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Wouldn't the Jedi have, after discovering the existence of this clone army, investigated the training completed in the first ten years of the program and supervised the training during the Clone Wars? And, if their investigations proved an inherent danger in the training, wouldn't the Jedi then take remedial actions to correct the flaw?
For me, in other words, I can't believe the Jedi are this incompetent. I grew up with the idea that the Jedi were very competent and effective protectors of the Republic who were betrayed in the end by one of their own. I never thought the Jedi were as they are shown in the prequels. As portrayed in these films, I am left to question my previous notions of the Jedi and forced to admit that the Republic was very lucky that the enemies of the nation were either very idiotic or incompetent before Palpatine became chancellor.
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posted
Do remember, though, that the Jedi Order of RotS is a shadow of its former glory: many prominent Jedi slaughtered, the precognitive abilities of the remaining Masters hampered by some sort of "jamming field" created by Sidious. Half-trained hotheads like Obi-Wan have to be sent on important assignments. The Senate is at odds with the Jedi on the matter of the Clone Wars, too.
The situation simply may not have allowed for extensive oral examinations of donated equines. And in practice, the clone army did perform exactly as expected in all respects, up to and including the execution of Order 66: utter loyalty and great effectiveness in protecting the interests of the Republic to the best of its ability and understanding.
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Newark: The Jedi were caught unprepared by a carefully planned and brilliantly executed domestic conspiracy and as the Sith have a weakness in understanding the value of Jedi selflessness, sacrifice and character (which was how Luke beat Palpatine, by sparing Vader) the Jedi are vulnerable to Sith subterfuge and lack of scruples.
Really, Palpatine's campaign and pet project was more successful than even Baron Harkonnen's obliteration of the Atreides in the first Dune-novel. But as the Baron missed Paul Atreides and his pregnant mom, Palpatine missed the Skywalker kids and paid through the nose. Overconfidence was the villain of the piece in both cases.
I wouldn't say the Jedi Council as of Ep.I-III was incompetent or overly proud, they simply had trouble adapting to the different threats when being faced with troubles on several fronts at once, orchestrated by someone well-versed in their ways and predicting their behavior at every step of the way, to the point of Anakin's warning delivering the heads (no pun intended) of the Jedi Order to Palps in his own home.
Though that part of the movie was heavy for me, I can sort of understand and forgive the Emperor's elation and giggling at the time of facing Yoda; I'd probably be that giddy myself when actually thinking about what a great day this turned out to be.
The fall of the Jedi felt just as inevitably and helplessly effective as those "Twilight Zone" episodes where a guy learns of his future death, does everything he can to avoid it only to find himself in just the spot he'd foreseen because he'd tried to avert it (usually in the path of a moving truck).
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posted
The existance of the Clone Army was discovered just as the Separatists kicked off a major campaign, if you'll recall. Episode II was essentially the beginning of the Clone Wars, after all and the army had only just been discovered when the incident on Geonosis occured. There was likely very little time to send a group of Jedi to do any in-depth analysis of the overall program, let alone the computer programs likely used to educate the clone troopers.
I'm also still having problems accepting that Obi-Wan and Yoda were the last of the Jedi. I could see the majority of the Jedi being wiped out, but surely there were others as good as Obi-Wan or better who would have been in a good enough position so that they could have gotten away from the Troopers. Then there are those on single-person missions, as already mentioned. Just doesn't track w/me.
As an aside: I still feel cheated that they're called the Clone Wars and then Lucas turns things around on us and has the Clones be the good guys. I think a more appropriate title for those wars would have been "Separatists Wars" or something similar. Secessionist Wars?
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One of the theories about the upcoming live action television series is that it will deal in part with some of the surviving Jedi being hunted down by Vader.
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As shown in the PM, individual planets and organizations had their versions of a standing military. While the Jedi investigated the training of their new charges, couldn't these entities been encouraged to combine their forces and confront the threat?
