Just find every DVD, and destroy the movie, please.
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GXzknyVQ8I[/yt]
The Jedi are a "myth?"
- Thread starter The Wormhole
- Start date
Just find every DVD, and destroy the movie, please.
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GXzknyVQ8I[/yt]
Maybe, it's the fact I'm hung up on the word "Myth" because that word means a lot. It doesn't mean "something that happened a few decades ago that you're not sure happened." It means "something that happened ages ago with generations upon generations upon generations of stories told, re-told, spiced-up, altered and may not be entirely true."
I mean, when I think of "Myths" I think of things like the Greek/Norse Gods, which aren't even Myths in the sense of "things that sorta happened but in the game of telephone what really happened changed a lot between now and then." But I think of the Dwayne Johnson "Hercules" movie that came out last year where he's Hercules but portrayed as an otherwise "normal" person (normal in action-movie hero standards) and the stories about him were fabricated and inflated by someone in his group in order to make Herc's exploits sound more epic. He didn't really fight a Hydra, he just fought a band of thieves wearing scary masks.
It's also common to think of the SW galaxy and the practicality of information spreading around it in real-world or even in Star Trek terms where the galaxy is immense and communications between different systems, let alone ALL of them, is a impractical process. Not everyone is getting the same info, if at all.
But, communications or newswise, the Star Wars galaxy has always seemed "smaller."
Regardless of how much the Empire enforced a "dis-information" campaign all knowledge of the Jedi aren't going to be erased inside of a generation.
In your analogy, even if all SEAL team members were executed, imprisoned and the like AND any communication of them was prosecuted, AND all tangible and non-tangible evidence was erased or suppressed... You're still not going to squash everything.
There's still going to be people who've experienced it all, seen it, and are going to tell and spread those stories in secret. Some pieces of evidence or writings, or whatever are going to exist and survive any attempts to squash it.
Now, this story-telling and lack of easy-to-get information is the *start* of these legends that turn into myths, but a generation is not enough time for that transformation since there's people still alive who've seen it and experienced things themselves and there's still going to be writings (or whatever) out there that those suppressing the information haven't ridden the world of yet.
A generation is nowhere near long enough for a series of actual, true, factual accounts to morph into legend.
But Han dismiss them and treats their existence as being untrue. He treats the notion of them in a mythical way even though he lived during a time when the Jedi were around and active, were slaughtered and the Empire took over. Even if he fell for any "disinformation" campaign launched by The Empire he still lived in a time they were active and would have encountered people all of the time who heard of the exploits of the Jedi.
Let's go with the Navy SEALS example and use my niece as a stand-in for Han; she's 12 or 13. So let's say over the next couple of months the Navy SEALS are all executed or imprisoned or go into hiding. The government storms libraries, book stores and even people's homes to eradicate all written knowledge of them. They erase everything, or block everything, on the Internet about them. Get caught talking about them, you're jailed.
It's still not going to be 100%. Just look at things like child porn (well don't actually look at it!) which is pretty much on this level. It's utterly illegal and getting caught, even tangentially, lands you into a world of hurt. But it still exists, right? Even if we restricted Internet access to domestic sources only and erased all of the child porn, 10 seconds later there's going to be more. It still going to exist.
Any information on the SEALS (Jedi) is going to be the same way, no matter how much they try and to suppress it there's still going to be people out there with the knowledge and information spreading it. And one generation isn't enough time to pass for people to dismiss the knowledge of something as being hooey.
People can still go up to my niece and tell her the stories of what the SEALS did, they can still show her papers, salvaged books, and such to show her what they did. Any attempts to squash the world of all of it isn't feasible, something will always survive.
Again, it'd take generations for people to quickly dismiss the notion of the Jedi. Han too easily dismisses them when he heard FIRST HAND stories of them! It's not like years, decades or centuries old stories with all of the levels of adjustment that comes with. He's dealt with people who were actually around and alive when the Jedi were. Hell, he works with one of them EVERYDAY! Someone who has PERSONALLY MET A JEDI!
But, nah, they're all hooey.
There's the guy who shot Osama Bin Ladin, and then there's the other guy that shot through Osama's wives who Osama was using as human shields because men in black with dogs and machine guns had woken Osama up in the dead of night and they were already laying on top of him anyway, oh, and there's the other 5 guys that shot Osama after they were mostly sure that he was dead, but better safer than sorry.
The trench run on the Death Star was successfully achieved by one farmboy with magic powers and a blue milk mustache the very first day they let him fly an x-wing... Or it was a group effort form a few thousand guys and gals, 9/10s of who died in fire?
