Force ghosts

[od0_ital]

^

Postin' on a message board is almost as cool & confusin' as Force ghosts.

 

[FordSVT]

"..I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

So... besides give advice, what can Force ghosts do? I assume Kenobi was simply talking out his ass to Vader and speaking metaphorically.

 

[Reverend]

And maybe Yoda and Obiwan helped Vader/Anakin to become a force ghost since Obiwan was hovering around Luke the whole time anyway.

Given the implication that Yoda and Kenobi both learnt the ability from Qui Gon, a more likely scenario is that Vader leant it from him too.

It'd make sense that Qui Gon would stick around for Anakin and who knows, maybe he had a hand in his redemption too. We do hear his voice in AotC so it's implied he's been watching over him from the other side.

 

[EJA]

How could the Jedi have forgotten the ability for so many years though? As has been said, it's likely that Anakin is only able to achieve the state via Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, without having actually sought it out. If it's that easy, all Jedi in the past would've been able to become Force spirits, just with a little help from their departed ones. Why would this knowledge be lost?

 

[MLJames]

I'm a little confused. Where exactly does the idea come from that Qui-Gon rediscovered the long-lost "path to immortality", as Yoda puts it? Is it something from the EU? Because I watched ROTS over the weekend, and when Yoda tells Obi-Wan about Qui-Gon's return, he never says anything about the technique being lost. All he says is that he' ll teach Obi-Wan how to commune with his old master.

 

[Jono]

^^ The Jedi Order is around 25,000 years old. It has been "wiped out" several times in that period. Each time it gets "wiped out" it would lose the bulk of its Masters, its learning centres and with it its repositories of knowledge. Talents and skills will inevitable be lost for a period in such a cataclysm.

As for Vader, according to Wookiepedia he learnt of Force ghosting from Sidious and after he died Yoda and Obi-Wan taught him what he needed to do it. Plus Vader did fade away and what we saw burnt was just his armour and mechanical parts.

I'm a little confused. Where exactly does the idea come from that Qui-Gon rediscovered the long-lost "path to immortality", as Yoda puts it? Is it something from the EU? Because I watched ROTS over the weekend, and when Yoda tells Obi-Wan about Qui-Gon's return, he never says anything about the technique being lost. All he says is that he' ll teach Obi-Wan how to commune with his old master.

Yep, it is from the EU as they had Jedi turning into Force ghosts thousands of years before the films as initially it was believed that every Jedi and redeemed Force user would Force ghost rather than it being a specific talent to be learned. So to make it fit in with Qui-Gon's "discovery" it made it a talent that was lost so to explain why the Jedi in the far past could do.

 

[Reverend]

I'm a little confused. Where exactly does the idea come from that Qui-Gon rediscovered the long-lost "path to immortality", as Yoda puts it? Is it something from the EU? Because I watched ROTS over the weekend, and when Yoda tells Obi-Wan about Qui-Gon's return, he never says anything about the technique being lost. All he says is that he' ll teach Obi-Wan how to commune with his old master.

He didn't just say he communed with him, he said he "returned from the netherworld of the force." I think it was more explicit in the script and IIRC there was a scene cut from RoTS where you actually see Yoda make contact.

As for how they could loose knowledge, though I'm not up on a lot of the EU, even I know the history of the Jedi has been somewhat fractured at times. Libraries destroyed, whole planets lost, multiple Sith pogroms etc. Apply that over the course of a thousand generations and it's not so surprising that they've probably forgotten more than they realise. Some things could also have been "forgotten" on purpose and for good reason. Techniques and abilities that were deemed too dangerous or skirted too close to the dark side would be the most logical justification.

 

[JoeZhang]

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?

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.

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.

It's funny you should mention the tunic, I often think that Uncle Ben was killed in the first film not because they knew the droids were there but because he answered the door wearing the clothes of an outlawed and dangerous group.

Storm-trooper: "Excuse me Sir have you seen these dro... holy shit it's a Jedi! blast that Muthaf&cker before he gets his lightsabre!"

BLAM BLAM

Storm-trooper 2: "Hum.. it was just some crazy old dude!"

 

[MLJames]

He didn't just say he communed with him, he said he "returned from the netherworld of the force." I think it was more explicit in the script and IIRC there was a scene cut from RoTS where you actually see Yoda make contact.

Oh, I know it was more than that; Yoda's exact line was "An old friend has learned the path to immortality. One who has returned from the netherworld of the Force." I was just wondering where the idea originated that Qui-Gon had uncovered something long forgotten by the rest of the Jedi, since there was nothing on-screen that supported that theory.

 

[Set Harth]

How did Vader know about the ghost's?

Vader only ghosted due to the assistance of Yoda and Obi-Wan.

As for Vader, according to Wookiepedia he learnt of Force ghosting from Sidious

That's typical wikipedia bullshit.

The Sith can Force ghost, so he could have learnt that skill in his Sith training.

The Sith can't Force ghost. Qui-Gon even says so in the ROTS novel, and the same idea is expressed in the Annotated Screenplays. In certain EU they can become "Sith spirits", which is a different ability/outcome.

I'm a little confused. Where exactly does the idea come from that Qui-Gon rediscovered the long-lost "path to immortality", as Yoda puts it? Is it something from the EU? Because I watched ROTS over the weekend, and when Yoda tells Obi-Wan about Qui-Gon's return, he never says anything about the technique being lost. All he says is that he' ll teach Obi-Wan how to commune with his old master.

In the film Yoda says: An old friend has learned the path to immortality.
Obi-Wan is surprised by this. From the PT we know that Force ghosting is a learned skill and not automatic for Jedi as was commonly assumed by many in the old days. However, the EU from that time is still assumed to be canon in many circles, so the idea of Qui-Gon rediscovering the skill is simply a way of keeping the Force ghosts of earlier eras in continuity.

 

[JoeZhang]

Could the ghostbusters capture force ghosts?

 

[Whofan]

The ROTJ script by Lucas (Before Kasdan worked on it) had Force ghosts do a lot of weird stuff.

 

[Set Harth]

Could the ghostbusters capture force ghosts?

They would probably just get slimed.