Sweet Mother of…
Re: The Prophecy:
I wonder what they thought “Bring Balance to the force” meant. Considering the Jedi were heavily outnumbering the Sith, I would think that the prophecy could only be a bad thing.
Or maybe they realized this and it’s the real reason they didn’t want to train Anakin, the age thing being an excuse.
However, I don’t think the force will cease to exist when Luke and Leia die, even if nobody tries to train more Jedi. Rather, I think it will mean that nobody is trained to use it, and it will have to be rediscovered.
Kind of like how the Anceints invented Greek Fire, but no formula has ever been recovered, so it’s formula is lost to use. It doesn’t matter much since we do know how to make Naplam.
Or the fact the Romans used a form of concrete very similar to our own, which was invented in the 18th century.
Though in some of the EU, Luke opens a Jedi Acadamy after the battle of Endor(at least in some of the LA computer games. I don’t know about the books).
Puts on a suit of armor, walks over to you and slaps you with a dead fish
What’s the deal with the age thing for Jedi training, anyway? Luke was a teenager, yeah, but anakin was freakin 10 years old. How young do you have to be? They pull you out of the womb, cut your cord, dry you off and send you off to Jedi school right then and there? Is it like the matrix where people past a certain age are too attached to reality and thus can’t function properly when confronted with the otherworldy?
[Every Sperm is Sacred]
There are sith out in space
there are Trader and Rebels and then.
There are those who follow Darth Vader, but
I’ve never been one of them.
I’m a Jedi Padwan, have been since day I was born.
And the one thing they about Jedi is, they’ll take you as soon as you’re warm.
You don’t have to be a nerf-herder.
You don’t need a 4 lobed brain.
You don’t have to have any skin on.
You’re a jedi when the midoclorians came, because…
[/Every Sperm is Sacred]
No, I think the jist of it is that they are too young to handle the responsibility and social requirements.
Note that Anikin’s fall to the dark side can stem mostly from his greed, envy and love. The first two would be learned emotions from being a small child growing up in a typical social environment like he did on Tattooine. The love, which he would also have developed in having a relationship with his mother which led to his feelings for Padme.
You could argue that had he had been diagnosed and placed in the Temple at a very young age he’d have been prevented from having strong family ties and any understanding of social life outside of selfless servitude as taught by the Jedis. Would have prevented his turning evil.
As for Luke, well, a big part of it could be chalked up to special circumstances. He didn’t really go south even though he started late in life, but he also wasn’t immersed in a environment like all Jedi’s were previous to that point. Also, you could argue that he was equally flawed. Everything he did was pretty selfish. He went to Tattooine to rescue Han, even though Obi-wan/Qui-Gon probably would have thought it was pointless and unnecessary. He left Degobah to save the group when Yoda said he shouldn’t. His entire motivation for beating Vader and the Emporor were mostly out of his need to confront his long lost father.
None of that stuff is something a “selfless” Jedi would do. Granted being older didn’t cause Luke to go bad, it did however make for what would have been a pretty crappy Jedi by the TPM-era Jedi’s counsul’s standards.
The age thing is about brainwashing them to be selfless and lonely. In both cases Yoda’s age concerns were valid, even if the end out come differed in your two examples.
Do you have cookies?
I’m betting nobody gets this joke.
OK, on that midichlorian list, Chewbacca has enough to be considered a Jedi…but Han Solo only has normal human levels. WTF? Han, I think, is much more Jedi-like than Chewie. He’s a really good pilot, he managed to sneak up on Darth Vader and shoot away one of the TIE fighters, and he did use a light saber at one point (to cut open the dead tauntaun). I don’t know what happens if a non-Jedi uses a light saber (maybe they just can’t control it?) but he seemed to be OK with it.
Is this about those funky Girl Scouts skulking about the apartment complex?
The ones wearing black leatherette uniforms? Those are 20 year old hookers, man! Buy yourself new glasses!
Actually, this could be right, too, but who is going to rediscover it? Is it like having psychic powers at a young age (disclaimer: does not believe in them) and so you zap yourself into non-existence? Maybe it’s like being a wild mage, and people avoid you anyway?
