Does anyone ever say "Light Side" in the Star Wars movies?

[Darth Credence]

Yes, I know the point of it. But that doesn't change the fact that he physically demonstrated that one can use the choking maneuver non lethally.

[Velaryon]

Do we see that Gamorrean again? I don't think it was clear that the choke was non-lethal.

[Darth Ultron]

They blew up a planet, but they didn't do anything *really* evil? That is a very interesting perspective.

To just ''kill people'' is just evil. After all the Rebels kill lots of people too. And it's not like you really want to count numbers of people killed..because after say 100 it's just ''a lot''. And if one side kills 104 people and the other side kills 205 people, is the side with the higher count ''more evil''?

I disagree. It was heavily implied in the Original movies that the Empire was fairly composed by a bunch of human supremacists. In the OT, the only non-human high commanders and generals you ever see are in fact all Rebels, and not a single trooper is ever revealed as non-human. The non-human species you meet that side with the Empire are either third parties or bounty hunters. Just like real Nazis did in fact, hired or forged alliances with non-Arian peoples. If anything, I think Lucas wasn't aiming for them to become "Nazis In Space", but he certainly took inspiration from "X supremacist" from real history.

Where do you see it heavily implied? Do we ever see the Empire ''do bad evil stuff to non humans?' or to ''non-white humans'' or do we even hear about it? Was Aderberan full of all aliens and non white humans that we never saw?

And it's not like the Rebels are so multi cultural or anything.

[Lord Joeltion]

To just ''kill people'' is just evil. After all the Rebels kill lots of people too. And it's not like you really want to count numbers of people killed..because after say 100 it's just ''a lot''. And if one side kills 104 people and the other side kills 205 people, is the side with the higher count ''more evil''?

They killed innocent civilians on purpose, with the poor excuse of trying to "extort" information from a "supposed terrorist". Even if you could manage to convince someone that it wasn't motivated by "Pure Eeeeevil", it was still a criminal act.

Where do you see it heavily implied? Do we ever see the Empire ''do bad evil stuff to non humans?' or to ''non-white humans'' or do we even hear about it? Was Aderberan full of all aliens and non white humans that we never saw?

And it's not like the Rebels are so multi cultural or anything.

In fact, Rebels are multicultural. They embrace a whole lot of different species, working together in the pursue of a single goal. Bothans and Mon Calamari provide vital assistance to the Rebellion, and they are allowed to occupy high command positions. Do we ever see a non-human commander on the side of the Empire? Nope. Not a single one. And the Empire is supposed to stem directly from the Republic, which was in fact, a multicultural government. The pattern is pretty straightforward. It wasn't "heavily" implied in the sense that characters actually pointed out under our noses (in any case, there had no reason to point out the obvious). But can you argue that it is a subtle hint when every single non-human villain is NOT involved directly with the Empire Government? I want to avoid RL examples, but when you see a "specific" kind of people segregated from high power positions, THAT is what you usually call "oppression" in RL. That was pretty clear for modern and 70's audiences alike.

[Lethologica]

To just ''kill people'' is just evil. After all the Rebels kill lots of people too. And it's not like you really want to count numbers of people killed..because after say 100 it's just ''a lot''. And if one side kills 104 people and the other side kills 205 people, is the side with the higher count ''more evil''?

1. One side kills a lot more people--and I know you dislike comparing counts past a trivial number, but we are talking orders of magnitude here.
2. If the acts are not to be judged of themselves, then motive must out. Examine, if you will, the motive behind the destruction of Alderaan. To fight the Rebellion? Explicitly not. The goal is rather to terrorize the populations of other systems so that they will acquiesce to the Empire's consolidation of power. There is nothing redeeming about this motive--it is naked cruelty in the pursuit of grasping ambition.

Whatever one might say of the Rebellion, its acts are less destructive and its motives less base.

Where do you see it heavily implied? Do we ever see the Empire ''do bad evil stuff to non humans?' or to ''non-white humans'' or do we even hear about it? Was Aderberan full of all aliens and non white humans that we never saw?

And it's not like the Rebels are so multi cultural or anything.

The Rebellion is not spotless. Consider, among other things, Leia's dismissal of Chewie as a "great walking carpet." The Rebellion is more human than not in the original movies, and even more so in Rogue One. (Not so much in Rebels, perhaps.)

What we can say is that the Rebellion is not nearly so human-centric as the Empire, whose power structure consists entirely of humans throughout canon. There are a number of possible reasons for this, but few that reflect kindly on the Empire.

Certainly we know that from a Doylist perspective it cost money and time to add aliens to the cast. But there is still the question of why the creators chose to spend their alien budget on rebels, scum, and mercenaries--always either outside or opposed to the existing power structure. It is only logical to conclude that the existing power structure was hostile to them.

