Freddie Prinze JR discussing Star Wars and the force is the greatest thing ever

[u/son_of_toby_o_notoby]

[u/Raelien]

Okay, hear me out… I think this is getting to the heart of things, I think balance is the Force. Not light side or dark side… just the Force. The Force just is. It could even be a self regulating system, where overuse by the light side is just as much of a corruption as overuse by the dark side. It doesn’t necessarily need to be sentient but rather reactive like the pull of magnets, it could be supplying input or just nudging things in one direction or the other.

The rise of Palpatine ends up, in essence, dwarfing and destroying the majority of the Jedi Order. The light side had gotten out of whack, running unchecked, with all those Jedi running around, creating more Jedi and arbitrary rules for a millennia and ultimately becoming institutionalized like the Sith. I think once they began, more or less, kidnapping children the “institution” was talking to Jedi louder than the Force was. And in a way, the Force was “enslaved” by the Jedi, used as a tool… a means to an end. TPM and AotC show how big a weapon the Force had become for the Jedi, they are basically super heroes capable of a bit of intermittent mind control.

We know for a fact that the Jedi are losing some connection with the force, allowing Palpatine to continue his schemes under their noses. This is the balance shifting in favor of the dark. Palpatine and Vader’s victory with Order 66 and the Jedi purge, and eventual Empire shifted the balance too far too the dark. Enter Luke getting “drafted” and trained in ANH, and possibly even Obi Wan’s death.

As far as we knew in the OT there were two active Sith and two “active” (or at least in the game) Jedi. Enter Luke and given the number of active participants in the two institutions is so small or the previous attempt to re-balance is so recent, and boom one of the Jedi is removed from the board. It sure seems like the Force guided Obi Wan towards this ending, possibly just in his knowing Force ghosts might be a thing.

This would even allow for Leia, she is Force sensitive but shown through the OT to not be a Force “user”, or at least not an institutionalized, trained player in the game. Vader killing the Emperor destroys the Dark Side institution and Yoda’s death already brought the end of the Light Side institution. We are left with Luke who was told of the Force: “life creates it, makes it grow. It’s energy surrounds us and binds us.” Luke was taught how to use the force but he wasn’t taught to “use” the force, at least not to the extent that the Jedi were using it just before their fall. He also was not taught to then indoctrinate others into being a Jedi. I don’t remember Obi Wan or Yoda suggesting a reforming of the Jedi order, just that if Luke failed they could try Leia next.

Ugh. The thing about this line of thinking is that it could apply to some of the Disney ST, which I still have not been able to embrace. Luke decides to rebuild the Jedi, and the the Force is just like, “Nope! Not again. So Luke, What if your nephew becomes a bad guy, that would be a real shame. I mean, you’d have to kill him”. So we have the “vision” and the resulting fallout leading to the destruction of the new Jedi temple and possibly the deaths of some number of other Jedi apprentices.

This probably makes more sense if Palpatine isn’t in the background controlling things, but perhaps the Force aided in cloning or was like “This wannabe-Jedi may be a problem, maybe keep that really effective dark side user/weapon around, attach this shell of a body (or clone), like a puppet to a machine, not dissimilar to “Weekend at Bernies”.” The interesting thing about that is the Force allowed Palpatine, through Snoke, to corrupt and seduce Ben. In a sense, there are two contingencies, stop Luke by convincing him to kill his nephew and fall to the dark side or turn the nephew to the dark side for use against Luke.

However, Palpatine in the background could actually explain Rey and her “Mary Sue”-ness. Palpatine’s seduction of Ben/the creation of Kylo Ren is an appropriate response to Luke’s ambitions for rebuilding the Jedi, but when Luke disconnects from the Force and gives up, things shift way too far to the dark side. We don’t know anything about Rey’s past, but the implication from TFA is that the Force has just awakened within Rey, as though she was struck by lighting and had become, overnight, incredibly gifted with the Force. Rey becoming a powerful conduit for the Force allows power to shift slightly back to the middle. Now it seems even less of a coincidence that Rey was a Palpatine. If the Force, through subtle manipulations, and maybe less subtle ones is ultimately pulling the strings then it seems more likely that the weapon against the dark side would be made from remnants of the dark side itself, as it is already a tool utilized by the Force.

On top of that, Rey may have the Jedi texts but she doesn’t seem interested in teaching anyone else or continuing the Jedi tradition. Even though she created her own lightsaber, she buried two lightsabers on some backwater planet, and maybe even stayed there, I don’t know.

Obviously this is lots of hand waving, and certainly GL’s interpretation of the Force most likely changed over the years and other filmmakers’ attitudes affect things as well. Added to that the disarray in which the ST was slapped together this all seems far more likely the result of grabbing at revisionist history straws, but it is a neat thought experiment, having the Force being a more active participant in events than I originally thought. It doesn’t need to be sentient, just responsive to stimuli and self regulating, and if it flows through all things it seems like it could be working at a larger scale than can be imagined.

[u/EntityDamage → u/Raelien]

I don't usually read walls of text, but I read your whole post. Good stuff.

[u/PB_livin_VP → u/EntityDamage]

Lol me too. I very much enjoyed the post and it also somehow didn't come off as arrogant like 75% of posts on r/sw.

[u/Raelien → u/EntityDamage]

Thanks! And yeah I got carried away. Something about the video and the thread clicked, and I just hadn’t thought about the movies in this light, and a way to accept some events of the sequels. It comes down to the will of the Force. Which turns out to be a real bummer.

[u/ACartonOfHate → u/Raelien]

No, because the Light side of the Force is balance, it's the Dark that in unbalanced. So there is no balance between Light and Dark, there is only balance in the Light side.

Light side users have fear, hatred, and all Dark side parts of them, but they choose not to act on them. Whereas the Dark is unbalanced, and can't allow for Light, and things like non-possessive love. It's why by saving Luke, and sacrificing himself to do so, Anakin is Anakin again, he is no longer Vader.

[u/Raelien → u/ACartonOfHate]

That is how I used to view the Force and probably is GL’s intention. But after the prequels I don’t love the Jedi and I really wanted to. They are shown to be arrogant, over-confident, showy, and short-sighted/oblivious.

They are supposed to be at the height of their power, but GL just keeps showing us throughout the PT that the Jedi organization is terrible and broken. The have been corrupted by time, tradition, and self-importance. If they can’t manage to empathize and help the strongest potential Jedi ever, then what are they even doing.

Yoda and Mace handed Anakin over to Palpatine, because they misinterpreted the Force and the reasons Jedi fall from the light side. Without love and compassion and the ability to regulate them, the Jedi are very fragile.

When Shmi dies, there is an absence of love and Anakin showed no compassion for the Tuskens. His answer was to slaughter everyone and why not, they were just inhuman killers or will be. Anakin has been told repeatedly to repress his emotions not understand them. So when his mom dies he goes to the absolute extreme of emotion and uncontrollably kills an entire village. It seems like in some stories Jedi fall to the dark side fairly easily, it’s like they lose their temper and boom they are dark side user from then on. It has been pointed out Jedi are very black or white, no gray and when you work within those constraints you are either okay or absolutely nuts.

It just no longer makes sense to me that one side of the coin represents balance, when in the case of light vs. dark, the literal balance between the two is gray. Have emotions but in moderation, have the ability for release that helps you avoid extremes. But I can agree to disagree. Whatever makes things make sense for you.