Anakin's Fall

Well, Qui-Gon IS a bit of a jerk, and even GL talks about how dangerous what he did was. On the other hand, he instinctively knew that Anakin was so important as to justify the liberty.

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I don't think holding to their philosophy proved reckless- on the contrary, that they remained true to their highly altruistic ideals speaks very highly of the Jedi indeed. Anakin went wrong, but from the start that was a known risk of training him. I doubt there was any better approach, with the possible exception of how Obi-Wan treated him, which he did later say he got wrong.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
It's fine to do business with known slavers and utilize his child slaves in a dodgy and dangerous gambling deal, but it's not okay to buy a slave and set her free? Not even for the purpose of securing the ease of mind and loyalty of one of the most powerful and "dangerous" Force users ever?

You know if the movie had flat out said as much, I'd have called it totally retarded, but at least it explained itself. But when it omits all sense of logic and explanation, and forces us to, as you put it, "imagine" in order to justify horrendous inconsistencies, then game over, man. Game over.

Again, you are mistaking QGJ for the Jedi. No, what he did was not fine at all and could never have been officially sanctioned.

Yes, even for that reason. It was practically, legally and politically impossible for the Jedi to do anything on Tatooine, not to mention that doing it would be completely against the vital philosophy and would bugger up Anakin even worse.

Actually I disagree. Unlike some elements of Star Wars lore- like the Living Force, the Sith and Balance- this one is pretty obvious. You just need to gt out of this weird and utterly unrealistic mindset of what the Jedi are and what they can do. It is very clear they they are a police force and not some sort of self-appointed rulers who can do whatever they like.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Again, you are mistaking QGJ for the Jedi. No, what he did was not fine at all and could never have been officially sanctioned.

Yes, even for that reason. It was practically, legally and politically impossible for the Jedi to do anything on Tatooine, not to mention that doing it would be completely against the vital philosophy and would bugger up Anakin even worse.

No wonder Anakin had a skewed view of things. The Order didn't even notice.

Again, I disagree- I think the ethical and political realities of the situation are not unclear in the film. It is clear that the Jedi are a police force, so your logic is backwards. It's the default to assume they have no power to intervene outside the Republic; you;d have to establish that it is said somewhere they they CAN. Likewise, the priority of Anakin to let go and forget about his mother is also made exceptionally clear, and by that same logic, rescuing Anakin's mother would be very dangerous for him. Btw, I think the Jedi clearly did diapprove at what QGJ did.

They don't intervene because it's not in the Republic. Again, your whole perspective on the burden of proof here is backwards. Again, this is like my 'NYPD intervening in Syria' example- it's too obvious to need spelling out. They don't like slavery, but what possible legal power do they have to do anything about it? The film is clear that the Republic did not exist at Tatooine, and its laws with it.

right ush, but i think you're confusing "no attachment" to "completely cold-blooded detatchment".

to just expect him to all of the sudden be like "shmi? whats a shmi?" after leaving is silly. not calling your assessment silly, i think you are accurately portraying GL's philosophy, but i think he went bat**** silly. his philosophy is ok on the surface but they coldly press it so hard and absolute until it completely defies logic.

No, I don't think I am confusing that at all actually. And th difficulty of doing it is precisely why Yoda didn't want him trained and, before Maul turned up at the end of TPM, neither did the Council. Everyone knew it was very risky at that age.

I also very strongly disagree that, as portrayed, it defies logic. On the contrary, I think what happened validates everything they said. If they had rescued Shmi and Anakin had been fine, that would have undermined the whole thing. As it is, the whole presentation is that the Jedi simply have to be hard line, and there is no better option.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
If they had rescued Shmi and Anakin had been fine, that would have undermined the whole thing.

luke defied yoda and ben and refused to kill vader. he also had attachment toward leia and han, which he defied yoda in maintaining. there is a running them about defying and undermining the jedi and it always seems to turn out ok. they tell luke vader is beyond redemption and luke undermines them. when the jedi were in control and held strict sway over their own, it just seemed they were blind, stupid, and ineffectual and rotting in their own dogma.

Actually Luke's recklessness in ESB is portrayed as near disastrous. With the single exception of Vader's redemption- the culmination of the entire saga and a singular point the hero is intended to make- GL's beliefs as expressed through the Jedi seem very reasonably and consistently presented to me.

It only turned out okay because of sheer luck, not any one person's determination.

Luke royally ****ed things up by going after Vader, and if it wasn't through sheer fortune that his suicide dive took him somewhere the falcon got him, and Lando's morals kicking in.