[Susano-wo]

Um, just note the prequels are ''newer'' then the classic films. And the prequels are written from the more modern Hollywood bias outlook on life. Things like the vast majority of bad guy mooks in the prequels are robots because it is politically correct to show someone shoot or stab a robot (and a CGI one at that).

I think you need a reminded to what I was responding to: [bolding mine]

No. At least not until Star Wars Eight, anyway.

The original view was there is The Force. Period. One All Encompassing Force. But The Force has a Dark Side. Not a separate Side, but part of the Force. and more of a Wrong Way to Use the Force. And as far as we see in the original movies all force users have mostly the same powers. The Vader choke is just telekinesis, and any Force user can do that. We only see the Emperor use Force Lightning, but then the original three moves don't have a master Jedi in a big fight (and Old Ben sacrifices himself).

In the Prequels we still don't get a mention of the light side of the Force. But we do get the idea that the Jedi do have rules as to what powers they can call on the Force to do or not do. Any Force user can use any power, but the Jedi of the Old Republic choose to impose limits as to what they would do. For example, It's implied that the Force can bring people back from the dead, but the Jedi refused to do this.

But then comes the last coupe of years....and Disney....so now we are getting hints of ''the light side'' and ''the dark side'' in some sort of cosmic balance. Of course this fits the more modern Hollywood view of everything is everything or nothing is nothing depending on what a person says or thinks or feels at the moment, or not. Or, in other words, everything is ''gray'' and ''people should not judge'' and ''everything is OK, if it's OK to the person doing it."

It really started with the trend of ''Han shot second'', and has grown from there.


Though I guess they can explain the ''Jedi way'' was All Ways wrong...

So, you were making the claim that in the last few years, starting with Disney, there was treatment of the dark side and light side as a sort of cosmic balance. I was saying that at this treatment at least goes back at least to the prequels.

Also, while were at it, it absolutely bizarre that you can talk about Hollywood making everything grey while trying to make shoddy relativistic arguments for how the Empire really isn't that bad, because the rebels are supposedly worse. (and also seemingly identifying Han shooting second as a greying act--its explicitly an act of removing grey by making Han 'less mean.')

[Vinyadan]

Since there has been some talk about killing unarmed officers, I think it's best to remind that, in war, it is normal to do that. It isn't a war crime. If you are fighting against a military ship, and you sink it, and 200 unarmed officers die, you technically did nothing wrong. If you are fighting a tank, you aren't expected to only kill the gunner.

Tarkin instead is evil because he blows up targets which aren't military targets. He says it himself, Alderaan isn't a military target.



And this is Nazi-like evil. The Nazi did destroy whole towns and villages, murdering unarmed civilians to the last, be it because they did not find the information they wanted, be it to give a demonstration of "strength" and ruthlessness, and to make an example of them.

As for Luke using force choke, I always thought he was giving them chest pains or nausea-inducing vertigo.

[lord_khaine]

I think it was very clearly force choke we saw there. It was the same move Vader had repeated several times. Though our very first demonstration of it also showed that the user has indeed complete control over how much he wants to choke the victim. And can leave it at a warning.

[137beth]

Well, that's just silly, since in Return of the Jedi Luke used force choking to get the Gammoreans to back off. So you can't "choke someone to death' to disable, but you can clearly choke them a little to put them out of the fight.

I always interpreted that as showing that Luke was in very real danger of falling to the Dark Side, adding tension to the scene in which Palpatine is trying to make Luke fall to the Dark Side.

Since there has been some talk about killing unarmed officers, I think it's best to remind that, in war, it is normal to do that. It isn't a war crime. If you are fighting against a military ship, and you sink it, and 200 unarmed officers die, you technically did nothing wrong. If you are fighting a tank, you aren't expected to only kill the gunner.

Tarkin instead is evil because he blows up targets which aren't military targets. He says it himself, Alderaan isn't a military target.



And this is Nazi-like evil. The Nazi did destroy whole towns and villages, murdering unarmed civilians to the last, be it because they did not find the information they wanted, be it to give a demonstration of "strength" and ruthlessness, and to make an example of them.

As for Luke using force choke, I always thought he was giving them chest pains or nausea-inducing vertigo.

Yea, the Empire committed genocide against Aleraanians. I'm pretty sure that involved killing more innocent civilians than Hitler did. The Empire is definitely evil in the original movie.

[druid91]

And yet now, thanks to rebels. We know that alderaan was the most blatant nest of anti imperial activity imaginable. Only lasting as long as they did because their plans were so stupid that noone seriously believe they were possible.

