Star Wars works pretty well for me, as do many films and series that have plot holes in them. I always found Star Trek more difficult to maintain suspension of disbelief in, since it involved more technical discussion. In Star Wars, Jedi knights use swords made of lasers or something; it doesn’t matter if lasers don’t work that way, they just do in that universe. The Force exists and has a light and dark side. It doesn’t need to be analysed or explained, and the attempt to change that in the prequels didn’t work. It’s just a story, and it works on that level.
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I’m not sure what you mean by that.
Do you mean that evil people aren’t rational, or evil comes from people doing things for irrational reasons, or something else entirely?
Well what never made sense to me about the Dark Side is that there is a Dark Side. Also a Light Side. Think about it you’ve got this all encompassing force of nature that pervades and influences everything. Why would it have intention? Why would it have two distinct, competing moral intentions?
Say you’ve got this river. And in its flood plain there’s a village. When the river over flows its bounds. Is that the Dark Side of The Force trying to destroy the village? Or the Light Side of The Force trying to fertilize the fields?
I get that the concept was based on various Manichean religious concepts and a lot of faux Eastern philosophical BS. And I basically just correct in my head by assuming these are people who have created complex religions around The Force. So they’ll justify, misinterpret or whatever. But even in the film there seems to be a pretty big stress that THESE THINGS ARE REAL. Like there is an actual, dualistic, good and evil Force. And people, actions or events are connected to one or the other. And that doesn’t really even seem to wash internally.
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Just look at the last election for proof of that. Or the current TGOP.
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The Snark is strong with this one.
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It doesn’t have to be but it’s intellectually consistent, provided you are also evil.
The Force is generated by life, according to Obi-Wan.
If you assume for a moment that the Force has some sort of intelligence (possibly borrowed from the living creatures that generate the Force itself), then it will of course have intentions. And, if it is generated by life itself, then its intention will be to preserve life (and thus preserve itself). Which pretty much washes with the Light Side philosophy.
As for the Dark Side, one of the Expanded Universe books put forth an extended metaphor where a Force user is like a craftsman trying to listen to a beautifully singing bird. If the craftsman uses power sparingly, he will be able to hear the bird singing clearly, but if he industrializes the process and uses a vast amount of power to pursuing his craft, the bird’s song will be drowned out by the factory’s noise. So, if the Force has an intention, the Dark Side users, through their use of the Force’s power to acquire more and more power, would lose touch with the will of the Force and replace that intention with their own, more selfish, intentions.
This would also explain why the Jedi Code emphasizes peace, knowledge, serenity, and harmony over emotion, ignorance, passion, and chaos: the better to listen to the voice of the Force.
For an alternate answer to “Why would it have intention?” — we’ve seen that at least four Jedi, after death, have become “one with the Force” and have reappeared as ghosts. Perhaps the “Light Side” is merely the voices of long-dead Jedi. If Sith can do the same thing, maybe that’s what the Dark Side is, too.
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It’s been interesting seeing how the Dark/Light Side has been refined by shows like Clone Wars and now Rebels. Dave Filoni sees the Force much like a martial arts ability; it’s a skill that some people are better at than others and can be refined to amazing degrees, where you have someone like Bruce Lee. As such, you have characters like Ezra who aren’t so much using different “types” of the Force, but are learning different ways to use this power with different intent behind it. So there isn’t so much a Dark Side and Light Side to the Force as there are dark/light sides to people learning the skill.
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You’re basically just saying what I am with more complications. DNA “wants” in a sense to keep life going, because its a self perpetuating chemical reaction. That doesn’t equate to intention. If The Force’s “will” is to keep nature doing its nature thing then there isn’t really an intent to do something “good” or something “bad”. And there isn’t an explicit light or dark side of it. Good or bad things will just happen as a result of The Force being all Forcey. And it definitely isn’t some sort of consciousness making decisions one way or the other. An awful lot will happen that is neither or both, and a ton will happen that noone ever notices or never effects anything. Your second bit is basically taking the tack that I do in my head. The force does its thing, and the good or evil is all about how people deal with or attempt to force that one way or the other. The failing is human (or human analogues) not something inherent to The Force.
But we’re repeatedly told that there is an actual Light and Dark Side. The Dark Side gon’ seduce yeh. And there are different Dark Side powers that are only accessible via the dark side. And so forth.
We don’t mention that.
