Saga Did Anakin truly bring Balance to the Force?

It was to end the story. From about 1990 until 2010, he had no intention of doing more films beyond the PT. That's why he let the post ROTJ EU go where it did. He started to come up with ideas while working on TCW, but until Disney came along, he was torn on what he wanted to do.

Also, the Chosen One becomes good again before fulfilling his destiny. The prophecy does not state how the Sith would be destroyed, nor what kind of person that he was going to be.

Yes, there were no Inquisitors in his story. He had only intended for there to be Jedi and Sith only. TCW added more, but the Inquisitors were only meant for the EU and not his story.

 

Sigh... It is possible to remain faithful to the Prophecy while also telling good stories that go beyond it, without contradicting it. This is not a difficult task, if only you have an inkling of creativity. It is only problematic because you have deemed it so. In my opinion, what George Lucas says is law. He is the CREATOR. It is pure dishonesty and disrespectful to separate the Creator from his Creation. As a true fan, you should only work with what has been established by the creator in order to maintain it's artistic/intellectual honesty.

Anakin Skywalker, being the Chosen One, was born of the Force and destined by the Whills to bring balance to it as foretold by the prophecy. So consequently, all his descendants will inherit his Force sensitivity, making it possible for them to become Jedi and safeguard the galaxy from evil, thereby ensuring the balance of the Force for generations to come. This is exactly how Anakin can bring perpetual balance long after his death.

"Why else would we have children? Because Children arrange for us to survive in another way by as it were, passing on a torch, so that you don't have to carry it all the time. There comes a point where you can give it up and say now you work. It's a far more amusing arrangement for nature to continue the process of life through different individuals, then it is always with the same individuals. Because as each new individual approaches life, life is renewed."
- Philosopher Alan Watts

"One of the things Star Wars is most deeply about is fathers, sons, and redemption. In its own way, it points to the indispensability of paternal love, and it has a lot to say about the lengths to which people, boys or girls, will go to get it."
- George Lucas

This same concept is also how I've always viewed the Expanded Universe (EU) when it introduced characters such as Ben Skywalker, Jacen Solo, Jaina Solo, Anakin Solo, Allana Djo Solo, Kol Skywalker, Nat Skywalker, Cade Skywalker, and even Emperor Roan Fel, who is also Anakin's descendant through Jaina. Every single one of Luke and Leia's children and grandchildren are all force-sensitives. If you follow the Castlevania franchise, the Skywalkers are similar to the Belmont Clan, who are usually the main protagonists that keep the world from falling to evil. When considering expanding the story beyond Episode 6, it's essential to include a legitimate Skywalker heir to continue the line to avoid compromising and ruining the entire narrative of the previous 6 films. The Disney shiquels failed to do this by deliberately having the worst plot character known as Rey Palpatine, Fake-walker.

 

I agree with the sentiment, I love George Lucas. Yet, even though he is a hero of mine, he did say a lot of different (and conflicting) things about SW through the years. No?

I am not sure about this. Star Wars is going to be around generations after it's CREATOR is gone. Lucas knows this and it's part of the reason he sold it to Disney... to keep Star Wars alive and thriving for years to come.

Like Mickey Mouse, Superman, Batman, James Bond, Star Trek, etc... Star Wars is inevitably going to evolve and change as new artists/creators get to play in the sandbox that Lucas built. New generations will have new interpretations of what came before. If one wants to draw a line and say "Lucas's SW only!", that's a respectable and fine personal choice. Yet, I don't think fans (nor creators) are obligated to feel/act this way.

Consider: Shuster and Siegel's version of Superman didn't fly. Are we to adhere to the idea that a flying Superman is dishonest, separate, and intellectually/artistically dishonest?

Frank Miller's Dark Knight is a different beast than Bob Kane and Bill Finger's Batman. Does this mean that this version is a false/creatively sacrilegious version of the favorite Caped Crusader?

On screen, 007 is rarely close to Ian Fleming's literary version of the character. Is the most beloved version of Bond disrespectful and disrespectful to Ian Fleming's legacy?

 

Wether it's beloved or hated is beside the point. 007 movies are adaptations, or licensed works, based on Ian Fleming's originals. If there's any question regarding James Bond as a character, Ian Fleming's works are the source.

Star Wars will be milked for decades, but wether you consume all future products or not, it's perfectly logical for people to refer to George Lucas as the authority on his creation. That he sold his sandbox to Disney doesn't change anything. Like when he owned the company, he always let other people play in his sandbox, and because of that he always separated his works from the rest. As he once put it: "The movies are gospel, and everything else is gossip."

 

The issue being raided wasn't about "beloved or hated," aka how the content is received.

The issue being raised were about legitimacy, disrespect, dishonesty, and artistic/intellectual honesty in the creation of the movies/shows/etc. @Imperatorius stated has some strong declarations/rules about what "true fans" are to be honoring/dealing with in terms of an ever expanding SW universe. I am questioning that line of thinking.