[Chen]

His response was essentially it comes down to intent. You can't choke someone to death with intent to disable. You can't fry someone with lightning with intent to protect. You can turn those powers back on a malevolent user, no problem.

I never got how force choking someone was going to the dark side, as was force lightning, but throwing things at people via force telekinesis or just moving fast and striking accurately with your lightsaber while using the force, wasn't.

[Grim Portent]

I never got how force choking someone was going to the dark side, as was force lightning, but throwing things at people via force telekinesis or just moving fast and striking accurately with your lightsaber while using the force, wasn't.

It's a motivations thing, kind of like the unforgiveable curses from Harry Potter, you can't used the killing curse on someone you don't genuinely want to kill. By the same token you can't force choke or force lightning someone just by thinking about it, you have to want to inflict pain and suffering on the target, since both powers are drawn from pain and hate specifically.

Why they're like that is obviously a post hoc meta construct that came from the EU originally, but it is an established theme in the films that some powers are darkside only, with choke and lightning being the movie examples.

[Friv]

And yet now, thanks to rebels. We know that alderaan was the most blatant nest of anti imperial activity imaginable. Only lasting as long as they did because their plans were so stupid that noone seriously believe they were possible.

"There was known terrorist activity there against our government, so we killed everyone involved, everyone potentially involved, everyone standing near the people potentially involved, and everyone who knew the people standing near the people potentially involved" is full-on evil empire behaviour.

If you want to argue that the Imperials lean a bit more Stalinist than Nazi in terms of what sort of fascist totalitarian monsters they are, maybe you can support that, but it's a quibble.

[Lord Joeltion]

I never got how force choking someone was going to the dark side, as was force lightning, but throwing things at people via force telekinesis or just moving fast and striking accurately with your lightsaber while using the force, wasn't.

I can't tell if it was the real source of inspiration, but some philosophies, like some Wiccans, would differentiate "dark arts" from "white magic" based on how you wield said "arts/magic".

It's the difference between "looking for the opportunity" and "creating the opportunity yourself" (it tends to be a pretty arbitrary differentiation, but anyway). More invasive/aggressive techniques tend to be regarded as "darker" than the more passive ones. A "Jedi mind trick" is less invasive than the "bend of will" Kylo uses, for instance. The Jedi "push" is less aggressive than the use of Force Lightning, and certainly less invasive than constricting the organs of your foes.

If you consider than Jedi generally expect the Force to guide them, while Sith try to (ab)use the Force as they will; the EU usual categorization of techniques starts making more sense, following the same train of thoughts.

[Susano-wo]

It's a motivations thing, kind of like the unforgiveable curses from Harry Potter, you can't used the killing curse on someone you don't genuinely want to kill. By the same token you can't force choke or force lightning someone just by thinking about it, you have to want to inflict pain and suffering on the target, since both powers are drawn from pain and hate specifically.

Why they're like that is obviously a post hoc meta construct that came from the EU originally, but it is an established theme in the films that some powers are darkside only, with choke and lightning being the movie examples.

Force choke is used by both Vader and Luke (who was ostensibly taught the basics of by Yoda. The specific application may have been his own, but Yoda's force manipulation training had to have been the basis), and Force Lightning is only used by Palpatine. But we have a sample size of, like, 4 and a half (Yoda never engages people in open conflict like the other 4 do), so its a weird thing to make a conclusion on.

And yeah, it makes no sense that lightsabering someone's head off is ok, but choking them to death, well that's just darkside! Hell, especially if you do it not to death, it could be a great way to incapacitate someone without permanently injuring them

[JBPuffin]

Also, while were at it, it absolutely bizarre that you can talk about Hollywood making everything grey while trying to make shoddy relativistic arguments for how the Empire really isn't that bad, because the rebels are supposedly worse. (and also seemingly identifying Han shooting second as a greying act--its explicitly an act of removing grey by making Han 'less mean.')

Spoiler: TL;DR For Your Convenience

Show

In that first statement, at least, Darth Ultron didn't specifically say the rebels were "worse," just not spotless (which Letho simultaneously agreed with and fussed at them about). If that changed after that first response, I guess that changes the original intent retroactively (as happens to everything for most people - sure, everyone's perspective changes, but I find no evidence of actual rebel-bashing in that quote).

One thing that does fascinate me about Hollywood morals - just like humanity, they're all over the place. First there was conservative legislative enforcement, then a liberation from the harsher restraints, and eventually things will probably settle much farther in the "it's whatever" camp with the end of theatres. So there are trends for movies of a decade, but I think the greying of Hollywood morals is inevitable. Retroactively applying it to other stuff is lying through your teeth, so my post about "maybe the Jedi aren't the be-all end-all of the Force" is bogus (George Lucas may have said as much, and I'll take his word over mine ), but it's not necessarily a problem. It's a trend, though, hands-down. Everything's greyer now, and more saturated, so now we're dealing with rainbows rather than straight up good-vs-bad and whatnot.

