PT How come Yoda has to train Obi Wan to learn how to communicate with Qui Gon...

When Luke without much training at all is able to hear Ben talking to him immediately after his death in ANH?

 

Qui-Gon’s training, to enable his spirit to manifest itself after death as a Force ghost, was incomplete.
Obi-Wan's training, which he received while in exile on Tatooine, was complete. Therefore he was able to become a Force ghost.

 

Yoda was much too polite to just give Obi-Wan the "Blue Glowies for Dummies" guidebook.

 

You get the impression Qui-Gon's been fighting his way back from the Netherworld ever since he died in TPM, struggling to make his voice heard. Yoda hears him faintly, just for one moment, in AOTC, and then in TCW he finally makes solid contact after going in a sensory deprivation chamber and then traveling to the Force nexus on Dagobah.

But even by the time of ROTS, Qui-Gon still isn't loud enough to make a connection on his own. He has to be met halfway. That's what the training is for. It's to teach Obi-Wan how to make consistent contact with Qui-Gon even in an ordinary location like Tatooine.

I remember way back in the day, around the time right after AOTC came out, Pablo or someone had a Q&A section on the official website. One of the questions someone asked was why Qui-Gon and other Jedi didn't disappear like in the original trilogy. The answer was that there was a reason and it would be revealed in ROTS. Obviously that didn't really happen, but it was finally answered in TCW, and I assume Lucas had the answer all along.

I assume this is why Anakin's body doesn't disappear in ROTJ--even way back then, if you look at early drafts, there's this idea that Ben and Yoda have to rescue Anakin's soul from the Netherworld before it dissolves into the Force. And Lucas reaffirms that this is what happens on the DVD commentary for ROTJ. So that was probably always a very deliberate choice, just as it was a deliberate choice for Qui-Gon and the other Jedi in in the prequels.

Furthermore, the fact that Anakin's old and withered body never vanishes lends further legitimacy to the idea that his spirit should appear in a completely different form. He hasn't taken that body with him, he's left it behind. But unlike Qui-Gon, who is left disembodied, Anakin is restored to his previous form with the help of his mentors.

 

Because George Lucas likes to complicate everything.

 

What Bob said.

A summation can be found. Qui-Gon learned how to manifest his voice as a Force ghost, but he never learned to appear visually. In contrast, Obi-Wan and Yoda learned how to do that.

If you look at the old EU, even the Sith could appear as Force ghosts that could interact with the physical realm. In contrast, the Jedi prefer not to do that. I believe there was an idea that Obi-Wan was able to help Luke against his first duel with Vader (pre-TESB). But after that, he was no longer able to do so. Their power is mainly a projection of their wisdom. The Force is using their personalities and wisdom in the way we would talk about a sentient computer program. In essence, it's a pantheistic or animistic version of program theology. That's how I look at it. The Force manifests compassion through Jedi Force ghosts, and it manifests selfishness and greed though Sith Force ghosts. Personally, I would have loved to see more Grey Jedi and Light Sith manifest as Force ghosts.

 

One gets the idea that Qui-Gon's spirit first managed to manifest itself in response to Anakin's slaughter of the Sand People. I've always quite liked that interpretation; it suggests that Anakin's first steps onto the "dark path," the slaughter of the Sand People, also contained the seeds of his eventual redemption.

 

There's a certain poetic nature to this, and I hadn't looked at before as reason for his ghost to not be a limbless bbq, but I believe both old EU and current canon have it that his body did vanish, just off screen

SW has bad science, and I highly doubt that anyone working on the movie was thinking this, but the moment he fell back wouldn't have been the moment he died. He might have lost consciousness, but medically, it would still have taken him at least a few more minutes to completely die

(That said, Obi-Wan also wouldn't have immediately died from being hit by a lightsaber, but having him exsanguinate in a catatonic state with his innards half spilling out wouldn't have been quite so concise and shocking)

 

Obi-Wan "gave up the ghost."

 

Well, I'm personally only concerned with analysis through the lens of Lucas canon. As far as I know, Lucas himself has never indicated that Anakin's body ever vanished. In fact, I believe he even refers to the burning of his "body" on the DVD commentary.

