!!SPOILERS!! Star Wars Discussion Thread !!SPOILERS!!

[Cheetah]

The new movie is out.  Some of us have seen it; some of us have not.  This thread is a place for the Haves to talk about the movie without having to encase everything in the spoiler function.

 

If you haven't seen the movie yet,  CLEAR OFF!

 

You've been warned!

[Cheetah]

Okay, I'll go first.

 

The movie was too bloody long.

 

Overall it was pretty good, if a bit predictable.  But then, Star Wars films tend to be predictable.

 

I really liked that they used a Muppet for Yoda instead of CGI.  That made me very, very happy.

 

There were a few times in the movie where the dialog fell into using modern slang or phrasing, and it felt really out of place.  That was distracting.

 

The entire sub-plot with Finn and Rose could have been eliminated, and I think it might have been a better movie for it.  Except that we would have missed Benicio del Toro, and it's almost worth adding half an hour to a movie if that's what it takes to get him on the screen.

 

That's what I've got for now.

[jonfirestar]

1 minute ago, Cheetah said:

The entire sub-plot with Finn and Rose could have been eliminated, and I think it might have been a better movie for it.  Except that we would have missed Benicio del Toro, and it's almost worth adding half an hour to a movie if that's what it takes to get him on the screen.

 

I've gone on about this at length but I really felt like this was completely out of place. It accomplished nothing apart from showing the resistance to be completely incompetent and to shoehorn Finn and Rose into the story. I'd be okay with it if there had been a pay off. Even if the pay off had been negative for them (like for example the pay off to the Han & Leia subplot in Empire). But it didn't the only thing they accomplished was to get everyone killed and then ended it by putting the people who'd just gotten everyone killed in charge? I don't get it. The film would have been better without it.  It doesn't help that the whole thing on the casino planet reminded me of the bloody prequels. It pulled me right out of the movie at that point. 

 

I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt for a longer term pay off. Hopefully with del Toro getting more screen time in episode 9

 

Overall though I did enjoy it. I really loved the Kylo and Ray stuff. I think the drama and sexual tension that played out in those scenes was really great and I loved how it ended between them. Though compared to the Force Awakens they seemed to be depowered quite  a lot. While I thought the death of Snoke was a little anti-climatic it was a great Character moment for Kylo. 

 

 I liked Force Awakens more than this one but I agree with @Charlie_Quinn, Rogue One was phenomenal and I was hoping for something that would stand up with that movie. 

 

Also some of the jokes, while funny, broke with the universe and didn't work in context. 

[Cheetah]

23 minutes ago, jonfirestar said:

Also some of the jokes, while funny, broke with the universe and didn't work in context. 

 

The "Can he hear me?  Is this thing on?" bit with Poe and General Hux sounded like something out of Space Balls.  It was disappointing.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

1 hour ago, Cheetah said:

 

The "Can he hear me?  Is this thing on?" bit with Poe and General Hux sounded like something out of Space Balls.  It was disappointing.

That was actually one I found funny.

 

About FinRose, I think there were two purposes to the sequence that I liked and one I didn't care for. One, it set up Benecio Del Toro and Specifically the revelation to Finn that people were selling to both sides of the conflict. Two, it allowed the ending scene where the kid force grabs the broom and looks up at the sky. It showed the idea of the resistance/rebellion lives on. I think it also allowed to show what BB-8 can do, which seemed a little over powered/kid appeal, but it didn't bother me that much. I really enjoyed the movie.

[Raincloak]

I deeply appreciated Poe sassing Hux on the radio.  First of all, Hux is like the second biggest dick in the galaxy, and he is a perfect target for taunts.  He reacts so nicely.  For the audience's benefit, the bad guys really need to have someone around who knows when he's being taunted.  They've already got plenty of the stone-cold variety.  Second, one of the things that made the original trilogy special was the funny parts.  (The prequels had a number of problems, but to my mind, the lack of genuine humor was the worst.)  Yes, it's epic and mythical and all that, but hello, it's actually funny once in a while!

 

I was fine with the Finn and Rose subplot, but I would've cut the Poe mutiny subplot.  I liked the purple haired lady's courageous last stand (hi there, feminist leaders, we've been waiting a looooooong time to see you!), but the plot holes there were just absurd.

