Just out of interest, has the Star Wars Expanded Universe ever attempted to reconcile the claim made in Revenge of the Sith that Qui-Gon Jinn was the first Jedi to ever attain the ability to live on as a Force spirit after death, with the numerous instances in earlier stories set thousands of years in the past, such as Tales of the Jedi, where the bodies of dead Jedi dissolve and they become spirits in the Force?
Force ghosts
- Thread starter EJA
- Start date
I dunno, since I don't read many Star Wars books, but I'd say its an easy enough fix - back when the Jedi were more pure of heart or whatever, and not as political as they were in the prequels, they had the ability to become force ghosts pretty easily after death. It was a skill lost over time, and then, a long time later on, Qui Gon was able to do whatever he did, and past this skill on to Obi Wan & Yoda.
Problem solved.
Problem solved.
There's not really much to reconcile per se; in the EU, we have Force ghosts around in the past, and in the films we don't, but ROTS doesn't specifically say that no Jedi had ever achieved the power before. Qui-Gon's discovery can easily be cast as a rediscovery of a lost art if one should desire to take the EU in question into account. If one disregards the EU in general ( or certain aspects of pre-PT EU specifically ), he can be looked at as the first.
Force ghosts are an annoying plot contrivance. I'd just outlaw em all!
Earth, Hitler. 1938.
I think Force Ghosts are part of the Living Force concept that Gui-Gon always went on about in Phantom Menace. Reading the Jedi Path now...it would seem that he wasn't the first to discover it but to rediscover it as Set Harth suggested.
Nowhere Man
Commodore
What I don't get is why we never saw Qui-Gon's ghost and why Anakin's ghost at the end of Jedi would return to the younger version when Yoda and Obi-Wan did not and why did he have different jedi robes than when he was a Jedi? I know the real reason is that Lucas is retarded, but what is the in universe reason?
How is Anakin's story different from theirs?
Yoda and Obi-Wan didn't turn to the dark side.
Anakin's is the only Force ghost of a redeemed fallen Jedi that we see.
Anakin wanted to be remembered as the optimistic youth that he was before he got his limbs chopped off and his body set on fire.
Obi-Wan was super old and didn't give a damn what he looked like.
Yeah. Dead is dead. Death doesn't mean very much if you just go to another place where you can hover over the hero's shoulder and annoy him.
That, plus, his ghost would have just been layin' there on the Ewok platform, all stubby & stuff...that would kind of suck and turn Obi Wan & Yoda into dicks for smilin' about it while Luke looked on.
Yeah. I mean, as much as we dislike Hayden Christensen being CGI'ed into ROTJ, it makes more sense than a perfectly healthy older Anakin with all his limbs and not on fire.
Honestly, based on how he looks when he takes his mask off to look at Luke with "his own eyes," Anakin's force ghost should have been a torso with a giant Easter Egg on top.
Honestly, based on how he looks when he takes his mask off to look at Luke with "his own eyes," Anakin's force ghost should have been a torso with a giant Easter Egg on top.
In the EU Force ghosts (at least some of the Sith ones) have been able to alter their appearance so they have some control of how others see them.
The only other case I can recall of a Force ghost not looking as they should when they died is Luke Skywalker in the Legacy comics. His Force ghost doesn't appear to be much older than he did in ROTJ, though the big Three are rarely portrayed as much older than they looked in ROTJ. I'm guessing it was purely so not to suggest a specific age that Luke actual dies.
The only other case I can recall of a Force ghost not looking as they should when they died is Luke Skywalker in the Legacy comics. His Force ghost doesn't appear to be much older than he did in ROTJ, though the big Three are rarely portrayed as much older than they looked in ROTJ. I'm guessing it was purely so not to suggest a specific age that Luke actual dies.
Nowhere Man
Commodore
I figured it made sense that whatever age you are when you die, that's what you stay as a ghost. I also figured in the original version the reason Anakin didn't look like shit is because the force restored him to what he would look like if he had not turned. I always assumed that the robes of the Jedi were all the same until Luke wore the black one. Then the prequels Anakinhas the tunic, so this still doesn't explain why he has the Jedi robes and not the tunic. I can see that maybe the the force restored him to the point of when he was a Jedi and not a Sith, but if that is the case, he should have the tunic. He still has the scar on his eye also, which makes no sense. One more thing was that Vader didn't disappear, he just died. How did Vader know about the ghost's? Force ghosting is cool, but confusing.
Can't believe that I'm agreeing with Set Harth about something but yeah Anakin is the only redeemed Jedi in that scene. As was suggested above that is also how he looked in his prime prior to his corruption by the dark side of the force.
That's not an issue. Qui-Gon didn't disappear either.
The Sith can Force ghost, so he could have learnt that skill in his Sith training. After Obi-Wan did his disappearing act Vader might have looked into it and found out somehow about how Jedi Force Ghost. On the other hand maybe it was the Force being cool and granting him a chance for him to see his son as he was before it integrated him fully. But, yeah it is confusing at times.
As for why ghost Qui-Gon never appeared and Yoda and Obi-Wan did that can be explained by that Qui-Gon rediscovered the art but didn't perfect it and Yoda and Obi-Wan having several more decades to work on the issue expanded on it so they could be seen and not just heard.
And maybe Yoda and Obiwan helped Vader/Anakin to become a force ghost since Obiwan was hovering around Luke the whole time anyway.
Nowhere Man
Commodore
I figured it made sense that whatever age you are when you die, that's what you stay as a ghost. I also figured in the original version the reason Anakin didn't look like shit is because the force restored him to what he would look like if he had not turned. I always assumed that the robes of the Jedi were all the same until Luke wore the black one. Then the prequels Anakinhas the tunic, so this still doesn't explain why he has the Jedi robes and not the tunic. I can see that maybe the the force restored him to the point of when he was a Jedi and not a Sith, but if that is the case, he should have the tunic. He still has the scar on his eye also, which makes no sense. One more thing was that Vader didn't disappear, he just died. How did Vader know about the ghost's? Force ghosting is cool, but confusing.
