After 'Return of the Jedi'

Now I respectfully disagree Huttman. I do believe that good doesn't need evil, but I can't compare the Jedi and the Sith by Christian standards. The Force slated that the Jedi were being the ones who didn't let emotions work for them, and the Sith used their emotions.

Granted the Sith were using hate, fear and anger; but if the Jedi were allowed to use their love and other positive emotions, they would have been stronger. Remember how Anakin fell in the first place. He wasn't allowed to even love his wife, and that love was corrupted by a Sith.
 
Well, to be fair, we were looking at the Jedi at possibly one of the worst times in their history. Yoda spilling the beans about the Jedi being too sure of themselves and too arrogant for their own good. The Jedi seemed to me to lack compassion and be judgemental. It was for that very reason the Sith were able to pull the wool over their collective eyes.
Now the man who wrote these things was taking examples and ideas from our life and history. It occours to me that the whole Jedi thing not being allowed to marry was in the story for a reason, and that it was put there as another example of the Jedi dictating something that was not the will of the Force. I cannot help but think it parallels the church forbiding marriage, something the bible does not forbid. That is why I am so interested in seeing the beginnings of all this. I would bet good credits Lucas has somewhere in his college ruled notebook a scribbling that says Jedi originally were married. Even Luke in the EU married.
Now I have seen and read many things on where Lucas got inspiration for his stories and one of my favorite was the history channels The Myth Behind the Magic. On the program several people agreed while Lucas did not center on one belief system, for which I'm glad-it gave it a more universal appeal, did say these movies are heavily Christian influenced. I guess we see what we want, but that makes sense to me. Even if you take everything else away I said, the way they portrayed the Jedi not being allowed to marry was not in a positive was. Even Vulcans got married, it is a natural part of life. If one chooses not to marry, it is a personal desision and should be respected. But bad things start happening when someone makes a genral rule like that.

PS-Did you know Lucas got married 5-6 years ago? Just found that out myself. It would seem marriage did him well as it finally loosened up the protective reigns he had with Star Wars all these years and maybe he traded his yes-men for someone who can tell him what's really up.
 
without "evil" there cannot be "good." Its as simple as that.
All monotheistic religious parallels to Star Wars actually in EVERY way support this. At the core of all is an element of punishment for not being good - ie Evil. This, if one chooses to take an analogous view of the Jedi, is reflected in both the Jedi/Sith and even the notion of a balanced Force.
Further, a person cannot be "good" without the parameters that define "evil." Good may want to exist in a world/universe without its darker opposite, but that it utter fantasy, indeed a fantasy often used to manipulate adherants into complying with the accepted rules for being "good." Even the Jedi "become one with the force" if they follow the code... etc... tho we see this to be not entirely true, since Qui Gon Jinn becomes one with the force, as does Anakin (though perhaps his ultimate "redemption" allowed this, i rather doubt it since all the evil Darth Vader did isn't balanced by killing Palpatine).

More movies will be great. What i really love about the films, is that they can utterly refute anything and everything that has come before them. Re-canonizing is very amusing to watch... so many people with their knickers in a bunch.
 
Good and evil are moral issues. If I am reading you correctly, you must be coming to the conclusion that it is impossible for some to live a peaceful, moral life. If one cannot exist without the other, choice or freewill gets thrown out the window because someone has to live a certain way. I do not agree with that. People choose to be evil as well as good. One persons rights should end where another begins but we seem to live in a world where questionable behaviour gets rewarded unless you get caught. There is less and less civility, the only conclusion is eventual chaos at the rate the human race is going. We are headed toward a brick wall aiming ourselves at an eventual suicide. Unless we are unique in the cosmos, if evil remains unchecked it will always spoil the rest of the apples and doom ensues at some point. If good and evil have to co-exist, I don't believe the cosmos could have made it this far. But then again, I am in favor of creationism. If I believed a massive fluke of an explosion happened to create everything, I would probably believe everything (including good and evil) has to exist constantly to keep some cosmic scale from tipping over to one side. Personally, I do not think it is impossible for everyone to be on the same moral page someday and live a golden rule of respect.
 
Who would have guessed a philosophical/religious debate at the end of a question of whether they will make the last 3 Star Wars movies?

Evil is necessary to define good, humanly speaking. But I cannot believe that evil is necessary for existence. As I Christian I believe that evil is not equal to good, nor is it eternal as good/God is.
 
I'm looking forward to it. Sure, the PT wasn't my Star Wars but I found them entertaining enough. I'm looking forward to seeing what Disney does. I do hope that they don't just settle for the Heir to the Empire. (Don't get me wrong, I love Zahn's trilogy, I just think it'll be lazy.)

One things for sure, as a collector of Millennium Falcon related bits and bobs, I hope that she survives Han Solo as I can see Harrison Ford wanting to kill him off.
 
Parson said:
Who would have guessed a philosophical/religious debate at the end of a question of whether they will make the last 3 Star Wars movies?

Evil is necessary to define good, humanly speaking. But I cannot believe that evil is necessary for existence. As I Christian I believe that evil is not equal to good, nor is it eternal as good/God is.
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Leave it to me, eh?