 

oh my god the cinematography in this movie.  It was so beautiful.  Not just the special effects, which were great as usual, but NOT as usual, there were many gorgeously composed shots.  They really used images to tell a story and didn't make the (somewhat bumpy) script do all the work.  I kept on thinking while I was watching, "You could freeze this shot and have a compelling photo, even if you left out the entire rest of the movie."  My absolute favorite image in the movie is the one where Luke busts into Rey's hut and sees Rey and Kylo sitting in the firelight, holding hands.  The shot of Luke facing the walkers against the sunrise is also really great.  And that SUPER COOL sequence on the salt planet with the red dirt.  (I could do without that blank red background in Snoke's throne room, though.  C'mon, that was boring.) 

 

And the careful positioning and cutting with those psychic phone calls, it really looked like Rey and Kylo were talking to each other from up close instead of half a galaxy apart.  Very clever.  They could have cheated and used special effects to make holograms or ghosts of the characters appear to one another, and it wouldn't have been nearly as emotionally effective. 

 

 

YODA BURNED DOWN THE BLEEPING JEDI TEMPLE.  AAAAAAAA.  THAT WAS SO BLEEPING AWESOME.

\micdrop

[Charlie_Quinn]

I enjoyed the movie, but I didn't feel overly excited when I left the screening. It was just, OK. I did see the film at a late night screening, so I do wonder if some of my views are skewed by the tiredness of seeing it at an ungodly hour. I am going to go see it again to see if I like it better on a second viewing.

There were some parts that I absolutely loved, such as the scenes between Kylo and Rey. Adam Driver really impressed me, that guy should be offered all the dramatic roles going after that performance. I found the middle of the movie baggy and overly long. I think everyone agrees that the casino scene could have been cut. The resolution of that scene - the fact that war isn't black and white with 'good guys' and 'bad guys' - and was very good, I just think they could have done that without the cgi casino and the chase with the horse-creature things. 

 

I don't have a problem with the humour at all. I liked Poe sassing Hux at the beginning and Chewie feeling guilty at roasting a porg was hilarious. I did have a problem with Leia's Mary Poppins style space walk. I'm glad they finally got her to use the force, but the way it was done was really bad. It's also really sad that we know that Carrie Fisher won't be in the next film so her character won't get the meaningful end she deserves. 

 

From a female view, I couldn't be happier with the amount of positive female characters in the film. I'm so glad that young girls (and boys) have these amazing female characters to look up to.

[jonfirestar]

18 hours ago, Cheetah said:

The "Can he hear me?  Is this thing on?" bit with Poe and General Hux sounded like something out of Space Balls.  It was disappointing.

 

16 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

That was actually one I found funny.

 

I thought the joke was really funny but it was out of universe and that bothered me a little bit. I liked the fact that he sassed Hux though. I also quite enjoy Hux. He's such an over the top melodramatic villain that it sort of just works. Maybe the joke was worth it for the laugh but something just tugs at me about it. 

 

5 hours ago, Charlie_Quinn said:

I just think they could have done that without the cgi casino and the chase with the horse-creature things. 

Yeah I really didn't' like that whole sequence. It dragged on too long and was essentially pointless. 

 

11 hours ago, Raincloak said:

I was fine with the Finn and Rose subplot, but I would've cut the Poe mutiny subplot.  I liked the purple haired lady's courageous last stand (hi there, feminist leaders, we've been waiting a looooooong time to see you!), but the plot holes there were just absurd.

I would have cut both. I did like the way the purple haired lady took down Snokes ship. That was utterly badass at the end. Part of me wishes that it was Leia to have made that stand but that's only because we aren't going to see Carrie Fisher in the role again  I think that whole scene could have still played out without the Poe or Finn and Rose  subplots. Neither of them added anything meaningful to the story. In fact, based on his actions I really don't like the character of Poe any more and find myself kind of horrified that the implication is that they are going to put him in charge of the resistance. 

 

11 hours ago, Raincloak said:

YODA BURNED DOWN THE BLEEPING JEDI TEMPLE.  AAAAAAAA.  THAT WAS SO BLEEPING AWESOME.

I loved seeing this version of Yoda so much.  

 

5 hours ago, Charlie_Quinn said:

I enjoyed the movie, but I didn't feel overly excited when I left the screening

I'm with you. I cannot say I didn't enjoy it. I really did. Some parts I really loved. The Ray and Kylo stuff was amazing and I loved how that whole thing played out and paid off. I'm a little sad that Snoke was built up and then snuffed out but the fact that it was Kylo who did it made it okay for me. He had the best character ark in the movie. He had the best setup and the best pay off in the end. 

