Headscratchers / Star Wars The Force

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Force religion

• Why is knowledge of the Force referred to as a religion? For one, it's been scientifically proven, through the existence of midi-chlorians that it's not a religion, it's a science. Additionally, one of the main reasons religions are that, religions, is because there's no way to convince everyone. But the force...Vader uses the force on that guy, (Motti, I think?) basically proving that it's true....
  • I don't think this "basically proves that Jesus is real."
  • Knowledge of the Force isn't a religion. Using the Force and being a Jedi is the "religion". Also, I sorta resent the implication here that "religion" means "you can't prove it" or "it’s not true."
  • Then you are just resenting grammar. "You can't prove it" is built in the very definition of faith... as for "it’s not true," it's just a question of how credulous you are.
  • It's the simple premise that "religion=faith unsubstantiated by reason based on dogmatic tradition, science=testable and based on tradition of trial and error and records thereof." Jedi kinda sit on the fence— they're too based-on-what-can-be-proven-practical and substantiated by reason to fit real-world religious definitions, but far too dogmatic and spiritual about it to be scientists.
  • It may be true in real life that there is no real-world evidence for religion, but there is nothing inherent about the concept that says this needs to be the case. Plenty of religions have myths about their gods or prophets performing miracles, so if you accept that the mythology is true (which it clearly is in the case of the Force) then there must have been a time when real-world evidence was readily available and there is no reason in principle why the gods couldn't start up again.
  • The Force is a real, natural, observable and provable phenomenon in Star Wars, yes. But the Jedi and the Sith both have a bunch of dogmatic beliefs about it and how it should be used and how to live life and stuff, and that makes their practices religious; Jedi teachings in particular resemble Buddhism. So it's like sun worship or something, where the sun is real, but the rituals and adoration are religious.
  • I would agree with the above. The more precise comparison is "totemic religion" of the sort discussed by Durkheim in the Elementary Forms of A Religious Life. If we understand religion as "A system of collective representations, accepted by a moral community (Durkheim calls this a Church), that seeks to provide some kind of coherent framework for understanding what's around us," then Jedi is definitely a religion. The point is that religion is not defined by the presence of the supernatural.
  • Or to put it another way: certain individuals have the potential to develop telekinetic and psychic abilities, along with some enhanced physical abilities. That much is certain. Whether that ability translates to an "all powerful Force controlling everything," as Han puts it, that's divided between the Light and The Dark Side in a cosmic struggle for dominance over the galaxy is another matter. And since the Jedi are so few compared to the galaxy's population, it's easy to imagine that the vast majority of people have never seen one, and dismiss the stories of their Force powers as just overblown urban legends.
  • Also considering that after the Purge there were only two known Force users (besides Vader), both of whom were in hiding and both victims of a government conspiracy, it makes a lot of sense. Palpatine probably spread a lot of misleading propaganda about the Jedi during the Purge too.
  • Only people who are ignorant of the Force (like Han and the Imperial officer who Vader chokes) call it a religion (well, and Tarkin does, but he seems to genuinely respect Vader). Jedi themselves or people who know them well never do.
  • Really? "You thought that the corrupted remnants of the Republic, the machines spawned by technology that Revan led into battle were the Sith? You are wrong. The Sith is a belief. And its empire, the true Sith Empire, rules elsewhere."
  • The Jedi HQ on Coruscant was referred to as the "Jedi Temple", and Chancellor Palpatine addresses the members of the Jedi Council as "Your Graces". So it is pretty obvious that at least during the late Republic the Jedi were perceived as some kind of clergy, albeit of a non-theistic religion.
  • I think "religion" is just the best word they could think of to describe it. It's sortof a...life philosophy combined with an organisation. Kinda how religions involve a philosphy (e.g. here's what we think about god(s) and morality and existence) and usually an organisation (here's the specific church we've set up with some priests and whatnot). Note that simply using the Force does not make you a Jedi; you have to ascribe to the values and principles of the Jedi too.
  • Earthquakes and rainbows are real, detectable physical phenomena that can be analysed scientifically. That's never stopped Real Life religious people from believing that an earthquake is the Wrath of God or that a rainbow is a reminder that He promised not to drown us all in another hissy-fit.

