Yora
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Post by Yora on Jul 11, 2018 12:58:20 GMT -6
I appologize for the title, but that line was a genuinely good part of the movie and relates to my question.
One thing that, now in hindsight, I've seen change significantly in Star Wars is the treatment of the Force, started by Episode 1 and pushed particularly by games. There are some great lines about the Force in the classic movies that are meant to give it a mystical quality.
The big thing to take away here is: The Force is not a combat power. Even Vader recognizes that. Now that time Luke uses the Force to get that hit on the Death Star is more than dodgy, but that was shot long before Yoda's great lines were written. In Empire and Jedi, he really does use the Force only to cause death and injury in the very last moment when someone is trying to kill him. When he does try to strike down the Emperor, the scene is very explicit in that he is going to the Dark Side with that act. When Obi-Wan uses his lightsaber to maim, it was because someone pulled a gun at him with that very same hand.
Now as the prequel movies are concerned, there is a good argument for them showing the Jedi losing their way and Obi-Wan and Yoda later having learned very bitter lessons they want to teach Luke. But at the same time all the lightsaber fights are portrayed in a way that makes the Jedi look really cool, awesome, and heroic. And so much abuse of force lightning. In Return of the Jedi, the Emperor uses lightning only to torture a Luke who had refused to further defend himself. And it comes across as much more impressive because the Emperor never showed any use of offensive powers before. Until Return of the Jedi, it wasn't even hinted that he can use the Force himself. But then we got this, from a thematical and consistency perspective, terrible fight between Yoda and Douku. Lightning becomes some kind of magical machine gun and there's no trace to be seen of the spiritual Yoda, but only a green bouncing laser ball. That most of the lightsaber fighting is against droids doesn't make it any better, since droids in Star Wars are always portrayed as people.
The games that followed certainly didn't make it any better. The Star Wars RPGs of the early 2000s were a Dungeons & Dragons clone and the videogames all followed the simple action game formula of killing hundreds of enemies in the most visually spectacular fashion. The Jedi Knight games and Knights of the Old Republic are among the most highly regarded, and they are all about killing droves of Dark Jedi with lightsabers and made lightning the most effective way to cause massive carnage very quickly.
And I think somewhere along the way the whole idea of "binding the universe together" was completely forgotten. Now the Force is all about being an overpowerd magic warrior. And yeah, that bit about "forever will it dominate your destiny?" The EU is full to the brim with characters who renounce the Dark Side once they see the empire commit the first attrocity. Or they renounce it because they were beaten in a lightsaber fight and see no way to save their lives than telling the Jedi that they will no longer be evil. And I thought Vader placing compassion for his son over his own safety was supposed to be a miracle that nobody believed would be possible.
There'S two things that are really interesting me. One is how much this shift was already taking place before Episode 1 in the Expanded Universe. I've only recently read the three Thrawn books, and I think there Luke is still shown as very hesitant to use the Force offensively. And the other thing is what Vader could perhaps have meant when he said "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force". What power could he be referring to? I strongly suspect that the writers of that line didn't really think too much about that either, but is there anything we can infer from the three movies taken together.
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Post by Falconer on Jul 11, 2018 13:52:47 GMT -6
I agree with you very much. Yes, in the Thrawn trilogy, Luke’s whole creed is to respond to individuals in need, and Mara admires him for doing what needs to be done, in other words, the way he lets the Force direct him. We mostly see him using his abilities in some ingenious way to get himself and his friends out of trouble. Sometimes, as a very last resort, and with sorrow, he uses his abilities to kill his opponents. I’m sure the Death Star — which had destroyed Alderaan and was seconds away from destroying Yavin IV — was a similar last resort sort of situation.
Some over-the-top stuff occurred in Dark Empire and in some of the 12-book series. If you haven’t read The Hand of Thrawn, I’m not going to spoil it for you, but Zahn really rights the ship and reins the Force powers back in, and it ties in with all your quotes. Of course, as you say, only a year later the Prequels start coming out, and in place of calm Alec Guinness we get scowling Samuel L. Jackson, and lightsaber badassery to the max.
