Star Wars: questions you've always wanted answers for

Sorry, but the word "Knight" does not imply organization.
It doesn't even imply "warrior". Heck, Elton John is a knight.

@astroboy: it's a GREAT attitude.
 
Seriously? They tell you in the movie it was an organization. He says the Jedi were wiped out. Do you really think he was just referring to a handful of guys?
 
And in the late 19th century the samurai were wiped out.
Do you think the samurai were all buddies with membership cards in their wallets, attending weekly meetings?

I guess you do.
No point arguing this further - we're not going to change each other's minds.
 
Hey you can't just end a discussion with a counter argument then say the discussion is over! The samurai were in groups connected to various rulers. The Jedi were connected to a single government. That was in ANH too. But yeah I don't think you're going to agree with what's in the movie. ;)
 
"The Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic."

Not just "back in the day". Ben specifically refers to the government in defining the Jedi.
 
"The Lone Ranger was a guardian of peace and justice in the Old West."

"Galileo and Copernicus were scientists in the Renaissance".
 
"The Old West" and "The Renaissance" refer to eras, not governments. The Republic was a government.
Your argument would have more room if Ben had said "in the days of the Old Republic." But he didn't.
 
How do you know "Old Republic" refers to a government and not an era?
I know the EU books (which I haven't read) established it as a government, but where is it defined as such in the OT films?

Your argument would have more merit if Ben had said "The Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice FOR the Old Republic." But he didn't.

See, I interpreted Ben's words in one way when I was a kid, you guys interpreted them in another.
I take issue with the idea of Jedi being policemen. Religious monk policemen, at that. That's seriously creepy.
I see them more like the samurai (ronin?) from "Seven Samurai" - skilled men with a code of honor who roam the galaxy righting wrongs and dealing justice.
That's how I've always seen them, and how I prefer to see them, and part of the reason why I reject the prequels in my personal Star Wars head-canon.
 
As I recall, what Ben said was "For over 1000 generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice throughout the galaxy. Before the dark times. Before the Empire."

The strong implication is that there's some kind of organization to the Jedi, albeit not necessarily what we see in the PT (central councils, training schools, etc.).

The thing is, though, even with the centralized organization we see in the PT and the Clone Wars official canon stuff, you could still have "knights errant" wandering the galaxy. There's no real reason why they couldn't both exist. Or rather, couldn't both have existed, since the OT strongly suggests that they were wiped out by the Empire.
 
I always figured they worked in conjunction, at least in some nominal sense, with the Old Republic but I agree that "...in the Old Republic" could be interpreted that they simply worked within the Old Republic on their own volition (ie: within the governmental boundaries that define the Republic) and not for the Old Republic (ie: the governmental body). Not sure I agree with that interpretation but I could see how one could come to that conclusion.
 
The other mention of the formal side of the Jedi was in ESB by Yoda,...

“Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained."

J
 
The other mention of the formal side of the Jedi was in ESB by Yoda,...

“Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained."

I'm not seeing the organization reference in that quote.

There's a guy teaching kids karate in a dojo down the street from me.
Should I assume that he belongs to a global karate army? 'Cause I just figured he was a guy teaching karate.
 
I'm not seeing the organization reference in that quote.

There's a guy teaching kids karate in a dojo down the street from me.
Should I assume that he belongs to a global karate army? 'Cause I just figured he was a guy teaching karate.

Hey,....I've got the same mindset as you Axlotl,......the great thing about the OT is that it works entirely on its own,...which makes it easier just to throw the PT in the trash compactor:D

J
 
As I recall, what Ben said was "For over 1000 generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice throughout the galaxy. Before the dark times. Before the Empire."

The line the film is as I quoted it.

Axlotl, it's taking a lot more interpretive gymnastics to interpret the line your way than mine, sorry. :) Not that I emotionally care, this is a friendly debate. :)
 
I'm not seeing the organization reference in that quote.

There's a guy teaching kids karate in a dojo down the street from me.
Should I assume that he belongs to a global karate army? 'Cause I just figured he was a guy teaching karate.

