PT "Your arrogance blinds you, Master Yoda." Is this line more significant than it appears?

No. The Clone Wars were a false war engineered by Palpatine to destroy the Jedi and transform the Republic into a dictatorship.

 

Only correct way for Jedi. He was right, if Anakin (and Dooku, and Xanatos, and Quinlan, and A'Sharad...) is supposed to be the case study. Jedi don't do well when locked with their own personalities. And it would be ridiculous to go about teaching children ways that you thought were wrong, instead of teachings that have served the Order well for thousands of years. I would agree with you had a whole bunch of Jedi rioted from the supposedly "oppressive" rules, but they all seem pretty content. If it ain't broke, don't fix it just because one boy had a crush on a senator.

 

Anakin clearly didn't get on very well with the whole Jedi Code business, and there have been others who fell. But as per the old canon at least there were about 20 Jedi who left the order willingly (including Dooku) and presumably about the same again who fell all the way to the Dark Side. That's maybe forty or fifty at the very most when over many centuries there were literally thousands and thousands of Jedi who stayed on the path throughout their entire lives. When you deal with that number of people over that period of time there are always going to be a few problems and a few that fell regardless of the what the rules actually were in the first place.

 

Dig around a bit on the "Dark Jedi" subject on Wookieepedia and you'll eventually find a lot more than 40, as I recall.

Still few compared to the mainstream order - but not exactly a tiny number.

 

"But the idea running through the whole trilogy is: First he’s given his father’s sword, because his father lost it in the fight with Ben Kenobi; Ben cut his hand off and Vader fell into the volcano, so Ben then pried the lazer sword out of his hand and kept it for the son. So then what the father did was cut his son’s hand and lazer sword off—and that was a way of severing the relationship between father and son. Not only did Luke lose his weapon and was castrated, but at the same time his father split that relationship. Luke was carrying his sword for his father. Now he is not doing that anymore. In this one, he’s built his own. He has built his own lazer sword; he is his own man, he is not a son anymore. He is an equal."


--George Lucas during a story conference in 1981, from The Making of Return of the Jedi

 

If you want to have a deeper understanding of the movies, yes, you do need to know these things. Otherwise all you're getting is a surface level understanding. That's fine if that's all you're after, but if anyone is wrong in this debate it's clearly you. I've posted textual and authorial evidence to support my claims. So far, all you've done is say, "Well, I never saw it, and all this subtext stuff weirds me out anyway, so it isn't there." I don't care how many times a blind man tells there's no such thing as the color purple. He may not be able to see it, and he may not need to see it in order to enjoy the taste of a plum--but that doesn't mean it's not there.

Why are you so afraid of subtext? Are you afraid it might ruin the movies for you, by forcing you to challenge your long-held assumptions about them? I used to think the same way as you. I consumed media as a sort of comfort, a distraction from the stresses of the real world, a form of escapism. "Deep," alternative interpretations made me feel insecure about myself and my world, because they challenged me, and I wasn't looking to be challenged. I was looking to be comforted. But we don't grow as people by being comfortable all the time. We grow by being challenged.

If you can't possibly understand how a freaking sword can be a phallic symbol, I'm not sure you're actually the expert on close reading you presume yourself to be, man. Have you considered switching majors?

 

Yes, please gift us with your wisdom. Only you truly understand Star Wars!

Making up your own secret meaning behind plots/characters isn't subtext.

 

Please stop confusing deep analysis with wishful projection. You're not coming up with conclusions based on the text, you're imposing your theories on the text (that my friend, will earn you very cross remarks and poor grades from literature professors). And the self-praise is getting a bit much - if your insight is as foolproof as you say, why do you constantly have to tell us how "intellectual" you are, let your evidence speak for itself. The more people you can convince, the more you "win".
People who consume entertainment as entertainment are not "shallow", or "insecure". They just get what they want out of what they're paying for - how is that unreasonable? I will happily use Star Wars as a discussion piece to debate many many literary theories (and have - mostly to shut up people who look down upon the "shallowness" of people who consume popular entertainment or prequel/Jedi haters), but sometimes I just like the big lightsaber fights, spaceships and explosions, darn it!