He did say that. So, The Clone Wars TV series Lucas created.... gospel or gossip?

 

Gospel, of course. He was making a distinction between his works (which at the time were exclusively the movies) and the licensed works.

Something he reiterated again when TCW came out:

 

Right. So, as I said earlier:

Like Mickey Mouse, Superman, Batman, James Bond, Star Trek, etc... Star Wars is inevitably going to evolve and change as new artists/creators get to play in the sandbox that Lucas built. New generations will have new interpretations of what came before. If one wants to draw a line and say "Lucas's SW only!", that's a respectable and fine personal choice. Yet, I don't think fans (nor creators) are obligated to feel/act this way.

 

I respect Lucas and what he did but now Disney controls and owns Star Wars Lucas lost all creative control when he sold Star Wars to Disney so the New Canon/Disney Universe can interpret the Prophecy in different ways maybe they will talk about the Prophecy of the Chosen One on the Acolyte Show

 

Right, but the story group has been consistent with the Force, for instance. They are still following what Lucas set up. That's why we hear Anakin mention bringing balance to Rey and the supplemental material explains that balance was restored at Endor. The Inquisitors fall in line with Ventress and Savage serving the Sith. Now, if Disney decides to remake the Saga, they are free to rewrite everything as this would be a new universe.

 

Of course nobody is obligated to anything. Hence why (I assume) @Imperatorius referred to respect and artistic/intellectual honesty. Both of which nobody is obligated to have either, although I think everyone should.

 

I don’t think it’s disrespectful to enjoy the continuities beyond Lucas’ output (being the old EU, the new Canon, Visions, etc). I don’t think these stories are any less ‘real’ than what Lucas made, in the sense all of these are fictional stories and none of these stories are more real than each other. Lucas’ output will always be unique in its authenticity, and be contiguous only to itself. That should be respected and acknowledged. At the same time however, people who enjoy other material just as much shouldn’t be looked down upon, as if enjoying something that is inauthentic or ‘fake’ or disrespectful. It just comes across as inauthentic snobbery of the worst kind, which I don’t think is in the spirit of the franchise.

 

I basically said the same thing twenty years ago. We just become too passionate on both sides. We become our own worst enemies.

 

By the Jedi's definition, yes. He destroyed the Sith.
Canon and Legends make it complicated beyond that because Palpatine has clone bodies. In canon, Anakin is one of the Jedi who specifically calls out to Rey and amps her. So, I suppose from a certain point of view he destroyed the Sith twice.
In Legends, there are other Sith eventually even after Palpatine's clone bodies are gone.

 

George Lucas stated that Anakin is the chosen one, and that he destroyed the Sith. It's his story. It's final.
Star Wars fans are of course free to incorporate Disney's Sequel Trilogy into canon. Luckily people are also free to ignore it.

 

Canon is canon. YOU are free to ignore anything you dislike, that doesn't mean that it won't still be canon. You somehow managed to switch the whole thing around by pretending that someone could add something to canon if he liked, which isn't true at all. "Canon" defines the official storyline. Any fan can then focus on or ignore any part of the franchise he likes or doesn't like. That has zero impact on what the official storyline is though.

Beyond that, the sequel trilogy did not state that Anakin didn't bring balance to the force. It did in fact do the exact opposite by having Anakin state that he brought balance to the force. But why stick to facts, right?

Not that I think that JJ Abrams quite got what George Lucas meant with the balance of the force, but that is a different issue entirely.

 

I see no reason to hold "official" canon in high regard. It's just Disney's stamp of approval. And Disney can continue their own canon, sure. And if people don't want to accept it, that's fine and that's not canon to them. So what? It's all fiction anyway.

I think the ST made Anakin being the Chosen One... murky, by bringing back Palpatine, and having Rey be the one to defeat him. Sure, he said he brought balance too, but the act of bringing balance/ destroying the Sith is now made much less special and impactful if non-Chosen One Rey is doing it again, and with the same villain no less. Both the ST and the old EU should never have brought Palpatine back.

 

It's "official" of course, but I don't subscribe to Disney's vision, so it's not canon for me. I don't think we disagree.

If people want to believe that Luke Skywalker -- the hero who maintained an unshakable faith in the goodness of his father despite all the evil he had perpetrated. The man who confronted Vader and Sidious alone and passed the most difficult trial any Jedi has ever faced -- gives up on his sisters son at the first sign of trouble, plots to kill him, fails and then becomes a recluse, go right ahead. Thanks Ryan.

 

I don't know ... I guess he did? That's what they say anyways. The whole prophecy stuff isn't even coherent from a solely 9 movie watch without consuming a lot of outside of films material (which is poor story telling).

