49 Fun Facts About The Jedi

George Lucas summed up the Jedi in which two-word phrase?

Warrior-monks: the idea shaped everything from their plain robes to their creed of compassion and self-discipline, with fighting meant only as a last resort.

The word Jedi may come from jidaigeki, a Japanese term for what kind of film?

Period drama: the term covers the samurai films of directors like Akira Kurosawa, whom Lucas names as a major inspiration, and he is said to have picked the word up while in Japan.

Which author's Barsoom novels, with their jeds and jeddaks, may also have inspired the word Jedi?

Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan: on his Barsoom, a fictional Mars, lords carry the title jed or jeddak. When Disney finally filmed the first book as John Carter in 2012, it lost the studio some $200 million.

In Rogue One, the Death Star's first test shot destroys the holy city on which moon?

Jedha: one of the first civilisations to study the Force arose on the moon, and the Empire occupied it to strip out the crystals that power lightsabers before erasing its holy city.

Which Akira Kurosawa film, told through two bickering peasants, is most often named as a model for Star Wars?

The Hidden Fortress: its two squabbling peasants became the droids C-3PO and R2-D2, and by his daughter's account Lucas offered its star, Toshiro Mifune, the part of Obi-Wan Kenobi, which he turned down.

Which Joseph Campbell book directly drove Lucas to build his modern myth?

The Hero with a Thousand Faces: Lucas studied it while drafting Star Wars but met its author only in the 1980s, after the original trilogy was finished, and came to call Campbell 'my Yoda'.

George Lucas, raised a Protestant, sums up his own religious outlook with which label?

Buddhist Methodist: he was raised a Methodist and, as he once joked of his California home, 'It's Marin County. We're all Buddhists up here.'

What does the Jedi Order forbid its members to form, warning that it leads to the dark side?

Attachments: Lucas insisted that Jedi may love, and are even expected to; what they must not do is cling, because the fear of losing someone curdles into anger and hate.

The Jedi Code opens "There is no emotion, there is" what?

Peace: the mantra goes on to set knowledge against ignorance and serenity against passion, and a real-world church of Jediism, founded in 2005, has adopted both its versions as doctrine.

Which Jedi Master, dropped from the High Council, secretly ordered the Republic's clone army?

Sifo-Dyas went to the Kaminoan cloners behind the Council's back. The Sith then had him killed and took over his order, so the army the Jedi came to lead was secretly their enemy's.

Jedi and Sith alike recorded their teachings in which palm-sized crystalline devices, opened only through the Force?

Holocrons: the Jedi Temple kept its most guarded ones locked in a restricted vault, which is why Cad Bane's theft of one during the Clone Wars was such a coup.

In The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon Jinn tests Anakin's blood for which microscopic life forms that signal Force potential?

Midi-chlorians: Lucas called them a loose depiction of mitochondria, the tiny power plants inside our own cells, and Anakin's count came back higher than Master Yoda's.

Ben Burtt built the lightsaber's hum from an old film projector's motor and the buzz of which household object?

A television set: Burtt was carrying a microphone past one when it picked up a buzz from the picture tube, quite by accident, and he blended that half and half with the projector's hum.

Which is the first of the four stages of Jedi training?

Initiate: these are the younglings, schooled together at the Temple, where Yoda himself taught them, until they pass their tests and a Knight or Master takes each one on as a Padawan.

In the rite called the Gathering, Jedi younglings travelled to which planet to find the crystals for their first lightsabers?

Ilum: in its ice caves each youngling had to trust their instincts and overcome an inner obstacle before the one crystal attuned to them appeared, then build a lightsaber around it under the old droid Huyang.

What did Old Republic Padawans traditionally wear on the right side of their head?

A braid: Padawans of hairless species wore a string of beads in its place, and the braid came off for good on the day its wearer was made a Knight.

What military rank did Padawans hold in the Grand Army during the Clone Wars?

Commander: with Knights and Masters made generals, their teenage apprentices outranked veteran clone officers, which is how Ahsoka Tano came to give orders to Captain Rex.

Alongside the Trials of Skill, Courage, Spirit and Insight, which fifth test must a Padawan pass to become a Knight?

Trial of the Flesh: it tested how a Padawan bore pain and loss, and in the older novels Anakin Skywalker is judged to have passed it when Count Dooku took his arm.

What trial did Yoda set Luke so he could become a full Knight?

Face Vader a second time: the dying Yoda tells Luke that no more training is needed, only that meeting, and Luke passes it by refusing to strike his father down.

Obi-Wan earned Jedi status through the extraordinary act of defeating whom?

Darth Maul: he was the first Sith the Jedi had faced in a thousand years and had just killed Obi-Wan's own master, so the Council counted the victory as the Padawan's trials.

Which Muppets performer gave Yoda his voice and movements in The Empire Strikes Back?

Frank Oz: Lucas first approached Jim Henson, who was too busy and put forward his fellow puppeteer, the performer of Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear.

Who was Chief Librarian of the Jedi Archives around the time of the Clone Wars?

Jocasta Nu: she was so sure of her records that she told Obi-Wan a planet missing from them could not exist, when in truth someone had erased it.

Who chaired the Jedi High Council as Master of the Order in the last years before the Clone Wars?

Mace Windu: he was on the Council both times it turned Anakin Skywalker down, first refusing to have the boy trained and later withholding the rank of Master, which left Anakin furious.

Which actor asked George Lucas for a purple lightsaber so he could pick himself out in a crowded battle scene?

Samuel L. Jackson: blades until then had been red, blue or green, and he argued that his character, the most formidable Jedi after Yoda, had earned one of his own.

In Jedi lore, which of the Order's three branches were its contemplative scholars, seers and healers?