Force Storms

• Why didn't Darth Sidious Force Storm the Rebel base?
  • "Force Storms" are an Extended Universe phenomena that doesn't exist in the films (where Palpatine can do Force lightning, but that's about it).
  • Which Rebel base? Throughout the whole trilogy, he's never anywhere near the bases we see.
  • This gets into the realm of, "Is the Expanded Universe canon?", sort of argument. In the Expanded Universe Palpatine showcases the claim that he is the most powerful Sith in galactic history by creating something called Force Storms, which as the name implies are storms of pure Force energy that function like tornadoes that consume and destroy everything in their path. The most powerful display of this power was able to destroy an entire fleet of Star Ships, which brings up the question that if he could destroy space fleets then the Emperor should have been able to end the Galactic War with the Rebellion all by himself. If you don't acknowledge the EU then you don't have to ask this sort of question and can just say that even the Emperor can't take on armies entirely by himself.
  • "This gets into the realm of, "Is the Expanded Universe canon?", sort of argument." Doesn't matter, since it isn't an argument at all. The EU is canon. Period. The end. Lucas and his representatives have been quite clear on this issue. Any element of the Expanded Universe that doesn't contradict the films and hasn't been retconned by a later EU work is canon with both the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy. Regarding the Force Storm issue, Sidious is not omniscient. He can't send a Force Storm against a Rebel base or Rebel fleet he doesn't know about. Force Storms are incredibly powerful but also incredibly difficult to create and even harder to control. They're not something you can just wish into being with a snap of a finger. Even Sidious himself once admitted that once summoned he could not fully control a Force Storm. If he can get the same job done with a more conventional fleet of ships, there's no reason not to.
  • Except that this is self-evidently untrue: way too many things, including many that are critical plot-points, in the Expanded Universe contradict what happened in the movies for this not to be an argument at all, regardless of what Lucas or his representatives say.
  • Also, now invalidated since Lucas sold the franchise to Disney. It has been officially stated that the new sequel movies will not be following the EU canon. So effectively everything from the EU just got kicked to a curb in a parallel universe.
  • The most likely answer seems to be that he just considered the Rebellion too trivial to waste that much power on and/or mundane scheming against them was just more fun for him. He certainly doesn't take the Rebels seriously at all in Jedi, because he considers his plan airtight enough there's no way for them to be an actual threat.
  • Besides, Palpatine has to know roughly where to send his power —no use accidentally blowing up his own Death Star— and also, why waste effort on a small movement like that, when your biggest problem is probably (if he is cunning) to be focusing on eradicating Starkiller, the guy who, oh yeah, started the Rebellion, nearly killed Vader and Sidious singlehandedly, and blew up a Star Destroyer without even trying very hard? Who cares about a little group of miscreants?
  • On the other hand, if the Emperor can singlehandedly crush fleets of ships, one wouldn't expect the Imperial officers to be so flippant about his "ancient religion" and the limitations of the power it grants.
  • Pretty sure that the Expanded Universe establishes that it wasn't widely known that the Emperor was a Force-user, and in any case, he rarely used his abilities to their flashiest extent, at least before his rebirth in Dark Empire. It's probable that even the officers aboard the Death Star didn't know the full extent of his power (taunting Vader, who does use his telekinesis at least both frequently and publicly, and is known to be both a Sith and an ex-Jedi, is still stupid).
  • It's also worth remembering that Palpatine typically doesn't use his Force abilities when simple deception and manipulation suffice. Which is more useful to him, personally? The lives and ships of his troops, or his facade as a crippled old man? The destruction of the original Death Star barely slowed him down, but Luke forgot Yoda's advice about underestimating the Emperor, to his peril.
• There are many instances of the Power Creep, Power Seep of the EU making the films or other material not make sense but this isn't actually one of them; Word of God is that Palpatine can't create Force storms, they're a rare result of two very powerful Force-users struggling mentally.

Robotic arms and Force Lightning

• So why is it that Vader's robotic arms make it impossible for him to perform Force Lightning? The explanations I have heard is that if Vader were to generate it then it would short-circuit his arms and render them useless or that any lightning he generates would somehow reflect back on him and short-circuit his entire suit and cause him to suffocate to death without his iron lung functioning. The problem I have with the first is that it is quite possible to offer some form of protection against electrical pulses shorting out machinery, in our own world we have made EMP resistant technology so Vader should have something similar. The problem I have with the second is that a projectile shouldn't be reflecting back on you unless an opponent deflected it, beams of energy aren't like boomerangs, but the iron lung having to constantly keep Vader alive is understandably not capable of being reinforced with its already sensitive electronics so it being shorted out makes sense were he to be hit with it which is why he dies in Return of the Jedi.
  • I don't know of the movies themselves (remember, this is an Headscratchers page about the movies and the movies alone) ever establishing that he's incapable of Force lightning, but if he is then I think that's likelier to be due to the Emperor never teaching him than to anything involving his cybernetic condition. The master must reserve some tricks for himself lest the pupil learn too much.
  • Well the EU establishes that he can't, but from just a movie perspective the fact that we never see Vader use it seems to suggest there is something preventing him. Not that it really matters since Vader has 80% of the Emperor's strength and can do such amazing things as Force choking a guy on an entirely different space ship, he doesn't really need Force lightning but it would be nice if he could.
  • From the archives:
    The emotion for Force-choking someone is "I hate you specifically so much I want you to die twice." The emotion for Force lightning, a far less precise and discriminatory use of the Dark Side, is "I'M SO MAD I'MA GONNA BREAK EVERYTHING URRRAAAGH".
    This explains why Darth Vader can't use it — not just that his cyborg body can't handle it, but he's also way too mopey and tormented inside to indulge in Palpatine's exultant break-everything gleeful rages. Palpatine smiles, cackles, expresses sheer exultant anti-joy at the pleasure of being evil *all the time* ; Vader, by contrast, never seems happy at all.
  • You didn't sense a bit of wry amusement at finding Admiral Motti’s lack of faith disturbing?
  • More specifically, the overwhelming majority of Vader's hate is directed at himself. He can Force-choke by hating someone specifically if he tries hard and focuses on them, but if he tried just letting all the hate out, since most of his hate is for himself rather than the world in general, he'd just electrocute himself, as opposed to Palpatine, who hates everything except himself.
  • If the emotion is "I'M SO MAD I'MA GONNA BREAK EVERYTHING URRRAAAGH", then how the hell can you aim it?
  • By pointing your fingers, obviously.
  • Is it necessarily your fingers? I haven't thought of that until now. It doesn't make any sense that The Force would just somehow gravitate to one particular spot on one's anatomy. Is it possible, for example, for a Sith to fire lightning out of his ass? Now that I'd like to see!
  • Chalk it up to Pstandard Psychic Pstance; from a mental/subconscious standpoint it’s much easier to aim something if you point at the target and from a visual standpoint it conveys the action much better than shooting it from your elbows or something.
  • It seems to head towards the nearest living being. At the end of Return of the Jedi, when Vader picks up Palpatine, the Force lightning loops back on itself after leaving Palpatine's arms to strike Vader.
  • Amusingly, The Force Unleashed II shows that Vader can use Force lightning, and it appears to come out of his armpits.
  • No, he's redirecting the natural lightning found on Kamino. Vader can obviously redirect lightning or you could kill him with a single shock; he's subconsciously blocking all the time.
  • Since the Force comes from living things, you need living limbs to serve as conduits through which the lightning flows. If Vader tried to use Force lightning, it would have to go through from his stumps and through his cybernetic arms, which would screw them up.
  • Someone wrote earlier that this page is just for the movies alone, but other questions clearly indicate that they can be about matters regarding and/or drawing from the EU to answer, so let’s go with that.

