Anakin too old, Luke Isn't?

I brought this over from a post I made in the ROTS forum, I guess it belongs here more than there.

I watched ESB and ROTJ this weekend and something came across my mind.

In TPM the council initially refuses to train Anakin because he's too old.

In ESB Yoda talks about "To old, to old to begin the training" in answer to Obi Wan saying "So was I, if you remember." Does this mean Obi Wan was thought to be too old to be trained?

Second question is how is that Luke barely goes through what seems to be 2 or 3 total days in training in the Force yet he knows enough to beat Vader who spent decades?

 

The actual line is

(To Luke) Yoda: You are reckless!
Ben: So was I, if you remember.

*******************

Additionally, Luke trained on Dagobah for over a month, it just seems like only a few days on-screen.

 

In ESB Yoda talks about "To old, to old to begin the training" in answer to Obi Wan saying "So was I, if you remember." Does this mean Obi Wan was thought to be too old to be trained?

Yoda: He is reckless
Kenobi: So was i, if you remember

Second question is how is that Luke barely goes through what seems to be 2 or 3 total days in training in the Force yet he knows enough to beat Vader who spent decades?

ESB: Luke gets the crap beat out of him
RotJ: Vaders fighting both Luke and "Anakin" ("i feel the conflict within you")

 

When there is only one potential Jedi left in the entire galaxy, rules have to bend. It's called getting desperate and training Luke even if Luke was 80 years old.

 

"The actual line is

(To Luke) Yoda: You are reckless!
Ben: So was I, if you remember."

And Yoda's response to Obi Wan saying that is, "Yes, too old. Too old to begin the training."

"Additionally, Luke trained on Dagobah for over a month, it just seems like only a few days on-screen."

This is based on what? You're saying that Han and Leia flew around the galaxy and in an asteroid field for over a month before going to Cloud city?

Sorry, that doesn't jive with the movie.

 

And he let both be trained.

 

"When there is only one potential Jedi left in the entire galaxy, rules have to bend. It's called getting desperate and training Luke even if Luke was 80 years old."

I agree. It just seems strange that he got as little training as he did yet he was able to ultimately fight Vader.

In ROTJ he beat him, yet he had no training between the end of ESB and when he goes back to see Yoda in ROTJ.

 

I guess "last" hope, no choice thing. Really nothing to lose. Obi Wan dead, Yoda seems content on Dagobah.

The training on dagobah was actually a month, not a few days. Just seems shorter because A- they cut out some scenes and B- it's a movie.

The part about luke with little training taking down vader, a feat no one else can seem to accomplish....

Without spoiling anything, or trying not to....Keep in mind they were trying to turn luke in ESB/ROTJ not kill him. Had Vader not stepped in at the last minute Luke would of gotten killed.

 

"The training on dagobah was actually a month, not a few days. Just seems shorter because A- they cut out some scenes and B- it's a movie."

So how does this timeline relate to Han and Leia being chased by the Empire? Were they chased for a month?

 

Read the ESB book.

 

So the discrepency in the movie is to be disregarded in favor of the book?

 

The literary translation you may find easier to swallow than the movie.

Alot of stuff has to be chopped out to keep the flow of the movie going, and to fit it in a reasonable time frame.

It isn't hard to beleive that from the time they left hoth till the time Luke arrived in Bespin a month had transpired. You just don't see the "boring" stuff. They only put in the stuff that helps move the plot along.

I would imagine the flight from the asteroid field to Bespin wasn't a measily 1 hour flight. Han mentions it's pretty far away but he thinks they can make it. Keep in mind no Hyperdrive. So that alone could of taken days.

Use your imagination and reasoning and add in all the boring stuff you wouldn't want to see in the movies.

 

Discrepency? In one scene they fly around in the anoat system
in their next they approach Bespin
it doesn't say anything about time. It could be minutes (though highly unlikely) it could be months. It was probably "just" weeks, though.

Absolutely nothing was shown in the movie that hints at the time that passed.
It just wouldn't make sense to be just a few days.

Especially since Luke is told "Remember your failure at the cave" and he replies "But I've learned so much since then". Neither does it sound like the cave thing was the day before yesterday, nor is it very plausible that he learned "so much" in 2 or 3 days.

What the exact time is, stays up to interpretation.


And Luke being trained despite being far too old is also just another hint at how much the Jedi need(ed) to change since their Golden Days.

 

That all makes sense. I've never read the books but was wondering about that.

