Disney's Dogmatic, Narrow View of the Jedi
A laundry list of problems with Star Wars canon in 2024.
Introduction
We have all heard a lot of lamentation about the state of Star Wars today. My intention here is not merely to bemoan, but to identify where it all went wrong, and to look at how that mistake is continuing to mangle Star Wars stories to this day. In the process, I will also be highlighting the ways in which older Star Wars media got it right - the contrast helps to illustrate the nature of the problems we see today.
Many point to the Disney takeover as the saga’s turning point, and they are not wrong. For my part, it would be hard for me to find anything nice to say about the sequel trilogy. The live action shows had a strong start with The Mandalorian’s first season, briefly rekindling hope, but soon lost their footing. Even the animated shows, once a vital part of the franchise, have long since petered out. Where once we had energetic, creative, sometimes even thought-provoking stories from The Clone Wars and Rebels, we are now left with painfully lethargic and unambitious fare. The Bad Batch is aptly named, and the Tales anthologies seldom show us anything we haven't seen before. At this point, it seems that whenever Disney puts out anything new, there is a feeding frenzy online, as everyone rushes to vivisect the latest specimen.
However, while I have long since lost the will to watch shows like The Acolyte, I can't help but consume them vicariously through Youtube clips, memes and commentaries, spurred on by morbid curiosity as much as anything else. In the process, I tend to pick up the gist of each new narrative, and with Disney's current content model there is seldom more than a gist. I also find other people's reactions interesting - there is something fascinating about a franchise with such a large body of dissatisfied and even hostile fans. I can't claim that I am not among them.
Like many, I grew up with Star Wars, to the point that it was a defining feature of my childhood and internal universe. I was obsessed to the point that I wrote an actual novella heavily based on Star Wars when I was about 13. But Star Wars wasn't just part of my childhood - as I grew older, it seemed that the franchise grew with me, and there was always more to discover, much of which had been written for older audiences, and dealt with more complex themes and ideas. There is definitely still a market for this, with the critical success of Andor indicating that the appetite for a more grounded and gritty Star War is still absolutely there. However, there are many significant barriers to writing Star Wars for grown-ups in the 2020s, and one in particular that I want to focus on here - the complicated standing of the Jedi in the eyes of both Disney and the fans.
The Core of Star Wars
A common basis for criticism of Disney's new content is along the lines of 'these shows are bad because they're too negative about the Jedi.' While I mostly agree with the first part (these shows are bad), the reasoning doesn't quite sit right with me, because so much of the 'core' of Star Wars is concerned with:
a) critiquing the 'old' Jedi Order, as shown in the prequels, and represented by Obi-Wan and Yoda in the originals.
b) setting the stage for a 'new' Jedi Order, stemming from Luke's different ideology and the lessons he learns.
Despite their flaws, these two trilogies still fit together to form a fairly cohesive narrative, which was in the past supported by additional material.
Star Wars' animations and video game offerings sought to develop these ideas further1, although they were always held back by a certain amount of see-sawing between black-and-white morality2 and moral relativism. According to the latter framework, the Jedi and the Republic are only relatively good, and the basis of their authority must be constantly questioned. The trend towards the latter was somewhat inevitable in the context of video games and animations, both of which sought (to varying degrees) to engage adult audiences, and due to longer total runtimes/playtimes were able to provide more complex conflicts than we see in the films.
Juggling incompatible priorities
Sadly, the aforementioned see-sawing is constant and jarring to this day, as writers juggle (often unsuccessfully) with competing priorities -
1) the pressure to provide complex narratives for adults.
2) the pressure to provide family-friendly stories with lightsabers in them.
3) the pressure to sell as many toys as possible.
Unfortunately, the latter two tend to override the former, and this has done much to reinforce the feeling among some viewers that the Jedi were always the uncomplicated good guys. Another factor, however, is surely the insensitive way that Disney has character-assassinated Jedi heroes, especially Luke, who should always have been above reproach. I still feel sorry for Mark Hamill - no paycheck could be worth what they did to his signature role.
