[NGTM-1R]

Show me one example in any of the other six Star Wars movie where a force user stops a blaster shot in mid-air using only his mind.

Show me an example where they'd want to rather than redirecting it back at them or simply disposing of it permanently. (Indeed, given the close temporal connection it's been argued before that Vader didn't just absorb the blaster bolt, but actually used it to power stealing Han's gun and saving himself some trouble.) Kylo's trick is flashy, but compared to the other options in the hands of a Force-user it's actually one of the least effective.

Your argument that "it's never been done therefore it's impossible" is petty and dumb, as was noted before in this thread. We do not know what others were fully capable of, we only know what we saw them do. That does not prove they were incapable of anything else.

[Dragon]

Or maybe he wanted to show the futility of using a blaster against him. He simply did that differently than Kylo Ren did. He shrugged off the shots, which is arguably more intimidating than stopping them. If you've got a guy that could answer your question (the one about getting shot) with "I don't care, it doesn't really matter", he's probably not to be messed with. Vader didn't even need to stop them. Same with paralyzing Han. Why bother? Let him try and shoot someone he can't hurt anyway. Remember, Vader's hand, much like the rest of his body, was cybernetics. It might have been stronger than Stormtrooper armor, for all we know (OK, I know it's not saying much ).

Of course, that is assuming he didn't somehow neutralize them in his hand, which is another possibility.

Stopping a blaster bolt in mid-air would have been perfectly achievable. Having Darth Vader stretch out his hand and try to mind-rape leia would have been the same.

Here's a question.
Do you know what movie came out in 1999? The Matrix. Do you know what Neo does in that movie. He stops multiple bullets in mid-air.
Do you know how many Jedi in Episode 2 (2002) and Episode 3 (2005) could have benefited from being able to stop bullets in mid air? Pretty much all of them. 
Special effects are easy.

No, in 1999 they weren't. Hoisting a bullet up by a string is easy, it's a physical object like any other. Hoisting up a bolt of light and making it look good? Not so much. And no, it certainly wouldn't look the same as a lightsaber. At the time the OT was filmed, it'd probably have to be some dorky-looking light. Maybe it could be made to look good, but this would be hard. Also, the first film had a rather small-ish budget. In general, at that time a simpler effect would've made much more sense. A blaster bolt hanging in midair would in no way change the plot enough to justify its expense.

Regarding the interrogation, remember that Leia was his daughter and she was no slouch in terms of the Force, either. Perhaps he did interrogate her with the Force and was resisted by her. Rey also does that (and she doesn't have training, like Leia), so perhaps the innate power is enough to pull this off, even against someone who's pretty strong. Remember, Jedi Mind Trick doesn't even work on all species, so it seems mental manipulation has its limits. It would appear that if you're "strong in the force", resisting such interrogation boils down to not wanting to tell your interrogator what he's looking for really badly. Leia was very strong-willed.

[chief1983]

I think the point is missed here, is that they both stopped the bolts with _the Force_.  Nevermind 'mind or hand', look, his hand didn't physically stop the blast.  He didn't have some superhuman enhancements, he had sufficient control of the Force to prevent it from damaging his hand.  Kylo stopped it in midair with _the Force_.  Not his mind itself, his mind's control of the Force.  We don't know Vader couldn't do that either, we just know that ILM would have had to spend a lot more money showing that effect because drawing blaster bolts on frames cost a lot more before CGI was cheap.  So having a frame or two with a blaster bolt and then some sparks emitting from Vader's hand was a much more effective effect with the technology and budget allowed.  As I type this I had only glanced at Dragon's post because I'd already been formulating this thought and just realized we're mostly on the same page.  Even in 1999 CGI could probably have achieved a passable effect, but ILM wasn't going to pull that off in ESB, when it wasn't critical to getting the point across that Vader can manipulate blasters with the Force, as can Kylo Ren, even though they did it with a different flair.

But this whole Kylo vs Vader thing just sounds like a comic book store argument of my superhero can beat up your superhero, based on over-extrapolated data from a limited amount of exposure to the universe at hand.  I can tell because we've done some over-extrapolation in our time.  And by the pixels.