Well said, Parson. We are living in the after effects of the opening of pandora's box, aren't we? The only thing I would add is we have always known the diffence between right and wrong, but since our fall we have proper examples of the extreme left and right of morality. As for Star Wars, I am curious to see what the antagonist is going to be. Ian McDiarmid (the Emperor/Palpatine) played such the pinnacle of evil so well, it will be hard to top that. I am curious, story wise, where the new threat comes from. I am sure they will have to expand on the chosen one/balance of the Force thing.
 
Huttman said:
Good and evil are moral issues. If I am reading you correctly, you must be coming to the conclusion that it is impossible for some to live a peaceful, moral life. If one cannot exist without the other, choice or freewill gets thrown out the window because someone has to live a certain way. I do not agree with that. People choose to be evil as well as good. One persons rights should end where another begins but we seem to live in a world where questionable behaviour gets rewarded unless you get caught. There is less and less civility, the only conclusion is eventual chaos at the rate the human race is going. We are headed toward a brick wall aiming ourselves at an eventual suicide. Unless we are unique in the cosmos, if evil remains unchecked it will always spoil the rest of the apples and doom ensues at some point. If good and evil have to co-exist, I don't believe the cosmos could have made it this far. But then again, I am in favor of creationism. If I believed a massive fluke of an explosion happened to create everything, I would probably believe everything (including good and evil) has to exist constantly to keep some cosmic scale from tipping over to one side. Personally, I do not think it is impossible for everyone to be on the same moral page someday and live a golden rule of respect.
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a moral peaceful existence does NOT equate to a "Good" existence.
additionally, if you're calling good and evil moral issues, then how can they be the guiding forces of the universe? You can't call it a cosmic issue then say its a religious one... they're mutually exclusive, since religion is in every shape a human construct (whether based in reality or ancient fantasy).
I believe its somewhat naive and also rather presumptuous to think that at some point humanity will all believe the same morality... considering the wildly differing cultures in our world, the only way such uniformity happens its through mass genocide. Respect, morality, honor, all these things mean something different to every culture. the only way it becomes uniform, is by eliminating the cultures of others, or forcing them to comply with the accepted standard - and by your statements it comes across as the Western standards of Christian morality.
 
devilsgrin said:
a moral peaceful existence does NOT equate to a "Good" existence.
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Um, how so? Unless you are not going to be open to any agreement, that very statement, by definitions of the words you used, do equate. Good and evil are polar opposites, again by definition. Quote from wiki; evil is commonly associated with conscious and deliberate wrongdoing, discrimination designed to harm others, humiliation of people designed to diminish their psychological well-being and dignity, destructiveness, motives of causing pain or suffering for selfish or malicious intentions, and acts of unnecessary or indiscriminate violence. A perfect example is what happened on Friday in Connecticut.
Morality is a code of ethics that include peace, love, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, empathy, generosity and kindness to name a few. I am not going to waste my time and argue semantically what the meaning of those words are as I believe they are self explanatory and their relevance to a healthy, productive life that does not rob others to work should be evident to all reasonable persons.
devilsgrin said:
additionally, if you're calling good and evil moral issues, then how can they be the guiding forces of the universe? You can't call it a cosmic issue then say its a religious one... they're mutually exclusive, since religion is in every shape a human construct (whether based in reality or ancient fantasy).
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Evil is not a guiding force of the universe. The very mentality of evil means you do not work or play well with others (even if one does hide it for a while). Assuming the universe was created, the mind behind it had to be stable and disciplined enough to make it work. Even after the fact, in our little corner of the cosmos, the (generally accepted) examples of evil that this world has seen can see the nonconstructive qualities that evil shows. People working together for the betterment of all is good. How is that so confusing?
devilsgrin said:
I believe its somewhat naive and also rather presumptuous to think that at some point humanity will all believe the same morality... considering the wildly differing cultures in our world, the only way such uniformity happens its through mass genocide. Respect, morality, honor, all these things mean something different to every culture. the only way it becomes uniform, is by eliminating the cultures of others, or forcing them to comply with the accepted standard - and by your statements it comes across as the Western standards of Christian morality.
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Yeah, well I've been presumptuous to God himself and learned from it. As for naivety...not any more. Again, if your morals harm others, they are not morals and the persons practicing them is fooling themselves or just out and out lying. The definitions respect, morality and honor have more universal commonality than you might think. While there are good and bad elements in every culture, we all know what hurts. If one is apathetic to that...hopefully they will learn better in the time they have.

As for that Christian morality statement, well, I have not found a superior code of conduct as the do on to others... ethic. Religion is man's attempt to organize like-minded people together to study and worship (a) God(s). Let me speak generally, mankind is faulty. Not the 'oops, I'm sorry, I made a mistake' , but the hurtful, judgmental practices that have gone on for thousands of years. Judeo-Christian-Islamic organizations have not been absent from those things over the centuries. In essence, much of religion does not practice what it preaches. Does it make the source material wrong? Not necessarily. Religion is temporary, it is going to be attacked and destroyed very soon (our own Order 66, to tie this into Star Wars), and what will be left is what we all started with in the very beginning, principle. The golden rule. It works. I'll stick to that.
 
