There is a contradiction of approach to the Force between the original Star Wars trilogy and the prequel trilogy, and it begins with midi-chlorians. Everyone hates midi-chlorians, but what makes them so offensive isn’t actually their half-hearted science, it’s that they introduce classism into a mythos that previously decried it. It took the Force, which originally stood for a metaphor for spiritual enlightenment, and turned it into super-powered wish fulfillment. In the prequels, one is born special, and simply needs to wait for their midi-chlorian letter from Hogwarts. There’s nothing wrong with Harry Potter, but this storytelling device is woefully mismatched with the Star Wars universe and what was established in the original trilogy.
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If Luke was born with “Force potential,” and if it was his power that posed a threat to Darth Vader and the Emperor, then it paints Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda as incompetent. If Luke possessed a unique power, and Kenobi cared about defeating the Empire, then he would have taken the boy at birth and sent him to live with Yoda on Dagobah, where he’d be trained from the start. What we see instead is Luke living a normal life up until a chance encounter with Kenobi, who then decides, only after given a new mission by Leia, that Luke should be trained as a Jedi.
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Still ambivalent about this guy.
Midi-chlorian is merely the name ascribed to a unit of measurement of Force talent and cellular intermediary between the Force and its users. Force talent and its genetic implications have gone back at least since Return of the Jedi where Yoda tells Luke that the Force runs strong in his family and, later, when Luke tacitly informs Leia of their shared heritage.
The classicism existed as well; Luke is identified as strong in the Force and Obi-Wan, when discussing Anakin, tells Luke that he was "amazed at how strongly the Force was with [Anakin]." Lines like these do strongly imply that Force strength and talent is relative even among Force users.
I bounce back and forth on my opinion of midi-chlorians, but there's a reason they were actually in Lucas's notes as far back as the '70s-- because their basis is ample in the films. All The Phantom Menace did was give it a name and infodump it in the audience's lap. A mistake? Perhaps. But it was there.
Yeah, like Tempest, I gotta say he is wrong on this.
He claims that the reason Luke is a threat to the Emperor is because of Luke's connection with Vader and not of his power but, while that is ultimately the case, it seems the reason Yoda and Kenobi trained Luke to confront him was due to his power. Yoda and Kenobi make it perfectly clear that they believe Vader will never turn away from the dark side and that he must be destroyed. There is no notion of them intending to use Luke's connection with Vader, rather they intend for Luke to kill him. In fact, when Luke claims he can't kill his father, Kenobi says, "Then the Emperor has already won."
He also claims that the Emeperor believes the threat to him is not Luke's power but his connection to his father. Once again he is wrong. The Emperor says, "The Force is strong with him." Furthermore, Vader claims "Indeed, you are powerful, as the Emperor has foreseen." Heck, the Emperor himself claims Vader "can never be turned from the dark side." Ultimately, if the Emperor believed the threat to hims was this connection between Luke and Vader, he should not have been caught off guard by Vader's redemption.
Originally posted by The_TempestHe mentioned that in the article. "Strong in the Force" never came off as "genetically lucky in the Force." It never came off as something biological. It was a way of being that a family possessed. You can argue the semantics of personality derived from DNA, but the film itself never discusses or relates such a thing. Phantom Menace explicitly tied the Force to DNA, cells, and luck of the draw. Kinda sucked the magic out of the Force for a lot of fans.
Still ambivalent about this guy.Midi-chlorian is merely the name ascribed to a unit of measurement of Force talent and cellular intermediary between the Force and its users. Force talent and its genetic implications have gone back at least since Return of the Jedi where Yoda tells Luke that the Force runs strong in his family and, later, when Luke tacitly informs Leia of their shared heritage.
The classicism existed as well; Luke is identified as strong in the Force and Obi-Wan, when discussing Anakin, tells Luke that he was "amazed at how strongly the Force was with [Anakin]." Lines like these do strongly imply that Force strength and talent is relative even among Force users.
I bounce back and forth on my opinion of midi-chlorians, but there's a reason they were actually in Lucas's notes as far back as the '70s-- because their basis is ample in the films. All The Phantom Menace did was give it a name and infodump it in the audience's lap. A mistake? Perhaps. But it was there.
Perhaps there's a reason why Young Lucas kept the midichlorians in his notes.
Ares834
Yeah, like Tempest, I gotta say he is wrong on this.He claims that the reason Luke is a threat to the Emperor is because of Luke's connection with Vader and not of his power but, while that is ultimately the case, it seems the reason Yoda and Kenobi trained Luke to confront him was due to his power. Yoda and Kenobi make it perfectly clear that they believe Vader will never turn away from the dark side and that he must be destroyed. There is no notion of them intending to use Luke's connection with Vader, rather they intend for Luke to kill him. In fact, when Luke claims he can't kill his father, Kenobi says, "Then the Emperor has already won."
