[njamilla]

I'm doing a review of the new book SW & Philosophy and I wanted to include a section on the general fan criticism of midi-chlorians. I feel, and I want to know if you back me up, that the whole concept is so stupid that thoughtful fans of SW simply disregard it. Your thoughts!

Basically, I'm looking for criticism of midi-chlorians. (As well as support of it, if it's there.)

[ernesttomlinson]

First, let me say that I think the whole idea of midichlorians is utterly stupid and I hope that what I'm about to say is not construed as support for the idea. But I have seen some misconceptions put about that need correction.

Midichlorians, according to what we've seen, are not the source of the Force. They're the intercessors, the entities that enable the Jedi to feel the Force. Hence it's not specifically impossible, in Lucas's crackbrained vision, that there might be another way to channel the Force without midichlorian involvement. The Force is the Force; the midichlorians are just middlemen. It raises the intriguing possibility that the Sith have found some other way to use the Force.

But Lucas makes it unfortunately clear that the Jedi's ability to wield the Force is proportional to midichlorian count. "Not even Master Yoda's is that high," says Obi-Wan of Anakin. So it's established that Anakin's ability with the Force is conferred by his midichlorians; presumably this remains true even when he turns to the Dark Side. So my idea in the previous paragraph isn't any good.

Most unfortunate is Qui-Gon's speculation that Anakin was "conceived by the midichlorians". Oh, my. What's to be done with this? So are the midichlorians capable of inducing parthenogenesis? Are they identical to male gametes in structure and function? How the f**k is this supposed to work? Now if Lucas really wanted to put a virgin birth into his story he would have been better off saying, simply, that the Force did it. "By the power of the Holy Spirit He was born of the Virgin Mary" - that's straight out of the Nicene Creed. I'm not saying that this actually happened; I am saying that the miracle is put in the simplest way possible. Once Lucas introduces his pseudo-scientific "midichlorians" he's sunk. The Force and the Holy Spirit, in their respective mythologies, just are and can do anything. But midichlorians are supposedly real things that exist in the blood and can be detected and counted. And then can father children. Not quite as convincing a story, is it?

Does anyone know if Lucas is going to put in anything about midichlorians in Episode III? I doubt it. There wasn't anything in Episode II about them.

[rangwe]

The midichlorines thing is one of the pet peeves I have with TPM and the whole prequel thing in general.

In the Star Wars game by West End maaaaany years ago, the Force was a measure of the Universe's perception of itself. It was essentially a subjective, spiritual thing.

The midichlorine count is, on the other hand, an objective, physical thing. That means you can put it into a science textbook. It means you can cultivate them and inject them into people and give them force powers. Specifically, rich people can "buy the Force" and poor people get the shaft.

You don't need any special mindset to learn and master the Force. Becoming a jedi is a matter of getting your jedi residency out of the way or passing the jedi bar exam.

Which goes completely against my view of Star Wars being about raising your consciousness. Its Mordor Leadership to reduce "The Force" to something you can do a blood test on...you don't need a brain, just a good blood count. And the only blood worthy of good blood is blue blood. Sorry, if you ain't got da dollahs, you can't get the powahs.

And it shows in the jedi on the rampage of the prequels - all you need is cash, not higher thinking. Civilization is for those who can enforce it at the end of a lightsaber.

Great. Would you like fries with that, Yoda?

Compare ESB Yoda, who shows Luke an entirely different way of thinking in just about every scene, with the Super-Grover, lightsaber swinging maniac fighting Count Dookie.

Which "Force" do you prefer?

- rangwe

[Despondent]

Has anyone, anywhere ever stated that they like the midichlorians? ugh.

So is it total "blood cells" or the highest % of body weight?

Just noticed that the Two Highest M-count beings on record (Annie, Yoda) happen to be of small stature.

Not that it matters in the least. Lucas pulled a Homer.

[CowboyCurtis]

(Clapping hands!) Brilliant Ernest! Just brilliant! That is it to the point!

[Mnesymone]

Midichlorians, as GL puts it, are subcellular organisms in the blood that if you somehow 'tune in' to their wonderful mystical energy you hear all the little whispering and guidance.

