Jedi bashing?

[Neville]

Personally, I don't think the "midichlorians" theory was a n"oooops" by George Lucas, but the best solution he could find to avoid polemics. Notice that if you take out the "midichlorians" theory it results that Annakin was born by a sort of divine conception. Probably lucas doesn't have any problem with this (remember: he wrote the whole thing in the 70's), but now we are in PC age, so he may have added as a last moment patch to avoid criticism from fundamentalist christians.

[Jay O'Connor]

Actually, from someone who would probably be considered a "fundamentalist Christian" by many, the complaint I hear with the community is that the Force is "too new-agey" a concept to be comfortable.  I don't think a nod to a 'divine conception' origin for Anakin would've really made it any worse.

I think the 'divine conception' angle again raises the same problems, with or without the midichlorians.  It again raises the spectre that history is being guided by the unseen hand of the Force.  Personally, I don't have a problem with that, but in the Star Wars universe, it contridicts things said by Obi-wan to Luke.

Adding the midichlorians just switches the agent from the Force, to the midichlorians

What I really think is that Lucas was borrowing from the "Power Of Myth" concepts as repeating mythologies from different cultures, especially with the 'savior born of divine means' and where it ends up is showing some fairly obvious differences between a montheistic viewpoint and a deistic viewpoint that are not really reconcibly.

I don't have a problem setting aside my own beliefs in taking a story on its own terms, but I wish it would stay a bit more consitant :)

[Newt]

Aside from the theological inconsistencies, I could buy the Force 'wanting' balance, just as gravity 'wants' us to fall down...but little bio-nanobots running the universe (as the 'motive force' - sorry!)...well...an all-pervasive, all-powerful hive-mind entity WOULD tend to add that missing element of SF to the story...

What came first?  Was Lucas really conciously following Campbell's formula for his myth, or did the two of them discuss the parallels after the fact?  Any story involving a hero is going to follow the familiar lines - that's the point of Campbell's work, isn't it?  Campbell seemed genuinely tickled that Star Wars fit so well - and he did visit with Lucas at his ranch after the film came out...

[Law Dog]

It's interesting that most of us who watched genre movies and television as children had the same idea about the crap that was put into these movies and shows to supposedly appeal to us. I detested the Ewoks. I would have loved a planet full of primal Wookies ripping the stormtroopers to shreads instead of a bunch of stupid looking teddy bears.

I can remember as a child watching Superfriends and  wondering why the hell they put in Wendy, Marvin and Wonder Dog and later Zan and Jayna. I didn't want to identify with these losers (Form of Water, indeed!). I found myself identifying with the guy in the blue tights that could move the planet.

Hollywood needs to learn that we didn't want lame kid sidekicks and stupid, silly animals. Chances are the kids today don't either.

[Neo]

I am all for Lucas handing over the reins for the last three films so long as it is to someone in the calibur of Irvin Kershner and not Richard Marquand. We need more of the films to be like Empire and less like Muppets in Spac .. er .. RotJ.

-Neo-