Quote from: ForgottenF on June 19, 2024, 12:14:15 PMThe whole point is to recognize your negative emotions, understand them, and then overcome them so that you can do good. Emotions, even positive ones, are usually destructive when not tempered by self-control. Love becomes jealousy, conviction becomes hubris, motivation becomes impatience, compassion becomes self-martyrdom, etc. etc. This should be pretty basic stuff.

I don't think self-control accurately describes the prequel Jedi, though. Never marrying, and never protecting your own family isn't just tempering love with self-control. Likewise, taking a young child from his mother, leaving her in slavery and telling him to never try to save her, or even visit her. That's not love tempered by self-control. That's destructive repression, and it is a move by cults to disorient and reprogram.

Emotions like love and compassion don't have to be overcome. They are a source of strength and conviction. Self-control is involved in guiding and focusing and learning from that love, but not in overcoming it.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 19, 2024, 12:14:15 PMThe OT understands this a lot better than Pop Culture Detective does. Neither Obi-Wan nor Yoda are emotionless automatons (nor is Qui-Gon it has to be said). They laugh; they smile; Obi-Wan in particular shows a great deal of affection, both to Luke and in his memories of Anakin. Obi-Wan is basically the stereotype of the "wise mentor" figure: wise, caring, calm, etc. But they don't let their emotions get out of control or in the way of what they think needs to be done.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 19, 2024, 12:14:15 PMThe prequels muddle this a bit more. Young Obi-Wan preaches a lot more about detachment, which makes him look like a hypocrite when compared with his own outgoing and emotional personality. Yoda is colder in the prequels as well, and Mace Windu is the closest we get to the emotionless Jedi Master in the whole series. But again, how much of that is intentional? Mace Windu seems to be a character we're supposed to mistrust by the end of ROTS, and all the Jedi Masters are implicitly contrasted against the much warmer and more emotionally intelligent Qui-Gon.

Note - I haven't yet watched any of the videos that BoxCrayonTales wrote, only his first ScreenRant link so far.

I agree that the pattern is intentional - that Qui-Gon is supposed to be warmer, and that the Jedi council was too cold. But all of them support the basic Jedi practices that are intolerable - like pulling toddlers away from their family and putting them into weapons training; teaching them to reject love and family; and more.

Qui-Gon was warmer than most of the rest of the Jedi, but that's an incredibly low bar. He showed no problems with the basic Jedi practices, only urging that Anakin should be trained because he's powerful and destined. That's not actually caring for Anakin's human and good urges to, say, save his mother from slavery.

Before the sequels, looking at just the original trilogy, it was possible to see Kenobi and Yoda as individually flawed people who represented a basically good order. With the prequels, I don't think it's possible.

Quote from: jhkim on June 19, 2024, 04:57:00 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 19, 2024, 12:14:15 PMThe whole point is to recognize your negative emotions, understand them, and then overcome them so that you can do good. Emotions, even positive ones, are usually destructive when not tempered by self-control. Love becomes jealousy, conviction becomes hubris, motivation becomes impatience, compassion becomes self-martyrdom, etc. etc. This should be pretty basic stuff.

I don't think self-control accurately describes the prequel Jedi, though. Never marrying, and never protecting your own family isn't just tempering love with self-control. Likewise, taking a young child from his mother, leaving her in slavery and telling him to never try to save her, or even visit her. That's not love tempered by self-control. That's destructive repression, and it is a move by cults to disorient and reprogram.

Emotions like love and compassion don't have to be overcome. They are a source of strength and conviction. Self-control is involved in guiding and focusing and learning from that love, but not in overcoming it.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 19, 2024, 12:14:15 PMThe OT understands this a lot better than Pop Culture Detective does. Neither Obi-Wan nor Yoda are emotionless automatons (nor is Qui-Gon it has to be said). They laugh; they smile; Obi-Wan in particular shows a great deal of affection, both to Luke and in his memories of Anakin. Obi-Wan is basically the stereotype of the "wise mentor" figure: wise, caring, calm, etc. But they don't let their emotions get out of control or in the way of what they think needs to be done.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 19, 2024, 12:14:15 PMThe prequels muddle this a bit more. Young Obi-Wan preaches a lot more about detachment, which makes him look like a hypocrite when compared with his own outgoing and emotional personality. Yoda is colder in the prequels as well, and Mace Windu is the closest we get to the emotionless Jedi Master in the whole series. But again, how much of that is intentional? Mace Windu seems to be a character we're supposed to mistrust by the end of ROTS, and all the Jedi Masters are implicitly contrasted against the much warmer and more emotionally intelligent Qui-Gon.