Force Performers

• Silly question I know but are there any Force performers in the Galaxy? I mean are there people who use the Force for the sake of entertainment like in a circus or something? Also there isn't much mention of Jedi or Sith using their powers for recreational purposes, it is like these people don't have a life outside of battling to the death for the cosmic balance between Good and Evil.
  • I doubt there are, I get the feeling that the Force is considered a bit too 'sacred' to use for mere entertainment. There are IMO perfectly legitimate non-battle uses for it though, like pilots, engineers, doctors, that sort of thing, which would not only garner public support, but would also be a way to help fund the Order. Think about the way it works in Anne McCaffrey's 'Pegasus' series (not so much the 'Tower and Hive' one, by then they seem practically godly).
  • The EU actually has something called the Jedi Service Corps which does just that sort of thing - medical services, disaster relief, deep space exploration. Most of the members are apprentices who failed their training at some point and chose it as an alternative to leaving the Order so they aren't as skilled as full Knights, but they can still use the Force. Beyond that though it seems that Force sensitives with useful levels of ability are just so rare that they can't spare the manpower for anything beyond their peacekeeping/diplomatic duties (and even then they're stretched).
  • It's usually the other way around. It's not that people learn the Force and then become awesome circus performers, it's that awesome circus performers are often subconsciously also Force users. It's how Luke finds a lot of his potential students in the EU books that take place right after the original trilogy... he goes looking for people that are said to be extremely naturally gifted at things like animal training, piloting, acrobatics, etc.

Leia, Vader, and the Force

• Luke declares that his sister Leia is powerful with the Force, and she has three kids that are all strong with the Force. Yet she gets captured and has an up close and personal meeting with Vader during which he drugs and tortures her and he never has the slightest idea that she's a) kin or b) powerful with the Force.
  • You have to either actively look for a person's Force potential (it involves psychic probing of the mind, as I recall; you don't actively emit Force waves and can't judge power from a distance like with Dragon Ball ki levels) or use a midi-chlorian scanner, neither of which would have occurred to Vader to use, since as far as he knew, she was the daughter of Bail Organa and he had no reason to doubt it. So, probing her for Force potential would be a waste of time- it isn't policy to do it for every ID-confirmed adult prisoner, after all, or even any, as far as I know (what scanners they have are mostly used on Jedi-hunts and Emperor's Hand searches). As for her being kin... again, why would it occur to him to look?
  • He picked out his other kid on another ship. Granted, Luke is a trained Force user, but it seems like if there were any circumstances under which a latent talent might in some way manifest itself, drugged torture would be it. Plus, it just bugs me that he has this mystical connection to one kid while the other is literally invisible to him.
  • His other kid who a bit of basic detective work would have revealed to be named Luke Skywalker and living with Owen and Beru Lars, and was actively using the Force in front of Vader. He probably knew what to look for with Luke, and was expecting it, and probably would have dismissed it as a coincidence if he hadn't been able to back it up with stormtrooper investigation records.
  • Vader felt the pilot who destroyed the Death Star use the Force, afterwards Vader interrogated a Rebel Alliance officer to find out the name of the pilot and he told him that his name was Luke Skywalker. Vader realized that it would be a one in a million coincidence for a pilot to both know how to use the Force and have the same last name as him, he put two and two together and realised that his son was alive. Leia never used the Force in his presence and not knowing how to use it she wouldn't give off any sort of Force signature anyway, so that is why he never realized that Leia was his daughter until he probed Luke's mind and found it out in Return of the Jedi.
  • Leia is good at keeping secrets (if she wasn't good at it, she wouldn't have been given the task of secretly carrying the Death Star plans to the Rebel base.) She calmly lies to Vader's face when he first confronts her. She successfully resists the mind probe. Later on she comes up with the "Dantooine" lie even though she's under duress. And Vader is standing right there, and he apparently can't sense that she's lying! Considering all that secrecy and deception, I imagine that she's also subconsciously shielding her own Force presence, even though she's not aware of her latent powers. I bet the Force helped her resist the mind probe too, once again without her conscious knowledge.

