Star Wars: The Acolyte official trailer

[Peelee]

The funny thing is that he did that, under the Empire, and it didn't work.

Oh, he and Vader killed a lof of people under the Empire, but i wouldn't say "corruption" was the target they used.

I mean what are we to believe from these people who think the Jedi can do no wrong?

What people? Again, I could have missed it, but I don't recall anyone in this thread who claimed that.

[warty goblin]

There's this odd urge to turn Star Wars into some type of sci-fi besides big budget planetary romance. So there's the attempt to treat it like military sf, or political drama, or what have you, and it just isn't any good at it. It's old timey knights and princesses having big emotional adventures in weird and fantastic spaces, and SW is pretty good at that. Not great, but as good as you're probably gonna get given the utter collapse of the genre simce the 1970s. But it's just compromised at everything else, because no matter how much you layer on top, the base layer is still the fate of the entire galaxy depending on the daddy issues of a couple dudes with the world's most dangerous glowsticks.

[Infernally Clay]

The thing is, the Senate can suck without everyone being corrupt, incompetent, or both. Institutions can fail even while almost every member of that institution is generally doing their best to make it succeed at their goals. Star Wars has a very bad tendency to try and convert all institutional failures into personal ones. For example, rather than having genuine ideological disagreements, we get a pro-platitude and a pro-tyranny side in the government (ex. the Disney New Republic introduced two factions only to have one of them be wholly subverted by the First Order).

And I get that fictional governments are hard, but in Star Wars it often feels like no one is trying.

The thing is, this is Star Wars. It has never been particularly complex. It started off as little more than a science fiction twist on a fairy tale, where the farm boy rescues the princess and becomes the squire of the greatest knight in the land and fights against the evil ruler and his black knight to free the kingdom of their tyranny.

Yeah the prequels are less fairy tale and more dramatic tragedy, but even that simplifies things for the sake of the audience (who are mostly children who aren’t interested in trade or territorial disputes and just want lightsaber duels and big battle scenes). It’s only really the spin off material that ever goes deeper than that and, as this thread has proven on several occasions, people tend to either not pay attention to that stuff as it suits them or they don’t watch it at all.

[Errorname]

There's this odd urge to turn Star Wars into some type of sci-fi besides big budget planetary romance. So there's the attempt to treat it like military sf, or political drama, or what have you, and it just isn't any good at it. It's old timey knights and princesses having big emotional adventures in weird and fantastic spaces, and SW is pretty good at that.

For what it's worth, old timey knights and princesses on fantastic adventures is not a genre with no overlap with military and political matters. Star Wars is a story set during star wars, after all, and the military and political stuff is an important background detail to contextualize the fantastic adventures.

[Mechalich]

For what it's worth, old timey knights and princesses on fantastic adventures is not a genre with no overlap with military and political matters. Star Wars is a story set during star wars, after all, and the military and political stuff is an important background detail to contextualize the fantastic adventures.

Right. Many, many fantasy series go quite in-depth into their own politics. So do traditional adventure sagas from real world history. Heck, there's a lot of politics in the Original Trilogy - the initial capture of the Tantive IV the captain making a political claim 'this is a consular ship,' Leia making a political claim, and that one Imperial officer telling Vader 'holding her is dangerous' followed by Vader explaining why the mission is too important. Yes, it's simplified and yes, it hews strongly to archetype, but it is there and by and large it works. And as long as Star Wars talks about the nuts and bolts of tyrannical political oppression, it generally works. Even Rebels, which has to dumb everything down to the 'comprehensible to eight-year-olds' level manages to have surprising nuance, including how one of the central conflicts of the whole show is a procurement fight: Tarkin vs. Thrawn, Star Destroyer versus TIE Defender.

The problem is that the moment Star Wars shifts to the politics of a nominal democracy, everything goes down the chute. Star Wars features a solid dozen flavors of tyranny, ranging from classic (Galactic Empire) to god-king (Eternal Empire of Zakuul) to bizarre alien blood cult (Yevetha) and more, but pretty much only one flavor of democracy: corrupt and dysfunctional. When people make the whole 'fantasy is inherently pro-monarchy' argument I usually disagree, but Star Wars, as a franchise, absolutely has that problem.

[dancrilis]

That's bad logic, though. Which, no surprise because I've never accused the prequel trilogy of having good writing, but even if we accept that, they don't need to command the clones. They could work as a separate unit themselves without any clone involvement.

I am not sure that would have mattered, the Jedi still relied on republic intelligence and would still have had to be aligned with the clones for operations to avoid issues, so they likely would still have been somewhat under the control of Palpatine.

Request, not demand. But hey, fair point, Kenobi was a brand new Jedi. So it was Kenobi screwing up, then? We see that or are told that, yes? Or do we just see Anakin have fascistic ideation and go do mini-genocides while hiding all that from Kenobi?

For this I am not sure that blame is really a thing.
Take the clones for a moment - many of us over the years have likely made or seen comments relating to 'the Jedi should have investigated further and held them more at arms lenght while not simply discarding them'.
Anakin and the clones have a lot in common in this - the Sith had been missing for a thousand years then they were discovered outside the republic on the same exact planet where the Sith revealed themselves and who had revealed themselves immediately after Anakin (who had an abnormally high force potential) was found - it isn't unreasonable to think that the Sith were involved with Anakin and so that Anakin might be some sleeper agent/biological weapon/etc but it also isn't unreasonable to think that the Sith revealed themselves to retrieve Anakin for whatever plans they had.

A more experienced master might have suited Anakin better but a better trained Anakin might have just been more of a threat to the Jedi.

