Saga Here is my unorthodox Star Wars opinion: change my mind!

Star Wars is better in Movies format than in TV Shows and i prefer the serious tone of ESB ROTS and Andor for Star Wars than the Fairy Tale formula Star Wars is about conflicts and Wars the Eternal fight of Light and Dark

 

Anakin Skywalker circa Episodes I and II is way more interesting than Darth Vader ever was.

 

Anakin in TCW show is the most interesting

 

The Jedi don't believe Dooku's claims that Sidious exists, much less had control. Yoda and Obi-Wan both express doubt, but Mace suggests keeping an eye on the Senate. As to Dooku and the army, again, they don't consider that he knew about the Clone Army. When Dooku is outed as Tyranus, Obi-Wan is shocked.

OBI-WAN: "Tyranus?! You're the man called Tyranus?"

DOOKU: "I told you everything that you needed to know on Geonosis all those years ago, Kenobi."

They don't make the connection between Dooku and Jango because of his being a mercenary, they believe that he was not loyal to anyone and only takes jobs that paid well. He took money from Sifo-Dyas and Tyranus, and then from Dooku and Nute.

HAN: "It is for me, sister! Look, I ain’t in this for your revolution, and I’m not in it for you, Princess. I expect to be well paid. I’m in it for the money!"

LEIA: "You needn’t worry about your reward. If money is all that you love, then that’s what you’ll receive! Your friend is quite a mercenary. I wonder if he really cares about anything… or anyone."

Mercenary: primarily concerned with making money at the expense of ethics.

Tyranus was the one with the answers. Up to that point the Jedi honestly believe that Sifo-Dyas's warnings led him to take matters into his own hands and hired Tyranus to help him. He in turn hired Jango and that Dooku later hired Jango, who didn't tell him because he didn't feel an obligation to do so.

We live in a world where law enforcement will not always get the facts right on a case and make the wrong conclusions with the evidence.

Except that is how it works. Everything affects the other. Nothing exists in a bubble. Since the second draft of ANH, the Force is affected by the actions of the individual and it influences them. The Force is everywhere and everyone is connected to it.

"Star Wars" is and always has been a fairy tale for kids. Even with those films and shows. And the Grimm brothers told dark stories while Disney did not.

 

I don't believe there is a purpose in life. And how important things are only matter on what scale you are looking at. On the scale of the universe: people, our planet, our solar system, and even our galaxy don't matter.

Take global warming, air pollution, overfishing, desertification, nutrient runoff, plastic pollution, and whatever other environmental issues you want to add. Those things matter to us to the extent that they negatively affect us, or to the extent that some people believe that we have some kind of stewardship of the Earth and have to preserve it. The "badness" or "goodness" of our actions are attributes that we assign. The "universe" doesn't care. If humans went extinct, it's not like that universe just shuts down like turning off some video game when you lose. The world's going to keep spinning. Even if the Earth became some desolate wasteland devoid of life, the planets are still going to be orbiting the sun, stars will still be created and destroyed, galaxies will collide, life may exist elsewhere long after we are gone and any evidence that we ever existed.

Good and bad are human concepts that only matter to us.

In Star Wars, the Force has a light side and dark side, and concepts still exist as to which side is good or evil, but again those are perceptions of intelligent beings based on what they value. The Force itself is not intelligent and not really shown to care. If evil begets evil and the Force becomes unbalanced, that matters to the Sith and the Jedi. Nobody else seems to be attuned to the Force enough to really care. If the Jedi were all wiped out and the Dark Side triumphed and the Anakin did not fulfill his destiny, that matters to the Jedi, but there will still be life, and the Force will still exist. And the Force itself might try to skew towards balance, but I don't think it "wants" or "cares" about balance.

 

The Force is more than what people assign as good and evil. This is what the dark side Force nexuses reveal to us. The Force planet itself is teaming with life and save for the valley to Yoda goes into, which is the dark side, the rest of the planet is filled with the light. These are proof that the dark side and the Force is more than choosing to assign actions.

You can disagree all you want but that doesn't change the story. The Force is energy, but there is an intelligence behind it. The Whills.

 

The Whills are borderline irrelevant. They make no appearance nor are mentioned in any film to date.

The Force is energy, sure. But people are the ones discussing balance, good and evil.

Balance and what that means is a concept very poorly defined by George in the films themselves.

The Sith are evil, they disrupt the balance in the Force which is a bad thing, and destroying them will restore the balance. That’s about all that can concretely be taken from the films themselves.

But the only ones discussing balance are the Jedi. A lay person like Han doesn’t even believe in the Force.

The imbalance in the Force doesn’t seem to affect anyone but the Jedi and their ability to use the Force.

