4 Science Mistakes Star Wars: Episode VII Needs to Fix

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Do you realise this article is displaying each point in reverse numerical order?

Point 4 is good, it wouldn't hurt to show a planet with less gravity now and then. As for ditching midi-chlorians, YES PLYEASE.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

I would applaud J.J. Abrams if he had the audacity to retcon midi-chlorians out of the universe entirely.

I think we all would buddy. Truly.

 

[Leatherhead]

The point behind the parsec thing was to illustrate Han as a lying scumbag, or a scoundrel if you will. It's also why he shot first.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

Mistake #4 is not a Star Wars thing, it applies to almost every sci fi show and movie ever made. Having realistic gravity would be a massive pain in the ass for story writing and make most of them impossible. #3 is also present in almost every sci fi ever because even though there is no reason for ships to not fly up side down in space it would be kinda awkward to look at.

 

[ccggenius12]

In what way would a low gravity Jedi fight be different from the Jedi fights in the prequels... Those guys were flying off the walls and throwing what should have been incredibly heavy objects at each other.
Also, I would have loved to hear a character claim they could cross the distance between two points using sandwiches.

 

[EHKOS]

While it is a mistake about the sound in space, and I like how Firefly fixed that, it's so iconic. It's hard to damn it because they sounded so good, and we all love the laser noises. I think it adds to the movies' personality, although I will still admit it is a mistake.

 

[ExDeath730]

And this is why fans of Star Wars hate Star Trek. This kind of stuff have place there, in "almost" hard sci-fi. This is Star Wars, there is no need of logic because the universe runs on awesome. Really, if someone haven't noticed this in all this time, maybe Star Wars isn't for you.

Only one thing...I really hope there is a way out of the Midichlorians nonsense, yeah, i prefer the Force as a supernatural power, thank you.

 

[Scars Unseen]

I see someone mistook Star Wars for a Science fiction franchise again. You would think that after 35 years, people would stop doing that. Space Opera != Science Fiction.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I think there is a reasonable way to save the midi-chlorians. Instead of being force enablers, merely have them as force sensitive organisms that multiply in a force sensitive host. That way, it still makes sense for Obi Wan to test Anakins blood and notice his high midichlorian count indicating high force sensitivity, but we aren't left with tricky questions like why you can't breed these things in a vat and inject them into anyone who wants them.

Or sticky questions like "If Midichlorians are actual, countable things all over a sentient being's body... wouldn't removing parts of the body make them less force sensitive?

Shouldn't Darth Vader be so much weaker with the force given they replaced a lot of his body with cybernetics?"

Because that seriously bothers me.

 

[Rhykker]

I think there is a reasonable way to save the midi-chlorians. Instead of being force enablers, merely have them as force sensitive organisms that multiply in a force sensitive host. That way, it still makes sense for Obi Wan to test Anakins blood and notice his high midichlorian count indicating high force sensitivity, but we aren't left with tricky questions like why you can't breed these things in a vat and inject them into anyone who wants them.

Or sticky questions like "If Midichlorians are actual, countable things all over a sentient being's body... wouldn't removing parts of the body make them less force sensitive?

Shouldn't Darth Vader be so much weaker with the force given they replaced a lot of his body with cybernetics?"

Because that seriously bothers me.

Hah! Excellent point. Wow. The more you think about it, the worse it gets. "More machine than man, now. Twisted, and evil. And much, much weaker."

 

[Jingle Fett]

About the midichlorians, you don't need the EU to clarify it. Just actually listen to what Qui-Gon actually says and it's pretty plain.

"They continually speak to us, telling us the will of the force".

He never said they are the Force itself, the Force is still that nebulous Force it always was and the midichlorians don't explain the Force. They're what allow the Jedi to "talk" to the Force.
If a generation of fanboys had bothered listening to what the movie actually said as opposed to what they thought it meant, maybe people wouldn't have been so upset about it and propagated a fact that simply wasn't true (that the force is midichlorians).

It's not explaining the force and it's not taking away the mystery, it's basically just explaining why everyone isn't a jedi if all you have to do is concentrate and believe. So they DO serve a purpose. And quite frankly I would expect that after being around for a thousand years, the Jedi would have some type of scientific knowledge about why they can do stuff that other people can't. That's not poorly mixing science with fantasy, in fact it's the opposite.

For example...Obi-Wan was on Tatooine for 20-ish years waiting for Luke to grow up. If just anyone could just use the Force and become a powerful jedi, why didn't he spend those 20 years training random people he met in secret out in the desert? Why only Luke? Because obviously not just anyone can do it...
And when Luke asks about the force, true there's no mention of midichlorians...but mentioning the technical details would have just confused an already confused young Luke even more, he was giving sort of a general overview, details not important.

Other than that though, good article, I enjoyed it!

I think there is a reasonable way to save the midi-chlorians. Instead of being force enablers, merely have them as force sensitive organisms that multiply in a force sensitive host. That way, it still makes sense for Obi Wan to test Anakins blood and notice his high midichlorian count indicating high force sensitivity, but we aren't left with tricky questions like why you can't breed these things in a vat and inject them into anyone who wants them.

Or sticky questions like "If Midichlorians are actual, countable things all over a sentient being's body... wouldn't removing parts of the body make them less force sensitive?

Shouldn't Darth Vader be so much weaker with the force given they replaced a lot of his body with cybernetics?"

Because that seriously bothers me.

