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Hello,
This is my first thread and post. Nice to be here at KMC forums.

My question is to whether or not there has been a change in the meaning of Star Wars in popular culture. I watched the prequels first and grew up as they were being made. So, I don't know what influence the original trilogy had. But something I noticed is that Star Wars now is a much more video-game-oriented franchise. What Star Wars means today to kids (and the general public) is lighsabers, jedi, sith, force lighning/push, clones, droids, blasters etc. all fighting in some type of video-game environment. While in the original trilogy what mattered the most was the story and characters. Star Wars was Luke, Leia and Han and their efforts to survive and later defeat the empire. Now Star Wars is a series of video games, CGI cartoons and toys. Star Wars has become something physical rather than mysterious and intangible.

What are kids going to grow up thinking Star Wars is with CGI cartoon?

It's seems to me that what was a great film trilogy has been transformed into a money-making franchise cow.
Was it always like this or did it start at the birth of the prequels?
Discuss.

Star Wars has had the toys for a long time. The difference is that the Original Trilogy was made for the story and characters. The Prequel Trilogy was made for flash and to sell toys and video games.

This new generation of Star Wars is pretty much all about the money to be made.

KAAAAHH-CHING...

Originally posted by LanceWindu
Star Wars has had the toys for a long time. The difference is that the Original Trilogy was made for the story and characters. The Prequel Trilogy was made for flash and to sell toys and video games.

This new generation of Star Wars is pretty much all about the money to be made.

You're right. And all those toys and video games made my childhood so much fun.

I remember getting my green Qui-Gon Jin Lightsaber and Darth Maul's double edged sword on my 10th birthday. My friend Jesse and I played Phantom Menace so many countless hours.

I would sell out too if I had the chance to make millions or billions of dollars by making flahsy movies, toys and video games that countless children around the world adored.

And for Charlie....well before the PT, their were isles in Walmart and Toys R Us dedicated to Star Wars merchandise. I remember distinctly all the Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker Lightsabers, the toy models of the Millennium Falcon, the Han, Chewie, C-3PO, Leia, Vader, Luke, Emperor action figures...etc. There's no doubt the PT helped revive their toys, but the OT is not guilt free of selling out either.

In fact, only 2/3rds of the OT was dedicated to story and characters.
ROTJ was botched by Ewoks so they could make a profit on Toys.
The only difference is people refuse to fault anything OT related because it's on a precious pedestal.

They're great movies, but like the prequels, they're far from perfect. ESB was maybe as close to perfection as you can get, and I myself, feel that movie is just a tad bit overrated.

Originally posted by Sith Master X
You're right. And all those toys and video games made my childhood so much fun.

I remember getting my green Qui-Gon Jin Lightsaber and Darth Maul's double edged sword on my 10th birthday. My friend Jesse and I played Phantom Menace so many countless hours.

I would sell out too if I had the chance to make millions or billions of dollars by making flahsy movies, toys and video games that countless children around the world adored.

And for Charlie....well before the PT, their were isles in Walmart and Toys R Us dedicated to Star Wars merchandise. I remember distinctly all the Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker Lightsabers, the toy models of the Millennium Falcon, the Han, Chewie, C-3PO, Leia, Vader, Luke, Emperor action figures...etc. There's no doubt the PT helped revive their toys, but the OT is not guilt free of selling out either.

In fact, only 2/3rds of the OT was dedicated to story and characters.
ROTJ was botched by Ewoks so they could make a profit on Toys.
The only difference is people refuse to fault anything OT related because it's on a precious pedestal.

They're great movies, but like the prequels, they're far from perfect. ESB was maybe as close to perfection as you can get, and I myself, feel that movie is just a tad bit overrated.

The difference is that story came first for the OT (for the most part), the money came first for the PT.

The toys have been around the whole time and the OT profited from it just as well as the PT. We all loved our Star Wars vehicles and action figures.

The toys are awesome and any kid is lucky to get them, but I fear they were too influential on the newer movies. All flash and no substance.

I'm not trying to put the OT on a pedestal, it's just the way everything played out.

The OT kinda invented the whole merchandisging thing. When Lucas got the rights, no one cared for them. No one knew if it would play out. It was the success of the OT movies that launched the toys.

