If Mel And Jayce Had A Little More Time To Talk…

Remember what they took from us

Clash of legacies!!

This is every time I have ever seen George Lucas talk about attachment in Star Wars and every time he has consistently, repeatedly tied attachment to possession, fear, greed, the desire to control people, the dark side, and the inability to accept that life is transitory, that you can’t hold on to people, you can’t keep them, you can’t possess them.  That if you refuse to let go, which is one of the central themes of the movies, it directly leads to the dark side. That, when the Jedi say attachment is forbidden, they are saying that you can’t want to hold onto things so badly that you’ll slide to the dark side and be willign to do anything just to stop yourself from feeling that fear of losing them (which wouldn’t even work anyway). This isn’t only part of the definition of attachment, this is every time attachment is talked about, it’s synonymous with the dark side.  This is the full context of what attachment means in Star Wars and to the Jedi.  Attachment = greed, possession, fear, the inability to accept the nature of life, full stop.  That’s it, that’s the definition in the galaxy far, far away. : (Bolding is mine for drawing the connections between everything said here.) THE PHANTOM MENACE COMMENTARY: George Lucas, The Mythology of Star Wars, 1999:

BILL MOYERS: “The Phantom Menace is about letting go?” GEORGE LUCAS: “It’s about letting go.”

George Lucas to CNN, May 8, 2002:

    “In this film, [The Phantom Menace] you begin to see that he has a fear of losing things, a fear of losing his mother, and as a result, he wants to begin to control things, he wants to become powerful, and these are not Jedi traits. And part of these are because he was starting to be trained so late in life, that he’d already formed these attachments. And for a Jedi, attachment is forbidden.”

ATTACK OF THE CLONES COMMENTARY: George Lucas, BBC News, 2002:

     "Jedi Knights aren’t celibate - the thing that is forbidden is attachments - and possessive relationships.”

George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary:

     “The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that he can’t hold onto things, which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn’t willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he’d have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn’t have this particular connection as strong as it is and he’d have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them.    “But he has become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village. The scene with the Tusken Raiders is the first scene that ultimately takes him on the road to the dark side. I mean he’s been prepping for this, but that’s the one where he’s sort of doing something that is completely inappropriate.“

George Lucas, CNN.com 2002:

“The message [of Attack of the Clones] is you can’t possess things. You can’t hold on to them. You have to accept change. You have to accept the fact that things transition. And so, as you try to hold on to things or you become afraid of – that you’re going to lose things, then you begin to crave the power to control those things. And then, you start to become greedy and then you turn into a bad person.”

George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary:

    “The scene in the garage here, we begin to see that what [Anakin]’s really upset about is the fact that he’s not powerful enough. That if he had more power, he could’ve kept his mother. He could’ve saved her and she could’ve been in his life. That relationship could’ve stayed there if he’d have been just powerful enough. He’s greedy in that he wants to keep his mother around, he’s greedy in that he wants to become more powerful in order to control things in order to keep the things around that he wants. There’s a lot of connections here with the beginning of him sliding into the dark side.    “And it also shows his jealousy and anger at Obi-Wan and blaming everyone else for his inability to be as powerful as he wants to be, which he hears that he will be, so here he sort of lays out his ambition and you’ll see later on his ambition and his dialogue here is the same as Dooku’s. He says ‘I will become more powerful than every Jedi.’ And you’ll hear later on Dooku will say ‘I have become more powerful than any Jedi.’ So you’re going start to see everybody saying the same thing. And Dooku is kind of the fallen Jedi who was converted to the dark side because the other Sith Lord didn’t have time to start from scratch, and so we can see that that’s where this is going to lead which is that it is possible for a Jedi to be converted. It is possible for a Jedi to want to become more powerful, and control things. Because of that, and because he was unwilling to let go of his mother, because he was so attached to her, he committed this terrible revenge on the Tusken Raiders.“

George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary:

      “The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that [Anakin] cannot hold onto things, which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn’t willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he’d have been taken in his first years and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn’t have this particular connection as strong as it is and he’d have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them.    “But he become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village. The scene with the Tusken Raiders is the first scene that ultimately takes him on the road to the dark side. I mean he’s been prepping for this, but that’s the one where he’s sort of doing something that is completely inappropriate.    “He’s greedy in that he wants to keep his mother around, he’s greedy in that he wants to become more powerful in order to control things in order to keep the things around that he wants. There’s a lot of connections here with the beginning of him sliding into the dark side.  [….]    “Because of that, and because he was unwilling to let go of his mother, because he was so attached to her, he committed this terrible revenge on the Tusken Raiders.”

