I’m not even defending the movie, I’m pointing out these attack’s on the people making the movies and the idea they are pushing an agenda are dumb.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Post-release)
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I’m not even defending the movie, I’m pointing out these attack’s on the people making the movies and the idea they are pushing an agenda are dumb.
Keycube
Well-Known Member
I'll readily admit I'm a sucker for retconning that seems even remotely plausible. The "tech" part of Star Wars has always been my favorite part, and any excuse to bring something new into the fold and have it doing whatever, no matter how seemingly illogical, is still met with a seven year old's eyes that loves something cool looking going pew-pew.
But I'm not even a half hour into this video and not only am I facepalming, but I'm thinking I need to buy the TLJ DVD as a means of atonement. Going in spoiler-free opening night, I truly felt that I was going in prepared for anything; now I see that despite still being disappointed, I now have even more reasons to disappointed, due to setting the bar so low in the first place and giving it the benefit of the doubt while watching it. Serves me right.
Good word choice, calling that video cathartic. Some six months removed, there is still relief in feeling a sense of community.
EDIT: The more I watch, the more I see that this video needs to be required viewing for all Star Wars fans. Good stuff (even though it's a shame it needed to be made).
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JPH
Sr Member
Even James Joyce hated the film!
Cephus
Master Member
They offend me and most other classic Star Wars fans because they just arbitrarily altered the whole operation of the Force for no reason. That's why they died a quiet death after TPM and good riddance. It's just one more place where nobody dared to tell George Lucas that his ideas are really, really stupid.
astroboy
Master Member
It took them as pseudoscience that the Jedi bought into.
During the prequels, the Jedi we're at the top of their game. They we're so full of themselves that they needed to justify their power in society.
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Except, per Qui-Gon,
Despite our after-the-fact scrambling to have them just be a secondary way to measure someone's Force-use potential, George obviously intended them to be much more directly essential to the whole thing. Not saying I like that -- I don't -- but there it sits, unable to be overwritten.
Maybe Qui-Gon was using the opportunity to start a new Jedi off-shoot cult! And he was working on a young Anakin to be his mentor....
Just making up his own force religion rules...
It's like that movie with Joaquin Phoenix... The Master... In this case Jake Loyd was Phoenix character.
Maybe?
I haven't seen The Master.
Paul Andrew
Master Member
Maybe he was dumbing down a very complicated concept as if explaining it to a child...
mutronics
Sr Member
I'll readily admit I'm a sucker for retconning that seems even remotely plausible. The "tech" part of Star Wars has always been my favorite part, and any excuse to bring something new into the fold and have it doing whatever, no matter how seemingly illogical, is still met with a seven year old's eyes that loves something cool looking going pew-pew.
But I'm not even a half hour into this video and not only am I facepalming, but I'm thinking I need to buy the TLJ DVD as a means of atonement. Going in spoiler-free opening night, I truly felt that I was going in prepared for anything; now I see that despite still being disappointed, I now have even more reasons to disappointed, due to setting the bar so low in the first place and giving it the benefit of the doubt while watching it. Serves me right.
Good word choice, calling that video cathartic. Some six months removed, there is still relief in feeling a sense of community.
EDIT: The more I watch, the more I see that this video needs to be required viewing for all Star Wars fans. Good stuff (even though it's a shame it needed to be made).
Totally agree with you. The really sad thing is though, it’s more entertaining than the movie.
Cephus
Master Member
Which might be a defensible position to take if they weren't using medical tests that showed that midichlorians were real. It isn't a justification, it's a demonstrated reality, at least within TPM. After that, due to fan outrage, they just didn't talk about it again.
gedmac66
Sr Member
Speaking of midichlorians , knowing that GL collaborated with Alan Dean Foster on some of the SW Novelisations , has anyone else thought that the ‘ midichlorians ‘ as written and described , bears an uncanny resemblance to the ‘ gneechees ‘ as written in the ‘ Spellsinger ‘ series by ADF ?
