Here's the text of a discussion I had with my cousin, Jon.


Jon: so i just heard a possible reason for why Lucas brought in the midichlorians

me: yeah?
Jon: if this guy i heard is right, the purpose of the midi-chlorians was to explain why darth vader couldn't do many of the Force tricks that Anakin could do
if the midichlorians are in our cells, and anakin loses so much of his biological structure in becoming darth vader, then he loses many of his midichlorians and therefore has a lesser contact with the Force

me: hmmm
that's just the thing, i mean, it makes total logical sense. even before this explanation, midichlorians made total logical sense...it's just the way the body reads something spiritual. but that explanation kind of pecks and rips at the spirituality of "the force." that something as arbitrary as biology can explain why some people are better at the force than others, instead of it being something ordained by the force/God/the fabric of the Universe.

Jon: yeah
i'm not saying it's a good plot device
but it seemed totally useless and arbitrary to me
now at least it seems to have some purpose in the writing

me: yeah
yeah
it's one of those things that I'll kind of never forgive Lucas for.
i'm as big of a lucas apologist
as they come, but midichlorians were completely ludicrous.
<---- is nerd

Jon: it's kinda like the whole god/science thing
understanding how stuff works does not have to eliminate an appreciation of the spiritual
some people think it does "oh,electricity is caused by electrons and such, not by anything divine"
others think seeing how something works merely
augments their view of the Master's Design
but in star wars, with the Force, it's almost like, i'd rather just preserve the mystical
let the Force be the Force, i don't need a "how stuff works" explanation of it