Who is Rey? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

thorgrim29

2016-01-04, 02:57 PM

I had the same conversation twice with friends who have at least some knowledge of the EU over the holidays. We're torn. Basically we all agree that she's a Skywalker or a Solo, and both theories have holes and advantages.

On the Solo side we have her easy rapport with Han, the hug with Leia, and her tech skills very reminiscent of Jeina from the EU. Also Han knows Jakku and the old guy at the beginning knew Leia. Downside is why was she left there? She would have to have been abandoned way before Ben fell and he wasn't put on some remote planet.

On the Skywalker side she had a very strong reaction tot he lightsaber and it might help explain why Luke went away. From the end of Jedi we know Luke could go dark given enough provocation, that has to be his greatest fear (leading to anger yadda yadda). Still, I don't see why he would exile himself over his nephew going dark and killing people. He would probably see it as his responsibility to fix the problem at least. So how's this for a timeline:

Some time after Jedi, Luke meets a woman and they have a kid. A few years after Rey is born (unless he messed with her memory she can't have been more than 6 or 7 when abandoned) Snoke goes after Luke and his family, manages to kill his wife. Concerned for her safety since apparently nowhere in the New Republic is safe Luke drops Rey off as an anonymous orphan on Jakku, asks an old Rebellion friend to keep an eye on her and splits his time between teaching at his academy and looking for Snoke. Eventually Ben goes darkside when Luke is away, the other pupils get killed, it's all very tragic. At this point Snoke took his wife, his nephew, his chance of seeing his daughter grow up and his life's work from Luke so he can't trust himself anymore not to fall if he continues fighting him. So he leaves in search of Ancient Jedi Wisdom/Therapy and leaves the map to where he is going to his old friend on Jakku, telling him to hold on to it until he is needed by his family (Rey, Han and Leia at that point).He didn't take Rey with him becase he was trying to be as detached from his emotions as possible.

Berserk Mecha

2016-01-04, 03:04 PM

Yeah, I've heard the mother/daughter theory before. I see where people are getting it from but I do not subscribe to it. Why would Han and Leia abandon their daughter on a desert planet in the first place? Come to think of it, who did abandon Rey there? Being related to Luke and Leia might explain her unnatural affinity for the Force, though.

Razade

2016-01-04, 03:10 PM

When the Falcon returns from Starkiller Base, we see Leia and Chewbacca walk right by each other without any interaction. Given Han's death and this being the first meeting of the two people closest to Han in all the galaxy, isn't that a bit odd?

No because it wasn't their first meeting. Chewie and Leia met on the jungle planet where Rey was kidnapped. Very clearly met. They hugged. And they were together at the Resistance base.

Even more odd (to me) is the fact that she walks right by Chewbacca to go embrace Rey...who as I recall she has no reason to know and has never seen before in her life. Sure, she knows some elements of her story from Finn (and Han)...but enough that she seeks solace and wants to provide comfort to Rey and not to the Walking Carpet she has known and loved for years?

Except wouldn't you expect her or Han saying something to her about them being her parents? Or wouldn't you think Rey would remember them? She wasn't a baby when her parents left, she knew what they looked like. She was waiting for them on Jakku after all. Not telling her that she was their kid would be insanely cruel -especially- after the death of her father at the hands of her brother.

So, what am I missing?

The above, I'd suspect.

Alent

2016-01-04, 03:18 PM

I'll second the "That was a mother-daughter hug" opinion. For his part, Han also was doing a "I can't tell her the truth" routine where he awkwardly wanted to say more than he knew he should. Add in Kylo Ren's "the father you never had" comment that's completely inappropriate (in a cinematic sense) otherwise?

Yeah. Pretty much everything the entire movie pointed to her being a Jaina Solo reskin.

Mordar

2016-01-04, 03:20 PM

I had the same conversation twice with friends who have at least some knowledge of the EU over the holidays. We're torn. Basically we all agree that she's a Skywalker or a Solo, and both theories have holes and advantages.

Spoiler snipped...if she is a Solo or Leia's child, why didn't one or both of them (Han/Leia) react earlier? Maintenance of mystery perhaps, but kind of a stretch.

No because it wasn't their first meeting. Chewie and Leia met on the jungle planet where Rey was kidnapped. Very clearly met. They hugged. And they were together at the Resistance base.

Bad sentence structure on my part. It was Leia's and Chewbacca's first meeting since Han's death.

Except wouldn't you expect her or Han saying something to her about them being her parents? Or wouldn't you think Rey would remember them? She wasn't a baby when her parents left, she knew what they looked like. She was waiting for them on Jakku after all. Not telling her that she was their kid would be insanely cruel -especially- after the death of her father at the hands of her brother.

Kind of my point...the reaction of Leia stands out to me because one would think if she were related to Rey there would have been something earlier in the film to tell us that...or even at the moment of the meeting between the two...but there was not. Hence, bypassing Chewie to hug some random chick (even if she is the TFA analogue of both Luke and Leia from ANH) just doesn't make sense to me.

The above, I'd suspect.

Nope, just bad syntax that I will now go and edit :)

- M

Darth Credence

2016-01-04, 03:43 PM

My guess is that she is Luke's daughter, and Luke either thought she was dead or didn't know she existed. Seems like the last few have given up on spoiler tags, so I'll join in not using them here.

She is almost certainly not Han and Leia's daughter. They talked far too much about wanting to get their son back, and Han died in the attempt to do so, for them to have not immediately grabbed a hold of Rey and kept her with them if she was their daughter. If she was their daughter (and Han knew it - they could pull something about them not knowing, I suppose), that would have been something that made Han go back to Leia, and it certainly would have come up when the two were talking about their son.

Now, for her to be Luke's daughter is quite a bit easier. She had a reaction to the weapon of Anakin and Luke, so it seems likely she is in that family line. Luke may not know she exists. If Luke was involved with someone when the Knights of Ren went bad, and she was pregnant, she may have fled the battle and had the child secretly. She may have remained on the run, and eventually had to leave the girl with Plutt as she tried to get away. I would guess Luke does know she exists, but thought she was dead or with her mother. That would fit the best with everything else. Solo knew who she was (not his daughter). Maz Kanata asked him who she was, and then the scene cut away. The next time we see Maz, she is telling Rey that the people she was waiting for on Jakku aren't coming back, but Luke might.

At the end, Leia went to hug her to comfort her. Han took Rey under his wing, and they almost certainly told Leia about her before they went to Starkiller. Leia knew that Rey had taken Han as a father figure, in much the same way that Luke had seen Obi Wan in Star Wars. She went and comforted him for his loss, even though she had never met Ben and frankly didn't know Luke all that well, because that is what she does. She came across a young woman who had just seen her father figure die, and she went to comfort her. She may very well have felt Rey's pain at Han's death, as well, since she certainly felt the death.

Mordar

2016-01-04, 03:55 PM

At the end, Leia went to hug her to comfort her. Han took Rey under his wing, and they almost certainly told Leia about her before they went to Starkiller. Leia knew that Rey had taken Han as a father figure, in much the same way that Luke had seen Obi Wan in Star Wars. She went and comforted him for his loss, even though she had never met Ben and frankly didn't know Luke all that well, because that is what she does. She came across a young woman who had just seen her father figure die, and she went to comfort her. She may very well have felt Rey's pain at Han's death, as well, since she certainly felt the death.

This in particular is a solid point. It does very very much echo that scene...with the stark difference being that this time the Ben that died was Han (as Ben analogue) and Leia had a very strong personal connection.

I think it (Leia going past Chewie to Rey) is probably a tempest in a teapot and is meant to portray Leia comforting us all through Rey and shouldn't be read as anything else...but I would have liked a little something between Leia and Chewie on the way.

- M

Kyberwulf

2016-01-04, 03:55 PM

Darth Credence

2016-01-04, 04:26 PM

Except you are forgetting, that Anakin is also Leia's dad. Leia was also mentioned having a strong presence in the force. Therefore, it would be just as obvious that she could be Leia's daughter. Just because Han is her dad, doesn't change the fact. She is still a Skywalker. I would bet that Han and Leia put her on the planet because their other son started messing things up. They wanted her to be safe, and away from possible corruption. They don't shake her world up yet, by telling her who her parents or her sibling. Because that would be a whole new can of worms.

Han was willing to die in an attempt to get their son back. If Rey was their daughter, how do you justify that Han decided to not tell her, even when she wanted to go back to the planet she was stuck on to continue to wait for her parents to return?

hamishspence

2016-01-04, 04:28 PM

I would bet that Han and Leia put her on the planet because their other son started messing things up.

She's 19, Kylo's 29 - and she's been on Jakku for nearly 15 years. Which means she was 5 and he was 10 15 when she was left there.

Hard to believe that Kylo would be that big an issue that young.

Mordar

2016-01-04, 04:34 PM

She's 19, Kylo's 29 - and she's been on Jakku for 15 years. Which means she was 5 and he was 10 when she was left there.

Hard to believe that Kylo would be that big an issue that young.

Now I might disagree with this...some of Rey theories posit that she was a young trainee during the time of the Ben Solo conversion...the mind wipe idea is strong with the JJ Abrams mentaility, so there may yet be something to that.

jere7my

2016-01-04, 04:38 PM

She's 19, Kylo's 29 - and she's been on Jakku for 15 years. Which means she was 5 and he was 10 when she was left there.

Hard to believe that Kylo would be that big an issue that young.

Might want to check your arithmetic there. :P

hamishspence

2016-01-04, 04:40 PM

Make that 14 years (maybe close to 15).

Now I might disagree with this...some of Rey theories posit that she was a young trainee during the time of the Ben Solo conversion...

Source for her being 5:

http://www.ew.com/gallery/star-wars-force-awakens-exclusive-photos/2374793_all-crops-gallery-star-wars-force-awakens-2015-daisy-ridley

Mordar

2016-01-04, 05:09 PM

Make that 14 years (maybe close to 15).

Source for her being 5:

http://www.ew.com/gallery/star-wars-force-awakens-exclusive-photos/2374793_all-crops-gallery-star-wars-force-awakens-2015-daisy-ridley

I'm not disagreeing with her age...I was just saying that there is a reasonable chance she was a young trainee (Jedi Kindergarden?) at the time of the Ren Heresy (tm).

jere7my

2016-01-04, 05:13 PM

hamishspence

2016-01-04, 05:16 PM

Sorry, I was thinking of the "Rey being Han's daughter was a fact hidden from Han when she was born" theory.

15 is still young, compared to Anakin's 23 when he destroyed the Jedi.

Cosi

2016-01-04, 09:52 PM

Rey Skywalker (because let's not kid ourselves about her not having Anakin's blood from somewhere) is either...

1. Han and Leia's second child, abandoned when Kylo went Dark.
2. Luke's normal child by an unknown woman.
3. Luke's Force Baby (a la Anakin) by an unknown woman

I think that about covers it. Probably the first one, because who wants to use the exact line for the second movie dramatic reveal?

BlasTech

2016-01-04, 10:20 PM

I feel compelled to point out that since this is Star Wars. Everybody is related.

Kylo Ren is Han and Leia's son
Rey is Luke's Daughter
Finn is Leia's son from a previous dalliance (with Lando!).
The old guy from the start is Luke's Uncle, once removed.
Captain Phasma is the daughter of TK-421.
Snoke is Palpatine's cousin, and was best friends with Lone Star's father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.

Alent

2016-01-04, 10:22 PM

3. Luke's Force Baby (a la Anakin) by an unknown woman

For some reason, this idea makes me picture all Jedi Force Ghosts as cosmic Incubi, which explains the whole MerlinAnakin plotline.

Darth Ultron

2016-01-05, 01:36 AM

I'd say the most obvious woiuld be Rey Skywalker, Luke's daughter.

Though for a fun twist......what if she was Luke and Leia's daughter? After all ''a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away'' would not do everything by 19th-20th American centrist views on ''what is right and wrong''.

Sure it might be ''too far for Disney'' (Slaughtering a whole solar system is OK, but brother + sister is not), but even if Disney does wimp out it still can be done in a way to make everyone happy. Ray could be artificial where they combined Luke and Leis's DNA (or, er, metaclorians) to make a person.

Comrade

2016-01-05, 02:25 AM

Marlowe

2016-01-05, 02:38 AM

I direly hope that she isn't a Skywalker. We've had six films of that family's bull****, give us something new!

In fact, I've heard some people bandy about talk that she may be a Kenobi-- I think that'd actually be really cool.

Hmmmm.

She's cool. Collected. Space-British. Competent. And not easily intimidated by dark force users.

Obviously, she's Tarkin's great-granddaughter.

Comrade

2016-01-05, 04:57 AM

Obviously, she's Tarkin's great-granddaughter.

... I'll take it. Versus her being another Skywalker? I'll take it.

