The prequels have a lot of problems, but I’ve always been annoyed by the way they suddenly switch gears between episodes one and two to start introducing the concept of midi-chlorians — an idea that was never brought up in prior films, despite it being central to Anakin’s fall in Episode III . In fact, Star Wars has long had some issues with explaining how “the Force” works; there are numerous different ways it can be interpreted depending on what you read or who you talk to. What is this Force anyway?I’m not really here to explain how The Force works (that would take another article), but if we look at all the explanations for its nature given over 30+ years of Expanded Universe material, plus what little we know about it from Return Of The Jedi , then we can see that perhaps George Lucas wasn’t so crazy after all when he wanted to get rid of midi-chlorians as a means for describing how people use the Force. It might seem like I’m just trying to nitpick at his ideas now — which isn’t entirely untrue — but let me put forth my case and convince you otherwise…One way that most fans think about “the Force” is through telepathy: The Jedi communicate via their minds with other Jedis without having any kind of physical contact between them (ie. Leia communicating with Luke across space). This could be due in part by certain kinds of electromagnetic waves emitted by living beings and/or objects around them; it could also be hyperspace particles themselves interacting with each other across distances within our galaxy. (And yes, these are both mentioned somewhere in EU canon.)But this doesn’t even scratch the surface when talking about manipulating matter or energy using your mind alone – eg., levitating objects or blasting lightning out your hands\*. Those things don’t require any kind of mental communication whatsoever! And yet those abilities exist too… unless I missed something somewhere along the line.(\*Note: Both light sabers AND hand blasts were used against droids specifically designed NOT TO BE VULNERABLE TO LIGHTNING FROM A HUMAN WEAPON!)So no, telepathy cannot account for everything attributed to “the Force.”Which brings us back full circle. Where’d these powers come from then? According to Wookieepedia , Palpatine once explained during a meeting that every living thing generates measurable amounts of dark side energy naturally… including plants!