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 Peregrine wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:
Mostly because the formula for the past movies was that the characters would grow in order to overcome the bad guy, not just simply beat them right out, with the exception of Darth Maul of course, but that was also done by others than the hero of the story.

First of all, no, that's not really how it went. Remember how the first movie had Vader spinning off into space yelling "I'll get you next time!" just like Kylo Ren? He might not have been defeated in a duel, but he was still defeated. And second, how do you know that the heroes already overcame the main bad guy? Maybe the "emperor" equivalent in the new series will take a more direct role in the story compared to Palpatine in the original trilogy.

Yeah, I can see it coming down to a duel between Rey and Ren and between Luke and Snoke, with both battles being more a battle of wills and ideologies rather than brawn (as they were in the original trilogy before the prequels got so caught up in twirling lightsabers around).

I mean just contrast Luke and Vaders fight in Jedi to Obi-Wan and Anakins in ROTS. Obi-Wan makes zero attempt to engage with Anakin in anything other than a physical battle during the entire fight. Luke, on the other hand, is constantly challenging Vader emotionally throughout the entire fight, to test his conviction and try to pull the goodness buried within him out into the open.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:
Mostly because the formula for the past movies was that the characters would grow in order to overcome the bad guy, not just simply beat them right out, with the exception of Darth Maul of course, but that was also done by others than the hero of the story.

First of all, no, that's not really how it went. Remember how the first movie had Vader spinning off into space yelling "I'll get you next time!" just like Kylo Ren? He might not have been defeated in a duel, but he was still defeated. And second, how do you know that the heroes already overcame the main bad guy? Maybe the "emperor" equivalent in the new series will take a more direct role in the story compared to Palpatine in the original trilogy.

Yeah, I can see it coming down to a duel between Rey and Ren and between Luke and Snoke, with both battles being more a battle of wills and ideologies rather than brawn (as they were in the original trilogy before the prequels got so caught up in twirling lightsabers around).

I mean just contrast Luke and Vaders fight in Jedi to Obi-Wan and Anakins in ROTS. Obi-Wan makes zero attempt to engage with Anakin in anything other than a physical battle during the entire fight. Luke, on the other hand, is constantly challenging Vader emotionally throughout the entire fight, to test his conviction.

Eh, didn't Obi Wan lower his lightsaber at the end and let Vader execute him basically? I feel like that set a lot in motion behind the scenes and they didn't really beat us over the head with it, which was nice too.

 Asherian Command wrote:
By its definition a mary sue is a character that is good at everything and loved by all. It is also self insertion character/fic.

Sorry to be contradictory, but that isn't really the definition of a Mary Sue. And if we're going to correct people on how to use the term properly, I think it needs to be expressed more fundamentally.

In a story, the author is god; in a good story, god hides himself from the reader. All the events that he sets up are neatly built upon realistic character motivations, and logical cause and effect, so you never see his hand at work. You can draw a line through it all, this is called an arc. In a bad story, the author (god) is forced to intervene, the arc stops, and something new is introduced 'out of the blue' to fix the story. This leads to things like the deus ex machina, and other stupid ass-pulls.

A Mary Sue is a type of badly written character who is essentially built out of lots of these little ass-pulls, put together in a way that contradicts the rest of the story, because the author loves them and treats them special. They generally are "loved by all", but why? Because the author says so! We never see them do anything likeable, to us they are annoying and superior, but the author pulls "loveable" out his ass and gives it to them. They generally are good at everything, but why? We never see them practising for hours on end, it wasn't foreshadowed that they spent a summer learning to fly a helicopter, or speak another language. They are just good at stuff because the author pulled it out his ass. Sometimes these talents seem impossible (for example Sue's are usually skilled beyond their years). It starts to feel like the only possible explanation is that god must love them. That is when you start to see the author's hand, and the more overt and obvious the author love is, the more annoying it is.

There might be a lot of reasons authors do this (sucking at writing, for example), but it is often speculated that these characters are self insertions of the author's "fantasy persona", which is why they get special treatment.

