Why the hate for the Midi-chlorians?

[Starfleet Engineer]

I'd like to beat a dead horse and repeat, in different words, what several people have said. Originally, everyone thought you could become a Jedi through discipline, hard work, and training, like the old popular American idea that anyone, ANYONE can become president of the United States. The midichlorians explanation said no, you can't, unless you have a certain midichlorian level. Ruined it for a lot of people. Now only a select group can become Jedi. It became a kind of elitist thing.

 

[Ithekro]

Even in the old roleplaying games you could be a Jedi or what not unless your character was Force Sensitive. At that was 1987. So the idea that you have to be born with it to use the Force is not a new idea at all. Remember that Leia though she could never have Luke's powers, but was wrong simply because they were related.

If anyone could be a force users, than we'd see more of them around, rather than just a handful during the original films. Han Solo wouldn't have been a skeptic when we first see him.


By 1999 the concept that people who could use the Force were special already existed. At least one novel had attempted to have an Imperial force sensitive scanner that would read a person's aura to see not only how strongly they were attached to the Force, but also how much Light and Dark side they had in them. The midichlorians just gave Lucas a way to have the Republic test people's Force potential without resorting to auras. Mind you it is likely that everyone has midichlorians, it is just a matter of more amplifies the ability to hear the Force through them. They are not the Force, just a method of heading it.

 

[Jedi_Master]

I never once thought that ANYONE could become a Jedi. That's an interpretation that wasn't supported even in the OT.

 

[Starfleet Engineer]

Even in the old roleplaying games you could be a Jedi or what not unless your character was Force Sensitive. At that was 1987. So the idea that you have to be born with it to use the Force is not a new idea at all. Remember that Leia though she could never have Luke's powers, but was wrong simply because they were related.

If anyone could be a force users, than we'd see more of them around, rather than just a handful during the original films. Han Solo wouldn't have been a skeptic when we first see him.


By 1999 the concept that people who could use the Force were special already existed. At least one novel had attempted to have an Imperial force sensitive scanner that would read a person's aura to see not only how strongly they were attached to the Force, but also how much Light and Dark side they had in them. The midichlorians just gave Lucas a way to have the Republic test people's Force potential without resorting to auras. Mind you it is likely that everyone has midichlorians, it is just a matter of more amplifies the ability to hear the Force through them. They are not the Force, just a method of heading it.

Back in the late 70s and 80s, when the movies came out, no one was reading Star Wars novels or playing Star Wars role playing games. I don't even remember them existing at the time. The movies gave the impression that you became a Jedi through discipline and training. We don't see a lot of Jedis in the films because it was "the dark times" and the Jedi had mostly been destroyed or were in hiding. The stuff you mention about 1999 and "one novel" were not of concern to my friends and I at that time as we were adults with families and only mainly cared about the movies, as with most fans and the general public.

 

[Jedi_Master]

But the very first film says stuff like "Person X is strong in the Force" and "the Force is strong in this one."
Also there is an instant line drawn between Luke and his father. Father is a Jedi, Luke can be a Jedi.

 

[Starfleet Engineer]

But the very first film says stuff like "Person X is strong in the Force" and "the Force is strong in this one."
Also there is an instant line drawn between Luke and his father. Father is a Jedi, Luke can be a Jedi.

Yes, and my friends and I interpreted that to mean that they had training and had strengthened their ability to use the Force and that one's aura, for lack of a better word, in the Force was greater as he or she became stronger with the Force.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Well your friends were WRONG!

 

[Ithekro]

Maybe some people interpreted it that way. I saw it as a special person, just because there was no known way to check so it could be anyone. The only thing midichlorians does is take way the guesswork.

At least that is how we saw it on the playgrounds in the 1980s.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Back in the late 70s and 80s, when the movies came out, no one was reading Star Wars novels

That would explain why I saw Alan Dean Foster, Brian Daley, and L. Neil Smith at the soup kitchen....

 

[TremblingBluStar]

That would explain why I saw Alan Dean Foster, Brian Daley, and L. Neil Smith at the soup kitchen....

Splinter of the Minds's Eye must be something I dreamed.

Not to mention all of the Han Solo novels, the novelizations of the movies, and countless comic books.

 

[Kor]

Back in the late 70s and 80s, when the movies came out, no one was reading Star Wars novels or playing Star Wars role playing games.

Nope.

Kor

 

[Reverend]

Like a number of things related to the prequel trilogy, midi-chlorians are a sound concept, poorly explained and executed. They're basically like real world mitochondria; symbiotic micro-organisms that live in our cells are are passed down parent to child. They're actually a neat way of accounting for how only certain individuals within a species can have drastically different sensory and physical capabilities than others of the same species without massively invasive mutations and also pass said talents to their offspring.

Lucas further elaborated on this in the Yoda/Dagobah arc in the final "lost" season of TCW. Specifically that the midi-chlorians originate from an ancient planet in the deep galactic core immersed in the living force and at some point in the distant past, spread, or were spread across the galaxy. This also accounts for how so many different species can have force sensitives as outliers amidst a population of mostly non-sensitives, since the x-factor comes from outside their natural evolutionary ecosystem. It also implies that a species doesn't *need* midi-chlorians to use the force, that if they evolved on a planet or region with an innate link to the living force then the whole species could evolve to be force-sensitive. That such planets are likely rare means that the vast majority of force users are likely to be midi-chlorians hosts.
That melding of the mystical and the scientific has always been a core theme of the Star Wars mythos and I feel is absolutely appropriate in this case.

