And here I thought it was showing how attuned to the Force he was, how to a Jedi the podrace’s outcome was already preordained. But yeah, clumsily handled.
This was the biggest misstep, the idea was set up in Yoda’s lessons to Luke that the more in tune with the Force one becomes, the more detached one becomes from the rest of the world. That the strength of the Jedi was in letting the Force flow, the dark side being the how moving against the flow causes turbulence and disruption.
I find the worst idea Lucas had was to put Yoda on the Jedi council, that it should have been that the true masters of the Force would have been at secluded monasteries. Let the Council exist, but have the members be weak in the Force, so caught up in everyday politics that they no longer feel the ebb and flow.
I keep coming back to having Yoda never be mentioned by name in an alternate version of the prequels, instead a simple gardener that Obi-Wan consults with. Who knows the Jedi and the Republic will be destroyed in a Hari Seldon psychohistory way. That way, if viewed in order, a newbie would go “oh, so that little guy was a master all along? Mind blown!”
Then again, I also keep coming back to the idea that Vader and Anakin were both taught about the Force by Kenobi, the reveal being that Vader died and a badly wounded Skywalker, to survive (and to his shame), took his identity.
I need to let go of these woulda coulda ideas, and stop thinking I could have done better.
