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The Merits of the Prequel Trilogy and the "Saga" — Page 19

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I just thought of a way that midichlorians could not only make sense in their job but not ruin people's preconceived notions of the Force. What if midichlorians weren't inherently present in a human being's (or any life form's) body with Force sensitivity dependent on their existence but were drawn, rather, to Force sensitivity? So people with high midichlorian counts would only have high midichlorian counts because they were, for whatever reason, strong with the Force?

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

See the part of your case I am having the most trouble with is your insistance on calling force sensitives "mutations".

All life has midichlorians. It's just that they noticed a higher concentration of midichlorians in particularly force sensitive beings, which is why the Jedi have adopted midichlorian testing as a way to pick out Jedi hopefuls before they are old enough to demonstrate pronounced force ability.

The fact that they are based on Mitochondria (according to Lucas himself) tells me that he's not considering force sensitivity a mutation, just that some beings have a stronger innate ability with the Force.

It is precisely because their foundational concept is the mitochondrion that I call Jedi mutants. All human cells that contain mitochondria will tolerate a specific amount of the bacteria. To possess more mitochondria means that the cell must be mutated and abnormal. Therefore, to have more “midichlorians” growing in symbioses with a Star-Wars person’s cells, they would need to be physically capable of that; mutants.


Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

Before the Midichlorians, there was a stronger case for force sensitivity being a mutation, because for whatever reason, the Force ran strong only in certain family lines, or at least that was strongly implied by the end of the classic trilogy.


No, because you could attribute that to hereditary willpower; minds more inclined to have to have faith and meditate on the force. You didn’t need physical mutation. Also, it could have been based upon destiny, more power with the force followed a family because that was their destiny, and not their arbitrary mutation.


Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

I think the Midichlorian concept clarifies that all beings can tap into the Force to verying degrees based on both their midi-count, and their discipline. Someone like Han for example could potentially use the Force if he took it seriously and leanred the art and put a lot of effort into perfecting his skill.


Maybe, but Han wouldn’t be able to do as much as a Jedi since his count would be so low. He would only have an ordinary amount of the bacteria growing within him after all. (Maybe he was a mutant with even less midichlorians than average considering how skeptical he was.) All other things being equal, Han would be weaker with the force.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
I just thought of a way that midichlorians could not only make sense in their job but not ruin people's preconceived notions of the Force. What if midichlorians weren't inherently present in a human being's (or any life form's) body with Force sensitivity dependent on their existence but were drawn, rather, to Force sensitivity? So people with high midichlorian counts would only have high midichlorian counts because they were, for whatever reason, strong with the Force?


Uhm, yeah, that's what I originally thought (and said above), but did George intend that? I don't think so.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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I went back and checked, and, yeah, while it didn't register with me before, that is pretty much what you said, so sorry I missed that. And, no, I don't think that's what he intended. I just think that's the way to have made it work if he had to have them in there.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Oooh, Gaffer ... I like that midi concept. It's artful, elegant, and restores the Force to what it was.


If I gave a damn about the prequels or considered anything in them a part of Star Wars in any way, this would be a good solution to the quandry so needlessly presented in TPM.


Of course, I could go around solving lots of things about the prequels. 17,000 solutions later, and I'd have some pretty good Star Wars backstory!
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Would it be considered a mutation to have more mitochondria than average? I hadn't considered that.

I also like the idea about midichlorians simply being a side effect of being Force sensitvie.

I think Lucas tried to leave it fairly vague. I mean he presents what the Jedi and more specifically what Qui-Gon believes, but there are a lot of theories that can be drawn from the co-relation between Midichlorian count and force sensitivity.

Was the Jedi Order even right about their theories?
Your focus determines your reality.
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Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
I went back and checked, and, yeah, while it didn't register with me before, that is pretty much what you said, so sorry I missed that.


Well, you were different in the sense that you were focusing on midichlorians being drawn to a host by his sensitivity and I was focusing on them being drawn to living things that the force "is strong with." So the similarity was not huge. I mostly just wanted to communicate that I was in agreement with you.