And, if the Separatists can field such a large army without the approval of the Senate, what was preventing the worlds of the Republic from doing the same? It seems before the introduction of the clone military that the Republic was devoid of any military. I don't buy it.
The Republic is an intergalactic political entity. It has vast stores of wealth and the life styles of the richest worlds is oppulent by the best standards. And wouldn't there exist a situation akin to what happened between the Roman empire and the Goths where the latter desired a share of this empire? So, to protect the riches of the Republic, wouldn't there need to be a standing army as occured in ancient Rome? The Jedi would be incapable of fighting a large army. Though they have Force-sensitive powers, these powers are limited and are largely ineffective against even a platoon of troops as seen in the third episode. If the Jedi were the sole protectors, the Republic wouldn't have lasted a 1000 years. (I know the second film mentioned the last war occured this many years ago. Yet, even on our world, in a thousand years of history, we have had many wars, small and large. In our country alone, in this last century, we have had six wars.)
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posted
It's entirely possible that there was some sort of military in place for the Republic during all three prequels, but it had been outgrown by the number of worlds joining in the Republic. It's been stated in a number of works - tho I don't recall a specific canon mention - that the Republic at the time of Plapatines rise to power was a thick, bloated thing. Remember in TPM how it was mentioned that it would take a great deal of time to convince the Senate to build an army to go deal w/the Trade Federations attack on Naboo? I think that's a perfect example of how much the bureacracy had become weighed down in it's own red tape. Combine this w/the "no wars for a thousand years" thinking, "the Jedi are the protectors of the Republic" and you have a military that's likely not much more than a police force and in much need of reworking to be a true military power for a thousand worlds. So, any official Republic military would have been little good in dealing w/the Separatists, most likely.
On the issue of the Jedi being the "sole protectors of the Repulic": Supposedly, at one point there were literally thousands of Jedi. The primary role of the Jedi was to stop things before they escalated in to open warfare. Things had slowly deteriorated w/the Jedi over the last several hundred years, for whatever reason, I guess, and their numbers started to dwindle a bit? Maybe Sidious had been working on slowly eradicating them for longer than just these prequels. It's entirely possible he engineered a number of situations wherein Jedi were sent to investigate, but were killed and reports of it being an accident were sent out to the Jedi Council. Recruits such as Maul & Dooku might have had a hand in some of those deaths, as well.
Just some thoughts on the issue....
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quote: As an aside: I still feel cheated that they're called the Clone Wars and then Lucas turns things around on us and has the Clones be the good guys. I think a more appropriate title for those wars would have been "Separatists Wars" or something similar. Secessionist Wars?
Well, it would be understandable from the POV of Leia Organa to call the conflict the Clone Wars in a message to Obi-Wan Kenobi, for at least two reasons: first, the Clones were the real enemies of Kenobi in the end, and served evil interests; and second, most of the Rebel allies at the time would no doubt be former Separatists anyway.
Of course, it is also possible that the Separatist war was just the first of the wars involving the clone army, and that subsequent wars in the "ongoing series" involved General Kenobi fighting under Bail Organa against the Imperial Clones. This would not be a continuity violation, since there is no story requirement for Ben to lie low at Tatooine the whole intervening time, or Bail to fight a "low-profile" war (as long as his Bruce Wayne persona stays unblemished, his Batman can deploy mighty armies in successively more hopeless battles just fine).
Forgetting the EU for the moment, the expression "Clone Wars" is only used twice in the series, really: once when Leia sends her message, and later/earlier when Yoda orates his "Begun, the Clone Wars have" bit. The second/first usage is frankly rather idiotic. What is Yoda really saying, and why? Is he making some sort of a Force prophecy about there being many wars involving clones from now on? Well, duh! Is he coining a phrase in the hopes that he'll get royalties? Why not say something slightly less asinine, like "Begun for no good reason, endless wars no doubt have" or "Mark my words: down the drain, the Republic now descend will"? Yoda's introducing of the Clone Wars phrase in that manner, at that time, really jars with realism.
