How did Obi-Wan sense something elusive and Qui-Gon didn't sense anything?

If this has been asked & answered sorry please lock. In TPM Obi-Wan states to Qui-Gon he senses something elusive elsewhere or something to that effect. Qui-Gon says he doesn't sense anything. How can that be? Was Obi sensing Maul? or what....Thanks,

 

Because Obi-Wan is more in tune with the Unifying Force, which reaches far into the future, while Qui-Gon is in tune with the Living Force, which concentrates on the present.

 

He sensed that there was "something behind all this", some bigger scheme - though he had no concrete idea of Sidious' plot. "Elsewhere, elusive".

The irony for me is that while Obi-Wan got more of the truth than Qui-Gon in this instance due to his attunement with the Unifying Force, it was the reverse with Yoda in AOTC. Sitting in front of the Chancellor, when asked "do you think it will really come to war?" he responds that "the dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the future is".

"keep your concentration here and now, where it belongs"
"But Master Yoda said I should be mindful of the future!".
"But not at the expense of the moment."

Had Yoda had just focusseed on seeing the present, sitting right before his nose in the form of Palpatine.

 

thats an awesome post

 

True, but I think Palpatine was hidden in the Force.

It's my humble opinion that OT Ben Kenobi represented the Ultimate Jedi - he's got both the Unifying Force AND the Living Force down pat.

The Jedi like Yoda relied too heavily on the UF, whilst Qui-Gon relied too heavily on the LF.

 

I wholly agree. I'm sorry if I'm beginning to bother people with this AOTC scene but it kinda gets to me. Seeing all of the major council members face to face with Palpatine, stating the most impossible statements, like that one by Yoda, or the at least as ignorant Windu ("you must realize there aren't enough Jedi to protect the Republic") - it is the ultimate demonstration of their blindness. "Seeing the future" - when you aren't even able to see the present right in front of you. IMO the Palpatine must have really been enjoying himself talking to the Jedi in instances like this. A combination of testing, making sure they still are blind as a bat, and mocking them, this is.

 

paply was indeed hiding in the force.Because he is a darklord because if he wasnt then every jedi master whould be on palps like ants on a picnic. thered be no way for him to hide his secret.

 

Like someone else said,Obi Wan focuses more on the future, and Qui Gon focuses on the present.

Just like all the council could sense the lying danger ahead of Anakin when he was presented to them, but Qui Gon focused on Anakin at the time, being good. He failed to see the darkness ahead in Anakin's future. |
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Also,I would expect Obi Wan to sense it before Qui gon,he will be more affected by it. He senses the elusiveness of the things that lie ahead, because he will live to see it.

 

As Master Qui-Gon stated, Obi-Wan was drawing upon his anxieties, instead of being mindful of the living Force.

 

I think that whole line of dialouge is being misinterpereted.

Obi-wan: I have a bad feeling about this.

Qui-gon: I don't sense anything.

Obi-wan: It's not about the mission master, it's something elsewhere, elusive.

Qui-gon: Don't center on your anxieties Obi-wan, keep your concentration here and now where it belongs.


Notice what he says. It's not that Qui-gon didn't sense it, the point he was making was that it was "elsewhere, elusive". Qui-gon was focused on the issues at hand, he didn't sense anything unexpected about the feelings and emotions coming from the neimodians and the occupants of the ship, and that's what he was reffering too. When Obi-wan explains that it's something elsewhere, Qui-gon tells him to focus on the here and now.

 

I may be wrong, but I believe this conversation happens after Darth Sidious has been introduced in the movie. Maybe what Obi Wan was sensing was Sidious making contact with the Nemoidians, and in effect, stepping out of the darkness, if only for a moment.

 

Good call mandragora.

You should expand on that and post it in the "Saga" board.

 

You could also say that the council failed to see the good in Anakin. To quote Qui-Gon, their focused determined their reality. They focused only on the negative, Anakin going bad, and failed to help him out when he needed it because they failed to see the problems he had at the moment. Qui-Gin in my opinioin was right because if he trained Anakin, he would have trained him the right way because he would have focused on Anakin's problems when they happened instead of ignoring them expecting them to go away.

