Lucas: "The Jedi were corrupted" -- So then the 'bringing balance' door swings both ways?

I was watching 'E! Behind the scene - Revenge of the Sith' PART I on YouTube last night and GL said something I thought was very revealing.

He was talking (about the 6 minutes into the clip) about the fall of Anakin and the rise of Vader specifically, but during his remarks he stated that (paraphrasing) "the Jedi were the peacemakers of the galaxy, not warriors. At the time of TPM they more or less had been galactic ambassadors, convincing others to abide by the decisions of the Republic. By taking on the role of general-warrior during the Clone Wars they quickly fell away from their traditional role in the galaxy and, as a result, became corrupted, becoming something they were not meant to be."

As if to drive home the point, while GL made this damning comment, they inter-cut to the scenes where Obi-Wan asks Anakin to spy on Palpatine, which is against the Jedi Code and (as Anakin notes) treasonous. They also show Mace and the Posse in Palpatine's chambers, and then Mace getting ready to execute the supreme chancellor before Anakin steps in and 'does the right thing' according to the time-honored rules of the Republic and the Jedi Code. It is here where Anakin turns, to be sure. He has abandoned much more than the Jedi code. Obi-Wan earlier questioned whether he is the 'Chosen One' to Mace and Yoda. He then accuses Anakin of abandoning this pre-destined role after his fall to the Stih and defeat on Mustafar.

The Chosen One is meant to 'bring balance to the force.' We assume this strictly means eliminating the Sith -- "a prophecy that misread could have been" as Yoda notes. Anakin fulfills this 'traditional' role only when he eliminates the Emperor in ROTS. But GL's comment opens the door to the possibility that it also means eliminating the corrupted Jedi order as well. These 'warrior-monks' are not the Jedi of old. They twist the rules to serve their 'point of view' to achieve ends, to "maintain power," which they believe are all the right things to do. From Palpatine's point of view (and as he explains to Anakin in the Opera), the Sith are not the only ones thinking of themselves. As Palpatine says: "all who achieve power are afraid to lose it -- including the Jedi!" This is not a Jedi trait!

True, Palpatine was the malignant cancer that led the Jedi order to violate their fundamental principles and become that which they were never meant to be. By falling for Palpatine's contrivances, the Jedi set the stage perfectly for the fall of the order, the fall of Anakin and the rise of the Sith led Empire.

We see this Jedi 'corruption' continue even with Ben and Yoda in the OT. Ben outright lies to Luke about his father's fate in order to recruit Luke into performing a Patricide he judges necessary. Yoda conveniently fails to inform Luke on Dagobah precisely how the Emperor came into power or just what he might be getting himself into by confronting Vader. Yoda justifies this by telling Luke that he was not ready for the truth.

Had Luke waited until he "was ready" by Yoda's standards he would have become exactly like the corrupted Jedi order that Anakin abandoned. By leaving his training early, by finding out what really happened to his father, by understanding how his father could and did fall, by knowing there was still good within the armor of Darth Vader and by confronting the Emperor and throwing down his light saber on DSII and doing what the pre-TPM Jedi would have done in the face of Palaptine's psychopathic, patricidal ultimatum, Luke was literally the 'Return of the Jedi' -- the return of the pre-TPM Jedi!

The Chosen One indeed brought balance to the force, a prophecy that Yoda was correct to question that the Jedi might have misread.

Thoughts? Opinions? Flames?

 

You make a nice point, but I think you have fallen into a misconception about Jedi. They are not goody-goody boy scouts. Let me tell you a story.

A pair of samurai were to duel. Wooden swords, no killing. We shall call them Samurai A and Samurai B. A boy walked close by Samurai A with a serving tray and the boy overheard a conversation. "I will drug Samurai B's drink before the bout, he will be to dizzy to defeat me." The boy was astonished. He went off and found Samaurai B and told him of the intenton to drug his drink. Samurai B laughed, "He would do anything to win, he is a great samurai."

