Originally posted by Lettuce
Hello everyone I'm new here and I got a few questions. First off let me start by saying that I am newcomer to the star wars universe. I only just saw the first three movies recently and by recently I mean yesterday.I did see " The Phantom Menace" "Attack of the clones" movies when they first came but I didnt really find them all that intresting. I actually didnt become intreseted in the Star Wars universe untill I started playing Kinghts of The Old Republic last week and watching the original trilogy only increased it.Anyway back to the reason I'm here the questions that have more then alittle confused. Hello and welcome to Lucasforums and Star Wars fandom in general. :)
Originally posted by Lettuce
1.I read a few posts about the SW universe in this forum that actually mention characters from KOTOR. I always thought the game was just based on the SW universe but it used made up characters for its stories. So I was just wondering if the KOTOR games as well as other SW games are stories taken directly from the history of the SW universe.? The overall Star Wars universe more or less consists of two parts: the movies, and everything else.
The Movies
George Lucas writes and otherwise completely controls every aspect of the movies. The stories thereof are more or less entirely his. The movies are at the top of the hierarchy and everything is based on them. He has little regard for other Star Wars sources like books, games, and anything else that isn't the movies. His view is that everything that isn't in the movies are part of a parallel universe that doesn't interfere with his stories. As a result you will find some inconsistencies with older Star Wars non-movie stories. It's not that he doesn't like the EU, he just wants to be able to tell his own story.
Expanded Universe
The "everything else" falls into the realm of the Expanded Universe (EU). The EU are all the officially sanctioned and licensed stories from all the non-movie sources. While Lucas himself does not particularly care about the EU (in the story sense), there are many guidelines that potential EU stories must follow. These rules are enforced by Lucas Licensing. All the stories, from games, books, and so on, are more or less part of the overall story arch and tie together pretty well, and with the movies for that matter. The EU attempts to tie into and not conflict with the films (many debates are around how well this has turned out). In the end, the Expanded Universe does exactly that, it expands on the the universe described in the movies, and can be considered part of the overall Star Wars world.
Now finally to your actual question. Since KOTOR is a game, and is not directly based on the stories of the movies, it is considered part of the Expanded Universe. Again, this means that it ties into the Star Wars world and tells a part of the overall story. In this case, events that occured some 4000 years before the movies. Other games like Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy also tell part of the overall story, and do not conflict with the events described in KOTOR.
Note: The stories from the EU are written by a wide variety of sources and the quality of these stories varies wildly as one might expect. Because of this, SW fans opinions of the stories in the EU vary greatly and often "violently." Hell, the same is true for the films. For example, some people love the New Jedi Order series (NJO). I think the New Jedi Order series is a steaming pile of trash. Partly because I find the concepts and stories don't tie in well with the rest of the Star Wars universe, and partly because I like to tease my friend Astrotoy7. :) This is why I will now put a token "NJO sucks" picture here...
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Originally posted by Lettuce
2.What is it exactly the turns a jedi to the dark side? I am really confused about this because it seems to me that just thinking about doing something bad leads you down the path to the darkside. It also seems to me that the jedi are supposed to be devoid of emotion and that loosing that control even if it is only for a short while could lead you to embrace the dark side. According to the films, the Force has two sides, the light and the dark. For those who are sensative to the Force, like the Jedi, emotions such as anger, hatred, and fear are dangerous. They are dangerous because they may lead the Jedi to call upon the dark side of the force to do "bad things." Since the dark side is by its nature seductive and easier to use, it can lead to the Jedi calling upon it more and more often for more and more terrible reasons. In many ways, the dark side is like an drug. Eventaully the Jedi can become addicted to as destroys their mind and perhaps body as well.
However, emotions are not in and of themselves evil or the dark side. There are just some emotions that tend to lead more to corruption by the dark side. The Jedi are not trying to become devoid of emotion (like those silly Vulcans), but seek to control them so that they do not start sliding down the slippery slope to the dark side.
That is why we see the Jedi having rules to prevent themselves from getting into situations where they would potentially have emotions that might lead them to the dark side. That is why marriage and the like is forbidden. When you love someone, you are much more likely to act irrationally in certain situations involving them, which could lead to emotions that might lead to the dark side. This is basically what happens to Anakin. Jedi still do feel emotions in the very same way as everyone else does. They have just learned to control them and not act upon them. However, by the time the events of the prequel movies occur, it could be argued that the Jedi focus to much on the actual rule and not enough on the reason for it. Sort of like how the Portestant Church sees the Catholic Church (everyone get out your ten foot pole).
Well, that's one point of view. I'm sure others will throw their stupid and wrong ideas in, but you will have to make sure to ignore them. ;)