I've always found this bullshit morality of ''you can't sink to the level of the bad guy'' to be rather stupid.
And you may do so but that doesn't change that it is an established part of Star Wars and signs are that The Acolyte is going to throw that out in favour of modern Progressive morality. One of the things that elevates the Jedi is that they draw inspiration from Samurai classics, Western ideals of Knights (it's even in the name) and religious themes. They're meant to have themes of Knights Templar, Arthurian chivalry, Samurai code of honour. They're intended to aspire to the idea of a Holy / Virtuous Warrior archetype. You rather weirdly call these pacifist characters. The Holy Warrior archetype is most certainly not a pacifist archetype. It is a
virtuous archetype. Luke and the other Jedi are most definitely not Pacifist. How one Earth could one make the case that Luke, destroyer of the Death Star, killer of bounty hunters, storm troopers, et al. is a pacifist? What he is, is at peace. Which is a core element of the Jedi aspiration - to be at peace even in war. He wont kill his father because he knows that is not an act of righteousness but to fall. And he
does try to strike Palpatine with his lightsabre but when he does so Vader intervenes and stops him because it is a trap by Palpatine. He is seeking to redirect Luke's hatred onto Vader and cause him to slay Vader so that he may begin to turn Luke into a new apprentice to the Dark Side. Luke resists the trap because he is virtuous. Not through pacifism.
These are themes that I suspect The Acolyte will throw out in favour of "if you don't seize power, the wrong people will get it". The flaw in that being that without something to elevate you, you are the same as your opponent.
Luke Skywalker, Batman, damn near every ''pacifist'' character in and out of Star Wars, it really makes my head spin.
Batman has never to my knowledge intervened in the State carrying out the death penalty. He simply wont take on that level of judgement and authoritarianism. It is meant to show that he is better. It is also a conceit of the setting that is necessary because killing all his villains would bleed even more readers than comics are currently doing so I don't know why anyone imagines you could have it be done differently outside of short elseworlds stories.
As in, would it really be that bad if Luke Force-pushed the Emperor into the chasm? Or, instead of tossing his saber away, he instead charged at the Emperor and sliced the man in two? Would it really matter which Skywalker killed the old fart, so long as he's dead? I'm sure the Rebels won't care, and the Jedi tried to do it themselves 23 years before Endor.
He would lose. Palpatine killed Vader - the armoured up fully trained Jedi with Force Lightning. Luke only beat Vader because Vader couldn't and wouldn't kill his own kid and was slow-walking it trying to get Luke to snap and join him so they could take down the Emperor together. But with you this would probably turn into some discussion of the mechanics of it, of "Vader has lots of cybernetics and is more vulnerable to lightning" or something along those lines which would be missing the point. The situation is to show that when backed into choosing between giving up his virtue or death, he will choose virtue. That he is, like a classic hero, willing to choose death over dishonour. That's his "Great Trial", the thing that actually makes him a true Knight.
Stories are ultimately a thing created for their audience. To entertain but deeper, to teach. And the OT has elements of this morality fable and has the lesson that one should place one's principles above one's advantage. Even The Acolyte, twisted and evil though the Franchise has become, will attempt to teach, but I suspect the lesson will be something quite different. To that point:
The Progressive definition of ''good'' seems to be just being a pussy or being downright stupid.
You misread my post or misread Progressives. The morality of modern Progressives is very much about power and very much about "no wrong tactics, only wrong targets". Books such as "The Failure of Non-Violence", condoning of BLM riots, positive discrimination, the doctrine of Privilege - all inform the justification of aggression / subversion when the target is "the bad guy". It's well encapsulated in the line in The Acolyte trailer itself of "It's not about Good or Evil, it's about Power and who gets to wield it". I.e. this show will attempt to teach us that it's not about your behaviour but about winning because you are the good guys and they are the bad guys.
I suspect there will be some subtle and not so subtle rejection of the idea of elevating oneself above this and breaking the cycle as Luke does. Instead, power will be legitimised as a goal. Which is much more of a Sith thing but then what modern Progressive morality is mostly about is providing a justification for seeking power. The ideal of the Jedi and the morality of the PT and OT is that one must be above seeking power for itself.
Nor is that message without nuance. We see in the PT that the Jedi fall
because they have lost their way and forgotten this. The Dark Side
has blinded them because their attachment to the Republic, which is now just an institution of power, and their refusal to walk away from that but to try and cling to it is what ultimately enables Palpatine to destroy so many of them. Luke restores that.
Without higher themes, Star Wars is just Lasers *Pew Pew*. It didn't catch the imagination because Luke went around killing people, it caught the imagination because the archetype of the Virtuous Warrior is a powerful one that has been a part of Western culture for a long time. Maybe The Acolyte will follow the journey of the main character to achieve the same thing but in Current Era, I doubt that message will resonate well. They want people to receive the moral lessons that it's okay to do bad things if you're told the target is the right one. Because that's a useful morality to teach people. The trick is telling people that you'll come out on top and then be the Good Guy with Power. But like Palpatine encouraging Luke to strike him down, it's a trick. Palpatine has no intention of being struck down and when Luke tries he finds instead he's trying to kill his own father.
You miss this because your natural response will be to either try to dodge the set-up (but Luke could kill him like ______) or to rationalise in outcome terms (something like "But Vader killed millions so it's moral to kill him"), neither recognising that the thematic goal of Luke's journey is to learn what his father had not - that one's self is more important than power - and thereby redeem his father.
The Jedi idea of anger being a negative thing would be something laughed at by older morality systems. They'd probably tell the Jedi that if you're not angry at injustice, inequity, or evil, then there's something wrong with you.
Not really. Christianity goes back 2,000 years and Christianity itself is rooted in older philosophies. Nor am I won over by any appeal to antiquity that says what system of morality is right or wrong, my point was that the OT and PT profess a particular morality as a fairly core part of the setting. Star Wars has always had a strong element of Good vs. Evil which is part of what makes it epic and enduring. It remains to be seen whether "The Force is Female" era Star Wars will maintain that.
Have to disagree with you, especially here. After all, like Warhammer, Star Wars has an in-universe metaphysical system that encourages you to become a school shooter if you lack sufficient self control. Never starting down that road is one of the most responsible things you can do. (An interesting detail of the setting that's been lost in the modern iterations is that these rules only apply to Force users. Normies and droids don't turn into Jason Voorhees if they let their temper go too hard.)
I think the reason for this is not so much non-Force users can't or don't go bad. Hell, Tarkin orders the killing of [m|b]illions as a political tactic. I think it's that the Force is a metaphor for a great power being granted one and how that can corrupt. It's a story about either being able to resist attachment or Fall with a capital 'F'.