 

I'm having a hard time figuring out where they might be heading with episode 9.

 

Overall I really did enjoy it and I am planning on seeing it again.  

[Cheetah]

6 minutes ago, jonfirestar said:

I did like the way the purple haired lady took down Snokes ship. That was utterly badass at the end.

Agreed.  Epic creative use of the tech.

 

I'm gonna brag a little, and say I did this years ago.

 

I used to play a lot of the Star Wars RPG back when it was West End Games.  We were running a story line with a group of smugglers, and out of nowhere a Star Destroyer is looming over our very illegal cargo transaction.  The ship holding the insanely valuable cargo didn't have a working hyperdrive, and the other ship wasn't big enough for everyone to escape in.  The GM thought he had us totally cornered.  Instead, we put everyone in the cargo ship, and had our protocol droid fly the smaller ship, override the astrogation safeties, and jump to hyperspace right into the Destroyer's center mass.  The resulting explosion almost wrecked the cargo ship we were all in anyway, but we made it.  The Imperials did not.  The GM was mad as hell.  He had several game sessions' worth of material written for us escaping from captivity on that Destroyer.  :-)

[jonfirestar]

3 minutes ago, Cheetah said:

The GM was mad as hell.  He had several game sessions' worth of material written for us escaping from captivity on that Destroyer.  :-)

You mean the GM didn't go cheap and just have 3 more Star Destroyers drop out of hyperspace at that moment?  

[Cheetah]

26 minutes ago, jonfirestar said:

You mean the GM didn't go cheap and just have 3 more Star Destroyers drop out of hyperspace at that moment?  

 

I think he was so stunned by the brilliance of the maneuver that he had to let it stand.  :-D

 

Another thing we realized was that it would be reasonably simple to rig up remotely-piloted fighters that would be basically a hyperdrive with wings, and take out whole fleets of Imperial ships without suffering any casualties.  In retrospect, the Rebellion is catastrophically stupid for not seeing this potential weapon. 

[TheOtherScott]

From a storytelling perspective, I think it was the boldest entry to date.  The explicit refusal to indulge in any fan theories was very smart, and the lack of a Luke/Kylo duel meant the script never contradicted itself for the sake of an action scene.  I didn't love the Casino scene, but the acknowledgement of the world outside battleship bridges and lightsaber duels was really needed.  I loved how much they raised the stakes by essentially reducing the resistance to about a dozen people.  I didn't expect them to go that far, but I was legitimately not sure anyone was going to survive, and I haven't felt that way in a Star Wars movie before.

[Raincloak]

I've never been sure it was possible to collide with other matter during a hyperspace jump.  Arguably, you'd be traveling through non-physical space or an alternate dimension (since matter can't really be accelerated to light speed or faster), so a tesseract, warp, etc doesn't really take you in a line from A to B.

 

It's pretty clear that SW tech can control and generate gravitons.  In the games and books, they have Interdictors, which can pull a ship OUT of hyperspace or prevent ships nearby from jumping, using gravity magic.  Useful for combat strategy.  And of course, all spaceships have normal gravity on board.  (The Sun Crusher and Starkiller Base probably destroyed stars by generating extra gravity or dark matter that causes the star to go supernova.)

 

But I don't remember hearing much about what happens IN hyperspace.  Possibly this one worked because the cruiser was still accelerating and wasn't actually in hyperspace at the moment of collision.  Whatever the handwave, that stunt sure impressed the audience.  I've seen the movie twice now and both times, the audience got very quiet and made stunned noises when it happened.

 

 

As for your RPG trick with the droid pilot and using a craft with hyperdrive as a guided missile: SW has never really explained why, but droids (and remote control) are rarely used as pilots in the canon, and they also don't seem to have "smart" craft with the AI wired directly into the vehicle, like in "Battlestar Galactica".  Your GM could have come up with a reason your droid couldn't do what yours did.  It seems computers in SW are like they were in the 1970s: slow, analog, prone to sudden hardware breakdowns, and not good at copying complex files, and they don't seem to function well in outer space.  (why didn't anyone just make a few extra tapes of the Death Star plans Leia gave to R2?  The entire plot of "A New Hope" would have fallen apart.  And why does everyone care about protecting their favorite droids?  Evidently a droid mind can't be easily backed up and restored.)

