Saga OT Force vs. PT Prophecy

"I like the sound of that...."

I'm a nice man too.

 

When was this established . . . in the movie?

 

What? The film shows the Excelsior being AT Earth with the Enterprise. But the audience is just supposed to ingore what we are directly shown? And we have dialogue that directly STATES that Star Fleet HAS other ships avaliable but that the commanders of those ships are inexperienced.
So the plot only works if the audience ingores what we are shown and told. This clearly demostrates why the plot here is full of holes and can be questioned.
Ad that is without getting in why Sybok's plan is needlesly complicated and all the myriad of other flaws this films has. But this is off-topic and talking about all of them would take years.

It is a logical fallacy and in more than one way.
You take the example of the jedi not being able to sense evil in Palpatine. You could add the Jedi's inabality to sense the Sith for the last 1000 years.
From this you make up a rule, "Jedi can't sense evil in Sith and Sith can't sense good in Jedi."

This is a fallacy as it first ignores the possibility that the reason the Jedi don't sense Palpatine is that ther Sith have developed some kind of dark side cloak. That they are able to hide the dark side inside them as long as they are not using it in front of a Jedi.
The other fallacy is that you imply a correlation when none need exist. That is like saying "I can't track a dog through scent so therefore a dog can't track me through scent." Or even simpler "Lions eat Zebras so therfore Zebras eat lions."

So a logical fallacy that has no onscreen proof and is infact disproven several times.
Add to this, you bring up the balance and how this affects the Jedi/Sith. But the Sith have been around for 1000 years and the Jedi haven't sensed anything. So if the unbalance is the cause then the Force was unbalanced 1000 years ago.

Vader is able to sense Obi-Wan, Anakin is able to sense Dooku, Vader is able to sense Luke and Luke is able to sense Vader.
Palpatine is also able to sense that Luke is strong with the Force and that he has grown stronger and he can also sense Luke's compassion for his father and his desire to save his father from the Dark Side. That is clear proof that Palpatine IS able to sense good in Luke.

Obi-wan is still not using the Force when Vader senses him. The only thing that had changed is proximity. Same in RotS, Anakin doesn't sense Dooku UNTIL they are on his ship.
Vader fights Obi-Wan and taunts him that he is getting weaker, where is it established that his weakness had ANYTHING to do with the unbalance in the Force. And you almost contradict yourself when you admt that Obi-Wan says he is getting old. So the simplest explanation is age, Obi-Wan is getting old.

Then Palpatine is making a totally meaningless comment because Vader KNOWS that Luke fought him on Bespin and didn't turn. So why tell vader something he already knows? No, Palpatine has sensed Luke's growing power and conclude that it would take the two of them to turn Luke.

Really? So if someone thinks "I hate this guy." and another can sense that, this doesn't count as a feeling?
And Vader direclty states that he CAN sense Luke's FEELINGS. So your theory has no proof and is disproven again and again. And Palpatine can sense Luke's agner and hatred.
Your theory is just full of holes, Palpatine can sense Luke's thoughts and he can sense negative feelings but not good feelings. It is far easier to say that Palpatine can sense feelings, good and bad as well as thoughts.
Lastly if Palpatine sensed Luke's thoughts then he did so BEFORE he came to the DS2, so Palpatine can sense Luke's thoughts quite a long ways away.

And here you are changing the argument yet again. You said before that "Palpatine can't sense the good within Luke." But now all of a sudden Palpatine knows that Luke is good and can sense the good thoughts Luke has. Your previous argument was that Luke could stand infront of Palpatine and Palpatine would not be able to sense any good within Luke. Now all you have is Palpatine not being able to sense Luke on Endor. Anakin didn't sense Obi-Wan in RotS but was able to do so in ANH.
Palpatine sensed Luke in ESB and felt his power and that it had grown. He missed sensing him on Endor but as I've said many times now, there is no logical pattern in force users sensing each other.

This is no answer, why would they change their training if they had gotten Anakin the same age as the other Jedi pupils? Answer, they wouldn't. If Anakin didn't turn they would take that a clear proof that their old ways and dogma work.

And this shows you have changed your argument. First you said that Anakin being Male was just nature and not by design. Then you turned around and said that the Force DID intend to make Anakin male and since it is "God" it can do anything and nature is irrlevant.

It does matter because the midis were made to give a more "scientific"/"biology" explanation of how Force sensitivity work, how it can be measured and how/why it is passed on. If you start to ingore what science/biology says and have the midis be capable of anything then you undermine why they were introduced in the first place. If midis are not bound by any rules then why would more of them make you more powerful? Science says that this is logical but if science and logic are off the table then the numbers become irrelevant.

This is a fairly common problem in sci-fi writing, the author tries to use a correct scientific explanation for something but then wants this something to do something science says it can't do and you end up with bad science. Star Trek has run into this problem more than once.

Here the mids offer a scinetific explanation for something that was more mystical before. But then you want to ingore the science part and go back to mystical. What is the point of the midis then?