 

Dude, it's just a movie. Take a deep breath, it's just a movie. No one's grading you on this, you can relax, you're with friends. Sometimes a sword is just a sword, not everything is dripping with meaning, symbolism and subtext.

Sometimes...
A lightsaber is just a lightsaber
Smacktalk is just smacktalk
A Sith roasting alive on Mustafar is just a Sith roasting alive on Mustafar
Padme dying stupidly is just Padme dying stupidly

Take a deep breath: not everything has to be analyzed quite so deeply. And people have the right to enjoy whatever they want. I don't care if it's Dragonball Z (a show that consists of 70% screaming, fighting, and grunting, 20% glaring at each other with hardcore music playing, and 10% of actual plot and character development) if they like it, then they're free to enjoy the **** out of it.

 

I think we all agree that a Sith roasting alive on Mustafar is always just a Sith roasting alive on Mustafar!

 

There's a popular shopping centre called Mustafar in my country (which is very hot, very tropical). Clearly I'm supposed to read that scene as a Marxist critique against the evils of shopping (those darned capitalists!!) or about the state of affairs of our small country ("You underestimate my power!") .

Btw, I don't call myself an expert on close-reading, but my professors - from my film, media studies and English degrees (plural) - give me A pluses on a fairly consistent basis, so forgive me if I don't change majors on the opinion of a genital-obsessed fanboy.

 

Tell me how my conclusions are wrong and not based on the text, please. So far, you haven't done so. You've just repeated that I'm wrong without saying why. Is that not something that would also get you very poor marks in class?

I don't claim to be an intellectual. I think I'm of average intelligence at best, and certainly not any smarter than anyone else posting in this thread. But I do happen to be the only one actually making points in support of my argument, instead of just cursorily dismissing everyone else's without giving credible reasons for doing so. Curious, that.

I happen to be a neurosurgeon and an astronaut in addition to being a genital-obsessed fanboy, and I can assure you I was always at the top of my class, and all the instructors absolutely adored me. One even named his child after me, and made me the godfather. Therefore, I must be right. Clearly, posting about our unverifiable academic credentials on an Internet forum is the way to win arguments, as opposed to, you know, making actual points.

And by the way, George Lucas seems to be just as genital-obsessed as me, and he's the one who wrote the story. I know, I know, Death of the Author and all that--but, if I'm nothing more than a blathering idiot with false pretensions to critical insight, as you seem to be implying, I must say I'm glad to be in good company with a man as intelligent and insightful as George Lucas. I'm pretty sure he has more film credentials than either you or me or anyone else here--would you disagree with that? So I suppose, by your standards, the argument must be settled--in my and George Lucas's favor, naturally.

 

...What?

Yeah, so I'm just gonna...go to a magical realm full of amazing people and things right now. It's call the rugged outdoors. Bye.

 

Oh, DARTHLINK, I do so love how we josh each other. Have fun!

 

Well then don't make assumptions about people you don't know, and leave the personal insults out of it.

I can't correct your delusions because they do not relate to the text (STOP). And seeing as your "points" have failed to convince anybody so far, I doubt they're being as supportive as you claim.
So far you've said: Droids are slaves because people are mean to them, and they don't get paid, and Jedi wave glowing giant dildos about because George Lucas said so. Just save you further embarrassment, I'll give you all the evidences (for the first one, the second is still your delusion).

Droids who may show sentience (therefore can be considered "human" enough for "slavery"):
IG88 is independent bounty hunter, so clearly they can want to get paid (nevermind that he's still doing what he's built for - assassination - and we don't know if he gets paid, he can just kill for free).
This one battle droid who gets conked in the head in the Clone Wars Adventures comic and runs away from battle because he was afraid to "die", so droids can be argued to experience emotion and reluctance (droid was MALFUNCTIONING, his "fear" is merely an fault of his default programming for self-defence).

