Becoming a Jedi is one of the most powerful illusions Star Wars games can provide the power of the lightsaber, and the greater power of the force itself. It is indeed an imagination that we must resort to more than any other imagination, “the history of long games. But with this imagination came a vision of the force that, over the years, often bled in the narrative of Star Wars itself: a vision of the field of energy as diverse forces, surrounded by a fence of light and darkness, and graded and regulated because, well, it works in a video game. It works less qualitatively from the spiritual and narrative point of view, and that’s why sometimes you get the wild example of Jedi who are perfectly fine at launching lightning with their fingers and confusing people… as long as he bears a different name.
I’ve been thinking about this recently thanks to the fact it was announced last week that the classic hacking and slashing game Phantom Menace Force Battles will get an updated re-release early next year, after 25 years since being the first expanded universe material to give us a “light side” version of Force Lightning. In Force Battles – created to arrange the Jedi in a prehistoric era not fully defined yet by the arrival of Phantom Menace on the big screen – the “Electric Judgment” was an ability used exclusively by Jedi Master Plo Koon. For all intents and purposes, it was simply “But Good Force Lightning”: Plo unleashed blasts of golden electrical energy from his hands and used them to disable the majority of enemies, usually robots, he encountered across the game’s various levels.
This was the first time we explicitly noticed that the Jedi were using the Force, until that moment, we only saw Emperor Palpatine using it terribly to torture Luke during Return of the Jedi. But since then, the expanded universe continued to find ways to use it and justify such harmful use of force as something that aligns with what would become more regulated over the years as the moral outlook of the Jedi Order. In some interpretations, the ability was treated as a banned technology among several generations of Jedi, fearing that its roots in desire for injury, whether fatal or otherwise, made it inherently dark-sided. Electric Judgment would be further clarified being an ability Plo Koon himself had invented: The Jedi vs Sith: The Ultimate Guide to the Force provides a description of an incident where Jedi Master unintentionally unleashed lightning from his hands to disable a criminal during his hostage situation. After reporting the outburst to the Jedi Council and reflecting on his feelings, telling them he felt no negative emotions when the ability happened, and did not express his desire to kill the criminal in the process, Plo was granted permission to further develop and utilize the ability and record his experience with it for future reference.
In later EU stories, the game Electric Judgment gave rise to Emerald Lightning, a more general version of the ability which, despite its name, could appear in several different colors (except white and blue for Force Lightning, of course). With it and increasing use in the New Jedi Order era of EU material, multiple applications came, usually offensive applications like those associated with Electric Judgment, but also defensive applications, like storm shields, or a stunning tool. But mostly, they remained as they were: a power that was eerily similar to what dark-side Jedi chips used, but only coming from a noble intention for justice, rather than anger and hatred.
Was that enough to justify using the classic “Sith” power in the name of good? Well, that depends. The power as a toolkit that led us to the Electric Judgment game in the first place is also the one that gives us this nuanced view of the “abilities” of the force that can be classified as both light-hearted and dark as well. What is inherently light about controlling the mind of another conscious being, even if only for a moment with a mental trick by Jedi Master Plo? What is more explicitly aggressive and violent in using lightning to disable the enemy than pushing them with enough kinetic force to send them to the ground? Is the mental manipulation “dark” because it involves an abusive application, despite us seeing Jedi use it all the time?
The Force as we truly see it in the movies, especially in the original trilogy, is – and often must be seen as – an energy manifested in intention and subtle context. There is no clear idea what action is encoded as dark or light-side of the Force, and it’s like picking different skill tree choices in a video game. It’s about the emotions the user feels when harnessing the Force, and how they use and apply it – whether you’re from the light or dark side depends on how the user wields this universal power, rather than the aspects of the force itself. By nature either or. This broader understanding of the force, surpassing the divide between what can be understood as Jedi and Sith factions by unifying those fractions in the EU and the era of the sequels, has become somewhat renewed once again in the modern age. Star Wars, a franchise more willing to question what using the force means, and using the names “Jedi” and “Sith” primarily, in addition to broad skepticism of these factions’ motivations in materials like Ahsoka or The Clone Wars.
Perhaps with the return of this perspective, we can see a less fun Star Wars “spiritual essence. The Force is greater and wider than can be truly encapsulated in two ideological schools of thought – it connects all living beings, regardless of their sensitivity. As the series thinks about its future – uncertain or otherwise as it stands now, which currently intends to at least consider what it means for the hero to try to rebuild the Jedi Order for the third time on screen – maybe we need a reminder of the unique status that the game Electric Judgment holds in Star Wars, and make it change our view of the force as it did the first time, almost 25 years ago.
Do you want more io9 news? Find out the expected release dates for the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe in film and television, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