We can assume and perhaps a lot. Perhaps the Force is just Space Jesus and a Skywalker will bring balance to The Force by freeing him from his crystal prison to lay down some dank beats. The EU is now non-canon. And frankly a lot of it was contradictory and not suited to being considered canon to begin with. What’s up on screen, and officially sanctioned as the real shit is weirdly contradictory. The Force as all pervasive function of nature/life doesn’t wash with The Force having two distinct contradictory goals which can seduce or empower farm boys. Its not particularly internally consistent in its presentation either. Which is an artifact of what George Lucas based it in (slim understanding of Asian Philosophy, and simple good/evil story telling). The newer material (even the Prequels) edge more towards the sensible interpretation. That people have weaknesses, people fail. That the evil part is the people. But its still directly off put on The Force. The Dark side will Seduce you, that’s the Dark Side doing that. Its can be a bit lazy. Its rather less interesting than the more human explanation. And it undermines some of those attempts to present people like Anakin and Kylo Ren as troubled and flawed.
And yet explicitly. Only some people feel the force. Only some of those can use it. And we’re told its an all pervasive, binding energy within the universe etc. But again its basically the same as my preferred read. The Force is The Force. But people build up different belief systems around it, interpret and use it differently. So the shortfalls, and the evil, are all down to people.
And that seems to be where most people land when they try to expand on or explain this stuff. Some of the more… charitable reads of the prequels even follow this route. The Jedi were mislead by their own prophesies, structures and withdrawal from the galaxy at large. Rather than plot holes and stupidity or some nebulous Dark Sideyness. And so forth. But again and again it seems to be stressed that The Dark Side and The Light Side are totally real things to be interpreted literally.
If that’s an impediment to better story telling why keep on with it? Why does the Dark Side need to be a literal thing? If its so easy to better explain it, in a way that better tells the stories you’re trying to tell?
I suspect Disney owned Lucas film might be going this way. At least a bit. Church of The Force, Kylo’s not a Sith and all that.
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I think the victory of Emperor Trump shows that expecting villains to be rational is to ignore how many villains work in real life.
You won’t see it in the mainstream-media, but go downtown to one of the local Jedispaces to see the truly amazing Midichlorian hacking that is going on now.
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They absolutely are, and I’m excited to see them expand it away from just Jedi/Sith. The Holy City in Rogue One with Chirrut as one of the Guardians of the Whills – not a Jedi, just someone who worships the Force – is way more interesting to me than, say, The Force Unleashed. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Star Wars from years of playing and running RPG scenarios, it’s that all-powerful space wizards make everything else around them way less interesting.
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Again, you’re not going to see it in mainstream-media, but the Sparkly Side has long existed, even if it’s been driven underground in a lot of regimes. The widespread popularity of Chef Gormaanda shows that even the Empire can tolerate the Sparkly Side, as long as it dares not speak its name.
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Absolutely. All the literal duelist take on the force does is introduce plot holes and drive complex, contradictory explanations like the one my childhood priest gave when asked “If God is so great, why do babies die!?”. Things are more interesting without it. And it allows the introduction of new groups and ideas.
Also I squealed a little bit when I heard “Whills” during Rouge One.
Isn’t that something else we’re not supposed to talk about? I wonder how The Lumpy Side of The Force is getting along.
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There’s a difference between “preserving life” and “keep nature doing its nature thing.” By the former, I meant something more like “keep the intelligent life forms from bombing the shit out of each other,” which I could count as morally “good.”
As I said, I don’t see a reason why it couldn’t be borrowing consciousness from people. And, in fact, I see no way that a “Force ghost” can be sustained without the Force itself having some sort of consciousness.
I meant people and animals, not Force-mitochondria.
Duh. When you ask questions starting with “Why would…?” you’re going to get a lot of those answers. You’re asking for possibilities.
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I suppose I was more looking for a why does that work narratively sort of thing. My problem is I don’t think it does. And trying to make it. Well it leads to complicated, round about answers and old EU level/Marvel Comics level Continuity weird.
ETA: And that weird complication always sort of boils down to The Force being the The Force and people being the deciding factor. So why not just run with that?
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And Grievous.
I seem to recall that the dark side promises life beyond death. Or something.
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Not me… she is very funny. Jenny, on the other hand, she is pretty snarky.
You don’t find her funny?
Any emotion?
“Yes, yes, give in to your angst and become more powerful in the Force!”
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