Of course there’s the idea that the Prequel Jedi were already basically fallen, but I kind of hate that device. To say we’re going to make movies about bad Jedi vs. bad Sith, and everyone’s just going to be as violent as possible till the very end when some character can have a cheap catharsis about “maybe that was wrong,” is weak. It’s like in Star Trek: Discovery, where the whole first season nobody is following the Federation principles and is just shooting and blowing up anyone and everyone, only for there to be a sermon at the end about how they should actually have followed Fed principles all along… That’s not very uplifting. I can honestly say that Zahn’s Luke has made me a better person, and Roddenberry’s Federation has made me optimistic about the future.
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Post by Starbeard on Jul 11, 2018 17:42:12 GMT -6
The was already some martial voodoo going on as early as Splinter of the Mind's Eye.
The Force is used to hurl objects at opponent telekinetically, and Vader is even momentarily surprised to learn that someone who isn't a master of the Force could do the same thing. There's also superhuman leaping and gently falling to the ground ('…more than a jump, less than a levitation…'), and Vader shows his true power by throwing what is basically a hadouken from Street Fighter: crackling ball of white light that gloves his hand before he throws it through the air, quickly but gently. His opponent is implied to use the Force to deflect the attack back at Vader by throwing his hands up in a blur to create a sort of Force shield. When the ball ultimately lands against a target, it explodes with great kinetic power.
Of course, the depiction of the Force took a big step back again once we got the next movie, but I think there was always a push here and there to turn the Jedi into Shaolin warriors.
Personally, I like the idea that the Force is much more peaceful than that: say, the magical aspects of yoga-centric and contemplative zen Buddhism, rather than Shaolin martial zen. The Jedi should be about denying the material body, rather than enhancing it.
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Yora
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Post by Yora on Jul 12, 2018 12:01:12 GMT -6
Of course there’s the idea that the Prequel Jedi were already basically fallen, but I kind of hate that device. To say we’re going to make movies about bad Jedi vs. bad Sith, and everyone’s just going to be as violent as possible till the very end when some character can have a cheap catharsis about “maybe that was wrong,” is weak. It could be an interesting story to tell. And apparently Disney Star Wars is running with this. But I doubt that this was the intention. This would be a pretty subtle thing sneaked into the subtext and the movies really don't come across as if there's anything subtle or sneaky about them. If you want to tell that story in a movie, then the movie has to show the bad thing in a bad light. Unless you're making an avant-garde movie that is about exposing how audiences respond to fiction, you can't film scenes in a way that makes the audience cheer for heroes doing bad things.
However, a good argument for it shows up in Revenge of the Sith. At the start when the Emperor wants Anakin to kill Douku, he says that "he is too dangerous to be left alive" and Anakin doesn't want to because "It is not the Jedi way." Then at the end, Mace Windu wants to kill the Emperor because "he is too dangerous to be left alive" and Anakin tries to stop him because "It is not the Jedi way." However, that was after people had four years to reflect on Episode 1. And the movie still makes Yoda doing lightsaber flips look cool. Though I have a vague memory of Lucas himself saying he didn't want to include that at first but was convinced by others that they should do it. And absolutely no comment is made about Obi-Wan and Yoda splitting up with the intention to assassinate Vader and the Emperor.
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Post by Falconer on Jul 12, 2018 12:30:21 GMT -6
I only saw that movie once and didn’t like it. For me, even the evil guys doing evil things in those movies are not to my taste. Darth Vader gets a bad rap, but in the OT he was still a knight, a black knight. He only uses his lightsaber to duel other lightsaber-wielding Force users, not to mow down innocents (AotC, RotS, R1). Imperial officers like Tagge, Piett, Veers, Jerjerrod, and Pellaeon were serious career military men capably carrying out orders. It was all so much less cartoonish.
