Saga The Prophecy of a Chosen One ... do you like it ? ( with a Poll )

Anything NOT in the films is EU as far as I am concerned. The audience watching the films wasn't told to watch some episodes of a TV series first, in order for the movie to make sense.
You keep saying this is clear from JUST the films and yet you and DS keep using Lucas, TCW, EU books, video games and what have you to explain what happens.
You keep proving my point over and over again.
A plot line that requires this much out of movie information to make sense isn't told very well.

Since pretty much the last thing being said about the prophecy was that the Jedi might have gotten it wrong and then it is never spoken of again. One could think that the prophecy was just plain wrong.
I know that is not what Lucas intended but what he intended and what he accomplished are not the same thing.

Also, after AotC, was the audience supposed to think that Sifo-Dyas did order the army or that he didn't? That plot line isn't mentioned after that.

No it mostly shows that this wasn't done all that well. He barely reacts and neither does the rest of the Jedi. They basically meet the Son of God and they treat him like some random guy.

Imagine if the Pope was told that the Son of God was outside and wanted to talk with him. I would imagine him reacting to that.

Anakin is born without a mortal father. What does he think about that? Apparently nothing since he never mentions it. Something interesting could have done with this but wasn't.

[/QUOTE]

Again, yes, we haven't been told enough. This is why I find the whole plot line poorly developed.
Also where in the films is it said or implied that just any Sith won't unbalance the Force?
The films say only two things, there is a prophecy about someone bringing balance to the Force and this apparently means to kill all Sith. That's it.
So the simplest conclusion is that if any Sith is alive then the Force is unbalanced and only by killing them all can you balance it.
But this means that the Force has been unbalanced for as long as the Sith has been around, well over 1000 years. And why haven't the Jedi noticed and why haven't the Force acted sooner etc.
This is a perfectly legitimate conclusion.

However you and others say that this conclusion is wrong and you go to various non-movie sources and try to explain that even when the Sith ruled the galaxy before the Force wasn't unbalanced, it all has to with Palpatine and him doing something new etc.

But NONE of this is in the films and since you keep claiming that the films are clear then only one conclusion should be possible but as I've shown, quite many are possible. I bring this stuff up to show why the films are not as clear as you think and a number of interpretations are possible and I also point out the holes in the narrative.
If Lucas wanted to make it clear that not just any Sith unbalance the Force but it is was instead something unique to Palpatine, then he should have made that clear. But he didn't.

The prophecy is presented as something quite simple, you balance the Force by killing all Sith. This is why people keep coming back to the numbers of Force users because the prophecy is apparently about numbers. The number of Sith must be zero for the Force to be balanced. This is a very real way to interpret the films. If you tell them that they are wrong by invoking non-movie sources you admit that the films isn't as clear as you claim it to be.

Which again brings us back to how this plot line was under-developed.

@darth-sinister

And whether or not Sifo-Dyas was involved in the Clone Army was also supposed to come out in the PT but it didn't. Lucas sometimes leaves plot lines unresolved.

No, the point is that the prophecy doesn't matter. Vader would have chosen to save Luke, let go of his hate and kill Palpatine, prophecy or no prophecy. As I've said, an evil man redeeming himself, saving his son and helping to destroy an Evil Empire, that is quite enough. Adding "Bringing harmony to the cosmos" is redundant.
Esp since we don't know what effect the Force remaining unbalanced would have. That is never talked about by the characters.
Say that the Empire falls, Vader dies and Palpatine survives but is crippled and can't do much. Is balanced restored?

Not really. Not any more than Die Hard being the story of Hans Gruber or Raiders of the lost Ark being the story of Belloq.
Vader is an important character and quite important to Luke. But it is still Luke's story and how he is able to confront Vader as well as his own darkness and triumph over them both.

Again nope.
Anakin's role in TPM is to do a race for some parts. Then he is pushed to the side and isn't an active character. He just tags along and gets pulled into the action by accident.
Qui-Gon is the main character or maybe Padme. Qui-Gon is the one who makes most of the choices, to go to Tatooine, to trust Anakin, make the bet. He brings up Anakin to the council.
Padme is also an fairly proactive character, she decides to go back to Naboo and fight for her planet.
She is the character with the most personal goal, to save her people.

Anakin is a bit more active in AotC and RotS. But in the ANH he is a supporting character.
Luke is far more an active character in ANH than Anakin is in TPM. He chooses to remove the bolt from R2, to go after him, he chooses to try and save Leia on the DS. He chooses to side with the rebels even when given an easy way out. He is proactive and the main character.
Vader is more prominent in ESB and RotJ but it still isn't his story. He remains the antagonist but becomes an antagonist that Luke now has some sympathy for and wants to save rather than kill.

That the PT and OT are two stories I agree with.
But I disagree that both are about Anakin. The PT can be argued as "The rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker." But the OT is "The journey of Luke Skywalker to become a Jedi." Along the way confronting his father becomes a necessary part of that journey. But that doesn't make it Anakin's story. He is something Luke has to confront.

I guess you could call EP I-VI "Fathers and Sons." With an interesting irony in that Anakin has no father at all and while he is the biological father to Luke, he isn't much of a father to him. So Luke didn't have much of a dad either.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

What he said is not contradictory. Lucas, for himself, felt that it was the Force and not the Sith. That's why he dropped the scene where Palpatine confirms that Anakin was created by him. But he left the Plagueis reference in because he needed that to hook Anakin into being seduced by the dark side of the Force. He opted to leave it open ended for the audience because he is raising the question that fans have argued for the last ten years. And for general audiences, which is the nature of good versus evil. Are we born to be good or evil, or are we simply empty vessels that learn and grow, but have to make choices about our lives? Nature versus nurture. Even when people have a general understanding of psychology, they still tend to favor the nature aspect over nurture.

In leaving it open for the audience, he raises questions about how we are and how we shape our lives. In turn, as he said, how it was that he was born is left up to the audience, but in the end, what he does has no relation to his birthright. He simply makes a choice. First a bad one and then a good one. You don't have to like the idea of his being created by the Force, because Lucas left it so that it could be the Sith.

