The "Jedi Order" is NOT the same as the "Jedi Knights"!

[El Chuxter]

One thing has bugged me, in terms of fitting in the established EU with TPM and AOTC: the Jedi Order doesn't follow the same set of rules as the Knights prior to 1999 (both before the Clone Wars and after Endor).

For starters, the old-school Jedi had no problem with marriage. They also frequently trained multiple apprentices (the word "Padawan" never pops up), most of whom were selected as teens or adults. And every last thing they did (missions, choosing apprentices, etc) didn't have to go before the Council.

I think I have it figured out. (And, like my lightsaber color explanation (http://forums.sirstevesguide.com/showthread.php?t=24234), I'll believe it until Lucas himself tells me otherwise. :D)

Obi-Wan in ANH calls the peacekeepers of over a thousand generations "the Jedi Knights," not "the Jedi Order."

There are also only 20 Jedi to leave the Order. Any one installment of "Tales of the Jedi" features about that number of fallen Jedi alone. (And I don't recall seeing Exar Kun or Ulic Qel-Droma among the busts in the library.)

So there is no reason why the Order isn't a much more recent development than the Knights themselves.

As recently as 1000 years prior to TPM, the Knights seemed to be a somewhat disorganized group. Did the Order and its doctrines come into being to prevent Jedi from falling to the Dark Side and starting another Sith War?

I think the beaurocratic mess we see in TPM and AOTC (and, presumably, ROTS) came into being within Yoda's lifetime, or only slightly before. And it involves too much red tape for the Jedi to even see they're in tremendous danger from the re-emergent Sith.

[JediTricks]

That's right, blame Yoda! :p

Seriously though, it's an interesting theory, I would have to say the tone of the film suggests the order is fairly old in relation to the Galactic Republic, but I'd say that the Jedi Order could still likely be only a couple hundred years old to be that entrenched politically and societally. This could get into the complicated stuff from the prequels about the Force and this new "the living force" stuff, perhaps suggesting that believers in "the living force" have religious beliefs separate or shot-off from the classic Force believers, perhaps the Jedi Order was formed 100 years ago to bring these 2 Jedi belief systems together for the common good or to avoid a war (it seemed like the "living force" believers were a minority though).

[Dave_Cameron]

That's right, blame Yoda! :p

LOL

That's an interesting theory to say the least. The Jedi Order could be the basis for the Jedi Code but the Knights could have been a particular sect of said group.

[Mr. JabbaJohnL]

Uh, it's EU. Don't take it as canon. That's what's always been said. And the thing about "The Lost 20" was cut from the film, so I don't know if that's true in the films anymore either.

[JediTricks]

It's still fun to speculate.

BTW, Dave, are you suggesting that the Knights came out of the Order??? I was thinking that the Knights came first and then there was an Order of knights created, something like the knights of the middle ages.

[bigbarada]

It could be similar to the different denominations of any religion. Like Catholics, Baptists and Pentecostals for Christianity; or Orthodox, Reform and Kabbalah for Judaism.

Maybe the form of the Jedi religion sponsored by the Republic isn't necessarily the code that ALL Jedi adhere to.

[El Chuxter]

That's kinda what I was thinking, except imagine that if 99.9% or more of the people belonged to one denomination, which held enough power to basically silence any opposition within its ranks.

We know that Corran Horn's grandfather (Neeja Halcyon?) was married, and the official stance is that this wasn't unusual for Correlian Jedi, who had their own culture.

We also know that an unorthodox Master trained Callista (ugh) and had no problems with her romantic affairs with another Jedi. (What he'd think of her becoming a computer program and all the other crap, who knows?)

The movies are the only true canon, true, but Lucas directly or indirectly approves all EU, and the official Lucasfilm stance is that anything not labeled clearly as an "Infinities" story did happen, though often there are minor changes necessary to retrofit stories as new info comes out in the movies.

[bigbarada]

That's kinda what I was thinking, except imagine that if 99.9% or more of the people belonged to one denomination, which held enough power to basically silence any opposition within its ranks.


You mean like the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages? ;)

[Knightfall]

I think it mostly has to do with Lucas not giving a flying Philadelphia fart about all of the novels, comics, and what-have-you created since RotJ to expand upon the Star Wars universe. The man can't even keep the continuity that HE created straight, how's he supposed to take into account the lore created by others?