And, Go-Mer, maybe George intended it to be vague in order to imply that their connection to the force should be doubted (and that's why he never expands upon them), but my hunch is that he considers them solid truth. And, in the end, what he decides is officially true for the Star Wars universe so I don't like going beyond what seems likely. But, you could possibly be right.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Originally posted by: Tiptup

Unfortunately, after learning more about the issue, I’m fairly certain that George wants them to be physical and stuck in our cells like bacteria, and that detracts from what the force once was. You need to now be an arbitrary mutation whose living cells are advanced enough to tolerate more of this type of bacteria. Jedi are merely supermen.


Well, to be fair, it would explain comments in the OOT that indicate force sensitivity was hereditary. I'm not saying I like the idea of Midichlorians, I prefer that The Force be something mystical and unexplainable but I see the Midichlorian stuff as one of George's attempts to further explain the Star Wars universe. I just don't see The Force as something that requires explanation. I think it bogs down the story, and as has been elsewhere noted here, lessens the power of The Force by taking away a lot of its wonder.

George Lucas, October 1979: There are essentially nine films in a series of three trilogies. I have story treatments on all nine.
George Lucas, February 1999: I never had a story for the sequels.
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Tiptup, I can see what you are saying, but my point is, can't you assume Lucas intends it in the way you prefer until he actually says that's not the case?

I'm just for giving it the benefit of the doubt. I don't think Lucas set out to nail things about the Force down with this further detail, merely add more food for thought. Like all of the great mysteries of life, such as how life got started in the first place, it's something that we can't really pin down and prove.

I think it makes sense that in a society like the Old Republic, they would be aware of things like Midichlorians in the same way we here on Earth are aware of Mitochondria. They happened to notice that most Force users tended to have a higher midicount, and the practice of using midi-counts to pre-screen near infant Jedi Hopefuls is born. To me this makes plenty of sense, and doesn't change anything about how the Force was in the classic trilogy. It's really just our perception of it that has changed due to getting more peices of the puzzle.

People here on Earth theorize that Mitochondria is the source of all complex life. Some people think that makes them "god". Obviously none of it can be "proven" there's just theories and counter theories held by different people.

I think if we take just what is given to us in the films, we can figure out what we think the "real deal" is, and I think that's what Lucas intends. He said once that answering the mysteries of life isn't as important as questioning them.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Gomer, start posting at ORS, we are waiting for you there. Don't waste your time here, if you want some good debates, that will expand your horizons of the SW universe, start posting. You post at every other SW site, why not ORS?
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Originally posted by: CO
Gomer, start posting at ORS, we are waiting for you there. Don't waste your time here, if you want some good debates, that will expand your horizons of the SW universe, start posting. You post at every other SW site, why not ORS?
http://www.pop-arena.com/articles/akbar/akbar1.jpg

Admiral Akbar: It's a Trap!
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Gomer, when will you be posting at ORS?
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
I think if we take just what is given to us in the films, we can figure out what we think the "real deal" is, and I think that's what Lucas intends. He said once that answering the mysteries of life isn't as important as questioning them.


In my opinion, by mentioning them in the context of the story of the films he is saying otherwise. He is saying "guys, here is an answer" not "guys, keep questioning the nature of The Force." If he's trying to be ambiguous about it, then why include Midichlorians in the PT in the first place? It was plenty ambiguous (and magical) before.

Something about the whole Midichlorian scene in TPM just seems wrong somehow. In film, due to the compressed nature of its storytelling, as much of what appears on the screen must be dedicated to the story. By including a scene about these never-before-mentioned Midichlorians in TPM, Lucas is implicitly stating "This is important."

Okay, so why? If it's because he wants us to still believe that The Force is a mystical energy channeled by a few monks (as in the OT), then this does not serve that story purpose. If that was the case then the scene should have been left out in favour of a speech more in line with the Ben-Luke conversation in ANH. If it's because he wants to explain the hereditary nature of Force sensitivity, then okay - but I still believe it's a very ham-handed approach to it. That single scene to me robs The Force of a lot of its mysticism. By defining it scientifically/biologically, it is less magical. I'd rather he would have explained the heredity in a way that maybe indicates that people who have a great destiny before them are more Force sensitive. Hence, the Force runs strong in the Skywalker family because they are destined for greatness.