[Akalabeth Angel]

He didn't have some superhuman enhancements, he had sufficient control of the Force to prevent it from damaging his hand. 

So why is there smoke? If it didn't hit his hand, why is there an impact?

And again. This basic pattern recognition.

Deflecting/Blocking with a Light Saber, Blocking with a hand = precognition

Stopping a blaster bolt in mid air = precognition + direct control

[Dragon]

If he didn't need to stop them why did he use his hand? Where is your logic man?
Wait, let me guess, he armoured the palm of his HANDS but not his chest plate right?  Or maybe he wanted to impress him in two different ways, both by catching them and not crying out.

Because everyone knows that Vader is such a big show off.  He lives on the approval/fear of others. 

If you believe a certain horrible book, only the glove was indestructible (but would still give the proper impression). If you don't, well, he had blinkenlights on his chest, so maybe he decided that it'd be better to use his hand. Or maybe it was about the dramatic gesture. Vader was not a showoff, but he certainly preferred the people to fear him. He appeared intimidating and was quick to underline he means business (for example, force-choking Motti for expressing doubt about the Force. It was not like he couldn't refute his point in civil discussion, but that's not exactly his style).

Oh **** it's a good thing they didn't use laser swords then. That would have looked terrible.

Those were vital to the plot, so it makes sense to spend money on that. If you read about how they did them, it was quite a complex setup and a chore to work with for the cast.

So now you're claiming that Leia used the force to resist but Vader didn't realize she was using the force?  Because you do know that Vader never knows that Leia is a force user. Even in Return of the Jedi he only knows that Luke has a sister.  Arguably he would know its Leia at that point but clearly before that he did not know.

Maybe it doesn't even take Force aptitude. Since we're not told the exact rules, mind manipulation might only work on the weak-willed. Kylo Ren might have simply never encountered anyone strong enough to resist him before. It's been established that even simply being of a certain species can make one immune to Jedi Mind Trick. This could extend to more invasive techniques as well.

Also, Leia wasn't a Force user at that time. The Force was strong in her (we know that for a fact), but she didn't consciously use it. Rey wasn't deliberately making use of the Force when she resisted Kylo Ren's interrogation, either. The Force being what it is, you don't have to explicitly invoke it for it to manifest. Vader could probably sense that she had a natural connection to the Force (Jedi seem to be able to sense things like that), but that alone wouldn't be enough for him to recognize her as his daughter.

So why is there smoke? If it didn't hit his hand, why is there an impact?

He allowed it to dissipate, that's why. There's no visible damage to his hand, so either the bolt hit some Force barrier, or it was stopped and allowed to dissipate. That was probably easier than what Kylo did (as he likely had to hold the bolt together, normally they last for a few of seconds), but the end result was just the same.

But this whole Kylo vs Vader thing just sounds like a comic book store argument of my superhero can beat up your superhero, based on over-extrapolated data from a limited amount of exposure to the universe at hand.  I can tell because we've done some over-extrapolation in our time.  And by the pixels.

Well, you're right, but at the same time it's a pretty big plot point. We're essentially arguing if it fell flat or not. Kylo Ren was intended to come off as inferior to Vader, I think that this was pretty explicit in the movie. Whether he actually did is, I think, the whole point of this argument.

[Dragon]

There's no arguing with people who ignore direct and plain on-screen evidence as well as basic logic and pattern recognition in favour of their own complicated fantasies.

Good point. Just remember that the scene with Vader's mask happens to be direct and plain on-screen evidence. If whoever replaces Abrams is any good, the second movie will settle that anyway.

[Dragon]

No, but there must be a reason for his feeling of inadequacy. It is quite possible that he's got an exaggerated image of his grandfather, but Kylo Ren is not the kind of person who underestimates his own skill. This personality type has a tendency to have an inflated opinion of himself. It is possible that his impression of Vader is exaggerated as well, of course, but I feel that if a person like Kylo Ren declares someone his superior, he's right and by a far margin.