In a way, yes. I don't know about karate but I take TKD and in the studio that I go to the Grand Master there belongs to the World Taekwondo Federation, an organization that regulates and organizes TKD, at least as a sport. It's quite likely that that random karate studio on the street is headed by a master who is affiliated with a larger school of karate, one that governs the rules and teachings of that particular style of karate. A larger school that lets people know that the person they're learning from is legit and learned his/her stuff from someone else who was also legit and not just a poser who learned what they know from a book and called themselves a black belt and teacher. So it would likely be for the Jedi, I'd go as far to say that while all Jedi are Force users not all Force users are Jedi.

While the Star Wars galaxy is fairly large the implication is that Force users and Jedi are few in number by comparison and they'd likely have a vested interest in making sure that anybody who at least has an affinity for the Force is identified as early as possible and brought in for training in order to reduce the chance for these Force users to misuse their powers and/or hurting themselves or others. Given their reputation they'd want to make sure that everybody out their who calls themselves a Jedi is actually a Jedi trained Jedi and is not a wild Force user or a charlatan using tech to simulate Force powers.
 
Riceball: See, that makes sense to me, and that's pretty much how I figured it went down in the OT universe.
I could see Jedi masters here and there, scattered throughout the galaxy, teaching youth the ways of the force.
But I reject the PT universe scenario of toddlers snatched from their mothers and shipped off to Curuscant to twirl lightsabers surrounded by a Jedi army in a giant Jedi temple.

I still fail to understand why if Yoda and Obi Wan wanted a Jedi army, they sat on their hands for 20 years waiting for Luke to come along.
Why didn't they comb the galaxy nabbing and training babies themselves? They had 20 years to do it.
I also fail to see how a Jedi army jives with the philosophies Ben and Yoda taught Luke about using the force for good. Seems contradictory.
 
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@Riceball: See, that makes sense to me, and that's pretty much how I figured it went down in the OT universe.
I could see Jedi masters here and there, scattered throughout the galaxy, teaching youth the ways of the force.
But I reject the PT universe scenario of toddlers snatched from their mothers and shipped off to Curuscant to twirl lightsabers surrounded by a Jedi army in a giant Jedi temple.

I still fail to understand why if Yoda and Obi Wan wanted a Jedi army, they sat on their hands for 20 years waiting for Luke to come along.
Why didn't they comb the galaxy nabbing and training babies themselves? They had 20 years to do it.
I also fail to see how a Jedi army jives with the philosophies Ben and Yoda taught Luke about using the force for good. Seems contradictory.

I think that it's because of Luke's connection to Vader and that being the key to his being able to "beat" Vader and ultimately defeating the Emperor. Luke was that special someone they knew would come along and help to restore the Order and the Order couldn't be restored until the Empire had fallen. If either Ben or Yoda had tried to train Jedi during their years in hiding it would have done no good except to get their newly trained Jedis killed or captured for no good reason and their capture could lead to being found out by Vader and/or his Inquisitors and not being around when Luke finally arrives on the scene.
 
@Riceball: See, that makes sense to me, and that's pretty much how I figured it went down in the OT universe.
I could see Jedi masters here and there, scattered throughout the galaxy, teaching youth the ways of the force.
But I reject the PT universe scenario of toddlers snatched from their mothers and shipped off to Curuscant to twirl lightsabers surrounded by a Jedi army in a giant Jedi temple.

I still fail to understand why if Yoda and Obi Wan wanted a Jedi army, they sat on their hands for 20 years waiting for Luke to come along.
Why didn't they comb the galaxy nabbing and training babies themselves? They had 20 years to do it.
I also fail to see how a Jedi army jives with the philosophies Ben and Yoda taught Luke about using the force for good. Seems contradictory.

I think they new that there was no way to get close to either vader or palpatine. The had a galaxy's worth of army in front of them. There was simply no way to get an audience. I'm pretty sure that only a small handful of people even knew about the Sith. Palpatine is what would happen if North Korea took over the world.

We even know that the force is detected. If they came out of hiding at any point, Palpatine would probably be able to sense it.

But Luke was a secret weapon. They couldn't waste him. He was probably the only one who could confuse Vader enough to be pulled close to Palpatine.
 
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