#I find it ironic that Filoni unwittingly gave Baylan the same line repeated by 'Prequel fans' who only became fans by...

[david-talks-sw]

"The idea of it..."

This is obviously a reference to the ol' argument:

"The Jedi weren't bad but the Jedi Order as an institution needed to go."

So as a quick reminder I thought I'd point out:

1) George Lucas describes the Jedi's eradication as a sad thing, not something sad-but-necessary:

"[The] Jedi getting killed through the Order 66 of the clones is just done as one of those kind of inevitable pay offs in terms of getting rid of everybody, the Emperor is getting rid of all his enemies, but there’s a certain inevitability of it all and a sadness to it.  - Revenge of the Sith, Director’s Commentary, 2005

2) Out of 770 George Lucas quotes, I've never seen him refer to the Jedi Order as "an institution" once.

He does refer to the Republic itself as an institution.

"[In The Phantom Menace one of the many storylines is] the story of a young queen who's faced with the total annihilation of a people, and how she can get a sluggish political institution to pay attention to what's going on." - Premiere, 1999

He might be referring to the Senate instead of the Republic as a whole, but the point stands: he's not talking about the Jedi.

Which tracks with what Lucas defined as Dooku's reason for leaving the Order: his disenchantment with the Republic/Senate, not the Jedi themselves.

But let's go slightly further:

The Jedi Temple was designed as a place of worship that would contrast with the corporate coldness of the Senate.

Also, the Jedi were originally designed as a more organized police force. As the script evolved, they were turned into peacekeepers, diplomats.

Mace's room was redesigned so as to not convey that the Jedi were mired in bureaucracy and protocol.

And when describing the political situation of the Prequels, Lucas doesn't blame the Jedi, but rather the corporations and Senate:

"But as often happens when wealth and power grow beyond all reasonable proportion, an evil fueled by greed arose. The massive organs of commerce mushroomed in power, the Senate became corrupt, and an ambitious named Palpatine was voted Supreme Chancellor." - Shatterpoint, Prologue, 2004

Wow, it's looking like not only is the "Jedi Order as an institution needed to go" narrative not a thing per Lucas, but

3) Lucas went out of his way to make it clear that the Jedi aren't the issue, here, the Republic/Senate is.

So how did we get this narrative?

Well, it comes from a generation of fans and Star Wars creators who were not the target audience.

You know the type. It's the kind who, when asked if they like the Prequel Trilogy, will respond that they liked...

... but not the execution.

AKA they disliked the Prequels, but then EU books and The Clone Wars came out and provided them with enough material to form a headcanon justifying why they didn't like the Jedi, despite wanting to: it's because the Jedi are meant to be disliked! Totally!

The Jedi failed as an institution is an idea that comes from authors who wanted to engage with the material (it IS Star Wars, after all) but not the narrative that George Lucas had crafted, whose work then influenced older fans who preferred the author's retconned version of the story to the original one.

The rest is history.

As Prequels producer Rick McCallum put it:

"The myth begins on paper. During preproduction, filming, and postproduction, the myth becomes visible through the work of hundreds of dedicated people. Following the film's release, the myth becomes public and the public makes it its own." - Rick McCallum, Mythmaking: Behind the Scenes of Attack of the Clones, 2002

[itsblueberry13-blog]

#I find it ironic that Filoni unwittingly gave Baylan the same line repeated by 'Prequel fans' who only became fans by...#... injecting gray morality into the films and said “it was there all along! the Prequels are subversive films!”#They're not. They're films for kids. The SITUATION is more complex than in the Original Trilogy... but the morality is still good vs evil.

By @david-talks-sw

#baylan is an interesting character but if we're meant to take him seriously then *I* find his talking points hysterical#the man's haunted by the destruction of everything he knew and loved and we should believe him when he waxes poetry about how it was fated?#yeah right#his philosophy boils down to “why would bad things happen to people unless they themselves are bad?” which is a child's way of coping#he has 30 years of unaddressed trauma that has crystallized as pure pessimism#no the order's destruction wasn't fated it was *orchestrated* - but that's the easiest way to make sense of the loss of your whole world#you tell yourself your people MUST have done something wrong. MUST have been weak. this was inevitable - a flaw. a predictable path.#because how could you possibly deal with the fact that this happened just at the whim of one man?#how could you possibly accept that some people might be entirely innocent - might be doing their absolute best - and still be killed off?#anyway his philosophizing just *screams* 'I'm not over it even though I've crafted my new identity around the delusion that I am'

BY @smhalltheurlsaretaken

"The idea of it..."

This is obviously a reference to the ol' argument:

"The Jedi weren't bad but the Jedi Order as an institution needed to go."

So as a quick reminder I thought I'd point out:

1) George Lucas describes the Jedi's eradication as a sad thing, not something sad-but-necessary:

"[The] Jedi getting killed through the Order 66 of the clones is just done as one of those kind of inevitable pay offs in terms of getting rid of everybody, the Emperor is getting rid of all his enemies, but there’s a certain inevitability of it all and a sadness to it.  - Revenge of the Sith, Director’s Commentary, 2005

2) Out of 770 George Lucas quotes, I've never seen him refer to the Jedi Order as "an institution" once.

He does refer to the Republic itself as an institution.

"[In The Phantom Menace one of the many storylines is] the story of a young queen who's faced with the total annihilation of a people, and how she can get a sluggish political institution to pay attention to what's going on." - Premiere, 1999

He might be referring to the Senate instead of the Republic as a whole, but the point stands: he's not talking about the Jedi.

Which tracks with what Lucas defined as Dooku's reason for leaving the Order: his disenchantment with the Republic/Senate, not the Jedi themselves.

But let's go slightly further:

The Jedi Temple was designed as a place of worship that would contrast with the corporate coldness of the Senate.

Also, the Jedi were originally designed as a more organized police force. As the script evolved, they were turned into peacekeepers, diplomats.

Mace's room was redesigned so as to not convey that the Jedi were mired in bureaucracy and protocol.

And when describing the political situation of the Prequels, Lucas doesn't blame the Jedi, but rather the corporations and Senate:

"But as often happens when wealth and power grow beyond all reasonable proportion, an evil fueled by greed arose. The massive organs of commerce mushroomed in power, the Senate became corrupt, and an ambitious named Palpatine was voted Supreme Chancellor." - Shatterpoint, Prologue, 2004

Wow, it's looking like not only is the "Jedi Order as an institution needed to go" narrative not a thing per Lucas, but

3) Lucas went out of his way to make it clear that the Jedi aren't the issue, here, the Republic/Senate is.

So how did we get this narrative?

Well, it comes from a generation of fans and Star Wars creators who were not the target audience.

You know the type. It's the kind who, when asked if they like the Prequel Trilogy, will respond that they liked...

... but not the execution.

AKA they disliked the Prequels, but then EU books and The Clone Wars came out and provided them with enough material to form a headcanon justifying why they didn't like the Jedi, despite wanting to: it's because the Jedi are meant to be disliked! Totally!

The Jedi failed as an institution is an idea that comes from authors who wanted to engage with the material (it IS Star Wars, after all) but not the narrative that George Lucas had crafted, whose work then influenced older fans who preferred the author's retconned version of the story to the original one.

The rest is history.

As Prequels producer Rick McCallum put it:

"The myth begins on paper. During preproduction, filming, and postproduction, the myth becomes visible through the work of hundreds of dedicated people. Following the film's release, the myth becomes public and the public makes it its own." - Rick McCallum, Mythmaking: Behind the Scenes of Attack of the Clones, 2002