DJ Yung Crunk

2016-01-05, 04:59 AM

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Taken from Wikipedia. Hope it helps. :smallsmile:

Hopeless

2016-01-05, 05:19 AM

I actually hoped she was a Kenobi rather than a Skywalker to see a reversal of the roles done in ANH!
It also helped I hope Kylo would try that mind trick and have Rey give him the mental equivalent of the two fingered salute right back at him!
Caught a couple of hints that she might actually be a Bridger though, the Skywalker gift is Telekinesis emphasised by Kylo, the Kenobi gift is telepathy ala mind tricks, but the Bridger gift is Postcognition which is what we saw when she touched that lightsaber not that she's Anakin's granddaughter but evidence of someone quite different!
I'd prefer Rey to be a Kenobi rather than Skywalker as Obi-Wan had that saber longer than the Skywalker clan ever did combined but can't help wondering if they're going to retcon what Yoda meant by there's another from Leia to actually mean Ezra?!
Leia didn't become a Jedi, yes she's force sensitive but as it was Obi-Wan who explained and not Yoda it wouldn't be lying if Obi didn't know about Ezra now wouldn't it?
Yes it's supposed to be about the Skywalkers' but what if Luke moved his family to somewhere safe thinking they and not the Academy was Snoke's target?
Next movie they could reveal he remained in hiding because it wasn't Kylo who betrayed his Academy it was the New Republic who couldn't tolerate a NJO that they couldn't manipulate or control after all it was politics that brought the order down last time!
Still it's a different director all it takes is for them to take the easy route over a more interesting story so who knows?!

Zmeoaice

2016-01-05, 08:41 AM

She's another lab experiment of Darth Plagueis/Snoke. Which is why she's a bigger Mary Sue than Anakin, because she has a lot more midichlorians in her body. I am 99% sure Snoke is Plagueis because they have the exact same theme song. It would also be good escalation for the series. You think Palpy was tough, now you're going to have to defeat the guy who trained him (And also created Darth Vader).

She's probably not Lukes daughter because that's too obvious and the audience will groan if that's the reveal.

Z3ro

2016-01-05, 11:11 AM

She's probably not Lukes daughter because that's too obvious and the audience will groan if that's the reveal.

Man do I hope this is true. Trying to explain a past Luke relationship off-screen will be tough. Much easier explaining a Kenobi off-screen tryst, especially as he's been shown (cannonically) to have strong feelings for women, Jedi code or not. Plus there's the great inversion of the Kenobi/Luke training.

Peelee

2016-01-05, 11:32 AM

Velaryon

2016-01-05, 12:19 PM

I direly hope that she isn't a Skywalker. We've had six films of that family's bull****, give us something new!

In fact, I've heard some people bandy about talk that she may be a Kenobi-- I think that'd actually be really cool.

Oh god yes. Bad enough that Kylo Ren is basically Jacen Solo... I'm desperate for the films to do something different by not having Rey be Jaina.

Hmmmm.

She's cool. Collected. Space-British. Competent. And not easily intimidated by dark force users.

Obviously, she's Tarkin's great-granddaughter.

Actually, the Space-British thing is a great argument against her being a Skywalker or Solo. Realistically she could have picked up that accent over time because of the people she was around, but I don't recall Jakku being full of faux-Brits, and Hollywood doesn't typically approach these things realistically anyway.

Perhaps I am grasping at straws, but I really want to find out she's anything but a Skywalker. Make her a Kenobi, a Tarkin, Palpatine's secret granddaughter, a clone created from the DNA of all the random blood samples found in Jabba's rancor pit, or something equally ridiculous, just don't make her Luke's, Han's, or Leia's daughter.

Giggling Ghast

2016-01-05, 12:47 PM

She is obviously Snoak's daughter.

Lettuce

2016-01-05, 01:11 PM

Another point in favour of her being Han/Leia's rather than Luke's: she's immediately able to understand Chewbacca. We certainly haven't seen any other Wookiees on Jakku (which makes sense, seeing as they're from a lush forest planet). Given that Luke isn't ever shown to have more than a very broad understanding of what Chewie says, even after years together in the alliance, and that it's only Han actually can make perfect sense out of his roars in the OT, I can't see Rey picking up the nuances of the language so quickly if she's only Luke's daughter. She wouldn't be exposed enough to Chewie. It makes much more sense if she were Han and Leia's--she'd have been around Chewie constantly.

As far as why Han and Leia might not have told Rey that she's their daughter--they might not have been 100% sure themselves. For all we know, if she was also training with Luke, they might have thought that their daughter was dead. Alternatively, they might feel that they screwed up with Kylo Ren so badly that she's better off without them.

I'd also like to point out that things like her being a natural pilot and good mechanic could stem from Han just as easily as Luke.

Also, am I the only one who thought they heard Ren's voice in Rey's flashback where she's crying for her parents? Maybe I'm crazy, but the guy shushing her sounded a LOT like Ren to me. Certainly it didn't sound like the junkboss she was working for at the start of the movie...

On a related note... We don't know where Luke's Jedi Academy was, do we? Just throwing it out there, but maybe--just maybe--it was on Jakku. The scene with the (presumed) funeral pyre does seem to take place in a pretty desolate, dry area, I think? I'm not sure though--I saw the movie at the midnight opening showing, and it's been weeks since then; someone with a fresher memory might have a better shot at recalling the details.

--

Personally, I'd prefer if she were Han/Leia's rather than Luke's. Her being a Kenobi kid would be interesting, but I feel like from a narrative standpoint, it'd kind of undermine the apparent abnormality of Anakin's relationship with Padme--particularly because Anakin feels like he can't talk with his mentor about his relationship and feelings.

What I REALLY hope is that she's secretly the granddaughter of Jar Jar Binks. *gets shot*

The Glyphstone

2016-01-05, 01:20 PM

Idle note, but when Han goes to confront Kylo in the bridge scene...does he shout 'Ren', or 'Ben'? I assumed the latter, because it'd be a fitting name for a kid (Ben Solo, after Ben Kenobi) and it'd be odd for Han to call the boy by his evil-Jedi name instead of his birth name if he was trying to bring him home.

Velaryon

2016-01-05, 01:21 PM

What I REALLY hope is that she's secretly the granddaughter of Jar Jar Binks. *gets shot*

*Twice, just to be sure* :smallwink:

Mordar

2016-01-05, 02:23 PM

As far as why Han and Leia might not have told Rey that she's their daughter--they might not have been 100% sure themselves. For all we know, if she was also training with Luke, they might have thought that their daughter was dead. Alternatively, they might feel that they screwed up with Kylo Ren so badly that she's better off without them.

You know, I hadn't thought of that one (bold emphasis mine)...it's JJ enough to work.

- M

Alent

2016-01-05, 02:47 PM

Han "Women always figure out the truth. Always" Solo?

I got the idea he was trying to make sure to end up on the good side of the realization curve. Truth being harder to sell than a lie and all that. (Also, he probably wasn't 100% on it himself.)

Thinker

2016-01-05, 03:16 PM

Telonius

2016-01-05, 03:45 PM

She is obviously Snoak's daughter.

Nah. She's Anakin's father, consciousness-transferred to a female clone's body and mindwiped. :smallbiggrin:

Delusion

2016-01-05, 05:21 PM

TheOldCrow

2016-01-05, 06:56 PM

My personal favorite theory that I have seen is that Rey is Obi Wan Kenobi's granddaughter, because it does a turnaround of the relationship with Luke and a Kenobi, and also because the fight with Ren is again a fight between a Dark Side Skywalker and a Kenobi.

I briefly had a wild theory that she is a clone-- of Vader-- dun dun DUHN-- but pretty sure I'm wrong about that.

She is obviously Snoak's daughter.

Interesting theory. Next question would be-- who is Snoak? Besides a Giant Gollum Hallogram, that is.

Seerow

2016-01-05, 07:05 PM

My personal favorite theory that I have seen is that Rey is Obi Wan Kenobi's granddaughter, because it does a turnaround of the relationship with Luke and a Kenobi, and also because the fight with Ren is again a fight between a Dark Side Skywalker and a Kenobi.

This is my favorite theory as well. I didn't pay a lot of attention to Clone Wars, but I hear that Obi Wan got involved with a Mandalorian during the show? Something coming of that could be interesting. (Not to mention making Rey part Mandalorian would be cool).

TheOldCrow

2016-01-05, 07:21 PM

This is my favorite theory as well. I didn't pay a lot of attention to Clone Wars, but I hear that Obi Wan got involved with a Mandalorian during the show? Something coming of that could be interesting. (Not to mention making Rey part Mandalorian would be cool).

What is a Mandalorian? I think I have seen maybe two episodes of Clone Wars, and that was along long time ago.

Giggling Ghast

2016-01-05, 07:45 PM

Interesting theory. Next question would be-- who is Snoak? Besides a Giant Gollum Hallogram, that is.

I don't know. But I could see a Sith Lord abandoning a daughter on a desert planet.

What is a Mandalorian? I think I have seen maybe two episodes of Clone Wars, and that was along long time ago.

An alien from the planet Mandalore. Big with the whole "warrior culture."

However, the Mandalorian who Obi-Wan loved actually died.

Zmeoaice

2016-01-05, 08:57 PM

Interesting theory. Next question would be-- who is Snoak? Besides a Giant Gollum Hallogram, that is.

Like I stated he's Darth Plagueis, risen from the dead taking over the reins after his apprentice died.

This would also kind of make Rey and Anakin siblings.

The Glyphstone

2016-01-05, 09:15 PM

Olinser

2016-01-05, 09:31 PM

Total left field guess:

She's Palpatine's grandkid and was dumped on Jakku when her parents went off to join Snoke.

This open's up the potential taunt against Kylo Ren: 'What, you think Vader was all that? Your granddad was my granddad's little bitch!!!!'''

There is absolutely no possible way she's Han/Leia's kid. I could MAYBE see Han dumping her on Jakku when Ben went crazy, but that would be a huge stretch (I doubt Chewie would let him do it even if he wanted to). But Leia leaving her there? Not a chance.

Mando Knight

2016-01-05, 10:32 PM

What is a Mandalorian? I think I have seen maybe two episodes of Clone Wars, and that was along long time ago.

An alien from the planet Mandalore. Big with the whole "warrior culture."

However, the Mandalorian who Obi-Wan loved actually died.

Humans, actually. They're the culture from which the Fetts derive their armor. Satine Kryze (Kenobi's gal) was the leader of the pacifist New Mandalorian faction that controlled the government until it was overthrown by Maul during the Clone Wars. It's a bit of an echo of and contrast to Anakin's relationship with Padmé.

There's maybe enough space in the Clone Wars that Satine could have hidden a pregnancy, but it's not really congruent with how the relationship plays out on-screen.

Olinser

2016-01-06, 02:19 AM

Humans, actually. They're the culture from which the Fetts derive their armor. Satine Kryze (Kenobi's gal) was the leader of the pacifist New Mandalorian faction that controlled the government until it was overthrown by Maul during the Clone Wars. It's a bit of an echo of and contrast to Anakin's relationship with Padmé.

There's maybe enough space in the Clone Wars that Satine could have hidden a pregnancy, but it's not really congruent with how the relationship plays out on-screen.

Well it's very unlikely it was Satine, but that doesn't mean she's not Kenobi's grandkid. He was on Tatooine for Luke's entire life and we know almost nothing about what he did in the nearly 20 years he was there. Saying he had a kid while he was on Tatooine would not be a big stretch - if he had him right when he got there then the kid could already have grown up and left to see the galaxy by the time Luke found Kenobi, so Kenobi would have no reason to stay.

Z3ro

2016-01-06, 09:43 AM

There's maybe enough space in the Clone Wars that Satine could have hidden a pregnancy, but it's not really congruent with how the relationship plays out on-screen.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when they first meet, isn't it implied they have a longer history that we don't see on the screen? Maybe the reason the Duchess is so cold to him is that he left her with a child and she resents him?

Emperordaniel

2016-01-06, 10:21 AM

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when they first meet, isn't it implied they have a longer history that we don't see on the screen? Maybe the reason the Duchess is so cold to him is that he left her with a child and she resents him?

Yeah, apparently they had known each other since before Satine became duchess, during some Mandalorian crisis or something during which then-Padawan Kenobi was assigned to guard her (going off what I remember from rewatching that episode a few weeks ago).

DigoDragon

2016-01-06, 10:50 AM

Being related to Luke and Leia might explain her unnatural affinity for the Force, though.

I feel compelled to point out that since this is Star Wars. Everybody is related.

I think Rey being related to the Skywalkers detracts from the character, but it does seem like a popular theory that holds some ground.

Idle note, but when Han goes to confront Kylo in the bridge scene...does he shout 'Ren', or 'Ben'?

I heard Ben, and immediately thought that yes, he was named after Ben Kenobi.

Mordar

2016-01-06, 11:03 AM

According to Andy Serkis, who did the mocap, Snoke is not Darth Plagueis, but a new character.

http://geektyrant.com/news/andy-serkis-talks-supreme-leader-snoke-and-confirm-hes-not-darth-plagueis

He could, of course, be lying. But since Sideous also claimed to have murdered Plagueis in his sleep (as per Sith tradition), it'd be odd to bring him back.

Palpatine, consummate liar, could have been lying as well...but even better, Palpatine, hyper-confident even up to the moment of his final defeat, could have been mistaken about how successful he was in killing his master in his sleep. After all, Plagueis certainly didn't teach his Sith student *everything* he knew...so there may well have been a lich-regeneration-contingency in place (which nicely explains the rough look of Snoke as well as his return from "death").

Not sure this is the case, of course, but there is a solid out for the writers.

