Angry Insider rant about how the force balances itself

Watch this and then comment on what Freddie Prinze Jr is actually saying. And says at least twice that this is what he was taught by the people making Star Wars so *bleep* if you disagree. So yeah, watch this. Try to reserve judgment. And let's talk about it afterwards.

Reaction to Freddie Prinze Jr SWEARING at Star Wars Fans



What do you agree with? What do you disagree with? Were you already thinking all of this already or did you learn anything new?

can you disagree with they guy that made all this up? after all its HIS imagination, right?

I love FreediePJ - my parents and grandparents supported his dad growing up. Dude is looking good for an old man. ( we are about the same age!) He looks like his dad. (so do I) Freddie prince Sr was one of the first Latin actors to have his show syndicated back in the old days. Big deal. His dad was the reason I saw people like me on TV. (born half of my decendents were from Mexican half Samoan ) Its kinna no wonder this child now adult, can understand and talk directly to these people, directors and writers of things like this.
Video subject.
I grew up with Star wars. My wife has her Star Wars and my son has his three and a few. We love em. These stories help us to connect as a family with so many different types of similar myths in the world, its crazy.
Star Wars is a story written by people for people to one - obviously make money and two - to give us stories.

Freedie PJ is at a waaaay different level than most are as far as study and availability. Think about that - he has a bit more of the inside scoop than we do, without whats just readily available. Its safe to say hes not at the begining stages - level zero or one.
He has a point. To me- His points comes from exhaustion of defense and exhaustion of explanation it seems. Not wrong ever , just obvious. To me any way. These are statements I have heard from different folk in my own circle. Im going to save this and use this probably for ever Z!!!!
The flavor of light is often what is inside. If anybody has the right to be grouchy about it its him. Hes obviously not the Jeddist type but not every one is with all the same info. Great idea and his explanation. Ive heard many and this one is a classic. Thanks again

Truthfully to me the f bombs were funny - hes a comedian being interviewed in a comedy setting. To each their own. I would hope by example, we see people create their own connections to Star Wars and the Force and live it. Good on FreediePJ! As we say in my house its Freedie PJ time!!! Actually we never say that ---we like Mr Prince Jr. thanks for posting.
I would agree with allot of what he said but most of his statements are his own path and im clergy and couldn't get away with such a rant. I can enjoy it and take it as my own but you wont ever hear exhaustion like Freddie's from me. Why would I grade others on his work? or mine? the Force doesn't need me. Im ok with that. Thanks again. Im looking foward to what this brings out thanks again

I thought it was kind of funny and that everything he said was right. Fandoms in general are kind of irritating to me and SW fandom more than any other. People think that because they are emotionally invested in he stories that the creators are beholden to them. I loved the first book in the Dark Tower saga so much that the momentum of it was enough for me to read the whole series but i really disliked the “sci-fi” elements. Like how the Bear was a cyborg or something - i wont get into it all but the point is i didnt like some of Stephen King choices but i didnt get pissed off at him for writing his story the way he wanted to write it.

I think this idea that there has to be an equal amount of good and evil in the universe because BALANCE is total horse shite lol. How many old ladies am i allowed to help cross the street before im obligated to kick one into traffic in order to stay “balanced”? As i mentioned in the Mythology thread, there are ideas in SW that are pretty thin, imo and i think the dudes point about it being made for kids is absolutely right.

lol well to be balanced it would be every other old lady! Better get started, your behind it seems!

Actually according to this you would not have to do anyhting. if you walk a lady across the street then The Force will kick the next one into the street.

My own opinion and practice


I often remember that the Force is already balanced - with or without me. Helps me keep my ideas of it in perspective. I’m the “user” or the vessel not the Force itself but through or with me ... not because of me- it can help me.

lol @ Fyxe and obi1shinobi, I'd argue that balance isn't just a matter of tit-for-tat action and reaction, though it certainly can seem that way.
On a personal level, it could just as easily be a matter of perspective and attitude- the more one strives to be an absolute paragon of virtue and what not, the harder it becomes to actually view the world around you in even a neutral way, nevermind a positive light. Hammers and nails, you know?
A better analogy, though, would be to just look at the natural world; things have a funny way of just sorting themselves out, one way or another.

