Star Words: Episode V, Part 19
Apr. 30th, 2020 03:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrilRecently I read a retrospective on Episode V claiming that the parts with Yoda were widely-regarded as the boring scenes. Well, I haven't polled the entirety of everyone who's ever seen the film, but it sounds like utter bunk to me. The Jedi training segments are unquestionably my favorites, and I doubt I'm alone in that. I find myself happily forgetting that it's only a single actor alongside a guy working a puppet, becoming wholly absorbed in the mystic wonder of Yoda's teachings. It's sheer brilliance.
So back on Dagobah, Luke is fast losing patience with the funny little green fellow who claims to know Yoda. Luke is trying to humor his quirky requests since he has no other clue for tracking down the Jedi, but this guy has no sense of the situation's urgency. Why is he puttering and muttering around his little hut and insisting that Luke eat first? (I find it quite entertaining that Luke's opinion of this food is about the same as the reverse situation in the previous scene. That face of disgust and forced swallow are just delightful.)
The truth is, even if the funny little green fellow weren't Yoda, Luke's dismissive, disdainful attitude would still be condemnable. The Force isn't about superiority and mastery -- not the good side, anyway. Having tremendous skills doesn't give you the right to sneer at those simple folk beneath you. On the contrary, a greater knowledge of and aptitude with the Force ought to make you realize just how connected everything is, and how nothing and no one is insignificant. Padmé was no Jedi, but she recognized that about Jar Jar, and it helped save her planet. Luke will recognize it about the Ewoks, and it will help bring down the Empire.
Luke hasn't learned it yet, though. After a particularly petulant outburst, Yoda drops his cover and sighs sadly. He does not believe the boy can be taught. It still takes a while for Luke to realize the truth, after a few ghostly proclamations from Ben. Smacking his head mid-protest only further proves Yoda's point. No patience. Much anger in him, like his father. Reckless. Too old. Luke insists that he won't fail him.
"I'm not afraid."
"Oh...you will be. You will be."
This exchange has ten times the poignancy when seen in the context of the prequels. Anakin was denied training at first as well, for many of the same reasons. But what was the primary concern? Too much fear in him. So it's fascinating to me that when Luke claims to be fearless, Yoda's response is a bone-chilling warning. You will be.
Obviously this was written before Episode I, but let's look retroactively through that lens. Maybe Yoda has learned something with the failure of Anakin. Fear was, no doubt, his path to the Dark Side, but it's more complicated than that. Yoda might have realized that you can't just preemptively shut down all emotions, not even fear. To deny its existence is the surest way to succumb to its control. So Luke needs to be ready for the frightful things that are coming. Ready to confront his deepest fears of failure, loss and betrayal -- ready to overcome them with something far more powerful than fear.
For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi Yoda says, reprimanding Luke just as he reprimanded Qui-Gon for demanding training for someone who was yet untested. In all those years of teaching, however, Yoda still had lessons he had to learn for himself.
Next, more quips as the Falcon narrowly escapes digestion....
So back on Dagobah, Luke is fast losing patience with the funny little green fellow who claims to know Yoda. Luke is trying to humor his quirky requests since he has no other clue for tracking down the Jedi, but this guy has no sense of the situation's urgency. Why is he puttering and muttering around his little hut and insisting that Luke eat first? (I find it quite entertaining that Luke's opinion of this food is about the same as the reverse situation in the previous scene. That face of disgust and forced swallow are just delightful.)
The truth is, even if the funny little green fellow weren't Yoda, Luke's dismissive, disdainful attitude would still be condemnable. The Force isn't about superiority and mastery -- not the good side, anyway. Having tremendous skills doesn't give you the right to sneer at those simple folk beneath you. On the contrary, a greater knowledge of and aptitude with the Force ought to make you realize just how connected everything is, and how nothing and no one is insignificant. Padmé was no Jedi, but she recognized that about Jar Jar, and it helped save her planet. Luke will recognize it about the Ewoks, and it will help bring down the Empire.
Luke hasn't learned it yet, though. After a particularly petulant outburst, Yoda drops his cover and sighs sadly. He does not believe the boy can be taught. It still takes a while for Luke to realize the truth, after a few ghostly proclamations from Ben. Smacking his head mid-protest only further proves Yoda's point. No patience. Much anger in him, like his father. Reckless. Too old. Luke insists that he won't fail him.
"I'm not afraid."
"Oh...you will be. You will be."
This exchange has ten times the poignancy when seen in the context of the prequels. Anakin was denied training at first as well, for many of the same reasons. But what was the primary concern? Too much fear in him. So it's fascinating to me that when Luke claims to be fearless, Yoda's response is a bone-chilling warning. You will be.
Obviously this was written before Episode I, but let's look retroactively through that lens. Maybe Yoda has learned something with the failure of Anakin. Fear was, no doubt, his path to the Dark Side, but it's more complicated than that. Yoda might have realized that you can't just preemptively shut down all emotions, not even fear. To deny its existence is the surest way to succumb to its control. So Luke needs to be ready for the frightful things that are coming. Ready to confront his deepest fears of failure, loss and betrayal -- ready to overcome them with something far more powerful than fear.
For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi Yoda says, reprimanding Luke just as he reprimanded Qui-Gon for demanding training for someone who was yet untested. In all those years of teaching, however, Yoda still had lessons he had to learn for himself.
Next, more quips as the Falcon narrowly escapes digestion....
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Date: 2020-05-02 01:03 am (UTC)(I have to admit, however, to watching the movie last year and having the sudden, shocking thought "Yoda doesn't look quite right in some of these scenes... is it the way the puppet's being held?" Again, the way "on-set material" gets fetishized these days can get to me, but it doesn't explain the thought.)
It is interesting to interpret this scene in light of the TPM scene you mentioned (for all that some people probably formed impressions of how old Obi-Wan was when Yoda trained him that tripped them up later), but I can be a bit ambiguous about making too much of "reluctance to train him" given the situation, for all that "another" will be mentioned later... even if that might have something to do with suspicions this has been used by others to try and justify developments in the Disney Space Movies, something that really doesn't seem healthy for me to dwell on.