What novel or novels (or even comics) do you think actually got the Force right? And why?
Did any EU novel get the Force right?
- Thread starter Captain Nebula
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That is hard to judge as there is a fast variety of ways to get the Force right and wrong....sometimes at the same time. Partly because what the Force is, does, and how the universe responds to it, changes over the last four decades. So a novel or comic that had it right twenty years ago, might not have it right anymore.
I'd say very few went into it with any real depth at all, rightly or wrongly. For the most part it was either so oversimplified as to be meaningless, or just used as a plot device, a gimmick and sometimes even as a McGuffin.
The pervading sense I got was that most authors that tried to tackle the subject, simply didn't understand the philosophical underpinnings that Lucas was drawing from. From these murky waters did arise the asinine concept of "Grey Jedi" and other such nonsense.
The pervading sense I got was that most authors that tried to tackle the subject, simply didn't understand the philosophical underpinnings that Lucas was drawing from. From these murky waters did arise the asinine concept of "Grey Jedi" and other such nonsense.
One of the few books that did delve into the Force deeply was "Specter of the Past", where Mara calls Luke out on some of the wilder and wacky things he'd done in the Bantam novels to that point, noting that spectacle was something dark side users often went in for. Luke meditated on this for awhile, and intentionally tried to dial back his Force usage. In return, he began receiving Yoda-like visions of the future.
It plays a role throughout the whole Hand of Thrawn duology, and it's an interesting look. The more powerful your Force usage is, the blinder you can become to what it can show you. What's more powerful - knowledge or strength?
It plays a role throughout the whole Hand of Thrawn duology, and it's an interesting look. The more powerful your Force usage is, the blinder you can become to what it can show you. What's more powerful - knowledge or strength?
That is something that accidentally exists in the PT too. The Jedi are constantly doing meters high flip-kicks and having giant force-based battles yet none of them are able to meditate quite right (including Yoda) and are blind to Anakin's tragedy playing out right in front of them. Later in the OT, Jedi are having much smaller battles that resemble knights sword fighting and are holding off on double-jumps and force moves unless necessary.
As an aside, I thought the overly force-assisted fighting styles of the PT era was kinda meh. They're wizards carrying laser-swords, not magic ninja turtles, come on. I like how the new ones stuck with the force-use levels and sword-fighting styles of the OT.
The only good lightsaber battle in the PT were Jinn, Kenobi against Maul, and Anakin against Dooku round two
Correlative is not necessarily the same thing as causative. The fights in the OT were more restrained because of the combatants and the nature of the fights, not some fundamental philosophical shift in how they used the force.
In the Kenobi/Vader fight, Kenobi is old and way past his prime. He doesn't have the energy for a prolonged battle so he was playing mostly defensive, buying the others time to escape.
In the Luke/Vader fights, Luke was only half trained and Vader wasn't actually trying to kill him most of the time (see also: Rey vs. Kylo).
As for the diminished ability of the order to use the force, that was a deliberate effort on the part of the dark side to cloud their vision.
They're not meant to literally be wizards; that appellation was only ever figurative. They're Samurai with a deeply spiritual connection to the universe. Using the force to push, jump, shoot lighting etc. takes focus and energy. Not an easy task when someone is trying to hack your head off. A Jedi sword fighting is more about being centred, focused, aware and in the moment. This is why they use swords instead of launching force hadoukens.
This was illustrated in the Yoda/Dooku fight. They could either throw things at each other, or fight. They couldn't do both at the same time. Indeed, that's how Dooku got away by forcing Yoda to choose between pressing the attack and stopping that chunk of machinery from crushing Obi-Wan.
So in other words pretty much nothing like the Samurai at all other than possibly what you see in Kurosawa movies (which is itself a fictional construct from post-War Japan). If anything the Jedi are more informed by American/European conceptions and ideas about religions and religious warrior orders than anything particular "Eastern" and better seen as a fictional concept where various fictional ideas are explored against a science fiction setting rather than some one to one analog to a historical class of people that has been overly fetishized and romanticized in the American imagination.
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"They're like Marshals in the Old West. They're the keepers of the peace. They're given assignments to resolve conflicts." - interview with George Lucas
I think it did-the EU dealt with the force in far greater depth than the movies could hope for-Traitor, Darth Plagueis, Bane Trilogy, TUF.
Though I am speaking as a Vergere partisan.
Though I am speaking as a Vergere partisan.
Books often do that.
Unless we are wanting a "Dune-esque" miniseries that expands upon the concepts such as the Bene Gesserit, the Weirding Way and spice.
Am I the only one who thought Yoda should have thrown that chunk at Dooku's ship?
The view of the Force is more Eastern in its viewpoint, at least from the PT, and some aspects of Yoda's teaching. My World Religions teacher used Yoda as an illustration of some Taoist teachings. Very interesting stuff.
That said, the point regarding the Jedi Order in the PT being analogous to more Western religious orders is more accurate. I think I heard Lucas describe them as a combination of Methodist and Buddhist. I've certainly heard comparisons to Catholicism as well.
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