PT Have your feelings on midi-chlorians have changed?

I'm indifferent towards them

 

I just read this and this is a perfect analogy

which goes in line with midichlrorians in general:

I'd have prefered it if Anakin did something either after or before winning the podrace to convince Qui-Gon he was the chosen one, something as simple as him floating little objects around in Watto's shop without any training, could have been something like

Qui-Gon: who taught you to do that young friend?
Anakin: nobody
Qui-Gon: nobody? you mean it comes naturally to you?
Anakin: just like walking.

simple, and effective.

 

Not really. Catwoman is only introduced in TDKR, while Vader is a character in the whole trilogy, and the idea of Anakin having a unique force strength is developed in ROTJ, along with the idea that it'd be a bloodline thing. Vader's turn at the end of ROTJ is THE point of that whole conflict, with Vader killing the main villain of the movie/overall trilogy. And seeing the future is already an element developed in Star Wars. None of that applies to the Catwoman situation.

The midichlorians don't harm anything either way. Finds out about his force sensitivity, tests it, sees how strong it is, I see no real issue with that.

 

1. Anakin tells Qui-Gon about his podracing skills and he notes that Jedi have reflexes that could account for his skills.

2. Anakin then shows acute insight when he refuses to accept Qui-Gon's deflection about his Lightsaber and his true purpose for being on Tatooine.

3. He talks about his dream of being a Jedi and freeing slaves.

4. The ability to build his pod, the turbine engines and Threepio were quite unique. That is why he asked Shmi about him.

Those actions count as much as lifting objects. Just like Luke being a great pilot and hitting Womprats confirmed that he was very powerful as a Jedi.

 

this is true,

my point being with all these examples you listed the midi count test seems somewhat unnecessary,at least to me.

I don't think midis really ruin TPM, but I see the problems people have

this post says it best I think.

 

That's a great illustration of the misconception people have about the Force. You actually do need training to be able to use the Force. Anakin has a greater connection to the Force than anyone else, he is the Chosen One, and isn't able to do that. It comes with training. All he has is sharp reflexes. Qui-Gon had sensed that the Force was unusually strong with him, yet that says nothing to the audience about how Anakin might be the Chosen One.

Midi-chlorians serve many purposes, first and foremost to establish how all living beings are connected to the Force, and how some people are innately more connected to it than others. Then they serve to establish how Anakin might be the Chosen One, as opposed to just another Jedi hopeful.

 

Qui-Gon: "He can see things before they happen. That's why he appears to have such quick reflexes. It's a Jedi trait."


So, there's the illusion of having sharp reflexes, often nicknamed "Jedi reflexes" - even by the jedi - but it's actually "seeing into the future" - like Luke does on Dagobah after some training with Yoda - but on a smaller scale - seconds instead of days or weeks.

 

Potayto, potahto. The sharp reflexes come from his short foresight. The point remains, it manifests as a passive thing. To the naked eye, it's just sharp reflexes. The ability to actually use the Force comes with training. Luke has the same traits too. Obi-Wan compliments his piloting skills, which also require good reflexes (or the foresight to react in time). But like Anakin, Luke only learns to actually use the Force with training from Obi-Wan and Yoda later on.

 

I think Anakin and Luke are still using the Force when they're piloting/ racing and whatnot, they're just doing it inadvertently. But to call on the Force at will, you need some form of training.

 

The problem is what does adding a "middle man" between a person and the Force really add to the story other than an in-universe biology lesson? Before all living beings were connected to the Force. Now they are connected through some conduit. While it does offer an explanation for how some have more innate affinity for it, it also adds another biological limitation to it, that some feel takes away from the spiritual aspect of the Force. Losing limbs now means losing midi-chlorians, and so less affinity for the Force:

"Anakin, as Skywalker, as a human being, was going to be extremely powerful,” he says. "But he ended up losing his legs and an arm and became partly a robot. So a lot of his ability to use the Force, a lot of his powers, are curbed at this point, because, as a living form, there’s not that much of him left."

George Lucas, "The Last Battle", Vanity Fair

That's not a concept I like. You train all your life to be a Jedi. You are attuned to the Force. Bam! You have a horrible accident, where you lose your limbs. Sorry, but you didn't just lose your physical abilities, but your connection with the spiritual is affected as well. I guess the Force is not a fan of disability. Maybe you will recover some connection in Jedi rehab, but we looked at your midi-chlorian count and it is not looking good. I guess what I'm saying is, that to many of us a big part of the original appeal of the Force is, that it transcended the physical and by extension physical limitations. That has been lost to an extent.

It seems to me, that the immaculate conception should be enough to establish that. I also think most of us just took Obi-Wan at his word, when he said he was amazed how strongly the Force was with Anakin. Jedi can feel each other's connection to the Force. Got it! At the time nobody expected Luke to say: "Can you provide some sort of proof? A test of some kind?"