Luke using Force Choke

• The Force Choke is a Sith/evil technique, isn't it? So why does Luke use it nonchalantly on the pig guards at Jabba's Palace?
  • I think the idea that Force Choke as a purely evil technique was more a development in the EU by people who saw Vader choking the crap out of people but missed Luke's own actions. Currently, at least in the RPGs, Force Choke is a neutral power, just one that's easily abused towards the Dark Side. Luke is effectively using a telekinetic choke hold to disable his opponents non-lethally, while Vader is actively trying to crush his victims' windpipes. Luke just incapacitates the guards and releases them once they're no longer a threat, whereas Vader uses the choke to either kill people, or intimidate people by threatening to kill them.
  • The idea of Force techniques being outright evil from the start is stupid and very shortsighted. It should always be based on the intent of one's heart rather than the technique itself, for example the Force Lightning technique that Palpatine uses could easily be used to jump-start someone's heart if they were dying. Besides you mean to tell me that using the Force to telekinetically throw someone across the room isn't "evil"? Not if that "evil" is being directed against a villain it isn't, that application of the Force to fight evil should be considered good.
  • Sith Lightning isn't actually lightning- it's the raw energy of the Dark Side, weaponised, and only superficially resembles electricity. I highly doubt it could restart someone's heart, and if any Force technique can freely be labelled "evil", it's this one. Choking someone, however, is just a particular application of telekinesis, one of the most standard powers in any Force-user's repertoire. Considering Luke didn't do any lasting damage to the guards, and in fact only used the power as long as it took to get past them, I doubt it was a problem.
  • Force Lightning can be used to defibrillate - it was used to keep Grievous alive until they could weld him together - but it's still considered an evil power because it is literally fueled by anger and hate. Hating someone to death is possibly the purest expression of the Dark Side you can get. As for the Force Choke, it generally comes across as Dark-Sided because instead of, say, delivering a pressure to an artery that renders them unconscious quickly, you're slowly and deliberately asphyxiating them, a process that cannot be fun (unless they happen to be into that, but most targets of a Force Choke presumably aren't).
  • Force Choke can easily be construed as a neutral technique, but even if it is inherently evil, well... Luke might not know that. And since RoTJ involves Luke being tempted to join the Dark Side, it's actually kind of chilling to see him casually use an evil technique at one point. It sorta indicates that there's a little bit of darkness in him, a little bit of room for temptation.
  • In fairness to Luke, he's not using the Force to strangle the pig guards until they asphyxiate. He gives them a quick squeeze, just long enough to cut off their wind, then lets them go.
  • I'd argue that Force Choke isn't even a specific technique, much less a Sith or Jedi one. It's just a specific application of the more general telekenetic force abilities. Compare grabbing and squeezing a ball to just grabbing and throwing it for example.

Force Heal

• Force Heal seems to appear erratically. In the original trilogy, it makes no appearance, though that can be for the most part explained by the fact that there's never an opportunity to use it. It doesn't appear in the prequel trilogy either, except for Darth Plagueis, who seems to have an extra-special version of it, and by Vader to himself in III, which raises the question of why Anakin didn't use it on himself after chucking Palpatine down the shaft. Other than that, it appears in video games as a power, including in KOTOR, when it's clearly an actual Jedi power and not just a game technique like a health/Force bar. Why does it only appear when the plot wants it to?
  • Not all Jedi are healers; haven't played KOTOR, but in the EU books, it's presented as a fairly specialised power. Also, pretty sure Vader felt he deserved to die at the end of RotJ- after killing the Emperor and reconciling with Luke, he has nothing left to live for.
  • Force skills don't just appear. They have to be learned, just like anything else. Luke probably had no clue how to Force heal, and Anakin probably was not very good at it and may have wanted to die anyway.
  • Couldn't Obi-Wan have tried it on Qui-Gon at the end of Episode I or Padmé at the end of episode III, though?
  • What makes you think he could do it at all?
  • In the early EU novel Truce at Bakura, Luke muses that he'll have to recreate the lost art of Jedi healing to recover from lingering effects of Palpatine's Force Lightning attack. The fact that it was used nowhere else in the movies or TV shows (that I recall, anyway), demonstrates that it's already an incredibly rare ability, if it even exists in canon at all, and completely lost by the time Luke is last of the Jedi. As for its prevalence in video games, well, of course video games have access to unrealistically fast healing powers. Star Wars actually had an enforced Gameplay and Story Segregation trope, where while the events of a game were considered canon, the mechanics were not. So a Rebel Commando named Kyle Katarn did, indeed, thwart the Empire's Dark Trooper project, he just did it without a personal shield belt that allowed him to take a dozen blaster shots to the face.
  • Darth Plagueis isn't said to have the ability to heal people, he's said to have the ability to save them from death (which is extremely vague and could mean anything, including resuscitation) and to create life, which is not the same thing as healing. Anakin never learned how to do it in the movie and Palpatine all but admits that he doesn't really know how to do it either, and he's the one who claimed he could teach it to Anakin. Anakin definitely did not know how to use this ability when he died, even if Darth Plagueis once did. Obi-Wan had almost certainly never even heard of it, since according to Palpatine it's a long-lost Sith technique. Obi-Wan and Anakin may have known how to heal minor wounds, but probably nothing fatal - that's why Jedi have doctors just like everyone else.
  • I think, in the CG Clone Wars series, the Daughter had the ability to use the Force to heal. She appeared to use some kind of healing power on the Father after he'd been attacked by the Son. Though she did comment that the Father still needed to rest in order to recover completely from the attack.

