Discussion Keep the Midi-chlorians out of the sequels please!!

"The Force is strong in my family. I have it. My father has it. My sister has it. Greedo has it. Lobot has it. Porkins has it. Paploo has it."

Oh wait, that's not how it went. Even as an eight year old I realized that not everybody in the narrative had access to the Force. I guess I was "apologizing" for Lucas and the prequels a decade before Episode I was released, at a time when I didn't even know who George Lucas was.

Um, no, that's a retconned interpretation to make it fit with the force bacteria. That's all that is.

He doesn't just say that they are luminious, but that they not this crude matter. That they are spiritual, not physical, that the physical is not important.

That is his entire point in that scene, that the force is not about the physical. We can dance around this all day and all night, but that is why there is a disconnect.

Some are willing to change that meaning, to make room for force bacteria, and some are not.

I say we are all willing to accept midi-chlorians as the in-universe explanation, because as fans of Star Wars we accept that this is the official canon explanation. However, being willing to accept that doesn't change the fact that from the late 1970's to the late 1990's, the Force was understood, by fans, to be rooted in the spirit and not the body, (as the PT suggests,) Every other statement to the contrary is simply a misguided attempt to give GL the benefit of the doubt.

We've established that not everyone could use the Force, I believe?

It's fairly obvious to me of that.

It doesn't matter if no one believed in the Force, kids would have visions, telepathy (to a degree), impressive reflexes, etc. and be treated as "miracles."
Why did everyone fear Vader?
He had those abilities, that no one else had, even if they wanted to discount it as a "hokey religion".

So with that, they have special abilities as a Force-Sensitive. They have the connection with the Force that normal people don't have. Luminous, perhaps, as they see and interact with things on a different (maybe even higher) level.

We would all think "hey, it's the Force itself who chooses these people," or "it's random as to who can use the Force."

George made it clear something was behind the Force, and it was a unique ability that must further be trained. When he introduced the midichlorians, he was just giving that explanation of why they were unique. He was giving us the ideas that we needed to explain the Force and how it is decided who has the powers.

He had already set it up so that he could introduce that last ingredient to become a Jedi.
When he did add them, it wasn't changing anything but giving that last piece of the puzzle a name.

And you accept that, and I don't.

I think he screwed things up.

I'm not willing to retcon what Yoda had to say.

Why could Gandalf use his staff to cast spells? Because of a bacteria living inside him which offered him super-human powers.

Some things just don't need an explanation. The Force used to be magic. Now it's...super powers.
Coming up next: Luke discovers he has X-ray vision.

Didn't retcon anything. Midi-chlorians were a concept he had very early on and alluded to in the OT. Luke's line proves this: "The Force is strong in my family. My father has it... I have it... and my sister has it." As well as the fact that Luke and Leia are the "last hope" for the Jedi. It is the reason why someone like Dodonna (who clearly believes in the Force) can't be trained and why it is up to the last two remaining known Force users to defeat Vader and his Emperor. The OT and PT are in total alignment on the issue of the Force. Sorry if it doesn't align with your view of it though.

Of course he did, Yoda discounts the importance of the physical. Then along comes force bacteria........................

He discounts the physical because it doesn't matter how tough you are, if you have the ability to, and you allow the Force to "connect" (something you need your mind to do), you will gain it's strength and help. And if you don't, you won't.

Yoda discounts the physical because it is only the spiritual that counts ...that is until 1998 when GL changed it.

Why keep beating around the bush, Coughlin? You obviously think you know and understand what the Force is and what Lucas was trying to tell us about it by introducing the concept of the Midichlorians better than anyone else and therefore only your viewpoint counts, all evidence to the contrary aside.

Spiritual does count, because you must allow the Force to guide you, but you must have all the pieces in order first.

It doesn't matter how hard you believe in the Force, if you don't have the ability to use it, you can't.

I am entitled to express my opinion.

And until TPM, force bacteria wasn't a part of that equation. The spirit and the mind were. Yoda doesn't just affirm the spiritual with his statement, he DISCOUNTS THE PHYSICAL. You have to ignore that second aspect of his statement to make force blood infections work

So, I'm going to entertain this.

How much spirit and mind did you need, then? Why would some be chosen to be trained over others?

They're all the same except for their belief.

And what spirit? The Force's will?

Because that actually proves that the Force did communicate within someone, exactly what midichlorians are.

He was discounting muscle and endurance. Not tiny microscopic organisms. By that same logic the mind doesn't matter because it's all neurons and cells as well.

When that opinion is directly contradicted by fact, it ceases to be just an opinion. It also ceases to be just an opinion when you start behaving like your viewpoint is the only thing that matters.

Crude matter is an indictment on the physical. All of it. The mind in philosophy is often linked to the spirit, not the body. Yoda didn't include these qualifiers, you are.

This is only true starting with the release of Menace. Prior to that it was about having the discipline to train. The only issue with training Luke was that he was too old and too impatient to undergo the indoctrination needed to let go of the physical world and embrace the spiritual. If anyone thought that there was a genetic element to the Force, the EU sequences dealing with the subject of Force training prior to the release of Menace would have played out quite differently.

Both sides have stuck to their guns. Your statement applies to both.

And were also apparently not under the impression that they had just watched make-believe.

It must have sucked being raised on the OT and having to pretend that you had the right spirituality to be a Jedi but knowing it wasn't really possible. Might as well have wished you were Superman, I guess. Or Jesus.

Again, both sides have stuck to their guns. That is equally true of all involved.

G-Canon trumps everything else, including previous G-Canon, but some people refuse to recognize that.

This is still wrong no matter how many times you repeat it. In 1980 Luke and the other ( who turned out to be Leia ) were the "last hope". In 1983 we were told that Force strength was passed down in the Skywalker bloodline. Luke and Leia were singled out for a reason which could not be attributable to countless others, unlike "spirit".

That makes little sense. Early 1990s EU such as the JAT depicts some people having the ability to use the Force and some people not having the ability. This maps directly to a genetic element.

Yoda's line is in no way contradicted by midi-chlorians. He's trying to get Luke to trust in the Force and forget about size, strength, endurance, etc. "Luminous beings" meaning that all life is connected to and creates that mystical energy field known as the Force and even when the physical form dies (which would include midi-chlorians) you become one with the Force (your spirit or whatever it is.) Again not contradicted at all.