The Jedi were not perfect by any means, but they were still the good guys with whatever methods they used. They did not at all seek power as Palpatine said. This corruption Lucas mentions is not the type of corruption of cheating and bribery and mischief, it is a warping of what they are. They train to fight, but hey are negotiators. We as fans we want the negotiations to break down so we can see a good saber fight. In the "reality" of a GFFA fighting is the last resort. A mind trick here, trickery there, not telling Luke before he is ready that his father is the most vile gangster in the galaxy, there is nothing wrong with these intentions.

Ultimately Luke found out sooner than Yoda or Ben had wanted, it turns out it was probably the right time, but ANH was certainly not the right time.

So this use of "corruption" is not the same definition we would apply to shady cops, or dishonest politicians.

 

Palpatine succeeded in corrupting the Jedi 'principles' to the point that Anakin distrusted them. On Mustafar Anakin (as Vader) calls the Jedi the enemy.

The Jedi corrupted their belief system in order to ensure survival, a sort of 'ends justifies the means' approach. A corrupted Jedi order was better than a galaxy run by a Sith. But this is a slide away from 'the way,' not closer towards it.

The old Jedi used force when necessary. They never compromised their values in the performance of their duties. Palpatine played the Jedi right into his hand and the Jedi bit the hook, line and sinker!

Lucas seems to indicate that the order fell because of this. When Mace becomes lawyer, judge and jury, something is amiss in the galaxy. This is the moment that Palpatine knows he's won! He knows Anakin wants to do 'the right thing.' Only after prodding Anakin to save him does Palpatine levy demands upon Anakin. And Anakin accepts those harsh demands, because based upon what he has seen, what he know about the Jedi, he uses that to justify what he is doing which, oh by the way, is supposed to save Padme.

Palpatine wins because he manipulated both Anakin and the Jedi order as a whole to corrupt their values.

 

I've believed that Vader was destined to destroy the Jedi to establish balance but I didn't really consider these points. My logic was that the Jedi urged against emotions while the Sith urged following the impulses of emotion. Luke, the new hope of the Jedi, had a balance of both which helped him fight the Empire. I mean imagine what would have happened if Luke listened to Yoda and stayed on Dagobah to finish his training and imagine what would've happened if he listened to Palpatine. Luke took a middle path, and I think to establish the new Jedi order and bring the force into balance, the Jedi, just as much as the Sith, needed to fall. I think that Anakin too sought a middle path. He helped save Obi-Wan during the space battle over Coruscant while Obi-Wan urged him on as any other Jedi would. Anakin wanted ideally to have stayed with the jedi but wanted to be allowed to love, but instead the polarization of the Jedi and Sith forced him to choose emotion over impartialness. Luke on the other hand heavily associated with non-Jedi, things weren't polarized for him and he was able to take the middle ground. Balance.

 

Good points all, TaradosGon, but I think that Luke was like his father before him in that he wanted to save the ones he loved above saving the Rebellion.

Luke left his Jedi training to save Han, Leia and Chewie just as Anakin left the Jedi order to save Padme. I agree Luke sought the middle ground most of the time. Unlike his father before him, he refused to compromise his values in order to save the ones he loved.

EDIT: spelling stuff

 

Well, this quote means I've got a lot of people on the Saga boards who get to tell me "I told you so."

However if the Jedi fighting makes them corrupted that contradicts the OT as Luke's a Commander in Empire and he's not corrupted in any way at the end of Jedi even though he's still a member of the Alliance, he just won't use his anger or hatred, which we don't see the Prequel Jedi use either, with the possible exception of Mace.

If Lucas meant a moral corruption, I think he just destroyed the characters of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, and possibly the enitre OT as well.

The Jedi also in no way contributed to the Force being out of balance as Lucas himself said that balance is brought when Anakin Skywalker destroyed the Sith, so it's a direct contradiction.

If Lucas doesn't in fact mean a moral corruption but that the Jedi were moving away from the role which they were best suited for, I could see his point, though I don't think the Jedi do a bad job as warriors either.

 

If you listen to the E! clip I linked to in the initial post found HERE , Lucas does not say "morally" corrupted. But the ROTS clips played along with and in-between his comments 'imply' a corruption of values, of the Jedi Code specifically (as with Obi-Wan asking Anakin to spy on Palps or Mace deciding on his own to execute the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic solely because of his 'religious convictions').

