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Plinkett gets REVENGE

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Everybody has Midi-Chlorians, so why wouldn't Obi-Wan simply explained it pointed out that Han also has Midi-Chlorians and if only he had received training, he would also know the will of the Force?

Not everyone has Jedi potential. That's the whole point of the midichlorian test. As far as we know Han has no more Force potential than the average Jango clone.

But PT told us there is a "silver bullet" that everyone can look at for proof that the Force does exist.

There was one in the OT too, it was called Luke.

Then a character says "Midi-Chlorians are cruicial to the understanding of the Force" but these micro-organisms are never ever brought up again for the next 5movies.

Wrong. They were brought up again in ROTS.

As a result, the audience is left to decide for themselves what exactly these MC actually does and how MC fits into the will of the Force.

Nah, they could just go by what the film said and leave it at that. Let's call "deciding for themselves" what it really means in this context: casually rejecting the film's dialogue to invent an imaginary problem out of thin air.

The MC were presented with ample ambiguity that the audience could interpreted MC as they saw fit.

There is no ambiguity in what the film presented. It's just that it was misunderstood or simply rejected in search of an easier target. If the audience can rewrite plot points as they "see fit" at any time, it should simply be recognized that criticism of these rewritten plot points is not legitimate criticism of the film itself.

Flying Spaghetti Monster said:
Regardless, there was a mythic quality that Force had with the OT that is now lost
If biologically inherited Force sensitivity takes away the mythic quality of the Force, then the Force had no mythic quality in the OT, because biologically inherited Force sensitivity appeared in the OT. So there's really been no change.
 
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Not everyone has Jedi potential. That's the whole point of the midichlorian test. As far as we know Han has no more Force potential than the average Jango clone.

There was one in the OT too, it was called Luke.

Not everyone has Jedi potential, but everyone has MC. Qui-Gon made that very clear. MC are common through out all life in the universe. Therefore, Anyone could go get a blood test and see what their MC count is. Now if you want to argue that Jedi was the sole proprietor of technology to see MC, then you are adding your own interpretation to the movie. There was never any indication that Jedi was withholding any technology.

(Before you say LIGHTSABER!!! Might I remind you that Han Solo's attitude towards lightsaber was that he rather have a blaster any day. Han wasn't all that impressed with the technology and didn't care for it. There is only one explanation for that. The technology is readily available, but is deemed useless by many, if not most)

Since MC has one purpose and MC is inside every living cell, any intelligent, sentient creature can point to their MC count to see if they can hear the will of the Force. Nobody need to believe in the Force. For example, it is absurd to tell someone to "Believe in the ATP production" because anyone can see mitochondria. Now, since MC's function is to channel the Force and MC can be observed, therefore, there would be no need to "Believe in the Force." (Luke's line) This is pretty simple logical deduction.

If you want to argue that MC has other function, that would again be your own interpretation since the movie doesn't say one way or another.

Wrong. They were brought up again in ROTS.

What for? Why were they brought up again in ROTS?

Nah, they could just go by what the film said and leave it at that. Let's call "deciding for themselves" what it really means in this context: casually rejecting the film's dialogue to invent an imaginary problem out of thin air.

You might see it as an imaginary problem. That's your opinion. I see it as a load of crap that was absolutely useless. That is my opinion.

There is no ambiguity in what the film presented. It's just that it was misunderstood or simply rejected in search of an easier target. If the audience can rewrite plot points as they "see fit" at any time, it should simply be recognized that criticism of these rewritten plot points is not legitimate criticism of the film itself.

See above about opinion. Your opinion is that there were no ambiguity. My opinion is that it was nothing BUT ambiguous.

If biologically inherited Force sensitivity takes away the mythic quality of the Force, then the Force had no mythic quality in the OT, because biologically inherited Force sensitivity appeared in the OT. So there's really been no change.

The ability to use witch craft is usually inherited. How does that take away any mythical quality of witch craft? Now, if the ability to use witch craft comes from these tiny biological organisms in your cell then witch craft is no longer mythical but scientific.
 
