The Book of Boba Fett (spoilers)

[MarkB]

Sure, but remember this is the luke that destroyed the death star not that long ago. He's full of ambition, ready to rebuild the jedi back to their glory days. He hasn't really stopped to consider that the Jedi were wrong in many ways.

That's what makes Ahsoka such an interesting companion, she not only can fill in years of Jedi history for Luke, but she can also walk him through what she considers some of the mistakes. I hope they actually do that (whether its on screen or not), and not just have her pop in, hang out with luke for a day, and then just leave without telling him a lot of things.

Probably not very successfully, as this is still the Luke who winds up failing at teaching a new generation of Jedi shortly before the sequel trilogy. Ultimately, he'll only truly come to see his mistakes once he meets Rey.

 

[Stalker0]

Probably not very successfully, as this is still the Luke who winds up failing at teaching a new generation of Jedi shortly before the sequel trilogy. Ultimately, he'll only truly come to see his mistakes once he meets Rey.

Agreed, that is the second character arc for Luke, finding a new understanding that there was a way beyond the Jedi teachings. And if he hadn't died immediatley that might have been a nice way for him to go. But....alas.

Of course, there's always rumors they are going to shelf the new trilogy and replace it with something else, so who the heck knows at this point.

 

[Ryujin]

Probably not very successfully, as this is still the Luke who winds up failing at teaching a new generation of Jedi shortly before the sequel trilogy. Ultimately, he'll only truly come to see his mistakes once he meets Rey.

Not sure that having your Darksider nephew murder all of your students is exactly "failing at teaching" the rest.

Sure, but remember this is the luke that destroyed the death star not that long ago. He's full of ambition, ready to rebuild the jedi back to their glory days. He hasn't really stopped to consider that the Jedi were wrong in many ways.

Even more than that, he has an idealized vision of what the Jedi Order was, and represents. He assumes that all of his teachings are, pardon the expression, Gospel Truth.

 

[MarkB]

Not sure that having your Darksider nephew murder all of your students is exactly "failing at teaching" the rest.

No, that was the result of the failure, not the cause.

 

[BrokenTwin]

Yeah, I was mildly interested in the Book of Boba Fett, but outside of the Mandalorian episodes, it just has not been very engaging at all. Fett's motivation doesn't feel coherent or real, and while I love me some Danny Trejo, both the Rancor and "Recruit Teens with Attitude!" portions were excessively cringey. I did enjoy seeing the tuskens fleshed out more, but really wish that had gone somewhere more productive. Like, bare minimum, have the kid survive and be part of the main cast.

It feels like the show is too busy setting up groundwork for other projects than actually trying to be good in and of itself. Boba Fett feels like a very flat and boring character who's given a "white man learns the culture of the savages" storyline with the tuskens. And we've been given zero reasons to actually care about his struggle. Like, written down, the plot sounds fun. A bounty hunter escapes certain death, has what can only be described as a spiritual awakening via exposure to another people's culture, and decides to become an upstart crime lord for reasons(?) while an out-of-town major syndicate trying to take over the same turf. But nobody seems to have any actual beliefs in anything, so there's no ideological clash beyond "I want to be the one getting rich by oppressing these people." But Fett apparently has no problem with credits, so it's literally just a power trip for him? It's all WHAT and no WHY.

And Luke in the most recent episode... nostalgia bait with the training sequence aside, way to accurately recreate all of the worst aspects of the Jedi. Force Grogu to re-experience the most tramatic memories in his life where his friends and family (and likely abductors) were gunned down by laser fire, then subject him to training by having a droid shoot laser fire at him without warning. Then tell him he's not allowed to have attachments in life despite having more than a few yourself. I swear, the more I look back at Star Wars canon the more I feel like the Sith were the lesser evil.

 

[Ryujin]

Yeah, I was mildly interested in the Book of Boba Fett, but outside of the Mandalorian episodes, it just has not been very engaging at all. Fett's motivation doesn't feel coherent or real, and while I love me some Danny Trejo, both the Rancor and "Recruit Teens with Attitude!" portions were excessively cringey. I did enjoy seeing the tuskens fleshed out more, but really wish that had gone somewhere more productive. Like, bare minimum, have the kid survive and be part of the main cast.

It feels like the show is too busy setting up groundwork for other projects than actually trying to be good in and of itself. Boba Fett feels like a very flat and boring character who's given a "white man learns the culture of the savages" storyline with the tuskens. And we've been given zero reasons to actually care about his struggle. Like, written down, the plot sounds fun. A bounty hunter escapes certain death, has what can only be described as a spiritual awakening via exposure to another people's culture, and decides to become an upstart crime lord for reasons(?) while an out-of-town major syndicate trying to take over the same turf. But nobody seems to have any actual beliefs in anything, so there's no ideological clash beyond "I want to be the one getting rich by oppressing these people." But Fett apparently has no problem with credits, so it's literally just a power trip for him? It's all WHAT and no WHY.