My issue with the "prophecy" is twofold:

1) There is literally nothing in the OT that implied that Anakin was the messiah to the Jedi and a pivotal figure in restoring the balance to the Force (nothing in the OT, via dialogue or showing it implied the Force was somehow out of balance). So it felt really forced that this incredibly important aspect of Anakin's history is never brought up and retroactively in the background. Neither Yoda, nor Obi-Wan said anything to Luke about it. The two characters best in position to explain it to him didn't utter a peep. It reeked of ex post facto story-(re)telling.

2) It is never explained in the PT. I don't care if it is vaguely explained or expanded on in behind the scenes interviews, cartoons, comics, books, and video games. Something of that magnitude needs to be explained in what was the "main continuity". Not something to be pieced together from vague inferences, interviews, and supplemental material. We never fully understand why Anakin was born via the Force, what caused the Force to be out of balance, what it means to even be out of balance (that is why to this day some think it is literal numbers as in two Jedi (Obi-Wan/Yoda) and two Sith (Palpatine/Vader) or that it means the Dark Side's very existence corrupts the Force or other ideas I've read). They vaguely implied him killing Palpatine caused the Force to be put back into balance but the sequels/EU undid that. So even that "explanation" was thrown onto the wayside.

You could literally take out the prophecy from the films, edit certain character choices (such as why Qui-Gon thinks Anakin is important and needs to be taken off the planet), and the films would largely be the same as the prophecy is never fully explored anyways. It's just referenced to in an ominous way repeatedly. If they wanted "conflict" with Anakin, that was already explored with his mother's loss, his frustration at how the Jedi operate, his extreme political views, Palpatine's manipulation, the war, feeling that he should be further along as a Jedi, his fear for Padme and wanting a life with her but being unable to have it. All of that is more than enough to explain his conflict and eventual fall. They didn't need to add he's a Jedi messiah but not explore it.

Honestly, it feels like the whole prophecy stuff came from a mix of Lucas going back to old notes he had in the OT and wanting to go back to explore it retroactively, plus him wanting his new trilogy hero to have more importance beyond "This is going to be Luke and Leia's dad one dad and he'll turn into Darth Vader." Which is a shame because ... that was more than enough to make Anakin a complex tragic figure.

 

That's kind of the point, IMO. The prophecy and Chosen One adds an air of the ominous. It sets Anakin, and the Skywalker family, apart as something unique and specially connected to the Force. It's mysterious, and like the Force itself, I think it works well largely because it is so mysterious and unexplained.

It also takes nothing away from Anakin's story. Being the Chosen One might make him especially strong, but he's still his own character. All the conflict is still his conflict. His choices are all his choices. It's still the story about Luke and Leia's father becoming Darth Vader, it just adds that he was this savior in another way too. He can be both. And if anything, him being a father is what effects his Chosen One role, not the other way around.

 

While we are talking about Lucas’ opinions, it’s now apparent that he was going to make Leia the Chosen One in the ST. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see that, but it’s something to consider in this discussion.

 

According to what? Or is that a joke? Regardless, what an awful, awful idea.

 

No, it’s not a joke. Lucas stated that he was intending on having Leia revealed as the Chosen One in the ST. The source is the Star Wars Archives PT book.

 

The issue I have with this is ... this is too important to stay "ominous". It literally rewrote the OT character of Anakin Skywalker from being the last practitioner of a dead religion (and its greatest traitor) to being its savior. Plus, the larger context beyond Jedi and Sith and the unbalanced nature of the Force itself. He supposedly fulfilled an ancient prophecy that culminated in the fall of the Jedi Order but ended ... the Dark Side (?), ended Palpatine's corruption of the Force (?), ended ... something? That is not worthy of explanation? If Lucas wants me to care about that aspect and be invested in it - the least that could be done is for it to be better explained. Apparently, the stakes were high but I would never have known if Yoda, Mace, and Obi-Wan didn't whisper to each other about it in a scene or Lucas talked about it in a DVD behind the scenes.

I get that not everything needs to be explained and hand-holding the audience through every aspect of a story is not always good story telling. However, this aspect of the Star Wars saga being left a mystery for audiences to fill in the blanks comes across as poor story telling. This is not the equivalent of leaving Yoda's species a mystery or how the Force specifically works. This plot point brought up repeatedly (only in the PT era) and is why most important events had been set into motion. The only reason Anakin was in the important position he was in (destroying the Jedi Order, sacking the Old Republic, building up the new Empire, killing the Emperor (RotJ death) etc.) was because Qui-Gon took Anakin off of Tatooine and Obi-Wan forced his entry into the Jedi Order. Why did they do that? Because they believed him to be a prophesized figure in their religion. It literally all goes back to this central premise.

It's not so much that it took anything away from Anakin's story as much as added tons of unnecessary baggage to it that the OT already proved was not needed.