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I disagree. If someone were hiding/in exile from Vader and the Emperor, they wouldn't be a general leading anyone's army. That's too high profile of a position for the last few Jedi to be in.
No, it makes most sense that Kenobi hid out for those twenty years. Anything else would open him up for capture/execution by Vader and the Emperor.
The Clone Wars was mentioned at least one more time on screen. When Luke is in Ben's house, he asks "You fought in the Clone Wars?" Kenobi's reply "Yes, I was once a Jedi Knight and so was your father."
This comment also establishes a mental connection between Clone Wars and Jedi Knights.
There have been other wars throughout Earth history that didn't describe all the combatants involved. The French and Indian war was NOT between the French and the Indians, but described the combatants on the same side.
The Hundred Years War lasted longer than 100 years.
The War of the Roses was not waged against plants.
The Whiskey Rebellion described the cause of the fight, not the location or contestants.
The Southern supporters referred to the Civil War as the Second American Revolution.
So, it's not unusual for a war's name to be a little misleading, especially to an outsider.
History is written by the victors. It's plausible the Emperor/Empire made The Clone Wars the common/accepted name for this conflict.
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2) The Emperor would be doing himself something of a disfavor by emphasizing the clone aspect. Shouldn't he be reminding the populance that the war rid the galaxy of the evil Jedi? Or that it preserved the integrity of the Republic, making it into the Empire? "Jedi Rebellion", "Droid War" or "Secession Crisis" would be logical names for him to choose. Especially since clones don't seem to feature heavily in the military of the Empire after the wars, and thus their mention doesn't evoke positive patriotic feelings in modern Empire subjects.
Then again, perhaps rebellious sentiments were common on Tatooine, and the politically incorrect Jedi name for the wars was commonly used in the Lars household, just as it was used on Alderaan?
quote:Originally posted by HerbShrump: The Southern supporters referred to the Civil War as the Second American Revolution.
Never heard that one. I always heard it as the War of Northern Aggression. (Note: I grew up in Georgia, but I didn't hear the Civil War referred to as the above until I was in my 20's.)
I would imagine "Clone War" would be the popular way of referring to the war later when the Empire is oppressive and in disfavor among the population, but not necessarily before.
Thinking about it some, I can see a few reasons why you would refer to a war that way. One is although Yoda was doing his duty for the Republic, he didn't seem to pleased about going to war. Some people in the US that disagree with the War on Terror refer to it as the Bush War.
Another is sometimes some aspect of a war is so new or different that it gets refered to that way. I've heard the first Gulf War refered to many different ways, including the CNN War, the Iraq Mini-Series, and the First Air War. Similarly, having a clone army may be so different that that's how it's remembered.
quote:Originally posted by B.J.: Never heard that one. I always heard it as the War of Northern Aggression. (Note: I grew up in Georgia, but I didn't hear the Civil War referred to as the above until I was in my 20's.)
I shoulsn't have used caps as if that was a real name. I toured one of those historical sites a few years ago in Indiana. They had cabins and houses from the 1800s there. On display in the houses were letters and other common elements of the time period. The letter on display was describing the Revolution, yet the date was the 1860s.
I think the letter was from someone in KY, which was a border state favorable to the South. Struck me as odd that they were referring to it as the Revolution.
War of Northern Aggression is another good example, however.
Yoda mentioned the term Clone War. Perhaps others came up with the idea as well.
Perhaps the Imperial Propagandists wanted to emphasize the victors. Focus attention on the Clone troopers and don't mention the Jedi. Maybe in time they planned to rewrite history so that it was Clones vs. Jedi all along and this whole Separatists nonsense would be forgotten/downplayed.
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"There have been other wars throughout Earth history that didn't describe all the combatants involved. The French and Indian war was NOT between the French and the Indians, but described the combatants on the same side."
But, I think the point is that the French and Indians didn't call it "the French and Indian War".
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quote:Originally posted by HerbShrump: The War of the Roses was not waged against plants.
yet.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
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The South shall rise again....as soon as the Viagra arrives.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
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