I always thought the same.
Star Wars saga. Prequels and Sequels.
- Thread starter _Lee_
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Axlotl
Master Member
The force ghost thing works fine in the original trilogy because the original trilogy is a fairy tale. George forgot Star Wars was a fairy tale when he made the prequels.
Force ghosts don't need an explanation in a fairy tale, because it's a story telling device. We don't need to know how it works, just like we don't need to know how lightsabers and spaceships work. They're magical things in a magical world that exist to serve the story being told.
I really wish George hadn't muddied the pure fantasy water with his psuedo-scientific mumbo jumbo in the prequels.
Actually, I really wish he'd never made the prequels. The psuedo-scientific crap is just one thing on a giant steaming pile of things that never should have happened.
In my opinion.
Force ghosts don't need an explanation in a fairy tale, because it's a story telling device. We don't need to know how it works, just like we don't need to know how lightsabers and spaceships work. They're magical things in a magical world that exist to serve the story being told.
I really wish George hadn't muddied the pure fantasy water with his psuedo-scientific mumbo jumbo in the prequels.
Actually, I really wish he'd never made the prequels. The psuedo-scientific crap is just one thing on a giant steaming pile of things that never should have happened.
In my opinion.
Yeah they tell you in the movie (I think, might be thinking of the book) that Qui-Gon learned the power from a Shaman of the Whills and that he would teach them. I can't recall where it said he only learned part of the power or whether it was just that he attempted it so hastily that it didn't fully work. IDK.
ScourgiousJinx
Master Member
If you have plot holes, maybe just leave some of them alone occasionally. No need to explain everything later especially if it digs a deeper hole.
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...And then Anakin just knew how to do it 'cause he's the Chosen One? 
Another of George's changed premises. Back then it was just something all Jedi did upon death, per him. And, like so many other things, a decade on, he "always intended" something else entirely.
Another of George's changed premises. Back then it was just something all Jedi did upon death, per him. And, like so many other things, a decade on, he "always intended" something else entirely.
Solo4114
Master Member
I might not have minded it IF it was shown to simply be the perspective that the Jedi had at the time, and related to their own downfall. Like, they got too tied into sciencing their Force stuff and, as a result, became more disconnected from it. They became too dispassionate, too emotionless, too unable to feel wonder and magic and the like, and instead turned their connection to the Force into something that was decidedly not mystical.
Example: midichlorians. You can rehabilitate midichlorians...pretty easily, actually. You just say that they are a correlative effect, rather than a cause. The Jedi look at them and say "Ah. you have more midichlorians, and you are stronger in the Force, therefore midichlorians make you strong in the Force." Which is dumb, because then people would have Force abilities thanks to blood transfusions. (Actually, that could be really cool, but that's not the story and I digress.)
Instead, you could simply say "No, the midichlorians merely congregate in people who are strong in the Force. They don't actually do anything with the Force at all. They're just....there. Their presence indicates Force strength, but doesn't cause it. We don't know or understand the cause."
There. Boom. Problem solved. Jedi got dumb and thought it was a science-y answer, and it turns out they screwed up basic cause vs. correlation and the real answer is back to being something possibly mystical. AAAAAAND that's a big part of why the Jedi Order fell. The PT could've steered into that. Or the ST. But...they didn't. Instead, it just feels like this jarring thing that George stuck in because it was in one of his early drafts and he liked it for the time period when he made the film in 1998/1999.
...And then Anakin just knew how to do it 'cause he's the Chosen One?
Two things.
1. About George's intent? You know what? I don't care. I literally do not care what his original intent was anymore. It's so amorphous and changing that it doesn't really mean anything. Regardless, while an author's intent is relevant to interpreting a text, I would say that ultimately, the text has the meaning ascribed to it by the audience. So, George's intent doesn't really matter in the end. It's a footnote. Interesting in terms of understanding the creative process (insofar as it helps with that), but otherwise irrelevant.