- M

Bulldog Psion

2016-01-06, 11:13 AM

Snoke certainly has a bit of the "Sith undead kept alive by dark force sorceries too horrible to contemplate" look about him. So I wouldn't count out Plagueis either.

As for Rey, I think she's either Skywalker (70%) or Kenobi (30%). If she's Han's and Leia's daughter, how the heck would he not know her name?

McStabbington

2016-01-06, 12:55 PM

I have to say, as a long, loud and early proponent of the idea that making Rey a Skywalker was a terrible idea, I really like the alternative theory that she's a Kenobi. Not only does it fit with everything we've seen in the movie (Kenobi played a larger role in that touching-the-magic-sword scene than Luke did, IIRC), but it's a far better narrative choice.

As a forum centered on role-playing, you'd think this would go completely unspoken, but while in theory you can pretty much do anything with your characters, in practice some choices expand your options and give you narrative options to explore, and some just straitjacket the heck out of you. Making your character a misanthropic shut-in only works if you then give the character a compelling reason to leave his little hole and interact with other people; if he just sits in his bomb shelter and reads for the next ten years, he's not going to be involved in the story.

And making Rey a Skywalker? Does not do anything to expand the narrative options for Rey's character, and a lot to shut it down. If she's a Skywalker, then her goal (reunite with her family) is already done. She'll have an awkward conversation with Luke about him being a deadbeat father (which in itself is a terrible narrative choice), she will or she won't accept it, and then . . . what? It doesn't allow you to move the character in any way that is not trite, hackneyed, done to death in other mediums, and does nothing to show us anything new or deepen anything we've already seen about Rey. It's only redeeming virtue as a narrative choice is that it's exactly the storytelling move an eight year-old would pick. Which we should have gotten past with the prequels.

If she's just a random very-gifted force user or a Kenobi, however, there's a lot of narrative options, because you get to subtly revisit things that happened in the OT and prequels without resorting to complete retread. Where Kenobi trained two generations of Skywalkers, the latter redeeming Kenobi's own mistakes with the former, now it's Skywalker training a Kenobi to achieve exactly the same redemption: failing to properly train a Skywalker. You get the same story beats, but you get more and deeper meaning out of them. Which is the option you should always pick for your narrative choices.

Olinser

2016-01-06, 01:20 PM

Hopeless

2016-01-06, 01:24 PM

I like the idea she's a Kenobi especially after that last post!

When I watched the movie it got me thinking she's a Bridger but what if we're not talking directly descended from Obi-Wan himself but the family he was recruited from when first located by the Jedi...

Did they ever cover that part of his history in comic or book form?

Still like the Kenobi angle much better!

Bulldog Psion

2016-01-06, 01:36 PM

Olinser

2016-01-06, 02:00 PM

Though there's always a way to handwave it, the British accent would fit better with a Kenobi, too.

I'm starting to like the idea.

How on earth would a Kenobi end up on Jakku, left in the none-too-tender care of Unkar Plutt, though?

If Rey's parents were training under Luke, with Rey there, and they were killed by Ren. Then he balked at killing a 5 year old so he dumped her on a random planet and told Snoke they were all dead. The ship Rey remembers seeing is actually Ren's ship.

Remember, Ren was pretty pissed when he got told BB-8 and Finn got away, but he got a LOT madder when the random disposable officer told him a girl had helped them. He was probably thinking, 'Aw crap I probably should have killed her back then'.

Giggling Ghast

2016-01-06, 04:01 PM

humans, actually. They're the culture from which the fetts derive their armor. Satine kryze (kenobi's gal) was the leader of the pacifist new mandalorian faction that controlled the government until it was overthrown by maul during the clone wars. It's a bit of an echo of and contrast to anakin's relationship with padmé.

Humans from alien planets ARE STILL ALIENS

Mando Knight

2016-01-06, 04:06 PM

Humans from alien planets ARE STILL ALIENS

Then everyone in Star Wars is an alien. The use of "alien" within the genre refers to non-Humans.

shadow_archmagi

2016-01-06, 04:39 PM

She's the daughter of one of Vader's many bastards. Old cyborg got around.

Slylizard

2016-01-06, 04:42 PM

Clearly she is Leia and Chewbacca's lovechild dumped on Jakku lest Han find out. She's not wearing clothes, she's just spun her hair/fur in a style akin to clothes...

Peelee

2016-01-06, 05:16 PM

What is a Mandalorian? I think I have seen maybe two episodes of Clone Wars, and that was along long time ago.

An alien from the planet Mandalore. Big with the whole "warrior culture."

Humans, actually.
Mandalorians are a culture, actually, and are not restricted to any species; it is a warrior culture that can be joined by anyone dedicated to the cause.

Humans from alien planets ARE STILL ALIENS

Then everyone in Star Wars is an alien. The use of "alien" within the genre refers to non-Humans.As Mando Knight says, that's a very disingenuous definition of "alien" in a multi-life form, space-faring setting.

Bulldog Psion

2016-01-06, 05:21 PM

Clearly she is Leia and Chewbacca's lovechild dumped on Jakku lest Han find out. She's not wearing clothes, she's just spun her hair/fur in a style akin to clothes...

I see you took (Craft) Disturbing Mental Image last level.

Mando Knight

2016-01-06, 06:59 PM

Mandalorians are a culture, actually, and are not restricted to any species; it is a warrior culture that can be joined by anyone dedicated to the cause.

In the new canon, all known Mandalorians are Human.

GloatingSwine

2016-01-06, 07:03 PM

Clearly she is Leia and Chewbacca's lovechild dumped on Jakku lest Han find out. She's not wearing clothes, she's just spun her hair/fur in a style akin to clothes...

So she's actually Bayonetta then?

That explains why she could kick everyone's ass.

Peelee

2016-01-07, 12:41 AM

In the new canon, all known Mandalorians are Human.

Bah! I am one of the ones that applauded wiping the slate clean from the start, but even now it still takes some getting used to.

Anteros

2016-01-07, 03:36 AM

Who is Rey? Well, I don't know her parentage, but she's certainly closely related to Mary Sue.

More seriously, most signs point to her being part of the Skywalker clan.

Bulldog Psion

2016-01-07, 06:41 AM

It's interesting how people automatically accept competency in a male character, but require voluminous justification (which they don't accept anyway) for a female character being competent.

Anteros

2016-01-07, 07:29 AM

Competency? She's a better pilot than Han, can repair the Falcon better than Han can, is able to re-wire ships she has never been on before like the freighter, knows exactly which fuses to pull to open doors on planetary super weapons, is completely fluent in at least 4 different languages with no explanation (seriously, is she taking language credits at her local university? I didn't see any droids or Wookies in her village), is able to outfight a fully trained sith (both physically and in the force), and is more advanced in the force just from touching a lightsaber than original trilogy Luke was with actual training. By the way, where did she learn the Jedi mind trick? She didn't even know Jedi were real until Han told her.

We'll ignore that she's a super special chosen one singled out by the oracle figure, and Skywalker's long lost daughter, because both of those are completely normal for a Star Wars movie.

It's fine if you want a competent female character, but having a character that is perfect at everything without even trying to explain why? That's a Mary-Sue. Gender has nothing to do with it, and it's frankly offensive to pull the misogyny card in place of an actual argument.

GloatingSwine

2016-01-07, 08:16 AM

Competency? She's a better pilot than Han

Anakin was such a good pilot at nine years old that he was capable of winning races that literally no other human being was physically capable of competing in.

Turns out the Force is a powerful ally after all?

can repair the Falcon better than Han can,

You mean she can remove modifications she is aware of and he isn't? (PS she is familiar with the entire service history of the Falcon whilst Unkar Plutt owned it so she has almost certainly been involved in repairing it before)

is able to re-wire ships she has never been on before like the freighter,

And get it wrong nearly killing everyone.

knows exactly which fuses to pull to open doors on planetary super weapons,

Turns out doors are a common mass produced technology and fuses are not actually top secret after all? Luke knew that shooting a door control panel would cause the door to close not, eg. jam it open dooming him and Leia. But now you have a problem with doors...

is completely fluent in at least 4 different languages with no explanation (seriously, is she taking language credits at her local university? I didn't see any droids or Wookies in her village),

There were clearly aliens present though, and you don't see more than a tenth of the village. She has had plenty of contact with other species and chance to learn to communicate with them.

is able to outfight a fully trained sith (both physically and in the force),

Who is explicitly not fully trained and who had just tanked a hit from a weapon which otherwise throws people across rooms without budging and who was not trying to kill her, and who was suffering a major crisis of consciensce to the extent that he was exacerbating the wound he had just taken so the pain blocked it out.

and is more advanced in the force just from touching a lightsaber than original trilogy Luke was with actual training. By the way, where did she learn the Jedi mind trick? She didn't even know Jedi were real until Han told her.

Luke has about five days of training across the entire OT. He is also never trained in any of the things we see him do before he does them himself.

Gender has nothing to do with it, and it's frankly offensive to pull the misogyny card in place of an actual argument.

Gender has everything to do with it, because male characters showing the same or higher levels of competence are not criticised in the same terms at all, instead they are lionised as characters like Indiana Jones, capable of outfighting all the nazis in the world, solving all the problems, and basically everything else with the one exception of landing a plane...

Anteros

2016-01-07, 08:50 AM

You're using Anakin as an example, but Anakin was an insufferable Mary Sue and people have been complaining about it for a decade even though he's *gasp* male! Maybe you should dig up some of those threads and claim misandry. In fact, I can give you dozens of male examples if you want. Richard Rahl, Thrall, Ichigo, Jon Snow, The guy from Eragon...we could be here all day and I'll gladly post more if you want.

Indiana Jones is a different genre. A better analogue to him would be Lara Croft and nobody claims she is a Mary Sue. He's also a world reknowned adventurer and you're shown flashbacks of him screwing up in the past and learning from it. "Better luck next time Kid!"

No one claims River Tam is a Sue because her hyper-competency is explained and makes sense. Sarah Connor isn't a Sue despite being more badass than the soldier sent back in time to protect her. Buffy wasn't a Sue because you watched her grow and become strong instead of naturally being the best at everything from minute one.

If Rey started out as merely competent like Finn and grew into an incredible badass over the series no one would complain. When she's the best in the universe at everything from minute one as a random orphan on a backwater planet? That raises some eyebrows.

Just because someone dares to criticize a female character doesn't automatically make them a terrible sexist with invalid opinions.

GloatingSwine

2016-01-07, 09:28 AM

You're using Anakin as an example,

Did the point make a nice whooshing noise when it sailed over your head?

Rey's piloting skill is what it is because the film is setting up the reveal that she will be a Jedi. Being good at things like flying, even without being aware of why it is happening, is long established in this series as one of the things the Force does for you.

Right back to Star Wars, where with absolutely no indication in the movie that Luke had ever flown anything that went any higher off the ground than his car, he is dropped into a live space combat situation and not only survives, when pilots with far more experience fail to do so, but also blows up the Death Star.

Just because someone dares to criticize a female character doesn't automatically make them a terrible sexist with invalid opinions.

When you criticise a female character for things you have demonstrably ignored in a male character (or actually are just outright wrong about, possibly deliberately, like Ren being "fully trained" when Snoke specifically says he isn't), it actually does.

Anteros

2016-01-07, 10:11 AM

Did the point make a nice whooshing noise when it sailed over your head?

Rey's piloting skill is what it is because the film is setting up the reveal that she will be a Jedi. Being good at things like flying, even without being aware of why it is happening, is long established in this series as one of the things the Force does for you.

Right back to Star Wars, where with absolutely no indication in the movie that Luke had ever flown anything that went any higher off the ground than his car, he is dropped into a live space combat situation and not only survives, when pilots with far more experience fail to do so, but also blows up the Death Star.

Luke specifically had the force helping him. They go as far as to have a ghost show up and help him, because otherwise it's pretty silly for him to just know how to do it on his own. He also does one thing in the movie. He flies well with the help of the force. He's not better than every other character in the movie at everything. Luke in episode IV needs Han to pilot them offworld. He needs Obi-Wan to rescue him from the sand people. He has to run from Vader after Obi-Wan dies. He needs Han to come back and shoot Vader so he can escape at the end.

If Rey had been the main character of A New Hope she would have fought off the raiders with no help from Obi-Wan, smuggled herself off the planet with her elite piloting abilities, and beaten the crap out of Vader after Obi-Wan falls. And I guess maybe one of the Storm Troopers falls for her and tags along for comic relief at some point. Roll credits.

When you criticise a female character for things you have demonstrably ignored in a male character (or actually are just outright wrong about, possibly deliberately, like Ren being "fully trained" when Snoke specifically says he isn't), it actually does.

Except I have specifically given you counter examples of male sues and competent female non-sues so you're really just propping up a straw-man. Anakin is a sue. Luke is not. Rey most certainly is.

Regardless of your desire to argue the semantics in my word choices he has years more training than her from multiple different masters. Most likely over a decade given that the Jedi like to train from a young age and Luke would have been in his life from the start. Compared to....touching a lightsaber for like 3 seconds and seeing Ren use the force to do something completely unrelated to most of the powers she uses. Maybe he's not "fully" trained, but compared to her he has his Masters degree and she's in pre-school.