Non-Force Sensitive = Sitting Duck?

• How is it that Non-Force Sensitives even stand a ghost of a chance against even a minimally trained Force Sensitive of either of the three sides? I mean, at their most basic level Force Sensitives have the ability to move objects with their minds, and that's just the start. How could NonFS possibly hope to win against a FS when they could rip their spines out of their bodies, cause a brain aneurysm, or just trip the NonFS up with but a thought? The FS's Telekinesis powers are enough as it is, but when we start getting into the countless other powers that FS have to the point where they border Imagination-Based Superpower when they're fully trained the idea that a NonFS could even escape with their lives not to mention win gets even more ridiculous.
  • Because it takes an insane amount of concentration to move stuff. Look how long it took Yoda, one of the most powerful Jedi, to move Luke's X-Wing. I'd imagine trying to focus on something as small as a spine would take some concentration as well. Also, most Jedi don't know much more than your basic Force maneuvers, hence why you don't see Anakin Force shielding himself when it would be useful. Also it takes time to do all those Force powers. And in a combat situation, you can't afford to stand still and concentrate for even three seconds or you get gunned down. Hence why, most Jedi fighting rely on lightsabers and the occasional Force Push.
  • Considering how when Force users fight, they fire off Force abilities constantly, sense, then dodge or block several attacks from all directions at once, slice up enemies left and right, and all without doing any noticeable concentration in all Star Wars media (games especially, but all of them really) including their apprentices/acolytes/whatever the Order their in calls it's least trained members, I'm not sure that holds water. Force Users vs Force Users is understandable, since they can generate Force barriers against each other's attacks, but Non-Force Users don't have anything to protect them from the Force.
  • Let's take a look at the video games to get a good idea of how things can go down. When a skilled gamer is playing, they're cutting down every enemy and getting their objective done without taking a single hit. When a less talented gamer is playing, they're going to take a couple of hits and stumble here and there. It's a thing where you have the more combat talented Force users who are literal one-man armies and then those who aren't that good. Even Luke struggled during Han's rescue after getting some training from Yoda.
  • Numbers, firepower, durability, and the fact that most Force users don't rip out spines, trip with a thought, or cause brain aneurysms. If you look at most Force-wielding characters across the movies, they usually generally have broad telekinesis powers and can deflect blaster bolts with lightsabers. Against that, any enemy with enough manpower or firepower can defeat them. Force users are powerful, but they can't block the blasters of several dozen men shooting them at once or deflect a turbo-laser bolt.
  • ^ Exactly. Jedi aren't supermen. They're not bulletproof and it's a challenge for them to take on even a handful of blaster wielding goons. Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Mace and them are some of the most powerful Jedi ever. That's why they're on the Council; because they know how to embrace the Force. Most Jedi are not nearly as powerful, example being every Jedi without a name in the Battle of Geonosis.
  • Might want to rephrase that; with the Expanded Universe being what it is, every damn Jedi in the Battle of Geonosis has a name and at least a page of backstory.
  • Not true. A lot of them do but Wookieepedia has a whole page devoted to unidentified Jedi at the Battle of Geonosis.
  • No, Jedi aren't Supermen, but my point is, with what they are capable of, they should pretty much be exactly that. A Force user vs a non Force user should always end in a Curbstomp Battle of epic proportions in the Force user's favor every time. It just seems ridiculous to me that Jedi, Sith or whatever can possibly lose to non Force users, especially considering how it doesn't take "an insane amount of concentration" to use Force abilities in pretty much any Star Wars media, especially in the EU. A first year student can move objects around, then we get into Padawans, Knights and then Masters, who have had years worth of training and can move objects in less than a second just by thinking about it, maybe gesturing with their hands a little at most, not to mention jumping several stories in the air, shooting lightning from their hands, and so forth, all with only a minimal amount of effort required on their part. I noticed it's more of a lack of tactical thinking when using their abilities on the Force user's part when up against a non Force user than anything else as far as I've seen. A Force user should be able to practically just snap their fingers and kill a non Force user, but I suppose if they did that then non Force users would be pointless to have around at all wouldn't they?
  • Actually according to the EU, attacking living beings with the Force itself is apparently more difficult than using the Force to move objects around ie; it's easier for them to throw around a rock than it is to throw around a person. It's also possible that the using Force powers is like a video game: they don't just have a bottomless pool of Force Energy they can use, they have a finite amount, which would likely recharge, but not necessarily as quickly as a video game. My point is that most trained Force users probably hold back on their full potential unless they actually need to use it.
  • The EU credits Force-Users with a lot of abilities not in evidence in the films, even the prequels, where better effects technology and more complete training meant the Jedi could be a lot flashier. A lot of EU authors seemed to take Vader's Badass Boast that "the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force" a little too literally, taking it to mean that a Force user really could just snap their fingers and make anything imaginable happen. In the films, Jedi are a lot more limited. They rarely exhibit fine telekinetic control; in fact, if memory serves, Anakin is about the only one to move something smaller than a human-sized object with any amount of finesse. Usually, we only see Jedi yanking something to their hand (usually their lightsabers), and even that could be under extenuating circumstances because a Jedi uses the Force to construct their own lightsaber, making it spiritually a part of them. Aside from jumping really high (not really that impressive of a superpower when you think about it), the only ability they all seem to have in common is their attack-anticipation abilities, and it would seem that a sufficiently skilled gunman (Jango Fett) can even get around that. The myth that all Jedi are one-being powerhouses of unstoppable destruction is just that: a myth.
  • Adding to the above, the Jedi and Sith are still living beings. The three most common tactics were to A) attack with something that they can't reliably stop (Explosives, Fire, chemicals, or kinetic weapons like bullets or darts), B) Tied to the above, compromise their mental state by preying on things like a Jedi's duty to protect life (for example, shooting at or taking a hostage) or a Sith's emotional volatility (needling them into losing their focus), and C) mass firepower (for example a turbolaser barrage or large group of soldiers all opening fire at once). Besides that, things like ambushes (sniping them from ultra long range, setting explosives, etc), killing them in a way their skills can't effectively counter (shooting down a ship they're on, or collapsing a large enough object on their head), and similar tactics were also effective.