How in hell do these buggers grant you the other powers Jedi have - like their physical strength and the powers they project beyond the confines of their body - telekinesis and whatnot. from Qui-gon's explanation we got the idea that it were the midichlorians themselves that guide you - so how do the midichlorians know? can they commune with other midichlorians? - wouldn't that make people with low midichlorian counts more capable of sneaking up on Jedi?
I raised a point about Midichlorians in a now-defunct post a little while back about the Jedi in Ep II seeming to lose touch with the force - why would this be? did Palpatine stick a needle in their arm and suck the midichlorians out of their bloodstream.
As for conception by midichlorians - if you're gonna have midichlorians, the only thig that can be conceived by midichlorians is another midichlorian. And the name midichlorian, is like Padawan or Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, a dicky name.

[HK 47]

Everything that's been said so far. There's also the issue with Anakins decline. According to Lucas when he retained both his arms and legs he was (at least had potential to be) twice as powerful as Sidious. After losing both arms and both legs he is now at 80% of Sidious power. Yes, these numbers are all from Lucas himself. So, not only Midichlorians count, but also volume of blood, making The Force a measurable genetic trait, not one of Faith. The introduction of Midichlorians in Star Wars is like dissecting Santa Claus.

[barend]

The biggest problem here is the inadequately explored parameters of the midi-chlorianic substitute for accepted and previously established spiritual/fantasy based mystic nature of the force.

You cannot take something that has inspired people for over twenty years then turn it into shallow sci-fi.

The question then comes along of 'what happened to the force flowing through everything?'

The force works effortlessly on the "weak minded". but if the Prequels are anything to go by, 'weak minded' must mean 'low midi-chlorian count' or something... and why is it a racial attribute of Wattos race that they have an inherent immunity to mind tricks? He doesn't say "I’m too smart for that" it's a racial thing, or so the character claims. Therefore it must be safe to assume that midi-chlorians, being the real force sensitive creatures, choose who is affected and how. To some they dish out power, to others the dish out susceptibility to those powers to others they seem to grant neither (or choose not to live in).

The more questions you ask, the more are raised... How then are these things affecting each other? Obviously they are in control of who gets what, so how is it possible to control them. Why does the Jedi control them and not the other way around? Or do they control an individuals choice to be dark or light? And how does the whole mind trick thing work then?

Jedi uses power to control mind of another: Jedi tells midi-chlorians to inform the midi-chlorians in the other person to take control of victims mind, seizing all will, and then wait for instructions?

or do the midi-chlorians in someone like Watto stand as a defensive line in that scenario and say 'no deal'? and if they are indeed that powerful why do they not imbue Watto with powers?

Perhaps there are defensive midi-chlorians and offensive midi-chlorians, or more?

Once you apply a vague scientific explanation to something mystical it is your obligation to explain it. if you cannot, then you really shouldn't try.
Don’t apply Sci-Fi to fantasy if you know nothing about it!!! George Lucas not only destroyed one of the more fascinating aspects of his universe, but he failed to replace it with anything of real substance. It's not very professional... 'Plan 9 from outer space' didn't have plot holes that big.

This post has been edited by barend: 08 April 2005 - 01:33 AM

[Mnesymone]

Firstly - you mentioned Plan 9! HAH! The greatest masterpiece of Ed Wood - the most amusingly crap movie to grace the silver screen... (tears of joy)

Second - once you go into Midichlorian theory - and start unravelling Anakin's conception by midichlorians, the Toidorians resistance to mind tricks, the quantification of force strength, the midichlorians seeming ability to grant actual powers - like the ability to hurl droids - how does that work! - the more you find that George Lucas is a rare five-legged mongrel fismönkey. And he has a low midichlorian count.

[CowboyCurtis]

Making Watto Force resistant was a big fat cop-out! If Qui-Gon had, we would've circumvented the whole pod-race thing, etc. Lucas is such a frickin' loser.

When you look at it in the OT, "weak-minded" implies people with certain traits, i.e. people who seek base things are weak-minded, then wouldn't that attribute to Watto since he's greedy? Does that not make one "weak?"

It's ridiculous. It's a total lack of writing ability! I mean--MY GAWD---why didn't Lucas get a good script-writer---so what if Kasdan said NO when he asked---go find somebody else! Is that so HARD!? From the autobiography, it took Lucas a long time to write the first script (ANH). I'd rather than writing it over the weekend crap....

Anyway, back on topic, yes Midi-chlorians are one of the biggest downfalls of the "new" Star Wars. Making it quantifiable and physical just removes all mysticism and mystique from the series.

*sigh* It truly is over.

[Chefelf]

It's pretty much been summed up but let me add the following....

Midichlorians have to be the worst thing about the prequel movies. They tear up and destroy any conception of the Force that we think we may have. The problem is that it is completely unnecessary to the plot to involve a sort of scientific explanation of how this mystical thing works.