My reading of the films
To provide a brief outline of my reading (which I do believe to be the intended reading, and not a controversial one) of the original trilogy and the prequels, it goes something like this: the Jedi of the prequel era were not infallible, and the Republic was deeply flawed. The cracks were there from the beginning, and Palpatine simply exploited those cracks to achieve his ends. We see evidence of this in the original trilogy, indicating that Lucas did in fact know what he was doing. Yoda, representing the old Jedi tradition, is wise, but he's also arrogant, secretive, and pessimistic, and is too trapped in the past to recognise Luke’s potential. Obi-Wan is less pessimistic about Luke, yet he still lies to him about Vader (ESB, ROTJ) and urges him to abandon his friends in danger (ESB).
We, the audience, are never supposed to entirely share the values of Obi-Wan and Yoda. We root for Luke when he ignores the Jedi advice and goes to save his friends, and we also root for him when he rejects Obi-Wan's advice to give up on Vader. And Luke is ultimately proven right - his compassion and ability to connect with others, to engage Anakin's capacity for attachment (a crucial word in the prequels), is what saves the galaxy and brings balance to the Force, contrary to the expectations of his teachers.
All in all, the moral of the original trilogy is pretty clearly that our attachments to friends and family3 are to be embraced, and that Luke succeeded with Vader where his elders failed because of his kinder, more optimistic philosophy. It's very effective as a story for children and young adults, who relate to Luke, and it's satisfying to see his youthful optimism vindicated by the narrative. I would also add that the sensitive, expressive Luke was a particularly positive role model for boys, making it all the more saddening to see him so mistreated by Disney.
What Disney did to Star Wars
By sabotaging Luke in the sequel trilogy, Disney effectively broke Star Wars, and threw everything underpinning its narrative into confusion. More seriously, they broke a generation (or possibly several generations) of fans. There are now millions who await Disney's next release with nothing so much as a sense of dread, underscored by a lingering defensiveness over the material. The soreness over Jedi heroes especially has bled over into every corner of Star Wars fandom. Now, any new piece of media that is critical of the pre-Luke Jedi gets a sour response from fans, who have been primed to feel that they are getting 'the Luke treatment’.
Yet many of these Jedi-critical stories are only furthering ideas prominent in the original two trilogies, which were being explored in comics, novels and video games decades before Disney's takeover.
Before the dark times…
For a frame of reference, it's perhaps helpful to consider the ways in which 'old' canon (now called Legends) engaged with Lucas' critical picture of the earlier generations of Jedi, and to consider the Legends vision of Luke's New Jedi Order. In the old continuity, Luke's new Order permitted Jedi to marry and have families, and Luke himself became a husband and a father, rather than the cynical, pessimistic loner of the sequels. Old canon Luke was also shown to take on adult apprentices, contrary to the inhumane tradition of separating young children from their families that we see in the prequels (and, more recently, The Acolyte).
This makes a lot of sense, given that Luke himself was trained as an adult, indicating that the old custom was only a custom, and not a genuine necessity as Yoda believed it to be. The prequels are also quite explicitly critical of this custom - it's evident that Anakin was deeply harmed by his separation from his mother, and his grief over this loss is inseparably connected with a) his resentment of the Jedi (AOTC, ROTS), b) his troubled relationship with Obi-Wan, who he has latched onto as a surrogate parent (AOTC), and c) his pathological fear of losing Padme, who is both wife and surrogate mother (TPM, AOTC).
Moreover, it's hard to imagine the adopted orphan Luke Skywalker, who lost his aunt and uncle, and later saved the galaxy by bonding with his father, asking that a child be separated from his adoptive father as he did in The Mandalorian.
Knights of the Old Republic
Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR), another major fixture of old canon, also engaged pretty definitively with these issues - Jolee Bindo, our wholesome Grey Jedi4 mentor from the first game, who left the Order for love, speaks heatedly and eloquently about how wrong the Jedi are about attachment. It turns out that his wife did become a Sith (for unrelated reasons), yet despite everything Jolee doesn't regret their marriage. The player character can also pursue romantic relationships (it’s a Bioware game after all), and the game does not present this as morally wrong or a factor in Dark Side corruption.
