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True, but it is a characteristic of heroes.

Maybe she can do all of these things because a woman has to work harder to get the same level of respect.

The real reason Rey is as capable as she is escalation. Luke didn't have to out preform the Avengers. He had more time to develop before his big moment. Rey had to jump in to the action quicker to keep the audience's attention.

Women have to work harder? The exact opposite holds in this case. Rey does not need to work at all. She is at minimum competent at every turn, at everything she tries, regardless of any (hypothetical) past experience.

Again, this is fine if you are telling your story in a way where you present the character as improbably powerful to set up a major plot point that explains why this is the case. The structure of TFA strongly implies Episode VIII will provide that reveal. Indeed, this appears to be the very reason Rian Johnson refused to address it: SUBVERSION !

The should've indicated it was not the real point I was making.

There is no way to know if JJ Abrams would have answered that either. He's not known for follow through on his plot lines.

You used a winking emoticon last time, too, but then defended the point as a serious one.

It doesn't matter whether JJ would have followed through, and I agree his track record is very spotty on that count, because the problem is with Rian's film, rather than JJ's.

People complained about Rey being OP when TFA came out. I disagreed then and now. TFA was the first episode of a new trilogy. It's purpose was to introduce characters. JJ decided to characterize Rey by what she could do rather than why she could do it. This is perfectly valid for the first installment of a series. (I'd personally prefer this kind of thing be limited to weekly episodes of a TV show but I get why people like it in films, too.) The job of a second installment in a trilogy is to follow up on the first one. Rian did not follow up; rather, he lashed out at TFA. Rather than point the way to Episode IX, TLJ points backward as an (IMO unjust) indictment of TFA and, by proxy, the OT. That's why I suspect Rian Johnson has contempt for Star Wars.

My Bad, sorry for the confusion.

I didn't get that from TLJ at all. I felt it was more taking the blinders off and really looking at the setting for the first time. There are a lot of dark things going on in the Star Wars galaxy that have nothing to do with FO or Sith, that just get glossed over by laser swords and spectacle.

But they also just get glossed over in TLJ. As discussed ITT, our heroes choose horses over children and really they only help the horses at all to cause a distraction. Del Toro's self-indulgent speech to Finn has no moral impact; it still ends up being a story about good versus evil. Just turns out that Benito was a bad guy.

Can it really be good vs evil if there isn't any good involved? That was Benito's point. And Luke's too. Star Wars went Grim Dark.

 Manchu wrote:

The structure of TFA strongly implies Episode VIII will provide that reveal.!

NM, JJ's record got brought up.

This is why some people consider Abrams a hack isn’t it?

Just a point about the child slaves: Anakin and his mom were fitted with explosive collars. Who's to say the kids weren't fitted with improved, implanted ones. Of course they might have been simply child laborers too. It's not like SW has a lot of regulation or OSHA would be shutting the galaxy down until safety rails were installed.

Not slave collars but explosive transmitter chips.. Which have only been shown in the first film and never again now that I think about it, may have been mentioned in the Darth Vader series though. Though at the same time they didn't really help the animals much either in the long run.

..Of course if they are fitted with such things, then if they try and Rebel they'll die off easily anyways when attempting to revolt. Thus killing any chance of "hope". But given that this plot point isn't mentioned once either in novelization or the movie itself, it's likely that it isn't there.

Given that the whole explosive transmitters was basically just to fix a meh plot point on why Qui-Gon wouldn't just take both of them on his ship after acquiring a means of leaving the planet.

Skaorn wrote:
Just a point about the child slaves: Anakin and his mom were fitted with explosive collars. Who's to say the kids weren't fitted with improved, implanted ones. Of course they might have been simply child laborers too. It's not like SW has a lot of regulation or OSHA would be shutting the galaxy down until safety rails were installed.

Maybe - maybe not - did either Rose or Finn seem remotely interested in the plight of the children compared to the space horses (which much better toys than slave children).

For all this nonsense about the director subverting anything he sells out to show marketable toys throughout as quick or quicker than ever.

