Yes, and of course the theme that you need to work hard to achieve a state of enlightenment and resist the dark side is deeply explored in The Last Jedi, and is far more compelling than “you’re born with Midichlorians”.
It’s not explored, as the film’s hero Rey doesn’t struggle with the dark side at all. It’s mentioned in a single scene, related to the cave, and then brushed aside. She’s the perfect heroine making all the right decisions, mastering these powers like the flick of a switch. There’s no hard work. She enters the enemies stronghold after two incomplete lessons from Luke, and returns without so much as a scratch. Compare this to Luke hanging broken below Cloud City hoping to be rescued, and you’ll understand why Rey’s such a shallow character to me.
Conversly, Kylo Ren is just presented as a bad egg. No attempt is made for explaining his motivations for joining the dark side. Snoke had won his heart, and that’s the end of it. There’s no exploration of Ben’s relationship with his parents. There’s no temptation. We get some cosplay for the benefit of the viewer to make Kylo seem conflicted, and more sympathetic to Rey, but this turns out to be a ruse set up by Snoke, and ultimately inconsequential, because Rey remains the perfect hero she was at the start of the film, and Kylo remains an evil man-child.
George set the ‘rules’ that you adhere to and then he changed them, so I am certain that you must have absolutely loved The Last Jedi, as it elegantly sidesteps the mistake of Midichlorians and rather than a scientific, measurable Force we return to a purely spiritual one.
I actually didn’t like the Midichlorians, because I didn’t need a scientific explanation for a spiritual phenomenon. TLJ sidesteps the Midichlorians and just about anything else related to mastering the Force. Rey’s like a super hero now, the Star Wars universe Wonder Woman, having discovered insta-Force.