“New Rules” for Star Wars:  חלק שלישי

Recent quote from Adam Driver:

I said what Rian had written was remarkable. He created new rules for the “Star Wars” universe and balanced the familiar and unfamiliar very adeptly while respecting that his audience can handle ambiguity.

We explore three aspects of The Last Jedi that, if they come to fruition, will challenge our knowledge of Star Wars. Part One covered Force Trees, and Part Two covered kyber crystals.

III. Gray Jedi

We still know so little about what the heck is going on with Rey, Kylo, and Luke in the Sequel Trilogy. There has been a lot of buzz over the past few months surrounding the concept of Gray Jedi, so we'll take a quick look here.

In The Force Awakens, we observe Rey seemingly tapping into some light and dark aspects of The Force. We witness Kylo clearly tormented by by both sides as he struggles to find his way. And finally, we are left to guess what in tarnation happened to Luke over the past 30 years. Other than some tantalizing, but fleeting, clues in the trailer for The Last Jedi, we don't have much to go on as far as the future of the Jedi Order.

Throughout the old Expanded Universe (now non-canon), there were various references to Gray Jedi. In perfect keeping with the "Wild West" quality that often characterized the EU, these Gray Jedi were all over the map. But to simplify things, they were typically non-Sith Force users who eschewed the rules of the Jedi Council and lived by their own code, often practicing their Force usage by balancing the Dark and the Light, without fully "falling" to the ways of the Sith. Sometimes Gray Jedi were renegades, and others were part of grey organizations. The EU had Gray Jedi spanning the entirety of the Star Wars timeline, from many thousands of years BBY to a few score ABY.

The relevance of all of this was greatly diminished with the canon reboot. While it wasn't often that the concept was explored within the timeframe of the films, there is dscussion that Quinlan Vos, Asajj Ventress, and even Ahsoka Tano were essentially Gray Jedi. Keeping to the movies themselves, Qui-Gon Jinn's defiance of the Jedi Council may be an indication that he flirted with grayness. We know that while the EU is no longer canon, it has been stated by Lucasfilm/Disney that concepts from Legends are still fair game to,be utilized/recycled into canon. So Gray Jedi can be written into the new canon at any time, and it seems The Last Jedi is ripe for this.

The OT taught us that the Light and Dark sides of the Force are basically mutually exclusive. In the fairy tale vein of the OT, we are told a classic story of the battle between good and evil. But there are hints of grayness even in the OT, with Luke's wardrobe in ROTJ being black, and him channeling some dark side juju to defeat Vader. He clearly chooses the light, but Luke has apparently become a more complex person than we might assume on the surface.

The PT taught us that the Jedi were in control for millennia, before the revenge of the Sith. The council spoke repeatedly of balance, presuming that a great Jedi would one day eradicate the Sith and bring balance to The Force. We realize the Jedi of the time were basically arrogant, near-sighted schmucks, and didn't realize that this made no sense. There can be no balance if one side simply defeats the other and survives alone. After the 6 chapter movie arc, the Sith destroy the Jedi Order, and Anakin's redemption basically ends the Sith. So did Anakin fulfill his destiny as The Chosen One and successfully bring balance to The Force? Not yet, because we still have Luke, who declared himself "a Jedi, like my father before me."

So the OT ends and leaves us with one Jedi and zero Sith, which doesn't sound like balance. And we presume, as the old EU told us, that Luke went on to reestablish the Jedi Order, which would further tilt away from balance. But TFA re-wrote the post-ROTJ world, and after what we guess was an attempt at resurrecting the Jedi, Luke failed. Now there's Sith-type folk looking to dominate again, and the cycle continues.

Or does it? The prophecy of The Chosen One should really be central to the entire 9 chapter Saga and tie it all together into a complete arc. Anakin's fall (PT) essentially ends the Jedi, and his redemption (OT) ends the Sith, but his Jedi offspring remains. Luke may have an opportunity to fulfill the prophecy on behalf of his father. The end of the Sith didn't bring balance, but if the Light-side Jedi were also gone, that could bring the balance we've been promised. Instead of the disciples of Light fighting the disciples of Darkness to a stalemate, we can be left with Grey Jedi to draw power and wisdom from the full spectrum of The Force.

Luke says, "It's time for the Jedi to end," and maybe this is the way for him to help Anakin fulfill the prophecy. Either Anakin accomplishes this vicariously through his son, or he plays a more direct role in the events of the sequel trilogy that we don't yet know. Maybe Luke's new philosophy unites Kylo and Rey, and they join forces as Grey Jedi to defeat Snoke.

One final thought: Many fans complained that TFA was a lazy re-boot of the Saga, and failed to advance the story. But what if that's the point? What if we are being shown that history continues to repeat itself so long as the prophecy is unfulfilled? In the larger 9 chapter arc, perhaps the accomplishments of the Rebel Alliance are not simply swept away by TFA due to a bad script, but to prove the point that this Jedi vs. Sith thing just doesn't work. When IX is finished, perhaps we will look back on the OT as showing that the Civil War was just another in a long line of bloody conflicts that resolve nothing and are doomed to repeat. The larger story would be about the Skywalkers transforming our understanding of The Force, and finally bringing balance (and peace) to the Galaxy.

Conclusion

If Adam Driver knows what he's talking about, we're in for a film that is going to rock our perceptions of good and evil in the Galaxy. So maybe get ready for Force trees, kyber crystals, and Gray Jedi, folks. This way you'll be prepared and avoid the ol' Midichlorian stomach punch.

Editor's update: We intended to discuss this Tweet, but this is what I get for finishing the article after 3:00 am...

Of course, there's this January Tweet from Pablo Hidalgo. Does it definitively end the question of Gray Jedi, or is the situation fluid and he jumped the gun? Or, perhaps he's just expressing his personal opinion on the matter...

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