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Star Wars seems pretty wildly inconsistent about what Force Users are capable of

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Now if only there were some other time in that movie when force speed could have been useful.

One thing about the original series is that the force was used very sparingly. It made scenes when it was shown off just that much better. That was never going to last once other writers started expanding on it, now every force power and fighting stance is just standard training it seems. Force Push (tm), Force Lighting (tm), Force Jump (tm)!
 
Hmm i always made the assumption being the second most powerful person in the empire and sitting on a pile of infinite cash, Vader just spent the money necessary to make his armor Blaster proof. So he was just deflecting the bolts with his armored/shielded hand s and then he just force pulled the pistol from Han's hand
 
border said:
Even ignoring tertiary canon elements of the franchise (games, comics) where Jedis can use telekinesis to crash starships, the movies themselves seem frustratingly unclear about what abilities are given to force users of varying ability.

The most famous example would be the Han Solo/Vader confrontation from The Empire Strikes Back. We see Vader using his hands to block blasts from a laser pistol, and then use telekinesis to pull the pistol out of Solo's hands. Why doesn't anyone else do this ever?

One might make the argument that Vader is an experienced Sith Lord and has capabilities beyond those of a normal Jedi. But Luke's training under Yoda is short and imperfect, and even he has access to telekinesis (he lifts his X-Wing out of the swamp, and in ROTJ he pulls his lightsaber to his hand off of the Emperor's throne). Surely the Jedis in the prequel trilogy should be able to disarm enemies, given their greater level of training and ability. But as far as I can recall they almost never disarm foes or block laser blasts. Under Order 66 most of them die because some stupid stormtrooper shot them in the back.

Ultimately I guess the series falls prey to wanton Power Creep. Writers and directors want to show Jedis doing increasingly cool stuff and while it works in the context of a single scene, little consideration is given to how newly showcased abilities would change combat throughout the rest of the series. "Overpowered" abilities become the setpiece moments for a particular sequence, but those abilities are quickly forgotten by the writers.

Am I wrong here? Is there an in-universe explanation outside of the films? Are there other good examples of overpowered Jedi talents that never resurface? Should the Solo/Vader scene in Empire be considered apocryphal?
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It's funny you should bring this up when this was just used in Star Wars Rebels to disarm someone.
 
Well Vader is facing Solo one on one. Luke was also basically facing the emperor one on one. They were able to concentrate their force power to use effectively. In the case of Order 66, you got a few hundred troopers shooting at you in a surprise attack. How do you defend and deflect those shots?
 
What? They block and redirect laser blast incessantly. In virtually every scene with pew pew guns they're either blocking laser blasts with their lightsabers, hitting them like baseballs, or force pushing a few droids to here and back. It's essentialy all they do. Everything a Jedi can do comes straight out of a wuxia novel.
 
grandjedi6 said:
The books were extra hilarious about this thanks to all the various writers. In some books, Jedi were falling left and right to dogs. In others they were force pushing Star Destroyers out of solar systems and pseudo time traveling.
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I seem to remember one in which a Jedi used the same trick Vadar used to absorb Hans Blaster shot but absorbed a lightsaber blade. There have been some bat-shit powers in the books.
 
I thought they explained that Vader had one of the highest midichlorian counts? There is also the answer that he is the 'chosen' one.
 
Vader absorbs the laser blast just like Yoda absorbs the Emperor's lightning strike in Revenge of the Sith. Not that difficult to understand. I knew that even as a kid before there was any kind of EU or Star Wars lore.
 
Anakin/Vader is Jedi Jesus and Luke is his son so they can probably use the Force better than most or something. I mean, did you see Phantom Menace? Qui Gon Jin's scouter basically said Anakin's Midichlorian levels were over 9000... of course he could stop a couple of blasts from Han Solo's bargain bucket dime store blaster.

If you wanted to worry about inconsistencies in Force abilities, you might as well ask how the fuck Vader was able to Force choke that captain to death over space-Skype in Empire when the distance between them would have been ridiculous. If Vader could do that, why didn't he just choke all those X-Wing pilots to death from the bridge of the Death Star in A New Hope rather than going out in his Tie Fighter?
 
Percy said:
If Vader could do that, why didn't he just choke all those X-Wing pilots to death from the bridge of the Death Star in A New Hope rather than going out in his Tie Fighter?
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Because the force led Vader on his road to redemption and "the force is strong with this one" when it came to Luke. Obi-wan probably worked some magic behind the scenes. Plus Vader is a headstrong leader that wants to see action.

But I get what you're saying about inconsistencies. Even the Stormtrooper helmet was confusing "I can't see a thing in this helmet" versus "these shots are too accurate for sand people", but then again that could just mean Tuskens are garbage shots or that it takes a lot of training to use a helmet etc. Or maybe stomtrooper helmets are like Magneto helmets to prevent the force being sensitive to the troops
 
The inconsistent power of lightsabers is also an issue.

