George Lucas in the audio commentary of the 2008 DVD version of Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope:
"The film was kind of shot from the robots point of view. I was sort of amused by that...at the time it was a very bold idea to have the first half hour to be mainly about robots. The only real human character in the first 20 minutes of the movie is Princess Leia.
My introduction to Kurosawa films were very powerful because it happened in film school and I knew very little about Japanese history at that point. And when I would get thrown into something like Seven Samurai or Yojimbo or any of those movies, it was like I had no idea what was going on.
I mean, I could follow the human story, but the culture was completely complex and oblique...and I liked that feeling of being thrown into an environment, you know...trying to get my bearings and still be able to tell a story that made sense. That you weren't so confused that you couldn't follow it.
I can't stand it when in a fantasy film you just sit around and try to explain how a teleporter works or why. You know...it's just not what the movie needs to be about."
"I was very keen on making a movie that was like watching a
foreign film where you just didn’t know the world you were in. You just didn’t know what was going on. You didn’t know the politics. You didn’t know anything and nothing was
explained to you.
So, you were simply thrown into this world and there’s an adventure going on
and you have to, you know, get with it, as opposed to a traditional fantasy
film where they spend a lot of time sort of explaining everything.
Unfortunately, now I’m in the position of having to explain
everything."
Ok..let's see where this goes: In Episode III, Palpatine mentioned that only one person had ever figured out how to use The Force to cheat death. Many fans assumed that this referred to Darth Plagieus. I think even some of the legendary Extended Universe novels confirms that Plagieus was the individual who Palpatine was referring to.
But what if it was Yoda who was the being who had learnt to cheat Death? Maybe that is why there was a Dark Cave on Dagobah.
In the films, they say that the Sith have been vanquished for a thousand years. Well what if that was approximate? With a time gap that long, it would be easy to be off by a few hundred years. Say that Darth Bane actually started the Rule of 2 not 1,000 years ago, but, say 870 years ago. (I know this has no correlation in the Legends books about Bane...but I am just going with what is shown in the movies and in The Clone Wars series)
Anyways, if THAT were the time of Bane's life and death, then Yoda could have been among the Jedi who hunted him down and defeated the Sith. Yoda would have been about 30 years old.
Now, say, during the climax of this final battle to defeat the Sith, Yoda participates with an elite squad of Jedi to eliminate the Sith leader, Darth Bane and the last of Bane's apprentices. They chase the remaining Sith to the solar system holding Bane's secret sanctum in a cave complex on a distant, uncharted planet called Dagobah. Bane has selected this planet because although it is uninhabited by sentient beings, it is teeming with life...life that using Dark rituals, Bane tapped into to siphon off of and to strengthen his ties to the Dark Side and, thus, his own power.
Recall that the cave had parts with formed concrete-like door arches and relatively smooth walls. Someone built a lasting structure there ages ago.
Ok...back to 870 years ago...
After a fierce and deadly firefight above the planet, the remaining combatants either landed on whatever solid ground they could find or survived their crashes. Both sides converged on each other for a final lightsaber confrontation.
Fierce duels erupted and for days both sides drew on The Force in an all out melee to finally put an end to their opponents.
Eventually, only two remained. Yoda and Bane. Although nearing utter exhaustion, the two continued to duel for hours...each knowing the the other's death would bring lasting victory for their side.
Bane finally bests Yoda, cutting a gash in his leg and stabbing the young Jedi Master through the chest and leaves him for dead. Bane realized that in the aftermath of the slaughter of the Sith at the hands of the Jedi still vast in number throughout the Galaxy, Bane was now alone in the universe. Only through guile and deception could the Sith ever hope to gain enough strength to return to their former glory.
Bane overconfidently whispered his new Rule of Two into Yoda's ear thinking his secret plan would go to the grave with his defeated pursuer to torture him in his last few moments. Bane kicked Yoda's limp body into the cave and left him in what he believed would soon be Yoda's tomb.
As the sound of the thrusters of Bane's escaping ship fades into the natural muffled sounds of the Dagobah wilderness, Yoda weakly reaches out to The Force begging for a chance to prevent the implementation of Bane's horrors.
He knew that it would be up to him to make sure that the Jedi remain strong enough to be prepared for the return of Bane's followers and the inevitable Revenge of the Sith. The Jedi must know that the Sith remained and would return someday stronger than ever to get their revenge.
Having no other options, Yoda desperately tapped into the deepest reaches of The Force searching through the Light and then in sheer desperation opened his heart to the Dark for any chance to fight death so he can live long enough to train the Jedi for the coming battles...to watch and wait until the One who has been Chosen to bring balance to The Force is finally revealed.
Yoda sacrifices his own purity with this one ultimate act of Dark Force. By consuming the vast life forms surrounding him on Dagobah, this dark, unnatural act, which would go on to sustain the Jedi Master's life far beyond his time would imprint The Cave forever with echos of its Dark past.