[KorvinStarmast]

My thoughts on this (long):

Besides the wall of text formatting, that was an interesting read. +1
Short version: don't assign to wrongdoing or malicious intent that which can be explained by simply being bad at one's job. The Jedi Council as we encounter them in the prequels are simply bad at their job. For a corporation, this usually leads to bankruptcy or being bought out, for their political system it meant fracture and failure.

I particularly liked your point about the limitations of super heroes. No, we don't want Batman (nor Superman nor Wonder Woman) to be Prime Minister, nor President, nor Emperor.

The thing is, this is Star Wars. It has never been particularly complex.

Understatement of the week.

[Saph]

What people? Again, I could have missed it, but I don't recall anyone in this thread who claimed that.

Yeah, I'd like an answer to this as well. I keep hearing that this thread is filled with people claiming that the Jedi Order is perfect, but I'm not sure who they're supposed to be.

[Mechalich]

Yeah, I'd like an answer to this as well. I keep hearing that this thread is filled with people claiming that the Jedi Order is perfect, but I'm not sure who they're supposed to be.

While I would not say there has been anyone claiming the Jedi Order was perfect there have been claims advanced that the Jedi Order has no culpability for the various events that resulted in the transition from the Galactic Republic to the Galactic Empire and all the various negative consequences that accompanied that transition. This has included some specific claims involving the options the Jedi Order had regarding Anakin Skywalker and the Clone Army and also general claims that everything can be laid at Palaptine's feet and that the Jedi essentially did the best that they possibly could have.

I would add that, in my understanding at least, the latter point is in some sense advanced by the films themselves. The PT, especially AotC, presents a reading of the Jedi Order that is extremely generous on a superficial viewing, but that rapidly serves to make them look bad when events are examined in any detail. A simple example is found at the beginning of the film, when Palpatine suggests Obi-Wan and Anakin serve as Padme's bodyguards. Sure, it's a cunning move by Palpatine, 'an old friend' and all that, but at the same time Mace Windu's agreement is a huge failure of judgment, since such an arrangement is ripe with the temptation to produce a romantic entanglement and everything about Mace's tone and body language in that scene suggests he's totally oblivious to that potential issue.

At the end of the day, the Jedi Order is obligated to carry the idiot ball at several points during the Prequels. Some of this is plain old bad writing and some of it is inevitability - schemes like Palpatine's rely on the opposition making some pretty big mistakes along the way no matter what - so the Dolyist explanations are pretty clear. The problem comes when we reach for Watsonian explanations, especially as, with the possible exception of Mace Windu who really is just a jerk sometimes, the individual Jedi characters are otherwise capable, selfless, and generally just better than the choices we watch them make. The answer, to me, lies in the difference between the collective actions of institutions and the individual actions of people. Just like how in a police procedural or spy drama the department/agency can be completely inept as an institution while the main characters are all heroes fighting to complete the mission in spite of their superiors, the Jedi can be all great heroes while the Jedi Order has major policy failings, and that's what causes their extraordinarily complete doom.

I also feel a reading of the lore supports this, specifically that Darth Bane correctly identified the strengths and weaknesses of the Jedi as an institution and drastically restructured the Sith (something he was able to do by virtue of being the only Sith left) in a way that specifically allowed the exploitation of those weaknesses. Likewise, Yoda's extremely long tenure as head of the Order served to make the Jedi even more monolithic than they would otherwise be, so they tended to go all in on single approaches rather than trying multiple options.

At the same time, there is very clearly resistance to this analysis in places within the fandom and even among creators, including George Lucas himself, who I believe looks at the actions he wrote for the various Jedi characters in the PT with rose-colored glasses. There's certainly a writing-based reason behind this: if the problems of the Jedi during the PT are entirely personal, then an author writing in another era can use the Jedi Order exactly as portrayed during the PT and need not expend the considerable effort necessary to try and diagnose the Order's institutional flaws and what steps might be needed to correct them (this is doubly appealing given that, during Legends, attempts were made along those lines and there was a lot of infighting as a result). The nature of the ST also reinforces this, since where in Legends there were at least options for a New Jedi Order even if everyone had their own favorite version, it doesn't offer up any real vision of what the Jedi should be at all. The Disney canon version of 'what the Jedi ought to be' is found in the High Republic material, however, it would seem that the influence of the High Republic upon the greater Star Wars franchise is minimal.

[Peelee]

While I would not say there has been anyone claiming the Jedi Order was perfect there have been claims advanced that the Jedi Order has no culpability for the various events

Again, by whom? Because i don't recall anyone, in this thread at least, saying that. Just more passive voice claiming it happened.

[Saph]

While I would not say there has been anyone claiming the Jedi Order was perfect there have been claims advanced that the Jedi Order has no culpability for the various events that resulted in the transition from the Galactic Republic to the Galactic Empire and all the various negative consequences that accompanied that transition.

But again, who are these people? I don't think anyone in this thread has claimed that the Jedi Order didn't make mistakes.

I mean, you summed it up just a few pages ago when you said that the reasons for the fall of the Republic, were, in order:

1. Structural factors impacting the nature of galactic governance in the late post-Russan period.
2. The diabolical machinations of Palpatine and his immediate Sith predecessors.
3. Anakin Skywalker's specific collection of character flaws.
4. Structural factors impacting the Jedi Order and blind-spots resulting from the same.

. . . and I think most people in this thread would broadly agree with that.

The argument as I see it is between the people who want to put the Jedi Order in at number (4) versus the people who want to put the Jedi Order in at number (1).

[Infernally Clay]

Again, by whom? Because i don't recall anyone, in this thread at least, saying that. Just more passive voice claiming it happened.