Not all characters who are talented, loved or lucky are Mary Sues, and not all ass-pulls are because of "author love" (they might have just run out of ideas to move the plot forward). It really depends on how things are justified. Commander Data from Star Trek is good at lots of things, and loved by all many, but this is easily explained by him being a machine, and we see him being honest, fearless, thoughtful, modest, and having lots of other very likeable virtues. He's a very well written character. Wesley Crusher is a Mary Sue because he is the smartest person on a ship full of smart people, despite being a kid (which doesn't really make sense), all because the author just loves him and wants him to be better than everyone else.

Surely anyone can work out that the way episode 7 finished is a massive setup for Kylo kicking the stuffing out of everyone, especially Rey, in episode 8.

 Tinkrr wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:
Mostly because the formula for the past movies was that the characters would grow in order to overcome the bad guy, not just simply beat them right out, with the exception of Darth Maul of course, but that was also done by others than the hero of the story.

First of all, no, that's not really how it went. Remember how the first movie had Vader spinning off into space yelling "I'll get you next time!" just like Kylo Ren? He might not have been defeated in a duel, but he was still defeated. And second, how do you know that the heroes already overcame the main bad guy? Maybe the "emperor" equivalent in the new series will take a more direct role in the story compared to Palpatine in the original trilogy.

Except Vader was defeated in the first movie in the most indirect way possible and really Luke played almost no part in his defeat. The whole first movie is Luke running from Vader, even during Vader's "defeat" Luke is running from him and is only saved by someone else, when Vader's ship is shot, so they defeated Vader's Ship I guess? By that logic Luke defeated a planet worth of soldiers with two torpedoes when he blew up the Deathstar, but we don't really consider that a victory against every soldier on the ship, more a victory against the ship itself.

Kylo was defeated directly, by someone with zero training, just imagine if Luke defeated Vader in the same way in Episode 4? Like I said, the first movie is them running from Vader, and the only way the defeated him was by not fighting him directly, but rather his ship, which evens the playing field massively since all of his special powers don't extend to that ship, then in Episode 5 Luke has had training and Vader still just slaps him around casually. At least in the case of Darth Maul it was the combined efforts of two highly trained Jedi, and at the expense of one of their lives, and even then I thought it was a bad move since they could have done so much with Darth Maul, since we knew almost nothing about him.

Honestly, it just seemed like every time there was a problem Rey would show up and save the day, with it all culminating in her beating the villain who was incredibly powerful on her first try. I get it, he was injured, and she wasn't alone, but even with that it really took me out of the movie since it just didn't make sense.

Really agree with this poster. The only real issue is that Ren isn't as trained as vader but still the lack of threat so far from our #2 villain is really showing. He got owned by our hero in the first movie of a trilogy. What else is there to build up to except the main baddie. Even if Kylo Ren comes back from this I just don't feel he's much of a threat. Both him and new girl are receiving training now. If she could handle him with no training then you bet with a lot more training it won't even be an issue.

Considering how much this mirrors the first trilogy though I wouldn't be surprised if the 2nd baddie or top baddie beats the crap out of Rei though. It would only make sense with all the massive similarities in the two movies.

 Compel wrote:
Surely anyone can work out that the way episode 7 finished is a massive setup for Kylo kicking the stuffing out of everyone, especially Rey, in episode 8.

It is basically hinted at. We are going to see the darkest of the triliogy hopefully!

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
What else is there to build up to except the main baddie.

I don't know, maybe try imagining a story other than an RPG-style escalation of bad guys to kill?

@Smacks: Initially a Mary Sue was also an idealized author insert. It has been so used and abused at this point I imagine that it has become slightly different.

Well what other bad guys are there? I mean sure they could introduce more but if you're already kicking the snot out of #2 baddie then you know what's left? What's next after this?