But the OT still had obviously the toys and lots of video games and cartoon spin offs. cartoons were "the droids" and "ewoks"
and video games in the arcade and home consoles, atari empire strikes back, nintendo star wars and empire, super nintendo "all 3 films" pc games like x-wing and tie-fighter and x-wing alliance. and these were before the PT came into being.

That was what I was saying. SW in a way launched the entire idea of merchandising. On this scale at least. But it would not have worked without a successful film. Today a lot of publicity and toys preceed the films creating a lot of expectations that cause people to go and see a film, good or bad. I think that is a big difference between the OT and PT and their toys.

If that caused the PT films to disappoint... I dunno. I just blame Lucas.

Originally posted by LanceWindu
Star Wars has had the toys for a long time. The difference is that the Original Trilogy was made for the story and characters. The Prequel Trilogy was made for flash and to sell toys and video games.

This new generation of Star Wars is pretty much all about the money to be made.

(Sigh) The argument that will never end. Star Wars has become just like politics or religion to some people.

News flash: the toys were around back in the 1970's and 1980's and they were huge! George Lucas didn't build his fortune on his slice of the profits from the first Star Wars alone; he took less up front money from Fox in exchange for the merchadising rights, something they (and no other studio) had vision for at the time. For all the box office mega millions Fox pocketed from the first film, that decision put billions in the pocket of George Lucas! And gave him the rights to all things Star Wars from that point on. Giving him independence like they did, it's a mistake no other studio has repeated since.

So stop complaining about Lucas and his toys from the PT. They have always been around. And if he cared about the money and nothing else, he would have turned the films over to someone else after ROTJ, and collected cheques. Instead he put Star Wars on the shelf and went & raised his children, until he felt ready to return. Find any other producer out there, except for Speilberg, who turns down money for control like that.

And Lucas does care. His interview in 'The Beginning' documentary on TPM DVD, he tells the interviewer how this is not like making a movie -"This is like a marriage. I'm going to devote years of my life to this thing, so I have to be in love with it."

My 12- year old nephew and his friends are all huge Star Wars fans, and love everything - the cartoon series, the OT and the PT. This generation of fans are thankfully replacing the cranky old geezers who dispute everything Lucas does.

(If they aren't fans anymore, then why do they keep hanging around? Do they think they can pull a coup someday?)

Originally posted by roughrider
(Sigh) The argument that will never end. Star Wars has become just like politics or religion to some people.

News flash: the toys were around back in the 1970's and 1980's and they were huge! George Lucas didn't build his fortune on his slice of the profits from the first Star Wars alone; he took less up front money from Fox in exchange for the merchadising rights, something they (and no other studio) had vision for at the time. For all the box office mega millions Fox pocketed from the first film, that decision put billions in the pocket of George Lucas! And gave him the rights to all things Star Wars from that point on. Giving him independence like they did, it's a mistake no other studio has repeated since.

So stop complaining about Lucas and his toys from the PT. They have always been around. And if he cared about the money and nothing else, he would have turned the films over to someone else after ROTJ, and collected cheques. Instead he put Star Wars on the shelf and went & raised his children, until he felt ready to return. Find any other producer out there, except for Speilberg, who turns down money for control like that.

And Lucas does care. His interview in 'The Beginning' documentary on TPM DVD, he tells the interviewer how this is not like making a movie -"This is like a marriage. I'm going to devote years of my life to this thing, so I have to be in love with it."

My 12- year old nephew and his friends are all huge Star Wars fans, and love everything - the cartoon series, the OT and the PT. This generation of fans are thankfully replacing the cranky old geezers who dispute everything Lucas does.

(If they aren't fans anymore, then why do they keep hanging around? Do they think they can pull a coup someday?)

I fear you didn't understand or even read my post.

I already stated that Star Wars has always had toys. The point of my post is that the originals were made story first. The prequels are toys first, story second.

Argue all you want, it's true.

Nice discussion.

I am going to have to agree with LanceWindu here, he is right about the shift in focus of the franchise. Even though there were toys and other merchandise back then (its reasonable as every popular franchise has merchandise) the main focus was for the films themselves. The point of Star Wars was creating great films and continuing the story of Luke, Han, Leia and Darth Vader and less about the merchandise. Well, as some have pointed out at least until the Ewoks. Now, what the goal appears to me is to make Star Wars into every possible media and shove in as much stuff into the movies to make toys.