If you want to argue that MC has other function, that would again be your own interpretation since the movie doesn't say one way or another.

Doesn't it?

"Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force."

So, if they're necessary on the most basic level for something to be alive, they must have some mundane function that is essential to living cells. Or, it would appear mundane to someone who was ignorant of the Force. Considering that there was obviously a snow job against the Jedi after their fall (the admiral on the Death Star who didn't believe in the Force any more than Han did, right up until Vader choked him), it seems obvious that the medical textbooks would be rewritten.

If that! I mean, come on, you learned the parts of the cell in High School, but unless you're a biologist or doctor who deals with them regularly, you certainly don't know, care about, or remember the minutiae of every single part of the cell. Even if Han Solo saw "midi-clorian" pointing to a piece of a picture of a cell in grade-school and memorized a one-line definition about it being "essential for cellular respiration" or some damn thing for a test, I don't see how that's supposed to be incontrovertible proof that people can move things with their minds and see events before they happen.

Come on, this is the Evil Empire, as the opening crawls never cease to remind us. A piece of scientific detail only specialists and people directly affected cared about before it was repressed doesn't exactly require the full might of the propaganda machine to keep quiet.

If biologically inherited Force sensitivity takes away the mythic quality of the Force, then the Force had no mythic quality in the OT, because biologically inherited Force sensitivity appeared in the OT. So there's really been no change.

The ability to use witch craft is usually inherited. How does that take away any mythical quality of witch craft? Now, if the ability to use witch craft comes from these tiny biological organisms in your cell then witch craft is no longer mythical but scientific.

So... "mythic quality" is code for "ignorance." You could easily scientifically quantify inherited witchcraft with a simple survey and a Punnett square. And then you look deeper, and deeper, and you know what? Sooner or later you find out why this witch is different from all other not-witches, and, boom, there you go.

This argument is just straight-up nonsense. Yoda using the Force to lift an X-Wing fighter has a mythical quality, but God forbid Yoda uses the Force to life a series of weighted crates so someone can write down exactly what the limit of his telekinetic power is, because as soon as you have the slightest idea of what the hell's actually going on beneath the surface, picking up shit with the power of your mind will just become so boring and everyday.

But if you don't look closer, than it it'll keep feeling special, even if it is being done every day by people who don't see anything really special about it.
 
An amusing tidbit for prequel haters at the beginning of this interview with Natalie Portman and Kat Dennings about the Thor movie.

Q: Natalie, you've done big movies like this before, obviously, with Star Wars and even V for Vendetta. How does a big Marvel comic book movie compare?

A: It was actually a very different experience than those because there actually wasn't... because we were on earth, our section of the film was on earth... there was very little blue screen kind of work that we did. And also, Ken [Kenneth Branagh] is such an incredible actor and director for actors that it was a very different experience, too, just having someone give such attention to character and performance on a movie on this scale.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxp08KkAB_M
 
^ Awesome. :rommie:

hayden-rlm.jpg

 
People think Plinkett is harsh. I'd love to get uncensored opinions from Portman or somebody like Liam Neeson. Plinkett's reviews would pale in comparison.
 
"Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force.


HOLY CRAP! Midi-chlorians are Mitochondria, Leia is Mitochondrial Eve were all gonna burn!*runs*
 
Wrong. They were brought up again in ROTS.

What for? Why were they brought up again in ROTS?

Palpatine brought them up when he referenced the Darth Plagueis story. Supposedly, Plagueis could manipulate the MC in order to create life.

Yeah, it was just the completely unimportant hint who created Anakin in the first place. Nothing you'd actually need to know before criticizing the MC storyline.
 
Both Neeson and Portman apparentally had problems during the films; Liam famously said he was going to quit acting (There was this ILM documentary recently that had an interview with his friend Robin Williams in which it makes it clear it was because of TPM). There were a lot of rumors that Natalie was upset during ROTS's filming because her role was reduced to nothing. Although Liam recently did some voice work for Clone Wars, but that's not under Lucas's direction (He's more of a producer). I doubt Natalie's thrilled with the films coming back in 3D, when she's having this career renaissance.

