In a scene from the movie Star Wars: Rise of the Sith, two Jedi Knights were running down a rope, and when one fell, it was followed by a statement saying, “Do Jedi take fall damage?”.
It is a question that has plagued Star Wars fans for years. In this article, I will show how to answer that question once and for all. The answer may surprise you!
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Jedi are strong in the Force, but do they take fall damage?
If You’re Still Asking “Do Jedi’s Take Fall Damage?”, You Haven’t Seen Star Wars.
The answer is given about halfway through Episode I: The Phantom Menace. During the climactic battle of the Trade Federation Droid Control Ship against the Naboo N-1 Starfighter piloted by Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Maul, and Qui-Gon Jinn (but mostly Darth Maul), Darth Maul throws his lightsaber straight up and catches it again.
simply put, the answer is NO; they don’t take fall damage!
Here Are The Evidence
Throughout the Clone Wars (a.k.a. the animated series), we witness Jedi falling hundreds or even thousands of meters without injury. Towards the end of the war, we see many padawans doing the same thing.
In Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Luke Skywalker falls a long way down the shaft leading to the trash compactor where he encounters Darth Vader. But using the Force, he lands without injury.
The end of Episode 6 shows off another use for jumping: being able to survive an extremely long fall unscathed.
A Jedi jumps out of a building destroyed by an army of tiny robots and lands on top of one of these robots without breaking his ankle or leg or any part of his body.
Looking at the evidence, it can be said that Jedi are exempt from fall damage. While capable of using the Force to slow their descent, they don’t appear to be able to stop it entirely.
It could be that the Force is merely able to deflect falling objects away from the Jedi, sparing them injury even during long falls, or perhaps they can telekinetically move out of harm’s way when a steep drop is unavoidable. There’s also the possibility of using some spell or enchantment to protect themselves from damage.
Regardless of what exactly constitutes fall protection for a Jedi, they seem pretty adept at avoiding it; in other words, you don’t have to worry too much about what happens when you jump off something high up in Star Wars Online!
Can Jedi Survive Falls?
The impact of a fall does not kill Jedi. Landing in certain places can kill Jedi.
Anakin Skywalker survived the free fall from the space station in Coruscant. However, he landed on a moving speeder and injured his leg.
In the original Star Wars, Darth Maul survived a long fall. In later films, Luke Skywalker jumps down a shaft and survives the fall.
This question is posed by science fiction writer E.C. Tubb, who asks if the two scenes are consistent.
In the case of Maul, we can assume that he lands on something soft enough to absorb his landing, such as piles of rubbish (the pit is right above a trash compactor). Likewise, Luke has conveniently landed on a stack of large packing crates.
Tubb’s first conclusion is that Obi-Wan either made a mistake in canonizing Darth Maul or deliberately obtuse when he said there is no such thing as luck.
Tubb’s second conclusion is that for Luke to survive a similar fall, he would have had to use the force to slow his descent or position himself better.
This analysis ignores the possibility that Darth Maul might have been able to use the force to slow his descent as well.
One of the canonical events in Obi-Wan Kenobi’s life is his fight with Darth Vader aboard a moving spacecraft, which Obi-Wan loses by falling into a shaft. He later escapes by jumping out of an airlock and parachuting onto the planet below.
If any of these falls hurt him, then it would be a plot point: “Obi-Wan was still feeling the effects of his rough landing. Qui-Gon Jinn survives a long fall onto a solid rock by landing on his feet.
And Anakin survives being knocked out of a window high up in the Jedi Temple, falling into a handy pile of boxes to cushion his landing.
Can Jedi Stop Themselves from Falling?
Yes, Jedi can stop themselves from falling. The question is, how?
Well, it’s not a trick question. It’s not about some unique ability that only Jedi have. It’s about a fundamental way the universe works.
Gravity is a form of energy; so is electricity; so are chemical bonds and the strong force that holds atomic nuclei together. If you want to influence gravity, you need to control energy.
You can do that by moving it, changing its form, or taking it away altogether, and there are ways of doing all three.
First, you must understand that “moving” energy doesn’t necessarily mean moving something physical: if we’re talking about gravity, movement means changing position in space and time.
Gravity is what binds us to the earth; as you get closer to the center of the world, gravity gets stronger and stronger, pulling you down more and more intensely. But if you move closer to the center of the earth faster than gravity can pull you down, then you’ll rise the same way an airplane flies up by moving forward quicker than air resistance pulls it back down again.
Also, in a battle with Count Dooku’s droids, Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan Ahsoka Tano leap down from a massive wall to gain the upper hand.
Jedi use the Force to slow their descent and lift themselves slightly, demonstrating that Jedi can use Force to control gravity.
Is Falling a Force Power too?
When a powerful Jedi Master like Yoda or Mace Windu falls from a height, there is no sound when they hit the ground and land.
Clues seem to imply that the force is strong with both of them, though. They can slow their falls and land gracefully.
You might assume that this ability to slow their falls is the result of training and skill and not an inherent power of the force.
However, this ability doesn’t seem to be exclusive to these two. We see it in Anakin Skywalker as well. He lands gracefully after a fall from a speeder bike in Attack of the Clones:
We also see it in Luke Skywalker when he is knocked off a balcony on Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back:
It would indicate that all Jedi can use some form of Force-aided jumping or gliding to soften falls without any training at all.
However, we don’t ever see any other Jedi characters using this ability, even when falling from great heights.
So I think it’s reasonable to assume that the ability comes not from training but from some intrinsic property of being a Jedi.
Conclusion
I hope this article has shown, despite the dozens of issues with this scene and film as a whole, there are still some engaging and even thought-provoking elements to it.
We have an incredible amount of examples of falls and gravitational abilities demonstrated in the Star Wars films, including examples found in art. At the very least, we conclude that falling is possible for a Jedi.