Still think Rei (Rey?) is a better character than some of the worse star wars characters (mostly the prequels and boba fett) but she's still not as good as darth vader (minus killing more of your command structure than all rebel assassins combined), emperor palpatine or original trilogy's obi wan.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Well what other bad guys are there? I mean sure they could introduce more but if you're already kicking the snot out of #2 baddie then you know what's left? What's next after this?

Again, you keep thinking of this as an RPG-style escalation where the heroes work their way up through the lower-level encounters until they fight and defeat the final boss. There are all kinds of ways to have conflict in the next movies, and if you can't see this then it's a failure of your imagination, not the movie.

 Ahtman wrote:
@Smacks: Initially a Mary Sue was also an idealized author insert. It has been so used and abused at this point I imagine that it has become slightly different.

Which is how it is worded to this day and even among other writers we refer to that definition.

It's like people complain that the good guy didn't suck enough so that he could get better in the next movie; while at the same time refusing to consider that this is what might very well happen to the bad guy.

 Peregrine wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Well what other bad guys are there? I mean sure they could introduce more but if you're already kicking the snot out of #2 baddie then you know what's left? What's next after this?

Again, you keep thinking of this as an RPG-style escalation where the heroes work their way up through the lower-level encounters until they fight and defeat the final boss. There are all kinds of ways to have conflict in the next movies, and if you can't see this then it's a failure of your imagination, not the movie.

Ok then explain what they're going to do then. Train for the main bad guy? Try to turn Kylo Ren back (if possible and if people would even want to see that after the han impaling)?

I mean what else is there 'the first order' mostly gets back in charge and this being 'empire strikes back'? I mean yeah they can do some big reveals on who is what like the main baddie but what else?

I just hope it isn't too much like the original trilogy. I mean there are things that are fine but I just don't want this series to mirror the original otherwise why even watch this one? I mean what happens good guys destroy death star (starkiller base), baddies strike back and hurt good guys badly and we get a reveal who darth vader is (maybe smoff in this case) and finally we see luke and the rebels on their final battle and luke turning darth vader good and emperor dying (perhaps kylo ren kills his leader and goes good guy).

Hopefully it doesn't mirror the original trilogy completely I just dunno.

------

Oh and aside from 'He was really who?' star wars was never really the biggest very deep story universe. There's even a light and dark side with no gray and no minutia in between (other than love maybe). If I wanted a real deep and interesting story I'd look for it in the 'deus ex' series or maybe watch 'the Manchurian candidate' or something. I do but in the case of 'star wars' I'm not looking for it too hard in there.

 Ahtman wrote:
@Smacks: Initially a Mary Sue was also an idealized author insert. It has been so used and abused at this point I imagine that it has become slightly different.

That begs the question: how do you distinguish an idealised author insert, and similar characters, from a character that is just good at lots of stuff because reasons? And why are those characters bad? I think people are using the rule of thumb that if a character is too good to be true, then they must be a Mary Sue, but I think this is leading to the erosion of the term, because most fictional characters are too good to be true in some respect, and a lot of real people, who are worth telling stories about, often seem too good to be true also.

I'm just trying to provide more accurate tools for saying what a Sue is, and why it is bad. Rey suddenly being able to use the force might be a bit of an ass-pull (actually The Force is kind of one big walking ass-pull that surrounds all living things), it might be lazy writing, but it doesn't make her a Sue.

Yeah the whole 'because the force wills it' explaining all the ridiculous stunts and lucky shots in the 'star wars' trilogy is a thing.

God that bit where Luke and crew pull off all those stunts after Jabba wants Luke to 'walk the plank' was just too much. Maybe 'Star Wars' was always a 'turn your brain off' type of movie whenever the insanely ridiculous stunts started chaining up.

 Tinkrr wrote:

Eh, didn't Obi Wan lower his lightsaber at the end and let Vader execute him basically? I feel like that set a lot in motion behind the scenes and they didn't really beat us over the head with it, which was nice too.