I don't know where some people got the idea that *anyone* could be a Jedi. Even in the OT it was clear that there had to be something innate in a person to be able to tap into the force. Hence: "the force is strong with this one...". Also "you have a power I don't understand and could never have" (yes, I know she's wrong about herself, the point is she understood the ability is innate, not the result of training.)

 

[Starfleet Engineer]

I don't know where some people got the idea that *anyone* could be a Jedi. Even in the OT it was clear that there had to be something innate in a person to be able to tap into the force. Hence: "the force is strong with this one...". Also "you have a power I don't understand and could never have" (yes, I know she's wrong about herself, the point is she understood the ability is innate, not the result of training.)

Before the prequel trilogy, "before the dark times," I interpreted the idea from Obi-wan, that the Force was in and through all living things, meant that anyone could become a Jedi, if they learned the ways of the Force. That is a reasonable interpretation before the PT confused things.

 

[fireproof78]

Before the prequel trilogy, "before the dark times," I interpreted the idea from Obi-wan, that the Force was in and through all living things, meant that anyone could become a Jedi, if they learned the ways of the Force. That is a reasonable interpretation before the PT confused things.

To me, this is my interpretation as well, and reading a lot of fan opinions from first release, especially one friend of mine. Obviously, one opinion doesn't reflect authorial intent or a whole audience's expectation, but I kind of agree with Starfleet Engineer. The idea of becoming a Jedi was something you could learn how to do in the original Star Wars. I get that it was a family thing, but I didn't read that as a genetic thing, so much as nobility thing-the idea of a knight inheriting his responsibility form his family line.

My point being, Luke, in Star Wars, was the perfect Campbellian hero. He was low born and rose to nobility through education and training. The point being that Luke was an everyman that the audience could identify with. Even Sir Alec helped Mark in his acting by encouraging him that Luke was the character that audience members could identify with and see the world through his eyes.

Obviously, that changed, and the PT offered a different perspective on it. The message felt kind of mixed up with all the different elements, but I thought that anyone could be a Jedi, like anyone could be a knight, but it would take effort and training and not many would make it.

 

[Kor]

The concept of Force-sensitivity (and lack thereof in the majority of people) existed way before the prequel trilogy.

The PT simply gave an unnecessary elaboration of the mechanics.

Kor

 

[Reverend]

Any notion that Luke was a lowborn nobody was shattered the second we found out his father was a Jedi Knight and not a navigator on a spice freighter and again when we find out his twin sister was raised as a Princess. Neither of which originated in the PT, nor did the line "that boy is our last hope...".

Before the prequel trilogy, "before the dark times," I interpreted the idea from Obi-wan, that the Force was in and through all living things, meant that anyone could become a Jedi, if they learned the ways of the Force. That is a reasonable interpretation before the PT confused things.

Hardly.
I mean did you really think that the only thing stopping 99.9999999% of the rest of the galaxy choking people from across the room and controlling their minds was half an hour with an old man telling them to "stretch out with their feelings"?
No, right from the off we're told that Luke is more significant than he realises and it's Obi Wan that tells him "you must learn the ways of the force...".
And then there's not so subtle hints like: -
-Luke's just not a farmer Owen. He has too much of his father in him."
"-That's what I'm afraid of."

 

[Set Harth]

Before the prequel trilogy, "before the dark times," I interpreted the idea from Obi-wan, that the Force was in and through all living things, meant that anyone could become a Jedi, if they learned the ways of the Force. That is a reasonable interpretation before the PT confused things.

Well, the PT did say that everyone has midichlorians. So in theory everyone is Force-sensitive if only to some relatively small extent.

Yes, and my friends and I interpreted that to mean that they had training and had strengthened their ability to use the Force and that one's aura, for lack of a better word, in the Force was greater as he or she became stronger with the Force.

But the Force was said to be strong with Luke when he had very little training, only what he got during the Falcon's trip to Alderaan, and the Force was said to be strong in the Skywalker family, explicitly including Leia who at that point had no training whatsoever ( or even knowledge of her Skywalker lineage ).

 

[Starfleet Engineer]

I don't have a problem with any of the things mentioned about Luke's family line. The Skywalker family is obviously special and strong in the Force. This in no way disproves the idea that anyone could become a Jedi in the OT. Nowhere is it said that you have to start out with a high sensitivity to the Force to become a Jedi. Again, Ben states that the Force is in and through ALL living things. Learn the ways of the Force and you can be a Jedi.

Hardly.
I mean did you really think that the only thing stopping 99.9999999% of the rest of the galaxy choking people from across the room and controlling their minds was half an hour with an old man telling them to "stretch out with their feelings"?

No. Just like only a small percentage of people become SEALs, only those who have "the most serious mind" and are disciplined become Jedi.

 

[Set Harth]

I don't have a problem with any of the things mentioned about Luke's family line. The Skywalker family is obviously special and strong in the Force. This in no way disproves the idea that anyone could become a Jedi in the OT.

I was addressing the idea that "strong in the Force" meant "had training and had strengthened their ability to use the Force". The examples given were meant to disprove that idea, not the idea that anyone could become a Jedi in the OT. Regarding the contention that anyone could become a Jedi, arguments leaning in the other direction have already been advanced in the thread. I'll add that the Emperor literally feared destruction at the hands of Luke. It seems questionable to, in effect, extend that same potential to everyone else in the galaxy.

 

[Starfleet Engineer]

I'll add that the Emperor literally feared destruction at the hands of Luke. It seems questionable to, in effect, extend that same potential to everyone else in the galaxy.

The Skywalkers are an exception. They fulfill prophecy and are "destined" to play their role. Everyone else in the galaxy isn't going to train to be a Jedi, but I imagine any Jedi does have the potential to defeat a Sith.