About Darth Vader being less sensitive due to all the mechnical parts...well I expect he was weaker as a result, but given that he was "the chosen one" with a midichlorian count higher than Yoda's I imagine he could lose a few limbs and still be pretty powerful. That or the distribution of midichlorians is lower in the extremities that were lost...

 

[hittite]

I think there is a reasonable way to save the midi-chlorians. Instead of being force enablers, merely have them as force sensitive organisms that multiply in a force sensitive host. That way, it still makes sense for Obi Wan to test Anakins blood and notice his high midichlorian count indicating high force sensitivity, but we aren't left with tricky questions like why you can't breed these things in a vat and inject them into anyone who wants them.

Or sticky questions like "If Midichlorians are actual, countable things all over a sentient being's body... wouldn't removing parts of the body make them less force sensitive?

Shouldn't Darth Vader be so much weaker with the force given they replaced a lot of his body with cybernetics?"

Because that seriously bothers me.

I'm not really all that familiar with the EU but this is brought up in a few books. For one, the novelization of Revenge of the Sith. (Which is fantastic, by the way.)

Vader is MUCH weaker than he once was. The Force is the power of life and he's barely alive. I think in other books, they establish that his armor is designed to amplify what little power he has left into something useful.

 

[Ukomba]

#2... oh yes, please take away the iconic Star Wars space combat and substitute Babylon 5 style. I hope they stop using that old John Williams music while their at it. Hell, Star Trek and even Babylon 5 cheated and eventually outright switch to aerial flight dynamics and tactics that when they needed the battles to be exciting.

 

[Kameburger]

Midi-Clorians is where I probably would have walked out of the theater if I were older at the time. But even then I was still aware that this completely ruined the concept of the force for these movies. If Abrams does end up retconing that part out I'll be completely and totally fine with that. I mean I think at this point though I can't imagine Abrams doing anything that would alter the physics of the current universe. He seems to be trying very hard to not just replicate the feel of the originals but by evidence of how it's being marketed, what with the "candid" photo's and all, it seems unlikely that he would risk altering anything that might hurt the "feel" of Star Wars. For example I seriously doubt he'd get rid of a whole folder of labeled Star Wars sounds/space.

 

[CommanderL]

darth plaguous book described it that the midochloarians where attracted to people strong and the force and lived and thrived in the bodies of people that had strong force powers and that the midocholrians knew who thier host was and wouldnt work in other peoples body

 

[Groverfield]

While it would be nice to see a low, or zero-gravity lightsaber fight, one can assume that artificial gravity regulating systems are in most installations because higher gravity might be detrimental to health, and low gravity impedes movement.

A fully 3-dimmensional control scheme that would facilitate the ability to perform such maneuvers would require about 9-axis for rotation, as well as probably 6 engine thrusters. I could see someone brain in a jar like greivous able to pilot such a ship, but nothing humanoid or with less than six highly manipulative appendages would work.

Admitting that we're forced with midi-chlorians as canon, the only way to reconcile this in my head is to think that they aren't a microcellular device to allow the use of the force, but rather they're a sort of nonharming parasite that just indicates the presence of a trait, like (admitedly bad analogy) lice would indicate the presence of hair.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

snip

I think the real question is: given that Anakin knows what Qui-Gonn told him about midichlorians, why doesn't he or the Emperor set up some kind of massive Imperial blood bank where they can secretly screen the galaxy for potential Jedi?

 

[Camaranth]

I love it when these types of things are acknowledged, even in just some passing comment.
It be easy to handle the parsec thing
eg. Alien 1 "You should be able to make the flight in about 15 parsecs"
Alien 2 "What's a parsec? Do you mean 15 particents."
Han trying to impress the country boys is more interesting but much more difficult to explain and show in a film.

and with all the fancy computer animations we have now I'm sure someone can make really cool looking 3d space battles with more realistic physics. Not strictly realistic, but some feeling of momentum and gravity would be nice.

Even just a bunch of little things can help make the universe feel more plausible. The series Andromeda had a few good points in that respect, in one episode bekka (a spacer) comments that she hates weather. Captain Hunt is so much stronger than everyone else because he's a heavy-worlder (and not because the producers just wanted to make Hercules in space)
A tv series has a lot more time to throw these tidbits in so I don't expect much, but could I at least ones more interesting than "space is cold"

 

[Drathnoxis]

it's a sci-fi movie, it doesn't have to be realistic, calm your nipples.

I most assuredly will not, good sir. I am a scientist; it is my job to point out factual inaccuracy in all things in order to be a giant buzzkill.

Actually that makes you a pedant, since there isn't anything in your post that indicates any use of the scientific method. Rather, what you have done here is parrot the work of actual scientists. However, if you are, in fact, claiming to be a scientist in real life I would have to remind you that this is the internet and personal claims are irrelevant. A true scientist would realize that to make a claim without substantial evidence is worthless.

Furthermore, your final point is in conflict with your first two. In your last point you are upset that Star Wars borrows too heavily from real world scientific knowledge without adding very much to the fiction, while in your first two points you are suggesting the very same thing. I'm not sure that a trip to the bouncy castle planet would add all that much to the Star Wars experience.

Finally, I know someone has already responded to you about Han Solo's parsec boast, but there is another way you can look at it: it was a boast. Han Solo isn't shown to be the most knowledgeable guy on the cast, in fact, he is a little bit of a buffoon so it makes sense that he would pepper is claim of how fast his ship is with words he really doesn't understand.

EDIT: Also, it's pointless to bring in real world physics into Star Wars because the series has always followed the [URL="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool" (title,target)]Rule of Cool[/URL] and should continue to do so in the future.