To coincide with the many questions being raised about The Force in the recent Mortis trilogy of The Clone Wars, Starwars.com has added a couple posts centered upon our favorite mystical energy.

The first post features a fun look back at 1970's merchandise inspired by The Force ranging from buttons, to records to bumper stickers to shirts and more!

In the second, post Pete Vilmur compiles a list of George Lucas quotes and notes from 1975 to 1999 in which The Maker discusses his toughts on The Force. Check out Pete's intro below and then click here for a rather interesting read.


'"The Force evolved out of various developments of character and plot," said George Lucas in an interview with Empire Strikes Back publicist Alan Arnold in 1979. "I began to distill the essence of all religions into what I thought was a basic idea common to all religions and common to primitive thinking. I wanted to develop something that was nondenominational but still had a kind of religious reality."

The idea of the Force is what many would agree distinguishes Star Wars from your typical space adventure -- it's at the heart of the Star Wars mythos, lending a spiritual dimension to a classic story which just happens to take place in a galaxy far, far away. The latest set of Clone Wars episodes -- the Mortis trilogy, which ends with Friday's "Ghosts of Mortis" -- have given fans a rare glimpse into the mysteries of the Force, allowing us to form a clearer picture of its influences from the vague clues Lucas has scattered throughout the saga.

We've gathered a selection of quotes in which Lucas defines his concept of the Force, from the earliest mention in A New Hope's 1975 second draft to the introduction of midi-chlorians in 1999, a concept which Lucas actually established in an internal 1977 story discussion:"