Again, this makes perfect sense. Anakin never learned the technique. Qui-Gon never (fully) learned the technique. Therefore, their bodies don't vanish. The difference is Anakin had someone on the other side to intercede for him.

 

I used to think that it was ambiguous in the movie, but the reality is that it isn't, and never was. If Anakin could vanish, he would have when he died in front of Luke. The fact that not only we don't see him vanish, but Luke decides to burn him (the armor without the body would be meaningless) supports the fact that the body remained.

 

It has symbolic meaning:

RoTJ Radio Drama.

"I burn his armor and with it the name of Darth Vader. May the name of Anakin Skywalker be a light that guides the Jedi for generations to come… rest well, father. The Force is with you."

As is shown in the ST - there can be a delay between death and Body Vanishing - as with Leia.

 

But there's no indication in the films or from Lucas that his body vanished. In fact Lucas implies the exact opposite, if not outright states it.

 

It's hard to tell what was intended at the time. There's been claims that Lucas insisted the Databank and the encyclopaedias state Vader's body disappeared, but those are mostly hearsay and it's difficult to find what Lucas actually said on the subject.

In the context of the Disney canon though, at least one book (a young reader one, called The Story of Darth Vader) says the body disappeared and only the armour was burned.

So, in Legends the body disappeared, in Disney canon the body disappeared, but in Lucas's headcanon it's a bit more ambiguous.

 

But Lucas wasn't involved with the radio drama or the ST.

From the script:

 

Sure he was:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars_(radio)

The series was made with the full cooperation of George Lucas, who donated the rights and allowed the use of sound effects and music from the films.

 

Yes, he cooperated in the sense that he "donated the rights and allowed the use of sound effects and music from the films." That doesn't mean he was a story editor. Surely you must have understood what @Alexrd meant.

What we have is a movie where Anakin's body conspicuously doesn't vanish, a script written by Lucas in which it is specified that Anakin's body is being burned, and an audio commentary from 2004 where Lucas again refers to Anakin's body being burned. Seems pretty clear, man.

 

I've been told that you look closely in the burning shots you can see that the helmet is not attached to the rest of the suit in the first shot.

 

Dude. Come on.

 

I'll agree that in 1983 Lucas possibly did not intend that the scene be interpreted as the body having at some point disappeared - but Legends authors did - and they managed to get it "canonised".

 

The evidence is clear that Lucas didn't intend for the scene to be interpreted that way at any point.

But yes, some tie-in authors got confused. Why should I care?

 

Possibly after 2004, he changed his mind again. Hence the reports that he was the one who insisted that the Databank say Anakin's body disappeared.

It may matter, if Lucas is the one handing out the orders to perpetuate the idea.

 

A lot of things managed to get "canonised" by Licensing. Many of them directly contradict the movies too. Then again, Lucas always saw it separate from his works.

I also find it hard to believe that Lucas would go out of his way to demand a change to a Databank entry (when did he ever care about that?). And without evidence to support it, I'll go with what Lucas said and made clear in multiple instances regarding the topic.

 

IMO if they wanted it to be un-ambiguous, they would have used a Sebastian Shaw dummy head, with no top half of the helmet on it (as per the exact moment Vader died), rather than have Luke put the helmet back together.

However - maybe we should set the derail aside for the time being, and return to the OP's question?

 

LOL but he obviously didn't do that, at any point. By any rational standard, that objectively didn't happen. This is getting ridiculous.

It is unambiguous. His body doesn't disappear. Then there's a scene where his armor, clearly inhabited by a body, is burned. There's absolutely no reason to believe his body disappeared, unless you read it in a tie-in book.

What happened is that some tie-in authors incorrectly assumed that all Jedi's bodies vanished upon death, and so they tried to rationalize the contradictory onscreen evidence. But Lucas himself always intended for Anakin's spirit to be rescued in the Netherworld, because he lacked the knowledge that Ben and Yoda had. When he made The Phantom Menace, he remained consistent with this, as Qui-Gon's body also doesn't vanish, and the reason is that he, like Anakin, lacks the requisite knowledge. Qui-Gon's body, notably, is burned on a funeral pyre just as Anakin's is.