But aside from the merchandise aspect, what's more interesting to me and this was my original question, is what is the meaning of Star Wars today and has it changed since the OT? And by 'meaning' I mean what is it that the general public thinks about when they hear about Star Wars. Do they think of the movies and the story. Or do they picture cartoons and toys for kids. Is Star Wars something more for kids now (in the general view of the public)?

Charlie

I dunno. SW is grounded pretty solidly in American pop culture. But it must be said that most iconic SW imagery is from the OT and hardly any of it from the PT (Maul being an exception maybe... and Jar Jar for different reasons). So that is it's meaning. It's part of life I guess.

The expansion to me makes it all more general, makes SW lose it's specialness. It's everywhere: it's toys, it's cartoons, whatever. But I do feel SW isn't exploring the world of SW really. In Star Trek they always explored a variety of moral dillemma's set in somewhat different arena's. I'm not a big ST fan, but at least there was some variation on typical ST themes.

With Clone Wars of even the PT there's not much exploration of character anymore. It's just stuff... like watching Spiderman of Superman cartoons. It has gotten very mainstream IMHO. Or maybe I should say: ordinary. It certainly isn't very striking anymore... not like the OT, says the old grumpy geezer. I thought Avatar (despite it's obvious flaws in the very shallow villains) was more striking that the entire PT. And that sucks.

Originally posted by LanceWindu
I fear you didn't understand or even read my post.

I already stated that Star Wars has always had toys. The point of my post is that the originals were made story first. The prequels are toys first, story second.

Argue all you want, it's true.

No.

I sense a storm coming.

Dont know, dont care, love the movies period. So much so that Im going to TPM in 3D in a few weeks.

With me?

I think very much along the same lines as roughrider here. As a film student myself, I know how much a director and storyteller is devoted to their films. And if we were all self made successful filmmakers, in position to fund our own films so we can make a film the way "we want them to be made" without studio execs hanging over your heads.......if all that funding was possible from a business perspective with the help of toy sales, I'd be hard pressed to imagine that none of us would do the same "selling out" that Lucas apparently does. And whenever GL does something to make a profit, it's a mortal sin.

Back in the 70's and early 80's, the internet didn't exist as a premium source for negativity either. All it takes is a little genuine research on SW history, and you would find that back during that era Star Wars received very mixed reviews from critics. ANH had mixed reactions, along with Empire and ROTJ. They got ripped apart for having too many puppets, special effects, and lack of human emotion. In many ways, they are right, because the fact that these films classically represent an old fad from an older time period, allows for people to miss some of the flaws those films had when applied to modern day cinema. Sites like Rotten Tomatoes took down a ton of negative reviews once the SE was released and replaced them with new reviews of the SE since the SW hype was going strong again and people were reliving their SW nostalgia on the big screen. Not to mention, now that time and several years had passed, SW had molded itself into a historical gemstone in cinema history. It is funny though, how on Rotten Tomatoes today, the majority of the critics actually like the Prequels. The good reviews outnumber the negative ones.

Point is, people couldn't get within a community back then and complain the way they can now, so negativity didn't spread as easily as it could have. Had the internet existed back then you can bet there would be the same number of people complaining about bad acting, dialogue, and Ewoks as there are now people complaining about the PT acting, Jar Jar and how George Lucas is a childhood rapist. Once a theory on the internet gets popular enough, it becomes accepted as truth by the mass audience. Ever wonder where "Keanu Reeves is a bad actor" spawned from? A viral video on the internet. After that video became popular enough, everyone was doing Keanu Reeves jokes "woah!"...and once the jokes started it propelled from there into "he's the worst actor to ever live." All because of the fricken internet. Just watch the movie "Speed" and tell me he did a bad job. His acting was superb..and he carried the entire movie on his shoulders from start to finish.