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Yora
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Posts: 51
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Post by Yora on Jul 12, 2018 13:42:08 GMT -6
*GROAN* Rogue One! I did not like that movie for a great number of reasons. I feel that this movie seems like a generic 2010s action movie that raided the Star Wars props and costumes stores. But what frustrates me the most is that one part that most fans of the movie seem to like the most. Darth Vader going apeship on Rebel soldiers with his lightsaber and telekinesis. This is not good. This is terrible. Vader is meant to be menacing. Not savage. Vader does not have to fight to be the most dangerous person in the room. When he first appears, he just walks in and intimidates people. When he's personally leading the assault on the Hoth base, he just walks behind the first stormtroopers and lets them do all the work. On Bespin, he only fights Luke, and that's only to test his skills. Like the Emperor, his true power is much greater and more immaterial than offensive strength. The ability to slaughter large numbers of enemy soldier by yourself is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
At first it's a line that sounds really cool. And then you think about it more and it seems like something that is all show without any real substance. But then you really look deeper into the meaning of the Force in the whole trilogy and it's something that the movies actually practice in action all the time.
Getting on a bit of a tangent here, but I think very much relevant to the subject: I think a big problem that has plaguing Star Wars for a long time is fan service. Fan service is putting something into a work that fans love or that fans love to imagine, but only for the purpose of making these fans cheer and without it actually supporting and being supported by the narrative. Bouncing lightsaber Yoda is fan service. Vader carnage in Rogue One is fan service. That "surprise character" in Solo is fan service, and he was in his appearances in the EU. And the entire new trilogy is nothing but fan service. They are nothing but "hey, remember this thing from the old movies? Here it is on the screen again." And I think the entire Force powers escalation in the EU is really the same issue. You always need a new character who is really "the most powerful Jedi who ever lived." Which incidentally gets applies to every single Jedi who was ever a protagonist in any type of work. Luke is the most powerful. Vader is the most powerful. The Emperor is the most powerful. Yoda is the most powerful. Mace Windu is the most powerful. Revan is the most powerful. Starkiller is the most powerful. And to prove it, their Force stunts have to get bigger and bigger. Of course, this happened very early in the EU. I am looking at you, Dark Empire.
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Post by Starbeard on Jul 12, 2018 15:08:55 GMT -6
*GROAN* Rogue One! I did not like that movie for a great number of reasons. I feel that this movie seems like a generic 2010s action movie that raided the Star Wars props and costumes stores. But what frustrates me the most is that one part that most fans of the movie seem to like the most. Darth Vader going apeship on Rebel soldiers with his lightsaber and telekinesis. This is not good. This is terrible. Vader is meant to be menacing. Not savage. Vader does not have to fight to be the most dangerous person in the room. When he first appears, he just walks in and intimidates people. When he's personally leading the assault on the Hoth base, he just walks behind the first stormtroopers and lets them do all the work. On Bespin, he only fights Luke, and that's only to test his skills. Like the Emperor, his true power is much greater and more immaterial than offensive strength. The ability to slaughter large numbers of enemy soldier by yourself is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
At first it's a line that sounds really cool. And then you think about it more and it seems like something that is all show without any real substance. But then you really look deeper into the meaning of the Force in the whole trilogy and it's something that the movies actually practice in action all the time.
Getting on a bit of a tangent here, but I think very much relevant to the subject: I think a big problem that has plaguing Star Wars for a long time is fan service. Fan service is putting something into a work that fans love or that fans love to imagine, but only for the purpose of making these fans cheer and without it actually supporting and being supported by the narrative. Bouncing lightsaber Yoda is fan service. Vader carnage in Rogue One is fan service. That "surprise character" in Solo is fan service, and he was in his appearances in the EU. And the entire new trilogy is nothing but fan service. They are nothing but "hey, remember this thing from the old movies? Here it is on the screen again." And I think the entire Force powers escalation in the EU is really the same issue. You always need a new character who is really "the most powerful Jedi who ever lived." Which incidentally gets applies to every single Jedi who was ever a protagonist in any type of work. Luke is the most powerful. Vader is the most powerful. The Emperor is the most powerful. Yoda is the most powerful. Mace Windu is the most powerful. Revan is the most powerful. Starkiller is the most powerful. And to prove it, their Force stunts have to get bigger and bigger. Of course, this happened very early in the EU. I am looking at you, Dark Empire.
