ST Carrie Fisher (Leia) in Episode VII (Sad News posted on Page 269)

Or anything R2 does. Hmmmm....

 

Behold the power of the Force:

 

Dudes, relax. This, of course, is all in hindsight and is only how I interpret things after I saw the movies.

And, yes, sometimes it's suspension of belief, and sometimes it can be explained because of the type of character he or she is.

 

What's that above gif from?

 

Yes, and also she has natural talent as a pilot; it's hereditary, just like the Force.

 

You guys seem to be missing the point. The scout troopers could pilot the speeders bcs they were trained to do so. Lando could fly the Falcon into battle bcs it used to be his ship & he presumably had years of experience as a pilot - ditto Han. It's not a "super human" ability to do these things if you've had the training. It is however if you hop on a speeder for (presumably) the first time & weave through a dense forest at extreme speed. If Lando had said "well I've never flown a star ship before" & then jumped in the Falcon & did what he did then you'd have a fair point. Maybe we'd be dealing with Jedi Lando in Ep7.

Also the fact that the Force aids piloting skills & reflexes is well established. It was clearly implied as the reason for Luke's extreme skills as a bush pilot, & for young Anakin's ability as a pod racer. Since Leia's feat on the speeder occurred shortly after her Force lineage was revealed in the movie it seems a very obvious connection to make.

 

Community. Guys who directed that masterful shot of bountiful visual goodness are also directing Cap 2. Here's hoping Black Widow runs a lot.

 

You could argue that, Darth_Downunder, but I could just as easily argue that there's no reason to believe that it's Leia's first time on a speeder bike. That might be really common technology in their galaxy--in fact it wouldn't surprise me if it was. Who's to say she didn't tool around on one on Alderaan or on some previous Rebel base? I think you have to admit there's nothing blatant about that scene (unlike her sensing Luke in ESB and ROTJ) that suggests it was some Force ability. It could be that Leia has some natural born skills. And really, isn't natural ability more interesting? I kinda think it is. That's why Han's piloting is more impressive to me than Anakin's or Luke's. But again, that's just a personal preference.

 

We know Han has had years of training. He's a great pilot, but then so are most X-Wing pilots. You need to make the assumption that Leia has experience flying a speeder as the only other way of explaining her proficiency. As a contrast we know for a fact that the Force is with her & so that can act as an explanation without the need for assumptions & guesswork. We also have a movie that clearly wants to point out her Force potential throughout. For me it's a case of 2 + 2 = 4.

Then again they didn't go to the trouble of holding our hand as an audience & giving us the clear explanation that Leia's Force ability allowed her to fly like that, so there's nothing to disprove your point of view

 

I hope it's not like MI:II where people were running in slow motion the entire time.

 

And prior to the writing of ROTJ, Leia was already an extraordinary marksmen, was imbued with extraordinary mental fortitude, and could sense Luke's emotions.

Again, before any sister reveal was ever written.

So people who are arguing against the "every special thing Leia does is because of the FORCE" have a strong leg to stand on since the creator of Star Wars saw her as a woman of extraordinary talents and abilities...without the Force.

 

Actually, I don't think I "need to make the assumption" that Leia has experience to explain her proficiency, I think she could just be good, because she's proven to be skilled in other areas where the Force wasn't the go-to explanation. Rather, I thought *you* needed that alternative explanation--since you seem to think the Force is the "only" explanation. I just tried to show you that it wasn't. And let's just be honest here for a moment, in the era between 1983-1999, who would've pointed to the speeder-bike chase as proof of her Force sensitivity? I am guessing that 99% of you would've skipped right over it until the prequels came along with their pod races. So that makes me believe that even George didn't come up with that scene with the intention of illustrating Leia's Force abilities, but rather just thought it would make an exciting chase scene. SImple as that. It's only with prequel hindsight that people look back and say "Hey maybe…." And sure, MAYBE. But it's not a given. That's why I said a couple posts ago that it was *arguable*. It really, really, could go either way.

I mean, did anyone think Luke's piloting abilities in ANH had to do with the Force? We knew he had it, but did anyone think that the two were related? I didn't. I just assumed he inherited his skills from his father--you know, inherited it the normal way. Like one might inherit athleticism, or a gift for music. Now the lucky shot at the Death Star? Sure, that was the Force. My point is, that even with *Luke*, I don't think he owes every single gift or ability to the Force. Even in GFFA there still has to be such a thing as natural abilities. And that is even more true for Leia, who was written without the Force in mind for 2/3 of the trilogy.

 

"Extraordinary marksman" during ANH & ESB? Huh? You sure you're not talking about Katniss Everdeen there?

Anyway we were talking about the speeder scene & that was in RotJ about 20 mins after it was revealed that she, like Luke, was the child of Anakin. There was nothing in ANH & ESB that indicated she had extraordinary gifts. The ESB scene is a tricky one. We can't be sure that it was her Force senses in play or just Luke's own ability reaching out to communicate with her. After she was revealed to be a Skywalker we can retcon & assume it was partially her ability though.