Note - I haven't yet watched any of the videos that BoxCrayonTales wrote, only his first ScreenRant link so far.

I agree that the pattern is intentional - that Qui-Gon is supposed to be warmer, and that the Jedi council was too cold. But all of them support the basic Jedi practices that are intolerable - like pulling toddlers away from their family and putting them into weapons training; teaching them to reject love and family; and more.

Anakin chose to go with the Jedi. He was not pulled from anyone.

We have no evidence that the Jedi remove children from their families. Qui Gonn says that Anakin would have been identified earlier, but that's just noting that he has potential. Jedi are allowed to leave the order. Dooku did, and he was a full Jedi Master. Jedi training isn't a prison. Anakin was given a choice, and his mother was right there to supervise. There's no reason to think that it's much different for any child with force potential in the Republic.
We don't know if the children students are removed from their families. For all we know, children in training live at home and commute to the temple to train.
Now, I'll aknowledge that they likely live at the temple, but the problem is that we don't know the details. One of the big issues with the prequels is that Lucas brings up a ton of unanswered questions like this about just how complicit the Jedi are in their own downfall.

I admit showing little children training with lightsabers was dumb. I can fanwank that they were training lightsabers, low powered versions that don't cut. But there's no reason to think that's the case. Another example of Lucas either not explaining his premises fully, or jut not caring.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 19, 2024, 12:14:15 PMThe distinction between selfless and possessive love is a valid and important one, and a great writer could make an exceptional story out of it. Lucas clearly thinks that's what he's doing with Anakin and Padme, but a viewer who doesn't know that could be forgiven for missing it entirely.

  One of the best bits on this comes from WotC's Dark Side Sourcebook from 2001: "A character who acts out of love is in no danger of falling to the Dark Side, but a character who acts out of the need for love risks losing everything."

Hey, I ain't claiming the prequels are well written, because they certainly aren't. I'm not claiming the Jedi come off well from them either, though again I'm not sure they're supposed to.

Not doing anything about Anakin's mother is one of the more egregious errors shown, and it directly leads to their downfall. It reflects particularly badly on Obi Wan, since he volunteers for the role of Anakin's guardian. There are arguments to be made for why they might have made that decision, but they really needed to be in the movie. Otherwise it comes over like George just expected the audience to forget Schmi exists until she becomes useful to the plot.

I suspect you're being unfair to Qui Gon, though. From what we see in the movie there's reason to believe that if Anakin was his pupil, he'd have gone back for her. He does try to get her freed, and the whole "bomb in the brain" plot device is clearly there to explain why he can't free her by force. He just couldn't go back on account of, you know, being dead.

The thing about taking kids from their families seems to be less damning to me than to others. Maybe there's more about this in the EU material that I don't know about. The only Jedi we see recruited in the movies is Anakin, and that's done with both his and his mother's consent. I always assumed that families in the old Republic would voluntarily enroll their children in the Jedi order, whether for the prestige or a better life or because they earnestly believe the Jedi are serving a worthy cause. It's not something I would do, but there's precedent for it in real world monastic orders.

I also don't know at what age the Jedi canonically recruit. The youngest kids we see in the temple look like they might be a couple years younger than Anakin. If canonically they do actually recruit toddlers, then that is really dumb.

EDIT: I had to type this comment up on my phone, and while I was doing it Ratman made at least one of the same points. I'll put a strikethrough through the part that is redundant to save people reading the same argument twice.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 19, 2024, 07:48:54 PMHey, I ain't claiming the prequels are well written, because they certainly aren't. I'm not claiming the Jedi come off well from them either, though again I'm not sure they're supposed to.

