Registered: Sep 2005
Location: May or may not be somewhere else.
spa treatment and all that.
tradition, yeah. and... maybe they just dunno where to bury all those bodies - cremation saves space, ya know. or.. well... maybe it has some special meaning or something to the Jedi.
i believe that burning the body of someone who has died in battle is the way they honor them. it also alloows the body to rest in peace. in old times they used this method to allow there soul to be set into the afterworld of death. by placing two gold coins on the eyes to pay the fairy man that carried the soul to heaven to rest peacefully and it is much easier to get rid of ashes then to try and bury a body. thats what i think they did these for in the movies.
There was deleted scene in ep 1 with qui gon's death, just as he was telling Obi wan that he wanted him to train Ani Kanye west suddenly walks in a goes 'Yo Qui Gon I'm real happy your dying...but vaders dying was the best star wars dying!'
i think the understanding is: if the jedi or force user is proficient enough in the knowledge of achieving force ghost status, and they are aware of their imminent death, they become one with the force quicker...therefore, apparently disappearing?