Kyberwulf

2016-01-07, 10:12 AM

How do you know what, and who we did and didn't criticize.

I don't think she is a Mary sue. I think she is a quasi Feminist insert. Everything she did was all the right moves, with some token cover her mouth opps moments. While all the men in the movie where pretty bumbling.

Chen

2016-01-07, 10:15 AM

Right back to Star Wars, where with absolutely no indication in the movie that Luke had ever flown anything that went any higher off the ground than his car, he is dropped into a live space combat situation and not only survives, when pilots with far more experience fail to do so, but also blows up the Death Star.

Luke flew T-16s in Tatooine (recall his "I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home. They're not much bigger than two meters." line). Apparently accordingly to Wookieepedia these are the same airspeeders used to train rebel pilots due to being similar to X-wings in terms of controls (though there doesn't seem to be a citation for where that little tidbit is from). Regardless he apparently pretty good with flying craft and an expert marksman in one even if the similarity to an X-wing was just made up later.

Edit: actually looking a bit more from the original radio dramatization it seems Biggs does mention the X-Wings are similar to the T-16s back home when talking to Luke before the battle of Yavin.

Peelee

2016-01-07, 10:27 AM

Luke has about five days of training across the entire OT.

OK, this was the only thing you said that I had an issue with. We don't see all of Luke's training, as you yourself point out, and we don't know how long he was trained, but we can reasonable assume it was vastly longer that five days. Even assuming that the trip to Alderaan only took as much time as we are shown in the movie, the Millennium Falcon had to go from Hoth to Bespin on sublight drive, and while we don't know how long that took, it clearly took far, far longer than just short of five days.

My assumptions are that Luke had somewhere around a few hours' worth of training on the trip from Tatooine to Alderaan in ANH, and around a few months' worth of training on Dagobah in ESB. Probably some indefinite amount in between ESB and RotJ, but that's pretty iffy.

Zmeoaice

2016-01-07, 10:55 AM

Like I said Ani and Rey are both Snoke's Midichlorian experiments, that's why they such big Sues.

I'm sure they will explain this in the sequel, they just want to set this apart from the prequel trilogy to get the bad taste from your mouths first.

Z3ro

2016-01-07, 11:19 AM

Luke flew T-16s in Tatooine (recall his "I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home. They're not much bigger than two meters." line). Apparently accordingly to Wookieepedia these are the same airspeeders used to train rebel pilots due to being similar to X-wings in terms of controls (though there doesn't seem to be a citation for where that little tidbit is from). Regardless he apparently pretty good with flying craft and an expert marksman in one even if the similarity to an X-wing was just made up later.

Edit: actually looking a bit more from the original radio dramatization it seems Biggs does mention the X-Wings are similar to the T-16s back home when talking to Luke before the battle of Yavin.

Two things:

None of this information is in the movie. Now I love me some EU, but since I haven't seen anyone accepting that Rey's abilities may be explained later, we can only go by what is shone in the movie itself.

But even if we accept that T-16's are basically training xwings, there's no way Luke manages to live through even a few minutes of that Death Star battle. We're talking about a farmboy who could fly alright heading into a combat zone against trained and skilled military pilots. Forget Vader, he should have been shot down the first time a TIE flew by. He's one of only two pilots who even survive, let alone kill the Death Star. That's a far greater feat than anything Rey ever did.

Giggling Ghast

2016-01-07, 11:19 AM

Rey is totally a Mary Sue. It's as though there is this invisible field of energy connecting all living things that is guiding her throughout the entire movie. :p

The Glyphstone

2016-01-07, 11:29 AM

Not to disrupt the fascinating arguments of pro-/anti-Suehood going on here, but someone on another forum I follow did point out an interesting minor detail that could explain part of her success in the saber duel, if not the other stuff she pulls off. The whole point of the Dark Side, as Yoda says in Ep2, is not that it's more powerful, but that it's easier and more seductive. It requires far less training or discipline to wield than the Light Side does...and if you spend more than five seconds looking at Rey's face in that fight, she has 'Dark Side' written all over it. She is angry as heck, using that anger, and frankly is closer to being a Sith in that particular moment than Kylo is considering his own emotional turmoil and injury. If that groundquake hadn't split them apart, I'd be entirely unsurprised if she had killed him outright.

Hopeless

2016-01-07, 11:31 AM

Would it have been better had they kept Poe involved?

So Poe flies the ship, Rey already proven as a skilled mechanic and scavenger makes sure the Falcon is space worthy by fixing the ship's hyperdrive having already been involved in the maintenance of the aging freighter with Finn trying to improve his gunnery skills!

Poe recognises the ship and makes contact with Han who helps them reach a safe contact point since Finn might be on the level but they play it safe.

Leia learning Poe has turned up at Maz heads there leaving her courier at the Senate narrowly avoiding the arrival of Starkiller Base whose recharging causes the devastation of the current capital.

The fighter squadrons were assigned to protect Leia, with evidence Starkiller Base is heading for Maz's system what with Kylo having left with a captive Rey.
Finn volunteers to rescue as Poe leads the squadrons to fend off the incoming TIEs allowing Finn to infiltrate the base aided by the seriously pi%%ed Pirates who were present when the First Order attacked Maz's Pub!

Would that have been better?

lt_murgen

2016-01-07, 11:59 AM

Rey is totally a Mary Sue.

I have two theories, but not sure which one I like better:

1- She IS a Mary Sue, but created by the force. She is what Anakin Skywalker COULD have become had he chosen differently. he little alien has seen 'her eyes' before, on Anakin. Not from a genetics perspective, but from the will of the force. Her story will parrallel his to some degree- I suspect she will come to love/pity Kylo and try to free him from Snoke. It isn't too far fetched. Obi Wan had a truly odd relationship with Asajj Ventress- almost romantic and teasing even as they tried to kill one another.

2- She is the daughter of Ezra Bridger from the Star Wars Rebels cartoon. He is a powerful force user lived on his own throughout his childhood because his parents were killed by the Empire. He lived as a salvager / thief and didn't start training until he was in his teens.

McStabbington

2016-01-07, 12:05 PM

OK, this was the only thing you said that I had an issue with. We don't see all of Luke's training, as you yourself point out, and we don't know how long he was trained, but we can reasonable assume it was vastly longer that five days. Even assuming that the trip to Alderaan only took as much time as we are shown in the movie, the Millennium Falcon had to go from Hoth to Bespin on sublight drive, and while we don't know how long that took, it clearly took far, far longer than just short of five days.

My assumptions are that Luke had somewhere around a few hours' worth of training on the trip from Tatooine to Alderaan in ANH, and around a few months' worth of training on Dagobah in ESB. Probably some indefinite amount in between ESB and RotJ, but that's pretty iffy.

I was thinking a day or two between Tatooine and Alderaan myself, but you are exactly right that the editing of ESB seems to make people think it's just an extended holiday when it had to be far longer. It only becomes apparent when you realize that in the span of Luke traveling from Hoth to Dagobah and training with Yoda, the Falcon flies from the Hoth system to the Anoid system to the Bespin system without using the hyperdrive. Even if you figure that Han's statement in Ep. IV "She'll make .5 past light speed" means that the Millenium Falcon can travel 1.5x light speed before hitting the hyperdrive, they were still traveling between three seperate star systems. If we were to get an engine that could travel 1.5x light speed, it would still take us 2.91 years to reach Alpha Centauri. Even if you assume that Hoth, Anoid and Bespin are part of a star cluster that is far more densely packed than our area of the galaxy is, you're still talking easily a year to do. Which actually meshes quite well with Irvin Kerschner's claims that the plot of ESB takes place over the span of four months.

It's not explicitly in the film, yes, and Star Wars always was the Plottiest of Moving-at-the-speed-of-Plot sci-fi series, but c'mon. Space is still really big, and the Falcon did not have the hyperdrive. What's more, Kerschner was the biggest director the franchise has ever had about letting the audience figure out on its own what is going on: apparently a lot of people still don't realize how astute Vader's plan to attack the base on Hoth was or how badly Ozzel botched it. It shouldn't have to take an anvil where the characters talk about what they already know to make this clear.

Peelee

2016-01-07, 12:14 PM

Two things:

None of this information is in the movie. Now I love me some EU, but since I haven't seen anyone accepting that Rey's abilities may be explained later, we can only go by what is shone in the movie itself.

But even if we accept that T-16's are basically training xwings, there's no way Luke manages to live through even a few minutes of that Death Star battle. We're talking about a farmboy who could fly alright heading into a combat zone against trained and skilled military pilots. Forget Vader, he should have been shot down the first time a TIE flew by. He's one of only two pilots who even survive, let alone kill the Death Star. That's a far greater feat than anything Rey ever did.

Obi-Wan Kenobi: He was the best star pilot in the galaxy, and a cunning warrior. I understand that you've become quite a good pilot yourself.

Luke Skywalker: I'm not such a bad pilot myself.

Biggs: It'll be like old times, Luke.

X-T-16/T-65 similarity is not mentioned, but Luke is established to be a capable pilot in the film before he flies the X-wing.

I was thinking a day or two between Tatooine and Alderaan myself, but you are exactly right that the editing of ESB seems to make people think it's just an extended holiday when it had to be far longer. It only becomes apparent when you realize that in the span of Luke traveling from Hoth to Dagobah and training with Yoda, the Falcon flies from the Hoth system to the Anoid system to the Bespin system without using the hyperdrive. Even if you figure that Han's statement in Ep. IV "She'll make .5 past light speed" means that the Millenium Falcon can travel 1.5x light speed before hitting the hyperdrive, they were still traveling between three seperate star systems. If we were to get an engine that could travel 1.5x light speed, it would still take us 2.91 years to reach Alpha Centauri. Even if you assume that Hoth, Anoid and Bespin are part of a star cluster that is far more densely packed than our area of the galaxy is, you're still talking easily a year to do. Which actually meshes quite well with Irvin Kerschner's claims that the plot of ESB takes place over the span of four months.

It's not explicitly in the film, yes, and Star Wars always was the Plottiest of Moving-at-the-speed-of-Plot sci-fi series, but c'mon. Space is still really big, and the Falcon did not have the hyperdrive. What's more, Kerschner was the biggest director the franchise has ever had about letting the audience figure out on its own what is going on: apparently a lot of people still don't realize how astute Vader's plan to attack the base on Hoth was or how badly Ozzel botched it. It shouldn't have to take an anvil where the characters talk about what they already know to make this clear.

Honestly, I just assume that in the Star Wars universe, light travels at a much faster speed. Day or two for Alderaan trip isn't out of the realm of possibility, though; I was deliberately lowballing.

The Glyphstone

2016-01-07, 12:20 PM

Peelee

2016-01-07, 12:29 PM

Wasn't it canonized at some point that the Falcon had a slower backup hyperdrive, to explain why the crew wasn't dead of old age by the time they arrived at Bespin? Or did that get thrown out with the rest of the EU?

Short answer - if it's not in a movie or TV show, it's not canon.

Also, technically, if they just kept accelerating the sublight drive, they would eventually hit massive velocities. Say, half the trip accelerating, half decelerating? And yes, I'm totally ignoring orbital physics here.

jere7my

2016-01-07, 12:30 PM

Two things:

None of this information is in the movie. Now I love me some EU, but since I haven't seen anyone accepting that Rey's abilities may be explained later, we can only go by what is shone in the movie itself.

But even if we accept that T-16's are basically training xwings, there's no way Luke manages to live through even a few minutes of that Death Star battle. We're talking about a farmboy who could fly alright heading into a combat zone against trained and skilled military pilots. Forget Vader, he should have been shot down the first time a TIE flew by. He's one of only two pilots who even survive, let alone kill the Death Star. That's a far greater feat than anything Rey ever did.

Yeah, if we're open to info that's not in the movie, it's canon that Rey has a salvaged Y-wing computer she's been using to practice flying and learn languages. Anyway, she IS a pilot, as she tells Finn, she just hasn't flown the Falcon before.

She also has a Mysterious Past which she doesn't seem to remember, and she may remember seeing Kylo Ren's betrayal. (Not clear whether those were her memories or just visions.) It's not hard to imagine she was present at Luke's Jedi academy and blocked the memory of tragedy, in which case she may have had Force training before. When she was left on Jakku she was older than the younglings we saw training in Episode 2. I mean, there's been an Awakening—have you felt it?—and it's clearly Rey who awakened. That means something.

I don't remember Luke or Anakin being totally owned by an imperfectly trained Dark Side user and carried off the battlefield into captivity, either. Not exactly Mary Sue territory, and not something that happens to male protagonists.

Regardless, it's clear that she's something new and unique, like Anakin, which is fitting for the protagonist of a new trilogy. A few people might have called Anakin a Mary Sue, but it wasn't all over the internet; there wasn't a Breitbart article about it. It is undeniable that Rey is suffering disproportionate scrutiny because of her gender. The Force is a powerful ally, and she's naturally attuned to it. I.e., she's a Star Wars hero. Move along.

McStabbington

2016-01-07, 12:48 PM

Short answer - if it's not in a movie or TV show, it's not canon.

Also, technically, if they just kept accelerating the sublight drive, they would eventually hit massive velocities. Say, half the trip accelerating, half decelerating? And yes, I'm totally ignoring orbital physics here.