Factually, at least, I agree with Ultron that Hollywood has steadily grown more tolerance and political correctness focused. How else do you sell movies to a society evermore concerned with those things? Sure, some people won't care either way, but that's not how you make money. Simple intersection of capitalism and changing social moralities, nothing to see here.

Rambling again as a result of emergent stance-shaping; carry on!

[Keltest]

Force choke is used by both Vader and Luke (who was ostensibly taught the basics of by Yoda. The specific application may have been his own, but Yoda's force manipulation training had to have been the basis), and Force Lightning is only used by Palpatine. But we have a sample size of, like, 4 and a half (Yoda never engages people in open conflict like the other 4 do), so its a weird thing to make a conclusion on.

And yeah, it makes no sense that lightsabering someone's head off is ok, but choking them to death, well that's just darkside! Hell, especially if you do it not to death, it could be a great way to incapacitate someone without permanently injuring them

Actually, I cant think of any lightsaber inflicted deaths that weren't at the very least dancing dangerously close to the Dark Side. Obi-wan was ticked off when he bisected Maul, Mace Windu is generally described as constantly being on the edge of giving in when he fights, Anakin gives in, like, a lot in episodes 2 and 3, Darth Maul is a sith, Vader in the OT has fallen completely, and Obi-wan doesn't actually use a lightsaber to kill General Grievous. Heck, Luke even briefly gave in when he beat up Vader.

I guess Luke kills a few of Jabba's goons on the sandbarge in RotJ?

[Mith]

Actually, I cant think of any lightsaber inflicted deaths that weren't at the very least dancing dangerously close to the Dark Side. Obi-wan was ticked off when he bisected Maul, Mace Windu is generally described as constantly being on the edge of giving in when he fights, Anakin gives in, like, a lot in episodes 2 and 3, Darth Maul is a sith, Vader in the OT has fallen completely, and Obi-wan doesn't actually use a lightsaber to kill General Grievous. Heck, Luke even briefly gave in when he beat up Vader.

I guess Luke kills a few of Jabba's goons on the sandbarge in RotJ?

Pretty sure other Jedi kill non droids at various points in the Prequels as well. Not 100% sure, but I am pretty sure.

[Ebon_Drake]

Pretty sure other Jedi kill non droids at various points in the Prequels as well. Not 100% sure, but I am pretty sure.

Yoda killed a few Clonetroopers on Kashyyyk and at the Jedi temple. The former was clearly self defence but the latter left a bad taste in my mouth. Ki-Adi Mundi might have deflected some shots back onto clonetroopers in the Order 66 sequence, but again that's self defence. I guess on a close watch some of the background Jedi might have killed people too, such as on Geonosis?

[Susano-wo]

Actually, I cant think of any lightsaber inflicted deaths that weren't at the very least dancing dangerously close to the Dark Side. Obi-wan was ticked off when he bisected Maul, Mace Windu is generally described as constantly being on the edge of giving in when he fights, Anakin gives in, like, a lot in episodes 2 and 3, Darth Maul is a sith, Vader in the OT has fallen completely, and Obi-wan doesn't actually use a lightsaber to kill General Grievous. Heck, Luke even briefly gave in when he beat up Vader.

I guess Luke kills a few of Jabba's goons on the sandbarge in RotJ?

Obiwan certainly tried! I don't remember Mace Windu in the movies (or the original clone wars miniseries) as being presented as being close to the darkside.

If you mean in other EU materials..I don't care? I mean, I don't mean to sound dismissive, but when I'm talking about the movies, that's really what I'm talking about. I don't keep up on the EU, because a lot of what I've seen or heard of it is trash. I'm not categorically opposed--I love Zhan's trilogy, for instance-- I just don't bring it in on discussions about the movies.

If you are talking about just the movies, then I guess ignore that last paragraph.

I can agree that if anger and hatred is darkside behavior, and will corrupt a Jedi, then maybe the lightsaber should only be used defensively, which makes the whole sweet flips jedi badassery of the prequels really out of place. The attitude of the movies (if not necessarily always the characters) is woo, cool, look at the awesome lightsaber action! Also, lets not distinguish between killing orgainic beings and droids. they are both living, sapient organisms, so cutting down a droid is just as bad as cutting down a biological lifeform

Unrelated to what you said: As for whether hollywood has grown less or more black and white? that's a whoooole other discussion.

[Vinyadan]

When you think about it, Mace made his angry face while fighting Palpa.



And once he said something Palpa had said

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/a12934c...8-826fcb51481e

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/6b9ff48...9-cc08486d6ccb