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 bbb wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
They haven't mirrored Luke and that seems to be what people are complaining about.

If you want to ignore every conversation sure, but most are complaining that she's not getting a heroes journey so much as she already seems to be very powerful, strong, without any buildup as to why she's already this amazing jedi thus far without need for assistance or training.

She doesn't need to really be Luke so much as the odd narrative of what a plucky scavenger whose lived her entire life gathering scrap for food tokens is now suddenly able to mind trick and lightsaber duel with the best of them. It seems like it wants to have it's cake of "The hero improves overall through their journey" while having "Strong powerful character who really doesn't have too many hurdles to overcome". Which is why it's hard for me to take the stakes for IX seriously at this point where it seems like the main problem facing the resistance is that they aren't that competent and the only reason they are around still is because the First Order is even more incompetent.

From the start of TFA to the end of TLJ how much time has elapsed? A month, maybe? Junk scavenger to going toe-to-toe with the most elite hand-to-hand Stormtroopers and a powerful force user with maybe 20 years of training under two other powerful force users all in a month's time.

You're overestimating. By a month. TLJ literally picks up the same moment TFA ended: Rey handing Luke the light saber.
The Resisty had her travel time from their random planet to island world to, apparently, pack for evacuation. Because winning against 'StarKiller base' meant losing everything else.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The original three films were directed by three different directors.

But they were all written by George Lucas.
TLJ was written by Rian Johnson and TFA was a joint project between JJ Abrams, Michael Arndt and Lawrence Kasden.

 gorgon wrote:

 bbb wrote:
From the start of TFA to the end of TLJ how much time has elapsed? A month, maybe? Junk scavenger to going toe-to-toe with the most elite hand-to-hand Stormtroopers and a powerful force user with maybe 20 years of training under two other powerful force users all in a month's time.

Take a minute and really consider everything that farmboy-with-no-training Luke does in ANH.

It's fascinating how people are willing to make huge allowances for Luke, but not for Rey.

I get that to an extent, but part of the success that he has in ANH is due to the Empire letting them escape. Jumping from bullseyeing womp rats in a T-16 to making attacking the Death Star in an X-Wing is a big jump but they set up that he can fly something and has good aim. Also, he has a friend from home who was already an X-Wing pilot so Biggs could have vouched for him. Obi Wan references that his dad was a great pilot too. Then there are a few years between ANH and ESB for him to develop as a warrior.

Rey gets none of that. She can hold her own against other scavengers, but that's about it. From there she rapidly develops new talents out of thin air.

 bbb wrote:

Rey gets none of that. She can hold her own against other scavengers, but that's about it. From there she rapidly develops new talents out of thin air.

My impression is that was she was pretty accomplished as a hand to hand fighter. Most of the sword fights she's in are also fairly standard; they aren't leaping off mountains or doing huge amounts of force work during the fights. In fact they are fairly standard hand to hand fights with the core difference being that its an energy sword instead of a blade or staff.

We also see that even though she uses the sabre she clearly favours the staff weapon that she still carries around with her. As alluded to earlier in the thread if her lightsabre crystal is now cracked in half we might well see her with a staff or duel blade sabre.

It might have helped if we saw her in one or two more fights during her scavenger times.


Luke also did passably well against Vader the first time he fought him, despite having very little training by that point besides the laser droid in the Falcon (I doubt that between A New Hope and Empire he got much time to practice swordcraft)

A Protagonist Jedi wielding a double bladed light saber would be pretty cool to see, something we haven't seen since Darth Maul, a villain and Sith.

 Overread wrote:


Luke also did passably well against Vader the first time he fought him, despite having very little training by that point besides the laser droid in the Falcon (I doubt that between A New Hope and Empire he got much time to practice swordcraft)

If by passably well you mean lost his hand and nearly fell to his death, sure, he did passably well. Considering how Vader tried talking him over to the dark side, its implied that he was just toying with Luke. You don't kill prospective apprentices.

Yeah Luke does pretty poorly against Vader, who only uses one hand against them, and then gets bored and starts lobbing boxes at him instead.


Along with the hand cutting bit.

 Overread wrote:

 bbb wrote:

Rey gets none of that. She can hold her own against other scavengers, but that's about it. From there she rapidly develops new talents out of thin air.

My impression is that was she was pretty accomplished as a hand to hand fighter. Most of the sword fights she's in are also fairly standard; they aren't leaping off mountains or doing huge amounts of force work during the fights. In fact they are fairly standard hand to hand fights with the core difference being that its an energy sword instead of a blade or staff.