Of course, that conveniently ignores all the thousands of other perfectly functional droids who all happily do exactly what they're programmed/built for without the slightest reluctance or coercion. Now I need to log off before I overwork my laptop, or I have to give it overtime pay.

Please adhere to the TOS and do not flame others. This is a gentle warning.

 

Which, just to clarify, is something Lucas never said.

 

Sooo many good discussions the last couple weeks, sucks I've been so busy...

Not entirely true...

I agree they aren't actively trying to assassinate Dooku and Grievous, however, they aren't delusional to the fact that they also might have to kill them as well to end the war.


At the beginning of ROTS, after the Rescue of Palpatine, Obi Wan wants nothing to do with politics. He tells Anakin he is the poster boy for the day, and lists everything Anakin had just accomplished and how those things made him a Hero. One of those things listed was that he (Anakin) killed Count Dooku. I would find it hard to believe that Obi Wan would include that as part of being the Hero of the day, if they wanted him captured and not killed.

When Palpatine points out that with Dooku now being dead, Grievous is now in charge of the droid armies, Windu tells Palpatine that the Jedi Council will make "finding" Grievous it's top priority. If all they wanted to do was capture Grievous, then he would have said capture. However, by using the word "finding" and not capturing, it shows us that the Jedi aren't unrealistic in that they might have to kill him as well once they find him. They aren't going to paint themselves into a corner by issuing capture only orders.

Anakin tells Bail Organa that the fighting won't stop until Grievous is "Spare Parts".

The Jedi aren't naive enough to think that the only way to end the war was through capture. While they might speak of capture first, because that is the proper and moral way to think, there is no question that when push came to shove, if Grievous (in his starfighter) was in the cross-hairs of a Jedi, said Jedi would be shooting to kill him and just wouldn't let him go because he couldn't capture him.

Furthermore, once again, to show that the Jedi aren't naive enough to think that capture is the only way... "Destroy the Sith we must". While yes he is talking about the Sith and not the Separatist Leaders, it once again shows that the Jedi realize that sometimes leaders have to be killed to reach the end of something.

Edit: Just to add. With Obi Wan including Dooku's death as part of Anakin's Heroism it shows that the Jedi do accept the killing of the leadership as an alternative means to an end.

 

If it reaches a situation where they have no other choice, sure. But if given the choice, I've no doubt they would try to capture them.

 

Grievous did get captured once, in TCW. He ended up being given back in a prisoner exchange.

 

I wouldn't disgree there, my issue is with you saying that's "all" we see:

I don't agree with the notion that it is all we see... I see them having the understanding that they would like too (capture), but will do what is needed if their hand is forced.

 

As far as the Jedi knew, the actual missions they were going on were to prevent not only false flag acts of aggression by the Separatists, but also real acts of secession by disloyal systems. Clone Wars shows Yoda preside over at least one invasion on a disloyal system. So the Jedi were knowingly fighting for one rule. Palpatine to the Jedi: "I will not let this Republic that has stood for a thousand years be split in two!"

We are even shown both sides of the argument in the movies and the Clone Wars series. The Republic was clearly corrupt, so seceding was viewed sympathetically by the films and the show. Not to discount Trade Federation's acts of aggression. There were no good sides to be on in that conflict. It equally was a trap for loyal systems and disloyal systems. Controlled opposition. But does one have the right to secede from a corrupt central ruler? That's what the Rebellion did. That's what America did too. The only problem is they pledged their loyalty to the Separatists, who were just as corrupt as the Republic. Perhaps it's a little lesson from history.

Yoda was not just fooled, but actually corrupted. Palpatine played on his loyalty to the Republic to use him as a tool in a corrupt conflict. Yoda was not a victim, but someone who partook in "the decadence of war", as the Clone Wars cave scene describes it. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say.

 

Yoda never shows any signs of corruption. According the orders of the Senate, headed by Palpatine, the Jedi did have to occupy disloyal systems. But to accuse Yoda of tyranny is pretty ridinky donky.