The prequel films do a good job of showing that the Jedi care little for anyone but themselves and certainly not about slavery - be that children or sentient robots. Again a better director actually trying to be "oooh edgy and subversive as is claimed" might have tried to look at some things like this but beyond this shambles of a team.

The movie would have been vastly more entertaining and subversive if they'd started freeing the child slaves and while running away the kids started randomly exploding until our dynamic duo figured out they were fitted with explosive chips.

The "now it's worth it" line when setting the space horses free was awful, as if the space horses wouldn't just get rounded up or flat out exterminated after that little romp through casino town.

They might have hurt the wallets of some of the folk in casino town but not in a way that actually helped anyone else.

An actual subverting film could have done much more rather than have the pathetic - oh look both the FO and the Rebels/Republic buy guns from the same people - OHH god how shocking.

If they had to do Casino world, they could have had the supposed friends and supporters of the Alliance / Rebels being winded and dined by the of as part of the takeover process.

Maybe had the sales of FO Stormtrooper and ships toys everywhere with a TV show highlighting the heroes of the order. Maybe have some sweat shops making the toys.

Have some of the slave children say "our parents were salves under the first republic, under the empire and then again under the new one - why would you or the FO be any different?"

But the director was all flash (and poor flash at that) and no substance.

 Manchu wrote:
Luke's performance at Yavin is acceptable because a foundation for it has been built up over the course of the film. When we meet Luke, we know he dreams of going to the academy. We learn that his father was one of the best pilots ever. We hear him boast to Han that he would fly a starship to Alderaan. We see Obi-Wan teach him how seemingly impossible things are possible through the Force. We see him shoot down TIE fighters in the Falcon. We see him show hope in the briefing, citing his exploits tooling around in his Skyhopper back home. We hear Vader explain, while trying to get a lock on him, that he is strong in the Force. And of course we hear Ob-Wan's disembodied voice telling Luke to use the Force.

By contrast, we meet Rey and the moment she needs to fight she is able to simultaneously defeat several attackers who are larger than her. The moment she needs to pilot a starship she pulls off amazing, risky stunts. The moment she needs to use the Force, she not only can but can overpower a trained Force user.

I completely disagree.

Luke’s piloting skills are not earned at all. We are never shown any reason why he should be a good pilot, he just continuously tells us that he is one. It’s essentially bad writing. We never see his sky hopper. We’re never even given a reason why a farm boy would even have one. It feels far more like a line added to give the flimsiest of reasons why Luke should be trusted to take part in the climax of the movie.

In contrast, we see Rey’s day to day existence and how hard it is. We can imagine her daily struggle to survive. It’s impressive, but not unrealistic when we see her fight off her attackers, because we can imagine she’s had to do that many times before. I’ll give you that there is no reason given as to why Rey is an ace pilot. Would it have been so much better if she’d turned to Finn and told him she was a great pilot because her father was?

I basically think that every Star Wars film I’ve seen has been pretty poorly written in places. They’re pretty much all mediocre but fun films to some degree. It does feel though that the original trilogy gets a free pass and gets to gloss over its inadequacies, while the sequel trilogy gets pilloried for exactly the same sins.

If only the technology at the time had allowed them to show Luke in the sky hopper. Because yeah, as it stands, it was all tell and no show. That I have to concede. But at least Luke had other shortcomings like I mentioned before. I will soften my stance on Rey beating up those goons though. Someone with her background would need to be pretty handy. But going straight to mind tricking? Nah...

 Kilkrazy wrote:
When Rose confesses her love to Finn, it adds an extra dimension to the developing Finn/Rey/Poe/Rey/Ren love quadrilateral.

Also I like the idea that a lowly maintenance technician can be a hero and play an important part without having to be the secret scion of a super-powered prince.

Rose was a bit of a non-entity as a character, but I did like the idea behind her; that in the Star Wars universe any random person can be a hero if they step up at the right time.

 Lance845 wrote:
I REALLY disagree with this. We see him develop a lot. Snoke mocks his helmet wearing wanna be ass and he realizes hes just been living in vader shadow and snokes shadow and trying to fit into a mold that came before. The moment he smashed that helmet to pieces was the moment he started to be his own person. When he turned on the light saber and killed snoke his chains were broken and the FO was his to grab and lead as he saw fit, fitting nobodys desires but his own.