TPM came out in May 1999 , whilst the first Spellsinger was published in 1983 .
Just a speculative curiosity .
:cheersGed
TPM came out in May 1999 , whilst the first Spellsinger was published in 1983 .
Just a speculative curiosity .
:cheersGed
Cephus
Master Member
The results of those tests can't be transmitted to a computer for processing though. George screwed up. That's all there is to it. Someone should have, and probably tried to, tell him how dumb the whole idea was. He didn't listen.
Huyang
Active Member
I’m not even defending the movie, I’m pointing out these attack’s on the people making the movies and the idea they are pushing an agenda are dumb.
Agreed
Solo4114
Master Member
My theory on midichlorians, both behind the scenes, and in canon (now).
Behind the scenes, I think George always had this concept about how the Force worked. There was the kind of mystical explanation that we got in the OT, but apparently "midichlorians" go back quite a ways on his yellow legal pad of Star Wars ideas. I think they were an early concept that he was told bogged down the story, when it could be explained more simply during the OT. When he went to shoot the PT, he wanted to use his idea, and nobody was around to tell him "George, that's a really dumb idea." So he used it. And it was...a really dumb idea. Not necessarily because it's inherently contradictory to the story we've already been told, but because he did ZERO to contextualize the differences in the stories. You can have midichlorians be included in the story, but you've got to be able to explain to audiences why you previously said "It works like ABC" and now you're saying "It works like XYZ." Otherwise, you end up with audiences looking at something like this as a retcon, which doesn't work so well.
For George, though, it was probably never a retcon. He always had the idea in the back of his mind. Now, we all know George's "I always thought...." lines are...shall we say...prone to slight fluctuations... But at the end of the day, I think what that's about is that he just has a TON of ideas that are always floating around, and what ends up winding up on film is merely the idea he had in the moment it wound up on film, until that idea recedes in his mind and another comes to prominence. And, because they're all floating around in there, it's always pretty much made sense to him how it all works...but not to the audience. To the audience, it looks like you've established a rule for your universe as part of world building, and now you're arbitrarily and abruptly changing that rule without explaining the rule change. In-universe rules are important in storytelling. They can act as story guard-rails so that you're confined to things working a particular way. Likewise, they can serve the drama of the tale when a rule is broken as part of the story. (E.g., "Crossing the streams would result in total protonic reversal which would cause every molecule in your body to explode outward at the speed of light." And then later "Guys....we have to cross the streams!") But simply changing them without (a) making it a clearly dramatic choice, and (b) without explaining it or explaining why the change has been made. So, there's nothing really "wrong" about midichlorians, but you need to explain why you're introducing this new information. Which brings me to my in-universe justification.
The way I make all of this work in my head is by deciding that the Jedi of the Old Republic, especially by that point, had grown overconfident, and arguably disconnected from the Force. With respect to the midichlorians, they attempted to apply scientific principles to understanding a phenomenon that is beyond their understanding, and simply assumed they had it all figured out. Specifically, they mistook correlation for causation. Yes, people with high midichlorian counts are much stronger in the Force than people with low or no midichlorian count. But the midichlorians do not make the Force happen. It's not like you can get a blood transfusion that is loaded with midichlorians and suddenly -- even temporarily -- become a master Force wielder. They simply occur at the same time, and people are strong in the Force for...other reasons.
And beyond that...we don't really know for sure. You can introduce theories like the distinction between the "Living" and "Cosmic" Force, or the Force having a "will" of its own as if it's alive, or "beyond" alive. You can then use the depiction of the Jedi's understanding of the Force during TPM and the PT era as illustrative of their weaknesses, rather than as a definitive statement about how the Force works, and keep the whole thing kind of a mystery that people simply try to describe, but can't completely.
