PT Did the prequels ruin the Jedis ?

You can also say that Shaolin monks are evil since they don't want to have any attachments to the world.

I think Jedis were kinda inspired from them.

 

Not wanting something and not being allowed something you want or need are different things. Any sources as to how Shaolin monks preached non-attachment philosophy?

 

About what ESB and RotJ said, I did not get the idea that having friends or people you cared about was not allowed.
Obi-Wan said;

The underlined part is important to me.
Obi-Wan does not scold Luke for having the feelings he does, he just warns him to keep them hidden as they can be exploited.
So not something that is inherently bad or wrong, just something that you need to be careful with as others might try to use it against you.

One could take cops or other officers of the law. If one cop has no romantic partner, no children, parents both dead, no family or at least none they are close to. That could be seen as a "strength". The criminals have no person they could kidnap or threaten to get this cop to do what they ask.
For spies or people working in intelligence gathering, this could also be a "positive", the operatives have nothing they care about other than their work.

Also, Lukes' father had a child and was presumably married. Nothing that Obi-Wan said in ANH gave me the idea that this was banned or unusual. Luke's father apparently talked to Obi-Wan about giving his son his lightsaber some day.

As for what the Jedi could have done.
If you talk about the world building aspect of it, then here are some ideas.
First, the Jedi are not taken in as infants or very young. Instead they are taken in around 18-20 when people ask to join.
This does one important thing, the people that become Jedi make the choice to become one as opposed to the choice being made by other people. They have grown up with their families, know their parents and all that. And since it is their choice, the Jedi could explain what this would entail and ask if this person accepts the consequences.

Second, once a person asks to join, they are put through a rigorous screening process, involving lots of tests. Both to see if they can use the Force but also to see why they want to become Jedi and the probe them as people. How strong is their psyche? How low is their threshold to use violence?
You could have tests that put them into situations that the Jedi can see if they would try to exploit their powers or that they could react badly to certain situations.
And if they fail these tests, then they are not accepted and they go back to their normal life.

Third, having a loved one or a family is not banned. The Jedi in question might have more restricted duties as he or she has children to take care of. And the Jedi can also keep an eye on them to see if there is any hint of trouble. As opposed to just letting them leave.
Could there still be people that want to leave? Sure it is possible.
But the reasons are reduced.
And the Jedi could ask why this person wants to leave, they did ask to join after all.
If the answer does not satisfy them, they could be careful with this person.

But this would not work with TPM as is. First the Jedi would not have reason to reject him as being too old.
Nor would he have to lie about being with Padme.
So the rules are there to cause a conflict and be a problem for Anakin.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

I don't think having friends and people they care about is said to not be allowed. But attachments is what Anakin says.

Similar with having feelings.

While the real answer is that George Lucas highly likelihood didn't have this concept in mind, there's a lot Obi Wan doesn't tell Luke, in that scene. He barely explains what the jedi's perception was. Yoda explains it more thoroughly (he's the first to point out Luke being too old, too impatient, and even essentially I think to suggest Luke to not let his attachment to Han and Leia lead him into problems).

That's not the line in ANH. Obi-Wan says that his dad would've wanted him to have it when he was old enough. To me, that sounds more like Obi-Wan making an assumption on Anakin's intentions, not from first hand knowledge.

Yoda tells Luke he's too old in TESB.

I think that's less involved storytelling, to me.

I think this takes away a lot of the more involved dynamics of the movies, to me. I think this doesn't add much interesting to the story, to me.

 

imho, Lucas put no more thought into these concepts than catalysts for Anakin's fall. And if you look deeper than surface level, you see the cracks in the world building.

 

As far as I've read, this is wrong. I'm wrong. The line, as far as I've read, was that his dad wanted him to have it. I'm sorry.

 

Luke had an attachment to Han and Leia. And I would say he had one with his father.
And yet Obi-Wan does not scold Luke for it.
Yoda did scold Anakin for his attachment to his mother.

So with Luke it was "Be careful not to let others use it against you.
With Anakin in the PT it was, "You must not have these attachments, period."

