ETA: looks like my eyes and/or memory weren't playing tricks on me after all and they have indeed altered the not-Sith saber VFX. Here's a comparison for shots shared between the two trailers.
Much closer to traditional red blades, but still with a warmer orangey hue as opposed by the more usual cooler crimson, which is itself still in evidence with the Inquisitor's sabre.
At first I wondered if this was simply a case of the teaser using mostly raw footage of the LED props, but it also featured a shot of Baylan igniting his blade which 1) obviously requires a VFX element, not purely practical, and 2) has the same "dim core" appearance. So this does appear to be a deliberate stylistic change.
It's still up in the air as to whether these are meant to be the product of bled crystals, or if there's some other reason why they look close but distinctly not quite the same red.
Midi-chlorians are just a means for to hear the Force, but all living things have mid-chlorians in their cells. A high count just means you can hear the Force more than others. There was Chirrut Imwe in Rogue One. He may or may not have had the cells to be a Jedi, but he believed enough to pull off some near Jedi level stunts. Ahsoka might have attempted to teach Sabine on request. Sabine's a Mandalorean of House Vizsla (Clan Wren). Tar Vizsla was a Jedi over a thousand years ago. So it is not impossible for Sabine to have a sliver of capability with the Force.
I don't imagine her lifting rocks or tossing people around with it, but maybe just enough to see things before they happen. Enough to keep her alive. I means Sabine has always been gifted. Look as what she had already done before she was part of the Ghost crew, and then what she managed to do while with Hera, Kanan, Ezra, Zeb, and Chopper. She is quite skilled in a lot of things already.
Yeah I remember having this argument back I think when TFA was released, and people were complaining about the implication that Han was low-key force sensitive. Personally I thought it was a fun way to account for all of his close scrapes and "lucky" flukes that he just doesn't question.
I think some people still deliberately misunderstand what midi-chlorians are and how they work; insisting that Lucas was saying they create the force. Where really he was saying that the force is a real thing that's a part of the physical universe and not just handwavey magic, that there is some underlying science in how an energy field can interact with a living consciousness. But most of all to reiterate that the force exist in all living things, and that everyone has a connection if they're open to it.
* Side note: There's also the underlying implication that that Jedi Order had become *too* focused of the bare science of it all and neglected the intuitive side of it all, but that gets lost on a lot of people too.
In the case of Sabine: as I said earlier, they've been hinting at Sabine following at least the philosophy of the Jedi since season two: -
Hera
Hmm. Sabine, you're sounding more like a Jedi than a Mandalorian.
Sabine
Well, I guess I've just been raised right.
And that was a good year before 'Trials of the Darksaber'. So if Sabine has spent the last decade truly embracing Jedi teachings, then it's not unreasonable for her to have achieved at least some conscious awareness of the force. Not for nothing but she's always had a kyber crystal with her most of the time. That's a non-trivial foci for meditation through the force. Telekinesis may be a stretch, but with the force: anything is possible.
I always see Chirrut as someone with Jedi potential, in that if there had been someone to train him, he could have been a Jedi. As it is, he accesses the Force somewhat on a subconscious level.
I disagree. First of all: the force works subconsciously with *everyone*, all the time (see above, RE: Han.) There's nothing special about that; the trick is making it
conscious.
Secondly: I see Chirrut as one with just an average potential in terms of m-count, but has spent his whole life meditating, training, and believing. 90% of what he did was pure martial skill (courtesy of Donnie Yen) but that extra 10% is perception of and through the force. Not just the "blind man that never actually uses his stick to guide him" of it all, but his sensing of Jyn's kyber crystal necklace, his sensing of Cassian's dark intent, and his general following of Jyn because he senses "Her path is clear."
I think it's safe to assume that if Chirrut had the potential to be a Jedi (according to the Order's standards of the time) then he would have been. He's certainly old enough that he would have been detected, and the fact that he ended up in the Guardians of the Whills instead indicates that his m-count was probably too low to qualify.
Also note how everyone focuses on Chirrut's "force abilities" that are just highly skilled martial arts, and totally neglect to notice that Baze's shots never miss . . . and he's firing a heavy repeating blaster; an inherently inaccurate weapon! That's a lot more that just skill.
Yeah, I rewatched it for the first time in years shortly after Stevenson's passing and I'm...less forgiving of its flaws than I use to be, but it's atmospheric as hell and boosted by a terrific cast. The rest is just kind of eh.
I've been meaning to go back and give 'Punisher: War Zone' another chance. I balked at the time because I enjoyed Thomas Jane's performance in the role so much (not that the moive itself was perfect by any means), and because when I tried watching it the first time, I just wasn't in the mood for something quite so viscerally violent, and purely action oriented. I like at least *some* story and character in there, otherwise it just feels like noise.
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