He also claims that the Emeperor believes the threat to him is not Luke's power but his connection to his father. Once again he is wrong. The Emperor says, "The Force is strong with him." Furthermore, Vader claims "Indeed, you are powerful, as the Emperor has foreseen." Heck, the Emperor himself claims Vader "can never be turned from the dark side." Ultimately, if the Emperor believed the threat to hims was this connection between Luke and Vader, he should not have been caught off guard by Vader's redemption.
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My interpretation is that he's partially correct.
I myself have argued it before: the threat Luke posed to the Emperor was ultimately not a martial one, which is evident in ROTJ with Luke on the floor crying like a b1tch. This after Yoda proclaims that Luke no longer needs training. Luke defeated the Emperor by not fighting him, commensurate with Yoda's revelation in Stover's ROTS and Starkiller's epiphany in TFU.
The recent blog post on the Star Wars website about the saga's best duels highlights this:
Yoda vs. Sidious
And it reinforces what we learn in Return of the Jedi, which is that the Emperor wants to fight, as the fight is where he thrives — Yoda learns this the hard way. While he holds his own with the Sith Lord, even the ancient Jedi cannot outright defeat him.
Luke vs. Vader, ROTJ
Still, the young Jedi is eventually pushed into a blind rage, but pulls back at the last moment, throwing away his weapon and letting his father live; it’s a move the Emperor cannot comprehend — and proves the only way to truly defeat him.
However, as to your point: I believe Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Vader were all without question referring to martial prowess when they pitted Luke against the Sith. Recall Yoda's line in TESB: "Only a fully-trained Jedi Knight, with the Force as his ally, can conquer Vader and his Emperor."
Perhaps even Sidious himself believed that Luke would beat him through force. Ultimately, though, they were all wrong. Luke couldn't take the Emperor down then. The only way he could was through his connection to Vader.
Originally posted by Lord Lucien
He mentioned that in the article. "Strong in the Force" never came off as "genetically lucky in the Force." It never came off as something biological. It was a way of being that a family possessed. You can argue the semantics of personality derived from DNA, but the film itself never discusses or relates such a thing. Phantom Menace explicitly tied the Force to DNA, cells, and luck of the draw. Kinda sucked the magic out of the Force for a lot of fans.
I read the article, but his attempts to shoehorn his interpretation around the facts is pretty blatant. The notion that genetics or biology played no role in the Force died the moment Yoda told Luke that the Force is strong in his family... which occurred in Return of the Jedi... which was part of the vaunted original trilogy.
And then ROTJ goes on to cremate the proverbial corpse when Luke reveals to Leia her heritage.
I may agree with you that exploring the cellular/biological component of the Force in any detail robbed the Force of its inherent mysticism. But the irrefutable fact is that all this has its origins in the OT, particularly ROTJ.
Not overtly. And not with any sort of system or quantification to it. It always came off to me as a strength of character and personality, not biology. TPM didn't just put it in to more specific words, it openly introduced the Force to selective breeding, lucky genes, and measurable cellular organisms. RotJ mentioned "strength in a family." Interpret that any way, but it's vagueness is appreciated.
One cannot really interpret it any other way. Yoda and Obi Wan both insinuate through their "there is another" gag that Leia holds, alongside Luke, an inherent ability to challenge the Emperor your average mook, however determined, could not replicate. As Luke and Leia were separated by birth, "family" here must refer to nature, not nurture. And whilst it's quite obvious they aren't referring to "strength of personality" (since he says the Force runs strong through the family), either way the implication is that genetics determines your destiny.
Originally posted by Lord Lucien
Not overtly. And not with any sort of system or quantification to it. It always came off to me as a strength of character and personality, not biology. TPM didn't just put it in to more specific words, it openly introduced the Force to selective breeding, lucky genes, and measurable cellular organisms. RotJ mentioned "strength in a family." Interpret that any way, but it's vagueness is appreciated.
Throwaway pretty much debunks this, though. If it came down to strength of character and personality as the author alleges, then why would Obi-Wan and Yoda need Luke at all? All they need do is find some random chivalrous guy and train him in the Jedi arts and send him straight at Vader.
Like it or not, the OT introduced a genetic component to the Force long before TPM ever graced cinemas. That's just a fact.