As to religion in the OT, it may not have seem inherent, but it was there none the less. We've discussed that before.

The quotes are there to illustrate Lucas's thought process in making the films. They help to articulate what's going on. TCW shows that there is more to the story than just the films as there is a whole universe with two animated series and now a whole new crop of books and comics.

You're supposed to think that it is wrong, if you are watching it I-IX. But when you get to ROTJ and Anakin does what Obi-wan said that he would do, then you realize that the prophecy was true. Anakin is the Chosen One because Obi-wan said that the Chosen One would bring balance by destroying the Sith.

Short answer, you're supposed to realize that it was the Sith who did it with Order 66. The long answer is that Sifo-Dyas was supposed to do it, but was intercepted by Dooku who had him killed.

The Jedi don't believe that he is the Chosen One. They're still skeptical even with the knowledge of the Sith's return and his unique situation. But they train him because of a possibility that it could be true. Qui-gon doesn't flip out because he's already been prepared for this moment. He was already learning how to retain his identity and knew that he would find someone of importance.

Because the Force wasn't unbalanced until the time period of the films. If you only focus on one conclusion, then you're never going to understand. The Jedi only start to notice because Palpatine is growing stronger which is what Lucas himself said, when he says, "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."

Which is then backed up in AOTC when Yoda and Mace realize that the Jedi's powers are weakening and then when Yoda says, "The shroud of the dark side has fallen."

But it did.

SIDIOUS: "Commander Cody, the time has come. Execute Order 66."

CODY: "It will be done, my Lord."

You realize that the Sith did it and posed as Sifo-Dyas.

To you. Not to Lucas and not to those who don't mind it and even enjoy it.

No. The Sith are gone in the ST, but the Empire remains and yet as the trailer revealed, there has been an awakening in the Force on both sides.

And Vader's story from the PT still carries over into the OT. As does Obi-wan, Yoda, Palpatine, Bail, Threepio, Artoo and Boba. The "Die Hard" story is mainly about John McClane, but it is also about his family. The first two films is about how John has to save his wife from terrorists. The third film is about how John blew his relationship with his wife, which is why he's back in New York and is facing suspension for his excessive drinking. The fourth film is about how John is trying to repair his relationship with his daughter and the fifth film has John trying to help his son. Each individual film has characters within each story narrative. Hans' story ends, but his legacy carries over to his brother Simon in the third film. Al Powell's story is told in the first film, but he reappears in the second film showing that they're still friends. And he still contributes, even if in a minor way. The third film gives us Zeus Carver and his story and the fourth film gives us Matt Farrell and his story.

For Indiana Jones, the main story is about him. But along the way there is Marion Ravenwood, Mutt Lange, Henry Jones Sr., Sallah and Marcus Brody. Their stories carry over across four films and in Henry's case, in the television series. Indy's story begins with him as a boy, who is at his father's side during some of his father's most noteworthy archaeological digs, when he wasn't working on the Grail diary. Then we see Indy as a teenager who meets Abner Ravenwood and we see the beginnings of his more ambitious side, as well as the growing tension with his father. We jump to Indy's time after he ran away from home and before he went to stay with Abner. Even got to see him in WWI. Then we see him as an older adult and we get to pick up with him in Asia and the adventures that he went through there. Then we get Marion's story with Indy's, along with Marcus and Sallah who help him along the way. Their relationship ends and later, we see Indy finally get to make peace with his father. Then we see in the post WWII era, that Indy has lost his father and one of his best friend's, but meets his son and reconnects with Marion. All the issues from before resurface and they're able to resolve it, leading to the end of the story with Indy gaining a new family. Belloq, Mula Rum, Donovan and Splako's stories are all in the individual films.

So yes, the comparison is apt.

Anakin is an active character since he not only goes out to get the podrace, but he goes out to help Qui-gon and Obi-wan, when he tells Artoo to help him turn on the fighter. And regardless of how he got out into space, he was still an important part in saving the day as much as Jar Jar, Padme and the two Jedi are.

He still is the main character because we follow his story. But as Lucas said, there are other characters who have their own stories. Read that quote on page eight that I posted.

Lucas doesn't deny that the OT is Luke's story. That quote that I posted outright says that Anakin's story merges with Luke's story. And as Lucas also says, there are many characters in the two trilogies, but at the heart of it is Anakin's story as everything revolves around him.

As to it being fathers and sons, Obi-wan and Palpatine were father figures to Anakin while Obi-wan is Luke's father figure and Vader is his father. The relationships that span those six films are definitely fathers vs sons.

"There are a lot of things repeated in these movies. Fathers vs Sons."

--George Lucas, ROTJ DVD Commentary.

 

I thought it was a great plot device, and i don't think they should just let it go. I really think it needs to be expounded upon in the ST, and either put to rest once and for all, or expanded upon and included in future movies. The only thing lame and lazy about the Prophecy idea at this point is that Palpatine's death/the end of the Sith is considered as it's fulfillment by most.

 

That's because Lucas said that was the end result that we see in ROTJ.

 

You're right.

It's doesn't matter to Anakin who didn't probably didn't really believe it and if he did then the fact that he joined the Sith and didn't destroy them at the time that seemed to be the moment of choosing foretold then it was apparently wrong.

He certainly didn't think or care about it as to being the reason that he saved Luke, let go and destroyed Sidious.

The prophecy doesn't matter even though it did turn out to be the truth.

It "matters" only to the will of the Force itself.

In the ROTS novelization overseen directly by Lucas himself there was this passage:

He followed her respectfully. "Anakin is under a great deal of
pressure. He carries tremendous responsibilities for a man so
young; when I was his age I still had some years to go as a
Padawan. He is—changing. Quickly. And I have some anxiety about
what he is changing into. It would be a... very great mistake... were
he to leave the Jedi Order."

She blinked as though he'd slapped her. "Why—that
seems... unlikely, doesn't it? What about this prophecy the Jedi put
so much faith in? Isn't he the chosen one?"