Its sequel, which remains one of the most ambitious and layered Star Wars narratives, goes even further. The protagonist's unique Force ability to form close bonds with others saves the Jedi Order and the Force itself. KOTOR 2 is also never definitive as to whether the protagonist (a former companion of Darth Revan) really fell to the Dark Side in the past, or even if they were wrong to go to war, as the Jedi insist, leaving it up to the player's interpretation.
Throughout both games, the Jedi Order, and especially the Council, is depicted as arrogant, secretive, and unaccountable, and their inaction in the face of crisis results in a schism and the return of the Sith, causing untold suffering. Both games' protagonists suffer at their hands, as do key NPCs. In one memorable incident in the first game, Padawan Juhani is manipulated into falling to the Dark Side by her master, who goes so far as to fake her own death to teach her apprentice a lesson. The already (very) traumatised Juhani is greatly shaken this, and remains volatile throughout the game.
Even Darth Revan, a figure analogous to Napoleon or Julius Caesar, is in many ways ambiguous and even heroic, having taken action to defend the Republic’s people in defiance of the Jedi Council, and remains an object of hero worship for characters on both sides of the war. There is much, much more to be said about these games, and especially their critical depiction of the Jedi; here, it's enough to say that KOTOR casts a long shadow, and continues to influence Star Wars media even today, despite a loss of legitimacy in the face of Disney's somewhat arbitrary definition of canon.
The Old Republic
It's also worth mentioning The Old Republic, KOTOR's MMO descendant, which has also featured a less than immaculate picture of the Jedi Order. A fairly recent cinematic trailer (TOR's trailers are excellent animated shorts in their own right) features a Padawan who was taken in by the Order as a child while her brother was left in slavery, a situation which seems too reminiscent of the fate of Shmi Skywalker to be a coincidence. It is revealed that the brother was also Force-sensitive, and that the decision to abandon him had to do with Jedi politics and exclusivity, as they pick and choose who they share their teachings with, and take no responsibility for those left behind. The trailer ends with Darth Malgus empathising with the Padawan (as Palpatine did when Anakin confided in him about his mother's fate), and urging her to use her anger to free herself. The implications here are compelling, suggesting that the moral failings of the Jedi open the door to the Sith, a very KOTOR theme.
The current canon
Criticism of the Jedi's beliefs is still present throughout the current canon media, particularly The Clone Wars, which remains unchallenged as Star Wars' longest running TV series by upwards of 30 hours (!!!). Throughout this series, the Jedi's formal anti-attachment philosophy is contradicted by virtually everything the protagonists do, from their close master-apprentice bonds, to their secret romantic entanglements, to the way they bond with the clones under their command.
They also sometimes refer to the Jedi Order as their 'family', which is not only self-contradictory in terms of their stated philosophy, but even a little creepy and cult-like, given that they were taken away from their original families by the Order when they were too young to meaningfully consent to such a thing.
Rebels, The Clone Wars' homelier yet more maternal sister, conveyed this 'family' theme in a rather more benign and less subtext-heavy way, with the Ghost's crew frequently referred to as a family. Rebels also had a pro-romance message with the relationship between Kanan (a Jedi) and Hera, despite the Order's teachings.
In video games, we are seeing a similar message in Cal Kestis' story, emphasising found family and romantic ties. As of Jedi Survivor’s third act, Cal is explicitly of the opinion that the Jedi were wrong about attachment, and pursuing a relationship with Merrin. He is also currently struggling with the Dark Side (the boy's had a hard life, to be fair), but all signs point to his friends ultimately pulling him back from the brink, in contrast to the more isolated Anakin's fate.
