Phantom Menace is the best Prequel.

[Admiral_Young]

Personally for myself I don't think there was any need for the name "Sith" to be mentioned in the original trilogy. Palpatine by this point had already cemented his rule and become the tyrant he was with Vader as his enforcer and Tarkin his military commander. As I mentioned before people could think what they wanted about Palpatine at this point of his reign..there was never any need to mention that he or Vader were Darth Lords of the Sith. I don't think the citizens of the galaxy ever really realized what he and Vader were. WE knew what they were, but they did a good job at concealing themselves from the galactic populace.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

Personally for myself I don't think there was any need for the name "Sith" to be mentioned in the original trilogy.

Well, I can forgive Lucas for not having figured out the whole Sith/Jedi back story, but you have to admit that jumping from Revenge of the Sith, where the Sith were heavily discussed to the first film, where they aren't mentioned at all is rather odd.

I mean, when Obi Wan is explaining to Luke the nature of the Force, he explains what a Jedi is, explains what the dark side is, ect. Yet he doesn't bother explaining what a Sith is? The guys who are your main antagonists? The guys who currently "rule the galaxy"? Don't you think Luke should know about them?

 

[sonak]

Personally for myself I don't think there was any need for the name "Sith" to be mentioned in the original trilogy.

Well, I can forgive Lucas for not having figured out the whole Sith/Jedi back story, but you have to admit that jumping from Revenge of the Sith, where the Sith were heavily discussed to the first film, where they aren't mentioned at all is rather odd.

I mean, when Obi Wan is explaining to Luke the nature of the Force, he explains what a Jedi is, explains what the dark side is, ect. Yet he doesn't bother explaining what a Sith is? The guys who are your main antagonists? The guys who currently "rule the galaxy"? Don't you think Luke should know about them?

trying to make the two trilogies gel is a Herculean task.

The PT makes a lot of what Obi-Wan says in the OT either not make sense or deliberately deceptive.

 

[Uxi]

TESB and ROTJ make a lot of what Obi-Wan says in ANH either not make sense or deliberately deceptive.

Fixed it for you.

What does Obi-wan know about the Sith other than that they have to be fought? He doesn't really have any more info to share, if it would even be relevant.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

What does Obi-wan know about the Sith other than that they have to be fought? He doesn't really have any more info to share, if it would even be relevant.

I knows lots of things.In TPM he finds out a Sith is working against the Jedi during the trade dispute. Later, Yoda tells him there are always two Sith. Thus he knows there is a Sith master out there.

He finds out in Clones that a Sith is in control of the senate, and that Count Dooku is a Sith.

The next film he finds out that Senator Palpatine is a Sith, that he is the Emperor, and that Anakin betrayed him to join the Sith.

All of that is relevant information.

 

[Kegg]

Obi Wan explicitly tells Luke that Darth Vader is someone who has fallen to evil, the dark side of the force, to serve the Emperor. He doesn't mention that guys like Darth Vader have a name of their own, but there's little doubt as to what he is.

 

[Admiral_Young]

In early versions of the script he calls the Sith Bogun...or some such and by the time we get to Return of the Jedi I believe he did figure out the Sith. Blaming Lucas is easy and lazy in my opinion. Not to mention over done. TremlingBluStar...if you want an interesting read, I've recommended this book in other threads before, but I would highly suggest reading "The Secret History of Star Wars" you can download it for free as an ebook if you type it in google. It gets into Lucas's revision history and how it has contradicted it's self over the years. It also spends the first quarter of the book setting up Lucas's own history before it gets into "Star Wars".

 

[DarthPipes]

Cool. I'm convinced.

step him

"stop him", right?

Or perhaps he meant "step in". We may need the assistance of a more experienced spelling nazi to make a call on this one.

Heheh. Yes, step in.

Lucas himself has been inconsistent about the Force. In ESB, Yoda specifically states that the dark side isn't strong, just quicker and more seductive. In the AOTC commentary track, Lucas says the dark side is stronger but will destroy you in the end.

I say the dark side is stronger because you can use the power of the Force without restraint but it will usually end up destroying you. That's why it takes a stronger person to stay in the light, something that Anakin Skywalker wasn't. The light side might be considered stronger by Yoda because of the ability to keep your identity even after you die.

 

[EnsignRicky]

That was one of the things I liked About Cade Skywalker from the Legacy comics, He was like "Screw the light side and dark side.". He was a reasonably powerful Jedi, but when push came to shove, he'd fire up the red eyes and go off into a rage of anger and flying Sith body parts. Then just as quickly he'd calm back down and return to his drug abuse and self pity. I never said he was perfect, but he did know how to keep perspective; He hated everybody.

 

[Set Harth]

I say the dark side is stronger because you can use the power of the Force without restraint but it will usually end up destroying you.

That's probably what Yoda meant ( that and "anything Force-created can be Force-repelled", as the ROTJ novel tells us and as Yoda puts into practice during AOTC and ROTS ).

 

[TremblingBluStar]

Lucas himself has been inconsistent about the Force. In ESB, Yoda specifically states that the dark side isn't strong, just quicker and more seductive. In the AOTC commentary track, Lucas says the dark side is stronger but will destroy you in the end.

