Star Wars: 10 Things That Didn’t Go The Way George Lucas Wanted

Instead of dropping jaws around the world and leaving fans feeling wholly satisfied at the revelation of microscopic organisms in the blood of all living things known as Midi-chlorians being the reason some folks can move rocks with a wave of a hand, the entire Phantom Menace exposition dump Qui-Gon Jinn delivers to a baffled future Darth Vader felt like a needless way of over-complicating matters.

Sure, it helped established how ridiculously OP Anakin Skywalker was from the second the unorthodox Jedi Master stumbled upon the Tatooine lad. But the complete lack of Midi-chlorian nonsense in the celebrated tales that would follow this table setter of a trilogy only further hammered home the pointless nature of adding some bizarre concrete science to this mystical way of manipulating the energy around us.

And with many of the folks involved in bringing elements of the franchise into existence, like Death Star Legends author Steve Perry, also noting how the concept of Midi-chlorians was "less than inspired", it's clear Lucas didn't convince a great many that this Prequel addition was in any way essential.