Poll: How powerful would you like Force users to be in the upcoming Star Wars movies?

[Bob_McMillan]

In the Originals, force users could jump high, throw stuff really well, control the minds of people, use telekinesis, see the future, shoot lightning, and kinda talk and sense each other. Same as the prequels.

In the Extended Universe, Jedi could do a shizz ton. Healing, reading minds, absorbing energy, time travel, illusion casting, shatterpoint stuff, ressurection, etc.

In the video game area, force users are just out of this world with power. Pulling Star Destroyers out of the air, force pushing people into mountains, controlling multiple lightsabers with the force, and so much more.

In the TV shows however they go all out. If anyone hasnt watched the 2003 Clone Wars cartoon, which is not the TCW we all know and love, I will link it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVk9lPotcW4

They are just ridiculously powerful in that TV show.

The TCW made by Lucasfilms, the more recent one, is a mix of all the above. Anakin is the only one who is truly abnormally powerful (with the exception of that awesome Sidious vs Maul/Savage fight), the others either have unusual powers or just slightly above average force abilities (like jumping ridiculously high).


So my question is, in Episode 8 and 9 (or any other Star Wars movies), how powerful do you want force users to be?

I would like to see more powerful force pushing at least. Like Kylo Ren tries to force choke Luke ir Rey, and they wave their hand and Kylo Ren staggers and lets his grip go.

I also would like to see improved physical abilities, like running really fast, or at least some cool acrobatics.

The problem that I see with TCW level force abilities is that they will indubitably require lots of CGI, and everybody knows how people feel about CGI and Star Wars

 

[DefunctTheory]

Depends.

No one should be going full blown EU and dragging Star Destroyers out of orbit or AT-ATs to their knees, but I really want Luke to have one scene. Just one scene... where he just wrecks everything. Where he shoves a Stormtrooper battalion off a cliff with one hand while fighting off and killing all the Knights of Ren with the other while using the force to accelerate his spit through the hulls of circling TIE Fighters. Just one scene to really cement why everyone is scared shitless of the Jedi and Luke - Because they are scary.

For everyone else, I think a middle ground between the original trilogy and E1-3 is the right spot. Acrobatic, but not to such a silly degree as E1-3. Powerful, but not 'why doesn't he just keep spamming the force to win' powerful.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

I think the SW series has been a serious victim to power creep in regards to the force. Look at Force Unleashed and how powerful Darth Vader's subordinate was compared to Luke. You inevitably wonder why he didn't just continue to try with someone so powerful and why he stated "the force is strong with this one." Apart from the sequence in which the SW series was released.

I do hope they're not superheroes. Yoda said that size doesn't matter (heh) so logically if they could seriously affect a building they could seriously affect an enemy ship. It's a delicate balance between being plot glue and plot hole.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

I think the SW series has been a serious victim to power creep in regards to the force. Look at Force Unleashed and how powerful Darth Vader's subordinate was compared to Luke. You inevitably wonder why he didn't just continue to try with someone so powerful and why he stated "the force is strong with this one." Apart from the sequence in which the SW series was released.

I do hope they're not superheroes. Yoda said that size doesn't matter (heh) so logically if they could seriously affect a building they could seriously affect an enemy ship. It's a delicate balance between being plot glue and plot hole.

I don't so much think it's about power creep, but more of the writer's disagreements on what you can and can't do with the Force.

On one hand, you have Luke Skywalker struggling to move his lightsaber from a snow embankment, even though he's supposed to be some kind of prodigy. Next up, you have Qui-Gon and his apprentice, a Jedi who is powerful enough to be a Master and one of the order's most talented young Padawans, being fought to a standstill by a couple of destroyer droids.

Then we have Starkiller, who can yank Star Destroyers out of orbit and clear a corridor of stormtroopers with a cough.

Personally, I like to see the Jedi being literal one-man armies, but in the end, I would just really like to see some consistency. TCW Mace Windu would've been able to single-handedly rescue Obi-Wan and Anakin from the Geonosian arena in Episode 2, instead of seeing the Jedi Order get reduced from about 200 Knights to about 20.

