Lucas had an uninituative meaning of “balance”. It wasn’t light and dark being equal, but dark side users being eliminated.
A better word would have been “tranquility”. If the force is naturally a calm lake, then dark side users are making waves I suppose is a clearer analogy.
Nono… There was no mistake there.
Before the Clone Wars, there were lots of Jedi everywhere in the Galaxy, and only a couple of Sith.
Anakin did bring balance.
Nope, Lucas meant the dark side being wiped out.
Lucas’ intention was that Anakin brought balance, eventually, by killing Palpatine and then himself rejecting the dark side. Thus wiping out the Sith.
What he intended and what he showed us are two different things. By the end of ROTJ, there were no more Sith and no real Jedi left. Luke called himself a Jedi, but didn’t really follow the strict rules and didn’t completely shun the dark side. He simply used it without anger. At that point, balance was truly restored.
Oops. Forgot to add /s at the end.
Still, thanks for the link. An interesting read.
Lucas doesn’t actually have any inclination as to what “balance” means and just leaves it to the fans to decide. It’s what made Star Wars resonate so well since fans can just project their own opinion onto the narrative. The Jedi/Republic had good intentions, but were corrupt beyond fixing, while the Sith/CIS/Empire were comically evil at times, they were also the only path that could actually root out the problems of the Republic.