This is Star Wars, not Battletech. Atmospheric physics are still totally observed even in the depths of outer space, and no attempt at explaining the discrepancy is even attempted. It would simply be impossible to perform the actions that we visually see in the dogfights in Episodes IV and VI without just accepting that Star Wars fighters fight in deep space as if they were in the atmosphere of a planet and moving on.

So by extension no, no constant accelerations and then decelerations.

But that aside, I don't think it is fair at all to call Rey a Sue. I think it's far more likely that Abrams let his desire to fanservice (no, not that kind of fanservice. I mean service fan's wish fullfillment . . . no, not that kind of wish fulfillment!) get in the way of good careful storytelling. Which is actually a recurrent failure of his storytelling. Abrams, as much as he deliberately tries to ape Spielberg as a director, has none of Spielberg's patience for storytelling, nor is he overly concerned with the details like character consistency. At some point with every Abrams' film I've ever seen, I realized that what he really wanted me to do was just turn off my brain, turn on the MST3K mantra and just go with it. Suffice to say, she has some common Sue traits, particularly how she is built to be an avatar for six year-olds, but she also has some very un-Sue like traits. Her characterization isn't about tying directly to the main characters, she doesn't immediately become everyone's favorite person, she doesn't prove too good for this sinful Planetkiller, etc. And really the term Mary Sue has become so flanderized that it's lost all meaning outside of "character that seems overpowered." As a viewer who doesn't like Abrams' films precisely because I hate turning off my brain, I am not a fan of his characterization or storytelling at all, but even I would simply say flat out that Rey is not a Mary Sue. Not "hesitate." She is not a Mary Sue, and Mary Sue is a charge that should really be retired because it has long since lost any coherent meaning to it.

jere7my

2016-01-07, 12:57 PM

Peelee

2016-01-07, 01:11 PM

This is Star Wars, not Battletech. Atmospheric physics are still totally observed even in the depths of outer space, and no attempt at explaining the discrepancy is even attempted. It would simply be impossible to perform the actions that we visually see in the dogfights in Episodes IV and VI without just accepting that Star Wars fighters fight in deep space as if they were in the atmosphere of a planet and moving on.

Yeah, but if we take that to its logical conclusion, then activating the hyperdrive would sheathe the ships in fire. I mean, I realize that any attempt to apply real-world physics to Star Wars physics is going to end in tears really fast, but it's simply very specifically at odds with itself in this case, and it's hard to even come up with a handwave. It works like atmospheric flight, except when it doesn't, basically.

Everything published after April 24, 2014 is canon, including the novels, Visual Dictionary, comics, etc. All one level of canon, barring occasional inconsistencies.

I mean, yeah, that's the long answer; I just don't think anything about the Falcon's Bespin trip has been published since then. Then again, I'm only halfway through Tarkin with only two other books waiting, so I am a bit backlogged on that knowledge.

lt_murgen

2016-01-07, 01:58 PM

Everything published after April 24, 2014 is canon, including the novels, Visual Dictionary, comics, etc. All one level of canon, barring occasional inconsistencies.

Yup.

But the legends did clarify several things.

When travelling in hyperspace, it is a different dimension- an alternate reality. Time and space have different values than in the normal galaxy. All that matters is the 'standard hyperspace route' time. So if a freighter has 0.5x hyperdrive, it makes those trips at 0.5x time. The Falcon had a backup 13x hyperdrive, which means it took much longer to travel those routes. Hyperspace routes are critical- finding a new safe one could (and did) change the course of the galaxy. It was a secret hyperspace route to Coruscant that allowed Grevious to successfully launch his attack in Ep. III.

The Falcon was said to have a 0.5 hyperdrive, and a 13x backup.

Anteros

2016-01-07, 02:29 PM

I don't remember Luke or Anakin being totally owned by an imperfectly trained Dark Side user and carried off the battlefield into captivity, either. Not exactly Mary Sue territory, and not something that happens to male protagonists.

A few people might have called Anakin a Mary Sue, but it wasn't all over the internet; there wasn't a Breitbart article about it.

I'm not familiar with the article you cite, or the author but people have literally been gnashing their teeth about how bad Episode I was for a decade. If anything I'd say the outcry against Anakin was far more widespread. Rey at least has the benefit of being likable while Anakin was insufferable.

As to getting captured...Luke gets captured like twice and only escapes both times because Vader lets him. Anakin gets captured once by non force users. Han gets frozen in carbonite.

Would it have been better had they kept Poe involved?

So Poe flies the ship, Rey already proven as a skilled mechanic and scavenger makes sure the Falcon is space worthy by fixing the ship's hyperdrive having already been involved in the maintenance of the aging freighter with Finn trying to improve his gunnery skills!

Poe recognises the ship and makes contact with Han who helps them reach a safe contact point since Finn might be on the level but they play it safe.

Leia learning Poe has turned up at Maz heads there leaving her courier at the Senate narrowly avoiding the arrival of Starkiller Base whose recharging causes the devastation of the current capital.

The fighter squadrons were assigned to protect Leia, with evidence Starkiller Base is heading for Maz's system what with Kylo having left with a captive Rey.
Finn volunteers to rescue as Poe leads the squadrons to fend off the incoming TIEs allowing Finn to infiltrate the base aided by the seriously pi%%ed Pirates who were present when the First Order attacked Maz's Pub!

Would that have been better?

Yes, that would have been better. Have her be a great mechanic, or some sort of force savant, or a pilot, or the best fighter. It's perfectly acceptable to have her be great at something. The problem is when you have her be all of these things at once and overshadow every other character in the movie. She's better with the Falcon than Han, better at combat than the trooper trained from birth, and better in the force than Ren. The only one she doesn't directly overshadow is the pilot and she's pretty darn good at that too. If they were on screen more together she would have probably gotten him too.

Having one character that's better than every other character in their own fields of specialty is bad writing. If Luke did everything she does in this movie in Episode IV it would be equally terrible. Even Anakin wasn't this bad. Sure, he was unbelievably good at flying, but at least he wasn't overpowering force users with a decade+ of training. She does at least have the benefit of being much much more likable than Anakin though.

Olinser

2016-01-07, 03:22 PM

I don't remember Luke or Anakin being totally owned by an imperfectly trained Dark Side user and carried off the battlefield into captivity, either. Not exactly Mary Sue territory, and not something that happens to male protagonists.

You don't remember Luke being knocked out and hung like a slab of meat by a creature that CAN'T EVEN USE the Force and was defeated by a single lightsaber swing? And then him having to be rescued by Han from freezing to death outside its lair?

You don't remember Anakin being subdued buy a pack of non-Force using creatures and then chained to a pillar for execution?

You don't remember Obi-Wan being captured OFF-SCREEN by droids and hung in mid-air for Dooku to gloat at? (Oh, and Obi-Wan having to be carried by Anakin off the ship after he killed Dooku).

Now you're just being intellectually dishonest.

Marlowe

2016-01-07, 03:34 PM

Personally, I liked that Rey wasn't totally and amazingly incompetent most of the time.

Luke verged on being The Load for the better part of two movies, and the prequel "heroes" often made me wonder why people this inept hadn't decapitated themselves with their own lightsabers. I enjoyed that we got some protagonists this time around who seemed competent right out of the box.

In Rey's case she's been surviving on her own on a violent scavenger world for years. It would be stretching credulity if she wasn't fairly capable.

Z3ro

2016-01-07, 03:43 PM

Obi-Wan Kenobi: He was the best star pilot in the galaxy, and a cunning warrior. I understand that you've become quite a good pilot yourself.

Luke Skywalker: I'm not such a bad pilot myself.

Biggs: It'll be like old times, Luke.

X-T-16/T-65 similarity is not mentioned, but Luke is established to be a capable pilot in the film before he flies the X-wing.

Really? That's all it takes? I don't care if he's "not such a bad pilot", there's no way someone with no military training does what Luke does. Five seconds into that fight he's getting shot down.

And it's not that I mind! I like stories with competent characters, probably far more than I should. Ultra-competent even. I just dislike when people try to make a comparison but then hold the key points to different standards.

Peelee

2016-01-07, 03:46 PM

Really? That's all it takes? I don't care if he's "not such a bad pilot", there's no way someone with no military training does what Luke does. Five seconds into that fight he's getting shot down.

And it's not that I mind! I like stories with competent characters, probably far more than I should. Ultra-competent even. I just dislike when people try to make a comparison but then hold the key points to different standards.

I'm not saying we should infer god-like piloting skills from that, but you claimed that there was no indication of piloting skill in the movie, and I just wanted to refute that. It was heavily foreshadowed that Luke could fly pretty well.

GloatingSwine

2016-01-07, 03:51 PM

I'm not saying we should infer god-like piloting skills from that, but you claimed that there was no indication of piloting skill in the movie, and I just wanted to refute that. It was heavily foreshadowed that Luke could fly pretty well.

But when Rey can fly well, when she says she's a pilot before doing so, it's totally wrong and she's a mary sue.

Because, you see, she's a girl and girls aren't allowed to be good at stuff, and if they're good at some stuff they can only be good at, like, one thing maybe.

jere7my

2016-01-07, 04:03 PM

You don't remember Luke being knocked out and hung like a slab of meat by a creature that CAN'T EVEN USE the Force and was defeated by a single lightsaber swing? And then him having to be rescued by Han from freezing to death outside its lair?

You don't remember Anakin being subdued buy a pack of non-Force using creatures and then chained to a pillar for execution?

You don't remember Obi-Wan being captured OFF-SCREEN by droids and hung in mid-air for Dooku to gloat at? (Oh, and Obi-Wan having to be carried by Anakin off the ship after he killed Dooku).

Now you're just being intellectually dishonest.

Rey was immediately made helpless, abused, knocked unconscious, and carried off the battlefield. The male heroes above went down swinging, against overwhelming odds, or (in Luke's case) were blindsided by a monster.

For a hero to lose a fair one-on-one confrontation with their narrative foil, and not just lose but lose trivially and humiliatingly, is not something that happens to Mary Sues. Even Luke, going up against Vader in ESB, found a way out. Han was betrayed by a friend. Anakin and Obi-Wan were vastly outnumbered. Imagine any of them put in Rey's shoes in that scene, scared and helpless and totally dominated, and you'll see how jarring it would be.

Peelee

2016-01-07, 04:07 PM

But when Rey can fly well, when she says she's a pilot before doing so, it's totally wrong and she's a mary sue.

Because, you see, she's a girl and girls aren't allowed to be good at stuff, and if they're good at some stuff they can only be good at, like, one thing maybe.

I'm going to assume that is not directed at me, and just a general gripe.

GloatingSwine

2016-01-07, 04:09 PM

I'm going to assume that is not directed at me, and just a general gripe.

Correct, it's snark for everybody.

Z3ro

2016-01-07, 04:10 PM

I'm not saying we should infer god-like piloting skills from that, but you claimed that there was no indication of piloting skill in the movie, and I just wanted to refute that. It was heavily foreshadowed that Luke could fly pretty well.

I see; I didn't not mean to indicate the movie didn't say Luke could pilot, I was referring to the fact that the T-16 was anything like an X-Wing; none of that was in the movie.

Peelee

2016-01-07, 04:17 PM

I see; I didn't not mean to indicate the movie didn't say Luke could pilot, I was referring to the fact that the T-16 was anything like an X-Wing; none of that was in the movie.

Ah. Gotcha. I'll mostly agree to that, since we even see a Skyhopper - Luke plays with a model of it before cleaning R2, iirc - and it looks more similar to an Imperial Lambda-class shuttle than anything resembling an X-Wing.

Olinser

2016-01-07, 04:17 PM

Rey was immediately made helpless, abused, knocked unconscious, and carried off the battlefield. The male heroes above went down swinging, against overwhelming odds, or (in Luke's case) were blindsided by a monster.

For a hero to lose a fair one-on-one confrontation with their narrative foil, and not just lose but lose trivially and humiliatingly, is not something that happens to Mary Sues. Even Luke, going up against Vader in ESB, found a way out. Han was betrayed by a friend. Anakin and Obi-Wan were vastly outnumbered. Imagine any of them put in Rey's shoes in that scene, scared and helpless and totally dominated, and you'll see how jarring it would be.

What? Poe Dameron had EXACTLY, almost frame for frame, the same thing happen to him. Ren notices target. Target points blaster at Ren. Ren force immobilizes. Target gets carted off to ship.

And Luke lost not just once but multiple times to his enemies. He was DEAD in the trench until Han pulled his bacon out. He was DEAD on the Death Star until Vader saved him.

jere7my

2016-01-07, 04:19 PM

What? Poe Dameron had EXACTLY, almost frame for frame, the same thing happen to him. Ren notices target. Target points blaster at Ren. Ren force immobilizes. Target gets carted off to ship.

And is anyone calling Poe a Mary Sue?

You're ignoring parts of my post because they are inconvenient for you. Luke did lose; he did not become instantly helpless in a fair fight against his dramatic foil. I chose my words carefully; please read them.

McStabbington

2016-01-07, 04:30 PM

I see; I didn't not mean to indicate the movie didn't say Luke could pilot, I was referring to the fact that the T-16 was anything like an X-Wing; none of that was in the movie.