Ewan Mcgregor has also said that the films were his least favorite projects to work on.


And then of course Ralph Marsh (Ric Olie), Terance Stamp (Valorum) and Huqh Quarshie (Panaka) who all were highly critical of Lucas in interviews.

On the flip side, Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson, Ian Mcdiarmid and the Australian actor who did a cameo as Portman's dad in a deleted scene and the end of ROTS were all fairly optimistic about Lucas and the direction.
 
This thread brought back some bad memories. I remember when first saw TPM and when that 'midi-chlorian' (whatever) bit came up, it was a real WTF moment. Is it dumb? Yes. Insulting to fans? Yes. But I just went - hey, it's Lucas' universe. He can do what the hell he wants. I may not like it, but there's lots of stuff I don't like that I can't affect or change :)
 
Both Neeson and Portman apparentally had problems during the films; Liam famously said he was going to quit acting (There was this ILM documentary recently that had an interview with his friend Robin Williams in which it makes it clear it was because of TPM). There were a lot of rumors that Natalie was upset during ROTS's filming because her role was reduced to nothing. Although Liam recently did some voice work for Clone Wars, but that's not under Lucas's direction (He's more of a producer). I doubt Natalie's thrilled with the films coming back in 3D, when she's having this career renaissance.

Ewan Mcgregor has also said that the films were his least favorite projects to work on.


And then of course Ralph Marsh (Ric Olie), Terance Stamp (Valorum) and Huqh Quarshie (Panaka) who all were highly critical of Lucas in interviews.

On the flip side, Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson, Ian Mcdiarmid and the Australian actor who did a cameo as Portman's dad in a deleted scene and the end of ROTS were all fairly optimistic about Lucas and the direction.

Reminds me of how people described James Cameron. That guy even made actors cry on set (and not as part of a scene).
 
What for? Why were they brought up again in ROTS?

Palpatine brought them up when he referenced the Darth Plagueis story. Supposedly, Plagueis could manipulate the MC in order to create life.

Yeah, it was just the completely unimportant hint who created Anakin in the first place. Nothing you'd actually need to know before criticizing the MC storyline.

I don't disagree with that sentiment. infinix asked where else they were brought up, so I informed him.

Palpatine's story, though interesting in its implications, doesn't take advantage of it's implications.

The story suggests that perhaps Anakin was created by Darth Plagueis and, subsequently, a product of the dark side. Anakin makes fails to see this connection.

If he did, that could make his fall that much more interesting. If he believes he was created by the dark side, then perhaps he can't see himself escaping from it, so instead of running, he jumps into it fully.

He might have the mindset of "This blows. I hate it, but there isn't anything I can do about it." This would tie nicely into Vader's line from RotJ when he says to Luke (almost regrettably) "It is too late for me."

But then, if Anakin was created by Plagueis, then that means he wasn't created by the force and, subsequently, isn't the Chosen One. If that is the case, then it means the whole through-line of the Star Wars saga of "bring balance" (as said by Lucas) is trashed.

Then it must be that Palpatine was lying. Okay, then what was the point of the story? To get Anakin thinking how to save Padme. Fine, but how come he didn't consider his origins? Because it isn't exactly the same. Maybe, but it is awfully close and would get me wondering.
 
I'd love to get uncensored opinions from Portman or somebody like Liam Neeson. Plinkett's reviews would pale in comparison.
Neeson's opinion I value. Portman hasn't earned the right to have one. She is probably the worst Academy award winning actress in history, and that's no small feat.

They only gave it to her for the dancing anyway, but as it turns out... http://www.slashfilm.com/natalie-po...ortman-5-percent-fullbody-dancing-black-swan/

In case you're wondering, yes, I hate her guts. I swear to God, that bitch better not ruin Thor. :klingon:
 
But then, if Anakin was created by Plagueis, then that means he wasn't created by the force and, subsequently, isn't the Chosen One. If that is the case, then it means the whole through-line of the Star Wars saga of "bring balance" (as said by Lucas) is trashed.