It’s not like there’s a Galactic crisis where people are dying young and birthrates are down because the Sith have corrupted the life Force. Planets aren’t inexplicably turning to wastelands. It’s not like the Sith are stealing the souls of people and preventing them from becoming one with the Force.

The Dark Side is never shown to have any outright ill effects on anyone but the Jedi themselves.

It’s not like the Sith have corrupted the minds of otherwise good people, and that influence magically goes away when they die. The Imperial officers don’t just snap out of it once Palpatine is dead and the Force is back in balance.

Palpatine never discussed some grand plot to knock the Force out of balance. The whole balance thing is a Jedi-ism that never gets mentioned in the OT. The Sith don’t talk about balance. The OT is strictly about fighting for freedom from tyranny, which is a way more tangible thing.


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I can disagree in as much as these concepts simply don't appear in the OT. Even in the PT the whills are (as has already been pointed out by @TaradosGon ) non-existent. One of the reasons I started posting on these boards is, I was looking for somebody to show me a way of relating the OT to the PT in a meaningful way. Actually the more I have discussed it, the more I have come to realise they are separate entities. I mean, sure, you can make the OT work with the PT....but I think it's much more difficult to make the PT work with the OT - once you've understood it from a ....certain point of view.

 

The dark side is fear, right. In the films there is fear everywhere because of the Clone Wars and the totalitarian nature of the Empire. Tarkin states that fear of the Death Star blowing them to smithereens will keep the systems in line. The lives of everyone in the galaxy is a life of fear. The dark side is anger. The war started because of anger over an indifferent government. Hate is everywhere. Greed fueled the Regional Governors and the Separatists Council.

The balance is restored when fear is conquered. When anger is replaced with compassion. When hate is defeated by love. When people unite against a common foe.

 

Which only works if RotJ is the “and they lived happily ever after” ending for Star Wars. But it wasn’t in the EU, and it isn’t anymore with the New Republic quickly becoming complacent, what’s right being ignored in favor of what’s affordable or practical or what passes bureaucratic procedures. The Imperial Remnant is still out there, and subsequently Thrawn, Snoke, Kylo Ren and Palpatine.

Bringing balance to the Force in the PT never extended past destroying the Sith. The Jedi weren’t cheerleading to the Galaxy to get over their fear or come together. Luke didn’t either. The Galaxy was already coming together to fight evil before Luke ever started his quest.

It’s never presented as the people coming together on love ousting the Dark Side and restoring balance. It’s only the compassion of a single individual sacrificing himself to destroy the Emperor which somehow brings balance, when the entire Rebellion is based on facing fear and being willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for a better tomorrow. But that’s almost irrelevant next to Vader’s sacrifice, which has no long lasting impact.


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The point is that the Force is restored to balance. In Legends, the Empire lost its grip and was wiiddled down. Cade Skywalker is ultimately able to defeat the Sith and Dark Horse lost the rights before the Empire under the Fel family could be dealt with.

In Disney lore, the Imperial Remnant was ultimately destroyed and the First Order and the Final Order are destroyed by Rey, the Alliance and the Republic. That's why she hears Anakin telling her to bring balance as he did.

The Alliance was afraid to fight the Empire before the Battle of Scariff. It took the crew of the Ghost to convince Bail and Mon Mothma to organize the Rebel cells into a large group. It took the crew of the Rouge One to convince them to stand and fight, when the Death Star became known. It took Leia going to Tatooine to get Obi-Wan and Luke involved. It took Luke destroying the Death Star, which only a Jedi could do, to rally more support for the Alliance. It took Leia befriending the Ewoks to have enough ground support to take the shield bunker. It took Luke forgiving Vader for him to kill Palpatine.

It takes Rey nearly killing Ben for him to break free of the dark side and to forgive himself for his actions. It took Leia dying to help that along. It took Luke sacrificing himself to convince the Resistance to continue. It took Poe, Finn and Lando to get the Citizen's Fleet to rally to the rescue. It takes the spirit of the fallen Jedi to rally Rey and Ben's sacrifice for her to kill Palpatine again.

The love of a father for his son takes out the source of the imbalance. The Alliance destroyed the symbol of fear, which spread joy throughout the galaxy which is why Lucas revisited his original plan to show the galaxy's reaction to the news that the Sith were gone and that the Empire was on the ropes now. Indeed, Anakin himself represents the balance and imbalance. He has to bring balance to himself before he can bring balance to the Force.

 

@darth-sinister @TaradosGon @only one kenobi

Some of this discourse underscores the problem with "The Balance of The Force/Chosen One" concept being tacked on the end of ROTJ. In the films, the "balance of the force" seems like broad concept. Yet, in the PT films... it is specifically and repeatedly referred to in terms of "Destroying the Sith = Balance of the Force."