I was talking about Obi-Wan vs Anakin in the prequels, in which it basically goes:

"Anakin, the sith are evil!"
"I think jedi are evil!"
"Oh well, you're obviously beyond saving. I have to kill you now"
*Cue 15 minute fight scene*

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:

Eh, didn't Obi Wan lower his lightsaber at the end and let Vader execute him basically? I feel like that set a lot in motion behind the scenes and they didn't really beat us over the head with it, which was nice too.

I was talking about Obi-Wan vs Anakin in the prequels, in which it basically goes:

"Anakin, the sith are evil!"
"I think jedi are evil!"
"Oh well, you're obviously beyond saving. I have to kill you now"
*Cue 15 minute fight scene*

Ah ok, but yea the prequels were all flash and no substance, so I doubt the juxtaposition was intentional, but rather accidental.

 Tinkrr wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:

Eh, didn't Obi Wan lower his lightsaber at the end and let Vader execute him basically? I feel like that set a lot in motion behind the scenes and they didn't really beat us over the head with it, which was nice too.

I was talking about Obi-Wan vs Anakin in the prequels, in which it basically goes:

"Anakin, the sith are evil!"
"I think jedi are evil!"
"Oh well, you're obviously beyond saving. I have to kill you now"
*Cue 15 minute fight scene*

Ah ok, but yea the prequels were all flash and no substance, so I doubt the juxtaposition was intentional, but rather accidental.

Agreed. But it still makes it look very silly when Obi-Wan, who described Anakin as a good friend in A New Hope, did less to try and turn him than Luke, who had never even known his father before he became Vader and was basing his previous goodness on what Obi-Wan had said :L

 Smacks wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
@Smacks: Initially a Mary Sue was also an idealized author insert. It has been so used and abused at this point I imagine that it has become slightly different.

That begs the question: how do you distinguish an idealised author insert, and similar characters, from a character that is just good at lots of stuff because reasons? And why are those characters bad? I think people are using the rule of thumb that if a character is too good to be true, then they must be a Mary Sue, but I think this is leading to the erosion of the term, because most fictional characters are too good to be true in some respect, and a lot of real people, who are worth telling stories about, often seem too good to be true also.

I'm just trying to provide more accurate tools for saying what a Sue is, and why it is bad. Rey suddenly being able to use the force might be a bit of an ass-pull (actually The Force is kind of one big walking ass-pull that surrounds all living things), it might be lazy writing, but it doesn't make her a Sue.

Just a general question but what is Rey not good at? She's better at flying ships than Han Solo or Lando, she can repair things better than Anakin could, and she's better at the force than basically anyone based on how she picked it up almost randomly and defeated Kylo who had extensive training.

At least with Finn there's the whole aspect of him trying to figure out who he was as a person, after realising that the whole Storm Trooper thing wasn't for him. Sure, he transitioned to a Han Solo character a little too quickly, but at least it's something to look at as a character trait that extends beyond just being awesome at basically everything. Honestly, if they wanted Rey to be as amazing as she was at everything, they should have wrote her like Korra who was actually a very well developed character who was very skilled in a lot of things :/.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


Agreed. But it still makes it look very silly when Obi-Wan, who described Anakin as a good friend in A New Hope, did less to try and turn him than Luke, who had never even known his father before he became Vader and was basing his previous goodness on what Obi-Wan had said :L

True, but if you watch some of the Cinema Sins stuff about the prequels they do a pretty good job of pointing out how inconsistent the behavior of the characters really is. One big thing the pointed to was that in the first one Obi-Wan is for Anakin being trained and the council is not because Anakin is too emotional, in the second one Obi-Wan thinks Anakin is to emotional while the council thinks he's just fine, and in the third one Obi-Wan is once again for Anakin and the council isn't.