"Very probably. But I have scanned this prophecy; it says
only that a chosen one will be born and bring balance to the
Force; nowhere does it say he has to be a Jedi."

She blinked harder, fighting down a surge of desperate hope
that left her breathless. "He doesn't have to—?"

"My Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, believed that it was the will of
the Force that Anakin should be trained as a Jedi—and we all
have a certain, oh, I suppose you could call it a Jedi-centric bias.
It is a Jedi prophecy, after all."

"But the will of the Force—isn't that what Jedi follow?"

"Well, yes. But you must understand that not even the Jedi know all
there is to be known about the Force; no mortal mind can. We
speak of the will of the Force as someone ignorant of gravity
might say it is the will of a river to flow to the ocean: it is a
metaphor that describes our ignorance. The simple truth—if any
truth is ever simple—is that we do not truly know what the will of
the Force may be. We can never know. It is so far beyond our
limited understanding that we can only surrender to its mystery."


Again I don't see any problem at all. It was Anakin's choice that made him save Luke not the prophecy.

That his choice made the prophecy true is something we as viewers get to see with our vieweing of the narrative as a whole.

 

Anakin fulfilled the conditions of the prophecy. This is not what we would expect to see in a "the prophecy was wrong" story. The one thing that would be needed to confirm such a narrative was absent, and instead its opposite was presented. That is clear enough, but sometimes people want to impose an interpretation on the films that isn't supported by the material. That's where Lucas comes in.

It requires absolutely nothing outside of the movies to make sense. It was sufficiently obvious that the prophecy referred retroactively to ROTJ, even before TPM was released. Even for those who insist on a contrarian approach to the issue, one sentence from George Lucas doesn't seem to qualify as "much".

Just as impressions are not automatically guaranteed to be correct, doubt on the part of mortal characters does not mean anything special. And again, as always, the scene in question is largely divorced from its context.

I'm not sure what else he was expected to do in order to get the point across to the obstinate. His scripts don't speak in omniscient voice other than in opening crawls, and adding a prophecy discussion into the latest edition of ROTJ probably wouldn't have gone over well.

Not quite. It's unclear what he is, he's more like an anomaly or unusual genetic aberration of sorts.

Say what? He mentions precisely what he thinks about that. He thinks that Anakin was conceived by the midichlorians and may be the chosen one of the prophecy.

That goes both ways. A Sith of Palpatine's ability unbalancing the Force does not necessarily mean that any Sith would have the same effect. But I believe it is implied from the inherent backstory of the Rule of Two. At the time when the Sith went "underground" and were believed extinct, if any Sith being alive automatically threw the Force out of balance, the Jedi would have noticed that balance was not restored and none would have believed the Sith to be extinct in the first place.

Again, these issues are only created by throwing out a central premise of a perfectly legitimate conclusion. So we are faced with two different possible conclusions of unequal value.

Not really. Not if around 10,000 Jedi and only 2 Sith are in effect during a situation where the Force is unbalanced toward the dark side; not if balance is achieved at a time when there are zero Sith and a nonzero number of Jedi. Apparently it has nothing to do with Jedi numbers and only trivially relates to Sith numbers in that there can be zero Sith of the Force-unbalancing level around. People keep coming back to the numbers of Force users because they insist on replacing "the balance of the Force" with "the balance of the Force-users" and ignore the information in the films which contradicts this scheme.

 

Actually, he could....but not without risking his own life in the process. In ROTJ, he does so willingly for his son. In one fell swoop, he ends up ridding the galaxy of both Sith, as prophesized.

Keep in mind....it's not just about 2 Sith....it's about 2 Sith that are about to take control of the entire known galaxy. Storm troopers, Star Destroyers, Death Stars....what's to stop them, especially with the Jedi being wiped out? ROTJ is the end game. The Force obviously can see future events, and Anakin is created as a means of ultimately stopping the Sith. Unfortunately, he is also human, and subject to human failures.

If it were about numbers, then the Force would have been balanced in ANH, when there were two Sith and two Jedi.

And since we're having a Lucasquote party....(This is an old text file. It would appear that many of my links no longer exist.)

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At first sight this seems most reasonable....and looks as if it fits into the framework of the over-arching theme of your argument (that such themes as prophecy, the 'Chosen One', The Force as agent, a monotheistic (read Christian) religious conception and motifs were "always there"). However, a little further investigation unravels this conceit. You say that Lucas felt that it was The Force what did it. My question then would be...when did he feel that? And for how long?

Because let us look again...

So...during, or right after, TPM, Lucas appears to feel it was the midiclorians what done it. He says it outright here (and let's not forget that this is not the same as the Force doing it....this was one of 3 options Lucas proffered)

Then..as you say, Lucas "dropped" the scene where Palpatine confirms that Anakin was created by him....???!!

Why would he need to drop a scene he never believed? Why did the scene exist to be "dropped"? It's not like this was a scene created by some committee that he over-ruled. This was a scene he had put there. In other words...despite what he felt during and for some time after TPM, he now - for a time at least - felt that it was the Sith what done it. So...already we have Lucas altering the story. Then he dropped it, but left a trace of it in..

..And then we have Lucas offering three explanations and leaving it to the audience to decide...meanwhile changing his mind again and feeling, now, that it was the Force what done it.

So, what can this tell us? It tells us, categorically, that Lucas has not had a story, a composition, a narrative, fixed in his head (sui generis, as it were) flowing back inexorably to the OT and prior to it. It tells us he didn't even have a story, a narrative, fixed while making the PT. He's making this up on the fly.

Or. let's take a look at another example of the fluidity of the narrative;

What is interesting about this is that....for a long period the official version (as endorsed by Lucas....a point most vehemently made) existed in a novel, and it was - in that official version - not the Sith what done it; it was Sifo-Dyas in some bizarre story-line who, working on a vision, had been manipulated by Dooku into ordering the army whilst he was still a Jedi.

Both Samuel Vimes and I argued exactly what you argue here....that from the movies it seemed certain that it was the Sith...but "NO" we were told (emphatically), the official version, endorsed by Lucas was that Sifo-Dyas had ordered the army and the Sith had simply made the most of that....

