”The Moral Landscape of the STAR WARS Saga” - The Jedi Order I

[ladylavinia]

Comments

[albumsontheside]

This is an amazingly insightful essay, and one I completely approve of. You're clearly an intelligent and eloquent thinker ♥

[4thofeleven]

I think part of the problem I had with the prequels is that they’re a story the resolution of which is in another movie made almost two decades before. The point, I think, was clearly meant to be that the old Jedi orthodoxy was unworkable, that it needed to be replaced by a new type of Jedi, represented by Luke in RotJ - and there’s hints of that in the original films - Yoda insisting Luke should abandon Han and Leia to focus on his training, Obi-Wan insisting to the end that Luke cannot confront Vader while hoping to redeem him

[ladylavinia]

"The problem I see is that I’m not sure they form a coherent story, especially divided and split up the way they are. The emphasis in RotJ is all wrong for that sort of story - It’s on Luke as being a “Jedi, like my father before me”, Luke as the last of the Jedi, the inheritor of this ancient tradition. Except looking at the prequels, it seems the point is that Luke rejects the emotionally repressed culture of the Old Republic Jedi just as much as he rejects the emotionally uncontrolled culture of the Sith."

I think you might be taking Luke's declaration in ROTJ a bit too literally. There is nothing wrong with Luke wanting to be a Jedi Knight, as his father had also been one. But that does not mean Luke had to adhere to what the Jedi used to be in the Old Republic.

Or are you trying to say something different?

[arkan2]

I think our friend meant that the general tone of the movie is of Luke being the one to restore the old Jedi Order, rather than him being the one to create a new one, and cited that "Like my father father before me," line as a specific example of the general point.

It's been too long since I've seen Return of the Jedi, but that's the argument as I understand it (and it sounds plausible).

[ladylavinia]

I think it’s a shame the scene from RotS with Qui-Gon wasn’t filmed - it seems to me he’s at the heart of the story, as the one Jedi who sees their current philosophies don’t work, and the idea that after the death of the Jedi Yoda could finally see the truth of that and resolved to learn from Qui-Gon’s spirit should have been one of the key scenes of the prequels, making it clear that the prequel Jedi were meant to be interpreted as ineffective and flawed and that it was not their tradition that Luke was following in RotJ.

As much as I would have liked to have seen Qui-Gon (Liam Neeson was not available), I'm pretty satisfied with how it played out with Yoda first sensing Qui-Gon's voice in AOTC and mentioning him to Obi-Wan near the end of ROTS. At least Lucas had put the message across that Qui-Gon's Force ghost will be there to guide Yoda and Obi-Wan from the old way of how the Jedi dealt with the Force. How successful was Qui-Gon? The Original Trilogy told us how.

jedi article

[anonymous]

This is an interesting article and discussion on the Jedi. I found myself comparing Old Obi Wan with Young Obi Wan in both trilogies. I think not training Luke the way previous Jedi were trained worked best for him.

This article reminded me of the Crossroads of the Force series of stories you have written, and I really enjoyed reading them. Are you ever going to finish the other 2 stories in that series? You are very talented, and I remember reading them on ff.net. If you ever finish them, I would love to read how things turn out! Angie