To tell any other story in the Star Wars universe, you must first retcon the Original Trilogy.
See, the Original Trilogy established that the “dark side” was a temptation for every Jedi. Like cocaine or meth for modern humans: addictive poison that gives a temporary rush of power.
That’s great for the whole spiritual, mystic, two-wolves-within-you conflict Luke went through. His victory was overcoming his shortcomings in the form of fear and anger.
But it’s actually terrible for any story made afterwards.
On the one hand, you can’t now make a story where, “maybe the Jedi were excessively stoic.” without also inadvertently making the argument that Luke was maybe… wrong?.. to conquer his emotions? It undermines Luke’s conflict.
On the other hand, you also can’t make the Dark Side totally evil without flattening Vader’s character. When Luke loses himself to fear in Episode 5 and to anger in Episode 6, he proves that the Dark Side doesn’t sink its teeth into you and control you permanently after a single moment of weakness. Even after losing yourself to the Dark Side, you can still observe how it is hurting your loved ones and then choose to pull yourself out of it, conquering your fear and anger in order to protect them. Exactly as Luke does for Vader, and exactly as Vader does immediately after for Luke.
Which means Anakin was just… one-dimensional up until that point. Weak. Too simple to be a protagonist. He wakes up to find he’s killed Padme, and yet still doesn’t turn his life around and learn to fight the temptation of the Dark Side? He hunts down and kills Jedi who had nothing to do with his fall, and yet never looks into their eyes to realize he’s fallen?
No matter how you look at it, it just… doesn’t work.
That’s why the prequels retconned the Jedi into something morally ambiguous. And why the sequels retconned them into a past that needed killing. It’s why the Clone Wars animated series turned the Jedi into a bureaucratically anti-emotion order. And why a lot of video games added lore where the Jedi actually committed genocide against the Sith. It’s also why pretty much none of these other media talk about the Dark Side in the same tone as the OT.
The second the OT ended, the Dark Side could no be longer a “temptation”. It had to became a faction. An unjustly vilified piece of humanity. An ethnic group.
Because you can’t have a “dark side” and have complicated, nuanced characters and extensive world-building: either A) the world will fall apart, B) the characters will be woefully inconsistent, or C) all of the above.
So every, single time you want to make new Star Wars media, you have to retcon the “Dark Side” essentially out of existence.
To tell any other story in the Star Wars universe, you must first retcon the Original Trilogy.
See, the Original Trilogy established that the “dark side” was a temptation for every Jedi. Like cocaine or meth for modern humans: addictive poison that gives a temporary rush of power.
That’s great for the whole spiritual, mystic, two-wolves-within-you conflict Luke went through. His victory was overcoming his shortcomings in the form of fear and anger.
But it’s actually terrible for any story made afterwards.
On the one hand, you can’t now make a story where, “maybe the Jedi were excessively stoic.” without also inadvertently making the argument that Luke was maybe… wrong?.. to conquer his emotions? It undermines Luke’s conflict.
On the other hand, you also can’t make the Dark Side totally evil without flattening Vader’s character. When Luke loses himself to fear in Episode 5 and to anger in Episode 6, he proves that the Dark Side doesn’t sink its teeth into you and control you permanently after a single moment of weakness. Even after losing yourself to the Dark Side, you can still observe how it is hurting your loved ones and then choose to pull yourself out of it, conquering your fear and anger in order to protect them. Exactly as Luke does for Vader, and exactly as Vader does immediately after for Luke.
Which means Anakin was just… one-dimensional up until that point. Weak. Too simple to be a protagonist. He wakes up to find he’s killed Padme, and yet still doesn’t turn his life around and learn to fight the temptation of the Dark Side? He hunts down and kills Jedi who had nothing to do with his fall, and yet never looks into their eyes to realize he’s fallen?
No matter how you look at it, it just… doesn’t work.
That’s why the prequels retconned the Jedi into something morally ambiguous. And why the sequels retconned them into a past that needed killing. It’s why the Clone Wars animated series turned the Jedi into a bureaucratically anti-emotion order. And why a lot of video games added lore where the Jedi actually committed genocide against the Sith. It’s also why pretty much none of these other media talk about the Dark Side in the same tone as the OT.
The second the OT ended, the Dark Side could no be longer a “temptation”. It had to became a faction. An unjustly vilified piece of humanity. An ethnic group.
Because you can’t have a “dark side” and have complicated, nuanced characters and extensive world-building: either A) the world will fall apart, B) the characters will be woefully inconsistent, or C) all of the above.
So every, single time you want to make new Star Wars media, you have to retcon the “Dark Side” essentially out of existence.
There’s a massive amount of content created between the OT and the prequels. Most of it was pretty consistent.