Original trilogy, they are just swords made out of light.

Episode 1 kicks in and suddenly they can melt fucking solid steel doors!

I'm sure that ability would have come in handy if Obi-wan bothered to tell Luke he could do that
 
Percy said:
Anakin/Vader is Jedi Jesus and Luke is his son so they can probably use the Force better than most or something. I mean, did you see Phantom Menace? Qui Gon Jin's scouter basically said Anakin's Midichlorian levels were over 9000... of course he could stop a couple of blasts from Han Solo's bargain bucket dime store blaster.

If you wanted to worry about inconsistencies in Force abilities, you might as well ask how the fuck Vader was able to Force choke that captain to death over space-Skype in Empire when the distance between them would have been ridiculous. If Vader could do that, why didn't he just choke all those X-Wing pilots to death from the bridge of the Death Star in A New Hope rather than going out in his Tie Fighter?
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That has always bothered me.
 
NetMapel said:
Well Vader is facing Solo one on one. Luke was also basically facing the emperor one on one. They were able to concentrate their force power to use effectively. In the case of Order 66, you got a few hundred troopers shooting at you in a surprise attack. How do you defend and deflect those shots?
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Uhh, all the Jedis just form a circle and everyone does a huge force push blasting all clone troops around them into mush. Or go into hiding, throw lightsaber into air and force it into a missile decapitating every clone troop near you.

It seemed that Order 66 killed all jedis in a matter hours, which made all the jedis look just bad.
 
If I didn't know any better, I'd say Star Wars was a work of fiction, and all the powers contained within were just made up by some guy who thought, "Hey, this would be cool."
 
Sadly most of these are pretty easily put together with being observant or knowing the material as many posts in this thread have covered.
Same with the Stormtroopers.

It is the same thing when people bring up the eagles in Lord of the Rings.
Not plot holes, not inconsistancies just people not knowing the material enough which is fine not everyone is a lore nerd.
 
Sober said:
Forgot to force speed to help catch up to Darth Maul fighting Qui-Gon Jinn, you mean.
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Holy shit, that makes even less sense.

Fighting droids? Force Speed to escape.

Trying to help your mentor defeat a Sith Lord? Casual stroll.

George Lucas, you're a turd.
 
Rodney McKay said:
Good, bad, either way it looked hilarious, haha.

It's the scene where the rolling droids start shooting at Obiwan and Quigon, and then they just WOOSH away.

Maybe it wasn't force speed, but they used force push on THEMSELVES to move at super speeds!
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I really don't see the issue with force speed, or force pushing one's body to move more quickly, or however it fucking works. If someone can utilize the force to shoot lightning or lift heavy objects it can likely be used in other ways physically.

The issue is that it looks like shit and was never used again afterward outside of video games.
 
we regularly see blaster fire hit metal stuff and do little to no damage to it. we also see it damage stuff of course, don't get me wrong, but I think you could argue the inconsistency is in how much damage blasters can do.
 
Winterfang said:
Star Killer brought down a Star Destroyer on his own. That's above anything I've seen before.
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That's expanded universe material why do people keep referencing the EU? The EU was wiped from canon. All of it is irrelevant in discussions like this....
 
CyanideStrike said:
Oh, lawd, what is this shit? Such a stupid move, no wonder why I forgot it.
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How is it any better or worse than the force jump Luke does to avoid carbonation, despite very little training?

Edit:
It's not explained in the movies, but force speed is incredibly taxing on one's body.
 
SteveMeister said:
Maybe he had to see the victim to make it work.
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Maybe the Force is just an illusion trick... it's all about convincing people watching that you can do such things. Vader doesn't choke people through spacecom, he just hypnotizes them to convince them they should be choking. And he convinced Solo that he was in front of him and blocked his laser shots. Maybe the only power Jedi have is the "those are not the droids we're looking for" one. Power of persuasion.
That's why force speed can't be used during major combats, experienced Jedi/Sith know it's all fake.
 
bitocoder said:
How is it any better or worse than the force jump Luke does to avoid carbonation, despite very little training?
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The whole logic behind the Force makes very little sense. Luke jumping to avoid carbonation is equally ridiculous as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan Force Speeding to escape the droids. As I just said, it makes even less sense when Obi-Wan didn't do it later in the film to catch up with Qui-Gon and Darth Maul. It's like they just chucked it in for the sake of it.

Moff said:
maybe he was low on mana/force from the beginning of the fight
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Does the Force even have limits? Do Jedis/Siths need to 'recharge' once they've performed a Force-focused move?
 