It wasn't in the original version, but only because that specific scene was cut for time and pacing. It was included in later versions, specifically because it does add something: Biggs Darklighter and Luke re-unite, have a happy moment, then Red Leader comes up to Luke and they have the following exchange of dialogue:

Red Leader: "Are you sure you can handle one of these machines?"
Biggs: "Sir, Luke is the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim territories."

And I just want to repeat that while it may not have been in the very first version of the film, the scene was filmed, shot and only edited out in the final edits, and has been included in subsequent releases of the film. And in that scene, Biggs is quite clear that he's completely comfortable going into a fight where his life is on the line with Luke. So it's canon status may actually be higher than some of the other scenes in the film like Han shooting first (I mean, granted, I don't like that, but this was one scene that really did improve the Special Editions). It's also clear that as Luke was the best shot, but not the most experienced pilot, it would be only natural for him to take the final trench run should Red Leader fail, with the more experienced pilots Biggs and Wedge running cover for him.

Believe it or not, the script of Ep. IV really did a very good job of setting up just about every Checkov's gun that later got fired. There's a reason why so many movies, including Ep. VII, seem like pale knockoffs of that script.

Peelee

2016-01-07, 04:33 PM

It wasn't in the original version, but only because that specific scene was cut for time and pacing. It was included in later versions, specifically because it does add something: Biggs Darklighter and Luke re-unite, have a happy moment, then Red Leader comes up to Luke and they have the following exchange of dialogue:

Red Leader: "Are you sure you can handle one of these machines?"
Biggs: "Sir, Luke is the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim territories."

And I just want to repeat that while it may not have been in the very first version of the film, the scene was filmed, shot and only edited out in the final edits, and has been included in subsequent releases of the film.

A.) I did not include that line in my earlier list because, as you note, it didn't make it into the final cut.
2.) Also, it does not give T-16/X-Wing equivocacy, it just reaffirms that Luke is a capable pilot.
III.) Wait, hold on a damn second. There's a version where that isn't cut? TELL ME NOW I MUST OWN IT.

EDIT: ....er, nevermind. I meant the extended bit of that scene, what got cut in the middle. Carry on.

Frankly, all the Biggs scenes should have made it into the movie, since it helped a lot with the fleshing out Luke's farmboy characteristics and hammering home the reality of the Empire when Biggs died.

Giggling Ghast

2016-01-07, 05:45 PM

How does a kid raised on a moisture farm on a backwater planet get to be the best pilot of ANYTHING? You see any goddamn X-Wings on Tatooine?

More like Gary Stuwalker, you ask me.

McStabbington

2016-01-07, 05:49 PM

How does a kid raised on a moisture farm on a backwater planet get to be the best pilot of ANYTHING? You see any goddamn X-Wings on Tatooine?

More like Gary Stuwalker, you ask me.

I would point out that in Episode IV, Han Solo clearly states during their takeoff from Mos Eisley that cropdusting is a critical component of moisture farming.

:smallbiggrin:

Peelee

2016-01-07, 05:56 PM

I would point out that in Episode IV, Han Solo clearly states during their takeoff from Mos Eisley that cropdusting is a critical component of moisture farming.

http://rs1096.pbsrc.com/albums/g330/coloradogirl86/Clapping/tumblr_m6odkq8jNo1qbolbn_zps4103fd0c.gif~c200

Wheeeeeee!

Emperordaniel

2016-01-07, 06:10 PM

I would point out that in Episode IV, Han Solo clearly states during their takeoff from Mos Eisley that cropdusting is a critical component of moisture farming.

:smallbiggrin:

Horribly inefficient at actually dusting crops, but excellent at showing off. :smallbiggrin:

Olinser

2016-01-07, 07:12 PM

And is anyone calling Poe a Mary Sue?

You're ignoring parts of my post because they are inconvenient for you. Luke did lose; he did not become instantly helpless in a fair fight against his dramatic foil. I chose my words carefully; please read them.

What?

Luke was completely helpless against Vader in the Trench. When Vader actually targeted him it took only a few seconds longer for him to get a positive lock than any of his other targets. Luke had zero chance against him and was never in any position to threaten him.

Luke was also instantly disabled by the Emperor. Literally instantly. The Emperor raised his hands and he hit the floor. And this is after he had a large amount of training and declared a full Jedi by Yoda.

Luke WAS effectively 'instantly helpless' in Cloud City. He had no chance against Vader. The only reason the fight wasn't over immediately was simply because Vader was toying with him the entire time. Vader was trying to turn him, not kill him. He wasn't even using both hands on his saber initially and was preaching to him the entire time. And Luke STILL ended up in the freezing pit within like 15 seconds of the fight starting. When Luke actually pissed him off and Vader went full strength he cut his hand off almost instantly. Vader clearly could have ended the 'fight' any time he felt like it.

And Poe is NOT a Mary Sue. That's the point.

Looking at the way Poe's capture vs Rey's capture perfectly illustrates the difference between a regular character and a Mary Sue.

Both are captured with about the same degree of ease. Then Poe is tortured for a number of hours before Ren breaks him in a matter of minutes. Rey not only resists the mind whammy, but turns it back on Ren despite having NO TRAINING or actual application of her power before this point. Poe is completely helpless and requires outside assistance to even get out of his cell. Rey manages to use a Force technique that she DIDN'T KNOW EXISTED and had NEVER PRACTICED to not only get out of the cell but arm herself. Poe is immediately shot down after escape and accomplishes absolutely nothing, Finn has to finish the mission. Rey not only escapes and helps sabotage the facility, and then not only manages to use the Force to grab a lightsaber, but OVERPOWERS Ren's attempt to do the same. (I can deal with her beating Ren in a duel given how wounded and slow he was, but overpowering a trained force user twice despite having no training and not even using abilities before? No. There were plenty of other ways to get the saber that didn't involve suddenly being Instant Expert in the Force).

After having at least some amount of time training under Kenobi, and having YEARS to self-practice his abilities with some amount of guidance from his Force ghost, Luke barely manages to pick up and pull his lightsaber to him uncontested. Rey not only did it instantly, with absolutely ZERO training, but overpowered another trained Force user trying to do the same thing.

So Poe is captured, tortured, has to be rescued after nearly a day of captivity, is immediately shot down, and fails his mission.

Rey is captured, not only resists a trained force user's attempt to read her mind but turns it back on him, escapes without assistance minutes after waking up by utilizing the Force in which she has zero training to perform a Force technique she had no information even existed, and then overpowers a trained Force user AGAIN when they both try to grab the same object (another ability she had not even used before).

Normal character, meet Mary Sue.

There were plenty of ways to let her escape from the cell, get the saber, and beat Ren that didn't involve her suddenly being INSTANT EXPERT in multiple Force abilities. She could have resisted Ren without actually turning the technique back on him (which is still more than Poe managed), tricked the guard in some way that didn't involve mind control to get out of the room, and easily been in a position to catch the saber after Finn was disarmed without using the Force. That would have made her a much more believable character.

jere7my

2016-01-07, 07:18 PM

What?

Luke was completely helpless against Vader in the Trench. When Vader actually targeted him it took only a few seconds longer for him to get a positive lock than any of his other targets. Luke had zero chance against him and was never in any position to threaten him.

Luke was also instantly disabled by the Emperor. Literally instantly. The Emperor raised his hands and he hit the floor. And this is after he had a large amount of training and declared a full Jedi by Yoda.

Luke WAS effectively 'instantly helpless' in Cloud City. He had no chance against Vader. The only reason the fight wasn't over immediately was simply because Vader was toying with him the entire time. Vader was trying to turn him, not kill him. He wasn't even using both hands on his saber initially and was preaching to him the entire time. And Luke STILL ended up in the freezing pit within like 15 seconds of the fight starting. When Luke actually pissed him off and Vader went full strength he cut his hand off almost instantly. Vader clearly could have ended the 'fight' any time he felt like it.

And Poe is NOT a Mary Sue. That's the point.

Looking at the way Poe's capture vs Rey's capture perfectly illustrates the difference between a regular character and a Mary Sue.

Both are captured with about the same degree of ease. Then Poe is tortured for a number of hours before Ren breaks him in a matter of minutes. Rey not only resists the mind whammy, but turns it back on Ren despite having NO TRAINING or actual application of her power before this point. Poe is completely helpless and requires outside assistance to even get out of his cell. Rey manages to use a Force technique that she DIDN'T KNOW EXISTED and had NEVER PRACTICED to not only get out of the cell but arm herself. Poe is immediately shot down after escape and accomplishes absolutely nothing, Finn has to finish the mission. Rey not only escapes and helps sabotage the facility, and then not only manages to use the Force to grab a lightsaber, but OVERPOWERS Ren's attempt to do the same. (I can deal with her beating Ren in a duel given how wounded and slow he was, but overpowering a trained force user twice despite having no training and not even using abilities before? No. There were plenty of other ways to get the saber that didn't involve suddenly being Instant Expert in the Force).

After having at least some amount of time training under Kenobi, and having YEARS to self-practice his abilities with some amount of guidance from his Force ghost, Luke barely manages to pick up and pull his lightsaber to him uncontested. Rey not only did it instantly, with absolutely ZERO training, but overpowered another trained Force user trying to do the same thing.

So Poe is captured, tortured, has to be rescued after nearly a day of captivity, is immediately shot down, and fails his mission.

Rey is captured, not only resists a trained force user's attempt to read her mind but turns it back on him, escapes without assistance minutes after waking up by utilizing the Force in which she has zero training to perform a Force technique she had no information even existed, and then overpowers a trained Force user AGAIN when they both try to grab the same object (another ability she had not even used before).

Normal character, meet Mary Sue.

There were plenty of ways to let her escape from the cell, get the saber, and beat Ren that didn't involve her suddenly being INSTANT EXPERT in multiple Force abilities. She could have resisted Ren without actually turning the technique back on him (which is still more than Poe managed), tricked the guard in some way that didn't involve mind control to get out of the room, and easily been in a position to catch the saber after Finn was disarmed without using the Force. That would have made her a much more believable character.

If you think Vader getting a lock on Luke in the trench in the midst of a lengthy battle, or the Emperor defeating Luke after a lengthy battle with Vader, are in any way dramatically equivalent to Ren walking up to Rey and instantly making her helpless, I don't see much chance of us seeing eye to eye.

My point, which has gotten lost, is that the people calling Rey a Mary Sue conveniently forget that she was taken out trivially and humiliatingly by Ren once, then spent 90% of their second encounter retreating from him in a defensive panic. If you think those are consistent with Mary Suedom, you don't understand what a Mary Sue is.

Of course she does better than Poe, a non-Force-sensitive, against the mind probe; being better than a dude at something does not make someone a Mary Sue. She is the Chosen One for this trilogy. Get used to her being in tune with the Force.

russdm

2016-01-07, 08:13 PM

Olinser

2016-01-07, 10:04 PM

If you think Vader getting a lock on Luke in the trench in the midst of a lengthy battle, or the Emperor defeating Luke after a lengthy battle with Vader, are in any way dramatically equivalent to Ren walking up to Rey and instantly making her helpless, I don't see much chance of us seeing eye to eye.

My point, which has gotten lost, is that the people calling Rey a Mary Sue conveniently forget that she was taken out trivially and humiliatingly by Ren once, then spent 90% of their second encounter retreating from him in a defensive panic. If you think those are consistent with Mary Suedom, you don't understand what a Mary Sue is.

Of course she does better than Poe, a non-Force-sensitive, against the mind probe; being better than a dude at something does not make someone a Mary Sue. She is the Chosen One for this trilogy. Get used to her being in tune with the Force.

So you're not going to respond to anything else? LOL SHE GOT CAPTURED ONCE SO NO MARY SUE is the balance of your argument? If all you have to counter the Sue argument is a single instance of her not magically being the best at something you have no argument. Plenty of acknowledged Mary Sues in a huge number of stories have been captured before just as easily. Their Suedom comes into play when they escape in the next scene and now they're inside the enemy stronghold doing Sue things. Which is EXACTLY what happened.

And I've already said that beating Ren in a fight doesn't make her a Mary Sue (though it also doesn't DISALLOW her being a Mary Sue). It was plausibly written, she used the Force to strengthen her already existing combat abilities, and Ren was already in bad shape when they fought. If they'd stuck to this model throughout it would have been much better and she would NOT be a Sue.

The story itself doesn't actually make her a Mary Sue. It's the absurd level to which they have elevated her abilities within the story that make her one.

Piloting the Falcon off the planet while Finn shoots down a couple TIE fighters doesn't make her a Mary Sue. Accepting that she had developed enough piloting skills to get the ship off the planet with a reasonable amount of skills isn't too hard to swallow. Suddenly performing absurd precision flying in gaps barely big enough to fit the ship and easily out-flying 2 experienced military pilots DOES make her one. Even if she'd just dodged them around the ship graveyard until Finn shot them both down it might have been fine, but seriously there was NO REASON for Finn's cannon to get stuck other than to give an excuse to perform that idiotic ZOMG SO AWESOME FLYING MANEUVER and emphasize her Suedom.

Using her scavenger/mechanic skills to fix the life-threatening leak on the Falcon or to help Han get the hyperdrive working doesn't make her a Sue. Having Han suddenly decide OMG BEST MECHANIC EVER MUST OFFER JOB was absurdly out of character for Han and serves no purpose other than to emphasize Suedom.

