![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Star Words: Part XXII
Aug. 10th, 2017 01:37 pmIt is clear to me now that the reasons I enjoy Star Wars are vastly different from the reasons many others enjoy Star Wars. They perceived the prequels as some sort of dramatic departure, or even betrayal, of what makes Star Wars Star Wars. I saw them as a natural extension of what already existed. They hate the very concept of midichlorians. I love it.
"They continually speak to us, telling as the will of the Force."
Earlier in the film, midichlorians are mentioned but not explained. We know only that their presence indicates something important to the Jedi, that Anakin's count is higher even than the great Master Yoda, and that Qui-Gon suspects the boy might have even been conceived by midichlorians. But now, with a simple question from Anakin, he explains their meaning. And I just love this scene, because it demonstrates Qui-Gon's patience and teaching ability, his gentle smiles and clarifications as Anakin looks more and more bewildered and incredulous. ("They live inside me" has a great wait, is this guy completely nuts??? kind of delivery.) It shows us what might have been, if only Qui-Gon had survived to be Anakin's master. Now there's no more mystery, and we understand the Force like any other mundane scientific principle.
Or not.
People complained the concept was too "science-y" and removed all the mysticism of the Force. I could counter that communing with unseen lifeforms with a sort of bond that must be felt rather than intellectually understood is just about as mystical as you can get. But I'm not going to focus on contentious arguments and counter-arguments. Instead, I'm going to explore why I love this addition to the Star Wars mythos and why it makes perfect sense, to me, as a logical extension of existing lore.
Again we have the preeminent theme of symbiosis, life forms living in harmony so they can derive mutual advantage from each other. There are planet-sized symbiont circles as seen with the Gungans and humans on Naboo, but there are also symbiont circles at the smallest microscopic level, in every living cell. It's beautiful.
Now, for the record, even though there's a strong mystical/magical/fantasy element to midichlorians, I'm perfectly happy with their scientific association. Biology is a rational realm of study, but it still fills me with a sense of awe and wonder. The name of midichlorians is obviously a reference to the real-world mitochondria, which perform the essential cellular task of metabolizing energy -- and which, far back in the evolutionary process, might have been a separate life form that engaged in symbiosis with larger organisms and ultimately became so entwined in their processes that it merged into a permanent organelle. Amazing, right? And that's hardly the only example of microscopic symbiosis. Our digestive system is an entire miniature ecosystem for microbes, and we've only just begun to explore the nature of our relationship with that vast network of symbionts, the unseen life forms we literally couldn't live without.
Okay, but maybe science isn't your thing. Star Wars is space fantasy; it's about wizards who can levitate and perform mind control and see the future. Well, yes. You know what else? They have a deep and reverent connection with living things. Obi-Wan describes the Force as "an energy field created by all living things." Yoda says, "Life creates it...makes it grow." The concept of the Force has always included this crucial element of connectedness between living things -- in other words, symbiosis.
And it makes sense that there would be some measurable way to determine a person's potential affinity with the Force. Potential, remember, not actual ability. Anakin has an off-the-charts midichlorian count, higher than Yoda, but he's not as powerful as Yoda...yet. He still has to be trained, to learn how to heed the whispers of the Force, to understand how to channel his powers. Even if he owes his very existence to midichlorians, that's still no guarantee that he'll be the greatest Jedi ever. It still takes work. I also like that it's never explicitly stated whether the midichlorians were actually responsible for Anakin's conception, nor what it truly means to be "the Chosen One;" whether he was meant to be conscious avatar of the Force, or just a cosmic accident foreseen by an ancient Jedi prophet, or something else entirely. It's much more interesting to speculate and explore the possibilities than to have everything spelled out, to have far-reaching questions that extend past a simple yes/no answer.
Also of note -- every life form has midichlorians. So even if your count is very low, you still have a connection to the Force. Not enough to become a Jedi, but enough for the Force to matter, for the phrase "May the Force be with you" to to be more than a meaningless rote expression. We are all part of the symbiont circle.