He wanted Rey to abandon the Jedi like he abandoned snoke and have them both run off into the first order sunset. But it was HIM that wanted it. I think the TLJ saw a bunch of growth for kylos character.

The one part of the recent movies I unreservedly like is Ren's arc. He goes from being a Darth Vader fanboy to, at least by Sith standards, exceeding him.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
If only the technology at the time had allowed them to show Luke in the sky hopper. Because yeah, as it stands, it was all tell and no show. That I have to concede. But at least Luke had other shortcomings like I mentioned before. I will soften my stance on Rey beating up those goons though. Someone with her background would need to be pretty handy. But going straight to mind tricking? Nah...

Well the technology was developed enough to show a space battle, which is why I suspect the whole sky hopper thing is just a weak justification for something that makes no sense. I mean why would Leia trust Luke and Han when their rescue of her was fair incompetent. It was Leia who basically took change in the prison area because the two idiot men trying to rescue her were out of their depth. Of course you could do that in movies in those days, without pathetic man babies crying about SJWs trying to emasculate them

 Future War Cultist wrote:
But going straight to mind tricking? Nah...

Yeah, it's as bad as learning force pull without training just because you're about to become snow monster dinner otherwise. Definitely shouldn't have been in the movie.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
But going straight to mind tricking? Nah...

Yeah, it's as bad as learning force pull without training just because you're about to become snow monster dinner otherwise. Definitely shouldn't have been in the movie.

But he did have training, with Obi-Wan.

And drop the smart ass sarcasm as well. You’re not impressing anyone.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
But he did have training, with Obi-Wan.

On how to use a sword with his eyes closed. Nowhere do we see him trained in force pull, or in using the force to manipulate objects in general instead of just as an extra sense.

And drop the smart ass sarcasm as well. You’re not impressing anyone.

I love you too.

 Peregrine wrote:
On how to use a sword with his eyes closed. Nowhere do we see him trained in force pull, or in using the force to manipulate objects in general instead of just as an extra sense.

And he got stung in the butt, too. He had to be coached through it.

Had they scripted Rey doing the same, she'd have slashed them all out of the air in one swipe while using the force to park the Falcon up Boba Fett's butthole.

Does Luke have a huge montage and a step-by-step training process? Nope. Is it rather short? Yes. But at least he has some kind of training and some trial and error. Something showed you how he went from a farm boy to a fairly capable guy. It wasn't huge, but it was there.

Rey, on the other hand, just 'has those abilities'. And I was honestly sad to see they didn't play the 'her childhood is a lie and she was mindwiped with the Force' sort of like Revan was. It would have explained a lot. She didn't have to have important parents, she could have had training and it would have all been clear. Even would make sense why Kylo Ren and Snoke were so adamant about finding her, and her 'power level' would have been a perfect justification to hide her and sort of sever her connection to the Force.

By all standards of reason, Rey feels less like a Star Wars movie character, and more like a fanfiction character written by a young amatuer. She has no depth. She's just 'good', and I'm sorry- disagree if you like, but I prefer my heroes to read less like a list of powers and more like someone overcoming challenges and working to become skilled. Otherwise, it's like trying to make Diomedes the star of the Iliad- an overpowered, undefeatable badass with no explicable reason to be as badass as he is. And that's what Rey is.

Luke got his ass kicked. He made bonehead mistakes. He had flaws and was impatient and stubborn and reckless- he was an entirely believable character in an otherwise unbelievable universe. Rey, however, is almost the opposite- years have passed and the Star Wars Universe, as fantastic as it is, feels more familiar to the audience... and Rey simply seems to be the unbelievable part.

And comically enough, the theme of this is 'anyone can be a hero, it doesn't matter where you come from' - well, sure... as long as you have super-duper force powers. Otherwise you're the idiot smashing into your friend in the salt flats to 'save' him from doing what needed to be done to stop the massive ordnance from frying the last remnants of the resistance.

