General star wars talk/discussion/complaining

[Zaukrie]

I think @Gradine made a good point upthread in that individual Jedi can be good, smart heroes. Think Luke, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Kanan Jarus, Ezra, Ahsoka, and so on.

It's the Jedi Order that's the problem. And yes, maybe some of it was in our heads. When all we had was the OG trilogy, we had to imagine what the Jedi Order was like because it no longer existed.

But then Lucas showed us what the Jedi Order was like in the prequels and the Clone Wars cartoon. Suddenly we were faced with an institution that took babies from their parents to indoctrinate them in a "no attachments" philosophy. An institution that had become hopelessly entangled within the Republic's political morass as its official peacekeepers and eventually army generals.

Armed with this new information, people began evaluating and deconstructing the myths we had built up when all we had was the OG trilogy.

I suspect that when some people say they miss the "good old days", they are referring to the pre-prequel days when people didn't question the assumption that "Jedi = good, Sith = bad".

There's probably also an element of "I miss the days of my youth when everything was more black-and-white. I don't like the shades of grey that come with adulthood."

I'm ok with shades of grey! I'd prefer it not be as far from the good end of the spectrum as the Jedi order is. I get this is not the story we got. I could use some hope right now in my entertainment....

 

[Bedrockgames]

When exactly were those days?

I think it was mostly in our heads. Ben was doing the Jedi Mind Trick on the audience.

The closest you probably get on screen is The Clone Wars where they were mostly good, but there were a lot of bad ones, and were being manipulated a lot by Palpatine.

The High Republic tried to show the Jedi in a better place but there was conflict and some failure there too.

I mean as the series evolved, this has become true. But I don't think that was originally the intent. I like morally gray movies. The 70s was rife with excellent films about antiheroes. But Star Wars stood out because it was a film about heroism and good versus evil. I think what happened was George Lucas got older and wanted a more nuanced take (not saying the result was great, but I think that is what he was shooting for). So the prequels kind of change everything in that respect. I would still say the Jedi are largely the good guys in the prequels, but the Jedi institution is flawed (again he could have done a much better job in my opinion explaining this, especially with Anakin turning to the Dark Side, but I do think that was his aim). But when I go back to that first trilogy (just saw it recently with my wife), it is pretty black and white as morality goes. And you kind of need that for the redemption arc of Vader. Personally what I think would have worked better was a deeper exploration of Vader's descent into Darkness in the prequels, and way less focus on politics (the Clone Wars had such massive scale and mystery when I imagined them, but the moment they showed them, the magic was a little lost)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It would have been cool if Kylo had been having visions of who he thought it was Vader but it turned out to secretely been Palpatine as some sort of sith force wraith maskerading as Vader.

A great example of how even a minimal amount of planning would have made it all fit together better.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Sure but Disney was in charge. They could have put an end to that pretty quickly

Much more important to spend their time killing off Rogue Squadron standalone films for ... reasons.

 

[Gradine]

I'm ok with shades of grey! I'd prefer it not be as far from the good end of the spectrum as the Jedi order is. I get this is not the story we got. I could use some hope right now in my entertainment....

I really don't think our entertainment should be teaching us to look for hope from institutions at the moment...

 

[Kaodi]

Saying the Jedi Order has shades of grey is a lot different than saying it is evil. And I also reject the notion that Yoda can be "good" if the Order is "bad" . Yoda is the Order. The 800+ year old literal embodiment of the Jedi as an institution. Also, keep in mind the situation the Jedi are in: their way of doing things is a strategy they have adopted to deal with a threat turns out to be ONE HUNDRED PERCENT REAL and actually destroys them and much of the galaxy. They screwed it up in many ways - but there is almost no way they couldn't. The difficulty of containing a threat that only pokes its head out once every thousand years or so is astronomically.

 

[MarkB]

Saying the Jedi Order has shades of grey is a lot different than saying it is evil. And I also reject the notion that Yoda can be "good" if the Order is "bad" . Yoda is the Order. The 800+ year old literal embodiment of the Jedi as an institution. Also, keep in mind the situation the Jedi are in: their way of doing things is a strategy they have adopted to deal with a threat turns out to be ONE HUNDRED PERCENT REAL and actually destroys them and much of the galaxy. They screwed it up in many ways - but there is almost no way they couldn't. The difficulty of containing a threat that only pokes its head out once every thousand years or so is astronomically.

Their main mistake was allowing themselves to become, in practical terms, an instrument of the state. As an independent organisation they could have responded with agility to threats, but they let themselves become bound up in the same top-heavy bureaucracy that doomed the Republic, which had already grown beyond its capability to govern itself well before Palpatine stepped onto the scene.

 

[pukunui]

Their main mistake was allowing themselves to become, in practical terms, an instrument of the state. As an independent organisation they could have responded with agility to threats, but they let themselves become bound up in the same top-heavy bureaucracy that doomed the Republic, which had already grown beyond its capability to govern itself well before Palpatine stepped onto the scene.

This. I think it would be interesting to see a movie / Disney+ series focusing on the Jedi before the Order became part of the Republic. Back when they were still independent.

EDIT: It would have been nice to see Luke learn from the mistakes of the old order and establish up a new, wiser, stronger, independent Jedi ... but that's unfortunately not what Disney gave us. I suppose watching Rey do that instead will be OK.

 

[MoonSong]

Their main mistake was allowing themselves to become, in practical terms, an instrument of the state. As an independent organisation they could have responded with agility to threats, but they let themselves become bound up in the same top-heavy bureaucracy that doomed the Republic, which had already grown beyond its capability to govern itself well before Palpatine stepped onto the scene.

Another factor is they allowed themselves to be swallowed by their own performative rituals. Their approach to the dark side is the equivalent of abstinence-only sx-ed. Instead of leaning on the will of the force, they went into fleeing from the dark side. They weakened their connection to the force and by the time Palpatine was making his moves, they didn't see him coming.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This. I think it would be interesting to see a movie / Disney+ series focusing on the Jedi before the Order became part of the Republic. Back when they were still independent.

EDIT: It would have been nice to see Luke learn from the mistakes of the old order and establish up a new, wiser, stronger, independent Jedi ... but that's unfortunately not what Disney gave us. I suppose watching Rey do that instead will be OK.

Are we actually going to see Rey do that? Are they plans to push the timeline past RoS?