bahaha yea… a tribe of “peaceful” monks going around fighting a war as a main leading faction was never going to work out without a bit of blatant hypocrisy and war crimes. I guess it was supposed to be part of the point in why the Jedi were still unwise, but the canon never explores that well at all, IMO.
The movie had some other solid stuff. Rey has a natural affinity for the dark side, but that she chooses the light in spite of that is what makes her the hero. Similarly, Kylo is a natural with the light but chooses the dark. The dark side also isn’t evil so much as it is playing with fire, which was a popular interpretation in the old EU. Rey and Finn are also given actual motivations instead of just pinballing through the plot. Whether the motivations actually work is a different question, but the fact they had no reason to be there in TFA really bugged me.
I do still think Rey and Kylo should have traded sides in the throne room scene, though.
No, I don’t want toddler writing to explore it. I want the show to explore it. Clone Wars barely scratches the surface. Just because it follows Anakin’s adventures of the war they shouldn’t be openly fighting doesn’t make it magically true that it explores the meaning of it. At all.
You want stuff like the Empire being the direct consequence of the “I’m not here to free slaves” policy? Or of the “the monsters that rule here are our allies” one?
Or you want… I dunno… their leader to keep repeating “people, this is wrong, we must think about some other way” the entire time, while everybody ignores him? Or maybe you want the movies to go into the Republic policy-making and show that the Jedi are absolutely working for The Bad Guy, know they are wrong, and keep doing it anyway because they want status-quo?
It took one episode of tales of the Jedi to really show how the Jedi had become a tool of evil, whatever their own intentions. They built a system of rigid rules and absolute loyalty to a group that weren’t beholden to their rules or morals. So when that group started getting corrupted, the Jedi helped enforce that corruption.
If Palpatine was doing everything he was but just wasn’t Sith, I doubt the Jedi would have even tried to do anything about him. Political power, just like the force, can be abused. Good people don’t abstain from power and obey it unquestionably. They question it and its motives constantly and fight it when it conflicts with what they believe in good faith. And occasionally break it when it becomes irredeemable.
Which is something I don’t like about the new Star Wars: it’s pretty hierarchical and I can think of several times where orders conflict with morals and each case seems to have the “lesson” that authority is the one in the right, or at least never challenges authority being upset about being disobeyed.
Nah, doesn’t have to be such straight forward tit for tat crap. That’s far less interesting.
For an example, they really dropped the ball in the Obi-Wan show. They could’ve made it a great story about how he basically HAD to become a Grey Jedi. Explore how the “goodie two shoes” aspect of the Jedi clashes with the real world. Put Obi-Wan through a ton of real-world situations where he HAS to go against the Jedi code to get any kind of positive result.
SHOW how the Jedi are naive, don’t just declare it so and throw a supervillain at them.
bahaha yea… a tribe of “peaceful” monks going around fighting a war as a main leading faction was never going to work out without a bit of blatant hypocrisy and war crimes. I guess it was supposed to be part of the point in why the Jedi were still unwise, but the canon never explores that well at all, IMO.
Wait, what?
What do you expect? For Yoda to go and say that it was a war, no side is good in a war?
… oh wait, he did.
One of the main points of the prequels was that the Jedi order isn’t good. The Clone Wars just made it explicit.
As did The Last Jedi. [ducks for cover]
Yoda to Luke - Why do you keep insisting on rebuilding the same order that never did any good to anybody?
Luke - I must rebuild the order! I must no lose any of the order’s knowledge!
Yoda - Dude, had you looked at that knowledge? Like, at all?
Luke - No! … I must rebuild the order!
But then, that’s the only good thing on the movie.
The movie had some other solid stuff. Rey has a natural affinity for the dark side, but that she chooses the light in spite of that is what makes her the hero. Similarly, Kylo is a natural with the light but chooses the dark. The dark side also isn’t evil so much as it is playing with fire, which was a popular interpretation in the old EU. Rey and Finn are also given actual motivations instead of just pinballing through the plot. Whether the motivations actually work is a different question, but the fact they had no reason to be there in TFA really bugged me.
I do still think Rey and Kylo should have traded sides in the throne room scene, though.
I would argue that there’s a lot more good than bad in that movie, but it is what it is.
No, I don’t want toddler writing to explore it. I want the show to explore it. Clone Wars barely scratches the surface. Just because it follows Anakin’s adventures of the war they shouldn’t be openly fighting doesn’t make it magically true that it explores the meaning of it. At all.
You want stuff like the Empire being the direct consequence of the “I’m not here to free slaves” policy? Or of the “the monsters that rule here are our allies” one?
Or you want… I dunno… their leader to keep repeating “people, this is wrong, we must think about some other way” the entire time, while everybody ignores him? Or maybe you want the movies to go into the Republic policy-making and show that the Jedi are absolutely working for The Bad Guy, know they are wrong, and keep doing it anyway because they want status-quo?
It took one episode of tales of the Jedi to really show how the Jedi had become a tool of evil, whatever their own intentions. They built a system of rigid rules and absolute loyalty to a group that weren’t beholden to their rules or morals. So when that group started getting corrupted, the Jedi helped enforce that corruption.
If Palpatine was doing everything he was but just wasn’t Sith, I doubt the Jedi would have even tried to do anything about him. Political power, just like the force, can be abused. Good people don’t abstain from power and obey it unquestionably. They question it and its motives constantly and fight it when it conflicts with what they believe in good faith. And occasionally break it when it becomes irredeemable.
Which is something I don’t like about the new Star Wars: it’s pretty hierarchical and I can think of several times where orders conflict with morals and each case seems to have the “lesson” that authority is the one in the right, or at least never challenges authority being upset about being disobeyed.
Nah, doesn’t have to be such straight forward tit for tat crap. That’s far less interesting.
For an example, they really dropped the ball in the Obi-Wan show. They could’ve made it a great story about how he basically HAD to become a Grey Jedi. Explore how the “goodie two shoes” aspect of the Jedi clashes with the real world. Put Obi-Wan through a ton of real-world situations where he HAS to go against the Jedi code to get any kind of positive result.
SHOW how the Jedi are naive, don’t just declare it so and throw a supervillain at them.