 

Yeah, I don't like the idea of losing limbs, or growing old, as things that can weaken a person's connection to the Force. Just doesn't feel right. It's easier to just believe that Anakin's cybernetics hindered his fighting abilities to a degree rather than his power in the Force.

But I don't think the Force should solely be perceived as a spiritual belief either. Lines like "The Force runs strong in your family" suggests it's never just been that.

I don't have a problem with midi-chlorians or the idea of Force strength being something one is born with. It explains why the Jedi are rather low in numbers, and it makes Force powers more rare and special. If any average Joe could become a Jedi Master, It'd be too accessible, about as common as pilots and bounty hunters in SW.

Likewise, I think the high midi-chlorian count, like the Chosen One prophecy, serve to show that Anakin is special and has a mysterious origin. I think it adds a more unique and mystical aspect to him and the Skywalkers as a whole.

 

I personally don't like the mystical aspect to the Skywalkers all that much. The appeal of Luke in 1977 was, that he represented the everyman. Born from poverty destined for greater things. The same goes for Vader to an extent. Vader was a mirror to Luke and by extension the audience, that anger, fear, and aggression are a path to a dark place, where you ultimately lose yourself irrespective of your background. Vader represented what Luke could become, and Luke represented who Vader was before he went down the dark path. For me the story actually works better when Anakin is not "The Chosen One", because it makes the character more relatable.

 

Because the Force is not connected to people, but to all life, even the life forms that reside within you. It adds to the mythology and the overall Star Wars theme of symbiosis: of people helping people, working together for mutual advantage. Something true for the characters and for life itself with the Force.

No, before we knew that all life was connected to the Force. Now we know how.

If someone feels that, it's only due to their own misunderstanding, not of anything that was established.

If you are born with a particular talent that you discover and develop, and all of a sudden you suffer a physical hindrance that limits or stops you from exercising that talent, does it mean you don't have a soul?

Sorry, but the biological and the spiritual are not and never were mutually exclusive. The Force itself has always encompassed both.

You don't like that your connection to the energy field, that is connected to and created by life, is affected when you lose part of your living form (and consequently all the life forms that reside in it)?!

Only life is connected to the Force, therefore if you lose part of your living form, you lose part of your connection. Wether said connection was strong or weak is irrelevant. That's simple logic.

Anakin lost a big part of his living form yet his connection is still stronger than the average Joe.

 

Those characters are still all those things.They're all still human and still themselves.That's part of why I think the Chosen One aspect works so well for the Skywalkers. It adds a unique, mysterious aspect that has to do with the Force, but it doesn't take anything away from them. The characters and their motivations and decisions are the same.

 

I know all the explanations, but to me the fact that life is connected to the Force doesn't have to be taken so literal, where it becomes a numbers game. Like I said, it effectively endorses the idea, that becoming disabled means you're somehow less in a metaphysical sense than you were before. It seems fine when it is applied to Anakin, whose choices led him to become half-machine, and so you might say there's a degree of comeuppance involved in that. However, it has much wider implications in general, for those who not by their own fault have to suffer the inconveniences that come with disability, and now as fans have to accept that they are somehow seen as less connected to the Force as well in-universe. That is not the kind of messaging I support. It is one thing to say one person may have more affinity for the Force than another based on the genetics lotery. It's another to stigmatize a whole group of people, who might otherwise have that same affinity, for being less than physically whole.

 

A lot of characters serve as self-inserts. That's why characters like Luke Skywalker and similar protagonists like him are so popular. The idea that a character is somehow a Messiah not concieved in the convential sense takes away from the everyman aspect of the character in my view. They like you said become unique and mysterious, and less human not more in my view. How many Messiahs do you know? How many people have you met, that were immaculately concieved?

 

I dunno, how many Jedi do you know?

It doesn't take anything away to me, because they're the same characters. To say the prophecy stuff interferes with a character's everyman appeal is focusing too much on what they are instead of who they are -- which, again, remains the same. Anakin doesn't destroy Palpatine to fulfill a prophecy, he does it to save Luke. That's the same.

I think Force powers depending so much on something like ''how much organic matter makes up a person'' is taking the physical aspect of it too far. I don't think there's any bad "messaging" there, I think it's just an attempt to bring more logic into the Force and how it works, and explain that Anakin is somehow less strong as Vader. Something that probably didn't need explaining, but there it is.

 

I didn't mean to say, that Lucas intended such messaging. I'm saying it's an unintended consequence of trying to over-explain something spiritual with sci-fi biology, that really didn't need so much explaining. It also is a clear example if an argument, that contradicts the idea that midi-chlorians don't take away from the Force. This example clearly shows such detailed explanations take away from the inclusiveness of the Force rather than add to it. I mean women on average are smaller than men, but since we are the same species, does this mean women on average have less affinity for the Force than men? Does the Force discriminate against women? No, someone else might say. Women have a higher concentration of midi-chlorians, so it cancels out. But doesn't this mean 6 foot woman on average has a stronger affinity for the Force than a 6 foot man? Isn't this discriminatory against men? These are all questions, that become relevant once you introduce a biological explanation for your affinity to the Force that depends on the concentration of midi-chlorians and your body mass.