 

I agree with those who stated the Jedi needed to look for a balance between the living force and their forsight into the future. But I don't think Qui-Gon was wrong when he said this.
They should have been sensing Sidious from the time of ATOC, he wasn't that dangerous yet in this TPM scene.
I think this link was also made with the two times Obi-Wan says "I have a bad feeling about this" - landing on the ships at the beginnings of TPM/ ROTS. It is the first line he says in TPM, right before the conversation you are talking about.
Obi-Wan: "I have a bad feeling about this."
Qui-Gon: "I don't sense anything."
ROTS - as they are about to crash land on the Invisible Hand: "Oh, I Have a nad feeling about this!" Notice he says this after telling Anakin the shields are up - a total opposite to the beginning of TPM.
The irony is that the first "bad feeling quote" comes when he senses Sidious, and he had nothing to fear then. The second time he says it (ROTS) he doesn't know what he is sensing, but he did need to sense Sidious this time. This is the ship Anakin will become his apprentice on.

I didn't really consider that in the scene, and it's so true.
Does anyone think Sidious was actually encouraging them to look to the future for this purpose? (on top of mocking them or finding out what the Jedi knew).

it's actually the last thing before Sidious is introduced, so it is definitely related to Sidious/ the darkside.

 

Thanks so much, Mandragora, for answering that question about why Yoda didn't sense Palpatine's intentions and true identity when he was right in front of him.

GARTH MAUL, I think you're absolutely right. OT Obi-Wan did seem to understand both the Unifying Force and the Living Force equally. Just look at how calm he is and how prepared he is for everything. The best example is after the holo-message from Leia ends, he sits back for a moment, thinks, looks at Luke knowingly, and says, "You must learn the ways of the Force if you're to come with me to Alderaan." That's one of my favorite moments of the movie.

This is another reason why Obi-Wan is my favorite character in Star Wars. He seems quite on the top of things.

 

The "bad feeling about this" in ROTS is said solely for comedic effect - Obi-Wan's ship is missing a wing and he can't see very well, and they're about to crash into the ship.

In TPM, it's said to make the audience immediately aware it's a SW flick, but also to show Obi-Wan's insight.

Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon were a great pair, because their respective strengths countered each other's respective weaknesses.

And that's why Obi-Wan and Anakin were the ultimate Jedi pair, they were almost unstoppable. Their "whole" as a team was greater than the sum of their parts.

By ROTS, Obi-Wan had learned the lessons Qui-Gon and Anakin had to teach him.

By the time ANH arrives, Obi-Wan is the ultimate Jedi. Even more so than Yoda, I believe.

 

I don't know - almost every line in this scene has a deeper meaning. "I will not let this Republic that has stood for a thousand years be split in two." - No, he was about to reunite it and become the Galactic Empire.
The whole scene and the landing platform scene before are very powerful images of the extent of "blindness" in AOTC. It's very well done IMO. You have the ship approaching through thick fog, you have the landing platform in fog, you have Amidala arriving on company of a one-eyed security chief who makes the most short-sided statement that "there was no danger at all" seconds before the ship blows up.
And it gets even worse in the Chancellor's office. You have the Jedi not sensing anything that's going on right before their own eyes, you have Palpatine mocking them to the top. And then Padme comes in and knows better who is behind the assassination attempt than the intuitive Jedi, who still don't believe her and assert her that Dooku couldn't be behind it since it's "not in his character". These two scenes couldn't show more clearly right at the beginning of the movie the state that matters are in.

 

i just watched the opening scenes again, I understand it now.

"The whole scene and the landing platform scene before are very powerful images of the extent of "blindness" in AOTC."


I'd always just considered it part of the mood of the scene.

I just noticed that this is the only episode (I think) that begins with the camera panning up to the planet instead of down. The ships all turn upside down, and the view flips so Coruscant is below.
This never really seemed out of the ordinary until now. With many subtle differences to how the Republic once was in the scenes following, the contrast here stands out much more.