I don't really like the inverse, the Skywalker family is destined for greatness because the Force runs strong in them. Not sure why, it just doesn't sound right to me.

Explaining why the force runs strongly in any terms other than fate/destiny lessens the power of the story, IMO.
George Lucas, October 1979: There are essentially nine films in a series of three trilogies. I have story treatments on all nine.
George Lucas, February 1999: I never had a story for the sequels.
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I honestly think that by assuming what Lucas means, you are the one limiting your own perception of the Force.

I mean obviousy Qui-Gon is presented as a loose cannon in the Jedi order. A Jedi who rarely goes along with the status quo.

Why would his beleifs rank as provable fact in your mind?
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
I honestly think that by assuming what Lucas means, you are the one limiting your own perception of the Force.

I mean obviousy Qui-Gon is presented as a loose cannon in the Jedi order. A Jedi who rarely goes along with the status quo.

Why would his beleifs rank as provable fact in your mind?



Are you going over to ORS or what?
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
I honestly think that by assuming what Lucas means, you are the one limiting your own perception of the Force.

I mean obviousy Qui-Gon is presented as a loose cannon in the Jedi order. A Jedi who rarely goes along with the status quo.

Why would his beleifs rank as provable fact in your mind?

Because there's an established test for Midichlorians. Because Obi-Wan is able to pull up comparitive Midichlorian counts on a non-Jedi starcruiser's computer. If not comparative, then at the least non-Jedi starships' computers are able to perform a Midichlorian count on a blood sample, meaning that Midichlorians are common enough that they are regularly tested for presumably by a ship's Medical subsystem. Also, Obi-Wan knows how high Yoda's count is. If Qui-Gon is such a loose cannon then why are these other items presented as fact? If Qui-Gon has performed modifications to the ship's Medical subsystems to account for Midichlorians then why was this not presented in the film?

Because he didn't. Edit: Now, I'm taking this from the script, since I haven't seen the latter half of the film in a while - I re-watched the first half last night, intend on watching the second half tonight. But in the script, both Yoda and Mace Windu verify that Midichlorians == Force sensitivity. It's not a theory, it's not Qui-Gon being a loose cannon. It is explicitly stated in the latter portion of the screenplay. I'll verify tonight that it is mentioned within the context of the film.

I am referring specifically to the interchanges in the Jedi Council chambers where Qui-Gon tells the other Jedi about Anakin's exceptionally high Midichlorian count, and the scene after the testing where Mace Windu states "His cells contain a high concentration of midi-chlorians." to which Yoda confirms "The Force is strong with him." Now it could be argued that both things could have been tested for. If that were the case then that would have been stated in the film. The context of the conversation explicitly indicates causality. One == the other.

To reiterate:

Originally posted by: DeathTongue
In film, due to the compressed nature of its storytelling, as much of what appears on the screen must be dedicated to the story. By including a scene about these never-before-mentioned Midichlorians in TPM, Lucas is implicitly stating "This is important."


By not including scenes refuting its importance, and then completely ignoring Midichlorians until one throw-away line in ROTS, having the scene in TPM works even less. So what was served by including it? I do understand what he was trying to do in the scene - provide a hard scientific (within the context of the film) basis for Force sensitivity and inheritance. I just think he handled it poorly and the story of the PT would not have been lessened, in fact would have been more acceptable, if he had just deleted it altogether.
George Lucas, October 1979: There are essentially nine films in a series of three trilogies. I have story treatments on all nine.
George Lucas, February 1999: I never had a story for the sequels.
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There is an established test for midichlorians, that doesn't mean that their theory that Mid-count is the cause of force sensitivity is some kind of fact. It's just a likely theory.

The idea that Midichlorians are sentient at all is a belief that Qui-Gon has.

The coutnerpoint is that Sidious claims that Plaguis or even he knows how to manipulate the midichlorians to create life.

So, the idea that the Midichlorians have a will to create Anakin or even that the Will of the Force created Anakin is now in question.

I think Lucas is just putting the Midichlorians, and the theory they are the cause of Force Sensitivity into the film simply to present that scientifically they have been able to draw a co-relation between midi counts and force sensitivity. I don't think he means to say that any of the theories they have come up with based on that is somehow "the way it really is". It's just a theory.