 

I don't know how it's a numbers game. Nor how life being connected to the Force can be taken in any way other than life literally being connected to the Force.

No, it means if, for example, you have a limb amputated you are invariably less physically than you were before. It doesn't mean you're worth any less as a living being, as an individual, but the living form that you were is not the same, it's less, than what it was.

Less than before when they were whole, yes. I'm not sure what you're arguing here. Are you implying that a disability doesn't disable you? That it's incosequential? That it doesn't make a difference?

Deserve has nothing to do with it. It's life. Some people have a talent for basketball. If they suffer a an accident or disability in their legs, the talent they have is affected. If someone with a talent to play the piano hurts his hands, he will not be able to exercise his talent as well as before. Etc, etc.

Who's stigmatizing anyone?

It's a promotion of life itself, big or small. How it's all connected and have a purpose and a role to play.

 

It is really simple. Star Wars is fiction. It is not real life. Star Wars as far as I can tell has always attempted to be inclusive. It is meant to inspire. If a little boy or girl for whatever reason ends up with an amputated leg, they may look to fiction like Star Wars or Harry Potter for some escapism. They may want to believe they can be a Jedi or a wizard and that their disability, while obviously limiting in real life would not limit their potential to be the hero in their story set at Hogwarts or on Tatooine. Your answer:

"Deserve has nothing to do with it. It's life. Some people have a talent for basketball. If they suffer a an accident or disability in their legs, the talent they have is affected."

How inspiring! I'm sorry but that attitude to Star Wars in my view is mean-spirited and excludes a whole group of people for the sake of adhering to canon.

My take: I'm sure George Lucas did not intend to exclude whole groups of people with a concept like midi-chlorians. Star Wars is meant to be inclusive, and so a disabled person can be a Jedi, just like anyone else. Being an amputee does not limit your affinity for the Force. While it may have been used to explain why Darth Vader didn't reach his full potential in the past, this is not the intended message of the prequels. The concept of midi-chlorians as it was interpreted in the past is thus flawed in this respect.

 

I've never had strong feelings either way. The common criticism is that they make the Force too scientific, but in TPM Qui-Gon isn't measuring the Force in Anakin, he's measuring the microscopic lifeforms that communicate with the Force. Some may see it as a hair-splitting distinction, but I think it's significant. There's still plenty of room for mystery and mysticism.

I've also heard the case that midichlorians make the Force too elitist because only those born with enough midichlorians can significantly use the Force. My pushback is that this has always been the case, at least as far back as RotJ (e.g. "the Force is strong in my family") and also that the Force still resides in all living things. Just not everyone has superpowers. That seems like a reasonable power limitation to me.

 

I think it is reasonable, unless you start to exclude whole groups of people, whether intended or unintended. I don't see much difference between saying amputees have less affinity for the Force and saying women have less affinity for the Force, or colored people have less affinity for the Force.

 

Amputees don’t have less affinity in the Force. Luke gets better at the Force after losing his arm.

 

My answer?! You're twisting everything into a strawman. If you suffer an injury you don't get to live in denial and pretend it didn't happen. You need to accept it and move on. That's what's inspiring, that when something unfortunate happens in your life, you don't stop there. You have the ability to take the mindset that makes you either move on, or put you down. And Star Wars does the former, not the latter.

And yes, an energy field created by ALL living things and through which ALL life is tied together is not inclusive at all. /s

Star Wars is inspiring. It's not about power, or desiring a power. It's about the value of life, that everyone has a talent, that everyone has a purpose, it promotes compassion. It's a tale about the (ability to be) good and evil that exists within all of us, no matter where you're from or your physical traits. It never sells the nonsense that "you can be whatever you want". That's nonsense. If you're short you don't get to decide that you're tall. If you're tall, you don't get to decide to be short. Not only that, but being a Jedi is not a matter of choice. You need to have a talent for it. Just like being a pilot, or a senator, or a farmer, or a mechanic, etc. You can train in any of those areas but that only takes you so far. To become one and be good at it, you need to have a knack for it. That's the "power" that resides in all of us.

Star Wars says that you have value, that you're part of something bigger, that you need to find out what you're good at and act on it with the goal of helping those around you. To be selfless, instead of selfish.

Midi-chlorians don't change that message. On the contrary, they stress that message.

His connection isn't as strong as it would have been had he been whole under the same circumstances, but it's a great example that just because you suffered an injury that it doesn't stop there. You still get to develop as an individual and keep learning.