Force Lightning and Dooku

• It's mentioned above that the emotion for Force lightning amounts to "I'M SO MAD IMA GONNA BREAK EVERYTHING URAAAAGH", i.e. blind, uncontrolled rage. If that's the case, how the hell is the calm and collected Dooku able to bust it out during his duel with Anakin/Obi-Wan and Yoda in Attack of the Clones?
  • Presumably, carefully cultivated and directed malice. Note, however, that Dooku's lightning appears far less powerful than the sadistic Palpatine's; indeed, most EU sources that get inside Dooku's head show him to be quite the cold fish (to the point of outright sociopathy in some descriptions), which combined with his age would have likely made him a poor choice for a long-term Sith apprentice (but as a placeholder...).
  • Also, it doesn't have to be explosive rage, necessarily. Just anger. Dooku may simply be channeling a more cold, focused anger (something more along the lines of "How dare you pathetic commoners deign to raise a weapon against a Count of Serrano"), rather than a hot-blooded, unfocused RAGE. Thus why, perhaps, his lightning is more focused and less intense.

Force evolution

• As the Force gives those sensitive to it powerful, advantageous abilities like telekinesis, telepathy, mind control, and precognition, and Force-sensitivity seems to be at least partially heritable (such as Anakin Skywalker's children also being strong in the Force, implied to be so because their father was), why was it not selected for in many sentient species? As the films and books would seem to have it, Force-sensitive sentient beings appear to make up a small fraction of most sentient species, with some exceptions like the Sith species. Perhaps in the past Force-sensitivity was a lot more common, but when the Jedi started accepting the vast majority of Force-sensitive babies into the Order (in the novel Darth Plagueis, it's suggested that 99% of all Force-sensitive sentient beings are part of the Jedi Order or its auxiliary units like the Agricultural Corps, during a discussion of someone using the Force to cheat in casinos) and forbade attachments, that led to a de-selecting process as nearly all Force-sensitives stopped producing children?
  • Jedi are still allowed to have sex and reproduce, just not have families or other loved ones. So they can have children, but if you're told that you have to abandon them because of your code and have direct 'orders' to not love them any more than any other being, you might be discouraged to have any regardless, plus the time being a Jedi takes from your life and the dedication required making it hard to be around anyway. One master practiced polygamy because of his species' low birth rates and even lower Force-sensitive birth rate, but this was said to be a special case and was from a figure box blurb.
  • Even with the midi-chlorians explanation, the Force transcends simple biology. Force-Sensitivity (and thus, high midi-chlorian count) are not solely genetic traits, otherwise the Jedi would have "un-attachmented" themselves into extinction. The Force chooses who will be Force-Sensitive, and doesn't choose all that many at one time. Because With Great Power Comes Great Insanity.
  • Indeed, given that strongly Force-sensitive individuals left to their own devices would most likely fall to the Dark Side, go batshit crazy from it, and get themselves killed after wreaking havoc for a while, it's possible that having the Jedi Order catch them young and teach them discipline would increase their odds of leaving descendants, provided Padawans are allowed (or even encouraged) to get laid once in a while to dissipate frustration and distracting thoughts. Even more so, if an internal adoption network exists within the Jedi organisation to place any offspring of female Jedi, with temple support-staff as their foster parents, far away from and outside the knowledge of their biological mothers.

