RogueLeader said:
The Sequel Trilogy is basically if you combined the Legend of King Arthur with the story of Joan of Arc.

Joan (Rey) is chosen by God (the Force), given a special sword, and goes on a journey to save the land. Joan was just a farm girl, but she goes on to win battles even though she has no military training. Do we call Joan a Mary Sue? If God did not have a presence in the story, sure, but Joan has been chosen by God because of her piety and faith. It is her faith that gives her her power. Rey is a great comparison, in my opinion.

And this is where you start to lose me. The force is not a god, it doesn’t have a consciousness or the ability to divinely intervene in the events of the galaxy. It is simply a force that is generated and exists between all living things and binds the galaxy together. Your example works as an analogy but falls apart as soon as you try to actually apply it to Star Wars as we know (or knew) it.

RogueLeader said:
To me, the Force, even in the OT, is meant to be a spiritual thing where faith and belief were fundamental to its identity. The Force is much more like God, or the Tao, rather than a system of magic from an RPG. That’s what George always meant for it to be.

Fair enough and I know George has made reference to it in the past of it being like a religion but only in it’s most basic form, so much as with what you just said - it’s on a spiritual and faith like level but that’s where it ends. It’s actual reality is bound to the physics of cosmic energy and living beings that have discovered and learn to tap it revere it in an almost religion like fashion simply because they do not yet actually understand it, not to a scientific extent anyway. They understand on a basic level of how they use it and what observable effects it has on the observable world but they fill many gaps they still have with assumptions and idealised concepts of what it all means.