Ultimately, we have no solid way to compare them. Vader trained longer (by virtue of being much older), this is beyond doubt. We don't get Midichlorian count of Kylo Ren, so we can't compare immediate ability. We don't know rules behind the Force, so we can't even reliably compare abilities displayed. We can speculate, but Force doesn't exactly follow "basic logic" you like so much (and the films don't, either. There are many "out of universe" constraints for what is shown and what isn't). Add to that the fact that Kylo Ren certainly knows more about Vader than we do (being privy to all the "background information" that we have to wait for supplementary material to reveal) and probably has a better idea of his own abilities (although we don't know what kind of master Snoke is. Giving his apprentice an inferiority complex on purpose is certainly something a Sith master could do). As far as I see it, there is more evidence of his assessment being accurate than not.

Also, even if he was stronger and more skilled with the Force than Vader, it still doesn't mean his defeat by Rey is that implausible (especially seeing as it was likely his first "real" lightsaber fight). Force powers don't magically grant you fencing prowess, this is a separate skillset. Granted, they can give you an edge in a fight, but Kylo didn't use them then, for whatever reason. As far as lightsabers go, Vader was clearly a better duelist.

[Dragon]

How about in-universe Wikipedia about him? Honestly, Vader is his grandfather and mentor figure. What we know comes from six movies and a cartoon. He has the entire body of news about him from Galactic Empire (where he was a prominent figure), probably.

Fixed that for you

That is ad hominem, completely untrue and completely pointless. Though seeing that I go quite a bit beyond basic logic into more advanced kinds, I can understand why you may have trouble following (yes I know, Chief, that was uncalled for).

Anyway, "The Force" is not SW universe's substitute for "Magic", it's closer to its substitute for God. Its treated a lot like one by many, as well. It does have some rules of who can call on it and how (at least presumably), but its sentient and it would appear that by its own will, it can do whatever the heck it wants. Why are you expecting it to follow human logic? Its nature is unexplained and it works "in mysterious ways", which is what makes it such a powerful narrative tool, while at the same time not a complete game-breaker. It could be likened to an omnipresent Lovecraftian god, a being beyond human understanding, beyond human control, which can be approached, interacted with, but not understood in its entirety. And you are expecting it to conform to your principles of "basic logic" (as in, logic simple enough for you to understand)? You should also note that "The Force" doesn't even have a morality. It's simply "Use it responsibly and in moderation, you're fine. Abuse it, you go mad". This is the picture we get from the movies. It's been a metaphor for a lot of things (God, magic, political power, just to name a few), but that's the big picture this paints.

It does seem to generally align its will with human interests, but maybe its just not fond of being abused and drives humans it can control to eliminates those who do that? It certainly doesn't seem to want much more than to bring balance to itself, which always involves eliminating darksiders. Of course, by now I fallen in the exact same trap as you did, expecting it to have reactions that follow human logic. So nevermind this paragraph.

What does follow logic are how humans react to it and how they use it. The human philosophy regarding it, human way of living with it. Sensitivity to it seems to be inheritable, but we don't know if the innate Force sense becomes "diluted" with generations, or if it gets stronger in every generation. It might even have a set range of values for each line of force users, with any value in that range being able to manifest in any member of the line. We don't know if it increases or decreases with age (seeing as all the old force users we see trained heavily). We don't know what exactly are the limits of what you can do with particular powers. We don't know if there are limits of what those powers can be, either. There's a reason we don't, and why nobody set those limits (or ever will in a canon book, hopefully). Explaining too much about the fundamental nature of the Force would rob SW universe of much of its mystique. Understanding that is useful when you want to understand the world of Star Wars (and especially if you want to write stories set in it that feature the Force as anything but background).

[Erkhyan]

For most people, two lines said by Ben Kenobi on-screen in the very first movie were enough to establish Vader as a major threat:

For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic.

A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights. He betrayed and murdered your father.

Since we’re going to accept that people talking about Luke’s supposed pre-Yavin mad piloting skills in the same movie is pretty much the same thing as showing them on-screen, why not believe the guy who says that Vader helped bring down an Order that stood for over a thousand generations?