Since Luke isn't a jedi it obviously could and did work.

Yes it is because first you argued that the ability to create life means you also have the ability to stop death. I pointed out the fallacy in this argument and you changed it to "Palpatine says it is possible to stop death and Anakin belived him." Which is totally different.

And again this is a logical fallacy. Create life =/= can stop all death. The ability to cause a pregnacy is totally different from being able to stop death in all it's forms. Humans can cause a pregnancy but we can't stop death.

Since the midis are NOT the Force, knowing about them doesn't make you understand the Force any better. What they are is just an explanation of how the interface work and why some are stronger in the Force than others. It gives you no knowledge about the Force directly. Since you admit it is not need to train how to use the Force Luke does NOT need to have been told about midis. He can train and learn to use the Force just fine. And he did learn just fine without any mention of midis since Lucas had not invented the concept back when the OT was made.

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And since there is NO onscreen proof that Luke was told about midis, your claim that he does know about them has no validity thus it does not stand.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

It's established that his powers are growing weaker throughout the film and that he will only become stronger once he is dead. The connection to the Force going out of balance is a logical conclusion given since Qui-gon was close to that age and he was still capable of doing the things that Obi-wan could.

There were no ships for the Enterprise to use, because they were elsewhere. The Excelsior was not at the starbase because it was in the field. The production had to rely on old ILM shots when possible and that was the only one of the Enterprise A. Newer shots stood out and due to the budget, Shatner had to use old footage.

The Force was going out of balance during the time of the films. A point in time where the Jedi aren't aware of the Sith, much less in front of them. When the Sith were in hiding, they weren't sensed because the Force was still in balance and they avoided the Jedi. When they began their comeback, the Force was going out of balance and thus the Jedi had trouble sensing them. As the Force returning to normal, the Sith cannot sense a Jedi that clearly. Vader can because he's in between. It's fairly simple. If it was a Force ability, it would have been brought up in the films. Much less the interviews and commentary by Lucas.

A Jedi is taught compassion. You don't have to sense it, you just have to know how the dogmatic Jedi are. All Jedi are compassionate. When they aren't, they're no longer Jedi.

Obi-wan had reconnected to the Force in Mos Eisley. Vader doesn't realize it until he has arrived. Dooku never stopped using the Force which is why Anakin can sense him. They're no longer blind to him.

See Qui-gon Jinn.

Palpatine is telling him this because he resisted Vader and thus it needs to take the two of them to turn him. Nothing more than that. He's essentially calling Vader a screw-up.

Thinking a thought and feeling a particular emotions are a bit different. You can say you hate the guy, but are not radiating waves of hatred.

Vader senses Luke's feelings for his loved ones because he is thinking and feeling about them and not doing a good job of hiding it, which is what Vader picks up on. Luke lets his mind wander for a moment and that is what Vader needed.

Palpatine knows that Luke is good because he is training to be a Jedi. You train to be a Jedi, you're training to be good. Palpatine sensed a Force disturbance, not Luke himself. The disturbance was the beginning of the Force shifting back, just as Obi-wan felt something before at Naboo.

It has nothing to do with training him from birth. If they had recognized him as being more than just what he was and accepted him right away when he is brought to them, they would realize their own folly and change with the next generation. Unfortunately, the corruption had been firm and thus they did not change in time to prevent their downfall.

That's not changing my argument. I said, "if the Force chose to make Anakin a male". I never said it was a definitive thing. Nature and God go hand in hand.

No one is ignoring one over the other. It is both. The Force manipulates the Midichlorians to create a life necessary to stop something evil. The numbers indicate how strongly connected one is to the Force, before they put their faith in it.

Luke is a Jedi. Saying he isn't is just a formality.

Again, no change. Palpatine tells Anakin that a Sith Lord had been able to create life and cheat death. When he tells Anakin this, he is telling it to Anakin as a Sith legend. When he reveals himself, he confirms that it was a real event and he never says that he himself knew it. He is telling Anakin this because the Jedi would never do so and is helping to make Anakin second guess the Jedi.

Yes, but we don't have a mystical energy field that we can use to cause a woman to become pregnant with a child, without the seed of a man. And that same energy field can be used to revive the dead. Or at the very least, will the body to live instead of die.

Right and now that the PT has been made, thus Luke would know because Yoda told him about it. And as to proof, we have the ST coming up which will be our proof.

 

Did Obi-Wan say this in AHN? Was this expressed by Lucas Film?

 

Not specifically in that moment, but it was supposed to be when Obi-wan started his journey with Luke. In the third draft of ANH, Lucas had intended that Obi-wan caused a disturbance in the Force when he agreed to go with Luke. The Sith said that they had felt something awaken that was long thought vanished. It is my belief that Lucas may have intended this still in ANH. Much like Luke going to meet Yoda caused a disturbance that the Sith feel and prompts Palpatine to contact Vader.