This is why (to me) Balance of The Force is kind of wishy washy and limp idea. I

f Balance of the Force = Destruction of Sith (as the PT films state) you can have evil people, evil droids, Dathomir witches, and horrific Dark Side users (that can exist sans Sith) and still wreak havoc on the galaxy in a similar and just as evil way.

Hypothetical: If Dooku and Palpatine were somehow killed in a certain moment in The Clone Wars....we'd still have Darth Maul (possibly his brother) Mother Talzin and the Nightsisters, General Grievous, Ventress, etc. See what I mean? I mean, technically it's "Balance of The Force", but it's not a lot different. Is it?

 

"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, Time Magazine Article 2002.

"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."

--George Lucas, Cut Magazine Interview, 1999.

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

--George Lucas, AOTC 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, Starlog Magazine Interview.

Evil always exists. It exists before the Sith and it exists after they are gone. The Sith are the biggest influencers on the disruption of the Force. The Sith create a climate of fear that starts with the Naboo blockade and ends with the Death Star II being destroyed. Fear is the path to the dark side. The Trade Federation is afraid to lose its power. The Republic is afraid to lose its power, which is why they go to war. Talkin and Motti state that the Death Star will spread fear and help maintain order.

 

Yes. And this is present from the very start in the first Star Wars film and expanded upon in The Empire Strikes Back.

So, my question: There are many dark forces in the Star Wars saga/galaxy/mythos besides The Sith. Are The Sith the only "dark forces" that can "undo" Balance of The Force? Again, in TCW Darth Maul is alive and well spreading evil and chaos, yet he's not "technically" a Sith. Is he not one of the "dark forces" tipping the scales of balance? The Force operates on technicalities?

For sure. Palpatine gains more power and the dark side clouds everything.

So, this seems to suggest that a very specific action "destroying the Sith" will be enough to "Bring Balance to The Force." Yet, (as you say) evil has existed before The Sith and will exist after The Sith....which mean Balance of The Force is always in jeopardy and must be fought for and upheld. No? Something else?

 

Just to point out that yin and yang has a very different philosophical background to good and evil. Good and evil is fundamentally the idea that there is a cosmic battle raging between the forces of good and evil, that only one can win out - generally this is based on the notion that good will (obviously, durr) win, but that you must fight to be on the right side (good...again, obvs). Usually these religious ideas are replete with either notions of a great cleansing of sinners and evil, or of worlds that are either profane or sacred. Good is ultimately rewarded and evil is punished.

Yin and Yang are complementaries, which seem at first to be opposites but when you comprehend them correctly you see them to be both necessary for the other. Destruction/generation. Light/dark. Feminine/masculine etc. The circle is only complete when both are present. The idea that the Force itself goes out of balance makes no sense. When Luke rejects the darkside he doesn't use the Force to reject it does he? If the darkside was actually more powerful, how could he have? How could the 'light' side have won out? He rejects acting in anger, acting on his negative emotions. The darkside didn't seem very difficult for him to recognise, there didn't seem to be very much 'fog' going on. And Anakin turned knowing that what he was doing was wrong - he wasn't blindsided, he wasn't confused by some notional mistiness of is this right or wrong. He made a choice, in full sharp knowledge of where the boundary was.

Lucas added the notion of the Force itself being out of balance in order to make Anakin more important (to re-invest the notion of a chosen one, dropped from the original movie(s)) and make the story more 'epic'. It just doesn't work for me. The OT is Luke's journey.

 

Lucas's original plan in 2010 was for Maul to survive and to go in hiding after Order 66. He would be the main Sith threat in the ST. But the Force would be in balance. Palpatine is the chief source of the imbalance. The Hutts, Death Watch, Black Sun and the like do not have the same effect. Nor did the Witches of Dathmoir since they were confined to their world.

Right. The Jedi and the Republic needed to work together to help everyone. They need to prevent the rise of another Sith. They need to make sure that some evil force doesn't take over and create the fear that weakens the Force. The circumstances were unique that allowed Palpatine to disrupt the balance.

THE FATHER: "A family in balance. The light and the dark. Day with night. Destruction replaced by creation."

OBI-WAN: "Then why reveal yourselves to us?"

THE FATHER: "There are some who would like to exploit our power. The Sith are but one. Too much dark or light would be the undoing of life as you understand it."

That is why a balance is needed. Luke rejects the dark side by seeing through the fog of lies. By seeing the dark side offers him quick power, but nothing else. The moment before Palpatine tells him to kill Vader, Luke is lost to the darkness within his soul. His fear, anger and hate has all but consumed him. It is like a fog. Anakin was the same way when he killed the Tusken Raiders and when he killed Dooku. The dark side lies to the Jedi. It tells them what they want to hear.

