That's something I've always wondered about. Did they eat all those dead Stormtroopers and Imperials? Would the rebels let them do that? In ROTJ it seems like eating people is no big deal to the Ewoks, yet it is certainly never referenced again. They could've ate those annoying kids in the Ewok movies and it wouldn't have bothered me a bit.Until CP30 pulled their bacon out of the fire, the Eworks were going to eat our heroes. Not really that cute.
David.
Just because most Jedi have lightsabers, does it really mean ALL Jedi have to have them? One of the ideas that I liked from the EU was that not every Jedi was a warrior. Some were healers, some were historians, some were teachers. They had different vocations within the order and it's an idea that not even George considered in the PT.
... we've never seen a jedi on screen that didn't have a saber. Yoda in ESB/ROTJ didn't, but we saw he did in the prequels...
That was one thing I'd always wondered about in AotC. All past lore had said how it was a rite of passage for a Jedi to make their own saber, even with the idea they weren't really Jedi until they did. You had YOUR saber, & due to the crystal, a special relationship with it.
Thanks for posting this! With Lucas’ revisionist history on SW all being planned out and the change of the Jedi order from being more spiritual knights to being arrogant police with superpowers, it can be difficult to demonstrate that wasn’t always the case.From J.W. Rinzler’s “The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi":
REVENGE OF THE JEDI STORY CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT, JULY 13 to JULY 17, 1981—SUMMARYLucas: ...Also another misconception is that Yoda teaches Jedi, but he is like a guru; he doesn’t go out and fight anybody.Kasdan: A Jedi Master is a Jedi isn’t he?Lucas: Well, he is a teacher, not a real Jedi. Understand that?Kasdan: I understand what you’re saying, but I can’t believe it; I am in shock.Lucas: It’s true, absolutely true, not that it makes any difference to the story.Kasdan: You mean he wouldn’t be any good in a fight?Lucas: Not with Darth Vader he wouldn’t.Kasdan: I accept it, but I don’t like it.
Love this so unbelievably much! Was never a fan of Yoda using a lightsaber. Would've been better to have him just use the force as a weapon or not have him fight at all.Psab keel George DID consider that not every Jedi was a warrior, and WAY BEFORE the PT was made. Before the PT, being a Jedi "Master" was NOT the next level up from Jedi "Knight"—it was its own unique role. Masters were the wizened philosophers and teachers, but not soldiers (or necessarily former soldiers), and so wouldn't be much good in a fight.
cboath, we didn't see Yoda with a lightsaber in ESB/ROTJ because he didn't have one, which fact was ret-conned as of AOTC.
Usagi Pilgrim, the films implied that Luke's training as a Jedi (more specifically a Jedi "Knight") was made more complete by having constructed a lightsaber, but the OT films don't imply that this is necessarily a rite-of-passage for all Jedi, since (as with Yoda) not all Jedi were Jedi Knights (soldiers/guardians who's use of the Force specifically includes combat skills). Obi-wan was never referred to as a "Master" in the OT either. He was just an old Jedi Knight.
From J.W. Rinzler’s “The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi":
REVENGE OF THE JEDI STORY CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT, JULY 13 to JULY 17, 1981—SUMMARYLucas: ...Also another misconception is that Yoda teaches Jedi, but he is like a guru; he doesn’t go out and fight anybody.Kasdan: A Jedi Master is a Jedi isn’t he?Lucas: Well, he is a teacher, not a real Jedi. Understand that?Kasdan: I understand what you’re saying, but I can’t believe it; I am in shock.Lucas: It’s true, absolutely true, not that it makes any difference to the story.Kasdan: You mean he wouldn’t be any good in a fight?Lucas: Not with Darth Vader he wouldn’t.Kasdan: I accept it, but I don’t like it.
So the type of Jedi Yoda was, a "guru," "doesn't go out and fight anybody." At least, that's who Yoda was in the OT. The fighting, leaping, yelping, lightsaber-wielding warrior Yoda of the PT...well, that was George changing his mind about what Yoda was and could actually do.
Love this so unbelievably much! Was never a fan of Yoda using a lightsaber. Would've been better to have him just use the force as a weapon or not have him fight at all.
Psab keel George DID consider that not every Jedi was a warrior, and WAY BEFORE the PT was made. Before the PT, being a Jedi "Master" was NOT the next level up from Jedi "Knight"—it was its own unique role. Masters were the wizened philosophers and teachers, but not soldiers (or necessarily former soldiers), and so wouldn't be much good in a fight.
cboath, we didn't see Yoda with a lightsaber in ESB/ROTJ because he didn't have one, which fact was ret-conned as of AOTC.
Usagi Pilgrim, the films implied that Luke's training as a Jedi (more specifically a Jedi "Knight") was made more complete by having constructed a lightsaber, but the OT films don't imply that this is necessarily a rite-of-passage for all Jedi, since (as with Yoda) not all Jedi were Jedi Knights (soldiers/guardians who's use of the Force specifically includes combat skills). Obi-wan was never referred to as a "Master" in the OT either. He was just an old Jedi Knight.