Originally posted by The_TempestObi-Wan and Yoda didn't need Luke until Luke came along and offered himself up. They weren't going around recruiting Jedi hopefuls to fight evil and the Empire, they were hiding and doing f*ck all. Luke, who has a strong personality and strength of character, happened along. There was never any sense that Obi-Wan and Yoda were planning anything at all beyond hiding and doing nothing. Yoda flat out refused at one point.
Throwaway pretty much debunks this, though. If it came down to strength of character and personality as the author alleges, then why would Obi-Wan and Yoda need Luke at all? All they need do is find some random chivalrous guy and train him in the Jedi arts and send him straight at Vader.Like it or not, the OT introduced a genetic component to the Force long before TPM ever graced cinemas. That's just a fact.
The son of a once noble Jedi shows the same strength of character, and the possibility of his learning the Force is inferred from that, not his father's great chromosomes. Just as the possibility that he would fail and give in to the dark side could be inferred from his father's failing (not his father's DNA's failing). What Lucas and TPM did was take that strength based on character attributes and decide that it can only mean genetic strength.
Then feel free to explain why, assuming Tempest is quoting verbatim, Yoda states that the Force runs strong through the Skywalker family. Not strength of personality, not willpower; the Force. It would take quite the mental gymnastics to conclude that Yoda really means the Skywalker family is exceptionally brave and determined, and this indirectly leads to being able to manipulate a mystical energy field. As if Han Solo, Mon Mothma, or the "many bothans [who] died" for the Rebel cause did not exhibit such characteristics.
And either way, the motif of genetically inherited virtue remains.
Originally posted by ThrowawayThe Force "runs strong" the same way the Force tells the future. It's magical. Except in TPM, when it became Harry Potter magical.
Then feel free to explain why, assuming Tempest is quoting verbatim, Yoda states that the Force runs strong through the Skywalker family. Not strength of personality, not willpower; the Force. It would take quite the mental gymnastics to conclude that Yoda really means the Skywalker family is exceptionally brave and determined, and this indirectly leads to being able to manipulate a mystical energy field.And either way, the motif of genetically inherited virtue remains.
Originally posted by Lord Lucien
Obi-Wan and Yoda didn't need Luke until Luke came along and offered himself up. They weren't going around recruiting Jedi hopefuls to fight evil and the Empire, they were hiding and doing f*ck all. Luke, who has a strong personality and strength of character, happened along. There was never any sense that Obi-Wan and Yoda were planning anything at all beyond hiding and doing nothing. Yoda flat out refused at one point.
Actually, it was Obi-Wan who sought Luke out, enlisting him for his mission to Alderaan and it was Luke, not Yoda, who initially refused to participate.
Yoda's refusal stemmed from his disbelief that Luke could be trained due to his age and lack of discipline and commitment.
Originally posted by Lord Lucien
The son of a once noble Jedi shows the same strength of character, and the possibility of his learning the Force is inferred from that, not his father's great chromosomes. Just as the possibility that he would fail and give in to the dark side could be inferred from his father's failing (not his father's DNA's failing). What Lucas and TPM did was take that strength based on character attributes and decide that it can only mean genetic strength.
Respectfully, this interpretation seems forced and, as Throwaway suggested, requires mental gymnastics. Wouldn't showing the same strength of character as a mass-murdering traitor be a bad sign to exiled Jedi? This is not something that Obi-Wan or Yoda would reasonably rejoice.
As Throwaway also mentioned, Yoda's remark would be clumsy and inappropriate if it were strength of character that ran through Luke's family, since the entire family was separated by interstellar distance and significant socioeconomic class since birth. The respective character strengths and weaknesses of Vader, Luke, and Leia owe nothing to one another.
Contextually, this must clearly be an issue of nature, not nurture.
ROTJ script
YODA
Luke...Luke...Do not...Do not underestimate
the powers of the Emperor, or suffer your
father's fate, you will. Luke, when gone am I
(cough), the last of the Jedi will you be.
Luke, the Force runs strong in your family.
Pass on what you have learned, Luke... (with
great effort) There is...
another...Sky...Sky...walker.
ROTJ script
LUKE
You're wrong, Leia. You have that power too.
In time you'll learn to use it as I have. The
Force is strong in my family. My father has
it...I have it...and...my sister has it.
Please explain to me how these remarks refer to strength of character and in no way refer to genetics.
Lucien, are you suggesting that the OT presents a hereditary connection between force users yet not necessary a biological/genetic one?
In other words, Luke, being the son of Anakin, shows the proper characteristics to make a powerful Jedi (whatever these characteristics may be). Thus, the force runs strong in him because his personality is "well suited" for using the force. And that's what he inherited from his father, a strong personality that gives him great control over the force not a bunch of micro-organisms living in his blood-stream.