I don't want to say I 'hate' these movies, but I'll openly say they are substandard in the writing department. The thing that I DO hate is there are two very vocal groups:

1- Everyone that hates this movie just hates women and minorities
2- These movies are blatant SJW propaganda

While there may be a little nugget of truth in each argument, it's really not that extreme. Trust me, I'm pretty sure Disney isn't in the business of making propaganda-

Oh. Nevermind.

Well, either way, it's not as bad as everyone is making it out to be. But just like with the Marvel Movies, franchise fatigue will eventually set in and hopefully Star Wars will either improve or we'll just remember this as a 'dark time'.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

I don't want to say I 'hate' these movies, but I'll openly say they are substandard in the writing department. The thing that I DO hate is there are two very vocal groups:

1- Everyone that hates this movie just hates women and minorities
2- These movies are blatant SJW propaganda

While there may be a little nugget of truth in each argument, it's really not that extreme.

Good to know it's not just me that leans towards "a plague on both your houses" when that argument starts up. One side doesn't realise you can make a good argument in a bad way, and the other is blind to the irony of complaing about easily offended SJW's while being hyper-sensitive to any perceived disparagement of straight white guys.

 Elemental wrote:

Good to know it's not just me that leans towards "a plague on both your houses" when that argument starts up. One side doesn't realise you can make a good argument in a bad way, and the other is blind to the irony of complaing about easily offended SJW's while being hyper-sensitive to any perceived disparagement of straight white guys.

You're not, and I'm actually 'Anti-SJW' by a reasonable standard. I still find it to be absurd with some of this. I don't take any issue at all with a diverse cast of heroes, and I'd like to see an equally diverse cast of villains (one point that someone DID make was that we seem to be eager to make the heroes diverse and shirk away from doing that with villains).

For one side of the argument I'd like to say that it does the cause no favors to make a female lead if she's going to be a super-powered blank slate of a character with no personality. And it does no favors to showcase 'diversity' if the entertainment is shallow and stupid. It tends to give their opponents the idea that 'diverse characters makes a garbage movie'. Which isn't the case, if anything there are some awesome female and POC characters in various media that didn't require this kind of parading about, because they delivered a good story with good characters. And shoving someone with boobs or brown skin into something doesn't make it 'good' or immune to criticism- in fact, insinuating so seems less like you're a good person and more like you're treating these things like a handicap.

For the other side of the argument, I'd say that it probably gets tiresome being accused of some kind of bigoty so it might be best to focus on the actual quality of the work and avoid accusing them of an 'SJW agenda'. There is no SJW agenda, most of the time. It's usually just simple rhetoric to load into a product so that when people criticize it, they can be written off as some kind of bigot. By acting like it's the Polygender Otherkin Tumblr Illuminati in Hollywood trying to brainwash kids into interracial butt-sex, you lose credibility. Focus criticism on the product, and hold it to the same exact standards you hold any other. Fair is fair. As a wise person once told me, if you are fair and equal in your criticism and opinions, then you force your adversaries to show they simply hate fairness and equality.

Diversity is not a bad thing in fiction. I'm no fan of changing established characters around for diversity, but I 100% want people to create new and diverse characters.

Luke had telekinesis training on Dagobah. If he can lift an X-wing a few feet while its stuck in a bog he can call his lightsaber to his hand while its sitting in snow.

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
Luke had telekinesis training on Dagobah. If he can lift an X-wing a few feet while its stuck in a bog he can call his lightsaber to his hand while its sitting in snow.

Luke went to Dagobah after Hoth.

Ha! Right. Never mind me. Exiting stage left!

Peregrine wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
But he did have training, with Obi-Wan.

On how to use a sword with his eyes closed. Nowhere do we see him trained in force pull, or in using the force to manipulate objects in general instead of just as an extra sense.

Agreed.

Adeptus Doritos wrote:

Spoiler:

 Peregrine wrote:
On how to use a sword with his eyes closed. Nowhere do we see him trained in force pull, or in using the force to manipulate objects in general instead of just as an extra sense.

And he got stung in the butt, too. He had to be coached through it.

Had they scripted Rey doing the same, she'd have slashed them all out of the air in one swipe while using the force to park the Falcon up Boba Fett's butthole.