I'm amused at what I read on the SW "Facebook page" People are crying already about how they are gonna have to go spend their money making Lucas more rich with the abomination that is TPM in 3D. Once again, people deluding themselves into acting like they are being forced into a theater to spend money on a movie they claim to desperately hate so much. Funny thing is, 9/10 people complaining about it will be the first ones in line to see it next month, guaranteed, and they'll be the first ones in line to see Red Tails as well.

Speaking of which, Red Tails is gonna get crapped on just because GL has his named attached to it...kind of like KOTCS. Don't blame Speilberg or Koepp, blame Lucas. Aliens, I've never seen a movie about aliens before. What a crazy idea. Well, in the event that Red Tails is a good movie, we all need to give GL the praise and credit...even if he didn't write or direct it. He just used 58 million dollars of his own money to fund it.....but, like I said, people will blame Lucas. "Those 58 million dollars made this film terrible because it came from GL's fat pocket! If it were Peter Jackson's 58 million this movie would have been great."

Just wait till GL passes away someday. And then everyone will shift from their negativity and start thanking him for all the wonderful SW memories he helped to create. I can just see the comments now. "You were a true visionary George. Even though the PT didn't live up to all my expectations, they still gave me many fond childhood memories. The film industry has lost a pioneer." Your classic example of a "hate me while I'm here...love me when I'm gone" sort of guy.

Point is...people love and hate these movies for the most part, for all the wrong reasons. I can't believe anyone truly loves ESB the most because it has the best plot, the best acting, or the best dialogue "all the things everyone says the PT doesn't have." People love ESB because of it's "tone." The entire film has the most "consistent feel" to it. It feels more "grown up" and the colors of the movie, from the dark and somber blues of Dagobah, the icy white of Hoth, and the golden/reds of Bespin create a movie with a very balanced tone. And I think that's what the PT lacked in a lot of areas. They were different, and had a different tone. They weren't the awful travesty they are made out to be by people who have a difficult time accepting something different.

But, these are just my thoughts, making the same humble points I've probably argued a million times over already. lol So I hope no one is offended. I think I'm done with it from here on out, because I don't know what more I can possibly say that I haven't said a hundred times alredy. Yes, the PT has short comings and they are flawed....but JP said it best..."don't care, love the movies period." My thoughts exactly. Considering that people still particiapte on a forum section dedicated to movies they hate, I'm willing to bet there's a part of people that feel the same way, but are just short of admitting it.

Two things are slightly flawed in your reasoning there.

1. Yes, Star Wars DID get mixed reviews... BUT BUT BUT from the outset ANH was a world wide phenomenon... I live in Holland and it took a few months before SW came out here. Holland was never a big SW country but even then the buzz of SW reached our dinky little country. It was supposed to be the bomb (we're talking 70s here, no internet at all). When Empire came out it was the most anticipated movie in a long long time. And Yoda got a lot of praise.

Now, simply put: the PT had a lot of anticipation, but it was far from groundbreaking. But technologically as well as dramatically.

2. The other poitn is George Lucas. You say we shouldn't JUST blame him. But people like Koepp and Spielberg also make films that exceed this Lucaslike characitaure of what once was a great way of film making (and it was: Star Wars, Indy movies -> groundbreaking stuff on all counts: story, technology and budgetting). Spielberg does very serious stuff (schindler's list in black and white (!!), Saving Private Ryan, Munich... he does comedy (Catch me if you Can), animation (TinTin) and now War Horse and Lincoln). Like Scorsese Koepp and Spielberg try other dimensions to filmmaking. Lucas seems stuck to me in one way and it just doesn't hack it anymore. I wish he had gone and start making the 'small, artistic movies' he said he would be making once SW was done. That would show if he still has that touch he once demonstrated so masterfully.

Originally posted by queeq
But I do feel SW isn't exploring the world of SW really. In Star Trek they always explored a variety of moral dillemma's set in somewhat different arena's. I'm not a big ST fan, but at least there was some variation on typical ST themes.



I agree, but in all fairness it was a lot easier for ST to do this because they laid all the groundwork in the original TV series first, then expanded into movies - retaining the core nucleus of the crew. After that the other series' TNG, Voyager, DS9 etc. were able to expand the universe further.

ST has stagnated too, just because they've re-imagined it doesn't change the fact they'll be pilfering ideas/characters/situations from the known ST universe with every film they make.

True.