It's up to you to wether or not you believe that it's some kind of conclusive fact.
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I edited my above post after doing a bit of research on the screenplay. I'll verify its validity in the film itself tonight.

Also, if the correlation is just a theory, then it would have been presented that way in the film. It was not. Again, I state that if that were the case then Lucas presented it poorly in the film and for the sake of WTF-itis, the scenes should have been excised. They were not, so here we are. Within the context of the film, Midichlorians == Force sensitivity.
George Lucas, October 1979: There are essentially nine films in a series of three trilogies. I have story treatments on all nine.
George Lucas, February 1999: I never had a story for the sequels.
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I think that it is generally believed by the Jedi order that there -is- a co-relation between midi-count and force sensitivity.

What happened is science discovered the existence of Midichlorians, then while studying them they noticed that all the Jedi seemed to have a higher mid-count. That co-relation is a fact they discovered.

The theory that Midichlorians are somehow sentient on their own is a theory that is only presented by Qui-Gon. And when Qui-Gon is talking about having Anakin tested further, Yoda seems to disagree with his "beliefs" when he says: "revealed your opinion is".

Qui-Gon is specifically characterized as a rouge Jedi who rarely follows along with the status quo.

In the end, what we believe about the fact that force sensitives appear to have a higher mid-count is up to us and us alone.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
The theory that Midichlorians are somwhow sentient on their own is a theory that is only presented by Qui-Gon. And when Qui-Gon is talking about having Anakin tested further, Yoda seems to disagree with his "beliefs" when he says: "revealed your opinion is".


Gotcha. I missed that point. Again, it's been a while since I've seen TPM in its entirety, which I've been trying to rectify over the past couple of days.

See, Go-Mer, these are the kinds of debates and conversations I like having. I still say you post too much, but I do dig debating facets of the story in this fashion.
George Lucas, October 1979: There are essentially nine films in a series of three trilogies. I have story treatments on all nine.
George Lucas, February 1999: I never had a story for the sequels.
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I have been trying to keep my rambling in this thread, and I don't see any problem with offering an opinion on myself in the Opinion about me thread.

I appreciate you considering what I have to say.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
I have been trying to keep my rambling in this thread, and I don't see any problem with offering an opinion on myself in the Opinion about me thread.

I appreciate you considering what I have to say.



You are rambling on several SW sites about the same shit, you talk on TFN, OT.com, and SW.com, why won't you come to ORS and start your bullshit rambling, are you afraid?
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Based on results, it was a mistake to include the bit about Midichlorians in the screenplay. Based on results, it was a mistake to include Jar-Jar Binks. Lucas' choices can be rationalized all day long, but things which were pretty much despised by the vast majority of Star Wars fans and casual audience members turn out to be, in essence, mistakes ... whether anyone wants to admit that or not.
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I thought those things were fine, and it certianly didn't hurt the films at the box office.

No matter what Lucas did, there would be fans who didn't like it for whatever valid personal reason I think.
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
I thought those things were fine, and it certianly didn't hurt the films at the box office.

No matter what Lucas did, there would be fans who didn't like it for whatever valid personal reason I think.



Dude, that is the 10,000 time you have said this shit, I have quotes of you saying this on SW.com, TF.n, now OT.com, where else do you post. The fact that you don't have the balls to even post once on ORS after you did sign up, tells me you have no balls what so ever.

Come on Gomer, are you going to post at ORS, or sit in your basement, excuse me, your labaratory all day and post away the same lines. You are like those old Timex Computers from the early 80's

10, "No matter what Lucas did, the fans will never love him."
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"No matter what Lucas did, the fans will never love him."
"No matter what Lucas did, the fans will never love him."
"No matter what Lucas did, the fans will never love him."
"No matter what Lucas did, the fans will never love him."
"No matter what Lucas did, the fans will never love him."
"No matter what Lucas did, the fans will never love him."'
"No matter what Lucas did, the fans will never love him."
"No matter what Lucas did, the fans will never love him."
"No matter what Lucas did, the fans will never love him."
"No matter what Lucas did, the fans will never love him."
"No matter what Lucas did, the fans will never love him."
"No matter what Lucas did, the fans will never love him."