Do you really want to turn this into "folks pointing fingers at other folks"? 'cause that's just going to turn things hostile. The whole point of referencing trends vaguely is to not name names so we can continue to discuss this topic nicely.

If you wish to argue that it has never been implied or suggested that the Jedi Council did nothing wrong and that you yourself acknowledge the Jedi Council did in fact make mistakes, it would be easy enough for you to prove it by simply agreeing with at least some of the things that has been said regarding their culpability.

As Mechalich has pointed out, there have been many valid examples of members such as myself pointing out instances where the Jedi Council made the wrong choice or could have made a better one, yet some members will always argue they made the best choice they could and it's all Palpatine's fault. Which is just wrong.

We're not saying every decision the Jedi Council made spanning the fifteen years of the prequel trilogy was wrong because that would be absurd, but the movies and supporting material aren't exactly subtle about the fact the Jedi Order's biggest problem was its inability to adapt. It was so set in its ways, so assured it could weather any storm, that it just assumed everyone had to play by its rules.

That's called arrogance, which is a flaw some people are very resistant to attribute to the Jedi even though Yoda himself pointed out it was a flaw becoming more and more common among Jedi.

[Keltest]

Do you really want to turn this into "folks pointing fingers at other folks"? 'cause that's just going to turn things hostile. The whole point of referencing trends vaguely is to not name names so we can continue to discuss this topic nicely.

If you wish to argue that it has never been implied or suggested that the Jedi Council did nothing wrong and that you yourself acknowledge the Jedi Council did in fact make mistakes, it would be easy enough for you to prove it by simply agreeing with at least some of the things that has been said regarding their culpability.

As Mechalich has pointed out, there have been many valid examples of members such as myself pointing out instances where the Jedi Council made the wrong choice or could have made a better one, yet some members will always argue they made the best choice they could and it's all Palpatine's fault. Which is just wrong.

We're not saying every decision the Jedi Council made spanning the fifteen years of the prequel trilogy was wrong because that would be absurd, but the movies and supporting material aren't exactly subtle about the fact the Jedi Order's biggest problem was its inability to adapt. It was so set in its ways, so assured it could weather any storm, that it just assumed everyone had to play by its rules.

That's called arrogance, which is a flaw some people are very resistant to attribute to the Jedi even though Yoda himself pointed out it was a flaw becoming more and more common among Jedi.

Someone can believe that the Council made mistakes while not agreeing with the idea that a particular action was a mistake. But also, if you want to reference a trend, at some point, you need to be willing to demonstrate that trend actually exists. Just because you say there are people who have such and such position doesn't make it true.

[Infernally Clay]

Someone can believe that the Council made mistakes while not agreeing with the idea that a particular action was a mistake.

A particular action or any? It's all well and good arguing for such a vague and nebulous position as "the Council made mistakes but I won't name any or agree with any that are brought up", but it's noncommittal. You're not adding anything to the conversation or debating the points being raised.

At that point you're just shooting down other people's arguments instead of presenting your own.

But also, if you want to reference a trend, at some point, you need to be willing to demonstrate that trend actually exists. Just because you say there are people who have such and such position doesn't make it true.

If multiple people are pointing out a trend, what's more likely? That the trend doesn't exist or that the people who are responsible for that trend just don't want to own up to it?

Sometimes people are so afraid of admitting they're wrong on the internet that they'll say one thing and then insist they meant something else. My own arguments have been mischaracterised several times in this thread but you don't see me making a big fuss about it. I'm just sticking to my guns and proving my points, even if certain people are being extremely rude and dismissive about them.

It hasn't exactly escaped my notice that a certain someone has been replying to posts that disagree with my posts but will not reply to my posts even if I'm rebutting the points they raise against my posts. At that point it isn't about having a discussion but creating an echo chamber to shut down other people's points of view.

[Keltest]

A particular action or any? It's all well and good arguing for such a vague and nebulous position as "the Council made mistakes but I won't name any or agree with any that are brought up", but it's noncommittal. You're not adding anything to the conversation or debating the points being raised.

At that point you're just shooting down other people's arguments instead of presenting your own.



If multiple people are pointing out a trend, what's more likely? That the trend doesn't exist or that the people who are responsible for that trend just don't want to own up to it?

Sometimes people are so afraid of admitting they're wrong on the internet that they'll say one thing and then insist they meant something else. My own arguments have been mischaracterised several times in this thread but you don't see me making a big fuss about it. I'm just sticking to my guns and proving my points, even if certain people are being extremely rude and dismissive about them.

It hasn't exactly escaped my notice that a certain someone has been replying to posts that disagree with my posts but will not reply to my posts even if I'm rebutting the points they raise against my posts. At that point it isn't about having a discussion but creating an echo chamber to shut down other people's points of view.

Unironically, its more likely to me that the trend doesnt exist. Its very easy to attribute to people a position that they don't have, and then others see that people saying such and such trend exists without bothering to fact check. As a general rule, people want their positions to be understood. If someone supports a position, theyre going to own up to it more often than not.

Also, the biggest mistake people have been pointing out is not sticking to their guns and training Anakin as a Jedi. Their first impressions about him were exactly correct.

[KorvinStarmast]

Do you really want to turn this into "folks pointing fingers at other folks"? 'cause that's just going to turn things hostile. The whole point of referencing trends vaguely is to not name names so we can continue to discuss this topic nicely.

Or to set up a strawman that one can set fire to.

In the original trilogy, the shortcomings of the Jedi order are only vaguely hinted at, in part due to Obi Wan being the only Jedi...who remained, and thus a potentially unreliable narrator.

