Why can't Jedi Fly?

[TheHammer]

Something that has always bothered me was the Jedi propensity for falling. I'll spare listing the examples, as I'm sure you've all seen them through out the new and old trilogy - Most notably, an otherwise "healthy" palpatine falling to his death. I could understand a short fall being unable to catch yourself, but given the TK abilities Jedi show, why is this even a danger? Levitating a human body for a brief period of time should be a relatively easy thing for a decently powerful Jedi.

[Darth Tanner]

Dooku can, in the Clone Wars cartoon at least.

However I'm not sure the examples of Jedi falling to their deaths are that straight forward.

Darth Maul was cut in half.
Windu had his hand chopped off and was electrocuted – he easily guided and survived an earlier fall into the arena.
Luke actually survived a massive impact and maneuvered into an escape hatch - despite being practically untrained.
And your example of Palpatine, well he was also electrocuted and betrayed by his closest disciple. And from the fact he exploded with 'dark side energy' I'm guessing he hit the reactor that that shaft leads to without any chance to cushion his fall.

The easy answer is that moving your own body is simply a very difficult act that most can’t accomplish without great meditation. Dooku after all never did it in actual combat.

[TheHammer]

I don't see why it would be any more difficult to levitate your body than any thing else. If nothing else, you could focus on levitating your shoes and clothing, and thus levitating yourself right along with it.

I wasn't aware the clonewars showing Dooku flying. Very interesting...

[TheHammer]

doublepost

[Simon_Jester]

I don't see why it would be any more difficult to levitate your body than any thing else. If nothing else, you could focus on levitating your shoes and clothing, and thus levitating yourself right along with it.

It might be "not easy" for technical reasons we can't intuitively guess at without knowing how Jedi make their powers work.

Or it might be inherently rather unstable- say, if you get it slightly wrong and start pushing at the wrong angle, it causes you to get it more wrong, and more and more until you're spinning around in midair or some such thing,* at which point you get disoriented and smack your head into a wall.

*This is a problem with many theoretical 'real' ways to build an aircraft: they work in that they generate enough lift to keep you off the ground, but don't work in that they keep you stable in midair.

[Balrog]

The easy answer is that moving your own body is simply a very difficult act that most can’t accomplish without great meditation. Dooku after all never did it in actual combat.

There's also the matter of its applicability in a given situation; what does levitating give you that a bust of Force speed or jump cannot?

Of course, there are plenty of times when a Jedi falls from a great height and doesn't go splat, the most obvious being Anakin skydiving through Coruscant traffic. Thus are the fevered dreams of Windu fans, who believe he survived his fall at the last minute and is simply waiting his time to get all BAMF on the galaxy again.

[Molyneux]

Dooku can, in the Clone Wars cartoon at least.

However I'm not sure the examples of Jedi falling to their deaths are that straight forward.

Darth Maul was cut in half.
Windu had his hand chopped off and was electrocuted – he easily guided and survived an earlier fall into the arena.
Luke actually survived a massive impact and maneuvered into an escape hatch - despite being practically untrained.
And your example of Palpatine, well he was also electrocuted and betrayed by his closest disciple. And from the fact he exploded with 'dark side energy' I'm guessing he hit the reactor that that shaft leads to without any chance to cushion his fall.

The easy answer is that moving your own body is simply a very difficult act that most can’t accomplish without great meditation. Dooku after all never did it in actual combat.

Wait a second. I'm fairly sure Palpatine wasn't electrocuted at all...Vader just picked him up and chucked him down the shaft.

[Eternal_Freedom]

If it could be done, it would require constant, very strong concentration and I would think a fair exertion on the part of the Jedi in question. In other words, you have to get it right all the time, and you can't slip up for one moment or you kind of die, as Simon suggested above.

The question of need arises. How often do we see them needing to actually fly?

[Imperial528]

Wait a second. I'm fairly sure Palpatine wasn't electrocuted at all...Vader just picked him up and chucked him down the shaft.

IIRC when Vader picked Palpy up the force lightning reflected back at them both as Palpy tried to resist.

[Wing Commander MAD]

I recall Palpatine zapping Vader, don't remember if it was simply a reflexive move on his part or an intentional counter attack though. Since Vader was holding him, and I'm guessing Vader's artificial limbs were conductive, it wouldn't surprise me if the electricity simply looped back through Palpatine as part of the circuit*.

Edit: Point being he may have been similary fried like Windu, and thus unable to pull off levitation, like if he say just tripped on his robes and fell down the chasm.

*Note: Mind you that's assuming force lightning is actually electricity. I seem to recall hearing that it's not electricity, and actually sucking the life force out of the victim. Not sure I believe that version, but there you have it.