[obax]

I felt it was overall just ok, but I thought there were parts that were brilliantly done and parts that really took away from the movie as a whole. The more I think about it, though, the more I want to see it again, to be able to sit back and actually look at the movie rather than just watch the story.

 

Brilliantly done:

 

The communications between Rey and Kylo Ren. At first I was a bit like 'uh, wut.....?' but as it went on I 'got it', so to speak. Looking back at it now I think the tension it created was great. I felt a little let down when they finally came together in Snoke's chamber, though I can't say why, but I feel like there's a lot more to come.

 

The scene where the purple hair lady slams her ship into the star destroyer (?), more for the cinematography and art of it. I actually gasped (sort of, it was more of a breathless exhale, but you get the idea) and was in genuine awe of that moment, and the silence just went on. It was actually quite beautiful, and I actually had chills. I think silence is a wonderful and powerful sound choice to make, and it's sorely underused, especially in more mainstream movies. These two artistic choices worked so well, that I think it made the clumsy parts seem that much more out of place.

 

Things that took away:

 

Some of the modern phrasing. Not the presence of the humour, so much, but the writing itself. I liked the humour, generally, but felt some of the actual words fell flat within the universe it exists in. I really liked Poe sassing Hux at the beginning, though I do feel like it, I dunno, went on a little long, or something. It was funny, but just a little jarring by the time the scene moved on. It seemed like something Han Solo would do, though Han would have been a lot smoother about it. Maybe it's just the difference between Harrison Ford and the guy who played Poe, I dunno.

 

I liked Finn less in this movie than in The Force Awakens, and I think it's because he was played a bit as the butt of a joke a lot of the time. I thought TFA balanced the naivete of someone who was, essentially, experiencing the world as a whole for the first time, and his need to get done the things he wanted to get done (and the need to move the plot along) without dipping into silliness. In The Last Jedi, I don't feel like they always found that balance with Finn's character. I liked the Rose character, but was not overly fond of their relationship (Rose fell in love awfully quickly and easily, though I suppose so did Finn in TFA, but he at least has the excuse that it's all new to him). I like the end result of the trip to the casino planet (war is not black and white), but felt like it was a clumsy way to get there.

 

A thing I can't decide on and will have to see it again:

 

The relationship between Luke and Rey. I saw a lot of parallels between the relationship between Yoda and Luke (though I can't come up with anything specific at the moment, other than I was waiting for Rey to raise up the x-wing from the ocean the way Luke raised it up from the swamp), and I don't know if that was me trying to be all meta or if it was intentional. I didn't feel like Luke's story had the emotional weight I was expecting until the end on the salt planet (the part where his foot moves and doesn't make a red smudge, I was all like 'Oh oh oh, I know what's going on!!!) . Maybe my expectations got the better of me on this one, I dunno, though I couldn't before seeing the movie, and can't now, articulate what my expectations were, really.

 

Overall, I felt like the ideas behind the movie were really good but a lot of it was clumsy in its execution. I wonder too how much the death of Carrie Fisher affected the flow of the movie. I was curious what it meant when they said they had to recut the movie to account for that, and my theory is that the coma part in the middle was actually supposed to contain more story/character advancement (possibly between Leia and Rey?), but the scenes that would have moved things along will now be contained in the next movie (essentially stretching out Carrie Fisher's work to avoid having to rewrite too much of too many movies, or to get Leia into more movies, or something). I felt like a lot of stuff was set up to happen in the next one but that not all that much actually happened in this one, and this movie represents more of a single waypoint along the path of the story (at which things shift from what was to what will be) rather than actual steps that move along the path of the story. Everything (except the casino bit) felt very much like an event horizon, but I never felt like we came out the other end. I'm very curious to see what's on the other side, though, so inasmuch as a movie's job is to keep you guessing and get you excited for the next one, this one did it's job extremely well (for me, at least).

[Dagger]

Wow, is my opinion different from all of you.

 

I loved the movie. I came out of it feeling like I'd seen the best movie in a long long time. I felt like TFA was off pacing-wise. I saw that movie as a fan-trust movement, as in look we know what Star Wars is supposed to be like, none of that episode 1-3 nonsense. Here is the movie (TFA) you've been waiting for. And then the Last Jedi movie? It is basically: this is Star Wars but also new. Very different from episode 5 as far as I can remember episode 5.

