Comments on: A Half-Hearted Defense of the “Star Wars” Prequels

By: John 2.0

John 2.0 — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:23:12 +0000

There is an only kinda related, but still awesome article over at the Onion AV club that touches a lot of this:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-big-questions-should-artists-lives-or-opinions,43349/

By: DaveKan

DaveKan — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 20:14:00 +0000

The fact that you have to put this much effort and creativity into defending the prequels is evidence enough that George Lucas did not put the same effort (or talent) into writing the stories in the first place.

By: jidasfire

jidasfire — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 01:34:41 +0000

Your theory is an interesting one. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call the Jedi sociopaths or the like, but they were very very flawed as an organization. I think the idea of bringing balance to the Force relates to this. The Jedi couldn’t give in to their emotions because if they did, they’d fall to the Dark Side, so they trained themselves not to feel much of anything. If being a Jedi means your emotions have to be suppressed or you become, almost immediately, pure evil, then the Force itself is very much out of balance. I always found the common theory that bringing balance meant creating even numbers of Jedi to be kind of silly, and hence I never saw Anakin as the Chosen One at all. It makes a whole lot more sense if you consider that Luke was the Chosen One. He refused the Jedi way by going back to save his friends, which was the right thing to do, ultimately, and then he refused the Sith way by not allowing his emotions to turn him into a monster. He used love, fear, and anger to achieve his victories, and he managed to keep some level of self-control through it all. Hence, he brought balance by finding the proper middle path, where passion and serenity keep each other in check, rather than fighting for dominance. I’ve read almost none of the expanded universe stuff so I have no idea if Luke’s new Jedi Order are any better than the old one, but it would make sense that they should be, if my theory is correct.

By: Pete Butler

Pete Butler — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:46:04 +0000

John, your thesis is plausible only because Lucas has devolved into such an incompetent hack as a director. The notion that the Jedi-as-badguys element was the intentional work of an unappreciated genius simply strikes me as silly.

Having said that, it is one HELL of an interesting thesis, and a fascinating thought exercise into what might have been if Lucas were both good at his job and had the cojones to screw with one of the fundamental assumptions of his universe. Thank you very much for sharing it; I’ll definitely have it in mind when Red Letter Media releases its review of Episode III. (I was going to say “The next time I watch those movies,” but, damn. I’m not sure that much tequila actually exists.)

By: Matt Jackson

Matt Jackson — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 20:32:21 +0000

Dude, nice fucking job. And here I thought I was the only prequel defender.

The Prequels get a really bad rap for superficial reasons: The wooden acting, the green screens, etc. Few people actually take the time to watch those movies to figure out why the things are the way they are. If you listen to the dialogue in some of those scenes (I’ll admit, some of it is just bad) you’ll see that it’s chock full of symbolism and foreshadowing; it’s pretty awesome.

I for one would much rather have the Prequels as they are than have them be cheap copies of the originals. While they may not be as good, at least they’re something different.

By: Ed (Jack Norris)

Ed (Jack Norris) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 20:28:19 +0000

So Star Wars fans have less of a problem with “the Jedi come off that way because Lukas, being a shitty writer, fucked it up”?
Cool.

By: joshbrown

joshbrown — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:50:18 +0000

Bravo.

By: Kate

Kate — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 12:49:09 +0000

Well said, John 2.0.

This, for me, is the rub in the review. I can totally see a reading with the Jedi and the Sith both being villains; I cannot see Lucas deliberately putting that in. It’s one thing to take a postmodernist stance and throw out authorial intent; it’s another to contradict the author’s stated intent and say he intended otherwise. So, it’s incorrect to say that Lucas didn’t accidentally make a Jedi code that made his heroes seem unpleasant, he deliberately made the Jedi just as absolutist and unsympathetic as the Sith, only from the other direction. Given Lucas’s own history with personal relationships, I somewhat suspect that he might even agree with Prequel-Yoda’s philosophy on personal relationships… but that’s speculating a long way out, isn’t it!

By: Bass

Bass — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 12:11:01 +0000

That’s it exactly, John 2.0.

By: John 2.0

John 2.0 — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:51:12 +0000

Evan, I don’t want to beat this dead horse much more, but John (1.0) says explictly says that “this is a feature not a bug” that Lucas intends the Jedi in the prequels to be creepy and unsympathetic. That’s what I’m disputing.

You can have whatever interpretation of the motivations of the Jedi you would like. “This is my reading” is fine. “This is my reading, and I believe my reading to be what Lucas really intended” is something completely different.

I can say I believe that ‘Star Trek: The Undiscovered County’ is a analogy for the end of the cold war and I can back up that statement from numerous sources as being what is intended. I don’t believe Bass’ reading’Star Trek: Nemisis being was what was inteded, but do think that it’s pretty awesome.

By: Evan Waters

Evan Waters — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:39:57 +0000

Thing is, one could argue that even if Lucas was just being a ham-fisted writer and didn’t intend this potential reading of the Jedi to be there- that doesn’t mean it’s insupportable. Death of the author and all.

By: John 2.0

John 2.0 — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:41:46 +0000

I’m still unconvinced. And I think I’d still argue the finer points of what Yoda actually believes and teaches. It’s not telling you that you should not care when someone dies because it’s a negative emotion, but because that person has rejoined the Force (and that probably means a lot more to someone who can actually feel the Force). Obi-Wan clearly feels grief, but he doesn’t let it overwhelm him, and he fights to control his rage and be centered in the Force(that shot of him behind the “laser gate,” or whatever it is, is my favorite in Episode I). The Jedi have a memorial service for Qui-Gonn, so clearly the Jedi aren’t a bunch of Vulcans.

But I take your point about speculation. As and long as I’m speculating I’ll speculate that some of the EU gets it right and those who don’t make Jedi go off to the Republic’s Agriculture Corps where they help feed and heal the planets of the Galactic Republic, since they learned the lessons of duty and a desire to help others.

I’m just offering a semi-coherent response to your half-hearted defense.

By: John Seavey

John Seavey — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:13:30 +0000

You’re right, John 2.0. There’s no evidence of mindwiping parents, killing washout Jedi, or exiling Jedi-Mind-Trick-resistant races to the Outer Rim so as to make it easier to oversee the Republic. (Well, actually there is evidence of that last one…)

But what there is evidence of is a Jedi order, as seen by its spiritual as well as political leaders, that views caring about individuals as “bad” and advocates a sort of general compassion for people in general. That encourages you not to care too much when the people you love die, because grief is a “negative emotion” and inexorably leads to evil. Those things tell me that Jedi aren’t going to say, “Wait! We can’t kill this ten-year-old kid just because he washed out of the Jedi training program! That’d be cruel!” They’d calmly, dispassionately, emotionlessly suggest that it serves the greater good, and humanely terminate him without cruelty to prevent him from becoming evil.

Now of course, I’m not saying, “This is what happened, prove me wrong!” That’d be silly. I’m saying that it’s actually a pretty logical inference from what we see on-screen. (I also have some fun things to say about the Jedi as unreliable narrators when it comes to the Jedi/Sith conflict, and how we really never see if the Jedi Republic is better, from the average citizen’s point of view, from the Sith Empire.)

This is all just speculation, not some sort of new canon. But isn’t it fun to speculate?

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:12:49 +0000

More to the point, this is a good post when you bill it as an explanation of how George Lucas fucked up, and a bad post where you bill it as an excuse for how George Lucas didn’t fuck up.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:09:29 +0000

Hey John,

This post was better the first time you wrote it, on your own blog.

<3,