I’d love to have a more gritty, grown-up take on Star Wars that jibes with the mood of Empire Strikes Back, but I don’t blame Lucas for not giving that to me. There’s a lot of people pretty happy with what he does make.

“Now theh are TWO of ‘dem?!!”

Same thing with the issue of not training Anakin (putting aside the fact that the audience knows he’s going to be trained, based on the original three movies) – within “Phantom Menace”, the question of what was to be done with Anakin if he wasn’t going to be allowed to train as a Jedi really needed to be addresses, for story-logic purposes, and to show that Yoda and the Jedi Council were not utter morons.

But Lucas was more interested in fart jokes that even 10 year olds wouldn’t find amusing than in thinking through the story and the implications of what was (and was not) shown on screen.

I agree that at first the Jedi were still revered to the point of zealotry and mania. “Have you ever encountered a Jedi?…We will not survive this.” That’s fairly impressive.

While you and I agree that the Jedi’s interpretation of the Prophecy was skewed and not as illustrative as the viewer may have liked or needed, I can see where Balance would mean the Force acting in concert with its hosts, rather than being subverted as done by the Sith. So balance would mean only the light side, or wiping out the Sith. Anakin still does it but it’s only after he and Palpetine kill the other Jedi and then Palpetine tries to kill Luke, Vader kills Palpetine and moves back to the light side, Prophecy fulfilled.

That is of course all just movies. I know there’s novel treatments out there with more dark Jedi and Sith but I haven’t read most of it.

As to the why, there may not have been time on screen to tell that tale, but it sure would have been nice. Apparently the original Journal of the Whills had a prophecy of The Son of Suns that never was written out into the movie. This is likely the impetus for the obscure Jedi Order legend. I think they may have assumed the Sith were extinct for hundreds of generations and thus didn’t feel this Prophecy was that important, thus not allowing Qui-Gon to train Anakin – thought of as foolish in light of a aged story of balance.

It was just incredibly poor writing – when Phantom Menace opens, the Jedi appear to be respected and feared (the very first scene shows this – the Trade Federation has dozens of battleships and zillons of combat droids in orbit of Naboo, but when their leader is informed that just two Jedi have arrived, his first response is “this invasion is lost! we’re doomed!” I’d call that a pretty healthy fear of the power of the Jedi!).

There’s nothing to indicate that any “balancing of the Force” is necessary, nothing we see or hear on screen indicates any dire need for a “Chosen One” or any reason the Jedi should be scouring prophecies for guidance.

For the story to really work, we needed to see on-screen WHY the Jedi thought that balance needed to be brought to the Force, and also WHY they felt so threatened by just two Sith Lords (yes, in retrospect, it’s obvious why they should have feared Palpatine, but certainly in the first movie, nothing we see indicates that the Jedi have any real reason to fear the Sith, especially since at the movie’s end, as far as they know, 50% of the Sith are dead, and their plot has been utterly foiled).

I think it’d be rather easy to make them appear more insightful. Even before Order 66, the Jedi were outnumbered. They existed as protectors and ambassadors, not soldiers. Pitted against a seemingly limitless number of droids, I would hope that they’d be smart enough to keep the Republic Army together long enough for it to become the Imperial Army. They fight desperate fights at all sides, I’m just holding out hope that the writing staff realizes they can be on the losing side but still remain heroic, smart and formidable.

I keep plugging at Tartakovsky’s “Clone War.” It was so much better story-wise. The battle droids weren’t moronic, the Jedi were stoic and “knightly.” Even Anakin, when he wasn’t talking, was more steadfast and reliable. Also, in that version no one talked a lot. Maybe that’s the trick, limit the dialog.

Don’t see that happening either.

But according to everything we’ve seen in the prequels, the Jedi aren’t remotely intelligent.

I realize it’s all Lucas’ fault, for not thinking anything through, which makes the Jedi come across like utter idiots:

What exactly did they plan to do with young Anakin in “Phantom Menace” if they weren’t willing to train him? Dump him back on Tatooine, now that he knows he’s potentially the most powerful force-user in the galaxy? Yeah, that’s a great idea. Kill him? I can really picture Yoda signing off on the murder of a 9-year-old for the crime of being too old when the Jedi found him, can’t you?

Did anybody think for two seconds what “bringing balance to the Force” might actually mean? Didn’t it occur to anybody that, with thousands of Jedi running around, and only two Sith in existence, that, maybe, “balance to the Force” might not be something the Jedi would find desirable?

Nobody in the whole Jedi order thought that, maybe, sometime in the 10 years between episodes I and II, going back to Tatooine and bringing Anakin’s mother to Coruscant where she’d be safe, thus removing a major source of fear for their clearly unstable “Chosen One”, might just possibly be a good idea?

Etc.

This series is far too late to make the Jedi smart, unfortunately…