Not doing anything about Anakin's mother is one of the more egregious errors shown, and it directly leads to their downfall. It reflects particularly badly on Obi Wan, since he volunteers for the role of Anakin's guardian. There are arguments to be made for why they might have made that decision, but they really needed to be in the movie. Otherwise it comes over like George just expected the audience to forget Schmi exists until she becomes useful to the plot.

I suspect you're being unfair to Qui Gon, though. From what we see in the movie there's reason to believe that if Anakin was his pupil, he'd have gone back for her. He does try to get her freed, and the whole "bomb in the brain" plot device is clearly there to explain why he can't free her by force. He just couldn't go back on account of, you know, being dead.

The thing about taking kids from their families seems to be less damning to me than to others. Maybe there's more about this in the EU material that I don't know about. The only Jedi we see recruited in the movies is Anakin, and that's done with both his and his mother's consent. I always assumed that families in the old Republic would voluntarily enroll their children in the Jedi order, whether for the prestige or a better life or because they earnestly believe the Jedi are serving a worthy cause. It's not something I would do, but there's precedent for it in real world monastic orders.

I also don't know at what age the Jedi canonically recruit. The youngest kids we see in the temple look like they might be a couple years younger than Anakin. If canonically they do actually recruit toddlers, then that is really dumb.

EDIT: I had to type this comment up on my phone, and while I was doing it Ratman made at least one of the same points. I'll put a strikethrough through the part that is redundant to save people reading the same argument twice.

Great minds and all that.
The disturbing thought in the whole child training to me is that it implies that Jedi padawans are taught... I'd even use the word indoctrinated... to not feel unhealthy attachment. And that's part of the reason why Anakin fell to the dark side. He lacked that crucial phase of the training.
But that is the age that children form attachments. We have real life examples of children being raised in this way. The one that I think of is the Jannisaries. A brilliant and ruthless tactic of replacing a child's attachment to their parents with attachment to a father figure in the Sultan. Making them incredibly loyal and self-sacrificing... at first.

Again, I don't know if Lucas even considered this angle for his family friendly space opera movie franchise.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 19, 2024, 08:54:58 PMGreat minds and all that.
The disturbing thought in the whole child training to me is that it implies that Jedi padawans are taught... I'd even use the word indoctrinated... to not feel unhealthy attachment. And that's part of the reason why Anakin fell to the dark side. He lacked that crucial phase of the training.
But that is the age that children form attachments. We have real life examples of children being raised in this way. The one that I think of is the Jannisaries. A brilliant and ruthless tactic of replacing a child's attachment to their parents with attachment to a father figure in the Sultan. Making them incredibly loyal and self-sacrificing... at first.

Again, I don't know if Lucas even considered this angle for his family friendly space opera movie franchise.

He probably didn't think it through. Lucas clearly has a lot of knowledge when it comes to literature, mythology and film, but I've never seen it said that he's well educated on history.

I assume he was thinking of Christian and Buddhist monasteries, which did take in quite young children and raise them within their orders. An interesting theme which comes through in the prequels is the idea of a spiritual institution getting involved with, and eventually subservient to, a political power. People who know more about Chinese history than I do can expound, but my understanding is that the Shaolin temple was at various times an influential political institution in Imperial China, and that that fact is largely responsible for it being repeatedly destroyed. That'd be an interesting accidental historical parallel.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 19, 2024, 08:54:58 PMThe disturbing thought in the whole child training to me is that it implies that Jedi padawans are taught... I'd even use the word indoctrinated... to not feel unhealthy attachment. And that's part of the reason why Anakin fell to the dark side. He lacked that crucial phase of the training.
But that is the age that children form attachments. We have real life examples of children being raised in this way. The one that I think of is the Jannisaries. A brilliant and ruthless tactic of replacing a child's attachment to their parents with attachment to a father figure in the Sultan. Making them incredibly loyal and self-sacrificing... at first.

Yes. That's exactly my point. This is what Lucas wrote. I think he didn't intend it to be as horrible as it is, but it is completely horrible.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 19, 2024, 07:48:54 PMI also don't know at what age the Jedi canonically recruit. The youngest kids we see in the temple look like they might be a couple years younger than Anakin. If canonically they do actually recruit toddlers, then that is really dumb.

