The Extended Universe (which Disney rightfully expunged from canon) actually explained Palpatine’s return quite well.
And yes, it was cloning. Palpatine cloned himself a bunch of times, and used the dark side of the force to body hop to a new clone when the old one wore out. Which they did at an accelerated pace due to the corrupting influence of the dark side.
That was the original reason why Vader was more machine than man, because the Dark side, for all its power, was literally stripping the life out of them.
Then Lucas came along with the prequels and decided, no, the dark side isn’t some corrosive thing, it’s just the force being used by mean people.
I mean, seriously? What difference is there between the light side and the dark side when you watch the movies? Seems to be none. Just that the dark side is fueled by emotion? That it? Okay then.
Worse than that- in the prequels, the Jedi were pretty fucking awful too. They propped up the corrupt Old Republic and what they did with children was just inexcusable, so if they represented the light side of the force, the light side isn’t that much better than the dark side, if better at all.
And if it’s all so morally ambiguous, why does The Force have two sides to it?
Worse than that- in the prequels, the Jedi were pretty fucking awful too.
Well ya. That WAS the point. Anakin literally said “from my point of view the Jedi are evil”, and it’s because the Jedi completely lost what it meant to find balance with the force.
And the Force has two sides because it has two opposing, but directly related aspects. Like positive and negative charges, or light and dark (in the conceptual sense). How can you tell the light without darkness?
IIRC, this is something the EU had explored with Luke. He approaches his New Jedi Order with a balanced mindset of the Force.
If you have to go into expanded universe stories to understand why something that doesn’t seem to make sense actually makes sense, you failed as a filmmaker.
But as for the prequels, you didn’t need to get into the expanded universe for that. The main story arc was well served with what we got. The other stuff is just for us nerds to dig into the lore.
The Extended Universe (which Disney rightfully expunged from canon) actually explained Palpatine’s return quite well.
And yes, it was cloning. Palpatine cloned himself a bunch of times, and used the dark side of the force to body hop to a new clone when the old one wore out. Which they did at an accelerated pace due to the corrupting influence of the dark side.
That was the original reason why Vader was more machine than man, because the Dark side, for all its power, was literally stripping the life out of them.
Then Lucas came along with the prequels and decided, no, the dark side isn’t some corrosive thing, it’s just the force being used by mean people.
I mean, seriously? What difference is there between the light side and the dark side when you watch the movies? Seems to be none. Just that the dark side is fueled by emotion? That it? Okay then.
Worse than that- in the prequels, the Jedi were pretty fucking awful too. They propped up the corrupt Old Republic and what they did with children was just inexcusable, so if they represented the light side of the force, the light side isn’t that much better than the dark side, if better at all.
And if it’s all so morally ambiguous, why does The Force have two sides to it?
Well ya. That WAS the point. Anakin literally said “from my point of view the Jedi are evil”, and it’s because the Jedi completely lost what it meant to find balance with the force.
And the Force has two sides because it has two opposing, but directly related aspects. Like positive and negative charges, or light and dark (in the conceptual sense). How can you tell the light without darkness?
IIRC, this is something the EU had explored with Luke. He approaches his New Jedi Order with a balanced mindset of the Force.
Yep, that’s basically what Ashoka became in the new show from what I’ve read about it (I haven’t watched it though)
Starting to become, hasn’t quite become just yet.
If you have to go into expanded universe stories to understand why something that doesn’t seem to make sense actually makes sense, you failed as a filmmaker.
Tell that to the sequel trilogy writers.
But as for the prequels, you didn’t need to get into the expanded universe for that. The main story arc was well served with what we got. The other stuff is just for us nerds to dig into the lore.