So, Master_Skywalker, whether or not these are moral infractions seems left for us to decide.

EDIT: Add link to E! clip on YouTube

 

Sorry, that honor goes to Jabba.

BTW: "The Jed were corruptedi" -- is this reggae, Minch-speak, or what?

 

Great topic. We've argued back and forth on this before, but I don't think I've ever heard Lucas actually say the Jedi were corrupted.

I don't think Anakin was destined to destroy the Jedi to bring about balance.

Lucas has positively stated before that balance is about getting rid of the Sith, so let's get those arguments out of the way.


Where's Ousley? We should talk about the Unifying Force vs. the Living Force.

There seems to be 2 sides to the Force: Unifying and Living. Yoda and Mace were very into the Unifying Force - looking into the future, long-term.

Qui-Gon Jinn was into the Living Force, acting on impulse and emotion.

I think Lucas shows Jinn and the Jedi Council in TPM in jarring contrast to prove a point - they're both too extreme.

The Council is too isolated, literally in an Ivory Tower, on a planet that is completely artificial (all one city). When the Shroud of the Dark Side grows and they can't see the future anymore, they don't know what to do.

Qui-Gon bends/breaks the rules whenever he feels like it, because he's convinced he's always right, and whatever impulse takes him must be the Living Force speaking to him.


By the time we get to ROTS and ANH, I think we're shown Obi-Wan as the Ultimate Jedi - he manages to balance the good sides of both Jinn and the Council.



Anyway, to get back to whether or not the Jedi were "destined" to be destroyed, I think it's a mistake to look at Anakin as being responsible.

I think it's the Shroud of the Dark Side. I never really understood how one Sith could defeat 10,000 Jedi. But the Shroud of the Dark Side seems to weaken the abilities of the Jedi, particularly their future-reading abilities.

Did Sidious know the Dark Side would have this sort of effect on the Jedi? Was the Force blinding the Jedi so their ranks could be thinned out?

As we've discussed elsewhere, though neither Lucas nor any of the characters in the films have said this, I think the Force and the galaxy must reflect each other.

The greater the peace, happiness, and goodwill and cooperation in the GFFA, the stronger and more balanced the Force is. It's okay for the Jedi to be in their Ivory Tower when everything's okay in the galaxy, because the Force is balanced and the galaxy is balanced.

But once greed, corruption, grief, evil and destruction enter the galaxy, the Force slowly becomes unbalanced. As evil and corruption grow, so grows the power of the Dark Side.


When the Jedi felt themselves weakening, they should have gone out into the GFFA, into places like the Outer Rim. They should have cleaned up the Senate. They have to be active to remain strong.

By the time the Clone Wars started, it was already too late. The Jedi couldn't fight a war, not when Sidious is leading the attack on both sides!

And Sidious needed the war, not only to thin the ranks of the Jedi, but to increase the strife in the galaxy, to keep the Dark Side of the Force strong.

By the time ROTJ comes around, Sidious is like the Jedi in TPM - in his Ebony Tower, thinking everything is tickedy-boo. But as the Rebel Alliance grows in power, and as the galaxy discovers hope again, particularly through the actions of Luke Skywalker, the Dark Side is weakened and the pendulum is swinging back towards the Light Side.

I think that's why Vader sensed Luke on the Endor moon and Palpatine didn't - because Vader was listening with the Light Side of the Force, not the Dark Side.

 

The conflation of the state of the galaxy with the balance of the Force is seen in certain books, especially one of the Luceno titles.

It's also reasonable from a certain point of view, given that the Force is generated by the life forms in said galaxy.

 

...on the other hand, this conflation seems to have significant implications regarding the prophecy and the pre-1000 BBY stuff in the EU...

In other words, are we to assume the Force is always out of balance whenever chaos, strife, and evil are rampant in the GFFA?

Or is the situation more complicated than that?

For example, one of the implications of POD is that Kaan's honor-bound Brotherhood ( more like Gray Jedi than Sith IMO ) diluted the strength of the DS.

 

To balance the Force, in reality, means for Anakin Skywalker to destroy all Force Sensitives, the Jedi Order and the Sith. It's supposed to be only him left in the galaxy as Darth Vader. Most people don't know that, but it's true.

