They had cooler looking space ships, which was enough for me as a kid.
But that's because I was a dumb kid. I was like "I wanna be a Jedi but with the evil powers but I only use them for good. I am a reformed Sith. Lightning hands of justice!"
Mace Windu could use a power called shatterpoint where he could see the weakest spot of a thing and break it with the minimum amount of force (he also talks about his teacher being able to apply it to abstract concepts like a government)
The old lore got wild with powers sometimes. The Lando Calrissian trilogy from the 80s leaned extremely hard into force users being semi mythical wizard figures.
Star Wars’ morality is like distilled liberalism because it acts like human emotions (lust, anger, fear) and methods (evil-coded force powers) matter more than actual social structures and systems (it’s Anakin’s fault he fell, not the complete lack of social support for his situation and the fact he grew up a slave!)
My headcanon is that the whole Jedi code is the way it is because they want young jedi to essentially lobotomize their own morality so that they don't think too hard about the Republic. Maybe some "dark Jedi" in the past had really good reasons to be angry and fight against the republic, but they were smeared posthumously as being "Sith Lords" the same way John Brown gets called a terrorist. It goes well with the culty vibes that the Jedi Order gives off in the Prequel Trilogy.
That’s an amazing theory and fits well with the theory that the “clone wars” Obi Wan fought in were actually originally intended to be liberationist fights against clone slavery
You can be the cool jedi in Knights of the Old Republic. For me, the old republic is the best era for star wars, best media too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7szRTHRg04Q