Anyway the point is...there are only 2 explanations for how she could hop on a speeder & weave through tress like that at high speed: 1. she was experienced on speeders or 2. she has the Force.
To accept option 1 we'd need to guess & make assumptions. Option 2 is already known to be fact. I'll take the explanation that was presented to us on a plate, you can please yourself

 

Not sure if you're deliberately misquoting me but I've clearly said several times there is more than 1 explanation. She could be experienced as you say, but we don't know that. We do however know that she had the Force. We also know for a fact that a person with the Force is assisted in things like piloting & flying speeders. Putting both together, we can say for sure that her Force sense was pretty handy as she weaved through those trees at high speed. There's no way to prove she hadn't also ridden speeders in her spare time on Alderaan so like I said you're welcome to make that assumption if you like.

Luke's piloting ability isn't a good comparison. The movie did go to the trouble of mentioning several times that Luke was an experienced pilot on Tattooine. So as you say, his ability was no doubt a combination of his Force sense & his experience.

 

I can't speak for you and Yanks, but I was actually continuing on with the line of discussion/debate that started pages ago with posters talking about Leia's force sensitivity being manifest prior to Jedi, in such moments as in ANH with Leia resisting the mind probe and TESB with Leia not trusting Lando.

I can easily accept Leia's force sensitivity helped her with the speeder, or that she'd had prior experience with such vehicles. Either way, makes no difference to me.

The "Leia used the Force to kill Jabba" bit is, IMO, absurd beyond reason.

 

I wasn't misquoting you, I was trying to explain….nevermind. It doesn't matter. You obviously get my point: one cannot point at the speeder bike chase and say that's a cut-and-dried illustration of Leia's Force abilities. You could interpret it that way, I suppose, but you could just as easily assume that Leia's just skilled on a speeder bike (the latter explanation is more satisfying to me, and quite honestly, the only conclusion I've been drawing the past 30 years until this conversation). Maybe the Force did it, maybe not. Again, *arguable*.

As for Jabba and Lando? I have yet to hear a convincing reason for including those two examples on the list. Along with her Force abilities, Leia was also born with two arms, two hands, and a brain. That was all that was needed to accomplish those two feats.

 

Completely agree on the Jabba & Lando scenes. That's clutching at straws. Will stick to my guns on the speeder scene though. In fact if she didn't have the Force I would call BS on the whole sequence. If she was just the Princess I think they would've needed to include a scene afterwards along the lines of:

Luke: "Where did you learn to ride like that!?"
Leia: "You're not the only one who liked to race speeders growing up"

...or something like that. Putting it another way, if Padme had hopped on a speeder in AotC & weaved through complex canyons & tunnels at high speed on Tattooine, without any mention of where she gained those skills I would've called BS too. If she could do that maybe she should've entered the podrace in TPM

 

One thing that always bugged me about Leia in ANH is when the stormtroopers are searching Tantive IV and Leia shoots one stormtrooper and then runs into the open and the line of sight for the other stormtroopers to stun her. If the force really was with her, wouldn't she have stayed where she was and taken out more stormtroopers?

 

It comes from the RoTJ novelization though:

With a strength beyond her own strength, she pulled. He bucked with his huge torso, nearly breaking her fingers, nearly yanking her arms from their sockets. He could get no leverage, his bulk was too unwieldy. But his sheer mass was almost enough to break any mere physical restraint.

Yet Leia's hold was not merely physical. She closed her eyes, closed out the pain in her hands, focused all her life force - and all it was able to channel - into squeezing the breath from the horrid creature.

 

Iron_lord good get there!

 

I'm so bored

 

I mean, obviously, this point is something that is blatantly debatable, which, if that wasn't the intention from the get-go, has certainly become that to the great pleasure of The Maker.

That's what you want when you make a piece of work -- you want the audience to buzz about it. Lucas either intentionally made the issue of Leia's Force-use (and, hence, level of ability with the Force) ambiguous, or it has turned out to be so by lucky accident. Either way, we're playing right into his hands.

The bottom line is that you can make an argument for it, but nothing's conclusive. I suppose the answer will be revealed -- or at least, a lot more evidence will be presented -- in the ST. So we'll see.

 

What can we do to relieve your boredom? I know, have a read of this thread. You'll have a laugh:

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/snappy-replies-to-star-wars-quotes.50019032/

 

Yes, but of course, according to the same novelization, Padme was alive when Leia was a small child, so I'm not sure how seriously we should takes those books anymore.

And I have to admit, I'm very disappointed to see that in there. Can't she just have strangled a slug? Why does everything have to be about the Force?? Honestly,the anger and humiliation of being stripped down to a metal bikini and chained up is probably all I would've needed to "channel" to kill Jabba. That's just…..lame. ROTJ, you've let me down once again…I wish I could I could "unsee" that. I'm having a midichlorian kinda moment here….


*grumbles*nice find, iron_lord…..*grumble