Y’know, for a monastic order of a philosphy that supposedly denies all attachments, the Jedi sure seem to own a lot of expensive stuff–and I don’t just mean the starships, the droids, the lightsabers, the artificial limbs. The upkeep of the Temple alone would cost a small fortune.
So where do they get all their money? Surely they can’t Jedi mind trick their way through every sale…can they? 
I bet they pester people for money in spaceports, pinning flowers on 'em and peddling religious missives.
The Jedi maintain the temple themselves-most of them are artists, or at least encouraged to be artists, so that’s why it’s so posh.
And probably donations or something. They’re like the Vatican.
I believe the Catholic church also considers itself to be both poor and humble.
I’d be willing to bet they also probably offer some services for a small fee, ie: being an arbiter for some large negotiation between corporate interests or something. A jedi would presumably be considered to be neutral and uncorrupt where business is concerned. I’d be willing to bet a Jedi could make some money giving fencing lessons or something like that to those who are willing to pay.
I also got the impression that when the Jedi Order was an official government-sanctioned organization (ie: Pre-Purge Old Republic, the New Republic after Luke Skywalker re-established the order) they probably operated at government expense. The new Jedi Academy was based in the old Rebel base on Yavin (presumably abandoned shortly after the Battle of Yavin and not strategically important enough to be worth the New Republic reactivating later, since it was intentionally located in a hard-to-find place to begin with) I’d be willing to bet the Jedi Order on Coroscant were government-sponsored to some extent, especially since they served a role kinda like a combination between ambassadors and marshalls, arbitrating disputes and laying down the law when needed.
Midichlorians.
Probably the same way the Catholic Church became so rich: their “clergy” can’t marry and have kids, and so when they die, they leave all their money and property to the Order. Even if individual Jedi don’t accumulate a whole lot of wealth during their lifetimes, the order as a whole is thousands and thousands of years old.
Okay…but if they suddenly stop with the oracular ‘moon is in the seventh house’ stuff and all start advising ‘Liberate Athens!’ I’m suspecting skullduggery.
Ergo, at the beginning of A New Hope, C-3P0 rightfully belongs to . . . Yoda?
They definitely function at government expense, since the whole point of the Order is that they are “guardians and peace-keepers of the Republic.”
A number of the more advanced Jedi made a great deal of money for the order as furniture movers and as loaders for commercial shipping operations. Of course the Council frowned upon this use of the force in their official statements, but this was considered to be at most a venial sin and the revenue was too lucrative to pass up.
They’re the police force, not a religious order. They are government funded peacekeepers.
Nah, C3PO and R2D2 never belonged to Annie. Well, C3PO did, but he apparantly switched hands to Padme at some point, and she apparantly loaned R2D2 to Anakin in exchange. As you can imagine, a Senator will find far more use for a protocol droid than a Jedi Knight/Starfighter pilot would, and the reverse would be true for an Astromech droid.
C3PO and R2 went with Padme and Obi-Wan after Anakin turned to the Dark Side, and then they switched hands (apparantly) to Captain Antilles after Padme’s death. After he died, it was never made clear who his heir was, so they ended up in Luke’s possession, and as we all know, possession is 9/10ths of the law.
I think this was one of the many mistakes George made in introducing the droids.
It seems to me it would make more sense for Anakin, a practical mechanically minded child, to build or own an Astromech droid, and Padme, Queen of Naboo, would own a Protocol droid. That way the droids would become companions in the same way that Padme and Anakin did. But for reasons unknown, Lucas reversed that and it just made things feel wrong. By the end of the proquel trilogy that is how they naturally fell into place anyway, so why he didn’t begin that way I don’t know.
As others have pointed out, the Jedi seemed to be sole police/armed forces of the republic. That implies they got government funding.
Still, it would seem they’d need more then just the Jedi for any kind of conflict. I can understand the Jedi being the SW equilvent of the Navy Seals or <insert your favorite Special Forces Group here> then the entirely of the Republic’s military. I mean, I know Jedi are Uber and there are a lot of them, but it seems like a war would be too much for them…and of course, the Jedi can be rather fickle concerning when they get invovled, like in the Madalorian wars.
Heh. Your tax dollars at work.
Obviously the Jedi have used the Force to master the mysterious art of “Step 2”. You know …
Well, I would suspect any heir would be an Alderaan inhabitant, so once the planet was destroyed, all subsequent heirs would probably be equally extinct.
Clearly, it’s from Nike. Jedi are the Michael Jordans of the galaxy. Who is gonna long jump further / hit more home runs / win more pod races than a Jedi? So what if Tiger shoots 18 under par when Yoda, Mace Windu, and twelve other Jedi are tied at 208 under par?
[wavehand]“You want to make a large donation to the Jedi Council…”[/wavehand]