We also see that even though she uses the sabre she clearly favours the staff weapon that she still carries around with her. As alluded to earlier in the thread if her lightsabre crystal is now cracked in half we might well see her with a staff or duel blade sabre.

It might have helped if we saw her in one or two more fights during her scavenger times.

Luke also did passably well against Vader the first time he fought him, despite having very little training by that point besides the laser droid in the Falcon (I doubt that between A New Hope and Empire he got much time to practice swordcraft)

She def is pretty handy with her staff - in fact was expecting her to go with staff-sabre from the get go in this film, her hand to hand combat skills were not for me in doubt, but again if the supposed theme was "new" - having her go no Luke how do I make this work as a staff would have been good and her showing off some moves with it.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Overread wrote:


Luke also did passably well against Vader the first time he fought him, despite having very little training by that point besides the laser droid in the Falcon (I doubt that between A New Hope and Empire he got much time to practice swordcraft)

If by passably well you mean lost his hand and nearly fell to his death, sure, he did passably well. Considering how Vader tried talking him over to the dark side, its implied that he was just toying with Luke. You don't kill prospective apprentices.

Well I consider it passably good considering that every other fully trained Jedi that went against Vader wound up rather dead.

 Overread wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Overread wrote:


Luke also did passably well against Vader the first time he fought him, despite having very little training by that point besides the laser droid in the Falcon (I doubt that between A New Hope and Empire he got much time to practice swordcraft)

If by passably well you mean lost his hand and nearly fell to his death, sure, he did passably well. Considering how Vader tried talking him over to the dark side, its implied that he was just toying with Luke. You don't kill prospective apprentices.

Well I consider it passably good considering that every other fully trained Jedi that went against Vader wound up rather dead.

Because Vader was trying to KILL them. Vader was not trying to kill Luke.

And nor was Kylo Ren trying to kill Rey, for that matter.

Kylo's also pretty severely wounded during their fight in Ep7. There's a reason the movie points out how destructive a bowcaster is at several points prior to Chewie putting a bolt in his side.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
And nor was Kylo Ren trying to kill Rey, for that matter.

This is an important point that those pushing the 'Mary Sue' agenda overlook.

I'd also suggest that TLJ also refutes the 'Mary Sue' position through her complete failure on Snoke's ship. She's no match for him whatsoever, and she also fails to turn Kylo as she thought she could. Yes, she shows fancy swordwork after Snoke's death. And yet the saber skills are the weakest part of the Mary Sue agenda. She clearly has more hand-to-hand combat experience than Luke ever had as a farmboy, and it's also clear that this trilogy has returned to the more instinctive, partially-controlling-your-actions Force of the OT.

But sure, it's much more realistic that a farmboy who can fly a futuristic cropduster can become an expert spaceship dogfighter overnight. If one believes that the Force is making that happen for Luke, then why the outrage over it granting abilities to Rey?

 gorgon wrote:


But sure, it's much more realistic that a farmboy who can fly a futuristic cropduster can become an expert spaceship dogfighter overnight. If one believes that the Force is making that happen for Luke, then why the outrage over it granting abilities to Rey?

That is the only thing that Luke accomplishes (not a minor one, of course). But he must be babysit by Han and Obi wan for all the rest, and in a lesser extent by Leia. He is constantly mocked, doubted, and must be saved from the Tusk Raiders, and even the glorious final fight would have been a failure without Han coming back (first greater step of Han development, undone in TFA).
Even in the subsequent movies he fails, makes mistakes until he reaches a true maturity.
Is not only that Rey learns faster and is more efficient, but is more welcomed by strangers and needs no rescuers. She looks like a power fantasy and makes me care less about her. Truth to be told, she is far less obnoxious in TLJ.
I am amazed that this must be repeated over and over.

 insaniak wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Mark Hamill said he didn't agree with the portrayal of Luke in this film and I agree with him..

He said that after reading the script for the first time. He changed his mind and admitted he was wrong after seeing the finished movie.

Mark Hamill doesn't like TLJ's Luke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0biqMZrxJ0

I'm starting to think you want to like TLJ more than you actually like TLJ.

 gorgon wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
And nor was Kylo Ren trying to kill Rey, for that matter.

This is an important point that those pushing the 'Mary Sue' agenda overlook.