Yoda's silent torment of his dark sacrifice burned through his every moment for the millennium that follows. This is how he knew, first-hand, that once you walk down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. It consumed him. He wrapped himself in a mask of shame for what he had done, hiding this dark secret from even his closest of allies.
But he carried on knowing that his sacrifice must not be in vain. He blocked out the Darkness that forever burned at his soul. He knew that he must live on until he could train the Chosen One...whenever that may be.
Over 800 years passed and he would go on to train generation after generation of Jedi. Eventually, with the fall of the Jedi after Order 66, he thought that he HAD trained the Chosen One, but because he had blinded himself to the Power he was not able to protect him or to teach him to protect himself for the Dark temptations...until it was too late.
The only thing that protected Yoda during the Dark Times of the Empire during his hiding and exile following Order 66 was his return to Dagobah...the location of his greatest failure and self-sacrifice. As bright a Light that Yoda was during his long life, there would have been nowhere in the Galaxy that he could hide from one as powerful as Darth Vader or Emperor Palpatine would could reach out into the Force and sense others strong in The Force...especially one as strong as Yoda. The Darkness of the Cave and Brightness of Yoda's Spirit balanced one another and cancelled themselves out, obscuring him from their distant gazing reaching out through and with the Dark Side of the Force. From Vader's point of view...Dagobah was a blank...a void...a nothing, like the rest of the Galaxy.
Just as Obi-wan built a home by the remains of the Tusken Raiders that Anakin had slaughtered to mask himself, so too did Yoda remain hidden from any sensitive to The Force.
In his final hours, after centuries of torment, Yoda realized that it would be Luke who would be able to fulfill the ancient promise of bringing balance to The Force. He would finally be able let go of his crude matter and with balance restored could finally become one with The Force.
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And if Kathleen Kennedy uses this as the story for one of the Anthology films, all I want is a guarantee that Mark Hamill voices Darth Bane under the mask and that I get to go to the premiere and sit next to him. I will leave it up to Ms. Kennedy to decide between Frank Oz and Tom Kane for the voice of Yoda. I'd be happy with both. However...my head might explode if I sat between Mr. Oz and Mr. Hamill at the premiere...so, for my safety, it probably aught to be Mr. Kane. Nah...if that's how I die...I'd be happy with that. Either way...it'll be a hell of a night!
I agree that one's opinion of the Original Trilogy (OT) and the Prequel Trilogy (PT) greatly depends on your point of view (in other words...how old you were when you saw the films, and in what order). But there WERE some key differences between the OT and the PT they differentiate between the two eras. I think the most significant is character interaction and storytelling style.
The characters in the OT related to one another organically. They were just fun. Had it only been the 1977 film, Star Wars could have been a one-shot classic like Jaws or The Goonies. That enough would have locked it in our collective subconsciousness. But what made the saga so long lived were the pathos and relatable trials of the heroes in ESB and ROTJ.
Luke was shown as he grew as a man from an impetuous, cocky, idealistic youth into a...ok...he was still pretty impetuous, cocky, idealistic and young by the end of ESB, but you could SEE through his many failures (the cave, the ship in the swamp, the duel on Cloud City, etc.) how he gained the wisdom and patience to begin to truly face his demons in ROTJ. The films SHOWED the steps of his journey and where his turning points were.
Anakin's story never quite left the outline stage. His story was TOLD to the audience through exposition. The action on the screen rarely showed his developmental story. Sure, there were a few sequences that showed his character (pod racer = bravery; Coruscant speeder chase = determination; sand people slaughter = giving in to hate, etc.). But very little was conveyed more than very superficial concepts.
In my day job, as a civil engineer, I fill the role of a Construction Manager. It occurred to me that many of the lessons in Star Wars regarding the nature of the light and dark side of the Force actually makes a pretty powerful metaphor for how a Construction Contract is used to guide a Project to successful completion. So, I took a few scenes from The Empire Strikes Back with the most appropriate of Yoda's wisdom about The Force and applied it loosely to The Contract.
In my day job, I am an engineer. (Wow...a Star Wars fan that is an engineer, you say? No!!) It occurred to me that many of the lessons in Star Wars regarding the nature of the light and dark side of the Force actually makes a pretty powerful metaphor for how an Engineer uses the Design as a guide a to envisioning, developing and implementing a project to successful completion. So, I took a few scenes from The Empire Strikes Back with the most appropriate of Yoda's wisdom about The Force and applied it loosely to The Design. Sure, some of it's a stretch, but does present a true sentiment...from a certain point of view. If you haven't memorized the Star Wars movies, as I have here is the scene for reference:
Radiolab posted a podcast called "Black Box" on Friday, December 17, 2013. In it they had stories about mysterious events where an an unexpected outcome occurs because of a hidden process...as if inside a black box. It is scientific experimentation that reveals the inner workings of these black boxes.