[Connor MacLeod]

We really don't know how the mechanisms of Jedi Telekinesis works, and that is pretty important to determining whether they could or could not fly. For example, what if the TK is highly directional or requires the formation of some sort of invisible "structure" - the AOTC novel for example describes Anakin blocking or shoving people by creating force "walls" which implies visualizing some sort of real wall (as if you pushed them with, say a TK dozer blade) Depending on where the anchor point is assumed to be (since you have to lift up against something) it might be very easy to simply levitate in one direction, but applying force in another may be difficult. Which leads in turn to multitasking issues - do they have to exert concentration in multiple directions (overcome gravity, protect against wind, etc.)

It may even be a strain or concentration issue - Jedi abilities (at least in the movies) seem to be powerful, short term "burst" applications, perhaps with some "charge up" time - they use force assisted jumps and leaps, shoves or TK throws, etc. Perhaps the strain or concentration for sustained tK application increases exponentially? Or it could be a matter of fine control.

[Havok]

If you watch the movies, it is certainly a concentration issue. Dooku and Yoda both have to stop anything else they are doing to use their TK. Even Palpatine, who can seemingly toss things at will can't just insta use TK as he jumped out of the way of the Senate pod Yoda threw back at him instead of just using TK to stop it.

Vader in TESB stopped what he was doing to throw multiple objects at Luke and he seems to direct the objects with hand/lightsaber motions. TK is never shown in the movies to be the easiest ability the Jedi use.

There are also many times when TK would have been easy and handy if it were in fact an easy feat. The buzz droids on Obi-Wan's fighter is a prime example. Yet neither Anakin nor Obi-Wan were capable of doing it. Falling in the elevator shaft is also another prime example. Anakin could have just levitated the three of them if TK were such an easy feat. It should have been even easier once Obi-Wan was awake.

Clearly the type of TK that sustained flying requires is beyond the abilities of even the most powerful Jedi in their primes can handle without proper concentration. It certainly isn't something that can be multi-tasked.

[Azron_Stoma]

Yeah about the best they were able to do when the Turbolift came down at them was some sort of force swing/selfpush/whatever-trick to get through one of the doors onto a lower deck.

[TheHammer]

If you watch the movies, it is certainly a concentration issue. Dooku and Yoda both have to stop anything else they are doing to use their TK. Even Palpatine, who can seemingly toss things at will can't just insta use TK as he jumped out of the way of the Senate pod Yoda threw back at him instead of just using TK to stop it.

Vader in TESB stopped what he was doing to throw multiple objects at Luke and he seems to direct the objects with hand/lightsaber motions. TK is never shown in the movies to be the easiest ability the Jedi use.

Yet we see Jedi interchangingibly using TK and light saber techniques when fighting against Droids. We also see Dooku pick up Obiwan and smash him into the catwalk before yanking that same catwalk down on top of him. If you are a Jedi falling to your death, you'd think you could find some way to slow your fall.

There are also many times when TK would have been easy and handy if it were in fact an easy feat. The buzz droids on Obi-Wan's fighter is a prime example. Yet neither Anakin nor Obi-Wan were capable of doing it. Falling in the elevator shaft is also another prime example. Anakin could have just levitated the three of them if TK were such an easy feat. It should have been even easier once Obi-Wan was awake.

Yeah, they SHOULD have been able to do it. There doesn't appear to be a plausible explanation for why they don't. The ONLY time I can recall them doing something like that is Kyp Durron in one of the novels stops his landing pod from smashing into the ground using for the force.

Clearly the type of TK that sustained flying requires is beyond the abilities of even the most powerful Jedi in their primes can handle without proper concentration. It certainly isn't something that can be multi-tasked.

Eh maybe. Just seems like a great inconsistency in the power of the force...

[Darth Tanner]

We also see Dooku pick up Obiwan and smash him into the catwalk before yanking that same catwalk down on top of him. If you are a Jedi falling to your death, you'd think you could find some way to slow your fall.

Maybe the falling to your death bit makes it difficult to concentrate. Dooku was able to dedicate his total concentration to throwing Obiwan and crushing him, that’s likely not true while someone is falling to their death or in the middle of a intense sabre battle.

There doesn't appear to be a plausible explanation for why they don't.

It takes concentration?

The ONLY time I can recall them doing something like that is Kyp Durron in one of the novels stops his landing pod from smashing into the ground using for the force.

Maybe being sat in an escape pod with whatever inertial compensators SW has allows better concentration.

[Balrog]

[quote="TheHammer"]Yet we see Jedi interchangingibly using TK and light saber techniques when fighting against Droids. We also see Dooku pick up Obiwan and smash him into the catwalk before yanking that same catwalk down on top of him. If you are a Jedi falling to your death, you'd think you could find some way to slow your fall.
Except we do see them do that, constantly. Again, we have Anakin surviving a fall that by all rights should've killed him, we have Windu jumping off the observation balcony and landing just fine on the arena floor in AotC, shit they do it multiple times in the cartoons; Anakin and Ahsoka deployed with a bunch of jetpack clonetroopers and landed on a floating platform many kilometers below using just the Force to cushion their fall. The times when we see Force-users fall to their death there's usually some extenuating circumstance, like being cut in half.