I doubt even Luke felt vindicated.

fair enough. esb was a mistake for luke

now for vader's redemption. what was the better traditional jedi way of dealing with that?

i just cant buy that it was all quigon's or even obiwan's fault.

the whole jedi council was complicit in their recklessness in allowing all the stress on anakin to continue, especially yoda/mace. but no, they gave him a job spying on the person they fear might be in league with him, effectively handing palps his own inside agent. it was a RECKLESS gamble.

then they try to take down the sith lord with enough jedi to fit comfortably in a mid-size car. "no thats ok, you all just chill at the temple. sure our most basic purpose is to prevent exactly this *once in a millenium* person from succeeding, and sure he has command of the clone army, but we got this. oh where's anakin? you know our most powerful jedi who we suspect is twisted? oh nevermind im sure he wont turn up. probably babysitting the younglings again"

well that turned into quite a rant

It was a lousy plot, let's face it.

The point was to show that Anakin made his own choices and this those choices led him to the dark side.
But to me, Anakin was a grumpy arrogant brat when we first saw him in AOTC... so somewhere is his teens he already changed into a very f****d up guy... Bad storytelling, peeps.

Originally posted by queeq
It was a lousy plot, let's face it.

The point was to show that Anakin made his own choices and this those choices led him to the dark side.
But to me, Anakin was a grumpy arrogant brat when we first saw him in AOTC... so somewhere is his teens he already changed into a very f****d up guy... Bad storytelling, peeps.

yeah. plus, one thing that always struck me was that in ROTS, Obi-Wan tells Anakin that the council wants him to spy on the chancellor, yet moments later, we see Mace Windu tell them how ****ing bad an idea it is.

So whose idea was it? I can't see Yoda going for something like that either, so a majority vote, or something?

As queeq says, that was a lousy plot. My point is not that it is brilliant, it is simply that it was internally logically consistent, which is more than can be said for a lot of concepts that GL failed to put on film. The main issue here with the fundamental so the idea is not that GL failed to explain what he meant, it's just that most people don't agree with him.

In all honesty, though, I welcome his take. I wish it was done better, but I still welcome it. We are stuck in a horrible meta-narrative in Hollywood films where authority is wrong, individuality trumps discipline and love conquers all things. Star Wars is one of the few mainstream cultural pieces that actually says- perhaps you should listen to authority, and love actually cocks things up sometimes. Whether you agree or not, I think we should all want more stories like that, if nothing else because the opposite idea is weakened if it's not even being made part of a debate.

Originally posted by focus4chumps
right ush, but i think you're confusing "no attachment" to "completely cold-blooded detatchment".

Actually, I believe it is the same. What is at all "happy" or "normal" about detaching yourself from your family, completely, and joining a monk order? It really is "cold-bloded detachment", as you put it.

Originally posted by focus4chumps
fair enough. esb was a mistake for luke

now for vader's redemption. what was the better traditional jedi way of dealing with that?

I took, as well as millions of other fans took, the whole Jedi philosophy thing to be slightly flawed. Luke's attachments made him come out on top, in the end. The EU took that concept and ran with it. But to directly answer your question: it is invalid/irrelevant. The Force itself redeemed Anakin as he was able to come back as a force ghost. So whatever the Jedi would have thought about Vader's redemption is kind of irrelevant to what the "god" of the Star Wars universe thought. If you think what the Jedi thought would be contrary to what the force "thought", the Jedi would be wrong. If you think they would agree with what the force "thought", they'd be right.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
As queeq says, that was a lousy plot. My point is not that it is brilliant, it is simply that it was internally logically consistent, which is more than can be said for a lot of concepts that GL failed to put on film. The main issue here with the fundamental so the idea is not that GL failed to explain what he meant, it's just that most people don't agree with him.

In all honesty, though, I welcome his take. I wish it was done better, but I still welcome it. We are stuck in a horrible meta-narrative in Hollywood films where authority is wrong, individuality trumps discipline and love conquers all things. Star Wars is one of the few mainstream cultural pieces that actually says- perhaps you should listen to authority, and love actually cocks things up sometimes. Whether you agree or not, I think we should all want more stories like that, if nothing else because the opposite idea is weakened if it's not even being made part of a debate.

Agreed about the consistency.

Lucas, even though I can fault him for certain things in his movies, has always been a pretty solid ideas man, and he made it pretty clear, I felt, that Jedi=good, Sith=bad in these movies.

And i was genuinely asking about the council thing, in case I missed something.

It's unclear; most of the Council is nebulous, Who outvoted Yoda about training Anakin in TPM? Windu hardly seemed in favour either. Maybe it is all Ki-Adi Mundi's fault. He's grumpy because he got blown up right at the start of TPM.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
It's unclear; most of the Council is nebulous, Who outvoted Yoda about training Anakin in TPM? Windu hardly seemed in favour either. Maybe it is all Ki-Adi Mundi's fault. He's grumpy because he got blown up right at the start of TPM.

😂 Wait; he got blown up?

Silas Carson played the pilot on QGJ's ship.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Silas Carson played the pilot on QGJ's ship.

Well damn, I didn't know that.

No wonder he's grumpy.