2. George's "original intent" is whatever it needs to be in the moment. And the thing is, even when he changes his stance, he's probably still technically correct. Given how many revisions Star Wars went through, and how many alterations there were in that process, it's likely that everything we saw that was created by George himself is a part of at least one of those versions. So, like, "I always intended Vader to be Luke's father" is true...starting around revision 4 (or whatever). But there's also another yellow legalpad that has Vader as a separate character from Luke's father entirely. And there's one where midichlorians are the source of the Force, and another where it's a mystical energy field, and another where it's something literally everyone can do, but some can do it better for unknown reasons or whathaveyou. In other words, there are enough versions of "Star Wars" in George's head and on paper somewhere that "original intent" becomes functionally meaningless. And as I said, it's all still beside the point.
Right. I'm just saying that the current throughline we're left with is:
Qui-Gon learned about this technique from... somewhere, held his consciousness together after he died, even though his body didn't fade away, took over a decade to make himself coherent enough that he could contact Yoda (and quite possibly never could get to the point of visibly/physically manifesting), who told Obi-Wan how to reach out to Qui-Gon, so the two of them knew how to do it also by the time they died... But Yoda didn't find out until Anakin had turned, so we have no idea how Anakin managed it, unless it was something he investigated as Vader after seeing Obi-Wan do it, but I've not seen that storyline anywhere... And now, thanks to TROS, Rey heard quite a few others during her confrontation with Palpatine -- Mace, Luminara, Ahsoka... -- which now implies that maybe it wasn't that rare a thing after all, if all of those Prequel-era Jedi also maintained their consciousnesses after death, so were they all holding out on Yoda and Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon was determined to learn their secret or something?
I will always argue that intentions matter. When the execution is contradictory, one can look to intentions to either figure out where the miscommunication was and iron out the inconsistency with information that should have been presented and wasn't... or discover that the writer's (or writers') intention changed over time -- sometimes to a completely contradictory place -- and that there's no reconciliation possible. In which case we just have to sort of mentally unfocus on that part of the story and let it blur past. If I try hard enough, I can totally come up with a rationalization that makes everything fit, but that wouldn't be the official accepted canon, so something might come along next year that utterly ruins it, so I won't.
Qui-Gon learned about this technique from... somewhere, held his consciousness together after he died, even though his body didn't fade away, took over a decade to make himself coherent enough that he could contact Yoda (and quite possibly never could get to the point of visibly/physically manifesting), who told Obi-Wan how to reach out to Qui-Gon, so the two of them knew how to do it also by the time they died... But Yoda didn't find out until Anakin had turned, so we have no idea how Anakin managed it, unless it was something he investigated as Vader after seeing Obi-Wan do it, but I've not seen that storyline anywhere... And now, thanks to TROS, Rey heard quite a few others during her confrontation with Palpatine -- Mace, Luminara, Ahsoka... -- which now implies that maybe it wasn't that rare a thing after all, if all of those Prequel-era Jedi also maintained their consciousnesses after death, so were they all holding out on Yoda and Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon was determined to learn their secret or something?
I will always argue that intentions matter. When the execution is contradictory, one can look to intentions to either figure out where the miscommunication was and iron out the inconsistency with information that should have been presented and wasn't... or discover that the writer's (or writers') intention changed over time -- sometimes to a completely contradictory place -- and that there's no reconciliation possible. In which case we just have to sort of mentally unfocus on that part of the story and let it blur past. If I try hard enough, I can totally come up with a rationalization that makes everything fit, but that wouldn't be the official accepted canon, so something might come along next year that utterly ruins it, so I won't.
...And then Anakin just knew how to do it 'cause he's the Chosen One?
The problem is that just because we saw two Jedi disappear in the OT, that doesn't mean Lucas intended all Jedi to do that. The people who grew up watching the movies believed that, but that doesn't mean he intended that to be fact/canon.
I mean, he was asked about that in interviews. I'll have to root around and see if I can find the exact quote (Starlog? Cinefantastique? Bantha Tracks? Rinzler's making-of?), but when asked about what happened when Vader killed Obi-Wan, George basically said "it's what happens when Jedi die -- they don't die-die, they just merge with the Force. Vader can't do it because he's given himself over to the bad side". And then, at the end of ROTJ, Anakin fading in to stand with Yoda and Ben was a visual confirmation that he was back to being a Jedi again, on the Light Side.