Force-resistant clones

• Why weren't the storm troopers cloned from someone who was force-resistant, considering one of their primary missions was to kill Jedi? Granted, they killed most of them by ambush; but still.
  • There are Force-resistant humans?
  • No. There aren't.
  • Resistance to the mind trick isn't something one is born with (unless one was born extremely force sensitive), it depends on how strong-minded you are (as mentioned by certain people during the movies). As far as I can tell it's pretty hard to be resistant to the directly offensive powers (such as push, lightning, grab etc) unless you're a Jedi who knows how to counter these powers.
  • Nope, Watto says his entire species is immune to mind trick. Granted, 3 feet tall stormtroopers with little flappy wings wouldn't be very impressive, but perhaps there are other suitable species. Come to think of it, even if you can't have a force-resistant clone army, why clone puny humans and not some other, more imposing race for your Legions of Terror?
  • I'm not going to take Watto's word for that. It's like all Jews being market-savvy because a Jew went "I'm Jewish! We don't get ripped off easily!".
  • Because, at least according to EU, the New Order despises all non-humans, and Storm Troopers are more like the Royal Marines as compared with the British Army; more intensely trained and only trained for combat, as opposed to having a medical corps, an engineers corps, and administration corps or a logistics corps, as opposed to the Imperial Army which has all of those things. It would be like Nazi Germany allowing Jews into the SS.
  • Special exemptions for Sith or Sith-wannabes, of course, as Darth Maul and Grievous weren't human.
  • Near-humans like Darth Maul (his race is Zabrak and AFAIK the only phenotypical difference is that they are have a crown of horns) are probably close enough that they don't even fall victim to Imperial racism. Their fierce warrior characteristics would also work well as a tool under Imperial facism.
  • They were cloned from the most feared Mandolorian warrior alive, and the Mandalorians were a power to rival the Sith or the Jedi. Added to that, there's the point that they were humans.
  • Not only was it a legendary bounty hunter and Mandalorian pro, but if you played the Star Wars: Bounty Hunter game, it ends with Jango Fett killing a rogue Sith. This pretty much proved to Dooku that this was the guy they needed.
  • Well at least an army of Wattos is better than the alternative, an army of Hutts (imagine the food bill).
  • Then why not clone a Jedi, or anyone who can use the Force for that matter?
  • Because the Sith are just as elitist as the Jedi, and Palpatine didn't like the idea of his mooks being almost as powerful as his dragon.
  • Palps tried it. Result: 6 insane Force-using clones, 1 traitorous Dark Jedi, 2 Sith Lords, and one trooper on a small shuttle. Hilarity ensures. Anyway, doesn't a certain mad clone from the Thrawn era come to mind?
  • Even ordinary levels of connection to the Force make the cloning process dangerous. Apparently the quick-growth used in cloning has a tendency to cause "clone madness" if accelerated too quickly — the result of a young soul trying to power a brain and body too adult for it — which is why the clone troopers still take ten years to grow to adulthood, even though the technology technically exists to flash-grow clones in less than a year. In the EU Thrawn manages to accomplish this by using ysalimiri to cut off the growing clones from the Force entirely during the development process, with the downside that this turns the clones into mindless emotionless initiative-less zombies (exactly the kind of soldiers Thrawn hates using).
  • Also, consider that the clone troopers weren't ordered directly by Palpatine, and that cloning a force-resistant army would seem rather odd to the Jedi. Sometimes you have to accept weaknesses in your Mook Army to get said army in position.
  • Not to mention, the Old Order got their recruits by seeking out Force Sensitives across the galaxy. Aging at twice the normal rate, they would have had to be commissioned right after Phantom Menace. No way the Jedi wouldn't have noticed that many Force sensitives developing at once, since at that point they didn't have much else to do.
  • Another reason not to clone Force Sensitives could be simple pragmatic fear. Sure, they could be a great asset on your side, but what happens if, for example, someone steals control (say a large-scale coup by ambitious officers, or (as Battlefront 2 original did), the Kaminoans defecting)? Suddenly you've got a huge number of mini-Jedi coming after you.
  • As has been stated the clone template was Jango Fett, the Mand'alor, head of all Mandalorians and the most feared man in the galaxy. The Mandalorians were the perfect soldiers for the army as they were considered very dangerous by the Jedi, as in these non-Force sensitives were a match for the Jedi in battle. Also, the clones were bred to be loyal to the Chancellor of the Republic and so an uprising was highly unlikely.
  • Also bio-chips helped to control them further.