So, again, we have a distinction between what Lucas once felt, and then felt later. We have the story altering in Lucas' own mind.

Which brings us to this;

The quotes, especially from TCW, cannot give us any insight into Lucas' thinking, except to show that Lucas has changed his mind throughout the making of these movies...and now with the making of TCW.

Indeed we have discussed this before.....but I fear you may have mis-remembered it.... I showed that whatever "religious" motifs were introduced in the OT were brought about by Kasdan, not Lucas, and that they were not of the nature that you claimed they were (ie....they had little to do with the motifs introduced in the PT)...but that discussion is there for all to judge for themselves.

I raise this simply to point out...these are what are known as "weasel words"...like "most experts believe" or "scientists say". It's a completely unevidenced proposition, and more - one that makes very little sense. I, for one, have a general understanding of psychology and I don't "tend to favour" a concept of nature over nurture.

It really, though, doesn't add anything to the story. What's more I think it removes something from the story.

It doesn't even make much sense.

The idea, you see, is that only by destroying the Emperor is the Empire destroyed. But.....if the Emperor was that powerful, that just his mere existence was what stood in the way of the rebels overcoming the Empire, then.....why di Palpatine require 3 movies to take power? His very presence ought to have been enough for him to rule the galaxy.

Aaah...but the Jedi, you might say... But you argue that no-one but Anakin could destroy Palpatine, so the Jedi ought tyo be no obstacle by those standards.

Okay then, you might argue, as he came to power he kind of "sucked in", was inflated with the power of the darkside.... Hmmm, okay, then why in ANH has the Senate only just been dissolved - upon the building of the Death Star?Because it is the military capacity of the Empire that is it's, and the Emperor's, strength.

The requirement for the Emperor to be destroyed in order for victory is a requirement that has no grounding in any of the rest of the story.

Hang on.....What?!!! So....after all that you have argued, about the prophecy having been fulfilled...you leave on this bombshell? That the Force hasn't been balanced?

 

That still is "the official version" as depicted in the Databank.

 

That would be odd given that TCW has a very different story, apparently.

 

TCW leaves it vague as to what point Dooku got involved.

The Databank:

http://www.starwars.com/databank/sifo-dyas

SIFO-DYAS

A member of the Jedi Council before the blockade of Naboo, Sifo-Dyas believed the galaxy would soon be plunged into war, and agitated for the Republic to create an army for its defense. After the other Jedi rejected his ideas and removed him from the council, he secretly contacted the Kaminoans and commissioned them to create a clone army, which he led the Kaminoans to believe was for the Republic. In doing so, Sifo-Dyas became an unwitting pawn of the Sith, who took over the project and hired the Pyke Syndicate to murder Sifo-Dyas on Oba Diah’s moon. A decade after Sifo-Dyas’ death, Obi-Wan Kenobi discovered the army he had commissioned, now ready for duty. The Jedi took control of this army on Supreme Chancellor Palpatine’s orders, setting the Clone Wars in motion.

I think it's one of the newcanon reference works - Ultimate Star Wars and Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know - that says "Dooku manipulated Sifo-Dyas into placing that order".

 

The Prophecy refers to a specific point in time. That doesn't mean the Force can't be pushed out of balance again....especially for the sake of another trilogy.

Not really.

This one's funny now.....

He has an overall story, and he makes changes along the way. This happens in many movies. Not unusual.

 

Not really. First off, in 1999, Lucas isn't going to give away stuff that's going to come up in ROTS. No filmmaker, or storyteller in general, who has a long term plan gives away the details of what said plan is, if there is a basic outline of events. J.K. Rowling didn't give away stuff that was going to happen in the sixth Harry Potter novel, when she was interviewed about the fifth book. Joss Whedon hinted that something was going to happen at the end of season five of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", way back at the end of season three. But he didn't say that he was going to kill Buffy. When Lucas said that in the book, he wasn't going to give away that the Sith had created Anakin.

Second, when Lucas was making ROTS, he was leaning towards that storyline. But as he continued to think it over in his head, he realized it wasn't going to work for him and so he redid the office sequence where Palpatine comes clean about who he is and redid parts of the Lightsaber duel. As well as added the scene where Anakin talks to Mace. He decided to leave it ambiguous. He may have been leaning in one direction, but he still had his foot in the other direction and opted to stay in the other direction rather than go into a new direction.

Precisely this. The idea of having Palpatine create Anakin looked good on paper, but didn't feel right to him when he shot the original sequence. So he redid it and what we got now is what he felt was right. He was realizing that what he was saying about the Force doing it was the right way to go, but he opted to leave it open ended in the film.

Lucas left it to the EU, because he wasn't going to sit down and explain it. But the general idea was that it was the Sith and someone like Samuel Vimes, he has to feel the need to dissect it to death.

Except as I said before, the Force was already a religion before Kasdan came into the picture. That's why Lucas said that he introduced the Force as a religion and in the early drafts and in the final film, it was a religion. As was the Jedi. The only thing that Kasdan did was bring in the Buddhism aspect.

You do. Others don't.

It wasn't. He had to manipulate events to go a certain way, so that he could claim power without seizing it for himself as his predecessors did. So what he did was he created the chain of events that lead to the Clone Wars, so that he could gain said power and when the time came, he could take control.

Ought to be, but weren't by the time of TPM. They had lost their way and were not balanced enough internally to defeat Palpatine. It needed to be someone else who would do the job and would do so after he had found balance within himself.

It is part of his power. But not the sum total of it. He needed the Senate only as a political figure head while he built up the Imperial military complex beyond the last war and finished the Death Star. As well as had enough Regional Governors that he trusted enough to take over for the Senate. The governors would control the territories while he controlled them.

The point in removing the Sith is that it restores the balance to the Force. Lucas's contention with ROTJ's ending was that the Empire was struck a mighty blow by the Alliance and that sooner or later, the Empire would crumble apart without Palpatine. The details of what would happen next didn't matter to Lucas, which is why he's said for years that there was no story there. He would have to sit down and think of one and he wasn't sure if he could figure out enough of a story to tell. Abrams and Kasdan both admitted that they had to come up with a story based on what Lucas did have. And he himself had to come up with some stuff here and there, before he turned his story over to Iger as part of the sale.