Great observations Yora. I thought the exact same things about Rogue 1. I was confused over how many people saw it as a true return to form of the originals. The only succinct way I could really summarize my own reaction was to say that it didn't feel like a Star Wars movie, it felt like a Marvel movie, designed by Games Workshop, set in the Star Wars universe. Which basically amounts to a lot of fan service, since the fan service echo chamber is a vital component to all three of those things, love them or hate them. |
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Post by Starbeard on Jul 12, 2018 15:21:39 GMT -6
I think we can see a basic model of the Force in the original trilogy just by looking at each Force user and how their powers and philosophies are implied on the screen.
Luke is the unruly and weak apprentice, and he is the one who most frequently relies on his lightsaber and Force tricks. He cares passionately and always feels that he must do something to help.
Darth is a master, and only uses his lightsaber to duel, and only uses Force tricks when he needs to show someone who's boss. He is in most cases dispassionate, but has not yet let go of his feelings—in fact, he is most passionate about controlling everything around him.
Obi-Wan was his master. He only uses his lightsaber in defense and self-sacrifice, and only uses Force tricks to get people moving on their way. He lives as a hermit but is willing to train promising individuals and observe the world. He has let go of his feelings, but not let go of the world.
Yoda is the greatest master, and he does not have a lightsaber. He lives as a hermit and has forsaken the galaxy, and has to be convinced to train or help anyone. He has essentially achieved Enlightenment, and reached the point where he has not only let go of his feelings, but he has let go of all that ties him to this mortal coil.
So in other words, to those of us who are not enlightened by the Force, Luke seems the most powerful of the good guys, because he does the most. Obi-Wan is a weak old man who plays mind tricks and turns into a ghost. Yoda is worse, he just offers advice and lifts a little airplane out of the muck once, which Luke probably could've done if he tried a few more times. So the farther along one goes along the path of a master, one 'uses' the Force less and maybe 'becomes one with' the Force more.
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Post by Bilbo on Jul 17, 2018 22:15:55 GMT -6
I think this is a great discussion. I've had many of the same thoughts myself for years...
I think the whole Force as 'only for defense' has been pushed by fan service to be used for all sorts of quasi-justifiable (so called) pre-emptive attacks under the 'don't gimp my jedi' clause. As if you can get away with a force choke by finding a loophole in the Force's fine print. I've heard the argument that it is okay to use the Force to choke someone if they might be about to attack because it was for defense, so therefore it is not the Dark Side. For me using the Force to directly attack any living creature should probably be the path to the Dark Side (no matter the excuse), because if the Force is "created by all living thing" than using any of that stuff (choke, push, etc) is essentially using the Force to attack itself. And that's just dark.
Philosophically, I think its a codified way the Jedi designed to help one steer clear of the old slippery slope idea of compromising your values for the greater good, which usually never ends well and frequently leads to the creation of classic Lawful Evil characters like Vader (and that cool guy from Serenity). I didn't like the prequels, but I really hated the way they showed Anakin being 'possessed' by the Dark Side, as if it was some sort of magic curse. I thought in the OT it was presented as a much more believable metaphor for how not to become a cosmic asshole.
I think that's why Jedi used lightsabers, because they never wanted to be tempted to use the Force for attack. As peacekeepers, they still needed an actual weapon just in case, so instead of Force choking or pushing or whatever in the heat of the moment, they used a more mundane weapon. And a saber is inherently more defensive than a blaster, hopefully mitigating them from starting down the slippery slope of justifying 'evil' actions as necessary for defense.
I've always suspected that's why Vader used a light saber, because he used to be a Jedi and it was a habit/holdover. I mean you never see the Emperor with a lightsaber, and he flat out says "it is the weapon of a Jedi" strongly implying that only they used them. Why? Because if you were truly an evil guy and didn't care about how you used the Force, you'd just choke people and push them around, no need to carry around a fancy red bug zapper ('cept it's, you know, kinda neat). By that same token, I also agree that Yoda should never have used a light saber in the Prequels, his strength was his wisdom and knowledge, and should have been shown that way.
Anyway, I saw this thread and I thought I'd put in my 2 cents
p.s. and why do the Jedi all wear the same robes they do on Tatooine? I mean I always figured Obi Wan just went native and was blending in, not wearing the same stinky robes he wore when he landed on the planet with baby Luke 20 years before
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Post by Falconer on Jul 17, 2018 22:54:57 GMT -6
Great first post! Agree with every word.