In the prequels, the shortcomings of the order as an institution - and its leadership, Yoda et al - are examined somewhat. Individual Jedi are highlighted as needed to fulfill the plot.

In the sequels, the Jedi border on farcical.

Luke has gone hermit (like Yoda and Obi Wan before him), Ren is a reprise of the petulant teen Anakin, and the ascension of a Mary Sue new Jedi/Force avatar is woven into the whole arc. Not sure if she's going to restore the Order or not, or if everyone will be a freelance force user. Nor do I particularly care, as I've lost interest in what they do next.

Taken as a whole, the Jedi Order is full of holes. You might say that on screen they are the inverse of synergy (synergy being where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts).

As to the Sith, my eye roll at the resurrection of Palpatine was probably heard throughout the movie theater.

(As I do not traffic in EU stuff, nor in the animated series, there are hopefully stories where Jedi come off better in aggregate).

[Infernally Clay]

Also, the biggest mistake people have been pointing out is not sticking to their guns and training Anakin as a Jedi. Their first impressions about him were exactly correct.

Except that wasn't being characterised as a mistake. In fact on multiple occasions it was argued that the Jedi Council bent the rules for Anakin, proving that they did in fact do everything they could for him and therefore didn't make any mistakes in raising him, proving that any character flaws Anakin had were entirely his own fault.

I was the one who raised the point that the Jedi Council should have treated Anakin as a regular Jedi recruit, making him a youngling instead of a padawan so that he spent the next six years building those bonds and that feeling of belonging and earned his promotion to padawan, but guess what? That was shot down too.

(As I do not traffic in EU stuff, nor in the animated series, there are hopefully stories where Jedi come off better in aggregate).

They actually come off worse.

There's a whole arc dedicated to Dooku rooting out corruption in the galaxy by exposing and then dealing with politicians who are abusing their power and authority for personal gain, and what is his reward? Being refused a seat on the Jedi Council for not following the orders of the Senate. This is a big deal because Dooku eventually left the Jedi Order because he felt the Jedi betrayed themselves by knowingly serving corrupt politicians.

Similarly there's another arc where Anakin Skywalker's padawan is accused of blowing up the Jedi Temple despite, I believe, not even being on the planet at the time? The Jedi Council gives her up to the Republic and kicks her out of the Jedi Order so she can be tried as a civilian and it's only because of Anakin ignoring his orders to not intervene that she is proven innocent and thus spared from a public execution.

You want a third example? There's an arc early on where the Separatists reveal a super weapon of incredible power and it takes out a whole bunch of ships and disables the vessel Jedi Master Plo Koon is on. No life support, no engines, nothing. The Jedi Council leaves him to die, forbidding any Jedi from mounting a rescue mission or even looking for survivors. Anakin ignores his orders, rescues Plo Koon and is able to tell the Republic of the Separatists' new superweapon so they can take it out.

These aren't even the only times the Jedi leave one of their own to die or abandon them to their fate.

[Keltest]

Except that wasn't being characterised as a mistake. In fact on multiple occasions it was argued that the Jedi Council bent the rules for Anakin, proving that they did in fact do everything they could for him and therefore didn't make any mistakes in raising him, proving that any character flaws Anakin had were entirely his own fault.

I was the one who raised the point that the Jedi Council should have treated Anakin as a regular Jedi recruit, making him a youngling instead of a padawan so that he spent the next six years building those bonds and that feeling of belonging and earned his promotion to padawan, but guess what? That was shot down too.

Yeah, because Anakin would have been like 6 years older than the other younglings and unable to form those bonds anyway. They wouldnt have been his peers.

[Infernally Clay]

Yeah, because Anakin would have been like 6 years older than the other younglings and unable to form those bonds anyway. They wouldnt have been his peers.

That's not how it works. He wouldn't have been put in a classroom with three year old toddlers. Younglings are taught in classrooms and every indication suggests they're grouped up by age, like a regular school. Anakin absolutely could have been placed in the same group as children his own age, to learn with them. He would have simply been a fifth year exchange student, essentially. It would have greatly helped alleviate his feelings of isolation and exclusion. Imagine being nine years old and feeling like nobody wants you around them, like you should just leave the Jedi Order and go home. Imagine how Anakin felt.

Anakin spent so little time with kids his own age he developed a superiority complex. He began to believe he was better than them because he was a padawan and they were only younglings. Other padawans even tried to bully him because they believed he got special treatment, although it ended badly for them because even at only nine years old Anakin was already more powerful than 90% of the Jedi Order but that's beside the point.

[Keltest]

That's not how it works. He wouldn't have been put in a classroom with three year old toddlers. Younglings are taught in classrooms and every indication suggests they're grouped up by age, like a regular school. Anakin absolutely could have been placed in the same group as children his own age, to learn with them. He would have simply been a fifth year exchange student, essentially. It would have greatly helped alleviate his feelings of isolation and exclusion. Imagine being nine years old and feeling like nobody wants you around them, like you should just leave the Jedi Order and go home. Imagine how Anakin felt.

Anakin spent so little time with kids his own age he developed a superiority complex. He began to believe he was better than them because he was a padawan and they were only younglings. Other padawans even tried to bully him because they believed he got special treatment, although it ended badly for them because even at only nine years old Anakin was already more powerful than 90% of the Jedi Order but that's beside the point.

Being an exchange student only works if youre actually at more or less the same educational level as the group youre joining in. Anakin very much would not have been. He would be massively ahead of the students in some things and hopelessly behind in the rest.

