50 Fun Facts About The Jedi

How did George Lucas describe the Jedi in one two-word phrase?

Their job, he said, was to keep the governments of all the planets in line so they did not do terrible things.

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

Other proposed roots include Arabic, Hebrew and the jeds and jeddaks of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom books.

Which author's Barsoom series, with its jeds and jeddaks, may have inspired the name?

Lucas had considered adapting the Mars books to film before making Star Wars.

In-universe, the word Jedi is said to derive from which kyber-rich planet?

The planet, seen in Rogue One, once housed a temple and was a source of the crystals that power lightsabers.

What name did Lucas originally consider for his knights before settling on Jedi?

J. W. Rinzler suggests the Buddhist idea of the bodhisattva, an enlightened being who stays to help others, was also in the mix.

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

Lucas also cited chivalry, bushido, Shaolin, Taoism and Nietzsche among the Jedi's influences.

How did Lucas label his own religious outlook when explaining Jedi non-attachment?

He credited growing up in San Francisco, which he called the Zen Buddhism capital of the United States.

What are Jedi expected not to form, because it leads to the dark side?

Lucas insisted Jedi are allowed, even expected, to love; it is the fear of loss that turns to anger and hate.

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

It ends with the line that there is no death, there is the Force.

How many members sit on the Jedi High Council at any one time?

Five serve for life, four long-term and three for limited terms; Sifo-Dyas lost his seat for extremist views on a war he foresaw.

Which body guarded the Temple Archives, the Holocron vaults and the "Shadow program"?

Reconciliation handled diplomacy with the Senate; Reassignment ran the Service Corps for those who washed out.

At roughly what age are human Force-sensitive children taken to the Jedi Academy?

Yoda turned away both Anakin and Luke as too old for training; parents are usually proud but unlikely to see the child again until adulthood.

Who destroyed the Archives' records of Force-sensitive children during the Purge?

He wiped them before Vader stormed the Temple, so the Sith could not exploit the children.

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

Most Initiates are Younglings, and their first decade is deliberately walled off from outside attachments.

In the tradition called The Gathering, younglings travel to Ilum to harvest what?

Each crystal is colourless until attuned, and each child must learn a lesson such as courage, patience or trust to find theirs.

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

Species without hair wore a bead string; it was cut with a lightsaber on the day of knighthood.

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

Their Knight and Master mentors served as Generals, which is how Ahsoka came to lead clone troops as a teenager.

Which of these is one of the five trials a Padawan must pass to become a Knight?

The others are Skill, Courage, Spirit and Insight; an extraordinary deed can also earn the rank outright.

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

By the Skywalker Saga the Republic had not seen war in a thousand years, so Knight was simply a rank again.

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

He later became a Master the usual way, by training Anakin to the point of passing the trials.

Which two characters are named as Grand Masters of the Jedi Order?

The Grand Master is voted in unanimously by the High Council and serves as the Order's figurehead.

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

The post ranks second only to the Grand Master in administrative importance.

Who held the post of Master of the Order, chairing the High Council, during the Clone Wars?

The role acts as the Council's chief of staff and its spokesperson to the Senate.

Jedi Guardians, the warrior class, are identified by which lightsaber colour?

Those who mastered lightsaber combat, like Mace Windu, were dubbed Weapon Masters.

Which Jedi class were the contemplative scholars, diplomats and healers with green blades?

The most perceptive, like Yoda, were known as Prophets who foretold the galaxy's future.

Jedi Sentinels, the pragmatic tech class, carried lightsabers of which colour?

The most loyal joined the anonymous Jedi Temple Guard, a role that demanded no identity or emotional ties.

What were the elite Sentinels who hunted Sith remnants as a secret police called?

Seekers were the Sentinels who tracked down Force-sensitive children for assessment instead.

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

Multi-bladed and whip-like sabers exist too, though mostly among Sith and Inquisitors.

The Jedi starfighter's triangular shape in Attack of the Clones deliberately echoed which ships?

Doug Chiang saw it as one of the first designs bridging the prequels and the original trilogy, foreshadowing the Empire.

Which ILM designer identified the Jedi starfighter as bridging the two trilogies' aesthetics?

Hasbro's toy with expanding wings inspired the opening wings of the Revenge of the Sith interceptor.

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

Permission had not been sought, but Lucasfilm denied the Long Room was the basis and the college let it go.

The Coruscant Jedi Temple was built on top of what?

The choice was symbolic: a sign to Coruscant that the tyranny of the Sith was over.

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

Sidious lived there for more than two decades and stored his dark-side artifacts inside.

Architects' Journal put the Temple third in Star Wars architecture, behind Death Star II and what?

The article called it a ziggurat clad in durasteel, adapting the robust typology of Mayan temples.

The Temple's five towers are stylistically likened to the minarets of which building?

Star Wars Insider listed the Temple as the hundredth greatest thing about Star Wars in its hundredth issue.

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

The exact pre-purge membership is never specified; the Empire hunted down the small outposts and temples afterwards.

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

Dawn of the Jedi dates them to 36,453 BBY, before lightsabers or hyperspace travel existed.

In Legends, to which planet did the New Jedi Order relocate after the Yuuzhan Vong war?

Luke's new council was half Jedi and half politicians until the Order withdrew support from any single government.

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

Statues of them stood in the Temple Archives as reminders of failure; the first twelve founded the original Sith Empire.

What group of fallen Jedi did Sidious commission to help Vader hunt survivors, per Rebels?

Reva Sevander, the Third Sister in Obi-Wan Kenobi, escaped the Temple as a child on the night of Order 66.

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

He brought the young Togruta to Coruscant, and she later became Anakin's Padawan.

At which battle was the Kel Dor Master shot down by his own clones under Order 66?

He led the 442nd Siege Battalion there and was one of the first casualties of the order.

What was Kanan Jarrus's birth name?

The Bad Batch shows the enhanced clones choosing to save the young Padawan after his master is killed.

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

He grew up alone on the streets there before Kanan took him on as an apprentice.

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

Rey finds him there, along with ancient Jedi texts hidden in a tree that Yoda's spirit later burns.

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

That made it the fourth-largest reported religion, ahead of Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism.

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

Over 53,000 New Zealanders took part; the craze began with a chain email claiming a threshold would force official recognition.

In the early 1980s, which real group was derisively nicknamed "Jedi" by colleagues?

Their conventional peers preferred attrition warfare; the later film The Men Who Stare at Goats used the term for psychic spies.

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

It retells The Phantom Menace from Obi-Wan's point of view.

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

He argues Yoda resembles the Stoic sage, the ideal person who has perfected reason and achieved complete wisdom.