Given that Lucas earlier scripts of Star Wars had fathers that trained their sons to be Jedi. In one version, there were several family members.
Then I think that Lucas did not have this marriage ban or no contact thing.

Also they way Obi-wan talked about Luke's father, I got the sense that he missed his friend. And that they had been close.

As for Yoda, he, like Obi-Wan, does not scold Luke for caring or having feelings for his friends. Just that Vader is using them to get to Luke.

To me, that was just Yoda testing Luke, to see if he would persist.
Also, it is Yoda's own fault.
He and Obi-wan could have called Luke to them three years earlier. But they didn't.
So they let him wait and then Yoda complains Luke is too old?

To me there isn't much dynamic as it is.
The PT Jedi have a lot of very strict rules that must be obeyed Because!
There was no talk or discussion about them. Have these rules always been around? If not, why and when were they changed. Did all the Jedi agree with them?
You could have made much with that.
But as is, they are there mostly to impact Anakin, first his rejection and then him not being allowed to be with Padme.

And as I've said, the world building makes no sense.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

I figure that the Jedi put their heads together to figure out what was best. They trained Anakin as a Jedi first and then sent him off to war and that didn't turn out so well. So, with Luke, they send the kid off to war first and then give him some Jedi training.

And I never took Yoda's line about Luke being too old to mean that Luke was physically too old, more that Luke was too set in his ways due to age. Men in their early twenties seem to think they have it all figured out, so that's a rough time to try to convince them they've got it all wrong.

 

I didn't say he didn't. I said that the jedi having friends and caring about people isn't said to be against the rules. But having attachments, by Anakin, is. It's never said that he can't have friends or care about people. I think having both can happen and not be attached like that.

I don't see what Yoda did as scolding about his mom, but scolding about him dismissing his feelings about her in the situation (What has that got to do with anything?), when Yoda interprets his emotions as being afraid to lose her.

It's never stated that jedi can't care about people or have friends in the PT.

That's not what the movie says, or, to me, shows.

Obi-Wan doesn't begin until he's contacted.

I may prefer more building on the ideas, but I think the concept has more going on than that.

I haven't seen a reason why it makes no sense. Based the situation the movies present, and the OT present, I think it makes sense for the jedi order to have rules against it. And I think the ideas of, "Well, what about the jedi who leave." doesn't overshadow that. I maintain my personal perception of: What are the jedi supposed to do? Sure you could question Lucas choosing to do that for the story and say it'd make more sense to have it be so the jedi is generational and not have a rule against attachments or say the movies should have something that would allow them to cancel powers for those who leave the order or something, but then I and/or others, could go: Why wouldn't the jedi have a no attachments rule, based on attachments being able to turn people to the dark side using their fear, pain and anger, as the OT shows, which I think is something Yoda implies by speaking on Luke being passive and anger, fear and aggression? If something to take away powers exists, why wouldn't the jedi use it for dark siders, and why wouldn't the Empire use it? Reasons maybe could be come up to explain these things, but, like the perception being that the movies should start with the Empire already existing or there should be little politics or the jedi should be heroic and noble and such or Anakin should be older when recruited or Qui-Gon shouldn't be involved with Obi-Wan being the only to recruit Anakin or that Maul should be the villain of the trilogy, while those things I think could be done, I think that can be, to me, not as interesting of a story.

 

Wouldn't it make more sense to train people to deal with ALL of their emotions in a healthy way instead of dogmatically preaching against having certain emotions in the first place? Imagine what effect it can have a persons psyche to be told that an honest emotion is somehow wrong or bad even though it is a genuine emotion. I can only speak for myself when I say that the Jedi Order seems a lot like organized religion speaking of "original sin". Someone, a long time ago, under a completely set of circumstances, said that XYZ is bad so now it's just always bad regardless of context. This kind of mentality can seriously mess up a person, especially when they're introduced to it an such an early age that they're essentially brainwashed into thinking it's true even though it's not.

Anakin is told that if he romantically loves someone it can lead to the dark side. But it's not love that leads there, it's loss. A person can have a strong emotion about ANYTHING and that loss can cause them to do terrible things. It doesn't have to be a person.