[Mordar]

I don't actually think Palpatine could save the Republic effortlessly, the structural problems go too deep. Also, if he suddenly pulled a 180 many of his allies, catspaws, stooges, and so forth would betray him and strike out on their own, since their interests would no longer align with Palpatine's. Like most would-be dictators, Palpatine's made all kinds of promises in the Senate to people and he has to keep those promises or face a massive backlash (most of these people either eventually are satisfied as Moffs, Generals, etc. or get purged, but prior to becoming Empire, Palpatine is balanced atop a house of cards). Also, by the time TPM begins the various factions that come to make up the CIS are going to start a massive conflict, of some kind, eventually, there's simply nothing the Republic could possibly do to meet their demands and peaceful secession is not viable - someone will start a localized conflict and it will spiral out of control. The result would almost certainly be far, far less expansive than the Clone Wars, but there would still be a big war. Which is not to say that he could not save the Republic, but it would be really, really hard.

Certainly not effortlessly, but in all likelihood Palpatine had a better chance of saving the Republic (in a transformative sense, anyway) than any version of their Senate could accomplish. He was willing to make tough, draconian decisions that would sharpen the focus of the Republic and manage the resources and advantages rather than trying to save all aspects of the Republic. You'd be left with a smaller, but stronger, Rome, with the potential for re-growth down the road.

Of course, he could never not be Sidious, so he'd never actually try to save the Republic.

I dunno, i think it depends on just how many corrupt Galactic Republic politicians he's willing to murder.

All of them. All of them feels right.

- M

[Errorname]

Also, the biggest mistake people have been pointing out is not sticking to their guns and training Anakin as a Jedi. Their first impressions about him were exactly correct.

I would certainly hope the intent was not for the ten-year old to be a completely lost cause because he's angry about having been born into slavery and having had to leave his mom behind.

I was the one who raised the point that the Jedi Council should have treated Anakin as a regular Jedi recruit, making him a youngling instead of a padawan so that he spent the next six years building those bonds and that feeling of belonging and earned his promotion to padawan, but guess what? That was shot down too.

Functionally, what you are suggesting is tossing a third grader into kindergarden, and the problems with that idea require no explanation.

[Infernally Clay]

Being an exchange student only works if youre actually at more or less the same educational level as the group youre joining in. Anakin very much would not have been. He would be massively ahead of the students in some things and hopelessly behind in the rest.

Anakin already used the Force to blow up a Trade Federation battleship and win that podrace, among other things. To say his understanding of and ability with the Force exceeded that of younglings his own age would be an understatement. He would have been fine.

Besides, what exactly do you think the Jedi Order could teach three to seven year olds that they couldn't teach an eight year old much more quickly? Anakin was a genius, remember. He built working robots and vehicles from scratch.

I get that you're trying to pick this apart but are you trying to prove you agree that the Jedi Council shouldn't have treated Anakin differently to other Jedi or are you trying to argue that the Jedi Council did nothing wrong in raising him?

Functionally, what you are suggesting is tossing a third grader into kindergarden, and the problems with that idea require no explanation.

I have to admit it's kinda getting a little exhausting that a point as simple as "the Jedi Council should have put Anakin in a classroom with children his own age so that he would feel like he belonged and could make friends" is being misconstrued as "the Jedi Council should have put Anakin in a classroom with toddlers". That's obviously not what I'm saying and I genuinely don't know how more simply I can put it.

Anakin never felt like he belonged in the Jedi Order. Within a year of joining it, he wanted to leave and that feeling never went away for the next fourteen years. He spent very little time on Coruscant, always going off on missions with Obi-Wan, to the point where you could be forgiven for suspecting the Jedi Council was keeping him off-world on purpose.

That's messed up. He's just a kid. Life had been hard enough for him as it was on Tatooine but at least there he had his mother and his friends. Imagine giving up even that meager life for a Jedi Order that doesn't want you around. He deserved better.

[warty goblin]

Except that wasn't being characterised as a mistake. In fact on multiple occasions it was argued that the Jedi Council bent the rules for Anakin, proving that they did in fact do everything they could for him and therefore didn't make any mistakes in raising him, proving that any character flaws Anakin had were entirely his own fault.

The mistake that I think people are saying the Jedi made wasn't in how they raised Anakin, but that they did so at all. He was too old, too full of fear for the Jedi methods to work, and unlike a lot of mistakes the Jedi have been accused of asking, they actually knew it at the time. But they did take him, and seem to have done the best they could. It's quite possible to make an initial mistake, do everything afterwards as well as plausible, and still be absolutely sunk by that original error.

They actually come off worse.

There's a whole arc dedicated to Dooku rooting out corruption in the galaxy by exposing and then dealing with politicians who are abusing their power and authority for personal gain, and what is his reward? Being refused a seat on the Jedi Council for not following the orders of the Senate. This is a big deal because Dooku eventually left the Jedi Order because he felt the Jedi betrayed themselves by knowingly serving corrupt politicians.

Similarly there's another arc where Anakin Skywalker's padawan is accused of blowing up the Jedi Temple despite, I believe, not even being on the planet at the time? The Jedi Council gives her up to the Republic and kicks her out of the Jedi Order so she can be tried as a civilian and it's only because of Anakin ignoring his orders to not intervene that she is proven innocent and thus spared from a public execution.

You want a third example? There's an arc early on where the Separatists reveal a super weapon of incredible power and it takes out a whole bunch of ships and disables the vessel Jedi Master Plo Koon is on. No life support, no engines, nothing. The Jedi Council leaves him to die, forbidding any Jedi from mounting a rescue mission or even looking for survivors. Anakin ignores his orders, rescues Plo Koon and is able to tell the Republic of the Separatists' new superweapon so they can take it out.