Next time will be another line from Qui-Gon, and all the more poignant because, though he doesn't know it, there's not much time left for him....
"They continually speak to us, telling as the will of the Force."
Earlier in the film, midichlorians are mentioned but not explained. We know only that their presence indicates something important to the Jedi, that Anakin's count is higher even than the great Master Yoda, and that Qui-Gon suspects the boy might have even been conceived by midichlorians. But now, with a simple question from Anakin, he explains their meaning. And I just love this scene, because it demonstrates Qui-Gon's patience and teaching ability, his gentle smiles and clarifications as Anakin looks more and more bewildered and incredulous. ("They live inside me" has a great wait, is this guy completely nuts??? kind of delivery.) It shows us what might have been, if only Qui-Gon had survived to be Anakin's master. Now there's no more mystery, and we understand the Force like any other mundane scientific principle.
Or not.
People complained the concept was too "science-y" and removed all the mysticism of the Force. I could counter that communing with unseen lifeforms with a sort of bond that must be felt rather than intellectually understood is just about as mystical as you can get. But I'm not going to focus on contentious arguments and counter-arguments. Instead, I'm going to explore why I love this addition to the Star Wars mythos and why it makes perfect sense, to me, as a logical extension of existing lore.
Again we have the preeminent theme of symbiosis, life forms living in harmony so they can derive mutual advantage from each other. There are planet-sized symbiont circles as seen with the Gungans and humans on Naboo, but there are also symbiont circles at the smallest microscopic level, in every living cell. It's beautiful.
Now, for the record, even though there's a strong mystical/magical/fantasy element to midichlorians, I'm perfectly happy with their scientific association. Biology is a rational realm of study, but it still fills me with a sense of awe and wonder. The name of midichlorians is obviously a reference to the real-world mitochondria, which perform the essential cellular task of metabolizing energy -- and which, far back in the evolutionary process, might have been a separate life form that engaged in symbiosis with larger organisms and ultimately became so entwined in their processes that it merged into a permanent organelle. Amazing, right? And that's hardly the only example of microscopic symbiosis. Our digestive system is an entire miniature ecosystem for microbes, and we've only just begun to explore the nature of our relationship with that vast network of symbionts, the unseen life forms we literally couldn't live without.
Okay, but maybe science isn't your thing. Star Wars is space fantasy; it's about wizards who can levitate and perform mind control and see the future. Well, yes. You know what else? They have a deep and reverent connection with living things. Obi-Wan describes the Force as "an energy field created by all living things." Yoda says, "Life creates it...makes it grow." The concept of the Force has always included this crucial element of connectedness between living things -- in other words, symbiosis.
And it makes sense that there would be some measurable way to determine a person's potential affinity with the Force. Potential, remember, not actual ability. Anakin has an off-the-charts midichlorian count, higher than Yoda, but he's not as powerful as Yoda...yet. He still has to be trained, to learn how to heed the whispers of the Force, to understand how to channel his powers. Even if he owes his very existence to midichlorians, that's still no guarantee that he'll be the greatest Jedi ever. It still takes work. I also like that it's never explicitly stated whether the midichlorians were actually responsible for Anakin's conception, nor what it truly means to be "the Chosen One;" whether he was meant to be conscious avatar of the Force, or just a cosmic accident foreseen by an ancient Jedi prophet, or something else entirely. It's much more interesting to speculate and explore the possibilities than to have everything spelled out, to have far-reaching questions that extend past a simple yes/no answer.
Also of note -- every life form has midichlorians. So even if your count is very low, you still have a connection to the Force. Not enough to become a Jedi, but enough for the Force to matter, for the phrase "May the Force be with you" to to be more than a meaningless rote expression. We are all part of the symbiont circle.
Next time will be another line from Qui-Gon, and all the more poignant because, though he doesn't know it, there's not much time left for him....