And Luke in the most recent episode... nostalgia bait with the training sequence aside, way to accurately recreate all of the worst aspects of the Jedi. Force Grogu to re-experience the most tramatic memories in his life where his friends and family (and likely abductors) were gunned down by laser fire, then subject him to training by having a droid shoot laser fire at him without warning. Then tell him he's not allowed to have attachments in life despite having more than a few yourself. I swear, the more I look back at Star Wars canon the more I feel like the Sith were the lesser evil.

The problem, as I see it, being that both sides are absolutists. Time that the Jedi went slightly gray, or at least acknowledged that shadow exists.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

The problem, as I see it, being that both sides are absolutists. Time that the Jedi went slightly gray, or at least acknowledged that shadow exists.

They were there in the very old days of KOTOR. Maybe the High Republic books and shows will explain when and why that changed.

 

[Stalker0]

The problem, as I see it, being that both sides are absolutists. Time that the Jedi went slightly gray, or at least acknowledged that shadow exists.

So the thing to remember is that when Lucas designed the force it wasn’t the modern ying/yang concept we love today, it’s more like white snow trying to remain pure from darkness.

the concept is that giving in to emotion and attachment ultimately leads towards evil. People can tolerate it to a certain extent, but the corruption is inevitable.

One of the absolute best renditions of this was Jacen Solo from the legacy books. Jacen tries to go grey, not believing in a good side and bad side. And he is so careful, constantly checking his motives and his rationalizations. And yet the reader gets to the corruption, it’s slow,
Taking place over several books, but in the end he succumbs.

you could argue that the tragedy of Star Wars is the inevitable corruption of power, that the Jedi only stay “good” by giving up the very things a normal person would consider barbaric, because Normal people would be too corrupted by the power they wield

 

[BrokenTwin]

The problem, as I see it, being that both sides are absolutists. Time that the Jedi went slightly gray, or at least acknowledged that shadow exists.

I mean, when one side is hell-bent on eradicating anybody who doesn't share their beliefs in how the magic should be used... a heavy portion of the known Sith were former Jedi who went rogue for fairly legitimate reasons (Count Dooku wanted to expose the corruption in the Republic and outright told Obi-Wan that a Sith was running the place, Anakin desperately needed a proper therapist and wanted to actually care about people outside of the cult, Kylo woke up to his "no attachments" uncle and mentor standing above him with a drawn blade and murder in his eyes) and were convinced to fight against the organization that failed them. The organization that, by canon, feels zero issue with dismembering and executing people without trial, brainwashing people they consider "weak-minded", separating children from their parents and telling them to suck it up, starting wars using a slave army, and overthrowing a democratically elected senate when it looks like the leader given wartime powers MIGHT not give them up afterwards. Then turning tail and hiding when the empire is formed instead of attempting to actually help the rebellion fight back against a brutal dictatorship that they were at LEAST partially responsible for helping cause. And that's just in the Lucas-directed movies.

It feels a lot like a militaristic cult vs a bunch of libertarians that got out with the secret sauce. Some of the latter may be genocidal ego-maniacs, but it's still hard to root for their opponents.

 

[MarkB]

I mean, when one side is hell-bent on eradicating anybody who doesn't share their beliefs in how the magic should be used... a heavy portion of the known Sith were former Jedi who went rogue for fairly legitimate reasons (Count Dooku wanted to expose the corruption in the Republic and outright told Obi-Wan that a Sith was running the place, Anakin desperately needed a proper therapist and wanted to actually care about people outside of the cult, Kylo woke up to his "no attachments" uncle and mentor standing above him with a drawn blade and murder in his eyes) and were convinced to fight against the organization that failed them. The organization that, by canon, feels zero issue with dismembering and executing people without trial, brainwashing people they consider "weak-minded", separating children from their parents and telling them to suck it up, starting wars using a slave army, and overthrowing a democratically elected senate when it looks like the leader given wartime powers MIGHT not give them up afterwards. Then turning tail and hiding when the empire is formed instead of attempting to actually help the rebellion fight back against a brutal dictatorship that they were at LEAST partially responsible for helping cause. And that's just in the Lucas-directed movies.

It feels a lot like a militaristic cult vs a bunch of libertarians that got out with the secret sauce. Some of the latter may be genocidal ego-maniacs, but it's still hard to root for their opponents.

I think that's part of what led to their downfall. They saw Jedi falling to the dark side on account of what would be perfectly normal attachments, loyalties and good intentions, and the Masters, having long since mastered control over their emotions, just began more and more to believe that any unguarded emotional attachment was a path to evil, having lost the perspective needed to realise how difficult and damaging it would be to force that level of detachment upon those who lacked their level of control.