These aren't even the only times the Jedi leave one of their own to die or abandon them to their fate.

I have an powerful explanation and solution for all of this, Filoni is not good at writing and should be ignored. Yeah sure his stuff is canon, but canon is a silly idea and far too much weight gets put on what is essentially a marketing gimmick. No better proof of this exists than Rise of Skywalker, a 100% canon piece of purified dog turd only separated from Z grade fan fiction by IP law and a giant budget. Since I don't feel any particular reason to give Disney lawyers creative control of my thoughts because they cut a check, I can just ignore the whole dumb mess. It's a great way to live.


A second thought experiment of the pointlessness of official canon, let us suppose SW is still popular when it starts to enter into the public domain. Is anybody telling SW stories then going to give a dessicated donkey butt about the crap Disney has shoveled out in the last ten years? No. They're gonna take the characters and the basic concepts and run wild with them, because that's what people do with stories.

A weird thing about the nerd approach to narrative is thinking the lore needs to be a carefully cateloged and tended and consistent thing for ongoing narrative to work, but this is just an accident of living in the only period of human history so silly and enthralled to capital to think stories should be owned. Lore is just a byproduct of telling individual stories, and stories are always socially contingent things. What matters is the characters and how they can be recombined, rebuilt, reinterpreted and reused over time. As the social situation changes, the lore gets blurry and ultimately one is left with the reality of each text standing or failing on its own. Does Lancelot sleep with Guinevere? There's no canon "right" answer, only answers for particular Lancelots and Guineveres in particular stories.

And I watched Mando S3. Filoni's texts fall on their own because they are bad and he does not get character and theme except vaguely and by accident.

[Infernally Clay]

The mistake that I think people are saying the Jedi made wasn't in how they raised Anakin, but that they did so at all. He was too old, too full of fear for the Jedi methods to work, and unlike a lot of mistakes the Jedi have been accused of asking, they actually knew it at the time. But they did take him, and seem to have done the best they could. It's quite possible to make an initial mistake, do everything afterwards as well as plausible, and still be absolutely sunk by that original error.

In this instance I do agree that the Jedi Council had no choice. They couldn't not train Anakin because Obi-Wan would have simply left the Order and done it himself, plus there's the moral obligation surrounding it too. The Council knew that the Sith were out there and they couldn't risk the Chosen One falling to the dark side, so they brought him into the Order but did a very bad job of making him feel like he belonged there because as far as they were concerned it's a great honour and he should just be happy they accepted him at all.

I have an powerful explanation and solution for all of this, Filoni is not good at writing and should be ignored.

I would argue it isn't bad. The idea that this monolithic religion that hasn't had to change or adapt for a thousand years is so set in its ways that it clearly has extraordinarily archaic traditions and cares much less about the individual than it does the whole makes perfect sense and it is narratively compelling that they're the good guys and that the fate of the whole galaxy rests on their ability to adapt to the current threat and the galaxy ultimately falls because they failed to.

The Jedi do not fear death because death is simply becoming one with the Force and of course they practice a very strict belief in having no earthly attachments, but most importantly they believe everything happens according to the will of the Force so on some level it makes sense that they don't try very hard to rescue their fellow Jedi from death because dying is kinda something to be celebrated. It's simply what the Force wills.

The thing is, this is where they come unstuck. They believe they can overcome anything, weather any storm, as long as they hold true to their traditions, that the Jedi Order will always endure no matter the personal cost, but they're wrong and they have no idea how wrong they are.

We see the Jedi Order through the eyes of Anakin Skywalker and he's a lot like an audience surrogate in that sense. Like us, his morals are much more "normal". You see someone in trouble, you help them. Someone you love gets hurt, you get angry. You get denied a promotion you believe you have earned, you get insulted. The problem is, of course, that the Jedi Order doesn't work on normal morals and there is friction there. Anakin frequently ignores orders to do what's right and it frequently gets him in trouble with the higher ups, except the audience isn't going to side with the Council when they're chewing him out for saving another life.

That's why it's kinda baffling that some people here insist the Jedi were in the right when the whole point is they weren't. If everything happens because the Force wills it then Anakin's arrival at the Jedi Order was itself a test to see if the Jedi Council could adapt and have faith in the designs the Force had, just as much as it was a test for Anakin to see if he could rise to the occasion and become the Chosen One in more than just name. They both failed.

[pendell]

A particular action or any? It's all well and good arguing for such a vague and nebulous position as "the Council made mistakes but I won't name any or agree with any that are brought up", but it's noncommittal. You're not adding anything to the conversation or debating the points being raised.

At that point you're just shooting down other people's arguments instead of presenting your own.



If multiple people are pointing out a trend, what's more likely? That the trend doesn't exist or that the people who are responsible for that trend just don't want to own up to it?

Sometimes people are so afraid of admitting they're wrong on the internet that they'll say one thing and then insist they meant something else. My own arguments have been mischaracterised several times in this thread but you don't see me making a big fuss about it. I'm just sticking to my guns and proving my points, even if certain people are being extremely rude and dismissive about them.

It hasn't exactly escaped my notice that a certain someone has been replying to posts that disagree with my posts but will not reply to my posts even if I'm rebutting the points they raise against my posts. At that point it isn't about having a discussion but creating an echo chamber to shut down other people's points of view.

The never-ending argument I'm aware of is that there are advocates like myself who say the Jedi were wrong to participate in the clone wars, at least the way they did, and I base this on the ROTS novelization, where the author directly called that out as a mistake.