 

[OneCatch]

Depends.

No one should be going full blown EU and dragging Star Destroyers out of orbit or AT-ATs to their knees, but I really want Luke to have one scene. Just one scene... where he just wrecks everything. Where he shoves a Stormtrooper battalion off a cliff with one hand while fighting off and killing all the Knights of Ren with the other while using the force to accelerate his spit through the hulls of circling TIE Fighters. Just one scene to really cement why everyone is scared shitless of the Jedi and Luke - Because they are scary.

For everyone else, I think a middle ground between the original trilogy and E1-3 is the right spot. Acrobatic, but not to such a silly degree as E1-3. Powerful, but not 'why doesn't he just keep spamming the force to win' powerful.

This pretty much summarises my view. Normal tier jedi in the prequels were perhaps slightly overpowered, but the hero-tier ones were about right. I think that showing Luke temporarily getting to perhaps Revan-tier or Yoda-tier would be about fair, give how much he's been built up.

I think the SW series has been a serious victim to power creep in regards to the force. Look at Force Unleashed and how powerful Darth Vader's subordinate was compared to Luke.

Seriously, I just pretend that never happened. I'm familiar with a lot of EU material and the vagaries of the various retcons, and the Force Unleashed is the single most absurd, gratuitous, disruptive, and completely unnecessary addition to the EU that has ever happened. (IMO the only other contender is the Suncrusher, and at least that didn't fundamental change canon outside of the series' it featured in.).
You can just about imagine a few ancient force users like the old Sith Emperors or the Tythonians being able to throw capital ships around, or even apex-tiers like the Qel-Dromas or ascended-Revan or Palpatine or Luke doing it with some situational advantage like force ghost help or alchemy or force artefacts or whatever. But some angsty apprentice just pulling it off out of the blue? No.

I do hope they're not superheroes. Yoda said that size doesn't matter (heh) so logically if they could seriously affect a building they could seriously affect an enemy ship. It's a delicate balance between being plot glue and plot hole.

I always took that to be Yoda talking bullshit to try and keep Luke on the white jedi path by evading the issue of raw power entirely. Clearly size does matter when it comes to force abilities, or everyone would be casually throwing planets around.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Since I may be the only person here with familiarity with the New EU, I think I'll add something regarding Disney's new power scale. So far, it's mostly centered on Vader, but since we can reasonable be assured he's near the top of the ladder as far as force powers go (Trumped only by the Emperor), it should be a good indicator.

Force Telekinesis - Force Users can influence space ship sized masses, but it seems to be limited to the lower spectrum (Falcon sized). But the force user has to be really close, has to be focused (To the detriment of focusing on other things), and has to be invested in the process (The the case of a Sith user, really freak'n pissed). Even in this scenario, it seems that the force user cannot overpower a vessels engines.

Spoiler: Lords of the Sith Spoiler

Both Vader and Sidious take down a freighter sized star ship, individually, using the force, by pulling the ships down a couple dozen meters on a fly by into trees.

Vader is able to force choke someone in another space ship, but he again needs to focus. In this particular instance, he ends up losing his situational awareness and bad things happen to him.

Spoiler: Rebels Season 1 Spoiler

Kanan and Ezra are both capable of lifting massive objects like shuttle bay doors, but only when sitting still and ignoring everything else around them while working together

Force Foresight - Visions are as vague as ever, and mostly yield functionally useless information.

Spoiler: Lords of the Sith Spoiler

Sidious is able to foresee a planet wide treachery, but is unable to tell what form it will take or what specifically will happen. He basically fakes his way through the whole thing with a grin, which makes everyone assume he knew more then he really did.

Spoiler: Tarkin Spoiler

Sidious is able to feel that bad things are coming, but basically nothing else. He again fakes his way through the whole book, and everyone, again, assumes he had the whole thing figured out from the start.