[Akalabeth Angel]

Explaining too much about the fundamental nature of the Force would rob SW universe of much of its mystique.

Mystique?  Star Wars doesn't have mystique.  It's a cash cow with very raw udders which has been milked to death by both fans and media alike, milked so much that the new film is regurgitating the same stories that have already been told. Every detail of the films has probably been expanded upon or explained in detail. Picked apart by both authors, creators and fans alike.

Vader is his grandfather and mentor figure.

Mentoring someone requires that the person be alive. Vader was dead before this twerp was even conceived.  It's amusing that you think 2nd-hand knowledge is any sort of replacement for witnessing events first-hand. The audience has experienced Anakin's life first-hand for 6 movies and officially, the clone wars cartoon.  No history book is going to detail what happened in more than half of the events portrayed and the events portrayed were the most important events of his life.

[Phantom Hoover]

That is ad hominem, completely untrue and completely pointless. Though seeing that I go quite a bit beyond basic logic into more advanced kinds, I can understand why you may have trouble following (yes I know, Chief, that was uncalled for).

oh i'll bite, how does forcing work

[chief1983]

Yes there was already a warning about personal attacks in this thread, I'll let CB be the final judge of whether we just lock this thread.  it really isn't yielding any positive discussion anyway.

[NGTM-1R]

So Vader is a force capacitor now? Who doesn't get his power from a connection to the world but because he sucked up a laser bolt?

Do you deny that there was energy there, and that he absorbed it or nullified it somehow? It went away, we know that much. Your disdain for the notion is amusing, but it's all you have. You can't disprove it, so you just act like it's silly when you haven't got a lick of evidence.

When would a Jedi have wanted to stop a laser bolt? Every single time a Jedi died from a blaster bolt.

You are being deliberately dense.

They already have a method to stop a blaster bolt: their lightsaber. The lightsaber, in fact, not only gives them a chance to stop the blaster bolt from hitting them, it gives them the ability to send that bolt back at the thing attacking them, making it stop shooting altogether! The methodology of using a lightsaber to redirect the bolt is a clearly superior one to simply stopping the bolt in midair for a time.

Every time the Jedi didn't stop a bolt in mid-air, indeed pretty much every time they died, they were under fire from dozens of blasters, or taken by surprise in pretty much the only way possible in the case of Order 66. Kylo Ren managed to stop one bolt. Just one. A lightsaber user is shown to be able to cope with being shot at by at least six to eight people at once, and for a decent length of time in terms of how it's measured in combat.  ore powerful than anything we've seen before? Not with those results. By all evidence to hand it is a fundamentally inferior method of coping with blasterfire.

Indeed, even Ren seems to think so. When he was getting shot at continuously by Rey, he used his saber.

Your digression about The Matrix is you once again reaching for something outside the universe to explain in-universe logic. This is not a discussion of Doyle, but of Watson, so it's pointless. (If you don't understand the reference go back to literary criticism 101 and don't return until you've finished it.) Similarly, your digression about arguments proves only that you are ignorant. You don't know enough about how the universe of the story works to disprove any of these hypotheses you heap scorn upon. They don't fit your vision, but in the end scorn is all you have, that and your own vision of how things would work. You don't know any of this.

You don't even know how evidence works. You're arguing that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. That's not the way it works. The absence of evidence is not the same thing as a null result; nobody does something can be a simple event of random chance, or a judgement that it was not useful.

[Phantom Hoover]

i mean kylo also got shot later in the film when he was presumably distracted

[Dragon]

So Vader is a force capacitor now? Who doesn't get his power from a connection to the world but because he sucked up a laser bolt?

Do you deny that there was energy there, and that he absorbed it or nullified it somehow? It went away, we know that much. Your disdain for the notion is amusing, but it's all you have. You can't disprove it, so you just act like it's silly when you haven't got a lick of evidence.

When would a Jedi have wanted to stop a laser bolt? Every single time a Jedi died from a blaster bolt.

You are being deliberately dense.

