SW:TESB darkside cave on Dagobah - what is going on?

[DaddyfromNaboo]

So I have watched ESB countless times, but until now never noticed that the entrance to "cave", right before and during the confrontation with "Darth Vader", looks "man-made". I don´t mean man-made in the sense of that it is sloppy set construction and set dressing, but that it looks very much "man-made" in-universe. There are smooth walls framing Vader, there are "doorframe"-like structures visible right next to Luke.

Am I seeing things there?

[video]https://youtu.be/infZSKB5L9I?t=196[/video]

A lot of (maybe already obsolete EU) backstory for the cave

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Side_Cave

but I am kind of surprised that this was seemingly never mentioned before.

It may be old age, but I can less and less easily "suspend my disbelief" when I watch movies, so I guess I just wasn´t bothered with this before and just accepted it as fact. But now I caught myself thinking about why Yoda would have a "dark side cave" so conveniently close to where he lives, did he seek it out before he chose Dagobah for his exile, or what?

IMO it would have been nice to know that it was a place already known for the strong dark side energy, which an ancient sith temple could have been. But hey, maybe I am just seeing things or wanting too much depth

 

[Lord Boron]

Back then, I always assumed he kept it nearby to use it for training purposes. At the time I, and everyone I knew assumed he always see lived there and that's where he trained all the Jedi back in the day. This was before the prequels and the the whole fancy Jedi Temple. How does a cave get infected with the dark side anyway? Some one spill some mediclorians in it.......

 

[James Kenobi 1138]

I wished they took the opportunity to address this in the Prequels, like it was revealed that Sifo Dyas was assassinated in a meditation temple on Dagobah or something.

 

[Treadwell]

I've always wondered about that doorframe.

 

[glunark]

I assumed Yoda lived near the dark side cave because it masked his light side energy from anyone trying to find him in the force.

 

[Jaitea]

The cave was a vision....the walls & doorway were projected from Luke's destiny with Vader on Bespin

The whole thing is created and controlled in Luke's mind by Yoda,....there is no Dark Side there or a temple....its a mind test

...it shows Luke is not ready and fails the test

YODA
Yes, yes. To Obi-Wan you listen.
The cave. Remember your failure
at the cave!

LUKE
But I've learned so much since
then. Master Yoda, I promise to
return and finish what I've begun.
You have my word.

J

 

[Halliwax]

The cave was a vision....the walls & doorway were projected from Luke's destiny with Vader on Bespin

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/ag383/jaitea1/Screen Shot 2015-10-03 at 23.55.59_zpsf5ds2sdn.png
http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/ag383/jaitea1/Screen Shot 2015-10-03 at 23.57.41_zpsgaxp4z8o.png
http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/ag383/jaitea1/Screen Shot 2015-10-03 at 23.56.12_zpslrbalieb.png
http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/ag383/jaitea1/Screen Shot 2015-10-04 at 00.10.14_zpslluemwp4.png
http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/ag383/jaitea1/Screen Shot 2015-10-03 at 23.55.39_zpszlew17ou.png
http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/ag383/jaitea1/Screen Shot 2015-10-04 at 00.10.37_zpsry6j8pwf.png

The whole thing is created and controlled in Luke's mind by Yoda,....there is no Dark Side there or a temple....its a mind test

...it shows Luke is not ready and fails the test

YODA
Yes, yes. To Obi-Wan you listen.
The cave. Remember your failure
at the cave!

LUKE
But I've learned so much since
then. Master Yoda, I promise to
return and finish what I've begun.
You have my word.

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/ag383/jaitea1/Wise words_zps4tkwsd3n.jpg

J

all these years i never noticed the cave set mimicking bespin... i cant believe i never caught on to that

 

[jcoffman99]

Mind blown.

 

[binkleywalker]

Well, holy crap. How about that?!?

 

[DaddyfromNaboo]

The cave was a vision....the walls & doorway were projected from Luke's destiny with Vader on Bespin

...
The whole thing is created and controlled in Luke's mind by Yoda,....there is no Dark Side there or a temple....its a mind test

...it shows Luke is not ready and fails the test

...

Very good observation!!! I love to see foreshadowing mirrored and enhanced by set design. If we only could get official word on that!!! That would REALLY lift ESB and it´s production design to another level.

Story-wise it of course would make total sense that there is no "real" darkside cave, but Yoda just does a mind trick on Luke or other unsuspecting "Jedi in training" (on a side note, I can´t bring myself to write "padawan" in connection to that scene) to test and train them, even if he uses devices like holocrons or some such.

And I most certainly do not want to think about what Sith or Dark Jedi may have spilled in dark, moist, overgrown caves. What if someone steps into that? Yuck!

 

[robn1]

The cave was a vision....the walls & doorway were projected from Luke's destiny with Vader on Bespin...

I've always felt that too. And this exchange was very telling.
Luke: What's in there?
Yoda: Only what you take with you.