The final story was a tale about a married couple, Sydney and Lesley Piddington from Australia. They were so-called "mind-readers" in the 1950s with an enormously popular radio series where each episode the wife would read the husband's mind via a series his reading of seemingly random selected texts. The theatricality of the program was clear, and their presentation was delightful and charming. She would end each broadcast with the simple, mysterious sign-off: "You Are The Judge."
The Radiolab podcast explored some thoughts on how the trick was done. Penn Jillette was consulted, but he described his thoughts on how the trick was done as being an "ugly truth". Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the hosts, concurred that the truth was ugly. They even went so far to separate the ugly explanation so as to not ruin the trick. Great emphasis was placed on the fact that discovery of the truth would somehow diminish the pleasure of the experience of listening to the magic show.
But I took some exception to their treatment of the investigation of the trick. In the pursuit of science, there is no such thing as an "ugly truth". They were defining an "ugly truth" as a truth might be simpler than the expected complicated explanation. But I say that it is still the truth. And the truth is always a thing of beauty.
Here are the comments I posted in response to the piece:
******************************************************************
Science is the pursuit of truth through objective
observation and logical deduction based on those observations of the real
world.
Magic and the supernatural are not bound by objective
observation, but depend on trickery to force a subjective, controlled
observation. It is similar to the
concept of a Potemkin village. If you
walk down the street, you see buildings.
But the second you walk through a door and explore deeper, you see that
it is only a facade.
The entertainment of performance magic is an unstated
agreement between the performer and the audience that a lie, within the
proscenium, is not only allowable, but is, in fact, expected...anticipated.
I have been a fan of Penn and Teller since their TV special,
"Penn and Teller Go Public" aired on PBS in 1985. (Wow...nearly 30 years!) They did a great piece in the show about how
to light a cigarette in a completely fake way with a combination of coordinated
misdirections. It involved tricks like
dropping props into pockets, planting objects hidden in the palm of the hand,
using noises and motion to move the viewers eye and attention from one spot to
a selected other. Each act was real, but
they appeared to be different than they really were, not because they weren't
happening, but because the performer used other actions to prevent the audience
from making an accurate observation.
One of the other things Penn did on the show was to a fire
breathing act. He talked about side
shows, sword swallowing and other carnival attractions. It still sticks with me to this day...but before
he did the trick, he pointed out that these things did not involve the same
type of trick as the others. They did
not involve misdirection...just perseverance and skill. He hauntingly pointed out that sword
swallowers gag a little bit and sometimes get nicked, and that fire breathers
sometimes singed their lips and got sick from swallowing lighter fluid.
This is the second segment from the show. It starts with the end of the cigarette lighting/misdirection piece. The fire eating segment starts at Time 5:38. You''l have to scroll to it...blogger won't let me cue to the second. (Or at least I haven't figured out how).
I have learned over the years not to trust, Penn Jillette, (in a good way). So I know even this claim that the sideshow arts are real may have been part of the act with more
hidden secrets and misdirection. But
regardless, the point he ended his introduction with before he finally
performed the feat of breathing fire was that it we shouldn't only think about HOW the trick was done...but instead, we, as the audience, should wonder about the far more interesting question: "WHY?".
And that is why there was nothing ugly about Penn's explanation. Even he indicated that he could not know for
certain...but he had a good guess. A speech that Douglas Adams once gave described the following thought exercise. If
you have one witness who sees someone in London at noon and then another witness who sees that same person in Los Angeles
at midnight...you can reasonably say that the person took an airplane, but you
would be hard pressed to be certain to identify which flight. You would not attribute it to magic or
mystery...but you would still, not know all the details.
Had the story of Sydney and Lesley Piddington been presented on any other forum, none of
this would matter. But this is Radio
Lab. Shows like yours and Sci Friday are
an inspiration to the raw power of observation of the real world we all inhabit
and the truths revealeda through the scientific method. And there is even the power of the mysteries
that remain even in the midst of the truths discovered.
So, please...do not think that anything is lost or ugly from
discovering that a truth that we cling to depends on a certain point of
view. It is the constant pursuit of
truth, beauty, freedom and above all else, love that drives us as we, and
everyone that has ever been and ever will be share this pale blue dot.
I am repeatedly drawn back to and humbled by this quote from
Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space: “Look again
at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love,
everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was,
lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of
confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and
forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization,
every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father,
hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt
politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader,"
every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of
dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
So, no truth is ugly.
Truth rises above such concepts. The ugly is only where worth and understanding
remains undiscovered. And it is up to
science to never give up the pursuit of truth.
For once the truth is discovered, we receive the gift of beauty, freedom
and love.