It’s also worth discussing Cal’s story in the first game, in which he is searching for a secret list of Force-sensitive children to rebuild the Jedi Order. Cal unquestioningly latches onto this quest as a source of hope, yet visibly short circuits when Merrin asks him whether the children were in danger before he started looking for them. In an optional dialogue, she quizzes him further, asking whether it is the children’s choice to be separated from their families and trained, or Cal’s. In the end, Cal ends up destroying the list - he justifies this in terms of the children’s safety, but subtextually there’s more than a hint that he is not willing to force innocents to grow up in warzones, as he did5.
Even The Acolyte seems to have taken a Jedi-critical stance, with a central conflict that hinges around the Jedi's mission to take and indoctrinate children even when opposed by their families, and a Sith villain who perceives and exploits the protagonist's legitimate grievance over this (albeit in a very YA type of way).
The duel of text vs subtext
All of this tends to suggest that Star Wars' current writers (many of whom worked on the IP before Disney's takeover) are at least somewhat accepting of the overall message pushed through the original and prequel trilogies, although it's sometimes hard to tell to what extent this message is intentional, or whether it stems from the basic realities of storytelling. You simply cannot write family-friendly heroes as cold-blooded robots indifferent to the fates of those close to them, therefore you can't write likeable Jedi without them being at least a bit non-traditional, with their faculties for attachment intact.
Also, it's still the case that so much of the actual messaging (pro-friends, pro-love, pro-family) is subtext, whereas the actual dialogue that is spoken almost constantly broadcasts an uncritically pro-Jedi message (probably to drive sales of toys and games...). This trend is true even of the Cal Kestis games, which would otherwise be narratively immaculate. As such, it's often difficult to discern what Star Wars' writers deserve credit for, and what they manage despite themselves.
The Tragedy of Darth Ahsoka the Re-written
Moreover, it seems that for every step forward in advancing a coherent, humane narrative, there are also two steps back. For me, a particularly offensive example was the depiction of Ahsoka Tano in The Mandalorian, who was sabotaged alongside Luke in much the same manner.
To give a quick recap, Ahsoka turned her back on the Jedi Order during the Clone Wars, after the Council, for political reasons, were pretty much prepared to hand her over to be executed for a crime she didn't commit. She returned in Rebels, in which she wields unique white lightsabers, and explicitly describes herself as no longer being a Jedi, while continuing to show attachment to Anakin.
In short, this was a character who would not have been out of place in the KOTOR games. She was passionate, she was principled, she was different. She achieved something very rare in Star Wars - seeing through the lies of the Jedi (tm) without becoming an unhinged murderer6.
Imagine my disappointment, then, when during The Mandalorian Ahsoka is presented as a totally orthodox, uncritical, Yoda-style Jedi who piously describes attachment as a source of evil and lives in fear of the Dark Side. This characterisation seems so utterly against the spirit of the character that it is hard to imagine the thought process behind it. Perhaps the goal was to render her compatible with Disney’s new Luke, whose mishandling they continue to double down on in order to legitimise the sequels. Even in Ahsoka's show, in which they walk this characterisation back somewhat, she remains unrecognisable - she is serene, uptight, unapproachable, utterly unrecognisable as the kind, expressive, feisty girl that she was, or even the more reserved adult version in Rebels. Some might call this character development, but it's not really development if it all happens offscreen, and the transformation is so extreme that she simply isn't Ahsoka at the end of it. Vader is more recognisable as Clone Wars Anakin.
The mistreatment of Mace Windu
It must also be said that, while mixed or negative portrayals of the Jedi Order are not incompatible with the overall message of Lucas' films, they are not always well-executed, and often come at the expense of well-established characters.
One such character, who was nigh-assassinated in Tales of the Jedi and some of the later Clone Wars stories, is Mace Windu. Mace is undoubtedly one of the most memorable Jedi of the prequels, between his unique purple lightsaber, authoritative role on the Jedi Council, and Samuel L. Jackson's formidable screen presence. In the films, he is a stern, highly traditional figure, who commands the audience's attention and respect. He is the serious voice of Jedi tradition, and says the things that would sound silly coming from Yoda.
