And you're correct. So shut up and sit down.
My complaint today doesn't actually revolve around a scientific inaccuracy in Star Wars. There's plenty of them to pick from. No, today's qualm is more of a political one. Put simply - why on Earth does anybody really care about the Jedi?
I mean - what's the point?
Through seven movies now, only occasionally have we ever seen the Jedi do anything remotely powerful enough to make an entire galaxy of beings quake in fear. I mean, that is meant to be the point isn't it? The Jedi are keepers of the peace. They're the galactic police force. If one planet goes to war with another planet. the apparent policy is that Coruscant just dispatches a couple of Jedi to 'settle the conflict'.
Yet why does anyone actually fear the Jedi? What powers do they possess that means they can 'settle' anything? The basic ones should be pretty obvious - telekinesis, enhanced speed and reflexes, as well as 'mind tricks' that you can use to control people's actions. Oh, and laser swords - really cool laser swords.
Other abilities include some degree of precognition, the ability to partly come back from the dead as a 'force ghost' and being able to shoot lightning from your fingers (or 'lightning hands') for some dark side users.
That's a pretty wide array of cool stuff. So what's my point?
Well of the above abilities, I would have to say mind tricks and precognition are by far the most useful. The ability to control other people's actions would made them unique spies, saboteurs, interrogators and advisers. The CIA would hire them in a heartbeat.
As for the military however...what exactly is the appeal?
At no point do we see the Jedi using telekinesis on a scale I'd say would be significant on even a 20th century battlefield. A while ago xkcd tried to estimate how much 'force power' Yoda could generate by examining the scene where he lifts Luke's X-Wing out of the swamp. He estimated that since the X-Wing might have weighed about five tonnes (comparing it to an F22) and given the speed at which it moved upwards, Yoda might have generated about 20 kilowatts of energy - or about 25 horsepower.
http://what-if.xkcd.com/3/
Admittedly, the prequel trilogy contains some examples that appear to be much larger. Near the climax of Attack of the Clones we see Yoda hold up a pillar toppled by Count Dooku so that it doesn't crush Obi-Wan and Anakin.
I''d estimate the length of the pillar to be about eight meters. That makes it maybe 1.5 meters in diameter. It appears to be made of metal, and we don't know if its hollow or not, but lets assume it isn't. The density of steel is about eight times that of water.
We end up with an estimate of 8X0.75X0.75XpiX8 = about 113 tonnes.
This is an impressive amount. An M1A1 Abrams weighs about 60 tonnes for instance, so supposedly Yoda could flip them over or perhaps crush them if he concentrated.
Even here however, at what seem to be the very limits of the Jedi's power (Yoda is meant to be one of the most powerful) they hardly seem able to compete with modern weapons. Then again, I'm reminded of the climax of X-Men First Class where Magneto stops the barrage fired by the naval vessels off shore.
The total mass of all those shells and missiles is probably less than one hundred tonnes, implying Yoda could perform a similar feat. So on 20th century Earth Jedi might still be dangerous, but you'd still probably need an army of them to pose a real threat to the world.
In a galaxy far, far away however, filled with thousands of worlds and millions of spaceships, how exactly are the Jedi so scary? On the list of dangerous weapons, surely they should be somewhere behind atomic bombs, relativistic projectiles, giant space lasers and antimatter munitions?
Now this is more like it. Here you see thousands of droid soldiers crumpling before a Jedi's power. With abilities as depicted here, its easy to imagine a powerful Jedi leveling much of Manhattan in an afternoon, Godzilla-style. Already you may be starting to wonder - what is the point of those fancy laser swords if they are this strong with the force?
This is still not quite what I'm talking about however. The Galaxy is a big, big place, consisting of many thousands of populated worlds. Although we may never get exact numbers, there are probably more planets than Jedi - i,e, a ratio of one Jedi per planet or less. You have to think of a single Jedi being able to intimidate a whole planet, to be able to threaten its populace with swift destruction if they get too uppity - and these are planets with technology that is generally centuries ahead of our own.
No - Jedi should be on a whole other level to what we've seen depicted in the Star Wars films. They should be godlike. They should be on a similar level to beings like Superman, Goku or Dr. Manhattan. They should be able to demolish entire cities with just a thought. They should be able to snap battleships - even space-bound ones, in two like matchsticks. Their wrath should be comparable to a force of nature, easily mistakable for an earthquake or a hurricane. #ChuckNorrisFacts should pretty much apply to them. At their full power they should be capable of killing millions, of rendering entire worlds uninhabitable, if not dismantling them entirely.
They should not be these moody guys in robes who fuck around with laser swords.
Honestly - not only would this make more sense, I think Star Wars would have been a lot cooler because of it. Perhaps Luke Skywalker should have been like Elsa from Frozen - growing up barely in control of his powers, afraid at any moment he would kill someone, before Obi-Wan comes along and shows him how to control them. The X-Men movies also deal very well with the real-world implications of people having superpowers, including isolation, discrimination, fear and arrogance.
Since it originally started off as a fairly low-budget, niche sci-fi flick, I suppose we can forgive Star Wars these flaws, but damn, the Jedi could have been so much cooler.
No comments:
Post a Comment