Consular: the least warlike of the Jedi, they drew a lightsaber only as a last resort and were the ones sent to negotiate when a dispute could still be talked down.

The masked guards of the Jedi Temple carried double-bladed lightsaber pikes of which colour?

Yellow: the Temple Guards were Knights who gave up their names and faces for the post, serving anonymously behind identical masks and robes for as long as it lasted.

Which prequel-trilogy actor returned in The Mandalorian as Kelleran Beq, the Jedi who rescues Grogu from the Temple?

Ahmed Best: the performer behind Jar Jar Binks had first played Kelleran Beq as host of a children's game show in 2020, and the series made that Jedi the hero of Grogu's escape.

Kylo Ren's lightsaber has a crossguard because of what?

A cracked kyber crystal: the flawed stone would overload the blade, so two side vents bleed off the excess power, and those jets of plasma are the crossguard.

The Jedi fighter of Attack of the Clones was shaped to echo which original-trilogy ships?

Star Destroyers: the echo was meant to suggest that the Empire seized and twisted the Republic's noble designs, and the next film's Jedi fighter went further by borrowing from the TIE fighter.

Which prequel design director called the Jedi starfighter a bridge to the original trilogy's look?

Doug Chiang: seeing the original Star Wars at 15 sent him down to the family basement to shoot stop-motion films of his own, and he grew up to lead the art department on its prequels.

The Jedi Archives in Attack of the Clones closely resemble which real library?

Trinity College Dublin: the Archives match its Long Room down to the rows of marble busts. Nobody had asked permission, but Lucasfilm denied copying it and the college chose not to sue.

The Coruscant Jedi Temple was built on top of what?

An old Sith shrine: the Jedi razed it after a great war and raised their Temple on its foundations, as a sign that Sith rule was over and in the hope of smothering the dark energy left in the site.

What did the Jedi Temple become after the fall of the Order?

The Emperor's Palace: Palpatine kept the Temple's ziggurat and its crown of spires on the skyline and set his throne room in the central tower of the Order he had destroyed.

Which actor's performance as a Jedi in the original 1977 film earned an Oscar nomination?

Alec Guinness: he had written to a friend that the film was fairy-tale rubbish, and by his own account it was he who talked Lucas into killing Obi-Wan Kenobi off.

Which Jedi Council member seen in The Phantom Menace belongs to the same mysterious species as Yoda?

Yaddle: a later animated story explains why she vanished from the Council. She follows a wavering Count Dooku, uncovers his new master, and is killed by him, his last step into the dark side.

In Rebels, Kanan Jarrus estimated how many Jedi Knights once defended the galaxy?

10,000: Kanan offers the figure to his apprentice Ezra as a measure of how much has gone, and Ezra finishes the thought for him: now there are just the two of them.

In Legends, the Je'daii precursors studied light and dark equally on which planet?

Tython: the Je'daii built their philosophy of balance around its two moons, Ashla and Bogan, and the planet returned on screen in The Mandalorian, where Grogu calls out from its seeing stone.

Which Star Wars publishing era, launched in 2021, shows the Jedi in their golden age centuries before the films?

The High Republic: it opens with a hyperspace catastrophe and the marauding Nihil testing an Order that had grown used to calm, and its era reached live action in The Acolyte in 2024.

Dooku was the last of which group of Masters who left the Order?

The Lost Twenty: a bust of each stood in the Temple Archives, Dooku's the newest, kept there so that the Order would not forget the Masters it had failed to hold.

Which order of fallen Jedi did Darth Sidious create to help Vader hunt down the survivors of the Purge?

The Inquisitorius: its recruits were Jedi who had turned, and each gave up their own name for a number and a title, which is why Reva Sevander is known only as the Third Sister.

Which Jedi Master discovered Ahsoka Tano on her homeworld of Shili?

Plo Koon: he brought her to the Temple as a toddler and stayed close to her ever after, which made it harder when the Council he sat on expelled her on a false charge.

A Jedi Master is shot down by his own clone wingmen under Order 66 above the bridge cities of which planet?

Cato Neimoidia: the pilot was known for the care he took of his clone troops, and his own squadron opened fire on him moments after they had won the battle there together.

What was Kanan Jarrus's birth name?

Caleb Dume: he buried the name after his master, Depa Billaba, died holding off their own clone troopers so that he could run, and he hid what he was for years before joining the rebels.

Ezra Bridger was born on which planet, on the very day the Empire was founded?

Lothal: his birthday fell on Empire Day itself, the regime's yearly celebration, and he grew up alone on the planet's streets after his parents were jailed for speaking out against it.

On which planet does Luke exile himself after the failure of his new Order?

Ahch-To: its sacred island holds the first Jedi temple, where the Order began, and he hid there convinced that the Jedi ought to end with him, until Rey tracked him down.

About how many people in England and Wales gave their religion as Jedi in the 2001 census?

390,000: that put Jedi ahead of Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism, after a chain email urged people to write it in 'because you love Star Wars... or just to annoy people'.

Which country had the highest share of self-declared Jedi in its 2001 census, at 1.5%?

New Zealand: more than 53,000 people wrote Jedi on the form after a chain email, sent with a week's notice, claimed that enough answers would make it an officially recognised religion.

"Weird Al" Yankovic's Jedi-themed parody of "American Pie" is called what?

The Saga Begins: Yankovic wrote it before the film opened, piecing the plot together from internet rumours, and had it so nearly right that he changed only a few words after seeing it.

In Star Wars and Philosophy, William Stephens compares the Jedi to which school of thought?

Stoicism: Stephens, a scholar of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, sees Yoda as the Stoic sage and calls his warning that fear leads to anger and hate 'straight up Stoicism'.