Force Mind Reading - Essentially useless.

Spoiler: Tarkin Spoiler

Vader is unable to pull any information out of various victims, using force persuasion, mind reading, or mental torture. Sidious appears to be able to focus his foresight through individuals, but with negligible results.

Force Lightning - The most OP thing in the Star Wars universe.

Spoiler: Lords of the Sith Spoiler

Everything Sidious touches with force lightning dies, including a space ship.

 

[happyninja42]

I'm personally in favor of Force Unleashed levels of ability, but I'd be perfectly happy with being as proficient as the previous movies. I mean, the original trilogy had people capable of lifting X-Wings. That's no small feat.

Honestly, just portray the stuff right, and make it badass when they do it, and I'm fine with whatever. The Force is a tool for the story, not the story itself. We've only got to look at the prequels to know that having lots of flashy Force powers without a good script = a shit movie. Use the tool correctly, and it doesn't matter if it's strong enough to toss Star Destroyers, or just Tie Fighters.

 

[Imre Csete]

Didn't they make Luke move black holes with the Force in the EU? Now that's more lulz worthy than Starkiller moving spaceships in the games.

I just want beards and throwing sucker punches in lightsaber fights.

 

[StatusNil]

Less so than they've been. A little space magic is cool, but full-on superpowers is taking it too far. That stuff eclipses everything else. Why even bother having normies in the movies if the Jedi are as gods to them? There are spaceships and lasers getting upstaged, and that's an outrage.

 

[conmag9]

I'm mostly happy with KOTOR's level, maybe with some of the other EU stuff that I haven't read directly but heard about. I find Star Wars tremendously boring without the Force being important, so might as well make the most out of it. It would also be nice if the Dark Side was shown to be a bit more...impressive. KOTOR 2 was pretty decent at this, with Darth Sion being scary on a local level and Darth Nihilus being more force of nature than sentient being. Vader's ramblings about just how powerful the Dark Side was never really worked for me, as he never seemed that much more dangerous than the average Jedi, as force users go. Showing the OP but costly/risky stuff would help make the Dark Side seem much more tempting than the movies portray it. Sure, giving into your emotions feels good, but what about feeling good AND being functionally unavailable?

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

Oh you're missing the most powerful of the game stuff! Devouring all the life on a planet much?! Of course it had its downside on Nihilus. But then they just had to try and one up everything in SWTOR...

Not that I minded Nihilus because it had downsides, and Darth Scion's immortality was cool. Probably a matter of different things feeling alright in a game medium that would seem absurd in movies.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

As weak as possible, probably the level of the original trilogy. I completely agreed that Force-Users in the EU (and just about any medium) suffered from inevitable power creep. The more powerful Luke became, the harder it was to keep him interesting until he was faced with A) opponents who were partially immune to the Force B) his own flesh and blood who he was reluctant to attack until it was almost too late, and then C) a bona-fide Eldritch abomination, which he did need lots of help from dozens of other powerful characters to temporarily defeat, but still...

Power creep can dampen drama in any story, but it's especially noticeable in a grand space opera where billions of non Force-sensitives live. There are other ways of giving characters an impact, as demonstrated with some characters in the Clone Wars like Cad Bane or Hondo Ohnaka. The X-Wing series had exactly two Force sensitives, one of whom never trained or used the Force much, and it was awesome.

 

[K12]

I'm perfectly happy with Force users being better than Luke in the original trilogy but weaker than Yoda. I'd definitely like them to think of broader force powers rather than bigger ones.

Jedis shouldn't be a one man army. The thing I'd really like is some internal consistency.

 

[COMaestro]

Looking at the EU novels, many of the authors just didn't know what to do with the Force, almost seeming like they had to keep increasing Luke's abilities and those of the other Jedi. I really don't want the new movies to go in that direction. That's why I really liked how Zahn tried to rein Luke in a bit in the Hand of Thrawn duology, something about how just because he COULD use the Force to do some things doesn't mean he SHOULD.

