Back to the original topic of midichlorians, did the movie come first or the books about detecting force in people? I remember one of the Star Wars books having a story where they found a device to detect force levels in people. Think the Empire used it to find and kill potential jedi. Not sure if they used the word midichlorians, though. The other way they used to detect a person with force capabilities was for a jedi to reach out into his/her mind to get a reflex reaction from the force. The stronger the reflex reaction, the stronger the person is in the force. Its been years since I read the books, so I can't recall which came first - the books or the movie? Anyone know? I think that the reflex reaction thing would have been better than midichlorians, which just made me give up on the prequels (I watched Ep 2 and 3 on a plane a few years after), and would have been a shame not to use it if the books were already out before the movie.
As for whether it's inherited or random, well, I think there's a chance of both according to the those books. I remember an alien clone that actually has the force while his predecessor and successor did not.
I thought in the prequels the jedi were not meant to fall in love and reproduce, rather than they could not reproduce. Imagine if they had changed the rules earlier. Anakin wouldn't have had to go all angsty and evil since he could have started a family with Padme. In the later New Republic books, I think many jedis had families. Although I only followed the series until Han and Leia's twins were born, I know that Luke married Mara Jade and they have a son too.
Anyway, I too will accept the theory that Qui-Gon Jin was crazy to make the prequel and midichlorians more palatable, and will propagate it to all my Star Wars loving friends.