In the Clone Wars
The 2003 Clone Wars animation featured him in a dialogue-free action short, which added some warmth to the character as he has a friendly interaction with a child.
The 2008 Clone Wars also initially presented the character sympathetically - we see him showing concern for clones and civilians on Ryloth, and carrying wounded clones to safety himself. Later on, he empathises with a young Boba Fett, who has a vendetta against him, and is even kind to animals, advocating for the conservation of the Zillo Beast (a Godzilla-esque creature that Palpatine wants captured or dead7). Much later, he is perhaps the only Jedi we ever see offering battle droids a chance to surrender, in a show where the heroes routinely slaughter hapless droids even when they surrender, and is also prepared to risk his life defusing a bomb to protect his troops.
In short, The Clone Wars did a lot to establish that Mace, for all his tough exterior, is actually a more compassionate and self-sacrificing person than we see in the films, embodying many of the Jedi Order's better ideals.
Sadly, this was all thrown by the wayside later on in service of drama - during Ahsoka's trial, Mace is reduced to a caricature of unjust authority, and his insincere non-apology to Ahsoka after she is proven innocent seems to be the final nail in the coffin of her relationship with the Council. He is also rather rude to her when they meet again, putting her in her place by addressing her pointedly as 'citizen' after she has left the Order. This change of heart could have been justified if it was the end result of an onscreen arc, and could even have helped to highlight how others in the Order (not least Anakin) were becoming hardened by the war, as is often alluded to. But there was no such arc. Mace was nice and now he's not.
In Tales
Moreover, a Tales of the Jedi episode set before The Phantom Menace has undermined Mace even further, presenting him as a selfish careerist with no concern for the state of the Republic or even the fates of his fellow Jedi. This seems to border on spiteful treatment of the character, as this episode was not even about Mace, but about Dooku's disillusionment with the Jedi and the Republic. Thus, Mace is treated merely as a prop for Dooku's development (which is admittedly long overdue), at the cost of further eroding any sympathetic qualities he might once have had.
Closing thoughts
To conclude this rambling piece, then, the gist of it is this - it's not by any means against the spirit of Star Wars for prequel-era Jedi to be depicted as flawed or morally grey figures. Indeed, this is strongly supported by the original and the prequel trilogies. Both text and subtext are so dense on that score that I don't believe that Lucas' intention was ever for us to fully identify or agree with Luke's elders, for all the films' misleading tendency towards black-and-white morality.
However, it’s clear why so many receive these negative depictions with mixed feelings. We were all sensitised to Disney's revisionism and apparent hostility to heroic figures by their mishandling of Luke, and writers who should know better continue to mangle long-established characters, from Ahsoka Tano to Mace Windu.
To me, it seems that what the IP desperately needs is an extended break from the content treadmill. Like a mistreated plough nag, it needs responsible care and rehabilitation, and every effort should be made to restore its image and the goodwill of fans.
Alas, this isn't going to happen any time soon. George was very lucid when he voiced his fears that he had sold his franchise into 'white slavery' (an antiquated euphemism for prostitution), and it seems nothing short of a total collapse of toy sales and viewing figures would be likely to affect the current content model.
Not always well or consistently in the case of the animated shows, but the ideas were there, albeit subtextually.
Somewhat unavoidable in a universe where baddies typically wear black and have names like Maul.
The revelation that Luke and Leia are twins hammers the family theme home even harder.
A whole other category of Jedi now deemed non-canon - Disney likes the Force to be rigidly dualistic, with only light and dark and nothing in between. I don’t, and neither did the writers of the KOTOR games. The writers of Rebels did manage to sneak in the Bendu, ‘the one in the middle’, a god-like Force creature which doesn’t belong to the light or dark sides. Its name may or may not be a homage to Jolee Bindo.
I will definitely write more about the Cal Kestis games, they are probably the best Jedi stories of the Disney era, and have a lot of overlap with the KOTOR games.
Alas, the same can’t be said for Dooku or Barriss.
Mace is even prepared to risk losing vital war resources to protect this creature from extinction. Does this sound like the selfish character depicted later?