So, yeah, while I wouldn't mind a little expanded diversity to the Force abilities displayed in the new movies, I don't want the to go too far with it and would prefer something between the OT and the Prequels.

 

[The Raw Shark]

I want to see Luke absolutely WRECKING EVERYONE when he makes his appearance in the next few movies.
For the love of God PLEASE I get it that we can't have Starkiller levels of ludicrous force powers otherwise you'd be wondering how the eff all of those jedi got wiped out from before, but please stop cornering us with this *****-Side of the Force that involves getting impressed because someone can lift a rock without touching it.
Let us see TIE fighters torn out of the sky, entire waves of troops getting thrashed by lightning, let us see some of that Force Healing stuff from the Expanded Universe. ANYTHING, JUST DON'T KEEP IT THE SAME AS IT IS.

 

[Fox12]

I always thought the force was more spiritual. That's why Yoda says that size doesn't matter, and why Luke ultimately refuses to fight the emperor. The Jedi are practically pacifists in the original. Their real power is to influence the best in others. Having Luke crush a star destroyer completely misses the point.

I'm not necessarily against having some cool force scenes, if handled well, but it shouldn't be the focus. A good compromise would be to tie a persons force powers to their emotional state, then have them unleash their force powers during a very emotional moment. Afterwards they can see the horror and destruction they wrought through their power, and understand why the Jedi are so focused on controlling their emotions. The Jedi then learns to use his or her power in a more subtle, but equally powerful way.

This could create an interesting split between the Sith, who simply believe in accepting their natural urges, and the more puritanical Jedi, who attempt to control their emotions in order to keep their sheer power in check.

 

[Jadak]

Didn't they make Luke move black holes with the Force in the EU? Now that's more lulz worthy than Starkiller moving spaceships in the games.

No, they didn't. You could be thinking of some gimmicks with the Yuuzhan Vong's bio-tech ships which generate micro-singularities as an alternative to shields, but messing with ship components is a bit more small scale than 'moving black holes'.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

SNIP

I think that, like many things, the issues started in the original trilogy. In this case, it's Yoda's line. It immediately opens up the question of what exactly their limitations are. Are they capable of fighting multiple enemies at the same time? If they're able to shove people back into walls and throw about large circular pods, can they throw around planets?

I think that's why the force is so weak in the original trilogy. The X-Wing moved rather slowly and took a lot of effort, so it would limit how practical moving around any other ship in motion would be at a great distance. The prequels undermine that by making the Jedi so powerful. However, like you said, they're also sort of inept. Maybe that's the point; they are an order in their death throes.

I always took that to be Yoda talking bullshit to try and keep Luke on the white jedi path by evading the issue of raw power entirely. Clearly size does matter when it comes to force abilities, or everyone would be casually throwing planets around.

Ah. Another case of "point of view." That would explain a few things. Honestly, I just attribute it to being a cool line to say without thinking about it too much. In other words, I don't think Lucas was contemplating the implications. This isn't supposed to be the most intellectual series ever.

SNIP

I may be in a minority, but I do think that ditching the expanded universe was a good call on Disney's behalf. I get the feeling that they'd ditch the prequels if they could as well. The power creep is one of those reasons.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Now, given the facts put in by the movies, the Jedi and Sith both should be God Tier.

I'm glad they got rid of the idea of midichorlians, or are just not speaking about them, but that little throw away line of Mace saying that the Jedis were losing Mastery of the Force.

Simply put, the Jedi Order that practiced self control is lost. Luke became bad ass. The new Jedi is just dripping with Power. And there isn't Thousands upon thousands pulling on the Force. I honestly don't think that matters, but a lot of media thought it did, so I'm putting it in there.

We have two small parties with unlimited access to Space Voodoo and Laser Swords. There should be a lot of power that can be flung between the two.

Now, understand I'm talking about capabilities. The Jedi and the Sith should have access to a lot of power. That doesn't mean I want it to become Dragon Ball Z. Just within Canon, there's nothing holding them back any more.