 

But it's not simply Mace deciding to execute Palpatine because of his religion, it's because he was behind the entire war and caused the deaths of billions.

That said, I saw the E! clip and it did seem more to be that he was referring to how the Jedi were drifting away from what they had been before the war, which is a fact as there's a difference in attitude from the beginning of Episode 2 to the end of it.

I just don't see the difference between the Jedi acting as Generals and Luke acting as a Commander.

No, it's definitively false. Lucas himself has said


"Which brings us to films 4, 5 and 6, where Anakin's offspring redeem him and allow him to fulfill the prophecy where he brings balance to the Force by doing away with the Sith and getting rid of evil in the universe."
--George Lucas


"It really has to do with learning," Lucas says(regarding the end of Anakin's story). "Children teach you compassion. They teach you to love unconditionally. Anakin can't be redeemed for all the pain and suffering he's caused. He doesn't right the wrongs, but he stops the horror. The end of the saga is simply Anakin saying, I care about this person, regardless of what it means to me. I will throw away everything that I have, everything that I've grown to love - primarily the Emperor - and throw away my life, to save this person. And I'm doing it because he has faith in me; he loves me despite all the horrible things I've done. I broke his mother's heart, but he still cares about me, and I can't let that die. Anakin is very different in the end. The thing of it is: The prophecy was right. Anakin was the chosen one, and he does bring balance to the Force. He takes the ounce of good still left in him and destroys the Emperor out of compassion for his son."


?The sad thing is Padme says there is still good in him and Luke says in ROTJ there is good in you. Its recurring. There is good in him. And that will bring balance to the force. He needs to get rid of the Sith and bring balance to the force? - GL

 

Some translations of the Old Testament translate "Thou shalt not kill" as "Thou shalt not murder".

I think the Jedi would probably subscribe to that philosophy, Mace just tread a little closer to the line - i.e., against Jango in the Geonosis Arena.

What's that line about wounding an opponent only if you can't disarm them, and killing an opponent only if there's no other option. Can't remember.


What Mace did was wrong because he would be killing in cold blood - not the Jedi way. One could argue that Palpatine was hardly defenceless whilst he was shooting lightning at Mace, but we the audience have a more objective view of the situation than Anakin.

Mace obviously didn't fall for Palpatine's "oh, I'm tired, no please don't hurt me" speech, but Anakin did.


Referring to Luceno and the other EU authors, I'm not surprised I'm not the only one who subscribes to the Force reflects the state of the galaxy theory; but still, at a "G-Level" canon argument, we never see anything in the films about this, it only is implied.(?)

The whole Shroud of the Dark Side is pretty interesting - in the KOTOR-era, the GFFA had roughly equal numbers of Jedi and Sith. So was the Force out of balance? You'd think it would be insanely out of balance because there were thousands of Dark Side users, rather than just Darth Sidious.

So what was different about the PT-era Republic? Was it bigger in terms of population, and thus strife and corruption? If the state of the galaxy does reflect the state of the Force and vice-versa, then any time the galaxy is in conflict, the Force would be out of balance and less powerful. Which means the Jedi would be at their most powerful in times of peace - when they were least needed.

If the Jedi were "corrupted", compared to, say, KOTOR-era Jedi, how were they corrupted? How were they different? Would the KOTOR-era Jedi have handled things any differently?


These considerations make me lean towards the theory that it was the Will of the Force that the Jedi ranks get thinned out.

 

Lucas seems to indicate that the order fell because of this. When Mace becomes lawyer, judge and jury, something is amiss in the galaxy.

Yep, thats basically what Ive been saying since ROTS came out. Amazing the number of people who think the Jedi could do no wrong.


This is the moment that Palpatine knows he's won! He knows Anakin wants to do 'the right thing.' Only after prodding Anakin to save him does Palpatine levy demands upon Anakin. And Anakin accepts those harsh demands, because based upon what he has seen, what he know about the Jedi, he uses that to justify what he is doing which, oh by the way, is supposed to save Padme.

And its even worse than that.

"MACE WiNDU: That could be a dangerous move ... the Jedi Council would have to take control of the Senate in order to secure a peaceful transition . . .

