I liked the aspect of the force being more democratic and mysterious and its choosing a neophyte no one to restore the balance. I liked that Last Jedi basically made the whole mutant inherited bloodline thing, irrelevant. Only for Rise to make Rey a Palpatine and undo the idea of Star Wars going back to the style of a the original where Luke was a no one, who had the courage to leave Tatooine and confront the Empire. Originally Luke was a brave kid who went on an adventure he wasn’t the son of a super-villain/mutant with the most mitochondrial DNA or midichlorians whatsits in existence to some prophecy. Its undermines the force and free will. Its junk.
The thing is George never said the Force was exclusive to bloodlines. I think what he says about is just the opposite from how both J.J. and Rian took it to mean.
He said:
"A lot of people get confused about the Force. They see it as some special thing that you can find and pick up and put it on your head and suddenly you have the Force. Whereas it’s always been designed so that every [living] being has the Force.
The amount of Force, which is like talent or intelligence, is different in every person. Some of it is inherited, but it’s no more than a talent. It’s not something you can acquire – it’s something you can learn to use. I have the power to lift that cup off the table using the Force, but I can’t do it unless I have been trained to do it."
And with the Whills. They tie into the idea of free will and destiny:
“The Whills are a microscopic, single-celled lifeform like amoeba, fungi, and bacteria. There’s something like 100.000 times more Whills than there are Midi-Chlorians, and there are about 10.000 times more Midi-Chlorians than there are human cells. The only microscopic entities that can go into the human cells are the Midi-Chlorians. They are born in the cells. The Midi-Chlorians provide the energy for human cells to split and create life. The Whills are single-celled animals that feed on the Force. The more of the Force there is, the better off they are. So they have a very intense symbiotic relationship with the Midi-Chlorians and the Midi-Chlorians effectively work for the Whills. It is estimated that we have 100 trillion microbes in our body and we are made up of about 90% bacteria and 10% human cells. So who is in service to whom?”
The reason we follow the Skywalker family isn’t because they’re more important than others who can also use the Force but because the saga was about Anakin and his family. Anakin and his family just had a greater destiny akin to God in a general sense. Some have greater destinies than others and it’s also your choice on if we want to act on it or ignore the call to something greater. Fate has a way a stopping in where it’s needed.
The argument I’d have here is that while George’s sentiment is nice as it’s a way of showing the inclusion of Midichlorians doesn’t mess with the Force and that it’s still ultimately about how everyone has the Force and the potential to use it? That doesn’t really matter here. While your reading is still absolutely valid, the prequels as they change the context of the OT and arguably what one sees maybe from the old EU makes this into a matter where it really feels like being strong in the Force requires you to be a part of a bloodline. Looking back at the OT, part of the appeal to me of the Force is that while in this moment we see Luke is the hero and that he’s learning the ways of the Force? He’s also an everyman and we hear it flows through every living being so you get the idea that you don’t have to be a Skywalker or a Kenobi or whoever to be a hero, the Force flows through everyone therefore everyone has the potential, some might have a bigger headstart on it than others but anyone can learn to use it.
The PT then made Anakin the Chosen One, a child born from a virgin birth that apparently was caused by manipulating Midichlorians and because of the framing of the movies, it’s more based on being born into that bloodline and the Skywalkers suddenly become the only family that really matters to this massive galaxy for almost every single issue revolves around them. Sure one can say it doesn’t matter and that it’s just this is the family the movies follow but the movies still have that kind of framing and later stories keep up with this. For being a galaxy from a long time ago, this universe feels tiny and the Force becomes more like inherited superpowers. Now of course that’s just how I personally read it from spending time with the universe and if you like that aspect then more power to you. But I’ve just got to say that I don’t really care what George says in this instance. Word of God can only go so far and considering how the movies portray it? It’s why I’m more grateful for movies like TLJ bucking that trend and bringing things to being more like the OT while still attempting to show respect to the PT because with how the movies and other portions of the saga framed things? It really felt like it was more about the bloodlines and not about someone in a sea of nobodies rising up and choosing to become someone.
I appreciate your read on things but I see the opposite. I actually like The Last Jedi in an alternate universe sort of way for the most part. However I think one thing it gets wrong is making Rey a “Nobody”. We’ve seen Nobodies use the Force and be Jedi before. The entire Jedi Order and arguably younglings are a bunch of nobodies. The stories just tended to keep the narrative focus on Anakin and his family. This isn’t shrinking the universe but instead I find making it so we are following one generation at a time of the same family and how the consequences of what is just as external to each era make up the reality of the era afterwards until the cycle closes. Much like how real life works. Luke still begins his journey through humble origins and goes through the motions of learning of his greater destiny as he did before the Prequels reframed it in certain ways. The only difference is we know Darth Vader already is his father when we get to his journey but arguably the story of the Originals was recontextualised to make it just as much his story as it is Luke’s and later Leia and her children. I still believe in the notion of anyone can be a Jedi but it’s a hard life and not a simple magic trick as The Force Awakens likes to present it as being. Being able to use the Force is one thing but picking up on Jedi Mind Tricks or Force Pull without any training feels like it’s compromising the principles of how being a Jedi is different from being a regular hero like Luke was in the Rebel Alliance or when Anakin won the podrace. Both scenarios are heroism but a Jedi is a different kind of hero.
