Some "Fourthly" Thoughts
May. 4th, 2012 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerToday's of course the day when certain people start saying "May the Fourth be with you" to each other. I admit I'd headed off to work thinking I'd almost prefer one "opening day" or another later in the month to be commemorated, but at one of the start-of-the-day meetings somebody started off the phrase, and I at once completed it... The person explained his daughter was very much into Star Wars including Clone Wars right now, and when someone else said she'd never seen the movies the dual possibilities of watching in "production order" or "numerical order" were briefly touched on, with (to my private relief) no comments on sticking with just half for your own good...
Even before that, though, I had been reflecting on how I'd been contacted through my old connection to Saga Journal to help contribute towards answering a few questions for a reporter. I'm still waiting to see if the collected response was good enough to be quoted, but I did find myself reflecting on one just-perhaps "somehow typical" question, when we were asked if "midi-chlorians" were to be faulted for "demystifying the Force." Taking my "in the face of all-encompassing criticism, I suppose I've made myself seek out positive interpretations by default" position, I tried to give a brief answer to the effect of "I think that's jumping to a conclusion--isn't there something 'mystical' in having to 'listen' for 'the will of the Force'?" (I did wind up remembering a brief yet incisive comment by matril, but didn't go back to it at the time.) In the process, though, I did wind up wondering all over again if the complaints about "demystification" are somehow covering for a different objection to the new idea.
I'm willing to consider if, in Anakin asking for an explanation for himself, the core "landing platform" scene came across too much as "it's really an explanation for the audience" to people already on edge and critical. Beyond that, though, I've had the impression some were ready to jump to a different conclusion, that Anakin's high blood count somehow combined with him seeming to save the day later in the movie "by accident" to imply that all of a sudden the Force wasn't something characters had to "work" to develop their strength in.
In the two movies that followed, though, it did seem established that while Anakin does have a lot of strength in the Force, he's "not all-powerful" yet; that, of course, is the problem. I've also contemplated how Qui-Gon's first reaction to the high count wasn't "we've got a winner here!" but just "I don't know." (In the past, I suppose I took note of a suggestion or two he was somehow "an outlier" who "took too much interest" in the subject, but there I may have come up against an understanding of the importance of his general perspective being lost.) Yoda being the standard of comparison even makes me wonder a little if a count can increase with time and development. Beyond that, too, on a perhaps most fundamental level the suggestion (which might have wound up lost in all the fuss) that midichlorians aren't just "in the blood of Jedi" but "in all cells," as I believe Paul F. McDonald has pointed out, may even allow for a more inclusive connection to the Force than the old movies themselves ever implied. Many have hewn to the poetic simplicity of the Force being produced by "all living things," but there might still have been the question of how many of those producers had any amount of a "return connection" to it.
After all of that, though, and also the simple yet intriguing suggestion of "A Certain Point of View" that in introducing a bit more specificity George Lucas was indeed trying to keep people from obsessing too much on "the Force existing in real life," I've wondered if the concept came about in trying to suggest Anakin was "a child of prophecy" without resorting to the familiar ideas of "found in a specific place" or "doing a specific thing." No doubt, of course, it could be said "those ideas are familiar because they work." Perhaps, though, in always making the effort to be positive (which may, of course, in the end be a weakness) I'm more willing than some to give "points for trying something new."
Even before that, though, I had been reflecting on how I'd been contacted through my old connection to Saga Journal to help contribute towards answering a few questions for a reporter. I'm still waiting to see if the collected response was good enough to be quoted, but I did find myself reflecting on one just-perhaps "somehow typical" question, when we were asked if "midi-chlorians" were to be faulted for "demystifying the Force." Taking my "in the face of all-encompassing criticism, I suppose I've made myself seek out positive interpretations by default" position, I tried to give a brief answer to the effect of "I think that's jumping to a conclusion--isn't there something 'mystical' in having to 'listen' for 'the will of the Force'?" (I did wind up remembering a brief yet incisive comment by matril, but didn't go back to it at the time.) In the process, though, I did wind up wondering all over again if the complaints about "demystification" are somehow covering for a different objection to the new idea.
I'm willing to consider if, in Anakin asking for an explanation for himself, the core "landing platform" scene came across too much as "it's really an explanation for the audience" to people already on edge and critical. Beyond that, though, I've had the impression some were ready to jump to a different conclusion, that Anakin's high blood count somehow combined with him seeming to save the day later in the movie "by accident" to imply that all of a sudden the Force wasn't something characters had to "work" to develop their strength in.
In the two movies that followed, though, it did seem established that while Anakin does have a lot of strength in the Force, he's "not all-powerful" yet; that, of course, is the problem. I've also contemplated how Qui-Gon's first reaction to the high count wasn't "we've got a winner here!" but just "I don't know." (In the past, I suppose I took note of a suggestion or two he was somehow "an outlier" who "took too much interest" in the subject, but there I may have come up against an understanding of the importance of his general perspective being lost.) Yoda being the standard of comparison even makes me wonder a little if a count can increase with time and development. Beyond that, too, on a perhaps most fundamental level the suggestion (which might have wound up lost in all the fuss) that midichlorians aren't just "in the blood of Jedi" but "in all cells," as I believe Paul F. McDonald has pointed out, may even allow for a more inclusive connection to the Force than the old movies themselves ever implied. Many have hewn to the poetic simplicity of the Force being produced by "all living things," but there might still have been the question of how many of those producers had any amount of a "return connection" to it.
After all of that, though, and also the simple yet intriguing suggestion of "A Certain Point of View" that in introducing a bit more specificity George Lucas was indeed trying to keep people from obsessing too much on "the Force existing in real life," I've wondered if the concept came about in trying to suggest Anakin was "a child of prophecy" without resorting to the familiar ideas of "found in a specific place" or "doing a specific thing." No doubt, of course, it could be said "those ideas are familiar because they work." Perhaps, though, in always making the effort to be positive (which may, of course, in the end be a weakness) I'm more willing than some to give "points for trying something new."