Using the Force to fly

• The Jedi can levitate an X-Wing; why can't they levitate themselves? Given all the mile-deep pits in the Star Wars universe, it'd be awfully handy...
  • Well, it took an awful lot of concentration for Yoda, supposedly one of the greatest Jedi ever, to move that X-Wing, so it stands to reason that one needs a certain level of calm and focus in order to levitate anything man-sized or larger. It's tough to keep your wits about you when plummeting into a reactor core.
  • Further proven by Galen Marek, who needed a decent amount of time and a huge, concentrated effort to bring down a Star Destroyer with the Force. One would surmise that size matters not in terms of how impossible it is (that is to say, it's never impossible) but something large still requires more effort.
  • But "size matters not", right? Or was Yoda lying for no reason?
  • He wasn't lying, he was giving the truth from another point of view.
  • Seems clear to me — all that matters is whether you believe you can move the object, but because large objects are larger and heavier, it's harder to truly visualise moving them. There are plenty of limitations on a Jedi's power, but these are limitations in the Jedi's ability to perceive the impossible happening, not in the power of the Force itself.
  • In theory this means that you can stop a Jedi's power by making something, say, appear to be heavier or bulkier than it actually is. The EU doesn't capitalise on this possibility, though. Interestingly, it does play with the idea that an accurate visualisation is all that's really necessary for things like Force Choke — a powerful Sith can Force Choke someone over a videophone, for instance.
  • Hence, of course, why Vader was able to choke Admiral Ozzel over the Star Destroyers' equivalent of Skype, across a considerable distance.
  • Also explains why Force Flight is a separate power — visualising yourself lifting off the ground and flying around must be a harder image to keep in your head than just imagining an object flying around.
  • Where is it stated that Yoda was struggling to lift the fighter? He might have been going slow to show Luke what could be done.
  • Although it's certainly not canon (though I wish it was), Lego Star Wars actually addresses this issue. Jedi can't levitate themselves, but two Jedi can levitate each other. Meaning two working in concert essentially have the power of flight. Wobbly flight, but flight nonetheless.
  • It'd be like lifting yourself up by your bootstraps, yeah? Action and reaction. Even Jedi have to respect the fundamental laws of physics.
  • But apparently landspeeders don't...
  • Landspeeders nullify gravity using SCIENCE(TM). Jedi have effectively an invisible arm with which they can manipulate distant objects. Totally different phenomena.
  • Like the vectors in Elfen Lied perhaps?
  • I always thought that the crazy crap they did in the lightsaber fights in the prequels was thanks to flinging themselves around with the Force.
  • Two words: Force Flight.
  • Actually, Jedi can levitate themselves (Mara Jade did so in Betrayal), it just uses a lot (and I mean a LOT) of energy.
  • If you consider the Jedi Knight games as canon (I think they are officially canon, but I could be wrong), then Jedi CAN fly, in a limited fashion. The Force Jump ability allows them to propel themselves upwards by nearly a dozen meters, and to control their descent downwards, but it requires an enormous amount of force power reserves, much like the above troper mentions. When you've got the highest level of Force Jump, and you jump to your maximum height, it uses over 50% of your force points. So, even if the game allowed you to use all your force power on one jump, you could only "fly" upwards by about 20 meters before completely losing force control and falling to your doom. And the flight requires a solid surface to propel oneself from, meaning that the Emperor could not have just flown back to the relative safety of his Jedi-filled throne room.
  • It should also be pointed out that the Emperor had just finished being half-throttled by somebody who can snap necks with a simple squeeze of their hand. It's likely his head wasn't too clear at that point, Force Flight or no Force Flight.

The Force and Emotions

• Is using the Force while angry or scared an instant ticket to the dark side, or can you use it while angry or scared without turning as long as you're not actively using that anger or fear to use the Force with?
  • Rey does quite a bit of angry yelling when she and Kylo fight Snoke's guards, and I think Jedi and Sith are letting the Force flow through them when they fight - she's also pretty clearly angry and disappointed when Kylo refuses to turn good just because he killed his master and they have their Force-tug-of-war over Rey's lightsaber - but whether she's "using" that anger to use the Force... Palpatine's tempting of Luke isn't "use the Force in anger" but simply "let the hate flow through you," and Luke is at least on the verge of falling in that scene in RotJ, but he pulls back from the abyss and it's hard to tell whether he fell at all, or what falling to the Dark Side means... honestly, any deep examination of how emotions and the Force work will just lead to "they didn't think this through" and the Dark Side is just "whatever sounds most evil", disappointing as that is.
  • I think it's less using the Force when in an emotional state, so much as giving in to that emotion. Using it while angry or scared isn't the catalyst, it's giving in to that anger or that fear and letting it overrule more rational thoughts (so, for example, letting your anger make you go from striking to wound or disable to striking to KILL).

Why does force choke only sometimes need the person to make a choking motion?

• Usually when Darth Vader does it he holds out his hand as if choking someone. When he kills Admiral Ozzel he's just sitting there. So is the choking motion just an affectation or what?
  • Most likely, the gesture is more a matter of focusing intent and correctly channeling the Force, rather than a needed component. It's easier to have the gesture, so that you can precisely focus on choking out your victim, but it can be done without, especially when one's angry enough.

Do You Have To Be Force Sensitive to see force ghosts?

• The movies seem unclear about this. At the end of Return of the Jedi, Luke seems to be the only one who sees the three ghosts. Leia is also force sensitive and doesn't see them, but maybe only sufficiently powerful force users can see ghosts?
  • For Leia, she is sufficiently powerful, but she hasn't been trained to focus on the Force as Luke has. In time, she would be able to see them, and perhaps this has been depicted in supplementary works.

How can Force-sensitivity be hereditary if it's based on midi-chlorians count?

• Midi-chlorians are microorganisms in creature's bloodstreams. How can one's genetics cause one to have more of a microorganism? Wouldn't it make a lot more sense for there to just be a force-sensitivity gene?
  • For the latter question? Probably. For the former, it could be that there's a heritable trait that makes one's cells more attractive to midi-chlorians, the same way mosquitos like type O blood (do not quote me on that, I'm not a doctor.)

How is it possible "cut oneself off" from the Force?

• The Force is a universal energy field (or something) that connects the entire Universe, so how can you just choose to "cut yourself off" from it? Isn't that like someone cutting themselves off from the force of gravity?
  • It would seem more akin to blocking off one of the five senses, just with more involvement than say putting on a blindfold. As for how, there's no real information about that. It could be active meditation of some kind to block the Force out, it could be medication, it could even be as simple as ignoring it.