Likewise, being able to access the Force and use it to unconsciously or passively enhance her already demonstrated fighting abilities to beat an exhausted Ren doesn't make her a Mary Sue. Arbitrarily pulling multiple consciously-activated Force powers out with no training, no friendly Force user around to help her, and within hours after finding out for the first time she can even USE the Force DOES make her one.

Having her escape from the cell doesn't automatically make her a Sue. The WAY she escaped does. She could have tricked the guard in some way, jumped him and knocked him out when he released her restraints to take her somewhere, used her scavenger and tinkering skills to release one of her arms and get out of the chair, there are quite a few non-Sue possibilities. Suddenly having her pull Force Mind Control out of her ass despite NEVER SEEING IT before and NEVER consciously using the Force before is a textbook example of Suedom.

Getting ahold of the lightsaber doesn't make her a Sue. Suddenly pulling ANOTHER conscious Force power out of her ass and overpowering Ren's attempt to do so makes her a Sue. Just having the saber land next to her and having her physically grab it before Ren can Force pull it away would have been a great start to that fight.

Rey's personality is actually fine as a character. The problem is her ABILITIES are so far out of whack with what they should be that she is rightfully being declared a Mary Sue.

Mystic Muse

2016-01-07, 10:46 PM

I saw that as Han knowing something about Rey he wasn't saying and so wanted to try and keep an eye on her, not him going "best mechanic ever."

Heck, when she manages to do something he doesn't understand, he doesn't seem particularly impressed.

Jayngfet

2016-01-07, 10:52 PM

I think Rey would have been a perfectly adequate protagonist if she didn't just suddenly beat Ren in the end. Star Wars has tons of spaceships and there's room for multiple pilots. That's why Han and Luke had separate ships after all.

It's perfectly reasonable for Rey to either hold her own against Kylo Ren, or else get in a few good swings before escaping. But for her to just totally outclass him at the first part of a trilogy means nobody can respect him as an antagonist.

The fact is that Kylo Ren is categorically the weakest force user to date. All of the darths were good in a fight, but all except the emperor were also proven pilots who didn't need someone else to shuttle them to and from the fight. So if it comes down to an escape if Rey gets into a ship she can get off clean. If Ren gets into a ship he either needs to hope there's a pilot or that Rey can't get her own ship or he'd get blown out of the sky.

I never understood when watching "A New Hope" why the Rebels didn't go after the new TIE arrivals of Vader and his wingmen. While Vader was following the rebels, why didn't Luke get ordered to blast them off? During the war, the USA and Brits sent fighter planes to escort their bombers on missions against Germany. Why wouldn't the rebels do the same? Especially when it was the Y-Wings getting murdered, meaning Vader could have been disabled earlier. Is Lucas that stupid?

The trench was the only reasonably safe spot on the death star exterior. Everything else was brimming with turbolasers.

The rebels didn't have the men to spare either. Every squadron was on it's own because they needed everyone who could to take the shot.

The rebels had some resources but they had precious few fighters at Yavin and they were all tied up by the time the empire mounted a response.

jere7my

2016-01-07, 11:06 PM

So you're not going to respond to anything else? LOL SHE GOT CAPTURED ONCE SO NO MARY SUE is the balance of your argument? If all you have to counter the Sue argument is a single instance of her not magically being the best at something you have no argument. Plenty of acknowledged Mary Sues in a huge number of stories have been captured before just as easily. Their Suedom comes into play when they escape in the next scene and now they're inside the enemy stronghold doing Sue things. Which is EXACTLY what happened.

And I've already said that beating Ren in a fight doesn't make her a Mary Sue (though it also doesn't DISALLOW her being a Mary Sue). It was plausibly written, she used the Force to strengthen her already existing combat abilities, and Ren was already in bad shape when they fought. If they'd stuck to this model throughout it would have been much better and she would NOT be a Sue.

The story itself doesn't actually make her a Mary Sue. It's the absurd level to which they have elevated her abilities within the story that make her one.

Piloting the Falcon off the planet while Finn shoots down a couple TIE fighters doesn't make her a Mary Sue. Accepting that she had developed enough piloting skills to get the ship off the planet with a reasonable amount of skills isn't too hard to swallow. Suddenly performing absurd precision flying in gaps barely big enough to fit the ship and easily out-flying 2 experienced military pilots DOES make her one. Even if she'd just dodged them around the ship graveyard until Finn shot them both down it might have been fine, but seriously there was NO REASON for Finn's cannon to get stuck other than to give an excuse to perform that idiotic ZOMG SO AWESOME FLYING MANEUVER and emphasize her Suedom.

Using her scavenger/mechanic skills to fix the life-threatening leak on the Falcon or to help Han get the hyperdrive working doesn't make her a Sue. Having Han suddenly decide OMG BEST MECHANIC EVER MUST OFFER JOB was absurdly out of character for Han and serves no purpose other than to emphasize Suedom.

Likewise, being able to access the Force and use it to unconsciously or passively enhance her already demonstrated fighting abilities to beat an exhausted Ren doesn't make her a Mary Sue. Arbitrarily pulling multiple consciously-activated Force powers out with no training, no friendly Force user around to help her, and within hours after finding out for the first time she can even USE the Force DOES make her one.

Having her escape from the cell doesn't automatically make her a Sue. The WAY she escaped does. She could have tricked the guard in some way, jumped him and knocked him out when he released her restraints to take her somewhere, used her scavenger and tinkering skills to release one of her arms and get out of the chair, there are quite a few non-Sue possibilities. Suddenly having her pull Force Mind Control out of her ass despite NEVER SEEING IT before and NEVER consciously using the Force before is a textbook example of Suedom.

Getting ahold of the lightsaber doesn't make her a Sue. Suddenly pulling ANOTHER conscious Force power out of her ass and overpowering Ren's attempt to do so makes her a Sue. Just having the saber land next to her and having her physically grab it before Ren can Force pull it away would have been a great start to that fight.

Rey's personality is actually fine as a character. The problem is her ABILITIES are so far out of whack with what they should be that she is rightfully being declared a Mary Sue.

So, your premise is that someone with an unexplained innate sensitivity to the Force is a Mary Sue?

To paraphrase Han Solo, that's not how Mary Sues work.

The canonical Mary Sue is braver than Kirk, smarter than Spock, and wiser than Bones. She is the center of attention in every scene she's in because she doesn't leave anything for the other characters to do.

Rey is in no way a better pilot than Han; she is an experienced pilot who pilots the Falcon once, with help from the Force, and mentions that she doesn't know how she did it. Han immediately does a couple of things—successfully—that she thinks are impossible. (Specifically, going to hyperspeed inside the hangar and coming in for a landing at hyperspeed.) When she is in the pilot's seat, she nearly drives the Falcon into the ground, then needs Finn's information to evade the TIE fighters' sensors.

(Rey is in no way a better pilot than Poe, either.)

Rey is in no way a better gunner than Han or Finn. She is an inexperienced shot who shoots a couple of stormtroopers, but both Han and Finn demonstrate far more aptitude, and neither of them forgets the safety. It is a Standard Star Wars Trope that an untrained blaster user can pick one up and shoot a couple of stormtroopers; Finn is able to take out two TIE fighters (just like Luke in ANH) and a couple of turrets on a Star Destroyer. Rey does nothing to match that.

Rey is not a better Force user than Kylo Ren. She is more of a match for him than he expected, but he defeats her handily at their first meeting, and nearly defeats her at their second. (Well, actually he does defeat her, but Finn steps up.) It's only because he's wounded and partially trained and in emotional turmoil that she's able to beat him. She only gains the upper hand in their contest of wills when he sees that Han is "the father she never had" and gets distracted, giving her an opening. And the lightsaber actually called to her in Maz Kanata's basement. Why is it weird that it would go to her and not Kylo Ren? That's straight-up Excalibur stuff.

Rey is a better mechanic than Han, at least on the Falcon, because she's been crawling around inside it for years, and knows the upgrades that have been done to it since it left Han's possession. Her entire life has been spent inside derelict starships, finding parts to salvage; it is not odd that she has skillz. Tech in the Star Wars universe is highly modular; that's been consistent since 1977. Learning the way things work on one ship or one droid transfers readily to others. And Han offers her a job because he knows who she is. Moments after he does, Maz Kanata asks "Who's the girl?" just before a convenient cutaway. Even if he didn't, he just told us he had a larger crew who got eaten by rathtars; why wouldn't he hire an obviously talented mechanic?

So you're left with exactly one facet of Mary Suedom: Rey does pick up Force abilities surprisingly quickly. Which is the central mystery of her mysterious past. In a movie called "The Force Awakens". Gosh.

Here's the thing: this is a Star Wars movie. That means characters are going to do implausible, swashbuckling, adventurous things. It's part of the genre. In this case, it's a girl who is naturally attuned to the Force. That is so far from being a Mary Sue that I have to assume either 1) the term has lost all meaning or 2) her gender is coloring a lot of people's perceptions. Because a dude who's naturally attuned to the Force—and if there's anything we've been told about the Force, it's that you just have to relax your inhibitions and let it flow through you to be able to do cool stuff with it—would be accepted as par for the course. As indeed it was in Episode I; many people disliked that movie, but they didn't call Anakin a Mary Sue. (As an admittedly unscientific check, there are 36,000 Google results for [anakin "mary sue"], and 277,000 for [rey "mary sue"].)

The Force is not an RPG class ability that needs to be leveled up. The Force is vast and mysterious and mystical, with a will of its own. Yoda didn't tell Luke that he needed to train for three more weeks and spend five skill points to be able to lift the X-wing; he told him that he had to unlearn what he had learned. Luke had that power all along; he failed because he thought it was impossible. Rey—who has been having Force visions of the first Jedi temple all her life, incidentally, and who is recognized by Kylo Ren as someone he's been watching out for—being able to access the Force does not make her a Mary Sue. It makes her a Star Wars hero—one we haven't exactly seen before, yes, but that's a good thing. And she is laden with abandonment issues, emotionally naïve, fleeing her destiny; she has flaws up the wazoo.

Look, you don't think her Force abilities were earned; that's fine. I just got back from seeing it for the fourth time, and I think every beat of her development was earned. We disagree. But stop calling her a Mary Sue. It's a misuse of the term, and it makes it look like you're threatened by a female hero doing bog-standard hero things.

If you absolutely must think of TFA in RPG terms, this is an excellent breakdown of what happens, with bonus explanation of why Rey is not any sort of Sue: http://www.maxgladstone.com/2016/01/the-force-awakens-rpg-madness/ (Not sure I agree that she reaches for the Dark Side at the end, but it's a legitimate interpretation.)

Lethologica

2016-01-08, 12:13 AM

jere7my

2016-01-08, 12:25 AM

I don't mind Rey having unexplained strength in the Force. I have points of irritation with the way it was shown, though. The scene where she stared Ren down directly (i.e. two actors stared at each other and twitched occasionally) forced me to construct more of the movie in my head than I'd have liked--what I like about Force duels is when there is a physical clash mirroring a clash of wills. The Jedi mind trick is the sort of power I'd have expected to require training. And the last time a Jedi closed their eyes in the middle of a lightsaber duel ended exactly how you'd expect it to. So when people talk about Rey being a Mary Sue, I think more about the scenes where she displays her power being unsatisfyingly portrayed than about her being overpowered.

To each their own; the clash of wills was probably my favorite scene in the movie. Both actors did an amazing job conveying a battle with their facial expressions and the positions of their heads, assisted with some clever lighting effects. But I like movies that ask the audience to do some of the work.

Lethologica

2016-01-08, 12:36 AM

To each their own; the clash of wills was probably my favorite scene in the movie. Both actors did an amazing job conveying a battle with their facial expressions and the positions of their heads, assisted with some clever lighting effects. But I like movies that ask the audience to do some of the work.
Right, thanks for that implication. I'm sure I threw that out over the plate for you, but a hair more charity wouldn't have been that hard. Different types of scene demand different kinds of work from the audience, and my distaste for this particular one isn't the same as being uniformly lazy.

jere7my

2016-01-08, 12:42 AM

Right, thanks for that implication. I'm sure I threw that out over the plate for you, but a hair more charity wouldn't have been that hard. Different types of scene demand different kinds of work from the audience, and my distaste for this particular one isn't the same as being uniformly lazy.

My apologies; there are certainly people who complain (or cry "plot hole!") when everything in a movie isn't spelled out, and I interpreted your statement that TFA asked you to do more work than you like to mean you were one of them.

Peelee

2016-01-08, 12:56 AM

The trench was the only reasonably safe spot on the death star exterior. Everything else was brimming with turbolasers.

Nope. Turbolasers in the trench too. They only stopped so Vader and co could swoop in behind each strike force.

Emperordaniel

2016-01-08, 01:10 AM

Nope. Turbolasers in the trench too. They only stopped so Vader and co could swoop in behind each strike force.

I think what he meant was that there were less turbolasers in the trench than outside it; out of the trench, you were in view of pretty much every turbolaser up to the horizon (bar a few here and there), but there were only a handful of them in the trench, where the topography would protect you from the turbolasers located everywhere else - a net benefit if you didn't want to get shot down.

