I know it is time for the Jedi to end the Mutha F’-in’ First Order, yo!
I can picture Mace Windu saying that.
I went looking for a good mashup of Mace and Snakes, but found this instead
For what it’s worth, I hope this doesn’t mean something as silly as combining the Light Side and Dark Side. The battle against the seduction of Dark Side is one of the most important parts of the Star Wars mythos. To have a new order that can just thread that needle as a matter of course would make it far less interesting. I hope what it means and what they end up striving for (regardless of where Very Lonely Luke starts out on the matter) is a new concept of how to be Light Side adherent - not through dogmatic austerity and abandonment of the world, but through active works and the connections and loyalties that are the strength of the rebellion. That is, instead of “don’t use your powers, you might end up being power-hungry” and “don’t care about anyone, you might go crazy trying to protect or avenge them” they strive for “your powers exists to improve the lives of others” and “loyalties and attachments bind you to others and through them to the Force” or something along those lines. It isn’t a way to vanquish the Dark Side (only to fight against its seduction), but rather to vanquish the dogma, decadence, and blindness that led to the Emperor’s ascendance. In other words, I hope it’s about throwing out organized religion, not about throwing out morality.
I always thought the Anakin prophecy about bringing balance to the force meant killing all the Jedi (there were way too much of them) until there were only two left (Yoda and Obiwan) to match up with the two Sith (Vader and Palaptine). Balance to the force restored!
If you accept the premise that the Force has discrete Light and Dark sides and also accept that there must be balance in the Force, it’s hard to figure out how a light-side only faction can ever prevail, because prevailing means that you forgot about balance.
Frankly, the Jedi (as established through the movies) are singularly clueless and/or willfully ignorant as to their own religion. It’s one of those things that if you scratch at even a litle (rather than just sitting back and enjoying the ride) makes no sense.
You either let things stay at equilibrium or you disturb the balance knowing that the reaction will always come, since there must be balance over time. Imagine if you knew that giving that homeless guy a piece of bread would mean someone else would go hungry that night. What is the right action? Should the moral person act or not act? It’s like the principle of karma, but made finite—accruing good karma unto yourself would shaft someone else, which would presumably give you bad karma, and so forth.
Stupid ass prophecy about balance. Everything would have been fine if Lucas had kept the whole messiah bit out of SW. Too much Dune on the brain.
Lucas made it very clear that “balance” in regards to the force never meant a middle ground between light and dark side. The dark side IS the imbalance and thus getting rid of it is achieving “balance”.
Can you provide a source for that? “Balance” in the two-sided Force means having just one side? That makes zero sense.
Also, if that is the case, the movies he made do a terrible job of conveying that. Annakin brought balance (i.e., getting rid of the dark side) by bringing the dark side to power so that he could have a small role in setting it back? Again, that makes no sense.
Well okay then. I guess we can throw out most of the commentary in this thread.
What Lucas meant doesn’t really matter anymore.
And thank Christ for that.
Actually it makes perfect sense from a certain point of view. We are talking about a Jedi prophecy. In their opinion the the force exists as a benevolent power and is corrupted and brought out of balance by the dark influence of the sith. Based on their philosophy, the main difference between them and the Sith is that they choose to be “one with the force” where as the Sith want to influence the force, bend it to their will. Remove that influence and you bring balance back to the force. None of this means that the Jedi have it right, just like here where there is no guarantee that any religion on Earth has it right no matter how convicted to their beliefs their followers are.
It makes very little sense for the word “balance”. “Restore” or “heal” the Force, sure, if the belief is that the dark side is not a “side” at all but an aberation that needs to be excised. But “balance” doesn’t mean all of one and none of the other. Balance doesn’t mean that the two sides have to be identical, but it is a recoginition that the two, together, affect equilibrium. Let’s not even get started on how “side” implies the same thing, particular in conjunction with “balance”.
Ok, so: Lucas is the guy who invented midichlorians. So yeah, I don’t think he knows what “balance” means. And I’m glad he’s no longer in the helm of the Star Wars universe.
Weirdly enough, the 2000s trilogy is somewhat enjoyable if you watch it again. In a cheesy B-movie kind of way, but still beats the soullessness of TFA.
Anakin didn’t bring the dark side to power, he was corrupted by it and a mere tool. He was still crucial in bringing “balance” to the force due to the fact that him being Luke’s father and then deciding to kill the Emperor to save his son did fulfil the prophecy.
Besides that there isn’t really anything in the movies to support a different interpretation.The dark side is always shown as something inherently bad, there really is nothing it does to balance out its “evilness” while the light side/the force are also never shown to need some sort of dark side “influence” to work. The force is simply not a ying yang relationship but I guess a “good and evil” relationship is too simple for modern tastes and thus people came up with theories and interpretations that complicate things.
I do have some sympathy for this because the prequels did muddy the waters but it doesn’t change the very simple “philosophy” behind the force in my opinion and I hope that the new movies will respect that.
There is enough you can do with a simple good and evil setup and so many other movies nowadays use moral relativism that not every movie needs to end up in a moral grey area (imo one of the reasons why the prequels failed was because Lucas TRIED to explore a few of those grey areas and it obviously didn’t make for a great result, it just made everyone look bad which is not good thing for a Star Wars story).
Vanity Fair shows off its Annie Leibovitz Last Jedi cover photos.
The Rey and Luke photo is awesome.
Obviously trying to out-beige Star Trek: Discovery.
In their defense, Luke and Rey actually grew up and lived on a shitty desert planet. :P