I have to agree on the issues of fandom, though- when dealing with more entitled, toxic circles, well, sometimes you can't handle people with kid-gloves. Sometimes people are wrong, plain and simple, and sometimes it takes making people uncomfortable (best exemplified by the hosts expression when the rant was done) to get them actually listening, actually thinking.

Sometimes we don't like what we hear simply because of the source, but sometimes we don't like it because it's true. That's when honest introspection can do a lot of good. Don't find ways to shrug it off and move on (again, like the host), don't just dismiss it for not liking it, ask yourself why you didn't like it. Sometimes the things we don't want to hear are things that need to be said.

I've come to a point where I don't believe in the grey, myself. A "grey" perspective, I've observed, is often just one that refuses to ignore other factors, opinions and facts simply to make something simpler than it really is. As Pratchet once wrote, "there are no shades of grey, only white that's gotten grubby".

Kelrax Lorcken wrote: lol @ Fyxe and obi1shinobi, I'd argue that balance isn't just a matter of tit-for-tat action and reaction, though it certainly can seem that way.
On a personal level, it could just as easily be a matter of perspective and attitude- the more one strives to be an absolute paragon of virtue and what not, the harder it becomes to actually view the world around you in even a neutral way, nevermind a positive light. Hammers and nails, you know?
A better analogy, though, would be to just look at the natural world; things have a funny way of just sorting themselves out, one way or another.

I have to agree on the issues of fandom, though- when dealing with more entitled, toxic circles, well, sometimes you can't handle people with kid-gloves. Sometimes people are wrong, plain and simple, and sometimes it takes making people uncomfortable (best exemplified by the hosts expression when the rant was done) to get them actually listening, actually thinking.

Sometimes we don't like what we hear simply because of the source, but sometimes we don't like it because it's true. That's when honest introspection can do a lot of good. Don't find ways to shrug it off and move on (again, like the host), don't just dismiss it for not liking it, ask yourself why you didn't like it. Sometimes the things we don't want to hear are things that need to be said.

I've come to a point where I don't believe in the grey, myself. A "grey" perspective, I've observed, is often just one that refuses to ignore other factors, opinions and facts simply to make something simpler than it really is. As Pratchet once wrote, "there are no shades of grey, only white that's gotten grubby".

I was going to say something similar to this.

On the question of balance...

The Force doesn't (imo) have a will to help or harm old ladies. Neither is there a scenario where a quota of old ladies need to not be helped. The balance as it relates to life and death is that an old man or lady dies and a new boy or girl is born. So there's already a cycle there. One doesn't have to die a certain way just as one doesn't have to live a certain way. The way you live is a balance of your decisions and your environment. The way you die, same thing.

The Force is also unstable and imbalanced by its very nature. The pendulum is always moving as the universal equation is always trying to balance itself. It does this through us and without us. Some ladies don't die crossing the street. Some babies are never born. Interceding on behalf of an old person is the same as a parent saving the life or a baby. And sometimes babies die from SIDS and sometimes old people survive heart attacks. There's no 1:1 because the universe isn't balanced. There's not an equal amount of matter and antimatter.

But balance paints in broad strokes. It simply depends on the equation; how it will balance itself.

Kelrax Lorcken wrote: lol @ Fyxe and obi1shinobi, I'd argue that balance isn't just a matter of tit-for-tat action and reaction, though it certainly can seem that way.
On a personal level, it could just as easily be a matter of perspective and attitude- the more one strives to be an absolute paragon of virtue and what not, the harder it becomes to actually view the world around you in even a neutral way, nevermind a positive light. Hammers and nails, you know?