"Senator, we're making our final approach into Coruscant."
I may be reading into things a bit much, but the word "final" seems important considering Padme will live there. And Padme's comment "I shouldn't have come back."

" "I will not let this Republic that has stood for a thousand years be split in two." - No, he was about to reunite it and become the Galactic Empire."

This is very similar to something I mentioned on another thread; that Sidious, on the surface of the movies, appears to have switced teams from Seperatist to Republic since Ep1. Of course, he was playing both sides from the start, but if I watch TPM and ATOC pretending to be oblivious to who Palpitine is, there is far more emphasis on the Palpitine persona in ATOC.
It appears he has greatly changed his strategy in the last ten years. As his status rises, he is more visibly controlling things closer to the heart of the Republic.


Sidious even hints about advantage he would gain by disrupting Padme's political efforts with one line : "I realise all too well that additional security could be disruptive for you."
Padme objects, but is cut off by Sidious who finishes the sentence. He then suggests Obi-Wan, to convince her and the Jedi, and the Jedi happily agree with him.
"Perhaps an old friend, like *pauses as if thinking*... Master Kenobi!" Ian even adds the little pause for effect
Palpitine and Amidala have swapped "political reputations" roles in Ep2 and 3, when compared to TPM. Padme no longer has any great power compared to Sidious. In the Ep 1 Senate scene Palpitine attempts to argue for Naboo, but is basically shot down by the Trade Federation and their supporters. Padme calls for a vote of no confidence and the Senate goes into uproar of "vote now!"
The only person to cause anything like this in the senate in ATOC and ROTS is Sidious. Ironically in ROTS it is people cheering as they lose their voting rights.

 

Very good points concerning the arrival of Padme, I have never thought of that. I'll have to rewatch the approaching scenes at the beginning of the episodes.

Lucas and the team are really masters of storytelling. You watch these movies 20 times and more and even then you discover new meanings, connections you have never seen before. That's why these movies are so great. I think 80 to 90 percent what we see is intended, it's just too deliberate to be accidently. I don't wanna know how many nights of work were spent to settle them like they are now.

In all locations of AOTC besides Tatooine and Naboo, the home planets of Padme and Anakin, we have fog as an image of blindness - it's steam and night on Geonosis, to be precise. The most pronounced images relate to Coruscant. I just love the joke of replacing Panaka with the one-eyed (!) Typho.

And Palpatine, who was manipulative and annoying in TPM already, in this AOTC scene really is the most impossible guy. Calling the Jedi his "friends", asking if "it would really come to war" (who on earth would be able to cause such a thing?), telling Padme it would be unbearable to lose her.

>>It appears he has greatly changed his strategy in the last ten years. As his status rises, he is more visibly controlling things closer to the heart of the Republic.

Well, he is no longer "elsewhere, elusive". He's controlling the center of events, isn't he?

 

It has been rumored that Obi-Wan was able to get premonitions through the Force, allowing him to better understand the future. I think that's why Obi-Wan snesed something was wrong and Qui-Gon didn't. THat doesn't mean Obi-Wan knew what was going to happen, he just knew that something would.

 

Yeah, Palps does finish her sentence for her, and even that doesn't clue the Jedi into anything unusual about him. He's just an insightful politician.

QGJ doesn't sense anything unusual or dangerous when Obi-wan does. He also doesn't sense anything dangerous about Anakin, which Obi-wan does. Qui-gonn suffers from an affliction that plagues the Jedi through the entire prequel trilogy and is the real reason they're so easily destroyed by Sidious: They only see what they want to. Whenever someone sees something that doesn't fit into what the Jedi Council wants, they're told to ignore it, or concentrate on somethign else, or let go of their worries.

QGJ exhibits a certain arrogance that is prevelant in ALL the Jedi Masters : if they personally don't sense something, it can't possibly be true. Is it because they don't want to admit a lesser Jedi might know more than them? If so, does this make Palpatines assertions about Jedi Council and their desire to hold onto power correct?