But Sw had no reason to stagnate... they had three movies with a lot of new characters, main characters.

Originally posted by queeq
True.

But Sw had no reason to stagnate... they had three movies with a lot of new characters, main characters.

In the OT's case you could say the overall success scared the actors into potentially being typecast, which still happened for some of course; and it gave no opportunities to go forward without them. In the PT's case, with the new characters you've highlighted, they either do not fit with the OT or didn't survive long enough for any meaningful expansion on them.

Star Trek did this too though, they had throwaway villains but they had the ability to keep it fresh by having storylines with all sorts of races that kept re-appearing. The advantages of several series also allowed for specific villains or surprise past or present Starfleet characters to appear and contribute.

ST also embraced whatever technology was at hand and went along with whatever there was to use so it seemed like the transition between Kirk's movies to TNG/Generations wasn't that much apart. Lucas, I believe, wanted to wait for better technology before doing the prequels which was a mistake in the sense it left SW fans with nothing for 16 years and when he did make them with all the CGI it made the history of the OT look like the future.

To completely move on from the OT you would have to jump SW drastically into the future in order to account for the modern looking look but even then you'd have this problem:

PT: Modern CGI look.

OT: Old school 70/80s effects look (with improvements no doubt but some things you can't CGI).

Star Wars - The Future (or whatever, I'm reaching here ):Even more modern CGI look .

No more SW, except maybe maybe maybe on television. And then yes, a lot of CGI.

I am dissapointed with the way Star Wars is going.
With the new CW series, Lucas is turning the Jedi, which were supposed to be peaceful monks, to warriors and war 'heroes'.
Anakin and Obi-Wan the "Greatest" Jedi are continously called war heroes of the galaxy. It's unfortunate because this series (for kids!) seems to be glorifying war.

But in reality its unfortunately trivializing war, making it into some sort of series of fun adventures with your jedi buddies and lightsaber at hand. There are even padawan's fighting the war (read: child soldiers). With the slapstick humor and the inconsequential destruction of droids its making light and fun of of the realities of what war is. Very unfortunate for a kids/teen show.

All of this goes goes against everything Star Wars in the OT; summed up perfectly by Yoda... "Wars not make one Great".
What this meant (to me at least) was that the best of us weren't necessarily soldiers on the battlefield but rather upstanding principled people who did what was right when faced opposition.
Kids should consider Atticus Finch a hero not Anakin Skywalker. Ultimately Luke became a hero not because he was powerful and took down a Sith, but instead because he choose compassion over anger and gave his father a chance.

Originally posted by Charlie512
I am dissapointed with the way Star Wars is going.
With the new CW series, Lucas is turning the Jedi, which were supposed to be peaceful monks, to warriors and war 'heroes'.
Anakin and Obi-Wan the "Greatest" Jedi are continously called war heroes of the galaxy. It's unfortunate because this series (for kids!) seems to be glorifying war.

But in reality its unfortunately trivializing war, making it into some sort of series of fun adventures with your jedi buddies and lightsaber at hand. There are even padawan's fighting the war (read: child soldiers). With the slapstick humor and the inconsequential destruction of droids its making light and fun of of the realities of what war is. Very unfortunate for a kids/teen show.

All of this goes goes against everything Star Wars in the OT; summed up perfectly by Yoda... "Wars not make one Great".
What this meant (to me at least) was that the best of us weren't necessarily soldiers on the battlefield but rather upstanding principled people who did what was right when faced opposition.
Kids should consider Atticus Finch a hero not Anakin Skywalker. Ultimately Luke became a hero not because he was powerful and took down a Sith, but instead because he choose compassion over anger and gave his father a chance.

But Obi-Wan had to be shown to be fighting because his involvement in the Clone Wars was referenced by Leia in ANH. Now you don't get much details of what he and the other Jedi did. From ANH's perspective maybe they were passive fighters who were only called to the defense of others, or they could have been fighters who were so at one with the Force that they could fight without anger or agression.

Even Luke in ROTJ at Jabba's Palace is issuing threats and throwing himself into combat quite exuberantly. The OT is sort of inadvertently shielded from criticism of Jedi portrayal because it only contains 3 (two of which are not really 'active') so in fairness with more of them the idea of the Jedi could have been different.