Personally I liked the movie but like some other posters here disliked how quickly Rey seemed to pick up force tricks. (I also thought the map was stupid, hyperdrive was poorly done, the universe felt too small, and that Phasma was criminally under used for such a pumped up character. Replace TR-8R with her and give her something to do other than being chumped by the heroes)
My problem with Rey is mainly I walked out thinking that I'd have liked her a lot more with a little more reasoning behind her force power adeptness. She heard all the stories? hint at that! Have the little stuffed rebel figure carrying a light saber. when she's scrounging in the star destroyer have the part she's reaching for tremble almost imperceptibly before she touches it. When the scrap man screws her on rations give a hint at force suggestions "I'll give a half ration" "but it was a whole ration last week" *small bass pulse in the soundtrack* "fine, 3/4 ration but no more!"
Give little hints so that when she's revealed as a force adept the crowd can have a little self-aggrandizing moment "oh i saw the hints" instead of a "this was ass-pulled" moment.

 Tinkrr wrote:
Honestly, it just seemed like every time there was a problem Rey would show up and save the day, with it all culminating in her beating the villain who was incredibly powerful on her first try.

What major problems did she actually solve? She didn't bring the droid to the Resistance. She didn't bring down the shields on Starkiller base. She didn't blow up the heat exchanger (or whatever it was). She didn't provide a ship to get surviving heroes out of there either. She got to beat a bad guy instead.

Spetulhu wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:
Honestly, it just seemed like every time there was a problem Rey would show up and save the day, with it all culminating in her beating the villain who was incredibly powerful on her first try.

What major problems did she actually solve? She didn't bring the droid to the Resistance. She didn't bring down the shields on Starkiller base. She didn't blow up the heat exchanger (or whatever it was). She didn't provide a ship to get surviving heroes out of there either. She got to beat a bad guy instead.

She magically flew the Millennium Falcon in a complex field that made both Lando and Han look like amateurs, despite never having experience flying starships.

She Harry Pottered Kylo when he was trying to force read her mind, with no training, it's one thing to be resistant, it's another to just shoot it right back at him.

She had that whole techno-wizard thing with the ship, where she rewires a ton of things on the fly in a ship she has no understanding of, to save the day.


Yes, she didn't do some of the mundane tasks, like acquiring a ship, or delivering a droid, most Mary Sues have trivial short comings that at times play to their benefit. Though at the end of the day, her abilities eclipse most other characters and she becomes too proficient too quickly, which just isn't good writing. It's fine if she beats Kylo, in an indirect way like Vader was defeated in the first movie, it's fine if she resists mind probing like Leia did, and it's even fine if she's skilled in technology, but when she does all of those things better than every other character in the series, at the same time, then it becomes a problem.

Again, think about the original, what did Luke actually do? Yes, he blew up the Deathstar with magical force powers he wasn't experienced in, but he wasn't the one who shot Vader's ship, he wasn't the one to fend off Vader so they could escape, he wasn't the one who flew the ship, and the list keeps going. He had a major feat in making that shot, but really Obi-Wan and others played a much greater role in the whole series, because if it wasn't for Leia and Obi, Luke wouldn't matter, and Han was just as important. If anything, Luke just made the lucky shot that turned the game, but as I've pointed out, it was the other characters that did the majority of the work.

Well, I wouldn't say it made Han or Lando look like amateurs.

Han navigated an asteroid field and outmanoeuvred and successfully landed on a star destroyer. Well he outmanoeuvred several star destroyers to the point of making them crash into each other, which is pretty badass.

And Lando survived the Battle of Endor and the final run into the Death Star, despite the Falcon being much bigger than the craft he was flying alongside, with the only damage being the main deflector dish.

Han and Lando were also two of the best pilots, with extensive experience flying the Millennium Falcon, she was a novice pilot who had never flown a starship and matched or out preformed them.

At least when Mary Sue Anakin destroyed the Trade Federation ship, it was played as a tongue in cheek scenario where he accidentally did it, which was still monumentally stupid, but at the very least it was mildly self aware. Rey just did it because she could :/.

 Smacks wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
@Smacks: Initially a Mary Sue was also an idealized author insert. It has been so used and abused at this point I imagine that it has become slightly different.

That begs the question: how do you distinguish an idealised author insert, and similar characters, from a character that is just good at lots of stuff because reasons?