The Empire isn't the cause of the imbalance. The Sith are. Two men who control everything. They're gone now. What we have in the ST is not the Sith and is not the Empire as it was. It is something new, but not enough to unbalance the Force.[/quote]

 

Perhaps I misunderstood, then, when I was informed that in TCW Sifo-Dyas was killed prior to the ordering of the clone army and that it was confirmed to the Jedi that it was Dooku who had ordered the army....

This databank thing sounds like an attempt to weave together two contradictory storylines...

Whoa there.....what?!!

The story is of a "Chosen One", foreseen within an ages old prophecy, who will bring Balance to the Force. Lucas believes that this character was created by the very Force Itself for this very important and monumental, epochal act. This is all very....special....which is, I dunno, kind of undercut by the idea that....yeah, but after a couple of years it'll just go out of balance again...

I have to say....it took me some time to figure out whether by "not really" you were agreeing or disagreeing with me.

So...to show how Lucas had a story fixed in his mind all along you bring up;

Leia and Luke being siblings. This only came about in ROTJ. Prior to that they were not. She became the "other" which you reference later. That "other" only really existed as a means by which tension could be injected into Luke's journey to face Vader (as, again, you reference later). In fact, not only were Luke and Leia not siblings but in ANH neither of their father's was Vader.

Referencing Lucas talking about how he edits films rather than scripting them....as if we couldn't figure that out already... ie - that Lucas is more interested in the flow of his movies than in the structure of story.

Referencing events in the movies that occur simply as an aspect of the movie making process..

As for the backstory having a "...structure that hasn't changed much in all these years"....he says it best within the first part of that sentence ; "It was just a little story outline with bits and pieces". That story outline seems to have been...when Luke's father and Obi-Wan confronted Vader - where Luke's father is killed and Vader receives his injuries. Vader having been seduced by the darkside and betrayed the Jedi.....

I'd say that the structure of that ...very little story, has been changed very much in the intervening years.

 

The structure hasn't changed much... but the details have. He's certainly not the detail-freak that most people on these boards, myself included, can be. He doesn't sweat that stuff too much. Hell, he had to reshoot the final scene of the Anakin/Kenobi duel because he forgot to have Kenobi pick up the lightsaber to give to Luke. But by your reasoning, the fact that the original ending has Kenobi leaving the lightsaber should mean he never intended for Anakin to give the lightsaber to Luke, when that is clearly not the case.

Point being, try not to read too much into a dropped scene. If a scene was dropped, it was dropped for a reason. It's interesting to show how a scene might have played out, but it ultimately has no bearing on the final film.

 

It's not about one dropped scene. The dropped scene is about how fundamentally the 'structure' of the story has changed even within the making of the PT. But the idea that you seem to believe is that there was a "structure" of the PT already in place (as in all along) that was somewhat equivalent to the story produced in the PT. This is just nonsense. At some point after ROTJ and before TPM (and I suspoect much closer to that later date) Lucas began to conceive of a structure for a trilogy of films. he decided, at that point, to make it, specifically, about "Anakin Skywalker", and structured the rest of the galaxy around his idea of how his fall came about.

It's not about details, it's about the very idea that "all along" this was Lucas' vision. That's cobblers.

Hmm....so, let me get this straight. When Lucas said what he said about TPM...he was lying? That wasn't actually the story he was just misleading the audience? This is such a circular argument...anytime Lucas contradicts himself we can now play the 'then he was lying' card? You think this a good tactic? So instead of trying to figure out when Lucas changed his mind we need, instead, to know when he was being honest? So...if you consider that some of his words may be 'misdirection' ( a lie) then....how do you know when they are or aren't? Can we now not trust any of Lucas' words??

But...it doesn't really help your case anyway..the case being that Lucas "always had in mind that.....a, b, c" because whether the idea of a Sith origin came to him after TPM, or whether it was always the case then...that he dropped it for the current premise (who knows whether Lucas is being honest about it though?) that it was the Force what done it. In fact, if the original idea was that the Sith done it, and now it is tThe Force done it...then the story has fundamentally altered.

So...you might at this point say, his origins don't matter (Lucas says so, and we know how reliable his word is....oh, hang on...)...But, of course they do matter. Not only do they matter to Lucas, who was so concerned about those origins that he dropped categorically stating one of those origins (which you appear to claim was always the intention...) but feels it important enough to claim that he believes it is the Force.

But there's more...... If it is the Sith what done it then, it would be foolish for the Jedi to have had faith in the Force in terms of the prophecy...because actually the Force had f all to do with the "Chosen One". And, if it's not the Force that they are to have faith in, and only a "prophecy" then it is only faith in a "vision" that they have.

So, in terms of where TCW takes the story it absolutely, fundamentally matters what his origins were.

For one, I think that's a bit personal...but..hey-ho, each to their own. Secondly, I agreed with what Samuel Vimes was saying. I was arguing exactly the same; that from the movies themselves it was implied that it was the Sith. Here's the weird thing (I went and looked over the discussion last night..to remind myself) - you actually agreed with us...but pedantically insisted thatyou disagreed.

Let me explain. You said that from the films it was clear that it was the Sith; that that was what Lucas had meant when he said it would all become clear in ROTS. That was exactly the argument that both Samuel Vimes and I had been and were making. That, from the films it was abundantly clear that it was the Sith. But.....here's the problem. Lucas had (apparently) 'endorsed' an EU version of events that implicated Sifo-Dyas and implied that it was not the Sith...and so eager were you to back up Lucas that you didn't even realise that you argued exactly what we had been arguing all along...and offered it as anargument in opposition!!!

No Christian iconography; no prophecy; no 'Chosen One'; No Force as agent. Kasdan emphasised the pantheistic nature of the Force.