The lore is that they normally test children for midichlorians at birth, and recruit them before age 6. At age 9, Anakin was too old to be recruited and required special dispensation that he nearly failed, because he cared and worried for his mother. For example, here's Ahsoka Tano being recruited in "The Gathering" - estimated to be around 3 years old.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 19, 2024, 06:53:39 PMWe don't know if the children students are removed from their families. For all we know, children in training live at home and commute to the temple to train.

Like your suggestion that younglings only had safety "training light sabers", I don't think this is supported even in the main films, and certainly not in the wider lore. In The Clone Wars, we see Ahsoka being recruited as a toddler, and it is treated as normal. In Anakin's case, no one mentions or suggests that he should have family with him. It's not just a personal failure by Obi Wan. Anakin desperately wants to free or at least visit his mother, but he is never allowed to see her. It's the implied standard for the Jedi order, that no one questions or complains about.

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The whole point of the prequel plotlines is that the Jedi are not acting for good. They are setting up storm troopers and totalitarian imperial rule, which is an easy step for them since they already act essentially as secret police who are above the law, which they justify because democracy is corrupt.

That's what Lucas intended for them. I don't think he quite understood how awful he was making them, but they are pretty awful - and are only kept looking vaguely good because the Sith are portrayed even worse.

Quote from: jhkim on June 20, 2024, 12:35:37 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 19, 2024, 08:54:58 PMThe disturbing thought in the whole child training to me is that it implies that Jedi padawans are taught... I'd even use the word indoctrinated... to not feel unhealthy attachment. And that's part of the reason why Anakin fell to the dark side. He lacked that crucial phase of the training.
But that is the age that children form attachments. We have real life examples of children being raised in this way. The one that I think of is the Jannisaries. A brilliant and ruthless tactic of replacing a child's attachment to their parents with attachment to a father figure in the Sultan. Making them incredibly loyal and self-sacrificing... at first.

Yes. That's exactly my point. This is what Lucas wrote. I think he didn't intend it to be as horrible as it is, but it is completely horrible.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 19, 2024, 07:48:54 PMI also don't know at what age the Jedi canonically recruit. The youngest kids we see in the temple look like they might be a couple years younger than Anakin. If canonically they do actually recruit toddlers, then that is really dumb.

The lore is that they normally test children for midichlorians at birth, and recruit them before age 6. At age 9, Anakin was too old to be recruited and required special dispensation that he nearly failed, because he cared and worried for his mother. For example, here's Ahsoka Tano being recruited in "The Gathering" - estimated to be around 3 years old.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 19, 2024, 06:53:39 PMWe don't know if the children students are removed from their families. For all we know, children in training live at home and commute to the temple to train.

Like your suggestion that younglings only had safety "training light sabers", I don't think this is supported even in the main films, and certainly not in the wider lore. In The Clone Wars, we see Ahsoka being recruited as a toddler, and it is treated as normal. In Anakin's case, no one mentions or suggests that he should have family with him. It's not just a personal failure by Obi Wan. Anakin desperately wants to free or at least visit his mother, but he is never allowed to see her. It's the implied standard for the Jedi order, that no one questions or complains about.

If so, then we're faced with the issue that, as portrayed in the films, the Jedi were correct. Their system worked for a thousand years and it's when tradition was broken by Qui Gonn, that Anakin was in severe danger of turning to the Dark Side.

Quote---

The whole point of the prequel plotlines is that the Jedi are not acting for good. They are setting up storm troopers and totalitarian imperial rule, which is an easy step for them since they already act essentially as secret police who are above the law, which they justify because democracy is corrupt.

That's what Lucas intended for them. I don't think he quite understood how awful he was making them, but they are pretty awful - and are only kept looking vaguely good because the Sith are portrayed even worse.

That's not what I took from the films. The Jedi were just as duped as the rest of galactic society into participating in Palpatine's master plan.

Quote from: jhkim on June 20, 2024, 12:35:37 AMThe lore is that they normally test children for midichlorians at birth, and recruit them before age 6.

Yeah that's so ridiculous it made me google whether or not George Lucas has children. Turns out all three of his kids were adopted, and now I wonder at what age he adopted them. I have a 3 year old, and kids at that age are 1) even more attached to their mothers, and 2) pointless to put into any kind of training. Also, it turns out that one of his daughters is a former pro MMA fighter, so that's a fun fact.

The idea of the Jedi somehow blood-testing every child in the Republic at birth is preposterous anyway. Ironically, the method of recruitment we're shown with Anakin, where a wandering master runs into a promising pupil and offers to the pupils parents to take the child on as an apprentice, makes more sense and also aligns more closely with the whole monk/kung fu inspiration.

Quote from: jhkim on June 20, 2024, 12:35:37 AMLike your suggestion that younglings only had safety "training light sabers", I don't think this is supported even in the main films, and certainly not in the wider lore.

I seem to remember something from the EU stuff about the power on a lightsaber being able to be turned down to the point where it becomes essentially harmless. If that's true, then we could reasonably presume that they put some kind of power limiter on the kids' lightsabers. The alternative is so unbelievable you'd have to chalk it up to a film-making error. If they let 7 year olds wave real lightsabers around, none of them would live long enough to become Padawans.

Quote from: jhkim on June 20, 2024, 12:35:37 AMAnakin was too old to be recruited and required special dispensation that he nearly failed, because he cared and worried for his mother

Being fair to the movie, I think we're supposed to read from that scene that Yoda senses something beyond just the usual childhood attachment to a parent in Anakin, and the Jedi Counsel only relents because they don't want Obi-Wan going rogue and training him outside the order. There's still problems with that. One would be that if they sense all this dark side potential in Anakin, not training him is probably more dangerous than training him. Another is that it suggests the counsel is so impotent that a single newly appointed Jedi can force them to reverse policy just by refusing to comply.

The primary problem with the "Jedi" and their portrayal is one of unexpected success.  If you understand the source material for Star Wars (especially Kurosawa films), it becomes patently obvious that Jedi and the Force were simply California pop-culture reframing of the idea of stoic Buddhist warriors.  Much like a samurai longing for the "good old days" after the Meiji Restoration, Obi-wan looks back on a more "civilized" age.  It was a vague concept Lucas added in to the trilogy to give it a mythic quality, and to allow his space opera to have "magic" without needing magic.

The problem comes when the prequels are needed to actually show that "civilized" age.  Anyone that has listened to Lucas opine on political/social topics will recognize that he's not a "deep" thinker.  He had to come up with a direct demonstration of what the Jedi Order actually looked like, and he threw together a concept based on Hollywood-Buddhism (see Seven Years in Tibet...) and a surface construction of what training would be necessary to create a stoic warrior class that didn't constantly fall to the dark side.

Anyone who is trying to ascribe a deeper meaning or coherent philosophy to the portrayal of the Jedi in the prequels is... for lack of a better term... brutally ignorant.  Is the Jedi Order in the prequels coherent, logical, and suited to their description in the original trilogy?  Hell, no!  The better question is, considering who George Lucas is and the fact that this is a space opera (and blatantly not science fiction), why are you expecting a coherent and logical philosophy from these movies?

And this is the much greater failing of the Acolyte.  It doesn't fail because it contradicts the lore.  It fails because it is a terrible story.  It isn't mythic, isn't thematically consistent, and it isn't space opera.  So it's not Star Wars...

Wait, the jedi perform tests on every child born in the republic at or near their birth? That makes absolutely no sense unless the test is a normal part of pediatric care and can be performed by non-jedi. There should also be a billion jedi running around unless the galaxy is super under populated a la the Stargate galaxy (where canonically Earth outnumbers the rest of the galaxy combined).

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 20, 2024, 09:15:44 AMAnyone who is trying to ascribe a deeper meaning or coherent philosophy to the portrayal of the Jedi in the prequels is... for lack of a better term... brutally ignorant.  Is the Jedi Order in the prequels coherent, logical, and suited to their description in the original trilogy?  Hell, no!  The better question is, considering who George Lucas is and the fact that this is a space opera (and blatantly not science fiction), why are you expecting a coherent and logical philosophy from these movies?

Ayup. It's a similar argument to the Droid Enslavement discussion we had a bit ago. It's hard to grapple with such issues when the film maker clearly didn't give two shits. Are droids people? Are Jedi Padawans indoctrinated child enforcers? Who fuggin cares? Pew! Pew! Boom!