If a reader isn't that bright it really isn't the authors fault. If the character isn't an obvious version of the author then it isn't a Mary Sue either. Part of being a Mary Sue (or Marty Stu) is a lack of subtlety.

Picard, unable to diffuse the situation began to panic when suddenly Lt. Smacks appeared on the bridge.

"Don't worry I have this" Smacks said and began to rewrite the computer code from memory while talking down the aliens saving the ship from disaster.

Afterwards the entire crew held Smacks aloft and regaled in the tales of how he saved he ship and impregnated Tasha, Troi, and, somehow, Worf. Truly the best Officer Starfleet had ever seen and his accomplishments were just starting.

 Smacks wrote:
I think people are using the rule of thumb that if a character is too good to be true,

Then you would be wrong, to an extent. Besides I never disagreed, I just expanded on your explanation.

Almost Prophetic? ......

http://www.filmbagger.com/starwars7willsuck.html

Okay, I just got back from watching it and it wasn't the ST:ID that I was worried about. I'm still not quite understanding how a planet can suck up a star and blow up worlds light years away but whatever.

As for Rae being a Mary Sue, I'm not so sure. She's certainly over the top and does more than her fair share of ass-pulling but that may just be bad storytelling and not the author loving the character too much.

Here's a quick quiz. How do you know you're getting old?

When Kylo Ren pulls off his mask for the first time and you see...

 Breotan wrote:
Okay, I just got back from watching it and it wasn't the ST:ID that I was worried about. I'm still not quite understanding how a planet can suck up a star and blow up worlds light years away but whatever.

As for Rae being a Mary Sue, I'm not so sure. She's certainly over the top and does more than her fair share of ass-pulling but that may just be bad storytelling and not the author loving the character too much.

Here's a quick quiz. How do you know you're getting old?

When Kylo Ren pulls off his mask for the first time and you see...

Spoiler:

Roger Waters from Pink Floyd

I thought it was this guy the firs time he took it off:

 Tinkrr wrote:

She magically flew the Millennium Falcon in a complex field that made both Lando and Han look like amateurs, despite never having experience flying starships.

Firstly it's already been covered that from comments she made she has indeed flown ships before in all likelihood -- presumably the one that got blown up at least.


I also didn't see her do anything as "skillful" as piloting a ship, at hyperspace speeds, to XXX meters above the ground of a planet like Solo did.

 reds8n wrote:

Firstly it's already been covered that from comments she made she has indeed flown ships before in all likelihood -- presumably the one that got blown up at least.

It seems like you're implying that since she's flown before, the feats displayed are in no way exceptional examples of piloting? That the standard pilot would have no trouble doing what she did. Is that your assertion?

Interestingly she also knows- despite admitting to never having piloted a ship off planet- how to operate a hyperdrive. Which as Han reminds Luke, ain't like dusting crops!

I also didn't see her do anything as "skillful" as piloting a ship, at hyperspace speeds, to XXX meters above the ground of a planet like Solo did.

Really? First up the Falcon is a freighter and by now at least 60 years old. It's not a fighter or even a shuttle. She flew that thing well enough to keep two professionally trained pilots off her. That would be impressive in open space but it extremely impressive to do so in a freighter she is completely unfamiliar with flying. And let's recall she's not keeping clunkers off her tail, she's keeping TIE fighters- some of the fastest and most maneuverable fighters in the galaxy. She manages to do this without the aid of a co pilot (or shields) too- a testament to how little fire she actually took. And the cherry on top of course is lining up a TIE with a locked up gun. Finn can barely hit them with the targeting computer and a swivel but from the cockpit she can line up a gun she can't even see.

Conversely Han pushed a button to drop out of hyperspace and pulled up, crashed through a forest and then crash landed. In the Millennium Falcon. Han. Crashed. Maybe it's my bias but I take points of for crash landings. I'm not pilot but I'm going to go ahead and say that XXX meters should generally be greater than zero.

If not impressive or 'skillful', how would you rate her piloting?