What looks better on a recruitment poster?
The trench run on the Death Star was successfully achieved by one farmboy with magic powers and a blue milk mustache the very first day they let him fly an x-wing... Or it was a group effort form a few thousand guys and gals, 9/10s of who died in fire?
What looks better on a recruitment poster?
"I have to assume power and create the Empire because the Jedi are out to get me, who by the way, don't exist".
"I have to invade Iraq because they have WMDs which are bad, which by the way, don't exist".
"I have to invade Iraq because they have WMDs which are bad, which by the way, don't exist".
According to the EU most parents actually willingly hand their children over to the Jedi when requested.
I guess that's possible if it's poor people with 9 kids who need an out, short of eating the fat one... But what about the rich privileged and powerful? Palpatine probably escaped Jedi screening exactly because his parents were billionaires who ruled a planet (or two, after a fashion).
What this reminds me of is the real world inquisition for a new Dalai Lama, which happens once or twice a century.
What this reminds me of is the real world inquisition for a new Dalai Lama, which happens once or twice a century.
There were two people who thought (at one time or another) that the Jedi were a myth.
One was a young woman who spent almost her entire life scavenging a giant desert junkyard for usable parts that she could trade for insta-bread.
The other was a smuggler who's history is not fully known and is inclined to be cynical and dismissive about the life, love, and the galaxy in general.
While we theorize and hypothesize, it's good to keep in mind that the two who consider(ed) the Jedi to be a myth weren't exactly "typical" galactic citizens.
One was a young woman who spent almost her entire life scavenging a giant desert junkyard for usable parts that she could trade for insta-bread.
The other was a smuggler who's history is not fully known and is inclined to be cynical and dismissive about the life, love, and the galaxy in general.
While we theorize and hypothesize, it's good to keep in mind that the two who consider(ed) the Jedi to be a myth weren't exactly "typical" galactic citizens.
We see plenty of people here in America who deny science and facts that are presented right in front of them for no other reason than "they don't believe."
Unfortunately, I don't think it's all that far fetched given how arrogant and stupid humans can be.
The Jedi are considered to be law enforcement; charged by the senate to maintain peace and order in the galaxy, to mediate and negotiate; and at times to pursue criminals and lawbreakers that have evaded the traditional police or military forces. The Jedi have constitutional authority over all Force users in the Republic (according to the EU).
Maybe the citizens of the Star Wars galaxy are more familiar with the pre-Lucas EU, and now they're not sure what happened anymore.
"Luke Skywalker? He's still canon?"
"Luke Skywalker? He's still canon?"
That would make them like US Marshalls. Not a lot of them, and able to operate in any State on a Federal level.
While I see the Jedi more like Beefeaters.
Purely ceremonial and on display for tourists at the palace with ridiculous old timey weapons.
If the Jedi are a necessary component to keeping law, their presence should be necessary continuously everywhere where there is law.
10 Jedi per planet, but all Jedi hang out on Coruscant.
It seems like the Jedi "can" keep law galactically, but they don't.
Saying that they are a senatorial special missions force really detracts from the lawfullness of their activities and seems like the Jedi are just enforcers of the momentary political winds, unless it takes an executive order to put them into action, or if using moral monks as hatchet men is actually a limiter on the ability of the senate to be skeevy, that whenever they come up with a sick plan to make a couple bucks, the blokes they have to send out to get shit done, can say "No, and you're a ####, no, go #### yourself."
Which would result in a constitutional crisis where the Jedi purge the Senate or the Senate purges the Jedi temple.
If the Jedi were a real religion and not just a collar to control force users, then their jurisdiction would exceed the borders of the Republic. Do the neighbouring governments have their own Jedi, or different methods of controlling their force users into something politically and socially useful?
That's basically it. The Jedi were myths to people even when the Jedi were around. Young Anakin thought they were immortal, for example. I bet the overwhelming majority of people in the Republic never saw a Jedi.
On the other hand, you have people who were well-traveled or knowledgeable about the galaxy or who had lived long lives and were far more aware Jabba, for example, clearly knew about Jedi powers in ROTJ.
Note that this isn't universal. People in the Senate or on Coruscant would probably have greater experience with them (even if they never met one personally, they would be affected by them).
^There are mentions of there being news services in the Republic and the Empire; it may be that all knowledge of the Jedi Knights was banned by the Emperor. With time, the knowledge of the Jedi Knights receded, and most people forgot about them, leading up to what happened in this movie.