BTW, do the books expound on the Obi Wan Yoda conversation where Yoda says of Obi Wan "Too old?" That part has always confused me.

 

I think yoda is just being a punk.

The part that I really still dont understand is yoda telling Luke he will be afraid.

Being as fear is the path to the darkside why would you want to instill fear into him?

 

Nobody ever said Obi-Wan was too old.

The conversation is:
Yoda: "You are reckless"
Ben: "So was I, if you remember"
Yoda: "Too old he is. Yes, too old to begin his training"
Luke: "But I already learned so much, I'm ready, Ben, tell him I'm rea- *bonk*"

 

"Being as fear is the path to the darkside why would you want to instill fear into him?"

Hmm, never thought about that but you're right.

Maybe if they're ever remade we have a line added in for C-3PO where he says, "I thought we'd never get to Bespin. A month smelling that Wookie is quite enough"

 

Nobody ever said Obi-Wan was too old.

The conversation is:
Yoda: "You are reckless"
Ben: "So was I, if you remember"
Yoda: "Too old he is. Yes, too old to begin his training"
Luke: "But I already learned so much, I'm ready, Ben, tell him I'm rea- *bonk*"


Yoda doesn't say "Too old he is" He says, "Yes too old". At least that's what it sounds like in the movie. The script may be as you say.

Maybe he says "He is too old." That would sound similar to "Yes to old".

Oh well, no biggie.

 

In order to overcome your own fears, you have to meet them. Or at least know them.
Saying up front "I'm not afraid" borders on exactly the kind of arrogance that brought the Jedi Order down.


And I think Yoda says "Too old is he. Yes, too old to begin..."
but it doesn't matter right now. The order of the lines is important, because Ben was never too old.

 

Of course he's going to say Luke is too old. Yoda is seeing so many of the same flaws he found in Anakin in Luke. Wouldn't *you* be hesitant to set someone down a path of great power when they could very well take the the dark path, especially given their parentage? I don't blame Yoda for his bitterness and upset over the entire ordeal. How would you feel having to train the son of the man responsible for the Jedi purge, knowing fully well the pitfalls still exist for the son?

Also keep in mind that when Anakin came into the Jedi order, it was still in its Golden Age. The rules and regulations that the Jedi lived by didn't have to be changed for the sake of desperate need. Luke being too old and Anakin being too old are too completely different situations. They had a choice whether to train Anakin. They really didn't when it came to Luke. And I think Yoda, as much as he hated the situation, knew this.

As for fear...well, IMO, a Jedi should have a *healthy* fear of the Force. Not like the fear we saw in Anakin, that leads to distress, anger, and hate, but the kind that makes one respect and appreciate the kind of power you're throwing around. Yoda, too, may have been warning Luke that he was going to discover things through the Force that he wasn't ready for and be forced to face the darkest aspects of himself.

 

Also keep in mind that when Anakin came into the Jedi order, it was still in its Golden Age. The rules and regulations that the Jedi lived by didn't have to be changed for the sake of desperate need. Luke being too old and Anakin being too old are too completely different situations. They had a choice whether to train Anakin. They really didn't when it came to Luke. And I think Yoda, as much as he hated the situation, knew this.

you are right of course about luke and anakin, but i want to expand on my agreement a little.

anakin was a child who was too old, still malleable but also somewhat set along a certain path.

that's dangerous, they can still try to make anakin into the embodiment of jedi ideals, but he will always have the bagage he carries at that point.

luke is different luke is beyond the malleable stage, they could not change him even if they wanted to.

anakin feared loss, change and probably a whole host of other things, i know at 9 i would have.

luke had fully developed into a (relatively) mature adult, he had delt with loss, change, pain, his own hatred, all the emotions that can lead to the darkside, already.

in a sense the jedi in the PT took the path of 'making jedi out of babies', but there is an alternative, though it's very dangerous on a large scale.

they could look at the personality and temperment of each adult with force potential and see if they have a personality they can train, but then many would be rejected.

then you have alot of potentialy powerful rogue force users running around with a beef against the jedi, not a good idea.

i think owen and beru deserve alot of credit, them raising luke might be the single reason why he didn't turn out like his father.

they raised an emotionaly sound boy, who could face the world, the pain it brings, and the unfair nature of it all, take his lumps and deal with it.

anakin never had that instilled in him, or things would have been much different.

 

Luke isn't too old because he and Leia are only the two potential Jedi left in the galaxy.

Ciao!