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Post by finarvyn on Jul 18, 2018 5:58:58 GMT -6
Not sure if this should get hidden in the rest of this thread, or should start it's own. I'll hide it for now and Lord Falconer can decide for sure... This is a "Force in Role-playing" post. In OD&D there is an interesting rule which is written one way early on, and is changed later on. The rule has to do with clerics and choosing law or choosing chaos. The early rule says nothing about a specific time where this has to be done, the later rule says that it must be done at level 7. Which one is "correct" clearly comes down to which edition you own and learned the rules by, and I learned by an older rulebook that didn't have the level 7 reference. This is significant because in OD&D there are three alignments (law, neutrality, and chaos) and the cleric spell lists of law and chaos have some different spells (e.g. "cure light wounds" versus "cause light wounds"). If a player has to make a choice of law versus chaos they only get one of the spell lists, but if they don't have to choose they could theoretically cast from both. Since my group didn't own a later printing rulebook, we never learned about the "level 7" thing until decades later when I heard about it on message boards. So some folks don't read longer posts, which means that I've lost some of you already and have never used the word "Star" or "Wars" yet. Let me tie it all together. In the 1970's I ran an OD&D Star Wars campaign which had a jedi class in it. Essentially the jedi class functioned as a cleric with a spell list that looked more like that of a magic user, and when we defaulted to a rule we let the cleric class determine how the jedi would be adjudicated. Fundamentally, OD&D's alignment system seemed to us to perfectly match the force, with law being the "light side" and chaos representing the "dark side." The Empire Strikes Back shows Luke in jedi training where Yoda warns him that he must not choose the dark side, and this told our group that Luke hadn't made a choice for certain yet. This told us that perhaps a young jedi might start "neutral" and then have to choose at some point in the game. I felt that level 4 was a great time to have the jedi choose, as the level 4 fighting man is a "hero" and I felt like a hero ought to have picked a side. This decision sparked a debate in our group about how the force works, how it would be applied to Luke, and how it ought to be applied to Player Characters in my OD&D Star Wars campaign. It's been many decades and we spent dozens of hours in discussion, but let me see if I can synopsize some of our big thoughts. (1) Perhaps a Force-user had to pick alignment upon character creation, and thus had to pick between the light and dark spell lists from the start. (2) Perhaps a Force-user could remain neutral and thus cast spells of both light and dark for levels 1 through 3, but upon reaching level 4 had to choose and never use the other spell list again. This could be supported by Luke’s actions in the movies where everyone wanted to be there to help him pick. (3) Perhaps what made Luke such a valuable piece on the Star Wars chessboard is that he is the only jedi able to remain neutral beyond level 4, and thus could use both light and dark spells always. That would be a really cool thing, to be able to do both, and a Player Character ought not be allowed this option. Anyway, it was an interesting discussion about how the Force works, and I thought it was worthy of bringing to these boards.  |
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Post by Whill on Aug 2, 2018 0:12:39 GMT -6
There are some great lines about the Force in the classic movies that are meant to give it a mystical quality. Those are all great lines about the Force. There actually are a few great lines about the Force in other Star Wars movies too. The big thing to take away here is: The Force is not a combat power... Now as the prequel movies are concerned, there is a good argument for them showing the Jedi losing their way and Obi-Wan and Yoda later having learned very bitter lessons they want to teach Luke. They wanted Luke to kill his father and Palpatine, and didn't want Luke to know Vader was his father for this very reason - He wouldn't want to kill his father. They were extremely worried that Luke would cross over to the Dark Side like his father, so yes there was a lot of teachings on resisting the Dark Side. But they had no hope for Anakin and thought Luke was the best chance to destroy the two Dark Siders leading the Empire. In RotS Yoda and Obi-Wan tried to do it and failed. The bitter lesson as revealed by the prequels is that Jedi Masters couldn't do it, so in RotJ they hoped that maybe a Skywalker could. That most of the lightsaber fighting is against droids doesn't make it any better, since droids in Star Wars are always portrayed as people. Far from always. The droids portrayed as people are the exception rather than the rule. Regarding battle droids, they are comedy relief and also exemplify a major reoccurring theme in Star Wars... And the other thing is what