Maybe it’s not the force lightening itself that uglifies you, but the fact that it’s your own force lightening reflected back at you. Something to do with generating the lightening by channeling all your inner fear, anger, hate and general evilness into the lightening, and then if all your own evilness hits you, it reveals the inner ugly person you really are.
Has it been said that force lightening is real lightening? Or some other, similar looking force energy?
Can a good Jedi even generate force lightening, or does it absolutely require embracing your inner evil self?
Maybe if a sufficiently skilled and powerful Jedi managed to channel his inner goodness into force lightening and it got reflected back at him, he’d get even better looking?
Yeah, but with Palpatine, it was sustained for much longer than in any of the other cases we’ve seen. The change wasn’t instantaneous on first jolt; it didn’t happen until he’d held it for a while.
That’s kind of what I think is going on. I remember when I first saw the Star Wars films, I thought that Yoda looked like a short wrinkly muppet thing because he was 800-something years old, and any Jedi who was sufficiently strong in the force could live that long, but that’s just what human beings look like after 800 years. Later on I realized he actually is supposed to be an alien species that naturally lives that long. I think what made me realize this (before I looked it up and confirmed it) was the fact that Yoda has less than five fingers and his toes sort of point backwards.
But anyway…I’m more convinced Palpatine’s face is messed up because the dark side just corrupts you and drains the life out of you. It’s all metaphorical (No! Midichlorians do not exist! La la la, I can’t hear you!) The light side will make you strong, but if you give into your hate it will end up making you weak and ugly on the inside…
The novelization of ROTJ describes the lightning as being really really evil. Luke was able to deflect some of it, but was being slowly incinerated while Vader made up his mind.
Dooku’s lightning blasted Anakin, even though Anakin had a lightsaber. Obi-Wan was able to channel Dooku’s lightning to hit only his lightsaber and leave him unharmed. Mace Windu was able to use his lightsaber not merely as a passive defense, but cause an active reflection of the lightning back to Palpatine. Yoda was able to capture and contain Dooku’s lightning using only his own command of the Force, but Palpatine’s lightning was either too powerful or too unexpected for that trick to work.
Nitpick: it’s lightning when it’s made of electricity and/or Evil Sith Force Mojo[sup]TM[/sup]. It’s lightening when it’s made of chlorine, or the box says Clairol[sup]TM[/sup].
Judging by the foreshadowing that Lucas used through the original trilogy, Luke will be the next Sith master, and I suspect that Leia or her and Hans kids will be the heroes of the final trilogy.
My rationale: 1) Lukes clothing. In ANH, he is wearing a (off)white outfit. In ESB he is wearing a khaki outfit. In ROTJ, he is wearing a black outfit. This suggests his descent to the dark side. 2) The pit of despair. When Luke wanders in to the pit of doom where he will find his destiny, Yoda says that he will not need his weapons but takes them anyway. After he defeats Darth Foreshadow, the helmet explodes and reveals Lukes face. I interpret that to mean that Luke will take Vaders place after he defeats him. (Alternate theories suggest that it refers to Vader being Lukes father.) 3) The emperors prediction. In ROTJ, the emperor is taunting him and says that they will rule the universe together. Obviously he was wrong in the final outcome, but during the attempted conversion the emperor tells Luke that his “journey to the dark side is complete”. 4) Lukes/Vaders mechanical hand. Okay, so I’m reaching here, but Luke paused and made the connection between himself and Vader when he cut off Vaders hand in ROTJ. 5) Obiwan trained them both. You’d think he’d have learned the first time…
I think it makes sense, also since Luke is the last Jedi he has no-one to stand in his way. Who would know that he is using Jedi powers or Sith powers?
Even if all the Sith were destroyed, they’ll be back. The Dark Side is always there, a ready temptation for a morally impaired Jedi. And once one accepts the Dark Side, one will want even more power, and pore through old documents looking for ancient lore, and thus the Sith will be reborn.
My question is, when they return, will they call themselves the Re-Sith-tance?
You could argue that, especially since Anakin was wearing all black in Episode III. Still, I think it was more of a representation of his newfound maturity and somberness (is that even a word?).
Sure, it’s foreshadowing that Vader is Luke’s father. But at this point he still thought that Vader “betrayed and murdered” Anakin. I think this was just showing his fear that he would end up like Vader.
You need to show the rest of the quote. “Yes, I can feel your anger. Take your weapon. I am unarmed. Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the Dark Side will be complete!”
Lucas has a hardon for giving his protagonists mechanical hands. Also, it was at that moment that Luke realized that he had almost turned.
I’ve actually been meaning to start a thread about this. Did Obi Wan actually train Luke at all, other than with the remote on the Millenium Falcon right before Alderan was destroyed?
I think more appropriately, he used it as a bargaining chip. “Look how horrible they are, look what they’ve done to me. I am forevermore deformed.”
I do have a question, though. At the end of The Empire Strikes Back, Luke is not a full Jedi, and he fights Darth, and escapes missing an arm, etc.
As far as we know, he never goes back to Yoda for training, right? Instead, the next movie opens on Jabba the Hut’s stuff.
So how does he do the rest of the training? Does Obi-Wan do it? I didn’t think he could pop in and out of the Spirit Plane that often. Does Yoda do it? Next we see Yoda, he’s dying, right?
So how does Luke gain all that power and become a Jedi? And don’t tell me midichlorians, please!
I can easily see Luke falling to the Dark Side and becoming the next Sith Lord. Leia & her army defeating him…
and then, no more Jedi powers. No more Dark Side Powers. Remember, it’s supposed to be “a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” Humans have to rebuild without any Force powers, leading to present-day.
Luke does go back to Yoda just after the Jabba stuff but Yoda dies a few minutes after Luke arrives. Yoda (I think) essentially tells Luke that he is NOT a Jedi and will only become one after he faces his father (Vader).
I am fairly certain that Jedi are prohibited from attacking with the Force itself as that is a path to the Dark Side. Granted they kinda sidestep it a bit in using the force to be better light saber fighters and they can knock people down and such during a fight but a full-blown direct attack with the force (i.e. use the force itself as a weapon) seems to be a no-no for the good guys.
I was thinking the same thing. Luke meets Obi-Wan, they go to Mos Eisley, meet Han, and get moving. I didn’t get the sense that took more than, say, a month.