I have what i consider a pretty reasonable idea of what balance means for real people in real life. My point is that the Balance of the Force in the SW franchise is silly and I have seen people on this board extrapolate that good and evil are supposed to be “in balance” in real life. As in, theres supposed to be an equal amount of each. I use the old lady metaphor to highlight the absurdity of this.

A better analogy, though, would be to just look at the natural world; things have a funny way of just sorting themselves out, one way or another.

Im not sure if this is what you have in mind here but living systems (organisms and ecosystems) do need some base level of homeostasis in order to to flourish This could certainly be seen as a kind of balance.

I dont have a reply to the rest of your post. I basically agree but have nothing to add.

ZealotX wrote: The balance as it relates to life and death is that an old man or lady dies and a new boy or girl is born.

The population would stay the same, forever.

So there's already a cycle there. One doesn't have to die a certain way just as one doesn't have to live a certain way. The way you live is a balance of your decisions and your environment. The way you die, same thing.

I can agree with that

The Force is also unstable and imbalanced by its very nature.

For me, personally; the way that i see the Force is that theres only a small portion of it that is comprehensible. The rest is beyond our ability to understand. Its beyond the perceptual and computational capacities of our hardware aka our physiology. For me, personally, theres no way to know enough about the Force to decide if its balanced or unbalanced or why. Like presenting a bird with a physics equation.

The pendulum is always moving as the universal equation is always trying to balance itself. It does this through us and without us. Some ladies don't die crossing the street. Some babies are never born. Interceding on behalf of an old person is the same as a parent saving the life or a baby. And sometimes babies die from SIDS and sometimes old people survive heart attacks. There's no 1:1 because the universe isn't balanced. There's not an equal amount of matter and antimatter.

But balance paints in broad strokes. It simply depends on the equation; how it will balance itself.

Fair enough. Homeostasis seems relevant here, too.

I think this whole discussion hinges on us taking the creator of Jar Jar seriously. That first thing prinze said: "it's a kid's show" might be painfully accurate, and we might be reading too deeply into the juvenile fiction

My interest in Star Wars canon never went far beyond the universal archetypes it shares with other myths... but I had no idea the canon interpretation of Balance in the Force was so... simplistic. Does this mean that, through all the movies, there is an equal amount of Sith and Jedi present in the galaxy? It seems awfully imbalanced during the prequels. It's fine for fiction but I hope people aren't applying this 1:1 ratio to real life. It's funny to joke about old lady quotas but some people really see human suffering, disease, and war as essential to the "balance" of life.

'Balancing the force" was such a big theme of the movies but I don't think I have ever mentioned it here, and I don't think few members ever have (but I haven't witnessed much in my 4+ years). I like to say that balance has nothing to do with the force and everything to do with our relationship to it, but that is a flowery definition that lacks teeth. Then again, most of what I say lacks teeth.

Sentences are simplified constructs, partial maps of meaning.... wisdom is filling the blank spaces and understanding the bigger picture. Syncretism is a fun way to blend lots of ingrwdients in this constructive way to make a better tasting soup. Folk who swallow the koolaid whole in its little plastic cup (and take things literally in these regards) are just fans wanting more candy, and if they push it too far are in effect acting delusional, but fiction is a pretty safe space to have fun with bizarre I guess. Of course it can go the other way too, with folk building delusional depth.... either way what makes something delusional is asserting truth where it doesn't belng, and I guess that can happen onto objective reality, social consensus, or fictional universes!

But I think SW is made for all ages, which means kids too, they just see the superficial literal fun and silliness, while adults read in the bigger picture over and above that vehicle of simplistic superficiality. To me, I think balance is a system term and does jot apply to the Force, but rather systems within the Force.... like me, you and other sentient things, and of relevance to those things balance has bearing to connecting outside that system to the broader Force, hence why it is relevant to Jedi.