From J.W. Rinzler’s “The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi":
REVENGE OF THE JEDI STORY CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT, JULY 13 to JULY 17, 1981—SUMMARYLucas: ...Also another misconception is that Yoda teaches Jedi, but he is like a guru; he doesn’t go out and fight anybody.Kasdan: A Jedi Master is a Jedi isn’t he?Lucas: Well, he is a teacher, not a real Jedi. Understand that?Kasdan: I understand what you’re saying, but I can’t believe it; I am in shock.Lucas: It’s true, absolutely true, not that it makes any difference to the story.Kasdan: You mean he wouldn’t be any good in a fight?Lucas: Not with Darth Vader he wouldn’t.Kasdan: I accept it, but I don’t like it.
So the type of Jedi Yoda was, a "guru," "doesn't go out and fight anybody." At least, that's who Yoda was in the OT. The fighting, leaping, yelping, lightsaber-wielding warrior Yoda of the PT...well, that was George changing his mind about what Yoda was and could actually do.
He wasn’t teaching Luke to fight in ESB though. He was teaching him the Force. Big, big difference. Like some of us have been saying, what a “Jedi” is has been totally redefined (and hugely cheapened) by everything released since ROTJ. I personally don’t think that it is possible to tell an interesting story that includes Jedi characters anymore, because too much of this dumb crap (Jedi can’t have attachments, what the Light Side/Dark side are, all the silly Force beings like the Mortis stuff and the theatre mask aliens that teach Yoda some nonsense in TCW) is considered hard, unbreakable canon by many, and all of those elements lead to uninteresting characters that don’t really face any real struggles that a person might have. Why Jedi were changed from essentially a knight or samurai (warriors who took simple oaths to protect the weak and defenseless) to celibate, emotionless drones that practiced a form of fencing so overly choreographed that nothing ever had stakes is beyond me. Jedi are such boring characters now, which is a real shame.I actually think that's pretty stupid. You can't teach something you have no real world experience with. It would be like having virgins teaching people how to have sex. I could see if they said that after serving for years as a Jedi Knight, Masters were not out in the field (which they did in the Prequels until the Clone Wars) and just taught, advised, etc., but having them solely being teachers doesn't sit right with me.
Dr. Ruth is a wizened old expert at sex. You wouldn't argue otherwise because she never had an earlier full time professional job engaging in it during her younger years. Those are porn stars. Though she never had sex within that dedicated role, she did engage in it some, and had studied it extensively so as to function as an excellent teacher.I actually think that's pretty stupid. You can't teach something you have no real world experience with. It would be like having virgins teaching people how to have sex. I could see if they said that after serving for years as a Jedi Knight, Masters were not out in the field (which they did in the Prequels until the Clone Wars) and just taught, advised, etc., but having them solely being teachers doesn't sit right with me.
Rewrite?Hmmm... Psab keel, ThreadSketch -- think HMSwolfe, here, would find, shall I say... a new hope in my rewrite?
I feel like having him only use the Force against Dooku would have made it silly. If he's powerful enough to parry every thrust and Force lightning with a wave of his hand, why is this fight taking so long? Why couldn't he just Force choke Dooku into submission? Or throw that column thing at the fleeing ship? Even with the Force, there needs to be limitations on your character, or it becomes boring. So "this contest will not be decided by our knowledge of the Force, but by our skills with a lightsaber." You have to put Yoda at a disadvantage.
Dr. Ruth is a wizened old expert at sex. You wouldn't argue otherwise because she never had an earlier full time professional job engaging in it during her younger years. Those are porn stars. Though she never had sex within that dedicated role, she did engage in it some, and had studied it extensively so as to function as an excellent teacher.
Likewise, a Jedi master could be a wizened old expert in the Force. You wouldn't argue otherwise because he had never operated within a full-time soldier/guardian-user-of-the-force mode. Those are Jedi Knights. Though he wasn't and hadn't been a knight, he had used the Force to enhance his abilities—likely even his combat abilities—and had studied the Force extensively, so as to function as an excellent teacher.
At least, that's one way to explain George's thinking. You can definitely tell that Kasdan was having trouble with George's concept that Yoda was a teacher, not a fighter, by nature.
He wasn’t teaching Luke to fight in ESB though. He was teaching him the Force. Big, big difference. Like some of us have been saying, what a “Jedi” is has been totally redefined (and hugely cheapened) by everything released since ROTJ. I personally don’t think that it is possible to tell an interesting story that includes Jedi characters anymore, because too much of this dumb crap (Jedi can’t have attachments, what the Light Side/Dark side are, all the silly Force beings like the Mortis stuff and the theatre mask aliens that teach Yoda some nonsense in TCW) is considered hard, unbreakable canon by many, and all of those elements lead to uninteresting characters that don’t really face any real struggles that a person might have. Why Jedi were changed from essentially a knight or samurai (warriors who took simple oaths to protect the weak and defenseless) to celibate, emotionless drones that practiced a form of fencing so overly choreographed that nothing ever had stakes is beyond me. Jedi are such boring characters now, which is a real shame.
Ohh... I got frustrated back in the '90s trying to figure out what always felt 'off' about ROTJ. It's a bunch of little things, but I learned more and more about the real-world history of how the films came about. Then the Prequels happened, and my friends and I were up til dawn at Denny's discussing what worked and what didn't about TPM. Somewhere around there, one of my scriptwriting professors was telling us that the best way to learn the craft is to see what others have done, for good or ill -- especially that last part. If we're watching something, and something jars us out of the experience -- if you realize you've missed the last several seconds of whatever because you were in your head about what you just saw -- "Don't just sit there bitching about it. Get a copy of the script and see if you can do better."Rewrite?
Robert Fett. Brilliant.