Sorry to interrupt your religious discussion (no idea where that came from) but to go back to the original 11-year old discussion I didn't make it up - according to the BBC:
The original Star Wars trilogy - which consists of the original film in 1977, 1980's The Empire Strikes Back and 1983's Return of the Jedi - was always envisioned by Lucas as the central chunk of a nine-movie cycle.

In October, he revealed he had written story treatments for the seventh, eighth and ninth instalments which he would hand over to Kennedy.
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Ok, back to central topic. I think Lucas' mind changed several times on that. It seems to me he had a grand idea for a space opera with 'ideas' for a continuation like like he had 'ideas' for the prequels but denied he would make the sequels for whatever reasons. Age, perhaps, but I'm sure whether or not he would make them crossed his mind over the years and as blunt as he is said yea or nay depending on how he was feeling about that particular possibility at that particular moment.
 
If I had the opportunity to ask George Lucas but one question it would be this. What happened in your life/mind/beliefs between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

The first two Star Wars films were space opera for "children of all ages". Movies that adults could enjoy at their level as much as the younger ones. But Jedi saw a movie that was aimed squarely at 15 year olds. Suddenly the adult element of the movies was done away with. We end up with Storm Troopers battling Teddy Bears.

And it was all downhill from there.

What changed for Lucas between Empire and Jedi? Why the huge change in attitude? It's a theoretical question really, as I don't think anyone but George knows the answer. <Shrug>
 
That would be a good question. While personally I don't see his films as going downhill from RotJ onward, I definitely see the change you mentioned. So I knew he was divorced from Marcia Lucas in the 80's but I did not know he adopted his first daughter Amanda in 1981. His marriage with Marcia dissolved in 1983. If I were to guess, I would say he saw life differently after having a child and maybe he mellowed after his divorce instead of becoming bitter and hard. I just think it's interesting that after being with Mellody Hobson for a few years now, he 'changed' his mind on a few things he had been stubborn about (a trait he himself recognized) and allowed this new trilogy to be made by someone else.
Did it really have to be JJ Abrams????
I digress, it might turn out alright.
 
Weren't the Ewoks originally going to be Wookies? I believe Lucas changed it only because of the difficulty of finding enough tall actors and the cost of the make-up (though Planet of the Apes didn't have a problem.) With CGI he went back in Revenge of the Sith to show us Kashyyyk as it should have been. IMHO the Ewoks were a huge mistake, along with those Ewok adventure films and A Star Wars Christmas Special. Funny how people now conveniently forget all that pure commerical c*** that was produced. How could the Empire's most elite Stormtroopers be defeated by teddy bears with slings andd arrows? If not for those scenes Return of the Jedi could have been a better film than The Empire Strikes Back. I think it couldn't really be anyone other than JJ Abrams. Maybe it could have been Joss Whedon, but JJ Abrams will make a better job of it.
 
Dave said:
Weren't the Ewoks originally going to be Wookies? I believe Lucas changed it only because of the difficulty of finding enough tall actors
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That's the story I heard, too.

I have no idea what Lucas might have planned in his treatments for 7,8, & 9 - I can't remember any rumours about story elements after Jedi. The nearest I got I think was a friend raving about a Star Wars novel series called "Dark Empire".

Consider how the franchise went with the prequels, and that it is now owned by Disney, I can't imagine additional films being much more than even worse toy and computer game adverts.
 
If they base them on New Jedi Order then they could turn out really good. Everyone will be screaming at the end of the first movie if they base it off that first book though.

Doing it that way would allow the original actors to play their parts while introducing the next generation of Star Wars characters since it would have to have Han and Leia's kids and Luke's son in it. We could see a much older Mark Hamil playing the role of Luke as the Master of the Jedi Temple, which would be cool.
 
Dave said:
Weren't the Ewoks originally going to be Wookies?
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Yes I think this is right only I thought it was because Lucas became attached to the Wookie character that he promoted one to a co-pilot - then when getting to the third film he wanted a more primitive people to fight the empire so he kept the Wookie idea but shrunk them into the Ewoks to differentiate.

I actually don't think that anything changed with Lucas and the teddy bear thing was an accident. He is a good storyteller but with a strange imagination and, as technology progressed, he couldn't resist adding more and more bizarre peoples thinking they made his universe richer.

It's a good job Star Wars was made back in the 70s, otherwise Han Solo would have been a frog, apparently.
 
I think I would have liked Hans Solo as a frog. ---- I don't believe that there is much of anything like a loveable bad guy. You are either try to moral or you are inevitably compromised.
 
If Han Solo were the frog, two things I'm sure of: Harrison Ford would not have played him and (2) we would have gotten Jar Jar bashing 25 years sooner. Actually, audiences might have loved Jar Jar in 1977. But, we have confermation Mr. Ford is going to play the scruffy nerf herder again in Episode 7! Yeah!
As for your last sentence there, Parson, I can't quite make that out. Were you tired typing or did you dip into the sacrificial wine a bit that night?:D (i do hope that is not out of place)
 
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