[aussiemuscle308]

[quote'"Havok"] The buzz droids on Obi-Wan's fighter is a prime example. [/quote]
this is a good time for a 'force push' if ever i saw one.

[Darth Fanboy]

When Mace Windu and his search team were tracing the footsteps of Darth sidious beneath 500 Republica in Labyrinth of Evil the evidence did suggest that Sidious was in fact levitating to get where he needed to go, i'll try to find the relevant quotes if anyone wants.

I'm in agreement with others in this thread who say that levitation and flight takes a lot of energy and concentration to sucessfully use, even more so that telekinesis. When you figure that most depicted TK usage involves hurling objects without much care for their well being, which to me indicates that casual usage is one thing but if one were to just levitate themselves without additional care and control the effects would be most unpleasant.

As for Obi Wan in the Starfighter not using TK? I thought of that to but I rationalize it as Obi Wan and Anakin using all of their concentration to navigate the battlefield in a lightly armored yet very fast starfighter through enemy lines and not get destroyed.

[Havok]

Levitation isn't really the issue, I think it the OP is talking about superman type flying.

Actually if you look at the TK that we see in the movies, there are two types, quick throwing/pushing and sustained levitation. The first type is like Vader throwing the equipment ripped from the walls at Luke on Bespin, or Obi Wan ripping down the giant air conditioner or whatever it was down onto the Magna Droids or Qui-Gon shoving battle droids. The latter is like Yoda lifting the X-Wing or Yoda stopping the senate pod and spinning it.

The sustained type clearly takes concentration and if even Yoda is going to show signs of strain, then it is clearly not something that an average Jedi is going to be doing.

The quick type is what we see more often, but if you look at the times it is used and when it isn't there is still a stop in other action when it is being used. When it could be handy, but isn't used, IIRC, there is something going on that can't exactly be ignored, such as flying in and out of ships and dodging missiles and other fighters, like in the Battle of Coruscant.

As I said, it is clearly a concentration issue and not something that can be easily, if at all, multi-tasked.

[dworkin]

Insert White Jedi cant fly joke here -->

One reason may be lack of need. In a universe where repulsorcraft and actual spaceships are readily availiable why go to great lengths to learn how to fly?

The second is more tactical. How easy is it to interfere with another's use of the force? Buggering up your TK flying powers may well be very easy and deadly.

[avatarxprime]

Jedi can apparently fly, or at least levitate.

Levitation

Levitation was a Force power that allowed Jedi to suspend themselves against the force of gravity. Levitation required no direct physical contact. Using the Force, an individual could then hover in place or move about wherever they desired.

Force Flight

Force Flight was a Force power that enabled the user to telekinectically move themselves toward a specific destination, taking levitation (see above) to an extreme degree. To use this Force power took a great deal of concentration.

Both are under Telekinesis on Wookieepedia with examples of people using them, Dooku is obviously the premiere example under flight. It's in the last section before "Behind the Scenes" under "Other Applications."

[TheHammer]

Makes you wonder why palpatine didn't stop himself from falling down the shaft. Also makes you wonder why there was such a shaft to begin with. Perhaps it would have been covered up during final construction, but I digress.

[Molyneux]

Makes you wonder why palpatine didn't stop himself from falling down the shaft. Also makes you wonder why there was such a shaft to begin with. Perhaps it would have been covered up during final construction, but I digress.

My bet? Theatrics.
He wanted to have a big, visually-impressive throne room - and there's not much you can do more impressive than including a shaft right down to the power core of the moon-sized battle-station you built your throne room on top of.

In his place, personally, I would have done something like put a very thick transparent floor over the shafts...but then again, I'm not a Sith Lord.

[freker]

What if the shaft didn't lead to the reactor, but was just a nifty 'enemy disposal unit'. I can imagine Sidious using it to throw his enemies in and have them incinerated at the end or something.

And maybe he was able to stop his fall down the shaft, but the disposal unit still got him.

[Havok]

I don't see how that was the reactor in the first place.

They were in a tower that extended WELL above the actual surface of the Death Star. There is no engineer in the universe that would leave a shaft opening that large that leads from the reactor to the leader of the universe's bedroom. It is beyond reason or comprehension even in the Star Wars universe.

Even if it WAS the reactor, Paplpatine didn't come close to falling far enough to reach it. Look how long it took Luke's self propelled torpedoes to get to it, or how long it took Lando and Wedge to get there. Yes it was a maze to fly through, but they were fucking flying. What exactly would terminal velocity be on the Death Star? Palps wouldn't even have time to reach that. Not to mention, IIRC, he would have had to have fallen through different gravity settings to get there.

No, more than likely, that was just some power conduit running along the sub-surface of the Death Star that, like someone mentioned, was left exposed for aesthetics.