I haven't seen CW myself because I don't like filler stuff like that but if it does trivialise the Jedi as 'enjoying war' then I agree that it is wrong.

They don't enjoy but we only SEE them at war.

If they'd be doing their non-war activity, I think it would be quite boring. Compare it to the Dalai Llama, considered by many all over the world to be a great man of great wisdom, yet I think a movie about his daily life would be extremely boring. So there is the Jedi dilemma...

Without the fighting it probably would be a load of senate meetings and Jedi councils and levitating stuff for kicks. I guess the fighting stops the weight from piling on too, although the robes would disguise that well.

Originally posted by Lord Shadow Z
But Obi-Wan had to be shown to be fighting because his involvement in the Clone Wars was referenced by Leia in ANH. Now you don't get much details of what he and the other Jedi did. From ANH's perspective maybe they were passive fighters who were only called to the defense of others, or they could have been fighters who were so at one with the Force that they could fight without anger or agression.

Even Luke in ROTJ at Jabba's Palace is issuing threats and throwing himself into combat quite exuberantly. The OT is sort of inadvertently shielded from criticism of Jedi portrayal because it only contains 3 (two of which are not really 'active') so in fairness with more of them the idea of the Jedi could have been different.

I haven't seen CW myself because I don't like filler stuff like that but if it does trivialise the Jedi as 'enjoying war' then I agree that it is wrong.

I'm not saying that it is not possible the Jedi were indeed were like that. However, it's what Lucas is focusing in that is interesting. He could focus on other things besides the War.But instead he provided us with a Mary Sue main character who is a child wiping out all these bad guys. He is trivializing war by making a kid the main action hero to entertain kids, and grossly distorting what the Jedi were supposed to be.

By making this entire show about Jedi fighting a war. He is making the Jedi into warriors. Mace clearly says that the Jedi are not soldiers. And Yoda makes it seem that being a great Jedi Master and being a war hero are NOT the same thing. Yoda was great because of his wisdom not because he was powerful and killed lots of bad guys.

A great Jedi Master is a being who is completely at peace with other living things and lives in harmony with the force.

Great Jedi Master =/= War Hero

This is something Lucas has forgotten.

Luke was trying to save Han. The scene was supposed to show how much more powerful Luke was. Plus it was a one time deal he needed to save him friend, it wasn't action for actions sake. Luke even asked to do it peacefully but of course Jabba refused and you wouldn't a crime boss to go down easily. However, it wasn't all roses. The scene was also supposed to show that he was already showing signs of the dark side. His use of force choke and other actions were indicators that he was threading dangerously. His force choke is a dark side move and he learned perhaps in the quest of more power, thus it served to set up his later confrontation with the Emperor. Not to mention, Yoda criticized Luke for being reckless and it almost cost him by getting shot in the hand.

What's important though is that later Luke chooses the correct path by not fighting.

I don't watch it either, but its hard to ignore with Lucas declaring it canon. But nonetheless to me only the films are canon. My main concern is what "publicity", Lucas giving to Star Wars.
What Star Wars, in popular culture, is becoming (or already become).

Originally posted by queeq
They don't enjoy but we only SEE them at war.

If they'd be doing their non-war activity, I think it would be quite boring. Compare it to the Dalai Llama, considered by many all over the world to be a great man of great wisdom, yet I think a movie about his daily life would be extremely boring. So there is the Jedi dilemma...
There are plenty of other things that the show could focus on besides the inconsequential action 'filler' (like the other poster said) that we get.

The show could focus:

On Jedi training. Luke's training with Yoda are some off the greatest scenes in all of Star Wars. "Do or do not, there is no try" etc.

A view into the Jedi code and way of life. How do Jedi live? What is life at the temple like?

The other Jedi we see in the movies.

The relationship between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. We never truly see them as 'good friends' in the PT.

A glimpse into the thinking of the Jedi Council. Maybe to explain why they were stupidly incompetent.


What we get:

Yet Anakin never ever trains his padawan.

A Mary Sue action hero who knows everything it takes to be a Jedi, despite being highly inexperienced.

A love relationship between Anakin's padawan and some random boy.

Episode after episode of pointless action filler.