No...sorry, not letting this one drop. You were implying that even with a knowledge of psychology people "tend to" believe in nature over nurture. You were making a swingeing claim without any evidential support

Sorry? You seem to be mixing up the context of ideas here. This is nothing to do with some notion of the Jedi having 'lost their way' blah blah blah...this is about your own claim that only the "Chosen One" could destroy Sidious. He is not in danger from any other Jedi...none of them could destroy him. So...if so powerful he is, why wait to clinch power?

Are you being deliberately obscure? If so powerful he is...why the need for the Death Star before dissolving the Senate? His power resides in the Empire. Simply having Palpatine survive with a rag-tag army about him will not bring him victory. It doesn't make any sense for him to have manipulated his way to power if he was so powerful just his presence would defeat his opponents.

You are retro=projecting. There were no Sith in ROTJ. The destruction of the Emperor is the saving of Vader...not the voctory over the Empire; that is carried out by the rebels when they take down the Death Star and the greater part of the Imperial fleet.

[/quote]

Well, I was respoinding to the claim that the Force is, indeed, out of balance. Perhaps I misunderstood you. Perhaps ou meant that if Palpatine survived, no matter how useless and crippled, the Force would not be balanced. But....you would appear to be making that 'lore' up yourself if that is the case.

 

Yeah, just not that vested into the debate of what really happened in Lucas' mind. Believe what you want.

 

It was only a lie of omission. If Lucas had a basic story structure in place for all three films, by 1995, then he would know what was going to happen in ROTS. He already knew where things were going for AOTC. And most of what was set up for ROTS was first described by him in detail to Kasdan, Kazanjian and Marquand in 81, during the story meetings. That's why he said ten years ago that ROTS was 60% of what he had in mind, and that the other two films were both 20% of his original ideas. So he had a basic idea of where he wanted the story to go and as a storyteller, he was not going to tell the audience the details of where everything was going to go, that was not known to them. Do you think it is wise to tell people in 1999 that it was a Sith Lord? Do you think that Lucas should told people in 1978 that Darth Vader was going to be Luke's father? Think about that for a second; if Lucas had decided to spoil the biggest twist to come down the pike in 1979, well before the film came out, do you think people would be happy about it? No, of course not. That was the same logic when he made that statement for the behind the scenes book.

The story isn't altered if the Force created Anakin or the Sith did. He's still a human being who was created by unusual means, around the time the Sith were planning to make their comeback. He winds up fulfilling the destiny that was foreseen long ago. The only other importance is that Palpatine lures Anakin in to his web with the story of a Sith Lord who could create life and stop people from dying, which Anakin knows is partially true due to his own existence.

The Jedi don't know that the Sith could do this, since Darth Plagueis lived during the period when the Jedi thought that they were extinct. Palpatine frames his story so that Anakin believes that he existed over a thousand years ago, when the Sith were not yet extinct and that the Jedi Council knew of his existence, but refused to tell all of their members. This was to create the mistrust on Anakin's part towards the Jedi, which is then depicted when he says that he believes the Jedi are withholding things from him about the Force.

The thing with LOE was that the Jedi concluded that it was Sifo-Dyas, but the book implies that there was enough loop holes that it was the Sith who actually placed the order.

1. There was a prophecy in the second and third drafts of ANH. The Son of Suns intro and was referenced in those scripts.

2. The Force was originally just the spirits of the dead whose blessings that the Jedi hoped was with them. In the final films, the Jedi and the Sith both state, "The Force is with you", "The Force is with us", etc.

3. Lucas, by his own admission, didn't want to make the Force one religion or another. He just wanted it to be something that existed, but at the time, it was just a religion. The only thing that changed with the PT was that he used more of the different types, which was his right to do.

A basic knowledge of psychology. Meaning that they've been taught in school that it is nurture and not nature, but some people can get in an emotional state of being when people do something that is so heinous that they believe in nature and not nurture.

Not all of the Jedi were destroyed in ROTS. There were stragglers out there in hiding and it was up to Vader to find and eliminate them. By ANH the Death Star is ready, the Empire is at full strength and as far as they know, all of the Jedi are gone or no longer a factor.

That's not what was ever said at all by me, or anyone else. Palpatine is powerful in the Force to take out a number of Jedi, but not so powerful that he can rule without needing the military and a superlaser. He has power, but he needs more power to secure his position long term.

1. There are Sith in ROTJ. Vader's been a Sith since 1975. Just because the OT never uttered the word, doesn't mean he wasn't a Sith. Boba Fett's name was never uttered in TESB, but he was still Boba Fett. Palpatine wasn't a Sith at the time, but he is now. You need to get over the trilogies being made at different times.

2. Yoda states that the key to winning the war was to destroy Vader and Palpatine. This is in TESB itselt. So even then, Lucas was of the mind that destroying the two of them was important to winning the war.

The Force starts to go out of balance by the time of TPM, with the rise of Palpatine. It is balanced again when he is destroyed. The Empire being hurt with the Death Star's destruction doesn't balance the Force. The Sith cause the imbalance. Not the Imperial military might. That's why when ROTJ ends, the Sith are gone, but the Empire remains and the Force is in balance. In the old EU, there was a lot of Sith running around, but the Force was still in balance. The Empire was whittled down to a few systems by the time of "Union", but the Force was in balance. By the time of "Legacy", the Sith Empire and the Fel Empire were around and there was the Galactic Alliance and the Force was still in balance. Going by the trailer for TFA, there has been an awakening in the Force on both sides. That sounds like the Force is still in balance. And given all the spoilers that are out there, the implication is that the Force is still in balance.

 

I have a somewhat random thought: sinister, I've noticed that often you will say things like, 'whether or not the story is x or y, it doesn't alter the narrative.' Usually this is in the context of someone else arguing the opposite point. My thought is this: I wonder if the difference between views of narrative shown in discussions like that might relate or correspond somehow to differences in views of destiny and how history proceeds.

In other words, you appear to view narratives (or events in general) as inevitably moving in a certain direction, with the details not as important as this sort of general impulse - which operates over and above any one character or even faction. And if I can make a sort of generalization, in these discussions, the 'other side' seems to frequently postulate instead a high degree of 'sensitivity to initial conditions' within history, where every (or virtually every) detail can't help but to 'alter the narrative' (or history).