 

The one thing about Yoda training Obi Wan and then Obi Wan being given to Qui Gon as a padawan is something I understand perfectly. When I trained to become a cop and then work in corrections I had to take 2 separate academies to do this. The first part of my training took part in an academy setting. Like a school if you will. Then when my weeks of academy training was complete I was given to an FTO(Field Training Officer) for 12 weeks. The FTO was an experienced veteran of the job that I had to train with in a work environment. This would apply to Obi Wan in that regard. Obi Wan from his start to teen years was under tutelage of Yoda and other Jedi within the academy itself. When his academy training was completed he was given to Qui Gon, his FTO and taken along on missions and to train in the field. I understood this concept as soon as I seen it in the movies. Because I have done this concept 2 times in my career.

 

No, there is nothing about the Force in the OT that contradicts the PT vision of it.

The Force was meant to be a portrayal of God and spirituality, obviously distilled down into an idea that a member of any religious institution could relate to in some way. You have elements of it that are rather impersonal, and that delve towards pantheistic beliefs (life creates it, makes it grow), yet at the same time it's also personal, since the Force is responsible for creating Anakin.

 

The interventionist nature of the force exemplified by the prophecy storyline alters the significance of events in the OT considerably, in my interpretation of those events at least.

 

No, nothing was set aside. Everything that was said to be true about the Force in the OT is still true in the PT. They are entirely consistent. The "living Force" referred to in the PT is the same concept as "life creates it and makes it grow".

The Force only "creates life" in the sense of the atypical occurrences of Anakin's conception and Darth Plagueis' experiments. For the purposes of the discussion, this can be considered a Force power like any other. There is no contradiction in the idea that an energy field generated by life forms can be used to compel midichlorians to induce pregnancy.

 

I always thought the living Force was to do with living in the moment and not focusing too much on the future or the past, rather than what actually creates the Force. I may be wrong, having not really looked into it in great depth.

I don't really care about midichlorians. To me it's a fairly blunt storytelling instrument and when I first saw TPM my reaction was, "Really, George?", but it doesn't bother me all that much because I don't necessarily see it as an out and out contradiction with the OT. The thing that I struggle with is the impact that the prophecy has on the pre-eminence and triumph of free will and strength of character, which I always believed was a, if not the, significant theme of the OT.

 

What from the OT is contradicted by midichlorians?

 

Fixed. Wouldn't want to taint anakinfansince1983 's reputation by attributing one of her quotes to me!

What?! And having irrealistic physics and sound in space specifically excludes the scientific community? The movie doesn't exclude anyone. It invites you to immerse in that fictional universe. If you do that or not is on you.

Tell that to most living beings.

 

Missing the point. We, as living beings, were created by life and are able to create life as well. Why does such a simple and real concept makes no sense to you?

It's an integral part of the universe. In order to go with it, you have to accept it. Same thing here, you have to accept that the Force has a will. If your beliefs relate to it or not is a different matter.

The Force having a will is not a new concept nor is its association with a deity. The Force has been established to have some sort of control over living beings and the galaxy. Heck, the famous "May the Force be with you" should give the appropriate analogy.

Can't speak for Lucas (never heard him speak about the origin of the prophecy), but what he did say was that the purpose of the Force in the movies was to introduce a spiritual, religious and mystic aspect in the universe without narrowing it down to a specific set of beliefs from the real world. Never heard any atheists complain about it before.

Are you implying the prequels revolve around the idea that all atheists are wrong? This is fiction. If the storyteller establishes a deity or something similar in his fictional universe, there's no debate about believing or not. In-universe, it's there. It's a fact. There are no theists or atheists.

 

No, the PT is not making a statement about real-world deities (or lack of).

Where?

My last statement was an example that applies to any fictional work.

It would be, but the fact remains that in SW there is sound in space and that's not a statement that there is sound in space in our reality, just like having aliens is not a statement that aliens exist, etc...

 

Wookieepedia cites The Phantom Menace Scrapbook for this quote at least:

"The Force evolved out of various developments of character and plot. I wanted a concept of religion based on the premise that there is a God and there is good and evil. I began to distill the essence of all religions into what I thought was a basic idea common to all religions and common to primitive thinking. I wanted to develop something that was nondenominational but still had a kind of religious reality."

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Force

 

He said something along those lines during the OT as well. But he's not saying that he wants us to think that there is a God, only that the Force was created based on that concept. Unless I misunderstood and anakinfan meant in-universe.

 

While it's not OT era but PT era (early PT though - 1999) this interview goes into some depth on Lucas's motives:

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/sho...ar-Wars-interview-Bill-Moyers-and-Geoge-Lucas

 

I think George in the Bill Moyers documentary did say that he wanted people to think about God- That he was worried that there where people who would be asked the question and would reply: I don't know. He thought people should have an opinion about that.

He's not telling you that you have to believe in anything-He's simply saying that he wants you to have an opinion about it. I don't think that excludes any atheists. Quite the opposite.

And by the way, I may be mistaken, but I think in The Making of Star Wars By JW Rinzler there are quotes about the Force that relate it to Religion and such, (and this would be pre-1977) I just don't have the book with me so I can't find the quote.