Behind the scenes, I think George always had this concept about how the Force worked. There was the kind of mystical explanation that we got in the OT, but apparently "midichlorians" go back quite a ways on his yellow legal pad of Star Wars ideas. I think they were an early concept that he was told bogged down the story, when it could be explained more simply during the OT. When he went to shoot the PT, he wanted to use his idea, and nobody was around to tell him "George, that's a really dumb idea." So he used it. And it was...a really dumb idea. Not necessarily because it's inherently contradictory to the story we've already been told, but because he did ZERO to contextualize the differences in the stories. You can have midichlorians be included in the story, but you've got to be able to explain to audiences why you previously said "It works like ABC" and now you're saying "It works like XYZ." Otherwise, you end up with audiences looking at something like this as a retcon, which doesn't work so well.
For George, though, it was probably never a retcon. He always had the idea in the back of his mind. Now, we all know George's "I always thought...." lines are...shall we say...prone to slight fluctuations... But at the end of the day, I think what that's about is that he just has a TON of ideas that are always floating around, and what ends up winding up on film is merely the idea he had in the moment it wound up on film, until that idea recedes in his mind and another comes to prominence. And, because they're all floating around in there, it's always pretty much made sense to him how it all works...but not to the audience. To the audience, it looks like you've established a rule for your universe as part of world building, and now you're arbitrarily and abruptly changing that rule without explaining the rule change. In-universe rules are important in storytelling. They can act as story guard-rails so that you're confined to things working a particular way. Likewise, they can serve the drama of the tale when a rule is broken as part of the story. (E.g., "Crossing the streams would result in total protonic reversal which would cause every molecule in your body to explode outward at the speed of light." And then later "Guys....we have to cross the streams!") But simply changing them without (a) making it a clearly dramatic choice, and (b) without explaining it or explaining why the change has been made. So, there's nothing really "wrong" about midichlorians, but you need to explain why you're introducing this new information. Which brings me to my in-universe justification.
The way I make all of this work in my head is by deciding that the Jedi of the Old Republic, especially by that point, had grown overconfident, and arguably disconnected from the Force. With respect to the midichlorians, they attempted to apply scientific principles to understanding a phenomenon that is beyond their understanding, and simply assumed they had it all figured out. Specifically, they mistook correlation for causation. Yes, people with high midichlorian counts are much stronger in the Force than people with low or no midichlorian count. But the midichlorians do not make the Force happen. It's not like you can get a blood transfusion that is loaded with midichlorians and suddenly -- even temporarily -- become a master Force wielder. They simply occur at the same time, and people are strong in the Force for...other reasons.
And beyond that...we don't really know for sure. You can introduce theories like the distinction between the "Living" and "Cosmic" Force, or the Force having a "will" of its own as if it's alive, or "beyond" alive. You can then use the depiction of the Jedi's understanding of the Force during TPM and the PT era as illustrative of their weaknesses, rather than as a definitive statement about how the Force works, and keep the whole thing kind of a mystery that people simply try to describe, but can't completely.
Cephus
Master Member
I really don't care if George always intended it that way, it's still a dumb idea and by the time he actually got around to it, nobody thought the Force worked that way. When you describe something one way for decades, then suddenly decide it works a different way, even if that was your intention all along, people are going to tell you where to shove your intentions. It doesn't matter what you have in some notebook, it matters what you actually put on screen, and whether GL likes it or not, it wasn't midichlorians.
JPH
Sr Member
Makes Midi-chlorians sound like mitochondria, but using a universally linked particle like Kaons. Separate a pair, effect one and it still reflects on the separated particle...so, actually not too far fetched. Also, they speak to you, but do you listen or understand?
He came up with it somewhere along the way, but it wasn't part of his original notes. Alan Dean Foster had access to them while writing the novelization, and included a lot of stuff from them that wasn't in the film -- or even in the OT at all. Some stuff wouldn't show up 'til the Prequels. Some stuff got heavily revised before then. And what Foster has Obi-Wan saying about the Force on the Falcon doesn't fit with even a passing mention of anything like midi-chlorians in George's notes...
cayman shen
Master Member
You ever feel like a burst of understanding just explodes in your brain like a flash of light? You just gave me one of those moments.
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