I'd also suggest that TLJ also refutes the 'Mary Sue' position through her complete failure on Snoke's ship. She's no match for him whatsoever, and she also fails to turn Kylo as she thought she could. Yes, she shows fancy swordwork after Snoke's death. And yet the saber skills are the weakest part of the Mary Sue agenda. She clearly has more hand-to-hand combat experience than Luke ever had as a farmboy, and it's also clear that this trilogy has returned to the more instinctive, partially-controlling-your-actions Force of the OT.

But sure, it's much more realistic that a farmboy who can fly a futuristic cropduster can become an expert spaceship dogfighter overnight. If one believes that the Force is making that happen for Luke, then why the outrage over it granting abilities to Rey?

complete failure? not even close.

Also not only does she win her fight easily against the most elite guards in the universe, she saves emo who lost against them. she also easily escapes after the fight while emo gets knocked unconscious. she also bested luke in combat, they made her so much more powerful than emo, she has become mary and has no depth as a character. she's already beaten kylo twice, luke once, is there going to be any tension in the "final" showdown between the two? no, emo will need the training montage just to put up fight against her.


it's a space movie, it's kind of a given most people can fly the ships. I wouldn't call luke an expert dogfighter, he barely did anything in the fight above the deathstar, he needed more saving by the other pilots, and help from a ghost to make an impossible shot. it was probably ben who changed the course of the torpedo because luke had missed and that's why it does a 90 degree turn. a expert pilot could fly a ship through another ship and come out the other side, like mary does when she get's in the falcon and flies it through the star destroyer. That would take exceptional skill and years of flying the ship to know how much space it needs to fit and how to turn it to fit better. so again she shows all the traits of a mary sue.

 gorgon wrote:


But sure, it's much more realistic that a farmboy who can fly a futuristic cropduster can become an expert spaceship dogfighter overnight. If one believes that the Force is making that happen for Luke, then why the outrage over it granting abilities to Rey?

In ANH we get:

1. exposition from multiple people that Luke's a good pilot (obi wan, biggs).
2. exposition from obi-wan that Luke's father was a good pilot
3. Luke being visibly unimpressed with the difficulty of the shot based on his own piloting.


In star wars piloting ability is basically transferable from any craft to any other craft. It's always been like that. Luke is not especially good at much of anything except flying in ANH.

In TLJ we get:

Finn (who is not a pilot of anything, as established in TFA) being allowed (and able, with some mid flight coaching) to pilot a cropduster.


I don't get why Luke being a good pilot guided by the force is in any way unbelievable or comparable to Rey not actually needing any instruction in order to lift an avalanche of boulders, beat down Luke in a fight, gain a strong enough combat form with a lightsaber to beat the best hand to hand combatants the First Order can find without ANY training from ANYONE. She can also read people's minds because hers got read once and do jedi mind tricks before learning that the Force is not just a power you use to move things.

Rey is absolutely more talented, less trained, and more proficient than Luke in nearly every way.

Remember when people said Disney wasn't going to gak up Star Wars, and they totally would respect the franchise and not run it into the ground?

Well, if you don't see it now maybe the 20-something movies they have planned will change your mind.

TLJ was a dumpster fire. Tarkin is spinning in his grave.

sirlynchmob wrote:

Also not only does she win her fight easily against the most elite guards in the universe, she saves emo who lost against them.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. I agree with the broad strokes of your argument. But Rey fought fewer guards than Kylo and visibly struggled against her last adversary. When you make false claims you invalidate your own argument, even if it is a strong argument.

*waiting for someone to correct one of my posts in 3, 2, 1....*

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The original three films were directed by three different directors.

But they were all written by George Lucas.

No, they weren't.

ANH was written by Lucas. ESB and RotJ were written by other people from George's ideas.

 Scrabb wrote:
...

*waiting for someone to correct one of my posts in 3, 2, 1....*

...Still holding, so apparently a good job!!

 Scrabb wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Mark Hamill said he didn't agree with the portrayal of Luke in this film and I agree with him..

He said that after reading the script for the first time. He changed his mind and admitted he was wrong after seeing the finished movie.

Mark Hamill doesn't like TLJ's Luke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0biqMZrxJ0

I'm starting to think you want to like TLJ more than you actually like TLJ.

http://comicbook.com/starwars/2017/12/21/star-wars-the-last-jedi-mark-hamill-luke-skywalker-reaction/

 insaniak wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The original three films were directed by three different directors.