1.) Introducing this science calls into play a sort of real world physics and science that would have to be involved in all this "Force" nonsense.

2.) They attempt to simultaneously explain the mystical through science YET in the same movie talk about "the chose one", their power to use the Force diminishing and Anakin's virgin birth... all things that CAN'T be explained by science. While the chose one and the virgin birth would have been weak in any case, the introduction of this needless scientific explanation merely provides more continuity problems with this idea of midichlorians.

3.) The maindifference between modern mythology, fantasy and science fiction has long been that science fiction has always felt the need to linger on stupid science that has no bearing on reality. The worst parts of Star Trek are littered with made up words, preposterous explanations and scientific impossibilities. This is what has long left Star Wars out of the Sci-Fi genre and in a genre its own. Bringing midichlorians into the mix makes Star Trek and Star Wars more similar than they've ever been.

That's all for now... I have work to do.

[Lord Aquaman]

In a nutshell, we all agree that the midichlorians suck by virtue of the fact that they screw up the mysticism of the Force.

[Hannibal]

"Tiny invisible...microscopic mariocuomos"


Okay, why is it so hard to understand midichlorians? Its the Master Race Theory of George Lucas. Tiny little microscopic thingies in your blood...

If you have the right amount in your blood, you get to be a Jedi!
Hmm...Heinrich Himmler had a special blood test for his Teutonic Knights...

>Why take Anakin to Coruscant? >>"One basic principle must be the absolute rule for the SS (JEDI) we must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood and to nobody else. What the nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type we will take, if necessary by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us. "
--Heinrich Himmler


So, if you have a low sperm count, errr....I mean midichlorian count...you are either a Jew or you simply are too 'inferior' to be a Jedi.


If you listen close...you can hear them squeal...

yup...the will of the force...

They can eat a hundred times their own weight in five minutes. You know, you can only catch them at night. They make this horrible high-pitched
noise. Sort of a tiny little scream.

Oh my God! I dropped him in your ear.


We can't let it nest in there! They can multiply by masturbation! Now put your ear
as close as you can to the floor. It's the only way! Oh my God! - here's the Queen! No one's ever gotten one before. I've got to take this to Professor Flammering.

With a little luck, you could be the last to die a horrible death from this dreaded bug.

This post has been edited by Hannibal: 08 April 2005 - 01:46 PM

[ernesttomlinson]

Making Watto Force resistant was a big fat cop-out!  If Qui-Gon had, we would've circumvented the whole pod-race thing, etc.  Lucas is such a frickin' loser.

The whole idea of force-resistant creatures is lame from the get-go; significantly it was introduced in the weakest of the old movies, Return of the Jedi.

And so what if Watto couldn't be duped into taking Republic credits? Certainly there must be someone else on Tatooine whom Qui-Gon could have induced to change his worthless credits into "something more real" to pay Watto with.

But of course the whole scenario is contrived and full of holes. We can be pretty sure that it was just something Lucas faked up as an excuse for his LucasArts video game preview - uh, I mean, the exciting and suspenseful pod race sequence in which we learn that little Annie is such a genius.

To be fair we do see Qui-Gon using the "mind trick" in a subtler way when he's talking to the Gungan leader. Yeah, the idea of taking a ship through the "planet core" is terrible, but I think it's rather clever how the Boss seems to be repeating everything that Qui-Gon suggests until that little twist at the end when it becomes clear that the Gungan leader isn't being duped.

(Aside: as lame as the "planet core" idea in Episode I is, it's not half as bad as Total Recall: "The whole core of Mars is ice!")

[civilian_number_two]

Philosophically, the old Force was for everyone - it was a blessing offered by common folk to one another, it was a mystical energy field Ben was not above trying to explain to Han Solo. The old Force is egalitarian, social, libertarian, and dare I say socialist.

The new Force is derived from pure blood, not to be enjoyed by the weak. It is the centre of a struggle between great beings, whose minions are mere robots and clones, LITERALLY, whose deaths do not matter, while the loss of great ones we are asked to lament. The new Force, without even getting too much into the nonsense of the Midichlorians, is elitist, unsocial, restrictive, and dare I say fascist.

With the OLD Force, there was some promise when Luke survived the Death Satr and lived to teach the ways of the Jedi. With the new idea of the Force, Luke's survival is an ominous threat. A better ending for the common people of that galaxy would be for Luke and Leia to die, and for the Force to be no more.