I’m just back from Episode II. I saw Episode I on DVD a couple months ago. One thing I don’t understand:
The Jedi seem fairly sparse in numbers (though of course skilled beyond most) yet the group is not secret. They wear brown holocaust-cloaks and seem readily recognizable to all. Indeed, I think I heard some alien exclaim alien-curse-word Jedi! when Obi Wan Kenobi cut him off in traffic.
To what (if any) extent are the Jedi secret? Or are they brash? Certainly their reputation precedes them…
They’re probably akin to Shriners or Jehovah’s Witnesses, in that they think that they blend in, but don’t.
Nah, they’re more like the Masons, who despite building huge replicas of their symbols into the street plans of the centers of world governments, still manage to maintain an inpenetrable cloak of secrecy completely unsuspected by the blind and ignorant masses.
There’s no evidence in the “prequel” trilogy that the Jedi are a secret organization. They operate completely in the open with the full backing of the political leadership on Coruscant. Their apparently well-known enough even in the distant Outer Rim planets to the extent that a little boy can guess Qui-Gon is a Jedi simply from spotting the lightsaber on his belt.
By the time of the original trilogy, the order of the Jedi Knights have been all but destroyed, leaving behind only a handful of survivors, among them Yoda and Obi-Wan. Because of the relentless persecution that I assume will occur sometime in Episode III, the remaining Jedi are essentially driven underground, thus adopting a certain degree of secrecy out of the desire for self-protection.
the jedi of episodes i and ii are the peacekeepers, very well known. the would travel where needed to settle disputes when they occured. they had to be destroyed to allow the emperor to gain power. any jedi that survived episode iii would hide anywhere they could. perhaps tatooine or dagobah.
How many jedi were there at the time of Ep. I? How many jedi were killed in the Geonosis battle? How many are left as we go into Ep. III?
How did they keep those capes from getting caught in machinery and hanging themselves?
Don’t ask me for a cite, but I saw these numbers earlier today.
There were at least a thousand, possibly several thousand Jedi at the time of Ep I. There were perhaps one hundred Jedi in the Geonosis battle - we saw a mere dozen or so escape.I think there would still be many Jedi remaining going into Ep III.
they used the force, hellokitty! in some scenes you see them toss off the cloaks a bit impatiently. i’m sure there is some sort of force thing that has you knowing where your cloak is at all times. although a klutsy jedi knight would be very amusing.