 

[batguy]

The cave did seem like a test, and it did seem like it was a product of Luke's psyche & future. But the entire cave incident didn't seem like all Yoda's doing to me.

I always interpreted that cave be a pre-existing sort of "evil spot" and Luke merely brought the specifics of his experience to the table. I thought Yoda just brought Luke to the place and the appropriate stage of Luke's training and then observed the incident.




It's been like 15 years since I read this but - didn't the EU have a backstory about Yoda having beaten a Sith in that cave in the past? IIRC the idea was that Yoda was hiding on Dagobah all those years. The lingering dark side mojo of the cave helped to cancel-out his light side mojo and keep Vader & Palpatine from sensing him.

That story always seemed like a good one to me.

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

^ And why he picked Dagobah of all the possible obscure backwaters.

--Jonah

 

[Jaitea]

The cave did seem like a test, and it did seem like it was a product of Luke's psyche & future. But the entire cave incident didn't seem like all Yoda's doing to me.

I always interpreted that cave be a pre-existing sort of "evil spot" and Luke merely brought the specifics of his experience to the table. I thought Yoda just brought Luke to the place and the appropriate stage of Luke's training and then observed the incident.




It's been like 15 years since I read this but - didn't the EU have a backstory about Yoda having beaten a Sith in that cave in the past? IIRC the idea was that Yoda was hiding on Dagobah all those years. The lingering dark side mojo of the cave helped to cancel-out his light side mojo and keep Vader & Palpatine from sensing him.

That story always seemed like a good one to me.

Na I don't think so,....remember The Emperor immediately felt a tremor in the force once Luke arrived at Dagobah,....the Magical Tree would have hidden that if thats the reasoning Yoda picked that spot,.....I think the tree was just a place where Yoda could focus Luke's fears

Once Yoda & Luke met it was like flies on a spiders web

J

 

[Wolfsburg]

I always liked that this was never explained but holy crap...I never noticed the similarity to that Bespin hallway...

 

[Jedi2016]

The Bespin thing is pretty impressive, I never noticed that before, either.

As for the cave.. the old EU claimed that Yoda had killed a Dark Jedi there, but of course that was always non-canon. It's also questionable as to how much of the truth Yoda tells his students for their tests. It's definitely quite possible, probable even, that the cave was just a plain ol' cave.

On the one had, it's "strong with the dark side", on the other, it contains "only what you take with you"... the dark side he was referring to probably wasn't in the cave at all, it was in Luke. That was the whole lesson of the cave, after all.. to demonstrate the darkness within that the student must learn to accept and control. Tell a student that there's something scary in there, and their own fears and doubts will fill in the rest. It wasn't until RoTJ that Luke stopped being afraid of Vader. He overcame that fear quite well in ESB, but Luke was probably terrified during that entire encounter.

 

[Jaitea]

The Bespin thing is pretty impressive, I never noticed that before, either.

As for the cave.. the old EU claimed that Yoda had killed a Dark Jedi there, but of course that was always non-canon. It's also questionable as to how much of the truth Yoda tells his students for their tests. It's definitely quite possible, probable even, that the cave was just a plain ol' cave.

On the one had, it's "strong with the dark side", on the other, it contains "only what you take with you"... the dark side he was referring to probably wasn't in the cave at all, it was in Luke. That was the whole lesson of the cave, after all.. to demonstrate the darkness within that the student must learn to accept and control. Tell a student that there's something scary in there, and their own fears and doubts will fill in the rest. It wasn't until RoTJ that Luke stopped being afraid of Vader. He overcame that fear quite well in ESB, but Luke was probably terrified during that entire encounter.

Exactly
J

 

[Bryancd]

Dave Filoni actually discussed this with GL and talked about it a while ago on Rebel Force Radio.

 

[AJTaliesen]

The set similarity is awesome. Thanks for sharing that!

As for past or explanations, I'm going to go with "Ignore prequels and EU, these are not the Star Wars you're looking for! Move along."

Yoda explains it in that very movie: the force is not a result of Jedi or Sith, it's the life force of the universe. The Jedi try to understand it and flow with it, while the Sith try to use it, but it's there regardless of them.

So nothing really had to happen there. Could have been where the evil Sith had a temple, or maybe it's just a natural spot and Luke imagined it...If you ignore the prequel stuff and just look at Yoda and Ben's explanations of the Force, it just happens. It's there. I always felt like Yoda was implying that if Luke left his weapons behind and walked in humming It's a small World after all, then he would've had a nice stroll in the woods and come back fine. The bad stuff he saw was nothing more than the bad he brought with him.

 

[Jaitea]

Dave Filoni actually discussed this with GL and talked about it a while ago on Rebel Force Radio.

....Thing is,.....even George Lucas doesn't understand The Empire Strike Back,....changing the dialogue in the Vader/Emperor scene shows he had no concept of what that conversation was about

J