 

While I can see some points in the casino scenes feeling somewhat out of place. I didn't see anyone mention the reason for this. Star Wars have always been built on the hero who does crazy shit to win the day. This movie showed how that scenario more often leads to tragedy. Without Finn and Rose getting the code breaker to the star destroyer, the rebellion would have arrived safely in their new base. They would have been many more, and they would have been able to plot their future resistance.

 

Instead, the code breaker turned in the way that is far too likely with a character like that. He just wants to survive, he doesn't believe in a cause. And Poe looks like an ass, not only that. He realizes that his decision to rebel, to do mutiny before he did the open mutiny, is the reason most of the rebellion died. Without that, he would not have made the decision to abort going at the cannon. Of course, without that that the cannon wouldn't have been there.

 

Also purple lady destroying the star destroyer? Loved it.

 

I love that they dared to go there. That they dared to make this movie the way they did. The arch was about Luke. And the movie started with Luke and ended when Luke's arch ended.

 

I didn't go into this movie with a lot of hype. I didn't think it would be anything but a good Star Wars movie. And I came out of it with a great Star Wars movie and an amazing movie overall.

 

But then, everyone's taste is different and I appreciate seeing these comments because it made me see/remember certain parts where the movie dragged just a bit for me. Nothing is perfect.

[obax]

I will say, it benefits from a second viewing. The parts I found jarring and out of place the first time through were not so much so this time (some of the dialogue still kinda made me twitch, though). Sadly, the scene where purple hair lady slams into Snoke's ship did not have nearly the same impact (and the rest of the audience this time seemed to fail to appreciate it, only one guy made any kind of noise. It's gasp-worthy, people, come on!!) It also let me notice a few things I didn't the first time through, and wonder a few things.

 

Why did purple hair lady take so long to turn around?? I get it at first, she has to keep up the charade to give the shuttles time to get to the planet. Whether her original plan was to jump away and be the lone sitting duck to lead the First Order away, or to slam the ship, once she saw them targeting the shuttles she took forever to turn around. And it was very likely that she would die whatever her original plan was, so it wasn't that she suddenly had to steel herself for her own death. I guess, plot-wise, they had to blow up enough shuttles that the ones left would fit on the Millennium Falcon, but c'mon purple hair lady!

 

A couple people here were all like 'Why would Leia give Poe command?!? He's so reckless!', but like Dagger points out too, he learned his lesson. After the bombing run, Leia tried to convince him that playing the hero wasn't always the wisest choice, and the good of the many must outweigh the fame of the one (namely, him). He didn't get it until he saw what purple hair lady did, and Leia pointed out that she did it not with the desire to be a hero but because she was prepared to do whatever it took to save the rebellion. He turned away from the cannon, and Finn took over the role of trigger-happy flyboy, and then again, when Finn wanted to run out to help Luke, Poe was the one to hold him back and look at the larger picture to see what was really going on. I totally missed this the first time 'round.

 

Who put the books on the Mellennium Falcon? I noticed the books the first time through, but didn't really think about it. This time, at first I thought Luke did when he went and got the dice and saw R2, but he was very convincing when Yoda burned down the tree, and why would he try to run into a fireball if he knew they weren't there any more? Maybe he was putting on a show for Yoda, but he would have no reason to, and I think Yoda would have seen right through it regardless, and that Luke would know he'd see through it and not even try. I guess Rey stole them? Or Chewie (though how would he even know it was there)? But there was not even a hint as to how it happened. Maybe Yoda did it and he was the one to know the books weren't in the tree and that's why he so readily burned it down.

 

The red guard guys in Snoke's chamber had armour on their forearms that could block light sabers, so why didn't they make their whole armour out of that? Why doesn't everyone wear armour made out of that, if they're so concerned about Jedis and their light sabres?

 

I really, really hope Benicio Del Toro's character makes a comeback and has a bigger role in the next one. I think it could make for a very interesting story point for him to sell his services to the rebellion in the same way he did to the First Order, and have Finn have to deal with that.

 

Are Rey's parents really nobodies? It was convenient for Kylo to tell her that to try to manipulate her, but is it true? I think I'd like it to be true more than not, I like that story more, and it would be very Star Wars-y for her to be someone special. This movie spent a lot of time and effort hammering across the 'out with old in with the new' theme, so...