DarthWufei said:
Haha, you might as well allow the EU when something this is canon
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Why? That is from clone wars, straight from lucas. Lucasfilm declared that the films and clone wars were canon and that is it (going forward all is canon however). Everything else was wiped out, the sequel Trilogy for example will not follow the EU. No Mara Jade, Thrawn, etc.


The thing people seem to forget is Star Wars isn't sci-fi. There is no science to try to determine. It's fantasy.
 
Cheebo said:
Why? That is from clone wars, straight from lucas. Lucasfilm declared that the films and clone wars were canon and that is it (going forward all is canon however). Everything else was wiped out, the sequel Trilogy for example will not follow the EU. No Mara Jade, Thrawn, etc.


The thing people seem to forget is Star Wars isn't sci-fi. There is no science to try to determine. It's fantasy.
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It was a joke and I wanted to bring to attention something interesting that is in canon to talk about.
 
Could have ended the thread title at "inconsistent".

Taking just the films, and ignoring anything else, I always find it perplexing how Lucas treats his own creation. I'm not entirely sure what it is Lucas wanted, what we ended up with, and what he wished he'd done instead. Inconsistency with something like the Force is the least of my issues.
 
Percy said:
Anakin/Vader is Jedi Jesus and Luke is his son so they can probably use the Force better than most or something. I mean, did you see Phantom Menace? Qui Gon Jin's scouter basically said Anakin's Midichlorian levels were over 9000... of course he could stop a couple of blasts from Han Solo's bargain bucket dime store blaster.

If you wanted to worry about inconsistencies in Force abilities, you might as well ask how the fuck Vader was able to Force choke that captain to death over space-Skype in Empire when the distance between them would have been ridiculous. If Vader could do that, why didn't he just choke all those X-Wing pilots to death from the bridge of the Death Star in A New Hope rather than going out in his Tie Fighter?
Click to expand...

I assume some kind of visual contact is needed.
 
I remember Obi-Won and Quigon ran like the Flash during their introduction. If they should have been able to annihilate Darth Maul with that kind of ability.
 
Why are there such shitty ass looking droids when we know they have the technology to make artificial skin and accurately replicate a human hand?
 
Jarmel said:
Why didn't somebody force push Maul into the big hole in the middle?

Writing is hard.
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Maul clearly had the upper hand when it came to the Force, at least in terms of strength. Any attempt to Force Push him into the pit could've been countered easily. IIRC, one of them did attempt to Force Push him and failed miserably. None of this negates the fact that the battle may have been won had Obi-Wan used Force Speed to catch up sooner and get past the barriers.

DoctorWho said:
Why are there such shitty ass looking droids when we know they have the technology to make artificial skin and accurately replicate a human hand?
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The technology was better in the prequels. It makes no sense.
 
Good fucking lord. I'm convinced only myself and like 5 other people on this forum have actually seen Clone Wars, despite it arguably being the best thing to happen to the universe since the OT.
 
The only explanation I have for the speed force not being used in the Darth Maul fight is that Maul could also use it. So either we see the fight slowed down -which would explain why obi wan doesn't look like speed running to catch the fight- or they know it is useless to use force speed against another high level force user -as Maul could just use it too and everything is the same- so it is a technique useless against force user.

The later is the most plausible one, but doesn't really explain why Obi Wan doesn't run to catch to the QuiGon/Maul fight.

Maybe force speed was a thing Obi Wan wasn't really trained to do, and what we see in the opening of phantom, is QuiGon carrying Obi Wan.
 
plagiarize said:
we regularly see blaster fire hit metal stuff and do little to no damage to it. we also see it damage stuff of course, don't get me wrong, but I think you could argue the inconsistency is in how much damage blasters can do.
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My favourite part about reading high level SW vs ST debates is the mental gymnastics required to get consistency for blaster power levels. They will point to making explosions and blasting holes in the walls on some sets as meaning they are extremely powerful, but then they have to say that people are wearing super-advanced clothes that are ultra strong armor against blasters because of how many times we see people take a blaster rifle to the chest and be wounded but basically ok. Princess on Endor in ROTJ in particular.

The best of all time was an argument about how it could be true that starship-grade blasters could have kilotonne level firepower afforded them by the canon, but they barely affect anything when they hit the snow on hoth.
 
CyanideStrike said:
The whole logic behind the Force makes very little sense. Luke jumping to avoid carbonation is equally ridiculous as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan Force Speeding to escape the droids. As I just said, it makes even less sense when Obi-Wan didn't do it later in the film to catch up with Qui-Gon and Darth Maul. It's like they just chucked it in for the sake of it.


Does the Force even have limits? Do Jedis/Siths need to 'recharge' once they've performed a Force-focused move?
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I answered that in my edit. Force speed is incredibly taxing physically. You don't "run out of force" as much as you exhaust your stamina. Force speed is never a good idea against other force users as it leaves you very vulnerable.
 
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