Wrong. Lucas has explicitly said that he's the Chosen One regardless of whether or not he was created by the Sith. The point is that he destroys Palpatine no matter how he was created.

infinix said:
Now if you want to argue that Jedi was the sole proprietor of technology to see MC, then you are adding your own interpretation to the movie. There was never any indication that Jedi was withholding any technology.

I never said they were.

infinix said:
My opinion is that it was nothing BUT ambiguous.

Just saying "it's my opinion" doesn't serve to manufacture ambiguity where there really is none. Maybe "without the midichlorians, life could not exist" is somewhat unclear, but it doesn't say the midichlorians are the Force.
 
But then, if Anakin was created by Plagueis, then that means he wasn't created by the force and, subsequently, isn't the Chosen One. If that is the case, then it means the whole through-line of the Star Wars saga of "bring balance" (as said by Lucas) is trashed.

Wrong. Lucas has explicitly said that he's the Chosen One regardless of whether or not he was created by the Sith. The point is that he destroys Palpatine no matter how he was created.

I always thought that the chosen one who brings balance to the force is Luke, not Anakin. That Palpatine misused that prophecy to manipulate the Jedi, but that the prophecy DID fulfil itself eventually though. But then again, Anakin did most of the work by destroying all Jedi and then killing Palpatine decades later.
 
Where the balance of the Force was concerned, the Jedi weren't the problem. The Sith were. Luke may not be the Chosen One, but he may be the "greatest Jedi" from some other prophecy mentioned in the DE endnotes, or perhaps the "Son of Suns".
 
But then, if Anakin was created by Plagueis, then that means he wasn't created by the force and, subsequently, isn't the Chosen One. If that is the case, then it means the whole through-line of the Star Wars saga of "bring balance" (as said by Lucas) is trashed.

Wrong. Lucas has explicitly said that he's the Chosen One regardless of whether or not he was created by the Sith. The point is that he destroys Palpatine no matter how he was created.

Can you provide a link stating this?

I have only seen and read things where Lucas has stated the Anakin was the Chosen One because he was created by the force, and I have never read anything were Lucas reflects on whether or not Anakin being created by a Sith challenges that Chosen One standing. I am not saying you are wrong; I've just never encountered it.

Either way, the first film suggests that Anakin was created by the force, thus making him the Chosen One. The third film suggests Anakin was created by a Sith. From what is suggested in the films themselves, if Anakin was created by the Sith, he wasn't created by the Force. This suggests that he can't be the Chosen One.

Point is a film-goer shouldn't need to rely on external materials from the producers to clear up points in a film.
 
it was a very different experience, too, just having someone give such attention to character and performance on a movie on this scale.
Ouch! :rommie:

There were a lot of rumors that Natalie was upset during ROTS's filming because her role was reduced to nothing.
The minute she read Padme's death scene in the script, she would have been fully justified shaving head head and going all V for Vendetta on George's ass. :p

I hope ALL the actors were making maximum amounts of trouble on the set. If ever there was a case of actors being let down by everything in a frakkin movie, this was it. Even Christensen would have been justified in making a fuss - poor guy couldn't be blamed for not knowing how badly he was miscast in the role. It probably really hurt his career. He's not bad in moves on a kind of dimbulb Keanu Reeves level, except with less personality. His agent should have known better but I guess everyone was too dazzled at being in a STAR WARS!!! film to think about the bigger picture.

I doubt Natalie's thrilled with the films coming back in 3D, when she's having this career renaissance.
She shouldn't worry. The fact that she could be so A W F U L in the prequels and then go on to win an Oscar when given a real director and a real script (and a cheeseball script at that!) just indicts Lucas' incompetence all the more.

Reminds me of how people described James Cameron. That guy even made actors cry on set (and not as part of a scene).
That's because Cameron is a tough boss who expects results, which can make for a bad work environment but at least everyone has the satisfaction of seeing a great product afterwards. Having to deal with an incompetent buffoon as a boss who will never produce anything but garbage must be completely demoralizing. Why even bother to show up at work (except for the paycheck)?
 
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