Much digital ink has been spilled over the last year writing about the return of the Star Wars franchise to the big screen, for with Star Wars: The Force Awakens and most recently with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.  A recent article by Marc Barnes at First Things addresses one thing that the new movies have brought a course correction to the much-maligned prequels.

One of the most significant issues long-time fans of Star Wars have with the prequels is the inclusion of midi-chlorians to the concept of the Force.  After three movies of the Force being mysterious and elusive, we find out something completely different.  From First Things:

In the prequels, the Force is a part of the biological world. It is accessed not by the mind or spirit but by microscopic organisms. This view renders the Jedi religion superfluous—one either has a “high midi-chlorian count,” or one does not. The prequels rewrite the Jedi’s disciplined access to the mystical life as something determined by a blood-test.

This secularization of the Force coincides with its most grotesque, irreverent use. The Jedi of the originals were concerned with not using the Force, with the profound need for being “ready” to wield it. Yoda told Luke he will be able to discern the ways of the Force “when you are calm, at peace. Passive.” He restricted its use: “A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.” He warned that the “quick and easy path” is precisely what makes one an “agent of evil.”

Barnes then points out that a younger Yoda uses the Force in all kinds of ways that seem to go against his later teaching.  With the newer movies, though, Barnes sees a good and necessary change in how the Force is treated, one that hearkens back to how it was handled in the original trilogy.

But in the new Star Wars movies (2015-), something else has been happening. In The Force Awakens, Han Solo derides Finn’s blithe mechanization of the Force as an easy answer to the problem of how to disable some shields: “That’s not how the Force works!” This shut-down of Finn’s use-the-cool-Force attitude indicates a shift in the new Star Wars movies, a certain return of the religious dimension that fueled the originals—a return to reverence.

This turn achieves its maturity in Rogue One. If the prequels scooped the sacred from the Force by biologizing and technologizing it, Rogue One returns it by spiritualizing and refusing to use the Force. Physical sight can no longer behold the Force. Its main adherent is Chirrut Îmwe, a blind warrior-monk who believes in the power of the Force. Îmwe’s temple has been destroyed by an imperial power, and thus, deprived of any obvious geographical site of the sacred, he must carry the evidence of the Force that “binds the galaxy together” by his own prayer and upright action.

A nice save, really.  One I’m interested in seeing built on in the next few Skywalker-centric movies.  Barnes sums it up best near the end of his article:

The religious emphasis of the film is not how to use the Force, but how to conform oneself to something that is beyond use. We do not hear the iconic line, “Use the force,” in Rogue One. We hear a reverent one: “Trust the force.” The difference between use and trust sums up the difference between magic and religion. Magic wishes to use supernatural powers for material ends. Religion wishes to subordinate material ends to a good and wise supernatural power. Rogue One elevates the disciple over the magician and the saint over the technician.

You can read the whole article here.  It’s a good read.  It’s also another reminder of how a good movie can work on multiple levels well, even if it isn’t necessarily intended to.

(image from collider.com)