Others, such as SapphireGuard, disagree. They point out that neutrality isn't a practical option for a group which has been the peacekeeping arm of the Republic; the most likely outcome (they argue) of neutrality is the entire galaxy hating them. There really is no easy way out of the dilemma. They also point out that the novelization's author is not infallible; it is one view among many and may not reflect Lucas' view.

We've reviewed the topic, as well as others, such as the blindness of the Jedi to events around them (Yoda noting that the force is clouded, and how they must be 'blind' not to foresee the cloud army. But what it really comes down to is what kind of story you think this is.

If you believe this is a story about institutional decay and failure of the constitutional order in the face of overwhelming evil, like me, you start finding fault with the Jedi council and their decisions.

If you believe this is a story about perfectly honorable, competent people just being completely overwhelmed by space wizard Palpatine who just beats them at everything regardless of what they do because he's just so much better at everything than even the greatest Jedi. If this is the kind of story you think Star Wars is, you're going to defend the actions of the Jedi. We've been having this conversation for years on this board and it all kind of blurs together at this point, but it does seem like there's pretty much nothing we can all accept as a flat-out failure or mistake on the part of the Jedi in the prequels. Whatever they do , be it showing up on Geonosis or their dealing with Anakin or sending Anakin, a teenage male, off for quality alone time with an attractive teenage female, or accepting command of the clone army, there is always a defense of some kind.

I'm not trying to pick on SapphireGuard or Peelee or the other people who disagree with me; they DO have some valid points. It's just that we've been to this movie so many times I'm just not interested in arguing the case any more, unless some new information presents itself.

What I will say is that I don't think the prequels are trying to show us the Jedi are stupid or incompetent. It is possible for people to be well-meaning, skilled, and yet completely out of their depth to face a particular threat. Imagine horse cavalry soldiers in WW1 charging machine guns. Which sounds stupid, and it was stupid, but the reason things like that happen is because there had been radical technological change in the past hundred years. It's only three generations from Napoleonic muzzle-loading muskets to airplanes and machine guns. The generals who fought in WW1 had skills -- which is how they got to be generals in their first place -- but their skill set had not kept pace with the technology of war.

The Sith had adapted and come at the Jedi with a new threat while the Jedi had not adapted to the threat of the Sith. it's not that they are stupid or incompetent; it's that they were victims of their own success and saw no reason to change. At least, that's my view. It doesn't help that one of the chief voices on the Council WAS over 800 years old and was a force for continuing tradition rather than innovation or change.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[ecarden]

The never-ending argument I'm aware of is that there are advocates like myself who say the Jedi were wrong to participate in the clone wars, at least the way they did, and I base this on the ROTS novelization, where the author directly called that out as a mistake.

Others, such as SapphireGuard, disagree. They point out that neutrality isn't a practical option for a group which has been the peacekeeping arm of the Republic; the most likely outcome (they argue) of neutrality is the entire galaxy hating them. There really is no easy way out of the dilemma.

We've reviewed the topic, as well as others, such as the blindness of the Jedi to events around them (Yoda noting that the force is clouded, and how they must be 'blind' not to foresee the cloud army. But what it really comes down to is what kind of story you think this is.

If you believe this is a story about institutional decay and failure of the constitutional order in the face of overwhelming evil, like me, you start finding fault with the Jedi council and their decisions.

If you believe this is a story about perfectly honorable, competent people just being completely overwhelmed by space wizard Palpatine who just beats them at everything regardless of what they do because he's just so much better at everything than even the greatest Jedi. If this is the kind of story you think Star Wars is, you're going to defend the actions of the Jedi. We've been having this conversation for years on this board and it all kind of blurs together at this point, but it does seem like there's pretty much nothing we can all accept as a flat-out failure or mistake on the part of the Jedi in the prequels. Whatever they do , be it showing up on Geonosis or their dealing with Anakin or sending Anakin, a teenage male, off for quality alone time with an attractive teenage female, or accepting command of the clone army, there is always a defense of some kind.

I'm not trying to pick on SapphireGuard or Peelee or the other people who disagree with me; they DO have some valid points. It's just that we've been to this movie so many times I'm just not interested in arguing the case any more, unless some new information presents itself.

There's a lot here that's right, but I'd phrase it slightly differently. The PT is definitely "about institutional decay and failure of the constitutional order in the face of overwhelming evil" but it's about the collapse of the Republic. The Jedi fail to save it, but that's a different failure. And the question is, I think was it an institutional/moral failure, or was it merely defeat?

[Mordar]

There's a lot here that's right, but I'd phrase it slightly differently. The PT is definitely "about institutional decay and failure of the constitutional order in the face of overwhelming evil" but it's about the collapse of the Republic. The Jedi fail to save it, but that's a different failure. And the question is, I think was it an institutional/moral failure, or was it merely defeat?

Maybe my biggest quibble - it isn't that Jedi "fail" to save it. The Senate fails to save it. The Jedi both delay and hasten the collapse (delay because they do prevent quicker action on Sidious' part, hasten because they bring Anakin into play), and while they have a chance to thwart Sidious, their responsibility is not to save or restructure the Republic, IMO.

- M

[KorvinStarmast]

It's quite possible to make an initial mistake, do everything afterwards as well as plausible, and still be absolutely sunk by that original error.

And then you get blamed by all of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks. History is replete with examples, I'll not delve into them.

... canon is a silly idea and far too much weight gets put on what is essentially a marketing gimmick. No better proof of this exists than Rise of Skywalker, a 100% canon piece of purified dog turd only separated from Z grade fan fiction by IP law and a giant budget. Since I don't feel any particular reason to give Disney lawyers creative control of my thoughts because they cut a check, I can just ignore the whole dumb mess. It's a great way to live.