Does Luke have a huge montage and a step-by-step training process? Nope. Is it rather short? Yes. But at least he has some kind of training and some trial and error. Something showed you how he went from a farm boy to a fairly capable guy. It wasn't huge, but it was there.

Rey, on the other hand, just 'has those abilities'. And I was honestly sad to see they didn't play the 'her childhood is a lie and she was mindwiped with the Force' sort of like Revan was. It would have explained a lot. She didn't have to have important parents, she could have had training and it would have all been clear. Even would make sense why Kylo Ren and Snoke were so adamant about finding her, and her 'power level' would have been a perfect justification to hide her and sort of sever her connection to the Force.

By all standards of reason, Rey feels less like a Star Wars movie character, and more like a fanfiction character written by a young amatuer. She has no depth. She's just 'good', and I'm sorry- disagree if you like, but I prefer my heroes to read less like a list of powers and more like someone overcoming challenges and working to become skilled. Otherwise, it's like trying to make Diomedes the star of the Iliad- an overpowered, undefeatable badass with no explicable reason to be as badass as he is. And that's what Rey is.

Luke got his ass kicked. He made bonehead mistakes. He had flaws and was impatient and stubborn and reckless- he was an entirely believable character in an otherwise unbelievable universe. Rey, however, is almost the opposite- years have passed and the Star Wars Universe, as fantastic as it is, feels more familiar to the audience... and Rey simply seems to be the unbelievable part.

And comically enough, the theme of this is 'anyone can be a hero, it doesn't matter where you come from' - well, sure... as long as you have super-duper force powers. Otherwise you're the idiot smashing into your friend in the salt flats to 'save' him from doing what needed to be done to stop the massive ordnance from frying the last remnants of the resistance.

I don't want to say I 'hate' these movies, but I'll openly say they are substandard in the writing department. The thing that I DO hate is there are two very vocal groups:

1- Everyone that hates this movie just hates women and minorities
2- These movies are blatant SJW propaganda

While there may be a little nugget of truth in each argument, it's really not that extreme. Trust me, I'm pretty sure Disney isn't in the business of making propaganda-

Oh. Nevermind.

Well, either way, it's not as bad as everyone is making it out to be. But just like with the Marvel Movies, franchise fatigue will eventually set in and hopefully Star Wars will either improve or we'll just remember this as a 'dark time'.

Except that there is a massive power gap between Luke and Rey. In fact, there is a massive power gap between Rey/Kylo and everyone else we have ever seen on film. It's flat out stated in the movies. I said this before, Rey and Kylos power level is like Starkiller from Force Unleashed. Their raw power is so great that given direction it pretty much takes care of most of the work for them. It's not a matter of them ding anything with any kind of finesse. Without training they couldn't build a wall out of a bunch of rocks. But with their raw power they might just pull a star destroyer out of the sky and smash it into a city.

 Lance845 wrote:

Except that there is a massive power gap between Luke and Rey. In fact, there is a massive power gap between Rey/Kylo and everyone else we have ever seen on film. It's flat out stated in the movies. I said this before, Rey and Kylos power level is like Starkiller from Force Unleashed. Their raw power is so great that given direction it pretty much takes care of most of the work for them. It's not a matter of them ding anything with any kind of finesse. Without training they couldn't build a wall out of a bunch of rocks. But with their raw power they might just pull a star destroyer out of the sky and smash it into a city.

Let me ask you- are you honestly confusing 'powerful' and 'good story'? Because it is certainly seeming like that's the case. You can talk about 'power level' all you want, all day long. But at no point is ''awssum powurr" good storytelling or a coherent plot or even the foundations of a good character. It's not 'storytelling', it's not a character, it's a list of abilities. That 'awssum powurr" is worth nothing without a story- otherwise it's amatuer.

That 'massive power gap' is what bothers people. There's no explanation for it, and it's absurd. Suddently two nobodies with scant training show up and are 'Force Gods'? No, this is one more example of someone confusing 'awssum powurr' with 'good character'. It's Dragonball heroics.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Maybe the Death Star took a while to get to Yavin, and he got the chance to take the x wing out for a spin to get a feel for the controls.

Or they used flash training methods, like the Republic used for their clones and Rey used? to learn Wookiee and Droid.