George Lucas, Time Magazine, 2002:

    “[Anakin] turns into Darth Vader because he gets attached to things. He can’t let go of his mother; he can’t let go of his girlfriend. He can’t let go of things. It makes you greedy. And when you’re greedy, you are on the path to the dark side, because you fear you’re going to lose things, that you’re not going to have the power you need.”

REVENGE OF THE SITH COMMENTARY: George Lucas, The Making of Revenge of the Sith:

    “The Jedi are trained to let go. They’re trained from birth,” he continues, “They’re not supposed to form attachments. They can love people- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can’t form attachments.”

George Lucas, The Making of Revenge of the Sith, 2005:

     “The core issue, ultimately, is greed, possessiveness - the inability to let go. Not only to hold on to material things, which is greed, but to hold on to life, to the people you love - to not accept the reality of life’s passages and changes, which is to say things come, things go. Everything changes. Anakin becomes emotionally attached to things, his mother, his wife. That’s why he falls - because he does not have the ability to let go.     “No human can let go. It’s very hard. Ultimately, we do let go because it’s inevitable; you do die, and you do lose your loved ones. But while you’re alive, you can’t be obsessed with holding on. As Yoda says in this one, [The scene in which Anakin seeks Yoda’s counsel] You must learn to let go of everything you’re afraid to let go of.’ Because holding on is in the same category and the precursor to greed. And that’s what a Sith is. A Sith is somebody that is absolutely obsessed with gaining more and more power - but for what? Nothing, except that it becomes an obsession to get more.      “The Jedi are trained to let go. They’re trained from birth, they’re not supposed to form attachments. They can love people- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can’t form attachments. So, what all these movies are about is: greed. Greed is a source of pain and suffering for everybody. And the ultimate state of greed is the desire to cheat death.”

OVERALL COMMENTARY: George Lucas, Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005:

     “The core of Anakin’s problem is that the Jedi are raised from birth so they learn to let go of everything. They’re trained more than anything else to understand the transitional nature of life, that things are constantly changing and you can’t hold on to anything. You can love things but you can’t be attached to them, You must be willing to let the flow of life and the flow of the Force move through your life, move through you. So that you can be compassionate and loving and caring, but not be possessive and grabbing and holding on to things and trying to keep things the way they are. Letting go is the central theme of the film.“

George Lucas, The Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005:

     “[Jedi Knights] do not grow attachments, because attachment is a path to the dark side. You can love people, but you can’t want to possess them. They’re not yours. Accept that they have a fate. Even those you love most are going to die. You can’t do anything about that. Protect them with your lightsaber, but if they die they were going to die. there’s nothing you can do. All you can do is accept that fact.    “In mythology, if you go to Hades to get them back you’re not doing it for them, you’re doing it for yourself. You’re doing it because you don’t want to give them up. You’re afraid to be without them. The key to the dark side is fear. You must be clean of fear, and fear of loss is the greatest fear. If you’re set up for fear of loss, you will do anything to keep that loss from happening, and you’re going to end up in the dark side. That’s the basic premise of Star Wars and the Jedi, and how it works.    “That’s why they’re taken at a young age to be trained. They cannot get themselves killed trying to save their best buddy when it’s a hopeless exercise.” 

George Lucas, Mellody Hobson George Lucas - Virtual Speaker Interview, 2021

   “The thing with Anakin is that he started out a great kid he was very compassionate, so the issue was how did he turn bad. How did he go to the dark side? He went to the dark side, Jedi aren’t supposed to have attachments. They can love people, they can do that, but they can’t attach, that’s the problem in the world of fear. Once you are attached to something then you become afraid of losing it. And when you become afraid of losing it, then you turn to the dark side, and you want to hold onto it, and that was Anakin’s issue.  Ultimately, that he wanted to hold onto his wife who he knew, he had a premonition that she was going to die, he didn’t know how to stop it, so he went to the dark side.  In mythology you go to Hades, and you talk to the devil, and the devil says ‘this is what you do’ and basically you sell your soul to the devil. When you do that, and you’re afraid and you’re on the dark side and you fall off the golden path of compassion because you are greedy, you want to hold on to something that you love and he didn’t do the right thing and as a result he turned bad.”

