Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is hitting stores on September 16th and that’s all cool and lovely. But, as you prepare to get your Sith on, why not pause for a moment and consider this for a curve ball…The Force is overrated: FACT!

But it’s an energy field, you say, created by all living things. It surrounds and penetrates living beings. It binds the whole galaxy together for god’s sake. Well, that’s as maybe. But if you examine the holy sextuplet with dispassionate eyes, you’ll see that while characters are perpetually rattling on about how powerful The Force is, most of the time it’s a massive let down.

Darth says, “the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.” But is it? Is it really? If so, why bother to build a Death Star in the first place? Darth could just fly about pointing at planets and blowing them up. But no, we never see a Jedi or a Sith blow up a planet with the Force. It takes all Yoda’s effort to lift an X-Wing out of a puddle. So there! Read on, check out our 9 reasons worth of evidence and feel free to consign me to the detention block in our forums.

Just take a look at this promo image for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (the sole inspiration for this article.) That’s one Jedi. Bringing a Star Destroyer to ground. With The Force. Seriously? No offence to the game, don’t get me wrong, the game looks pretty good. And no offence to the principle of a Jedi being powerful enough to take a Star Destroyer down with The Force. Arguably the films could have done with more showy Jedi powers. No, the problem is that nowhere in any of the films do Jedi, or Sith for that matter, do anything remotely as cool as this. Apparently the game’s considered ‘canon’ too. Meaning according to Lucas this stuff is legit. Now this isn’t a reason in itself for suggesting that The Force is overrated. But, as you read on just consider how many of the following Star Warsian situations could have been affected if Jedi or Sith were as powerful as this.

Judgment on The Force: Just doesn’t work in canon