Hey! The fish-slapping thing is MY department!
But I’ll forgive you because the poem rocks.
This doesn’t make sense to me. The way I see it, Anankin didn’t pass on any actual midichlorians to Luke & Leia, to be split down the middle. Rather, he passed on a genetic potential to be able to house a certain amount of midichlorians, thus being as strong with the force as the concentration of midichlorians within. He could have passed on the ability to hold as many midichlorians as he had.
…and thus, Luke Skywalker brings balance to the Force, by demonstrating a Jedi methodology that embraces both sides without succumbing to the downfalls of either.
She said she needed the money for her Mother’s operation…
The difference here being that the Star Wars Universe, at least the Human part, has a very Long tradition of Force Users. Unless the Empire managed to rewrite ALL the history books, or villfy the jedi enough, people are going to know what a Jedi is, even if they don’t nessicary believe they have powers.
It’s not a Poem. It’s a song, from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life.
I had always simply presumed that he was mostly prepared as a Jedi prior to ESB, but simply lacked the gravitas, maturity, and wisdom that came from being tested by a deep struggle. After the first fight with Vader, and time to reflect, understand, assimilate, and refocus, he had in effect gained the final understanding that he needed to be complete.
I like this. It especially makes sense if you take the EU as canon and consider that…
Luke falls in love with Mara Jade and marries her. I’m not sure if they have kids, though
I was thinking about this after I saw Sith and read some threads about it here. It’s as if the old Jedi order taught displine through avoidance of temptation, while the new Jedi sought to acknowledge the temptation and deal with it responsibly. In that respect they really did bring balance to the force, as you said.
I’ve always been intrigued by non-Jedi using a light saber. I think it’s a matter of just an on or off switch, otherwise, how would a padawan starting to train use one? Bum a light off the instructor? Then there’s the matter of General Grievous, who could use a light saber. I think it’s just the Jedis’ weapon of choice because it embodies some part of their teachings. I’d also imagine that mastery of the force contributes to light saber skills.
As for Han Solo and the force…
[spoiler]He does seem to have something going on with that, doesn’t he? Perhaps he’s got some kind of “void” around him that protects him from being detected by the Force-adept.
Apart from the piloting and sneaking up on Vader, he manages to get the drop on the Emperor in the EU. The dark side really does cause you to decay physically, and Palpatine was desperately searching for a new host for his spirit. He tried to possess Han and Leia’s infant son, Jacen, but was shot by Han before he had the chance.
So not only did Han Solo manage to foil Palpatine, but he managed to kick Palpatine’s ass for all time. Pretty badass, even if the EU isn’t really canon[/spoiler]
Funny how much you can learn from Wikipedia without actually having read any Star Wars comics or novels.
Oh, hell, that was nothing compared to my proudest sci-fi quip on this board.
Actually, I was in excellent form through that entire thread, fueled by my intense dislike of Star Trek: Nemesis.
It seems to me anyone could hold a light saber and turn it on. The reason everyone isn’t running around with them is because it would be really stupid. Unless you’re strong with the force and trained with it, you’re more likely to slice off your own arm or leg than anything. You wouldn’t want to use it as a weapon, since it’s useless against a blaster if you aren’t strong with the force.
If you need to slice or melt something with a high powered laser device, I’m sure there are plenty of OSHA approved devices. If you want a weapon, you want something you can use. Like a blaster.
Obi-Wan referred to them as “a more civilized weapon from a more civilized time.” I’m sure they are. A Jedi could deflect your blaster and slice it in half. If need be, he or she could cleanly slice off your hand or arm. We all know hands & arms are easy to replace in the Star Wars galaxy.
A blaster would either kill you instantly or create a really messy, hard to treat wound.
I think it’s that lightsabers are very difficult to make and their construction actually require the force. Thus, you usually only see jedi walking around with them because they probably made their own. Grievous’s “collection” is just lightsabers he took off jedi he killed. I don’t think you can just walk into the local Corusant market and buy one of the shelf.
But her Mother’s operation is a numbers running racket of of the back of a delicatessian!