Kl-ADI-MUNDI: . . . and replace the Congress with Senators who are not filled with greed and corruption. "

Maybe Mace and Ki thought Padme and Naboo were corrupted too. ??? After all, she nominated him to become Chancellor and Jar-Jar gave the speech to endorse the clone army.

 

Some great points made by all -- and as far as Anakin being destined to 'balance' the Jedi order as well as eliminate the Sith -- that's why I put the question mark on the title topic. I certainly didn't believe that was the case when I first saw the movie. Upon subsequent viewings, I began to suspect something wasn't right with the Jedi and that Palpatine was able to seduce Anakin more easily because the Jedi were not collectively acting as they should. Posts on these boards echoed my opinion, so I knew I was not alone. The GL E! clip really was an eye opener though!

Maybe it was the 2nd glass of wine as I watched GL interspersed with ROTS clips and the actors speaking of their roles, but it sure seemed as if the undertone of that segment was that the Jedi lost their way -- hammered home by Yoda's quote on 'misreading' the prophecy. Either Anakin kills the Sith or he doesn't -- what is there to misread, unless . . . . .

the Chosen One brings that balance -- from a certain point of view.

But then it could have been how E! edited the final version too.

 

The most surprising aspect of the PT for me, was the moral ambiguity of the Jedi. Even in TPM you could tell there was something cold and arrogant about these people. Their treatment of the young boy who stood before them, seemed completely devoid of any compassion or understanding.

Of course, after TPM we get into the Clone Wars and as Lucas says, they allowed themseleves to be dragged into a war they never should have been asked to fight.

 

I think that's why Vader sensed Luke on the Endor moon and Palpatine didn't - because Vader was listening with the Light Side of the Force, not the Dark Side

Vader could care less about the light side of the force for if he did Padme would not be dead. Also people have to understand that it was Anakin's kids that had to rectify his mistakes. The Jedi werent the only ones destroyed people keep forgetting that.

 

G-Fett said:

"The most surprising aspect of the PT for me, was the moral ambiguity of the Jedi."

It is unrealistic to expect the galactic situation to remain static over thousands of years, and yet the Jedi embraced an inflexible philosophy for a very, very long time.

Yes indeed, look at how they treated Anakin, a really altruistic young kid who had deep and caring feelings for others around him. Not only did he risk his young life on Tatooine to win the Pod Race and allow QGJ, Obi-Wan and Padme to leave, but his powers proved a valuable asset to the Jedi during the war on Naboo. Still the emotional attachment that led Anakin to do these heroic things fundamentally violated the Jedi code, and so the council rejected him.

Luke, on the other hand, was raised totally through his teens by Beru and Owen, had normal friendships and normal dreams until R2 and 3PO appeared one day and changed everything. Yet where Anakin was one child among thousands with force abilities Luke was the 'only one,' the New Hope, the last hurrah. Funny how the perspective of the Jedi changed when desperate times require desperate actions.

At the root of this thread the burning question of whether the Sith corrupted the Jedi? I say 'the Sith' instead of just Palpatine because Palpatine was trained by Plagueis the Wise, and Plagueis was trained by his master, etc. During the past 1000 years or so Sith training no doubt considered all possible angles for one day taking down the Jedi and conquering the Republic. Palpatine was the one who finally got to pull the plan together.

To regain the throne of absolute power Palpatine had to neutralize the Jedi. Two Sith against thousands of Jedi is a non-starter toward that end. So Palps begins to put events into play that pull the Jedi away from their time-honored way. By pulling the Jedi into unfamiliar roles as military leaders they are less effective as Jedi as well as being relative greenhorn military commanders, a role they were not traditionally trained to do. As commanders, each battle has three possible outcomes -- win, lose or draw! The Jedi became entangled in a war they were unwilling to lose. By focusing on the war, they overlooked the subterfuge as Palpatine was getting ready to pull the rug out from under the Jedi order.