Vader could perhaps have meant when he said "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force". What power could he be referring to? I strongly suspect that the writers of that line didn't really think too much about that either, but is there anything we can infer from the three movies taken together. There are a lot of examples in the trilogy, but Lucas has gone on and one about this theme over the years. The Force represents nature (which includes humanity) and the Death Star is technology. The message is to not depend on technology too much. Luke turns off his targeting computer and acts on instinct to make the shot. Artoo, who is one of the droids portrayed a person, even helps this message because he gets blasted and Luke is even without his assistance. Ewoks, a primitive species, help the Rebels defeat a technologically superior enemy. Even Vader, now more machine than man, says that the technological terror's awesome destructive power is less than the power of nature. It's a very strong message. |
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Post by buzzcorry on Aug 23, 2018 12:57:09 GMT -6
I think the whole Force as 'only for defense' has been pushed by fan service to be used for all sorts of quasi-justifiable (so called) pre-emptive attacks under the 'don't gimp my jedi' clause. As if you can get away with a force choke by finding a loophole in the Force's fine print. I've heard the argument that it is okay to use the Force to choke someone if they might be about to attack because it was for defense, so therefore it is not the Dark Side. For me using the Force to directly attack any living creature should probably be the path to the Dark Side (no matter the excuse), because if the Force is "created by all living thing" than using any of that stuff (choke, push, etc) is essentially using the Force to attack itself. And that's just dark. I'm one of the people you disagree with. I don't feel that it's a "loophole" but more consistent. The Dark Side is all about using the Force for evil or selfish reasons. Or using it out of anger. The exact "force power" being used shouldn't matter. Consider these two situations: Obiwan in the Cantina and Luke entering Jabba's palace. Obiwan doesn't use any dark side powers to defend himself, instead he chops a dude's arm off, causing permanent damage. Luke, OTOH, uses force choke on the Gamorreans. While some might think that this is meant to reflect Luke's being tempted by the dark side, I don't see anything like that at play. Instead, a calm Luke uses the force to temporarily disable the guards which completely avoids any conflict and, more importantly, causes absolutely no harm to the Gamorreans either. His actions were a true reflection of the good side of the Force; calm, deliberate, and only for defense. It would be wrong to award Luke a dark side point for this. That being said, I would argue that Obiwan's use of the lightsaber was simply an expedience, required by his need to avoid revealing himself as a Jedi. This was, of course, back when lightsabers were still used in the galaxy by non-Jedi. The Force represents nature (which includes humanity) and the Death Star is technology. The message is to not depend on technology too much. Luke turns off his targeting computer and acts on instinct to make the shot. I don't really buy this nature vs tech argument as the Sith don't seem to use tech more than the Jedi (less, perhaps). I'd need to know when Lucas started talking about this as he seems into have revised his view of the Force significantly from SW to the prequels. Turning the Force from a spiritual, god-like entity to just a by-product of a certain organism in the blood. I see Luke's destruction of the Death Star as more of him believing in himself as the targeting computers were flawed and couldn't hit the exhaust port if used. IMO, the power that Vader is referring to is the ability to see into the future. Something both Yoda and Palpatine seems to rely on (Palp especially). Think of how easily you could win wars if you knew the outcome of the battle before committing to it. It also explains why Palp is obsessed with wiping out the Jedi as it seems that people close to the Force can distort these visions (such as how Palp didn't see himself dying). |
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Post by Falconer on Aug 23, 2018 14:31:47 GMT -6
I think what Luke uses on the Gamorreans is affect mind (“These are not the droids you are looking for.”) Zahn, IIRC, describes this as a temporary confusion that Luke casts on them. He does, I think, later express regret over this. I assume his intent was a show of power, with the hope that Jabba would bargain with him seriously (so it wouldn’t have to lead to the sail barge massacre).
BTW, Ben in the Star Wars Radio Drama also expresses regret over having to use affect mind and tells Luke something to the effect that it was a critical moment, a last resort, and better than the alternatives.
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Post by boot on Aug 23, 2018 18:56:48 GMT -6
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