That it was something Jedi didn't know about until thirty or so years before Star Wars and only three (four, if you count Anakin's apparently picking it up from somewhere) Jedi ever did it was not, in fact, part of what the creator of the setting and idea-man behind the stories of the OT (even if other hands wrote the actual scripts for two of them) had in mind at the time, and that's out there in the world, not speculation.
That it was something Jedi didn't know about until thirty or so years before Star Wars and only three (four, if you count Anakin's apparently picking it up from somewhere) Jedi ever did it was not, in fact, part of what the creator of the setting and idea-man behind the stories of the OT (even if other hands wrote the actual scripts for two of them) had in mind at the time, and that's out there in the world, not speculation.
HeartBlade
Sr Member
First, regarding Anakin, he is the one, the strongest force user to ever exist, the one to bring balance to the force and destroy the Sith, etc. For Anakin to have access to powers beyond the normal jedi or easily access and use very difficult force techniques easily isnt abnormal imo but Anakin himself is abnormal.
I do agree that PT has a narrative perspective problem. The jedi in the PT era were complacent which led to their downfall. The over-focus on trying to explain everything in terms of science when the force is mystical could be one example of that arrogance. The jedi by PT could also be less in touch with the force due to their overinvolvement in galactic politics, basically being the peace keepers of the galaxy despite being a relatively small group.
I do think PT really failed when it came to character motivations and internal conflicts. Like the fact that Obi Wan was just not ready to be Anakin’s mentor having just become a knight himself or that Anakin wanted to become a master so he could access the restricted archives and find if there is a way to force heal.
I do agree that PT has a narrative perspective problem. The jedi in the PT era were complacent which led to their downfall. The over-focus on trying to explain everything in terms of science when the force is mystical could be one example of that arrogance. The jedi by PT could also be less in touch with the force due to their overinvolvement in galactic politics, basically being the peace keepers of the galaxy despite being a relatively small group.
I do think PT really failed when it came to character motivations and internal conflicts. Like the fact that Obi Wan was just not ready to be Anakin’s mentor having just become a knight himself or that Anakin wanted to become a master so he could access the restricted archives and find if there is a way to force heal.
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HeartBlade
Sr Member
Eh true but the issue of jedi disappearing only became an issue with PT. It was “cleaner” when it was just all jedi could become force ghosts because it further solidified the fact that Anakin was redeemed and became a jedi again given that he had a force ghost but I guess PT doesnt rewrite it still.
Yeah, but after the fact that makes sense to me. Of course you'd have to believe if he hadn't figured it out, or maybe the Force itself aided him (it made him so...), you would have to believe that somehow Yoda or Obi-Wan quickly intervened and taught him the technique within seconds. Of course there could be some time difference on that plane where they could interact with Anakin and teach him, but for the real world it was seconds. No idea.
Paul Andrew
Master Member
I can't believe that in the year of our lord two-thousand and twenty-damn-one we are still going on about the canon of force ghosts.
ScourgiousJinx
Master Member
I really don't care exactly how Anakin became one with the force, if it was just natural for him, if he learned it from someone or it was just simply the will of the force-which always made the most sense to me. Hell Anakin may not even know how it happened. He was redeemed and we saw him become a force ghost. That's all that really matters.
robn1
Master Member
OK let's go back to discussing the sequels, boy did they stink or what?
Paul Andrew
Master Member
I mean, these are modern myths in a way. Can you imagine some kid in a toga poking his head up and saying "Well actually..." while listening to an elder pass on the story of Prometheus?
"How many livers did he actually have? Did Zeus bless him with an ever-regenerating liver? Maybe he was in a groundhog day style time loop?" etc.
Sometimes we're all that kid - it's the nature of why we're here - but at this point we're already nearing the 30 years Prometheus was chained to that rock and the ground has been covered, and by most of us here to boot.
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