Originally posted by Charlie512
I'm not saying that it is not possible the Jedi were indeed were like that. However, it's what Lucas is focusing in that is interesting. He could focus on other things besides the War.But instead he provided us with a Mary Sue main character who is a child wiping out all these bad guys. He is trivializing war by making a kid the main action hero to entertain kids, and grossly distorting what the Jedi were supposed to be.

By making this entire show about Jedi fighting a war. He is making the Jedi into warriors. Mace clearly says that the Jedi are not soldiers. And Yoda makes it seem that being a great Jedi Master and being a war hero are NOT the same thing. Yoda was great because of his wisdom not because he was powerful and killed lots of bad guys.

A great Jedi Master is a being who is completely at peace with other living things and lives in harmony with the force.

Great Jedi Master =/= War Hero

This is something Lucas has forgotten.

Luke was trying to save Han. The scene was supposed to show how much more powerful Luke was. Plus it was a one time deal he needed to save him friend, it wasn't action for actions sake. Luke even asked to do it peacefully but of course Jabba refused and you wouldn't a crime boss to go down easily. However, it wasn't all roses. The scene was also supposed to show that he was already showing signs of the dark side. His use of force choke and other actions were indicators that he was threading dangerously. His force choke is a dark side move and he learned perhaps in the quest of more power, thus it served to set up his later confrontation with the Emperor. Not to mention, Yoda criticized Luke for being reckless and it almost cost him by getting shot in the hand.

What's important though is that later Luke chooses the correct path by not fighting.

I don't watch it either, but its hard to ignore with Lucas declaring it canon. But nonetheless to me only the films are canon. My main concern is what "publicity", Lucas giving to Star Wars.
What Star Wars, in popular culture, is becoming (or already become).

Well, like I said, he (Lucas) referred to the CW in ANH through Leia's message and because the PT was largely about Anakin he probably felt justified to 'give us a Clone War' because it's mentioned in the OT. I can't comment on the execution of that however.

I do take your point about the PT depiction of Jedi and the scene in AOTC highlights this where Obi-Wan hands Anakin his lightsaber back and says 'this is your LIFE', as if all a Jedi does is fight. It's difficult, in a sense to blame the PT for that entirely because even though Luke was fighting to save his friend one could argue a more subtle approach could have worked. Luke was clearly the aggressor from the moment he entered Jabba's Palace and Han's plight was because of his own making after all (not paying off his debt to a crime lord).

If we take Luke's attack on the Palace/barge as an example of OT Jedi depiction and compare to the PT, it's the same sort of gung-ho fighting. You could argue he's protecting his friends or removing a threat to his friends but is that not so in the PT battles? I think it's the same.

He does realise that not fighting is the right thing but only after an extended battle with Vader and the realisation he's becoming the Emperor's next servant. Look at the moment in ROTJ where Luke calmly deals with the situation with the Ewoks, I feel that any PT Jedi would have done the same thing - I can't say any would have gone ballistic and started lopping heads off, even Anakin (his beef is with Sand People ). The PT shows many moments of peaceful Jedi it's just that the various battles/events that were taking place around them drew them in and they had to fight to protect people.

Originally posted by Charlie512
There are plenty of other things that the show could focus on besides the inconsequential action 'filler' (like the other poster said) that we get.

The show could focus:

On Jedi training. Luke's training with Yoda are some off the greatest scenes in all of Star Wars. "Do or do not, there is no try" etc.

A view into the Jedi code and way of life. How do Jedi live? What is life at the temple like?

The other Jedi we see in the movies.

The relationship between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. We never truly see them as 'good friends' in the PT.

A glimpse into the thinking of the Jedi Council. Maybe to explain why they were stupidly incompetent.



Good points but I feel if that was a large part of the series and you still had the war going on and Jedi's fighting in said war then it would turn out to be highly hypocritical. After all the Jedi value life and abhor killing and not do not seek confrontation - and yet in the same instance choose to go out as soldiers. If they were truly guardians of peace they wouldn't do this and the show would end up being confused.

You can't really have the CW story not to be about war and there's no getting around the fact that the Jedi were involved as fighters and are quite ambivalent about taking life, as we've seen in both trilogies.

Yup.