Lucas had an uninituative meaning of “balance”. It wasn’t light and dark being equal, but dark side users being eliminated.
A better word would have been “tranquility”. If the force is naturally a calm lake, then dark side users are making waves I suppose is a clearer analogy.
What he intended and what he showed us are two different things. By the end of ROTJ, there were no more Sith and no real Jedi left. Luke called himself a Jedi, but didn’t really follow the strict rules and didn’t completely shun the dark side. He simply used it without anger. At that point, balance was truly restored.
The idea of the prophecy and balance with Anakin as the chosen one hadn’t been thought of when ROTJ was made.
By the time Lucas had come up with the prophecy, the EU had established Luke in the post-ROTJ as unquestionably a Jedi. Luke rejected the dogmatic aspects of the old Jedi order as early as Empire Strikes back, and as more EU material was written he continued that trend, building a new Jedi order in the model of his ideas. However rejecting specific old organizational dogma can be seen as stripping away the excess bloat of a system and finding the “true” core of it. Think of Luke as a religious reformist in a way, rejecting the institutions of a religion while not rejecting the religion itself. He was Martin Luther with a lightsaber.
Think of Luke as a religious reformist in a way, rejecting the institutions of a religion while not rejecting the religion itself. He was Martin Luther with a lightsaber.
So he’s a splitter…
But seriously, we all know that Lucas was flying by the seat of his pants writing the sequels and that his wife is the real hero of Star Wars. Everything that came afterwards was created by someone else. In the end Lucas’s story, Luke still used dark side powers. He called himself “Jedi”, but he was simply a Force user with wild ideas about the past. There were no strictly light side users or dark side users anymore. There was simply the Force. If you want to take extended canon into account, Yoda even stated this when he destroyed the last of the Jedi archives. He understood that balance could only be truly restored by letting go of the past.
Lucas doesn’t actually have any inclination as to what “balance” means and just leaves it to the fans to decide. It’s what made Star Wars resonate so well since fans can just project their own opinion onto the narrative. The Jedi/Republic had good intentions, but were corrupt beyond fixing, while the Sith/CIS/Empire were comically evil at times, they were also the only path that could actually root out the problems of the Republic.
Lucas had an uninituative meaning of “balance”. It wasn’t light and dark being equal, but dark side users being eliminated.
A better word would have been “tranquility”. If the force is naturally a calm lake, then dark side users are making waves I suppose is a clearer analogy.
Nono… There was no mistake there.
Before the Clone Wars, there were lots of Jedi everywhere in the Galaxy, and only a couple of Sith.
Anakin did bring balance.
Nope, Lucas meant the dark side being wiped out.
Lucas’ intention was that Anakin brought balance, eventually, by killing Palpatine and then himself rejecting the dark side. Thus wiping out the Sith.
George can let us take it from here. He’s done enough damage.
But then Disney said “hey! We’d rather make an endless river of money!” and pulled a new empire and sith lord out of thin air to make another movie.
What he intended and what he showed us are two different things. By the end of ROTJ, there were no more Sith and no real Jedi left. Luke called himself a Jedi, but didn’t really follow the strict rules and didn’t completely shun the dark side. He simply used it without anger. At that point, balance was truly restored.
The idea of the prophecy and balance with Anakin as the chosen one hadn’t been thought of when ROTJ was made.
By the time Lucas had come up with the prophecy, the EU had established Luke in the post-ROTJ as unquestionably a Jedi. Luke rejected the dogmatic aspects of the old Jedi order as early as Empire Strikes back, and as more EU material was written he continued that trend, building a new Jedi order in the model of his ideas. However rejecting specific old organizational dogma can be seen as stripping away the excess bloat of a system and finding the “true” core of it. Think of Luke as a religious reformist in a way, rejecting the institutions of a religion while not rejecting the religion itself. He was Martin Luther with a lightsaber.
So he’s a splitter…
But seriously, we all know that Lucas was flying by the seat of his pants writing the sequels and that his wife is the real hero of Star Wars. Everything that came afterwards was created by someone else. In the end Lucas’s story, Luke still used dark side powers. He called himself “Jedi”, but he was simply a Force user with wild ideas about the past. There were no strictly light side users or dark side users anymore. There was simply the Force. If you want to take extended canon into account, Yoda even stated this when he destroyed the last of the Jedi archives. He understood that balance could only be truly restored by letting go of the past.
Oops. Forgot to add /s at the end.
Still, thanks for the link. An interesting read.
My mistake. I have seen quite often the thinking that wiping out mass numbers of Jedi brought the Sith-Jedi balance closer.
After the Jedi were wiped, and both were replaced by people that didn’t give a shit about philosophical purity and just tried to help people directly.
Lucas doesn’t actually have any inclination as to what “balance” means and just leaves it to the fans to decide. It’s what made Star Wars resonate so well since fans can just project their own opinion onto the narrative. The Jedi/Republic had good intentions, but were corrupt beyond fixing, while the Sith/CIS/Empire were comically evil at times, they were also the only path that could actually root out the problems of the Republic.