They already have a method to stop a blaster bolt: their lightsaber. The lightsaber, in fact, not only gives them a chance to stop the blaster bolt from hitting them, it gives them the ability to send that bolt back at the thing attacking them, making it stop shooting altogether! The methodology of using a lightsaber to redirect the bolt is a clearly superior one to simply stopping the bolt in midair for a time.

Every time the Jedi didn't stop a bolt in mid-air, indeed pretty much every time they died, they were under fire from dozens of blasters, or taken by surprise in pretty much the only way possible in the case of Order 66. Kylo Ren managed to stop one bolt. Just one. A lightsaber user is shown to be able to cope with being shot at by at least six to eight people at once, and for a decent length of time in terms of how it's measured in combat.  ore powerful than anything we've seen before? Not with those results. By all evidence to hand it is a fundamentally inferior method of coping with blasterfire.

Indeed, even Ren seems to think so. When he was getting shot at continuously by Rey, he used his saber.

Your digression about The Matrix is you once again reaching for something outside the universe to explain in-universe logic. This is not a discussion of Doyle, but of Watson, so it's pointless. (If you don't understand the reference go back to literary criticism 101 and don't return until you've finished it.) Similarly, your digression about arguments proves only that you are ignorant. You don't know enough about how the universe of the story works to disprove any of these hypotheses you heap scorn upon. They don't fit your vision, but in the end scorn is all you have, that and your own vision of how things would work. You don't know any of this.

You don't even know how evidence works. You're arguing that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. That's not the way it works. The absence of evidence is not the same thing as a null result; nobody does something can be a simple event of random chance, or a judgement that it was not useful.

Good point, and well said. Should've pointed out those logic flaws instead of resorting to petty jabs. Perhaps I should get back to it tomorrow/whenever I'm not tired. And yeah, I agree that it's essential that we keep the discussion in-universe. Doylist arguments are irrelevant here.

Mentoring someone requires that the person be alive. Vader was dead before this twerp was even conceived.  It's amusing that you think 2nd-hand knowledge is any sort of replacement for witnessing events first-hand. The audience has experienced Anakin's life first-hand for 6 movies and officially, the clone wars cartoon.  No history book is going to detail what happened in more than half of the events portrayed and the events portrayed were the most important events of his life.

Bah, you're obviously right on that count. I meant the role model, just used the wrong word. You'll have to argue with someone else for the next couple of hours. I'm off to bed.

[Phantom Hoover]

if vader's a force capacitor how many farads does he have

[AdmiralRalwood]

It should be noted that while it was thrown out with the rest of the EU, it used to be canon that Vader was, in fact, absorbing at least part of the energy of the blaster bolts and redirecting that energy into telekinesis, so NGTM-1R isn't just pulling the idea out of a hat or something.

[Akalabeth Angel]

It should be noted that while it was thrown out with the rest of the EU, it used to be canon that Vader was, in fact, absorbing at least part of the energy of the blaster bolts and redirecting that energy into telekinesis, so NGTM-1R isn't just pulling the idea out of a hat or something.

Expanded Universe was never truly canon in the way that the films were.  That's why it was called EU, not Star Wars.

Even after the Disney take over there are no less than five tiers of canon. The Clone Wars and Rebels series are canon, but they're not as canon as the movies are.

Whoever wrote that energy absorption idea was undoubtedly some author who either had to justify his own problems with the film or was trying to draw on some shred of the movies in an attempt to give his own story a scrap of legitimacy or relevance, just like authors have apparently taken every alien in the Mos Eisley cantina and told their story told at one time or another.

[Phantom Hoover]

i think in the old eu it was canon that darth vader's glove was made out of a magic indestructible amulet

[Crashdown117]

Maybe if you had Kylo Ren waiving his hand around saying "you will tell the information that I want" and Po repeating his words you could assume it was the related, but that's not what happens.

But there you exactly tell the difference between light side and dark side methods of influencing somebody's mind (and that's the similarity between the two things: using the Force to influence a weak mind)
Light side: Kindly asking you to do something. A bit of handwaving, telling you what I want you to do/say.
Dark side: Simply forcing you to do it. Ripping the information from your mind without even caring about if you get hurt in any way.