But they were all written by George Lucas.

No, they weren't.

ANH was written by Lucas. ESB and RotJ were written by other people from George's ideas.

Really? Because on their wikipedia pages, it says the story was by Lucas. Ergo, he wrote it.

 insaniak wrote:

http://comicbook.com/starwars/2017/12/21/star-wars-the-last-jedi-mark-hamill-luke-skywalker-reaction/

You see an actor with creative differences coming around to a new way of looking at things.

I see a professional being professional who is clearly disappointed in the writers.



I mean, mentioning in passing that Mark Hamill changed his mind is more convincing than playing his actual retraction because you can see how painful it is for him to get those words out while promoting for the movie he is in.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Really? Because on their wikipedia pages, it says the story was by Lucas. Ergo, he wrote it.

There's a pretty big difference between writing the story and writing the screenplay.

The bigger difference between the original trilogy and the new movies is that George kept overall creative control and kept a pretty tight grip on how the movies developed. So the impact of having different writers and different directors was vastly reduced. Disney have instead given the directors much more creative control over their projects... although given that this has resulted in two of them needing to be replaced and their movies reworked, whether or not that's ultimately a good idea is debatable.

 Scrabb wrote:

 gorgon wrote:


But sure, it's much more realistic that a farmboy who can fly a futuristic cropduster can become an expert spaceship dogfighter overnight. If one believes that the Force is making that happen for Luke, then why the outrage over it granting abilities to Rey?

In ANH we get:

1. exposition from multiple people that Luke's a good pilot (obi wan, biggs).
2. exposition from obi-wan that Luke's father was a good pilot
3. Luke being visibly unimpressed with the difficulty of the shot based on his own piloting.

Do you genuinely think that Luke shooting a critter from his small aircraft is equivalent to a space battle with enemy professional fighter pilots and ground emplacements, while racing at the target at spaceship speed? That line is meant to show Luke's naivete.

Regarding the establishment of Luke as a good pilot, there are lots of great civilian pilots IRL who in no way would be able to hold their own in *air combat*. What's more, one actually needs to some familiarity with a given aircraft to fly it effectively. And what we're looking at in ANH isn't going from one plane to another, but from an aircraft to a spaceship. Even if the Force is involved, the scenario is utterly ridiculous, and much less realistic than someone already skilled in close combat fighting well under a Force boost.

So it's apparently one set of rules for Luke, and another for Rey.

Actually it would, given that Luke had R2 as a co-pilot. (Astromech droids perform simple repairs and do various calculations for the ships).

His kills in that battle, aside from the Death Star all rely upon the technology of the ship. His few TIE kills are near purely from his targetting computer early on. As Obi-wan has to tell him "Let go and use the force" for the rest.

And his small aircraft (The T-16 Skyhopper) is a spaceship, well noted for having nearly the same control scheme as that of an X-wing, an Ion Drive and pressurized cockpit that allowed for it to go trans-orbital. Though some of these details are EU I admit, but that's because I did enjoy the books.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
A Protagonist Jedi wielding a double bladed light saber would be pretty cool to see, something we haven't seen since Darth Maul, a villain and Sith.

I agree. Considering Rey is proficient with a staff, I'd actually be disappointed if she didn't craft a dual bladed saber. She can incorporate her current staff and the pieces of Luke/Anakin's broken light saber.
It might even be neat if she found Luke's green light saber and had a half blue, half green staff saber, but that's probably too far into fanboy wishlisting

It would be SO AWESOME if Rey crafted a unicorn light sabre.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It would be SO AWESOME if Rey crafted a unicorn light sabre.

You mean like a light saber sticking out of her head? That would be pretty cool.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galef wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
A Protagonist Jedi wielding a double bladed light saber would be pretty cool to see, something we haven't seen since Darth Maul, a villain and Sith.

I agree. Considering Rey is proficient with a staff, I'd actually be disappointed if she didn't craft a dual bladed saber. She can incorporate her current staff and the pieces of Luke/Anakin's broken light saber.
It might even be neat if she found Luke's green light saber and had a half blue, half green staff saber, but that's probably too far into fanboy wishlisting

Dare to dream! A bi colored saber staff would look friggen amazing.

While a staff would make sense for her, I can't help but wonder if breaking Luke's saber (and the resultant damage to the crystal in it) is setting her up for a blue version of Kylo's messy-bladed saber, to keep the whole mirror-image thing going.