What if Anakin would have had worked really hard and bought a great space Camaro, then in an attempt to keep from losing the Camaro, he goes to the dark side. Would you then say that the Jedi should have rules against owning cars? No, that's ludicrous.

The Jedi shouldn't be against romantic relationship's, they should be pro healthy emotional discussions. And this all goes back to Anakin going to Yoda for help and Yoda telling him to just accept that people die. It's cold and uncaring and it represents a systemic flaw with all the Jedi; that they are so afraid of the dark side that they dare not do anything that even remotely brings it up.

 

Some emotions aren't. I think the jedi never tell Anakin that he's evil or bad for having these emotions and never tell him to suppress or ignore them in the movies.

Anakin is never told that if he loves someone romantically it can lead to the dark side in the movies. While I haven't seen the episode, I saw a video that had The Clone Wars footage where I think Obi-Wan says something along the lines that it's not wrong to have these emotions. He's taught that having attachments is forbidden, I think likely as it can lead to that. Loving someone doesn't have to equally unhealthy attachment like that.

I think that applies to the attachment and possession perception for the jedi.

The jedi never condemn healthy emotional discussions in the movies. The jedi talk about being mindful of feelings. The issues here, to me, is that Yoda was detached, not based on his advice, but based on his lack of understanding Anakin's emotions and mindset. I think Yoda didn't understand that Anakin was in a state of refusing to accept that he has no right to play God. I think Anakin wasn't seeking help in quelling and/or controlling his emotions, but had already made the choice to not let go. I think Yoda didn't see that. I think that, moreso is a flaw in regards to how the jedi see emotions.

 

So Anakin is allowed to get married and have kids then?

 

I didn't say that. There's a difference between being allowed to have romantic love and being allowed in their rules, while apart of the jedi, to act on it like that. Though I think the movies never said that the jedi can't have kids. But I think they'd likely not be allowed by the jedi to be a jedi and raise them personally.

 

Lucas could have avoided this whole problem if he just wrote in the script that Jedi do have spouses and families, they just make an effort to not let those emotional attachments get in the way of their Jedi responsibilities, and they have to accept that death is the natural way of things. The issue wasn’t really that Anakin had a wife, the issue was that he was so emotionally unbalanced that he was possessive of her to the point that he was willing to use the dark side to save her from death (going against nature). And also that she was a distraction for him , as we see in AOTC.

 

Lucas has compared the Jedi lifestyle to a monastic lifestyle in interviews.

 

I wish we would've seen some type of incarnation in the ST.

 

In my opinion the prequels made the Jedi (and Star Wars) better exactly because the Jedi Order isn't perfect. I think it's brilliant.

 

So Anakin can be deeply in love with a woman, but can't sign paperwork and take vows saying so? I keep asking because I don't understand your stance.

 

When Luke had images of Leia and Han being in danger on Bespin, his first inclination was to interrupt his training and rush to their aid. Both Yoda and Obi-Wan tried to stop him. I believe it was the first hint of the Jedi's opposition to attachments.

I'm sorry, but I get the feeling that many are simply upset that the Jedi were portrayed as ambiguous and flawed beings and not the "ideal" individuals and organization that Obi-Wan had described them to be.

 

By act on it, to me, also ties into furthering that attachment in ways, not just marriage, but also physically. The jedi don't show, to me, as people who'd personally try to force Anakin or another jedi to not have feelings. But I can see having rules and restrictions in place for acting on them and consequences for that.

 

By allowing yourself to have a feeling you are already acting on it. You felt something and decided to let yourself linger on the feeling as oppose to forcing yourself to focus on something else. What you're saying doesn't make any sense to me.

 

I said furthering that attachment, one way physically. The jedi don't show, to me, as people who'd personally try to force Anakin or another jedi to not have feelings. But I can see having rules and restrictions in place for acting on them and consequences for that. What else would they do?

 

Well, I believe they could have acknowledged that having emotional attachments is something that everyone experiences and can only be unlearned gradually and not through enforced rules and restrictions.

 

Grey areas instead of perfection is always better, and more realistic.