jedi are like the immune system. You don't want to decimate your immune system. Bringing balance to the Force (like bringing balance your body, putting it into homeostasis) means destroying the Sith/Cancer.

The prophecy only seems like a terrible idea to you because you clearly don't understand it.

 

Then why didn't they bring up that analogy in the films if it's so important?

 

Because then all the fans that *****ed about anything resembling science getting anywhere near Star Wars and "disrupting" the "mysticism" would have had an aneurysm. And maybe because the film explicitly tells you that being the Chosen One means destroying the Sith. Apparently Lucas overestimates the audience.

 

No offense, but that's a terrible excuse. Who cares what the fans "might" think.

 

I certainly don't. But apparently Lucas thinks the fans are intelligent enough to put 2 and 2 together and figure out that bringing balance to the Force means destroying the Sith (a fact which he basically spoon-feeds us). That doesn't seem to be the case, however.

 

My thoughts exactly! Thank you for writing this out, I could never get this "on paper" and I tried many times

 

Of course I know he means the Chosen One prophecy is destroying the Sith- in Episode III. The problem is that it was changed from being "Bringing Balance to the Force" in Episodes I and II.

 

It didn't change a damn thing. Episodes I and II only said that the Chosen One was prophesied to bring balance to the Force. You let your imagination run away with you and made assumptions. It is Episode III that states that destroying the Sith would bring balance to the Force. Balance to the Force is a running theme throughout all three prequels. It is not altered. You simply made assumptions that proved to be false.

 

"The sad thing is Padme says there is still good in him and Luke says in ROTJ there is good in you. Its recurring. There is good in him. And that will bring balance to the force. He needs to get rid of the Sith and bring balance to the Force."

--George Lucas, ROTS DVD Commentary.

"It's not that they can't see the Dark Side coming, it's just that the Dark Side begins to envelop everything. It's like walking into a fog. The Jedi's ability to see lessens as the Dark Side grows."

--George Lucas.

"The Midichlorians have brought Anakin into being as “the chosen one” who will balance the universe. The mystery around that theory is that we don’t know yet whether the chosen one is a good or a bad person. He is to bring balance to the Force; but at this point, we don’t know what side of the Force needs to be balanced out."

--George Lucas, Star Wars: The Making of Episode I, 1999

"It was a virgin birth in an ecosystem of symbiotic relationships. It means that between the Force, which is sort of a life force, and reality, the connectors between these two things are what we call Midichlorians. They're kind of based on mitochondria, which are a completely different animal, that live inside every single cell and allow it to live, allow it to reproduce, allow life to exist. They also, in their own way, communicate with the Force itself. The more you have, the more your cells are able to speak intuitively to the Force itself and use the powers of the Force. Ultimately, I would say the Force itself created Anakin. I don't want to get into specific terms of labeling things to make it one religion or another, but basically that's one of the foundations of the hero's journey."

--George Lucas, Feburary 2005 issue of Vanity Fair, page 117.

"There is a hint in the movie that there was a Sith lord who had the power to create life. But it's left unsaid: Is Anakin a product of a super-Sith who influenced the Midichlorians to create him, or is he simply created by the Midichlorians to bring forth a prophecy, or was he created by the Force through the Midichlorians? It's left up to the audience to decide. How he was born ultimately has no relationship to how he dies, because in the end, the prophecy is true: Balance comes back to the Force."

--George Lucas, Rolling Stone Magazine, 2005.

"One of the themes throughout the films is that the Sith Lords, when they started out thousands of years ago, embraced the Dark Side. They were greedy and self-centered and they all wanted to take over, so they killed each other. Eventually there was only one left, and that one took on an apprentice. And for thousands of years, the master would teach the apprentice, the master would die, the apprentice would then teach another apprentice, the master, 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."

--George Lucas, Bill Moyers Time Magazine Interview; 1999.


"I wanted to have this mythological footing because I was basing the films on the idea that the Force has two sides, the good side, the evil side, and they both need to be there. Most religions are built on that, whether it's called yin and yang, God and the devil—everything is built on the push-pull tension created by two sides of the equation. Right from the very beginning, that was the key issue in Star Wars."

--George Lucas, “The Mythology of Star Wars,” Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth DVD, 2001

"The film is ultimately about the dark side and the light side, and those sides are designed around compassion and greed. The issue of greed, of getting things and owning things and having things and not being able to let go of things, is the opposite of compassion—of not thinking of yourself all the time. These are the two sides—the good force and the bad force. They're the simplest parts of a complex cosmic construction." ​

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--George Lucas. ​

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"If good and evil are mixed things become blurred - there is nothing between good and evil, everything is gray. In each of us we to have balance these emotions, and in the Star Wars saga the most important point is balance, balance between everything. It is dangerous to lose this. In The Phantom Menace one of the Jedi Council already knows the balance of The Force is starting to slip, and will slip further. It is obvious to this person that The Sith are going to destroy this balance. On the other hand a prediction which is referred to states someone will replace the balance in the future. At the right time a balance may again be created, but presently it is being eroded by dark forces" ​

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--George Lucas, Time Magazine article, 2002 ​

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"The dark side is always there. It is experienced daily by people. It is like a huge cancer, alive, festering—both a reminder of a moral state and, at the same time, symptom and symbol of a very sick society." ​

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--George Lucas, “The Mythology of Star Wars,” Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth DVD, 2001​

"As evil begins to take over, it pushes the Force out of balance."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

 

I wouldn't need to make assumptions if they just said "Bringing Balance to the Force" meant "Destroying the Sith" in Episode I.

 

What difference does it make when it is said? The fact is that it is said. That's what a mystery is. Why is the Force out of balance and what is needed to balance it again. That comes in ROTS. Lucas didn't just pull this out of his ass. He was building up to that.

 

So you need to read interviews to get the point?

 

Again, as I pointed out earlier with the Harry Potter example, you are arbitrarily creating a rule that a film or book series must immediately reveal all information to you. Rowling didn't divulge the prophecy until Book 5 although she hinted at it in Book 1. Similarly, Lucas didn't divulge all the information about the prophecy in Episode I. There is nothing wrong with this and if you made an assumption that was wrong, then admit it and move on with your life. But you didn't have to make any assumptions -- you could have waited and seen how the films would play out.

 

There is a difference, though. Rowling intended to keep the prophecy a secret. The Star Wars prequels just changed it two/thirds of the way through (or reworded it to make it more confusing).

 

No they didn't. Obi-Wan in ROTS literally says, "It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them. Bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness."

Bringing balance to the Force is exactly what TPM and AOTC said. They didn't say anything about equal numbers of Jedi and Sith. They literally just said that Anakin might be the Chosen One and, if so, he was destined to bring balance to the Force -- a fact which is expanded upon and repeated in ROTS.

Nothing was changed. Lucas is allowed to build it up if he wants. That you assumed it meant something different is your problem.

 

So the audience is supposed to assume for 6 years until the last film comes out?

 

That's kind of part of the territory when it comes to a series. The first Harry Potter book came out in 1997 in the US (when Rowling first hinted that Voldemort was after Harry). The 5th book didn't come out until 2003. That's 6 years, dude. I don't know what your issue is with the films, but it's a pretty common tactic in any long-running piece of media.