Save me lesbian jayvik save me

things are bad but at least we’re in the timeline where lady gaga released Disease and Abracadabra in time for arcane editors to go HARD with them

“Help I realized I’m in love with my best friend!” says the person who sees their friend as their matching half, genuinely not understanding how they got through life without the other person and who would spend every moment with them given the chance

there are some things a character should not be able to tell us about themselves EVEN with a gun to their head. depending on the character that could even expand to include "most" things

When your genocidal warmongering colonialist imperialistic buff butch milf wolf mom wants you to join your home country’s military industrial complex but you’re too busy being artdeco steampunk fenty beauty mogul diplomat goddess with a buff latino-adjacent boytoy who has a situationship with a sad eastern European 90’s heroine-chic machine messiah Czech hunter twink boyfriend

there is something so important to me about what happens between who you were and who you became, because the answer is ‘nothing you will ever be able to forget’

We need more young stan content out here.

And nah I ain't talking about 12 year old Stanley or 30 year old mullet Stan, I'm talking 17 year old, slicked back hair, acne riddled Stan pines.

Yeah that one.

I am so happy mullet Stan is so popular because his fit slaps ngl and the angst is so potent I can't not respect it. But teenage Stan has so much potential it's driving me insane.

There is a line dividing the 17 years of relative happiness Stan had with Ford and the 10+ years of depression and crime he had on the streets, and teenage Stan uses that line as a goddamn jump rope.

Seriously, depending on how you look at it dude is either living his best life or is fighting for said life in the trenches of homelessness and poverty.

I see a lot of content regarding Stan on the streets but it only ever focuses on 30ish Stan in his later years of homelessness where he's already a hardened adult after years of dealing with this bullshit. But Stan didn't just drive away and then magically turn 30. There were times in those first few months after Stan got kicked out where he was in his car, trying to sleep, probably starving, while still being fundamentally a child.

Hell, compared to the 30ish age of mullet Stan and the 60+ year old con man he'd later become, teenage Stan is damn near a baby. There's a certain brightness about him, a sort of warm naive optimism that still clings to him because he's straight up just too young to know any better.

He's still fully convinced he's gonna make it rich and go back to his family in a few years. He still believes wholeheartedly that even if shit sucks right now, eventually everything is gonna be okay. It has to be. But it's not gonna be okay. It's not gonna be okay for a long time. And some parts are just never gonna be okay.

Seeing a happy and oblivious teenage Stan feels like watching a baby lamb walk into a slaughter house.

The next 10-something years are going to tear him apart limb from limb. In 40 years he's going to wake up on a boat during a bout of amnesia thinking he's in Columbian prison, or he's locked in the trunk of a car and about to drown, or his shoulder is on fire and his brother is gone, or it's the end of the world and everyone he ever dared to give a shit about is about to die in front of him and it's all his fault because he was too weak to stop it.

At some point, a young Stanley is going to get into his first true life or death fight. He doesn't even have to be involved with crime yet for it to happen. He's probably bruised and bleeding, with not nearly enough money to afford a doctor. He's sitting in the driver's seat of his El Diablo having a complete and utter break down because he almost died and suddenly everything is real.

Nothing is okay, absolutely nothing is going to be okay and whatever is left of his teenage innocence, naivety, and warmth dies in that car and it never comes back.

The next 10+ years are going to fundamentally change Stanley as a person and he's never going to be the same ever again. But teenage Stan doesn't know that, he's still a kid trying to sleep in the back of his car, ignoring hunger pangs and finding comfort in the half baked business ideas his mind cooks up because he doesn't understand how utterly done for he is.

12 year old Stanley I believe is so appealing because of his bright rambunctious spirit. He's still just a kid playing on the beach with his brother, but so was teenage Stan. I just wish the wholesomeness that comes with that and the subsequent hurt that follows as that spirit is broken over and over again by the world was explored more.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

*despite everything it’s… oh.