Anakin being one of the last of the Jedi Order and a central figure in it's fall was already something that set him apart from others. His internal conflict over Luke and Leia which caused him to finally free himself of the cage the Dark Side put him in was powerful enough. He didn't need to be Jedi Neo.

Why does the Skywalker family need to be special anyways? Luke restoring the Jedi Order and being the one to redeem Anakin seemed special to me. Leia leading a revolution and restoring a fallen Republic seemed special to me. I guess I just find that type of uniqueness better because it is based on their actions and not their lineage.

I probably would feel differently if it was understood what Anakin actually did. Apparently, his sacrifice in RotJ was pivotal not only for killing the emperor, saving his son, and redeeming himself ... but he did something important via a vague prophecy brought up only in the PT era ... Ok? For the average movie-goer, they would not have any clue. They would think the importance of that moment were the three things I listed above. Not that he did anything to or for the Force.

To make matters worse, the ST makes the prophecy even muddier by bringing back Palpatine and now saying that Rey is bringing balance to the Force the way Anakin did. So ... can anyone do it? If so - why did Anakin need to be born via the Force? Does it require repeatedly killing Palpatine? Does it require killing a Sith Lord (so is Obi-Wan a messiah for killing Maul)? I honestly had hoped that the ST would explain it (in film) via Luke studying old Jedi texts or communing with Anakin or ... something.

 

I don't think the prophecy rewrites Anakin's character or adds unnecessary baggage. I don't think it's really much of a driving force in the plot at all. Characters talk about it, and... that's mostly it. I doubt Qui-Gon only wanted Anakin freed and trained because he thought he'd fulfill a prophecy. Anakin was strong in the Force regardless, and Obi-Wan would've trained him regardless because it was Qui-Gon's dying wish.

The other defining things that set Anakin apart, still set him apart. Same for Luke and Leia. And they also have this special mysterious Force lineage... so what? Why not? That lineage doesn't somehow invalidate their achievements.

I think the prophecy works as this vague, somewhat up-to-interpretation thing because it helps to keep things focused on the characters, and because it's a neat mystery. It's presented as this epic but quiet question, and it just lingers in the background of the saga until you see in action by the end of RotJ. It's a mystical aspect and another arc of Anakin that's there, but doesn't call unneeded attention to itself. Because again, it really is about characters first.

Won't get into the ST, because I agree it messed things up, plain and simple.

 

But what you say here is part of the reason why I find the prophecy to be a bit of a waste. Because so little is done with it. It is just "Hey, there is a Prophecy." "And?" "Oh nothing, just saying there is."
If you add a prophecy then do something with it.
In Harry Potter, Harry talked about the prophecy and it had an impact on his character but it did not define him. He would have done what he did regardless, because of who he was.
In the Matrix films, Neo felt a burden from the prophecy and more was done with it.

Anakin, from memory, never talks about the prophecy and it seems to have no impact on him as a character. Anakin is arrogant in AotC so have him being the chosen one and all that be part of the reason for that. He has been told that he is the savior of the Jedi/Galaxy and the most important person ever and so that goes to his head. And he feels that the rules do not apply to him because he is super special.
And the Jedi are aware of problems with Anakin but they ignore them because of the prophecy.
"Anakin is our Savior so we should let him act in this un-Jedi like manner."
You could things with it.

As is, I think it takes time away from other things that are more relevant so time is wasted and some plot beat feels rushed or under-developed.

Why not is not a really good argument to me. This is a story, if you add something, add it for a reason.
If they say that Space Dragons exist in SW but they never show up or impact the story. What was the point?

What this says is that the Force created Anakin to kill the Sith because the Sith did something bad that unbalanced it. If the Force can create people to do it's bidding, why does it not just kill Palpatine and be done with it?
Anakin now only exist to do a task, his entire existence is due to the Force making him as it's Sith Terminator. He has no other reason to live.

But to me, the mystery is not neat, it just adds a bunch of questions. Jedi have killed Sith before and they even though that all Sith had been killed 1000 years before TPM. Was a chosen one involved then?
If not, why do the Jedi now think that only the chosen one can kill the Sith?
Who made this prophecy and when and why is it different from the normal Jedi ability to see the future?
Why do the Jedi bother with a prophecy that says someone will kill the Sith when they think all Sith are long since dead?
And as I said above, it has little impact on the characters. Anakin, Luke and Leia. The former knows of it but never talks about it. The latter two are not established to have a clue about it.

Take Frodo in LotR, would his character be better or the story better if there was some prophecy about a Hobbit "bringing balance to Middle-Earth."?

Lastly, I think that making Anakin some divinely created chosen one adds little to the character and makes him less relatable. Luke was an every-man and the audience could put themselves in his shoes.
By making Anakin so super-special, it puts a bit more of a distance between him and the audience.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor