I'm going to gently disagree there. If it's actually defined in the third film, then it's a whole film too late in that we've been watching them fret about what might happen and how they can't do this for hours before any reason is given. Plus Anakin's fall is such a jarring cliff-dive into mass child-murder that it doesn't feel connected to that rule except for it being a component of Palpatine's daft pitch.
And there's still room, even a need in some cases, for scenes which build theme and character even if they aren't vital to the plot. These are not films dedicated to narrative economy. Lucas made time for midichlorians. If he wants me to think that Anakin is failing to be honest because he's greedy and his relationship with Padme is inherently and uniquely bad, rather than Anakin is torn between two things that give him a vital sense of belonging, then I need to see a contrast to this uniquely toxic relationship.
In the movie, Anakin is shown to be getting more and more afraid of Padme dying, and eventually Palpatine manages to push him into doing something awful (killing Mace Windu).
Then, once that has already happened, the rest of the council on-planet is dead, and Anakin is lost, afraid, and confused, ashamed of himself, with nobody else to turn to, he finally gets Anakin to agree to become his slave, and then has him do a bunch of other horrifying stuff to put him even more off-balance and to further isolate him and make him even more ashamed of himself.
Anakin's fear of losing Padme goes beyond simple caution and compassion, and escalates completely out of control to the point of murdering the person he was trying to save!
That is attachment, that is what the Dark Side looks like, and that is Anakin's central theme in Revenge of the Sith.
EDIT: Basically: Anakin's fall had approximately nothing to do with the nature of the Jedi Order, they just happened to be part of Anakin's family and Palpatine already wanted them dead, same as Padme.
Why is the relationship starting out flawed but not galaxy-shatteringly terrible, but then developing into a disaster area over three fucking years of war so bizarre?
That's what we are shown on-screen, and that's what George Lucas says happens:
George Lucas said:
"And of course that's the problem with Anakin ultimately. You're allowed to love people, but you're not allowed to possess them. And what he did is he fell in love and married her and then became jealous."
Why is the relationship starting out flawed but not galaxy-shatteringly terrible, but then developing into a disaster area over three fucking years of war so bizarre?
That's what we are shown on-screen, and that's what George Lucas says happens:
He becomes jealous after marrying her, and marrying her happens at the end of Attack of the Clones!
Revenge of the Sith is the movie immediately after Anakin and Padme marry!
Because we haven't got a reason to treat it as a threat.
For comparison, Romeo and Juliet lays out the reason for us to fear the consequences of the forbidden romance. In Lord of the Rings, we come to understand why Elrond is so reluctant for his daughter to be with Aragorn. It's giving us the clarity to understand our protagonists' motivations and conflicts.
Because we haven't got a reason to treat it as a threat.
For comparison, Romeo and Juliet lays out the reason for us to fear the consequences of the forbidden romance. In Lord of the Rings, we come to understand why Elrond is so reluctant for his daughter to be with Aragorn. It's giving us the clarity to understand our protagonists' motivations and conflicts.
Here is Anakin almost putting Padme before the galaxy in Attack of the Clones
Attack of the Clones said:
[While chasing Count Dooku across the desert of Geonosis, Anakin insists on rescuing Padmé, who, after a hit to the ship they're on, falls out and onto the sand below]
Anakin: Padmé! [To pilot] Put the ship down!
Obi-Wan: Anakin! Don't let your personal feelings get in the way! [to pilot] Follow that speeder.
Anakin: [To pilot] Lower the ship!
Obi-Wan: I can't take Dooku alone! I need you! If we catch him, we can end this war right now! We have a job to do!
Anakin: I don't care! [To pilot] Put the ship down!
Obi-Wan: You will be expelled from the Jedi Order!
Anakin: I can't leave her!
Obi-Wan: Come to your senses! What do you think Padmé would do were she in your position?
Anakin: [resigned] She would do her duty.
We see Anakin lose control and massacre children without being commanded to in Attack of the Clones when Shmi dies, presumably also due to attachment, so we kinda do see the danger that is Anakin, as should Padme (she just decides to marry him shortly afterwards anyway).
But again, the film doesn't flag potential problems before the relationship begins.
It doesn't help that Lucas belts us over the head with "this is what missing your mum too much does to you!" Which... is kinda gross, as a message. Anakin should timetabled his fears for the sole parent he hadn't seen in a decade, woo.
But again, the film doesn't flag potential problems before the relationship begins.
It doesn't help that Lucas belts us over the head with "this is what missing your mum too much does to you!" Which... is kinda gross, as a message. Anakin should timetabled his fears for the sole parent he hadn't seen in a decade, woo.
It's not about Anakin missing his mother for those ten years, because he actually seems to handle that alright, it's about him being unable to come to terms with her death!
It's not about Anakin missing his wife for five months, because the movie cut the scenes where he acts like a jealous twit at the beginning, it's about him being unable to come to terms with her (future) death or her leaving him over his involvement in genocide!
EDIT: Okay, now I'm imagining a fanfic where Vader is a necromancer who reanimates his dead loved ones as mindless zombies that shamble around groaning "braaaaaains" (he, of course, is in no danger, because he lacks their preferred food source, until he reanimates a vegetarian/herbivore who mistakes his hair for "graaaaaaains" )
I did think that was a weird approach, as throughout most of the film Rey seemed like the obvious protagonist, unless one had some very arbitrary expectations for what that entailed.
Then the film is just wheeling out this stuff when it happens kinda willy-nilly rather than building a cohesive story. I don't know what theme it's pushing apart from "look, sometimes you lose people. Get over it." And the Jedi did no wrong in any of this?
I did think that was a weird approach, as throughout most of the film Rey seemed like the obvious protagonist, unless one had some very arbitrary expectations for what that entailed.
Then the film is just wheeling out this stuff when it happens kinda willy-nilly rather than building a cohesive story. I don't know what theme it's pushing apart from "look, sometimes you lose people. Get over it." And the Jedi did no wrong in any of this?
Given that Ahsoka is considered "too young" to be a Padawan at... 13? 14? I think Luke's and Rey's age is probably about the typical age one becomes a padawan.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (film) said:
Rex: Who's the youngling?
Ahsoka: I'm Master Skywalker's Padawan. The name's Ahsoka Tano.
Rex: Sir, I thought you said you'd never have a Padawan.
Anakin: There's been a mix-up. The youngling isn't with me.
Ahsoka: Stop calling me that! You're stuck with me, Skyguy.
[Rex starts chuckling.] Anakin: What did you just call me?! Don't get snippy with me, little one! You know, I don't think you're even old enough to be a Padawan.
Ahsoka: Well, maybe I'm not. But Master Yoda thinks I am.
Prior to that... I'm not sure how much we know about Jedi child-rearing?
Yoda is teaching a class of four-year-olds to use lightsabers in Attack of the Clones when Obi-Wan comes in to tell Yoda that he's lost a planet. (a joke that will become infinitely less funny 22 years down the line)
There's a bunch of kids hiding in the Council chamber when Anakin comes in to kill them all.
Some of the comics show them meditating with the standard Jedi mantra ("Emotion yet peace...")
So... the Jedi sound pretty unreasonable to me from that. Sure, don't do a genocide, but just because Anakin's reaction is so extreme doesn't mean that "just resolve your issues over being enslaved and orphaned already" doesn't make them sound really, really callous.
So... the Jedi sound pretty unreasonable to me from that. Sure, don't do a genocide, but just because Anakin's reaction is so extreme doesn't mean that "just resolve your issues over being enslaved and orphaned already" doesn't make them sound really, really callous.
I mean, they presumably use have techniques to achieve that goal, but if you want to put it crudely in a sentence without explaining how, then yes, if you want to live a healthy life, you do have to resolve those issues.
Article:
Mindfulness is the psychological process of purposely bringing one's attention to experiences occurring in the present moment without judgment,[1][2][note 1][3][4] which one develops through the practice of meditation and through other training.[2][5][6] Mindfulness derives from sati, a significant element of Buddhist traditions,[7][8] and based on Zen, Vipassanā, and Tibetan meditation techniques.[9][10][note 2] Though definitions and techniques of mindfulness are wide-ranging,[16] Buddhist traditions explain what constitutes mindfulness such as how past, present and future moments arise and cease as momentary sense impressions and mental phenomena.[7][17][18] Individuals who have contributed to the popularity of mindfulness in the modern Western context include Thích Nhất Hạnh (1926– ), Herbert Benson (1935– ), Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944– ), and Richard J. Davidson (1951– ).[19][20][21]
Clinical psychology and psychiatry since the 1970s have developed a number of therapeutic applications based on mindfulness for helping people experiencing a variety of psychological conditions.[21] Mindfulness practice has been employed to reduce depression,[22][23][24] to reduce stress,[23][25][26] anxiety,[22][23][26] and in the treatment of drug addiction.[27][28][29] Programs based on mindfulness models have been adopted within schools, prisons, hospitals, veterans' centers, and other environments, and mindfulness programs have been applied for additional outcomes such as for healthy aging, weight management, athletic performance, helping children with special needs, and as an intervention during the perinatal period.
The Phantom Menace said:
QUI-GON : Don't center on your anxiety, Obi-Wan. Keep your concentration here and now where it belongs.
OBI-WAN : Master Yoda says I should be mindful of the future...
QUI-GON : .....but not at the expense of the moment. Be mindful of the living Force, my young Padawan.
YODA : Good, good, young one. How feel you?
ANAKIN : Cold, sir.
YODA : Afraid are you?
ANAKIN : No, sir.
MACE WINDU : Afraid to give up your life?
ANAKIN : I don't think so.
ANAKIN hesitates for a moment.
YODA : See through you, we can.
MACE WINDU : Be mindful of your feelings...
KI-ADI : Your thoughts dwell on your mother.
ANAKIN : I miss her.
YODA : Afraid to lose her..I think.
ANAKIN : (a little angry) What's that got to do with anything?
YODA : Eveything. Fear is the path to the dark side... fear leads to
anger... anger leads to hate.. hate leads to suffering.
ANAKIN : (angrily) I am not afraid!
YODA : A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. I sense much fear in you.
ANAKIN : (quietly) I am not afraid.
YODA : Then continue, we will.
ANAKIN: She didn't even recognise me, Jar Jar. I thought about her every day since we parted... and she's forgotten me completely.
JAR JAR: Shesa happy. Happier den mesa see-en her in longo time.
OBI-WAN: Anakin, you're focusing on the negative again. Be mindful of your thoughts. She was glad to see us. Now lets check the security here.
The exact methods are not all explicitly stated, but it's not implied to be a matter of simply deciding one day and it's done, Jedi have techniques they can teach for doing these things... Anakin just really doesn't want to look at himself, and a lot of what Palpatine is doing is getting Anakin to do things that he can't forgive himself for.
And we aren't shown any concrete examples in which these techniques have worked. Yoda isn't actually offering any practical steps there beyond gesturing at a nebulous solution.
Anakin not wanting to self-examine, as opposed to fearing the consequences of being found out, is not at all apparent from the core text that is the film, nor indeed the novelisation I read as a kid.
Sure we are: Obi-Wan Kenobi. Going by McGregor's performance, he was both grief-stricken and kindled to wrath by his master's death. But after the moment passed, he was able to move past that loss and live a mostly healthy adult life (political contingencies necessitating his exile notwithstanding). Presumably, as a Jedi, he worked through his emotions the way a Jedi would.
Also, be careful what you wish for. It sounds like you're asking for Yoda to engage in meaningless space-fantasy psychobabble. You can't be asking him to describe his recommended course of action in general terms, because he's already done that.
Sure we are: Obi-Wan Kenobi. Going by McGregor's performance, he was both grief-stricken and kindled to wrath by his master's death. But after the moment passed, he was able to move past that loss and live a mostly healthy adult life (political contingencies necessitating his exile notwithstanding). Presumably, as a Jedi, he worked through his emotions the way a Jedi would.
Also, be careful what you wish for. It sounds like you're asking for Yoda to engage in meaningless space-fantasy psychobabble. You can't be asking him to describe his recommended course of action in general terms, because he's already done that.
Again, what, exactly are you asking for? For an action-adventure movie to spend minutes showing Obi-Wan meditating or being counseled? For Obi-Wan to rattle off the techniques he employed (which would be meaningless space-fantasy psychobabble)?
We see him later acting well-adjusted. We, not being infants and being possessed of object permanence, can infer that he processed his emotions in such a way that lets him act well-adjusted.
Again, what, exactly are you asking for? For an action-adventure movie to spend minutes showing Obi-Wan meditating or being counseled? For Obi-Wan to rattle of the techniques he employed (which would be meaningless space-fantasy psychobabble)?
We see him later acting well-adjusted. We, not being infants and being possessed of object permanence, can infer that he processed his emotions in such a way that lets him act well-adjusted.
OK, I don't know if I want to see that, but I feel like it's rather grim that Anakin's childhood traumas are treated as something he should be totally over.
But there's also a difference of background and personality. It's more understandable that Obi-Wan wouldn't flip because he's totally stoic through most of the films he is in.
Whereas with Anakin, the circumstances are different, and I feel that if we're meant to go "what a psycho", Lucas shouldn't be cranking the torture scenario quite so hard. He contrived a really extreme scenario which, by this reading, gets in the way of what he's trying to say.
Plus, if Lucas is really going for Greek or Shakespearean tragedy, it follows that the Jedi had developed fatal flaws rather than it just being this bunch of dickheads who screwed it up for everyone.
"Stop and pay attention to how you're feeling" IS one of the techniques the Jedi use.
It's, AFAIK, a completely legit psychology thing that needs about as much if not less worldbuilding as/than Luke swinging on a grappling hook on the Death Star.
OK, I don't know if I want to see that, but I feel like it's rather grim that Anakin's childhood traumas are treated as something he should be totally over.
But there's also a difference of background and personality. It's more understandable that Obi-Wan wouldn't flip because he's totally stoic through most of the films he is in.
Whereas with Anakin, the circumstances are different, and I feel that if we're meant to go "what a psycho", Lucas shouldn't be cranking the torture scenario quite so hard. He contrived a really extreme scenario which, by this reading, gets in the way of what he's trying to say.
Plus, if Lucas is really going for Greek or Shakespearean tragedy, it follows that the Jedi had developed fatal flaws rather than it just being this bunch of dickheads who screwed it up for everyone.
His mother was implied to have been tortured, is what I'm getting at. And in the films, we've only seen instances where the Jedi advice bounces off.
Yes, Anakin chooses evil, but I'd argue that Palpatine got traction in part because Anakin felt like he couldn't get a fair hearing anywhere else. That is my point, and to my mind that demonstrates a serious failing on the part of the Jedi.
Plus, if Lucas is really going for Greek or Shakespearean tragedy, it follows that the Jedi had developed fatal flaws rather than it just being this bunch of dickheads who screwed it up for everyone.
Sure, if we accept the related premises that the Prequels were a Greek tragedy, and that they were in whole or in part the tragedy of the Jedi Order, then yes, by the conventions of that genre the Jedi Order should have been tragically flawed.
However, we don't necessarily have to accept those premises. In the first place, to the extent the Prequels are a Greek tragedy, they are first and foremost the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker, not the Jedi Order as a whole. Anakin fits the mold of a tragic hero - a child of prophecy, a larger-than-life figure whose deeds and grand and with sweeping effects, possessed of flaws (including most obviously hubris and wrath) to which he is largely blind and which lead to his self-destruction. The prequels are, relatedly, the story of how the institutions of liberal democracy (which for some reason include a militant religious order that places itself at the disposal of the head of government - EDIT: actually, never mind, we know the "for some reason," it's so the Republic can avoid the deleterious effects of commissioning a standing army) can be subverted and destroyed by scheming fascists, but this isn't quite tragedy in the Greek mold because while the institutions are blind to their own flaws, they are not characters, they don't act with single minds, and we don't feel the same pity or fear for them as we do characters. In the second place, you've made a logical leap from "an institution must have a tragic flaw" to "this institution must have this tragic flaw." That's something you've got to prove.
I'd say the fall of the Jedi reads to me like they are meant to have grown complacent and inflexible. They are tragically flawed to my eyes, just as Anakin is... a bad writer's idea of what a tragic villain should be in that he's almost all flaw.
Changing tack now: Padme should not have been the queen or senator in Episode I. She should have been an aide, handmaiden, what have you, who gets caught up in things. A junior member of the royal family, but closer to the ground floor and more relatable than this oddly stilted monarch.
The two continuities, Canon and Legends, have been separate things for a long time, at least back to 2005, probably back to 2000 when G-canon and C-canon and whatnot were established:
The only thing Disney changed is that Disney started publishing a fuckton of stuff as canon rather than what they wound up naming "Legends"
KOTOR was published in 2003, after 2000 when G-canon and C-canon were established, and as such was never intended to supercede anything George Lucas said!
Disney canon doesn't have a hierarchy like that, but KOTOR is Legends, not Canon.
Here's where you can read about what is canon and how that works in Star Wars.
Jedi and Droids:
Mace Windu attempted to negotiate with battle droids (T-canon, Disney canon):
Article:
Mace Windu: "My name is General Mace Windu, of the Jedi Order. At this point of the Clone War, I have dismantled and destroyed over 100,000 of you type 1 battle droids. I am giving you an opportunity to peacefully lay down your weapons, so that you may be reprogrammed to serve a better purpose than spreading the mindless violence and chaos which you have inflicted upon the galaxy." Battle droid: "Blast them!" Obi-Wan Kenobi: "Well, I guess it was worth a try."
Professor Huyang existed (T-canon, Disney canon), and is pretty well respected by Jedi:
Article:
And... do we ever see any canon evidence whatsoever of the Sith and their empire promoting their droid army's independence and individuality like the Jedi do for the clones? Actions matter more than words.
They, unlike the Jedi, certainly don't respect the clones' independence and individuality, given that they us e fucking mind-control chips (T-canon, Disney canon) to force them to betray their friends and never give them a choice about anything once the Empire forms!
Emotions:
We absolutely do see what "too much attachment" looks like in Attack of the Clones (the Tuskens) and Revenge of the Sith (Vader)! It is straight up on-screen G-canon backed up by author statements! This isn't even slightly a Jedi mysticism thing! It is something completely inextricable from the prequel trilogy!
JEDI ARE ALLOWED TO LOVE! This is stated explicitly in Attack of the Clones by ANAKIN FUCKING SKYWALKER! It is backed up by direct author statements! There isn't even the slightest bit of ambiguity here!
Now you're not even talking about what the Sith and Jedi are like, you're just talking about lies Sith tell people!
So like George Lucas doesn't like the extended canon of "his universe," and that's great, but we are talking about the movies only. Not the comic books. And BTW, Mister Mace Windu admits he just willy-nilly kills Droids, he said he killed 100,000 Droids, and the Droids are supposed to wanna surrender to a guy like that? Furthermore he says, "Reprogram you" so they can "serve a better purpose" which is not only creepy as all hell it's treating what are pretty much sentient machines as property. At least Mister Windu doesn't care about Droid liberation.
I've also never seen the Jedi promoting "individuality for the clones," and I question if that's even in the movies, but Jedi clearly have double standards. They use mind control when it suits them ("This is not the Droid you're looking for," anybody? Rey Mind Tricking that security guard?), they kill their enemies when it suits them and threaten new enemies, which is dumb. Jedi are just as violent as the Sith. At least the Sith are open and honest about it.
There's no such thing as "too much attachment." I think the Jedi are cautioning against perfectly healthy feelings. Darth Vader was worried the love of his life was gonna die. I really sympathize with him more than the Jedi who pretty much advocated just letting it happen. The Sith aren't all bad.
And I really don't think it was a lie that General Grievous was fighting for Droid liberation and y'all still haven't provided actual characters saying it's a lie. Mind control chips are evil, yes, but Jedi use mind control too.
)