I wasn't really going anywhere with that, it's just something I noticed. (Does that make sense?)

 

I'm not quite sure. Maybe you could elaborate. I think I'm following you, but try and give a bit more of a detailed view.

 

But it's not a lie of omission. The lie of omission exists within the film. If it was merely misdirection (ie covering a truth which we are not to know until later), then the movie plays that perfectly in itself - because in the movie it is only stated that it is possible that he was created by the midiclorians....

That could be a lie of omission, a mere misdirection, but to state outright that the midiclorians did create Anakin....well, if that wasn't the case then that isn't a lie of omission, it's just an out and out lie. There is a difference between leading the audience to believe something to be true, and outright telling them something is true that isn't.

As for 'letting on' that Vader was Luke's father in 1978...well it's unlikely that Vader was the father in 1978. And...one of the reasons the scene is such a shocker is...because he wasn't the father until some point during the production of the movie. You're using an example wherein Lucas changed the story to back up an argument that Lucas is unlikely to have changed the story?

It absolutely matters if he was created by the Sith or by the Force, particularly in terms of the story as you insist it is.....

No, no, no. You are entirely side-stepping the point I'm making. As you tell it the Jedi are right to have faith in the Force and therefore in Anakin. That it is Anakin who is the Chosen One, who the Jedi ought to have (were right to have) faith in and with that, faith in the Force. If it were not the Force, but instead the Sith, which created Anakin then.....why would it be right for the Jedi to have faith in the Force; more pertinently, in what way could a notional faith in Anakin be conterminous with faith in the Force? If the Sith created Anakin then the Force has nothing to do with it.

In the version of the story you insist is the correct 'Lucasian' version (and the story Lucas is now telling, apparently, through TCW), it is absolutely vital that Anakin be created by the Force. (Has Lucas, perhaps, changed his mind again???)

Indeed...and so many loop-holes, and so many clues from the movies that the only way the plot could work was....if the Jedi (and perhaps 99% of the rest of the galaxy) were ludicrously stoopid.

1. Irrelevant. Han Solo was a lizard like creature in one of the drafts. General Kenobi had a mechanical arm in one of the drafts. Valorum was a bad guy in one of the drafts. The multiple drafts are a jumble of a million ideas that Lucas had.....so what? None of those stories could operate contingently with any other. They were a whole set of different stories. Star Wars was none of those draughts The OT movies are not those drafts. Because Lucas had an idea at some point doesn't mean those ideas are inherently within the first three movies. It is an absolute nonsense to argue that as the case.

2. In one of the drafts...but not in the movies.

3. And Lucas, by his own admission, had little to do with the symbolism of the 'religion' that the Force pertained to in the OT. What he did with the PT was put his own vision of what he wanted. Whether or not that is his right is not the question, the question is; did that symbolism pre-exist within the OT (that is, after all, your claim)? The answer to that is, no it didn't.

Again...you are side-stepping the context. Your claim is that only Anakin could destroy Sidious; That no other Jedi could. So...it doesn't matter if there were stragglers, it doesn't matter if the whole galaxy was populated with nothing but Jedi...Sidious was not in danger unless Anakin tries to kill him. If so powerful he is...why wait for power. This also ties in with how important it actually is within the context of the 'Lucasian' vision you insist is the story of Star Wars that Lucas be created by the Force....for what sense could be made of the notion that only Anakin could destroy Sidious if it were not the Force that created him for that purpose (and thus be the reason for the Jedi's righteousness in their faith in the Force and (therefore) Anakin...)?

But that is what is being argued. In fact some have gone as far as to claim that the majority of the fleet survived. The argument is that it is the destruction of Palpatine that is vital to the rebel's victory.

Let's ask this question in the most simple way possible. Had the rebels not destroyed the Death Star, would there have been celebrations? Would the Empire be defeated? According to some of the arguments here the answer would be yes, because Vader killed the Emperor.

1. The lore around Vader was that he was a Sith. What the Sith were, exactly, nobody really knew. As you say, the Emperor was not a Sith. There certainly wasn't an ages old battle between Jedi and Sith, and there was no imbalance in the Force that required correction (it could hardly have been a "powerful ally" of Yoda's if it were out of balance). I'm not sure I understand your point about my having to "get over" the trilogies having been made at different times (and, I might add, by different individuals...) I think what needs to stop is the claim that they were created as a whole within the mind of Lucas at some time prior to either.

2. Destroy you say? Is that what Yoda says? It is not. Stopped they must be.....you are retro-projecting a PT-ism

 

Not at all. The same storyteller made both and in the same way.

Whoever said that at anytime?

Obviously they weren't "created as a whole" at any time. If you mean that Lucas didn't know the complete total and whole story of the OT at the time BEFORE he did the first movie and while he had an excellent idea of various themes and ideas for the PT 20 years before he did them and moreso by the time he actually got to them he didn't have it all mapped out to the nth degree outside of a multitude of ideas of how to go about making them on character, story and visual levels structured around the ring storytelling.

It's a complete story NOW for I-VI.

That is the point.

 

That's why Lucas said that he didn't follow it through in the final film. He left two opposing sides to the equation which he left it up for the audience to decide if one or the other is the truth. What he felt about it himself is only in what he decided. It isn't a lie if he says that it was the Force, but leaves the film ambiguous to that.

Leigh Brackett's draft was dated February 17th, 1978. Lucas wrote his drafts between March and April of 78, before hiring Kasdan. Filming began on March 5th, 1979. So it was definitely in 1978 that Lucas settled on "I am your father". Dave Prowse had already knew of it when he let it slip during a public appearance that he made that year.



The following passage was posted on the Retroist about the incident.

As to my overall point, the point is that Lucas is like many storytellers, they're not going to spill the beans in a passing statemen before they can do so in their work itself.

No, it doesn't other than he fits the criteria of the prophecy and he ultimately does what was foreseen.