The successful corruption of the Jedi philosophy 'clouded their collective, increasingly arrogant minds.' They were not prepared for the multi-pronged slight of hand strategy of Palpatine, did not see it coming at all and, in fact, became the Sith Lord's pawns in his own diabolical quest for Sith galactic domination. The Jedi, for over a decade, took orders from their mortal enemy, a Sith Lord who had successfully and all too easily disguised himself as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.

 

The thing is that as a by-product of Palpatine's manchinations, he got the Jedi to go against the Code. Thus they are "corrupted" by the Sith. That doesn't mean that they had to be wiped out. It just means that Sidious manipulated everyone and everyone was tainted by him. This allows Anakin to see the Jedi in a negative light, thus he can justify joining the Sith. When it comes to Luke, he avoids the politics and just fights alongside the Alliance. Obi-wan and Yoda also bend the Code to allow him to do this. In the eu, Luke eventually resigns his military rank after becoming General. He goes to Commander briefly during "Dark Empire", but resigns it again for good.

The Sith can only bring about an imbalance if they are able to sieze control of the galaxy, in such a way that blurs the lines of good and evil. The Sith of Darth Bane's era weren't able to do that. Nor the Sith before him. It's unclear what the Sith of Cade Skywalker's time have done to the balance.

 

This thread also plays into the debate over Yoda's advice to Anakin in ROTS. Yoda was fundamentally right to tell Anakin to "let go" of those he fears to lose, yet the way he told him lacked understanding and compassion for Anakin's needs. When he told to him not even mourn or miss those that die, he was being completely unrealistic of where Anakin was at that moment - And this is THE point. Its not just poor writing on Lucas's part as some believe, it's a very serious plot point - Even Yoda display's the flaws that are to ultimately un-do the Jedi. Before the PT began who would ever have believed that Yoda himself would be a highly flawed individual?

As I say, theres a moral ambiguity about the Jedi in the PT, and not just the Jedi, but in all the main players (with the exception of Young Anakin, Jar Jar Binks, Qui-Gon Jinn and Queen Amidala in TPM) and I think this lack of a moral compass, which is so oppossed to the clear cut good Vs evil battle of the OT, is one of the reason's so many people didn't like oreven understand the PT.

Is a shame that Qui-Gon's speech was cut from the end of ROTS, because its there that he really explains to Yoda the great flaw of the Jedi (and the Sith): LACK OF COMPASSION. And its here that he explains how the Jedi will return, how the Sith will fall and how life beyond the mortal coil is possible: THROUGH SHOWING COMPASSION.

 

This is one of the best threads i've seen here in a good while. And it's a peaceful one too. There are a lot of good and valid point being made and most of the ones I've thought of are already here.

 

Here's my opinion . . . I completely agree with you. In fact, I have always found it difficult to accept that in order for Anakin to bring balance to the Force, he would have to dest

 

Is a shame that Qui-Gon's speech was cut from the end of ROTS, because its there that he really explains to Yoda the great flaw of the Jedi (and the Sith): LACK OF COMPASSION. And its here that he explains how the Jedi will return, how the Sith will fall and how life beyond the mortal coil is possible: THROUGH SHOWING COMPASSION.

I agree with this but I'm glad it was left out. Luke becomes greater than any Jedi because he has compassion, which he has all his own. No one taught him this, no one explained this to him. He had greater strength because of it.

 

Well even in LOe Kenobi told Anakin Yoda wasnt infalliable.ALso Anakin is not concerned with mourning but stopping DEATH that is why he failed. Everything Yoda told him about attachments being a shadow of jealousy and greed they are, Anakin made come true on Mustafar. No Jedi has the power to stop Death, that is something Anakin refuses to understand. What did Padme tell him I want to raise our kid on Naboo, she also told him I wont die Anakin. Also in the novel ROTS she told him he needed no more power to save her he could save her as he was. What were people expecting Yoda to say short of I have a magic potion that can save Padme. Unfortunately he doesnt and neither does SIdious but because Anakin has no faith in himself,the force or his wife, he makes the most fatal mistake that will take decades to rectify.

Funny thing is Luke almost made the same mistake except he learned from his, Anakin doesnt for another 20+years." I am a slow learner."

Yes but its not like Anakin didnt have it himself since he talked about it in AOTC. It should not have taken his son to tell him something his wife had been telling him all along.