 

My belief is that Luke is not too old, he is the perfect age. Why else would OB1 wait twenty years to train Luke, or even raise Luke himself? I think that the Jedi realize that a Jedi actually needs to be HUMAN before being a Jedi (i.e., having emotions and relationships) and this is why training Luke is so different than the old method.

The old method was cold and sterile, and obviously ended up not working (as the "arrogance" comment by Yoda in AOTC hinted at). Remember, OB1 and Yoda were not only trying to deal with the Vader and Palps problem, but were trying to rebuild and revamp the Jedi order (pass on what you have learned!).

My theory is also that Luke did not stop training to be a Jedi in the year or so between ESB and ROTJ (does anyone know if that timeframe is correct?), he just did it in other places and alone. Yoda was harping about Luke finishing the training in ESB, and when Luke gets to Dagobah in ROTJ, Yoda tells him the only thing left for him to do is to face Vader. Obviously, SOME training of some sort was transpired because, otherwise, if Luke had decided to stay when Yoda said the training must be finished, Yoda would have had to be like, "uuuuuh...well...actually...face Vader is all you really to do have left," or something like that.

As to the Bespin question, you gotta remember that the Falcon did not have a working hyperdrive, so it would have taken a looong time to get to Bespin. This jives perfectly with the time needed for Luke to get a crash course in Jedi on Dagobah. I also agree that Luke's comment about learning so much since the cave is exposition that he has been there a while. It ALSO gives Han and Leia time to go from the tense, resistant initial stages of love experiences on the asteroid to the lovey dovey scene in Bespin before they get handed over to Vader.

 

I agree that the Old Jedi order didn't do things I particularly condoned, but I disagree with the sentiment that the adult age is the best one. There were plenty of the Jedi in the old order that were just fine trained from adulthood to childhood. If nothing else, what it shows us that there's a specific age or period in a child's life where it's simply too dangerous to train them. A child trained from birth is less likely to turn because he's been instilled with the same ideas, beliefs, and morals from birth. An adult is less likely to change because they are the most set in their ways and by observing them and examining their behavior, it wouldn't be too difficult, IMO, to see if that person had emotional or mental instabilities that would lead to them not being able to handle and/or abusing the power they were given.

I wouldn't call the method they had "sterile" since there were obviously strong, familiar relationships amidst the Jedi, but simply that it was an incomplete method of looking at the force, which ultimately worked against them. It opened ways for the Sith to create and exploit a weakness in the Jedi. Detachment, to a degree, *is* important for a Jedi. He has to be able to learn restraint and self control, and emotionally investing yourself in everything around him is only going to leave him open for exploitation. This was Anakin's problem. On the flip side, not recognizing the wealth of these attachments on a controlled level can be a mistake too. This, to me, was the mistake the original order made. The worth of the moment should not be made at the expense of the future because then you will overlook the problems and benefits of the moment. But one should not be so immersed in the moment that they lose sight of long-term goals or developments. A person who can find the balance between those, IMO, is the perfect Jedi.

Anakin, on the other hand, was a big mistake. He was old enough that certain insecurities and mental complexes/problems had developed, but young enough that he could still be influenced by outside sources that bothered to invest time to do so. (i.e. Palpatine) He was also at a pivotal point in his life, on the surmount of gigantic change. Ten years old is the beginning of the turning tide that heads into adolescence, which is one the most majorly defining and turmoil-ridden points in an individual's life. And while doing this, he was not only leaving behind the only life he'd ever known, but he was being torn away from his only stable emotional base (his mother). Such a brutal and abrupt transition in his life, followed by the death of the individual whom he had started to develop a familiarity with (Qui Gon), left him a bit lost and adrift. Now, sure, I think Obi Wan helped to fill the gap a bit, but it also allowed for people like Palpatine to swoop on and implant themselves in Anakin's life as a significant influence and resource for emotional release. Which, as it came to be, worked to his detriment.

 

Serenity, I totally agree with you on the balance comment. It just seems that if it is best for a Jedi to be trained from birth, why didnt OB1 just raise Luke and train him?

I think maybe YOda and Ben decided to change tactics with Luke in his training, and the only real explanation is that they WANTED Luke to be older, and to have lived life a little as a human in order for him to achieve that balance that you and I like. This is a completely new age (no pun intended) as far as the Jedi order is concerned, and Luke needs to be able to relate to other humans on an emotional level and understand everyday motivations if he is to be the seed of a new order.

An alternate argument is that they needed Luke to be older and to have his own family ripped away from him (not implying they set it up, but maybe Yoda foresaw it or something) in order for Anakin to relate to LUKE?