+1.

Is anybody telling SW stories then going to give a dessicated donkey butt about the crap Disney has shoveled out in the last ten years? No. They're gonna take the characters and the basic concepts and run wild with them, because that's what people do with stories.

A weird thing about the nerd approach to narrative is thinking the lore needs to be a carefully catelogued and tended and consistent thing for ongoing narrative to work, but this is just an accident of living in the only period of human history so silly and enthralled to capital to think stories should be owned.

well played.

Lore is just a byproduct of telling individual stories, and stories are always socially contingent things. What matters is the characters and how they can be recombined, rebuilt, reinterpreted and reused over time. As the social situation changes, the lore gets blurry and ultimately one is left with the reality of each text standing or failing on its own. Does Lancelot sleep with Guinevere? There's no canon "right" answer, only answers for particular Lancelots and Guineveres in particular stories.

Julia Ormond was so darned beautiful in First Knight ... how could Richard Gere resist?

What I will say is that I don't think the prequels are trying to show us the Jedi are stupid or incompetent. It is possible for people to be well-meaning, skilled, and yet completely out of their depth to face a particular threat.

Yes. Good example offered.

It doesn't help that one of the chief voices on the Council WAS over 800 y ears old and was a force for continuing tradition rather than innovation or change.

Maybe, in ESB, Yoda died because he wanted to. Maybe he could no longer live with the shame, and he saw it happening again with Luke.

And the question is, I think was it an institutional/moral failure, or was it merely defeat?

Why can't it be both?

[Infernally Clay]

The never-ending argument I'm aware of is that there are advocates like myself who say the Jedi were wrong to participate in the clone wars, at least the way they did, and I base this on the ROTS novelization, where the author directly called that out as a mistake.

Others, such as SapphireGuard, disagree. They point out that neutrality isn't a practical option for a group which has been the peacekeeping arm of the Republic; the most likely outcome (they argue) of neutrality is the entire galaxy hating them. There really is no easy way out of the dilemma.

We've reviewed the topic, as well as others, such as the blindness of the Jedi to events around them (Yoda noting that the force is clouded, and how they must be 'blind' not to foresee the cloud army. But what it really comes down to is what kind of story you think this is.

If you believe this is a story about institutional decay and failure of the constitutional order in the face of overwhelming evil, like me, you start finding fault with the Jedi council and their decisions.

If you believe this is a story about perfectly honorable, competent people just being completely overwhelmed by space wizard Palpatine who just beats them at everything regardless of what they do because he's just so much better at everything than even the greatest Jedi. If this is the kind of story you think Star Wars is, you're going to defend the actions of the Jedi. We've been having this conversation for years on this board and it all kind of blurs together at this point, but it does seem like there's pretty much nothing we can all accept as a flat-out failure or mistake on the part of the Jedi in the prequels. Whatever they do , be it showing up on Geonosis or their dealing with Anakin or sending Anakin, a teenage male, off for quality alone time with an attractive teenage female, or accepting command of the clone army, there is always a defense of some kind.

I'm not trying to pick on SapphireGuard or Peelee or the other people who disagree with me; they DO have some valid points. It's just that we've been to this movie so many times I'm just not interested in arguing the case any more, unless some new information presents itself.

What I will say is that I don't think the prequels are trying to show us the Jedi are stupid or incompetent. It is possible for people to be well-meaning, skilled, and yet completely out of their depth to face a particular threat. Imagine horse cavalry soldiers in WW1 charging machine guns. Which sounds stupid, and it was stupid, but the reason things like that happen is because there had been radical technological change in the past hundred years. It's only three generations from Napoleonic muzzle-loading muskets to airplanes and machine guns. The generals who fought in WW1 had skills -- which is how they got to be generals in their first place -- but their skill set had not kept pace with the technology of war.

The Sith had adapted and come at the Jedi with a new threat while the Jedi had not adapted to the threat of the Sith. it's not that they are stupid or incompetent; it's that they were victims of their own success and saw no reason to change. At least, that's my view. It doesn't help that one of the chief voices on the Council WAS over 800 years old and was a force for continuing tradition rather than innovation or change.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

That's a pretty good way of putting it and it does help explain the differences in opinions. I guess some people would prefer the simplicity of pointing at Palpatine and blaming him for everything, even if there were cracks in the walls long before he showed up.

I see the Jedi Order as, as I said, a monolithic religion that hasn't had to change or adapt for a thousand years and is so set in its ways that it holds fiercely to its archaic traditions and cares much less about the individual than it does the whole. That the Council believes that as long as the Jedi Order endures, the personal cost to allow it to do so is an acceptable one and everyone sacrifices something.

The thing is, I genuinely consider that to be a fantastic narrative choice. People complain that it's bad writing that the Jedi Order was so deeply flawed but I think it's a great set up for a conflict. As you say, the Sith saw where they went wrong and adapted. The Jedi, however, did something right one time and then decided they'd never do anything different again. That doesn't make the Jedi bad people, just misguided in their overconfidence, which is a compelling way to tell the story of how the Jedi Order fell.

The fact that we can go back and look at the choices the Jedi Council made and identify when their strict adherence to tradition overcame their common sense is actually a good thing, because it provides clarity and context. We can see where they went wrong, and the debate should really be less about what they did wrong and more about what they could have done better.

It shouldn't be a controversial opinion to say that the Jedi Council was wrong to do nothing with the information they were given about the clone army being manufactured by Dooku, for example, but there is obviously some debate to be had regarding what they should have done instead.