Fair points also, I’d even agree that yeah being a Jedi is a hard life but where I differ is that it’s based on more the sacrifices you make and what you end up doing. Because as a Jedi, you’re in tune to the Force and thus you’re in tune to a mystical energy that connects all living beings. Some abilities allow you to even do things like see the history of an item which means you might see murder, destruction and far more horrible things. It’s a lot of responsibility to carry as a person for you have this great power that takes a lot of wisdom to use. I feel when you do things like say make Force Pull a difficult ability or make Jedi Mind Tricks the result of training and frame them as these hard abilities to use (Which I argue they’re not, Rey lives in a timeline where people know the Jedi and we’ve already seen through the Prequel Trilogy that one of the common abilities regular people know about at least is the Jedi Mind Trick.) then honestly, I feel the point of the Force has been missed. I think back to what we learned in ESB where Yoda’s whole spiel to Luke is about how learning to use the Force is not as much about standard training, it’s about believing in this mystical energy and surrendering yourself to it. Hence “Do or do not, there is no try.” because it’s either you accept this or you doubt yourself and things become harder and I feel TFA returned it to being that whereas so many Star Wars entries after the prequels kept pushing the idea that it is this hard thing to learn, that these simple abilities are actually master level powers when they’re not. It’s all about how efficiently you use them and how much you put into it.
That’s also what makes Rey being a nobody in TLJ notable. Because yes we’ve seen nobodies with the younglings and such but most of the truly important characters to Star Wars are connected in some capacity and this extends even to the EU where most of the successful main heroes are connected to characters we know already. Rey was poised to be the first main hero that wasn’t connected to anyone aside from maybe being Luke’s student on Ahch-To and in a way it seemed like that was gonna make the Sequel Trilogy be about the theme of legacy and how the Skywalkers and Jedi continued to inspire over the years in the same way that Star Wars had which still can be done of course with Rey being someone connected to the past but it takes away a great deal of that weight I feel and that it causes Star Wars to feel smaller as a result.
You again make some valid points but I think things such as where you say “Some abilities allow you to even do things like see the history of an item which means you might see murder, destruction and far more horrible things. It’s a lot of responsibility to carry as a person for you have this great power that takes a lot of wisdom to use.” was never really the case entirely in George’s canon. He never connected the Force to an object except for Holocrons. However they just held wisdom like information about locations of Force Sensitive children and secrets of the Jedi Order. Otherwise connecting things such as a lightsaber is a Disney canon invention or something from the Expanded Universe. Keep in mind though Rey also believes Luke to be a myth and the Jedi not to be real until Han tells her otherwise. During the Prequel era it’s a different context as we’re in a period where the Jedi have served as the guardians of peace and justice for a thousand years. It was through careful manipulation that Palpatine deceived everyone. By the time of The Force Awakens way of seeing the story it doesn’t make much sense for many people to know of the Jedi and what they actually did. We don’t get the full context surrounding Luke or his fallen Jedi Temple to make sense of it.
I’d say believing in yourself is part of it but that’s what makes it hard. It’s like when Luke tries to pull the lightsaber out of the snow on Hoth or trying to focus his concentration on the remote aboard the Falcon or when he’s fighting his father the first time or even when he’s attempting to lift the X-Wing out of the swamps of Dagobah. There’s a theme of difficulties. It’s all very difficult for him initially and it’s not until he learns to quiet his mind that he’s able to fully connect with the Force and feel it’s presence versus say Han who didn’t believe in it.
With the Force there’s some natural ability to it as Anakin was able to pass his Force test with the Jedi Council with flying colours but it’s difficult at the same time to do certain powers.
It’s not so much I think a Prequels issue but an issue that’s in A New Hope. We just don’t know the answer as to you.
I think it’s better served having it in a spinoff instead of the Skywalker family saga. There’s nothing inherently bad about following a new character who has no direct connection to what we know but I don’t believe personally it works in a story that we’re meant to be following a family through different eras that are interconnected through external and internal sequences. The Republic is the Empire and the aftermath of both will naturally have an affect on Luke and Leia. It makes no sense to me personally to follow a character unrelated to them in the final trilogy. I think it’s fine in another trilogy not beholden to the rules and contexts of what came before though. I think you still get the legacy with following a Solowalker Daughter and Solowalker Son but it’s more direct to concluding things established with the Mortis Arc and Anakin being the Chosen One. The story in essence begins with a Mother and Son and ends with a Mother and Daughter. It seems George was recontextualising the story to be a family affair versus just Anakin as the only literal Chosen One. It’s also as much Padme’s story. She gives away democracy in The Phantom Menace and Leia restores and becomes Supreme Chancellor in Episode IX as her daughter inherits the Jedi Order from Luke before he passes on. The feminine is what ulimately restores the Balance.
Once again very fair points. A lot of it I’d even say I could concede to though ultimately I disagree. That being said it gives me a lot to think about in regards to the whole universe and this discussion was at least fascinating and very polite.
The same could be said for your points. It’s interesting to hear a different prospective on what something means across generations of fans. I appreciate how fascinating and very polite our discussion was as well. I added a bit more as you were replying if you wanted to go back and read it. It’s always good to see another side to the story we all know and love.