Luke doesn't realize that he has used the dark side until he is told to kill Vader. Then he realizes what is happening.



Anakin is lost to the dark side when he kills the Tusken Raiders, and when he betrays Mace. He makes a conscious choice to use the dark side when he joins Palpatine and becomes a Sith.

"It's a downer, the saving grace is that if you watch the other three movies, then you know everything ends happily ever after. Nevertheless, I now have to make a movie that works by itself but which also works with this six-hour movie and this overall twelve-hour movie. I'll have two six-hour trilogies, and the two will beat against each other: One's the fall, one's the redemption. They have different tonalities but it's meant to be one experience of twelve hours."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith, page 62.


The two Star Wars trilogies share many characters but have different structures. Instead of telling another heroic coming-of-age story, Lucas has crafted the prequels a historical drama, at whose center is Anakin Skywalker. His story is tragic; that of the Republic-turned-Empire, uncomfortably familiar. Anakin begins as a nine-year-old boy who is physically enslaved. He ends the prequel saga a spiritual and mental slave to the Emperor, who is his metaphorical if not biological father....

But the end of Revenge of the Sith is not the end of Anakin, whose story really closes when it merges with those of his children, Luke and Leia, in Return of the Jedi.

Anakin Skywalker's final confrontation with the Emperor occurs during Luke's final confrontation with the Emperor, which compliments his father's dealings with the same man many years earlier. Indeed the life of the father and the life of the son are commentaries on each other.

"The Star Wars saga is like a symphony, which has recurring themes," he adds, "You have one theme orchestrated in a particular way and place, which then comes back orchestrated as a minor theme somewhere else. There are these little threads running through things that are constantly turning events on their head. You see two people confronting the same things, with different ends. It's a rhythm. I like the idea of seeing something from a different perspective. An advantage I have in this particular situation is that I have literally twelve hours to tell a story. It has the epic quality of following one person from the time he's nine years old to the time he dies. It's Anakin's story, but obviously there are many other characters in that story- his children, his best friend- and their stories carry through. So this isn't just a tune- it's a symphony. When you do it as a symphony, I think it actually becomes beautiful."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 221.

 

Unpopular opinion? I have zero interest in reading what GL has to say about SW.

 

Symphony? I thought it was like poetry, it rhymes. Unless the ST does it then it's lazy hack writing. Now what rhymes with Jar-Jar stepping in ****?

 

Anakin and Luke are like poetry. All of the characters were like a symphony.

 

"too much light would be the undoing of life"

LOL I just can't with this ****

 

It's hard to imagine how "too much light would be the undoing of life" in a Star Wars context. But in other frames of reference it would make sense. Take astronomy, for instance. You wouldn't like it if Earth was parked right next to the Sun, would you? (To quote Tim Powers' On Stranger Tides: "Blessed be the day, and the shade that keeps it away.")

Really, I think a lot of the problem is that Lucas likes to pay lip-service to yin-yang symbolism, but when it comes down to it, for all practical purposes the Force is depicted as a Manichaean good-versus-evil dichotomy, more in line with Western religions like Christianity, where good must be upheld and evil must be defeated. @only one kenobi has it exactly right.

 

that's the problem though,

Star Wars in the 70's 80's was depecited as good overcoming evil.
That's it, good guys = the right way
dark side= bad.

Simple effective.

Now it's "there must be balance" BUT "in order there to be balance the sith (but not other bad force users, they are small fry and can't cause fear for arbitrary reasons) need to be eradicated" BUT "too much light is also very bad, quit tipping the scales you stupid mortals, you're making us sea sick!"

I think Lucas has no idea what he's really saying, or has a clear vision on this stuf, it's too jumbled.

only that's not what this means, and you know this.

Light in the force context means goodness, so the quote is saying 'too much good in the universe is destructive'
nothing to do with too much heat, photosynthesis, light sensitivity, radiation sickness etc etc

 

Exactly this. In the OT it was easy to understand. Acting in greed, for power, in anger. Yeah, that's not good. That's the darkside. It's quicker, easier, more seductive but ultimately it will devour you. Lucas trying to 'expand' on the theological/mechanical intricacies is just a mess. A mess of ideas and concepts that haven't been fully thought through. Gibberish.

 

The Witches of Dathmoir were eliminated by the Sith. The Ren were not an issue. The Daygon Masters are gone. The OT has a few Jedi scattered around the galaxy and two Sith. Balance is restored with good and evil in opposition again, neither side gaining an advantage over the other.

Compassion and selfishness. Serenity and aggression. Good still overcomes evil and everything is like it was before the rise of the Sith.