But. I think one must understand the system first, and when it's systems of systems the awareness to be meaningful probably needs to respect the functional parameters of them as architecture and health, and not muddle different bits and pieces to prop up any particular convenient self denial. Simple things are easy to balance, but complex things need a bit more care IMO.

Rex wrote: I think this whole discussion hinges on us taking the creator of Jar Jar seriously. That first thing prinze said: "it's a kid's show" might be painfully accurate, and we might be reading too deeply into the juvenile fiction

I would take the whole "for kids" thing with a grain of salt. Let's keep in mind that Disney hasn't always owned Star Wars. When I was really young I remember being taken over a friends house because our parents were friends and us kids had to stay in the basement while our parents were watching Star Wars. I remember getting a peek at Darth Vader but it wasn't until later that I got to see it.

I think kids were more so an add on to the original audience. They saw the glowing swords and instantly thought it was cool. However, most of the extreme violence kids were exposed to back then was cartoon violence. Who would ever expect a child to sit still through a live action movie that had literally about 5 minutes of light saber time?

No, I had more GI Joe action figures than star wars toys and I remember when an older friend of my kid self had a millennium falcon and I was super jealous. But I remember it being expensive and he was probably 16-18.

When the mouse house bought star wars I'm sure they were mostly thinking about all the merchandise they could sell. Star Wars became more than a movie trilogy. And generations of people were already into it. So if they could do the same thing, I'm sure they believed they could get new generations into it. That doesn't mean they weren't thinking about the older fans. I think they just wanted to give a younger generation what they had when they were young. And of course for those lucky parents who can share more of their star wars interest with their kids... there's that too.

Young Anakin was definitely for kids. Teenage Anakin was for teenagers. Rey is for young women. You can pretty much look at the age of the hero to see the target age and gender Disney is going after. Finn includes black people like Billy Dee WIlliams did in the originals. It's about inclusion but I don't necessarily think Rey's gender is ever a central part of the story. Rey just happens to be a girl for the sake of the current zeitgeist. So even saying they made Rey "for girls" doesn't make the story "for girls". It's still a Star Wars story. So I think likewise, the inclusion of children, for children, doesn't make the story a children's tale. It's simply meant to include them so that they'll be more engaged so that they can grow up with Star Wars the same way we did.

And that's hard to do if you get sick of it once you hit puberty. My kids are over My Little Pony now. I don't think they mean for kids to grow out of star wars the same way by creating content that would "ONLY" appeal to that age group. Star Wars is universal. And the story, like the bible, is inclusive and can be enjoyed by all kinds of people. Children may read little picture bibles of Noah and the ark and grow into other stories with more adult themes. Star Wars is the same way because the overall premise is the same. It's the eternal struggle between good and evil and the hero's journey crossing the line between. It's for kids. But its not "just" for kids.

Introduction to myth or beginners guide to the myth I think is the idea that can be placed in as well as - these are baby story’s .
There is a beginning to everything. Where and how we are introduced can be the same for some or we can come from already grown knowledge of it.
Real life Example :

There is a church in Texas. They have missionary’s each year and take on more and more and as many as they possibly can. They go door to door and invite people after 50 years ... they still do it today. People stay there for about 2-5 years then pick a denomination and move on.
You could say they church is on fire for their faith. You could say it’s a oasis for the beginners. You could say after a while - people need more than just the begging stuff. Some need growth in different areas and some just wanna make a place like that their home. Some need the basics reminded often some don’t some grow in different directions.
Maybe some organizations are for introductions and some for specifics. Maybe some things are entry level some arnt. Something to think about.


Edit : don’t let Freddy hurt your feelings. Lol joking of course. After all - in context it’s a comedy skit ... it’s a comedy routine to make people laugh - - syndicated comedy- good stuff but still funny. What a guy - now he’s on the internet doing what his daddy was doing. Anybone see FP Sr ‘s ghost glowing blue behind J.R.? I do - Any how good stuff - hands down.