I think people go off the rails because the original trilogy did have a somewhat coherent philosophy. But Lucas lost it somewhere between ROTJ and the Special Editions.

QuoteAnd this is the much greater failing of the Acolyte.  It doesn't fail because it contradicts the lore.  It fails because it is a terrible story.  It isn't mythic, isn't thematically consistent, and it isn't space opera.  So it's not Star Wars...

That is the tradegy of Darth Kennedy the Foolish. Disney Star Wars doesn't even recognize what made the films popular in the first place.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 18, 2024, 11:47:10 PMLucas has explained that the Dark Side is being out of balance. When you lose control of your darker impulses and they overwhelm you.

Lukas has shown time and again that he has no fucking clue about the very thing he helped create. Kind of like the designers of 5e D&D.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 20, 2024, 04:47:40 PMIt's a similar argument to the Droid Enslavement discussion we had a bit ago. It's hard to grapple with such issues when the film maker clearly didn't give two shits. Are droids people? Are Jedi Padawans indoctrinated child enforcers? Who fuggin cares? Pew! Pew! Boom!

I think people go off the rails because the original trilogy did have a somewhat coherent philosophy. But Lucas lost it somewhere between ROTJ and the Special Editions.

Quote from: Omega on June 20, 2024, 06:12:22 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 18, 2024, 11:47:10 PMLucas has explained that the Dark Side is being out of balance. When you lose control of your darker impulses and they overwhelm you.

Lukas has shown time and again that he has no fucking clue about the very thing he helped create. Kind of like the designers of 5e D&D.

Agreed, Omega. I find conservative defense of Lucas weird - when he is a Californian leftist hippy who explicitly wrote that the theme was "a large technological empire going after a small group of freedom fighters" and said "When I did it, they were Viet Cong". He's pushing a distorted view of Eastern religion that is at odds with Christian family values.

Sure, they're action movies - but they're for kids. Personally, I care more about the moral message in movies for kids than I would in, say, an R-rated horror movie or drama. Kids are a lot more impressionable. I still remember talking about the prequels with my son after he saw them.

I'm trying not to dwell on obscure points or fan theories. Anakin being separated from his mother and not allowed to help or visit her because of Jedi rules was at the center of the prequel movies. The light-saber-wielding younglings were prominent as well. Similar is how they willingly adopted and used clone troopers.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 20, 2024, 09:15:44 AMThe primary problem with the "Jedi" and their portrayal is one of unexpected success.  If you understand the source material for Star Wars (especially Kurosawa films), it becomes patently obvious that Jedi and the Force were simply California pop-culture reframing of the idea of stoic Buddhist warriors.  Much like a samurai longing for the "good old days" after the Meiji Restoration, Obi-wan looks back on a more "civilized" age.

I'd broadly agree with that, but I don't think that resolves the question. One of my favorite Hong Kong action movies is Tai Chi Master (1993) which stars Jet Li and Chin Siu Ho as orphans raised in a Buddhist monastery. The theme of the movie is how awful and abusive their upbringing was, which leads Chin Siu Ho's character to become a violent warlord, while Jet Li's character recovers and learns a more balanced way by finding a family and harmony (i.e. Tai Chi).

In Kurosawa's movies, the old samurai order is not shown as unquestionable good. Kurosawa is famous for his ambiguity in these portrayals. Kurosawa clearly loved Toshiro Mifune the actor, but Mifune's character in _The Hidden Fortress_ was violent and crazy.

Quote from: Omega on June 20, 2024, 06:12:22 PMI'm trying not to dwell on obscure points or fan theories. Anakin being separated from his mother and not allowed to help or visit her because of Jedi rules was at the center of the prequel movies.

Was it because the Jedi forbade it? Was it because the Republic didn't have any serious legal juristiction over Tatooine? Was it because a Jedi running around freeing slaves would have been seen as favoritism? No matter how "good" the results would be. Should the Jedi run around and fix all the family problems of it's membership? Why didn't Padme shell out a few credits and buy Shmi from Watto? As a queen and then senator, I imagine she got a decent paycheck, and her family seemed to be pretty upper class wealthy. (Lake Retreat and all)