The point in faith is that people have faith in a higher power that is watching over them and doing something to help protect them, and even guide them. The Jedi having faith in the Force, even if he was created by the Sith, doesn't change anything. Especially when they themselves do not know it was the Sith. Their faith is that this boy is the one who will help restore the Force to normal by taking out the Sith, even if he was created by them or the Force, he is still the one who can do it.

For instance, if someone is sick and people pray for divine intervention. Sure, you can say that you should put faith in modern medicine. No problem them. But there is nothing wrong in putting faith in God that the loved one will survive. Faith is important for people. Maybe not for everyone, but for many it is important.

"The Clone Wars" has nothing to do with it. The only thing that "Clone Wars" does is confirm that there is a higher power that exists and that many other Force religions had different views regarding Anakin. For instance, the Nelvaan knew of the prophecy of the Chosen One, though he was to be referred to as the Ghost Hand. A being who would lose his hand in battle and would wield a new one that would grant him great power and he would help the Nelvaan during a time of great difficulty. But there was also more in that Ghost Hand would become consumed by his power and betray those that he cared for.

With the Jedi, the issue is that they were aware that there was something to the clones, but given their situation, they had no choice but to rely on them. To the galaxy as a whole, they were too trusting for their own good.

And in the final film, three characters refer to the Force and the Jedi as a religion. Ergo, it is a religion. Lucas kept that idea in each draft.

"May the Force of all Others be with you" became "May the Force be with you." It is still used as a blessing in the final film and carried over to the other films. "The Force will be with you, always" is also a blessing.

Evidence shows otherwise.

First, I'm not side stepping the issue. I'm explaining why Palpatine waited until he had the Empire up and running at full steam, before he disbanded the Senate. Being powerful in the Force isn't going to be enough. That is why he came up with the Death Star in the first place. Second, Palpatine managed to defeat three Jedi Masters in a matter of seconds. Only two Jedi Masters could hold their own against Palpatine and neither one could defeat him. The Force was not with them. It was not their destiny to kill him. Nor was it Luke, who never finished his training and threw away his Lightsaber. It becomes Anakin because he was capable of defeating Palpatine and ultimately does, because he is the only strong enough to withstand the Sith lightning long enough to kill him. The Force creating him, or the Sith creating doesn't change that because the way he was created, grants him the means of being the Chosen One. He still has a high Midichlorian count regardless of the Force creating him, or the Sith creating him. The prophecy is not contingent on how he was born, only that he was born and that he would make a choice when the time came. It's like with "The Matrix", Neo is still the One despite the fact that it was all a lie created by the machines to begin with.

The victory celebrations are dependent on the death of Palpatine and the destruction of both the Executor and the Death Star. The Imperial fleet is not shown being destroyed. We only see two Star Destroyers being destroyed. The fleet took off when it became apparent that the battle was lost. They still outgunned the Alliance twenty to one, but with the knowledge that the shield was down and with the Executor now destroyed, it was time to cut and run. That's why we have the ST, because the Empire wasn't completely destroyed. That's why the old EU showed a fifteen year period where the Empire went from controlling all the systems that they did, to only a few loyal systems that were left.

Doesn't matter. He was still a Sith Lord.

It is a powerful ally since it is the only thing that a Jedi has to rely on. But being out of balance doesn't change that. Being out of balance means that the Force is no longer what it was and leans heavily on the dark side. But it can still be a powerful ally for a Jedi.

My point is that you have to accept that Lucas created the two trilogies to tell one storyline and that story beats that appeared in the later films, apply to the earlier ones. And I have never said that they were created as a whole, but he has said that there were certain ideas in place, but he didn't know the details until he sat down to figure them out. He already knew that Watto existed in the story prior to writing TPM, but he didn't know all the details about him other than he was part of Anakin's life. Lucas already knew that he was going to have Luke fight Vader, before he wrote TESB and ROTJ. He already imagined how Vader survived his injuries, long before he made the PT.

Luke isn't going to stop them by using harsh language.

 

"Sith" is just the name that some Dark Side users call themselves. It's the name they call their team.

 

Well, as I've argued before, "I am your father" does not necessarily/exclusively mean, "Darth Vader used to be/is Anakin Skywalker". It could have meant that though Anakin was killed, many people in the galaxy had mistakenly assumed that Luke was his son. So, in the least, Prowse's statement doesn't mean that Lucas' had already decisively* merged the two characters of Anakin/Annikin and Darth Vader.

*I'll go further and say I don't think Lucas had settled on the Anakin-is-seduced-by-dark-side-of-the-Force-and-becomes-Darth Vader scenario until late in production on TESB, or even once he started on ROTJ.

Since we're quoting conjecture/rumors, Lucas supposedly told a group of moviegoers in 1977 at a Q &A when asked "who is Darth Vader?" : "Luke Skywalker's father" (end quote). So, Lucas himself, according to this rumor, had 'let it slip' himself, even before Prowse supposedly had.

Might I ask what this notional 'criteria' is/was that Anakin supposedly met? And, like I've asked before: does the 'Chosen One' even need to be a Jedi in order to fulfill the so-called prophecy?

The fact that they - the Jedi - seemingly 'have no choice', but Anakin however does, is part of the problem with the story here. It ties back into only one kenobi's comment: apparently they - and 99% of the rest of the galaxy - 'had no choice' but to be incredibly stupid in order for the plot to happen.

Still, the final OT films don't have Luke or Vader/Anakin fulfilling some Force prophecy.

A story fact for which little relevance is given in the OT films. There was no ages old conflict of Jedi vs. Sith depicted in the OT films.

"Apply to the earlier ones".....retro-actively, yes. Or via a process known as 'harmonization'.

As LtCmdrThrawn has pointed out, your approach amounts to saying that the details don't matter.

The "slave boy who builds C-3PO" element may go back to 1977, but it didn't refer to the character of Annikin/Anakin that far back. If you're saying that he "knew" about Watto back in the early 80's when making ROTJ, well............

Yes, but not in 1975, as he'd later claim. The dialogue in Ben and Vader's fight in the first film betrays no knowledge whatsoever of such an incident that was the genesis of Vader's injuries.[/quote][/quote]