Well, we all know that Yoda couldn't possibly have been misrepresenting the dark side!

 

[sonak]

TESB and ROTJ make a lot of what Obi-Wan says in ANH either not make sense or deliberately deceptive.

Fixed it for you.

What does Obi-wan know about the Sith other than that they have to be fought? He doesn't really have any more info to share, if it would even be relevant.

well ESB and ROTJ did that for SOME of the things Obi-Wan said in ANH.

The PT does that for almost everything he says during the entire OT that's related to backstory.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

well ESB and ROTJ did that for SOME of the things Obi-Wan said in ANH.

The PT does that for almost everything he says during the entire OT that's related to backstory.

Except that he fought in the Clone Wars. That was true!

 

[Talosian]

Yeah, there's no reasonable way of explaining why the Sith would go unmentioned in the original Star Wars movies aside from the fact that they were fleshed out a generation later for the prequel films. Trying to insert the Sith in the first Star Wars film is like dropping CGI dewbacks and rontos onto Tatooine.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

Yeah, there's no reasonable way of explaining why the Sith would go unmentioned in the original Star Wars movies aside from the fact that they were fleshed out a generation later for the prequel films.

But they rule the galaxy!!!

Sorry. Had to mention that.

 

[Broccoli]

I checked out Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays from the library the other day as I've always wanted to read it. I came across this interesting quote from George Lucas:

I didn't want Vader to be all-powerful. In the first film it was very easy to make him into some kind of superhero. But I decided not to do that. In fact, he is one of the Dark Lords who is working for the Emperor, and he has to do the Emperor's bidding. You will see at some point in the future that the Jedi have the same relationship to the Republic; they're like public servants, they're like marshals or policemen. They basically do what they're told to do. They're not independent agents who can do whatever they want. In the case of the Sith Lords, they work for the Empire. So I obviously didn't want to make Vader too weak, but I didn't want to make him so you thought he was in charge of everything. That's why I had Tarkin in the first film, althoug he was more of a bureaucrat.

The quote comes right after a discussion on the character of Grand Moff Jerjerrod who had a large role in early drafts of Return of the Jedi. He was much like Tarkin in having a lot of power in the Empire, but where Tarkin was Vader's ally, Jerjerrod was set up as Vader's rival. Obviously, this was cut from the later drafts as it was deemed extraneous when they were refining what they wanted to do with the film, but it is interesting to see what Lucas's intentions were when making the original three, and how things changed when he made the prequels.

 

[The Old Mixer]

One important thing about the Sith is that prior to the PT, the word was out there...various offscreen sources referred to Vader as the "Dark Lord of the Sith"...but it wasn't made clear that the Sith were supposed to be the dark counterpart to the Jedi order. Some offscreen sources tried to explain what "Dark Lord of the Sith" meant in entirely different ways...the Noghri in Zahn's novels were originally going to be called the Sith, but the Lucas continuity cops killed that.

 

[Kegg]

^
And it was clear to everyone that the Emperor and Vader were counterparts to the Jedi order. It's pretty unambiguous as to what they are, whether or not it has a name (if memory serves early EU stuff favoured 'dark Jedi', for example) is another matter.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

One important thing about the Sith is that prior to the PT, the word was out there...various offscreen sources referred to Vader as the "Dark Lord of the Sith"...but it wasn't made clear that the Sith were supposed to be the dark counterpart to the Jedi order. Some offscreen sources tried to explain what "Dark Lord of the Sith" meant in entirely different ways...the Noghri in Zahn's novels were originally going to be called the Sith, but the Lucas continuity cops killed that.

I still think it's funny going from the PT to the OT, with the PT's emphasis on the Sith and mentioning the name in every other scene to not hear it uttered once in the OT. Not that I blame Lucas or anybody else for this. Just find it amusing.

It would be like if, in a fictional cold war analogy, two Soviets somehow managed to become elected president and VP and turn America into an Empire.

20 years later, the equivalent of Obi Wan, living underground in Beowawe, Nevada explains to his cousin that the VP was a friend of his who simply turned to evil. No mention of the Soviets.

 

[DWF]

One important thing about the Sith is that prior to the PT, the word was out there...various offscreen sources referred to Vader as the "Dark Lord of the Sith"...but it wasn't made clear that the Sith were supposed to be the dark counterpart to the Jedi order. Some offscreen sources tried to explain what "Dark Lord of the Sith" meant in entirely different ways...the Noghri in Zahn's novels were originally going to be called the Sith, but the Lucas continuity cops killed that.

I still think it's funny going from the PT to the OT, with the PT's emphasis on the Sith and mentioning the name in every other scene to not hear it uttered once in the OT. Not that I blame Lucas or anybody else for this. Just find it amusing.

It would be like if, in a fictional cold war analogy, two Soviets somehow managed to become elected president and VP and turn America into an Empire.

20 years later, the equivalent of Obi Wan, living underground in Beowawe, Nevada explains to his cousin that the VP was a friend of his who simply turned to evil. No mention of the Soviets.

Outside of the Jedi I don't recall anybody mentioning the Sith in prequels, so I don't think knowledge of them was as common as let on.