 

Was Snoke really the one to connect Rey and Kylo? I wonder because at the end, when Rey is getting on the Falcon, and Kylo is in the room holding the dice, they seem to see one another, and Snoke is dead at that point. Did he connect them originally and it just stuck, or did he just say that as part of his manipulation of one or the other? And, a minor thing, where'd the dice even come from? I assume Luke somehow gave Leia the real ones, so who made the projection of the dice, and why? There was no need to slow Kylo down, there was no way for him to catch up. And even if Luke gave her projected ones, they should have dissipated when he did. I like the symbolism of them disappearing from his hand, but their presence made me frown. Unless Luke was making a point from the great beyond...

 

On 12/31/2017 at 5:48 AM, Dagger said:

While I can see some points in the casino scenes feeling somewhat out of place. I didn't see anyone mention the reason for this.

 

For me, on my first viewing, I didn't find the casino scenes out of place so much as I found them to be poorly executed and overly long. They had to do something to get the intended message across, and a casino is as good a setting as any to show the divide between the rich and powerful and the poor and downtrodden, but it just felt clumsy. On my second viewing, though, I didn't find it as bad. Looking at it now I feel like it makes a lot more sense. I keep thinking about what parts I might take out to streamline it but still get the same message across, and I can't actually come up with anything. So *shrug* maybe I'll figure out how I really feel on viewing #3...

[Dagger]

1 hour ago, obax said:

On 12/31/2017 at 7:48 PM, Dagger said:

While I can see some points in the casino scenes feeling somewhat out of place. I didn't see anyone mention the reason for this.

 

For me, on my first viewing, I didn't find the casino scenes out of place so much as I found them to be poorly executed and overly long. They had to do something to get the intended message across, and a casino is as good a setting as any to show the divide between the rich and powerful and the poor and downtrodden, but it just felt clumsy. On my second viewing, though, I didn't find it as bad. Looking at it now I feel like it makes a lot more sense. I keep thinking about what parts I might take out to streamline it but still get the same message across, and I can't actually come up with anything. So *shrug* maybe I'll figure out how I really feel on viewing #3...

I hear you. I only used "out of place" as a short hand for all the things people had mentioned. I wonder if we will see more consequences from the casino part in the next movie. With the kids, the horses/animals, or the rich or something like that; it would certainly lend more weight to the sequence.

[Driftwood]

First, it's a character ARC. Not an ark or an arch. Seeing that wrong is driving me nuts.

 

I liked how unpredictable this movie was for me.  Maybe I'm less clever than I used to be, or maybe it's just that it was very random with large plot holes. 

 

Purple Lady:  "I'll stay behind to pilot the ship".  Next time we see her: Literally standing staring out the 'window' of said ship, doing no piloting... because really, if you need the ship to continue going in a straight line, what piloting is necessary?  I do get that she needed to be there for the whole kamikaze part later in the battle to work, but it was a lame reason to stay behind.

 

Can we get a movie from the non-rebels point of view?  How about you grow up in a relatively stable civilization, but then terrorists (rebels) destroy the slightly oppressive government (The Empire).  Years later, the same terrorists (rebels) are at it again, trying to overthrow the New Order. Will they ever give up?!  Or is the universe doomed to rebellion after rebellion for all time?

 

Lastly, can we discuss the "balance" in The Force please?  How does this universe equal out the number of Force wielders?  If there are 100 Jedi, and two Sith, wouldn't you think that the Force is out of balance, so maybe slaughter all the Jedi (thanks Vader), leaving one or two (Yoda & Obi-Wan) as a balance against the Sith (Palpatine & Vader)?  This would be my main argument as to why we don't want a legion of Jedi in this universe... the amoral balance of the Force would require a legion of evil to make all things equal. This is a similar theory to Mr. Glass in Unbreakable causing mass murder events so that the universe will produce a hero to balance his villainy out.

 

 

[Raincloak]

Not that it's ever been totally clear what "balance in the Force" actually means, with the large number of different script writers and all.  (I don't even remember "balance" being a concern before the prequels came out and there was all that fuss about Anakin being space Jesus.)

 

But I always figured it was more a sort of moral balance, not a 1=1 ratio of light side / dark side adepts.  They keep saying everything is part of the Force, so it encompasses a lot more than Sith and Jedi. 

 

To the extent the Force is based on real life Taoism, the Tao could be called a "balance," but "harmony" is the word I hear more often.  The Tao is dynamic; like life, it changes constantly.  It's not like a scale where if you get the "balance" exact, it will stay that way.