Peelee

2016-01-08, 01:16 AM

I think what he meant was that there were less turbolasers in the trench than outside it; out of the trench, you were in view of pretty much every turbolaser up to the horizon (bar a few here and there), but there were only a handful of them in the trench, where the topography would protect you from the turbolasers located everywhere else - a net benefit if you didn't want to get shot down.

Yeah, but maneuverability was crap. More than enough to offset the fewer guns, i think.

Hopeless

2016-01-08, 06:30 AM

Chen

2016-01-08, 08:12 AM

I don't mind Rey having unexplained strength in the Force. I have points of irritation with the way it was shown, though. The scene where she stared Ren down directly (i.e. two actors stared at each other and twitched occasionally) forced me to construct more of the movie in my head than I'd have liked--what I like about Force duels is when there is a physical clash mirroring a clash of wills. The Jedi mind trick is the sort of power I'd have expected to require training.

Yeah the Mind Trick was the only bit that felt off. Correct me if I'm wrong but she hadn't even seen anyone else do that trick. The only assumption was that she somehow got how to do it from that whole battle of the wills bit with Ren, but if that was the case it was very poorly shown. This COULD be an issue of a cut scene making things make less sense. I recall a scene in Gladiator like this where Proximo tells Maximus to stop killing people so quickly and entertain the crowd. It then goes to the scene where he kills everyone quickly, throws his sword at the crowd and yells "Are you not entertained?". In the theatrical version, the bit where Proximo is talking to Maximus about this got cut, which kind of undercuts the whole end to the fight scene.

Darth Credence

2016-01-08, 10:27 AM

Thanks for the link thought it made more sense.
Still think if they kept Poe involved it would have made the events that followed alot easier rather than make it look a mite too much.
I actually think Rey had training we didn't see to explain why she was able to pick up force abilities so easily.
That scene where she freed herself might have worked better if she use tk to free herself especially if she was a Skywalker, then telekinesis is their gift whilst mind tricks are a Kenobi speciality!
Abrams likes his mystery box a bit TOO much is it really too much to expect some explanations if they making a thirty year jump in the process?!

You keep saying that different Jedi have different specialties. I think that is old non-canon stuff. The only canon reference I know of to anyone having a specialty is that Obi Wan considers taking down Sith Lords to be their specialty. If there is something that is current canon about that, where is it? My guess is it would have to be in Rebels, but I don't remember where.

Yeah the Mind Trick was the only bit that felt off. Correct me if I'm wrong but she hadn't even seen anyone else do that trick. The only assumption was that she somehow got how to do it from that whole battle of the wills bit with Ren, but if that was the case it was very poorly shown. This COULD be an issue of a cut scene making things make less sense. I recall a scene in Gladiator like this where Proximo tells Maximus to stop killing people so quickly and entertain the crowd. It then goes to the scene where he kills everyone quickly, throws his sword at the crowd and yells "Are you not entertained?". In the theatrical version, the bit where Proximo is talking to Maximus about this got cut, which kind of undercuts the whole end to the fight scene.

Rey clearly knows stories of the Jedi, even if she thinks they are a myth. So she had almost certainly heard of it described, knew it was something that could be done with the force, and had just had a jolt of using the force in her mind battle with Ren.

GloatingSwine

2016-01-08, 10:33 AM

Yeah the Mind Trick was the only bit that felt off. Correct me if I'm wrong but she hadn't even seen anyone else do that trick..

Luke does all sorts of things he's never seen before with the Force. Hell, the time he tries something he's seen demonstrated (trying to mind trick Jabba) he fails.

Emperordaniel

2016-01-08, 10:35 AM

Rey clearly knows stories of the Jedi, even if she thinks they are a myth. So she had almost certainly heard of it described, knew it was something that could be done with the force, and had just had a jolt of using the force in her mind battle with Ren.

Contrasted with Luke, who when we first met him had no idea what "the Force" even was or who the "Jedi" were, and basically had to be taught from scratch about pretty much everything that wasn't flying- or farming-related. :smalltongue:

Mordar

2016-01-08, 10:51 AM

I actually think Rey had training we didn't see to explain why she was able to pick up force abilities so easily.
That scene where she freed herself might have worked better if she use tk to free herself especially if she was a Skywalker, then telekinesis is their gift whilst mind tricks are a Kenobi speciality!
Abrams likes his mystery box a bit TOO much is it really too much to expect some explanations if they making a thirty year jump in the process?!

Luke uses the Mind Trick as well (Jabba's palace) to varying degrees of success, so I think it is in the standard toolbox.

Absolutely agree with that last point - JJ runs into this problem a little too much and suffers when it comes time for the payoff.

Yeah the Mind Trick was the only bit that felt off. Correct me if I'm wrong but she hadn't even seen anyone else do that trick. The only assumption was that she somehow got how to do it from that whole battle of the wills bit with Ren, but if that was the case it was very poorly shown. This COULD be an issue of a cut scene making things make less sense. I recall a scene in Gladiator like this where Proximo tells Maximus to stop killing people so quickly and entertain the crowd. It then goes to the scene where he kills everyone quickly, throws his sword at the crowd and yells "Are you not entertained?". In the theatrical version, the bit where Proximo is talking to Maximus about this got cut, which kind of undercuts the whole end to the fight scene.

I liked the interrogation scene - it started with Ren successfully extracting information from Rey, but it exposed a conduit between them (I'm reminded of Pacific Rim and Ron Perlman/Hannibal Chau saying that drifting is a two way street...it opens a connection...both ways!) and, I think, unlocked some things in Rey's brainspace, including her early Force training. I think this isn't a case of a scene being cut, but a quirk that will be paid off later. Not only did it do that, it scared Ren and played into his already fragile confidence issue.

Contrasted with Luke, who when we first met him had no idea what "the Force" even was or who the "Jedi" were, and basically had to be taught from scratch about pretty much everything that wasn't flying- or farming-related. :smalltongue:

Well, he knew a little about the rebellion. But as I mentioned above, I think we'll get paid off on the "How does Rey think to even try this?" question. Whether we like the payoff or not remains to be seen.

Now, someone explain definitively why Leia walks right past Chewie to hug the new girl after Han's death. And no slash/fic will be acceptable! :smallwink:

- M

Chen

2016-01-08, 11:20 AM

Luke does all sorts of things he's never seen before with the Force. Hell, the time he tries something he's seen demonstrated (trying to mind trick Jabba) he fails.

The only thing he does that no one shows him I believe is pulling his lightsaber to him at the start of ESB. That's assuming Obi-wan never showed him that trick on the Falcon.

Now unless Rey does have some previous training and that's part of the big secret or whatnot, we have no real reason to believe she even knows about the mind trick. Maybe hearing about it in stories and all, but that's still not too well shown in the movie. It's the only part that felt jarring in terms of her using force abilities super easily. Especially verbalising it, since when Kylo was trying to control/probe her, he wasn't really talking at all (though I imagine a scene with her just looking sternly at the trooper and having him release her would have been even more clunky).

Now, someone explain definitively why Leia walks right past Chewie to hug the new girl after Han's death. And no slash/fic will be acceptable! :smallwink:

- M

It's pure wookiee racism man. Leia passes up Han's best friend of decades to hug the new girl. Chewie is in the co-pilot seat to the new girl despite having flown the damn thing for longer than she's been alive. Racism pure and simple.

jere7my

2016-01-08, 12:12 PM

Luke uses the Mind Trick as well (Jabba's palace) to varying degrees of success, so I think it is in the standard toolbox.

Absolutely agree with that last point - JJ runs into this problem a little too much and suffers when it comes time for the payoff.

I liked the interrogation scene - it started with Ren successfully extracting information from Rey, but it exposed a conduit between them (I'm reminded of Pacific Rim and Ron Perlman/Hannibal Chau saying that drifting is a two way street...it opens a connection...both ways!) and, I think, unlocked some things in Rey's brainspace, including her early Force training. I think this isn't a case of a scene being cut, but a quirk that will be paid off later. Not only did it do that, it scared Ren and played into his already fragile confidence issue.

Well, he knew a little about the rebellion. But as I mentioned above, I think we'll get paid off on the "How does Rey think to even try this?" question. Whether we like the payoff or not remains to be seen.

Now, someone explain definitively why Leia walks right past Chewie to hug the new girl after Han's death. And no slash/fic will be acceptable! :smallwink:

- M

Chewie was much much closer to Han at this point than Leia was. He was no doubt thinking he failed in repaying his life debt. I think he just wanted to be alone, and Leia, wanting to respect that, went to hug her niece instead.

Bulldog Psion

2016-01-08, 01:41 PM

Unless the movie is supposed to be a training movie, I kind of accept up front that people are going to be basically proficient in the skills of their world.

Movies are necessarily about "Black Swans." We don't see the movies about the 50,000 plucky farm boys who defy the Empire in the name of freedom and die 3 seconds later to a stormtrooper's blaster shot. We see the 50,001st who manages to blow up the Death Star a couple of days after he gets in a starfighter the first time.

Similarly, Rey says she's a pilot. That is good enough for me. Maybe I'm some kind of stupid moron who turns off his brain, as has been suggested in this thread. Or maybe I'm not interested in watching her fly around jury-rigged speeders and crashing them, flying damaged but "hot-wired" starfighter wrecks back to the town on the few occasions when she hit the jackpot, etc.

I'm willing to accept the pilot thing because she seems to be a jack-of-all-trades survivor in a society that has had flying vehicles for thousands of years. Sure, it would be weird to pick up some random person on the street in our world and have them able to act as a pilot. But this isn't our world. It's kind of like picking up a random person on our world and being surprised they can drive.

Now I'm not saying that Rey's piloting is an absolutely wonderfully written piece of background material. I'm saying that it seems to be subjected to a microscopic, nitpicking examination that's quite unnecessary.

Which, in turn, makes me wonder if it's because Rey is a woman. Because everyone cites Luke, who we never see flying anything before his Heroic Moment, and just hear he's a "pilot," as somehow better drawn than Rey, who we never see flying anything before her Heroic Moment, and just hear she's a "pilot."

I'm not some type of ultra-feminist by any means; my belief is in "equality," not in the unfortunate "women perfect, men jerks" vibe you get from some stuff.

But I really can't see much reason for all the "Rey is a Mary Sue" stuff other than her gender. She's being subjected to a magnifying glass that Action Heroes usually aren't, IMO, by some people. Of course, some of that may be just the "Abrams hate" that a lot of folks seem to have, in which Abrams can do no right no matter what he does.

But Rey is actually a pleasant, interesting character, unlike some of the real PITAs we've been subjected to in previous Star Wars films. Personally, I'm more interested in her as a character (and in Finn, who I actually liked, though Poe is slightly short-changed in the personality department thus far) than in her specific abilities.

Though I did love the lightsaber fight. And I agree with jere7my upthread that the clash of wills was excellent.

Anteros

2016-01-08, 01:42 PM

As for Mary Sues, I think you looking at the wrong series. Look at Game of Thrones, it is Mary Sue-Topia, but nothing happens to demonstrate anything that I could call Mary Sue.

Anakin Skywalker was a bigger Mary Sue than Rey or Luke. A good pilot? He flew pod racers, which I don't think has enough similarities to space craft to work. It's like saying someone is a good car driver/race car driver when they have only used motorcycles.

I did mention both Anakin and Jon Snow as examples of male Sues

Personally, I liked that Rey wasn't totally and amazingly incompetent most of the time.

Why don't people understand that there is a middle ground between "totally and amazingly incompetent" and THE BESTEST MOST POWERFUL AMAZING PERSON IN THE GALAXY. The problem is not that she's competent, it's that she overshadows every other character in the movie, often without explanation. People just want to move the goal posts because it's easier to insult someone and claim sexism than formulate and actual argument.

I actually think Rey had training we didn't see to explain why she was able to pick up force abilities so easily.
That scene where she freed herself might have worked better if she use tk to free herself especially if she was a Skywalker, then telekinesis is their gift whilst mind tricks are a Kenobi speciality!

I definitely think this is possible and it would address at lot of my complaints, so I hope it is the case.

Bulldog Psion

2016-01-08, 01:48 PM

Why don't people understand that there is a middle ground between "totally and amazingly incompetent" and THE BESTEST MOST POWERFUL AMAZING PERSON IN THE GALAXY.

I think I missed the part of the movie. I saw a movie about someone in the middle ground, as far as I could tell, as long as it's an action movie adventure kind of world to begin with.

Anteros

2016-01-08, 02:45 PM

I think I missed the part of the movie. I saw a movie about someone in the middle ground, as far as I could tell, as long as it's an action movie adventure kind of world to begin with.

Yes, apparently we watched entirely different movies.

jere7my

2016-01-08, 02:45 PM

I think I missed the part of the movie. I saw a movie about someone in the middle ground, as far as I could tell, as long as it's an action movie adventure kind of world to begin with.

Indeed. When she meets Finn, she accidentally attacks him, then he takes the lead because he knows how the First Order operates. Then she flies the Falcon—badly—with one Force-assisted sweet move, while he mans the guns—badly—until he works them out. Then she demonstrates knowledge of a ship she's had access to for years, which apparently confuses some people. Then she accidentally frees the rathtars, and only stops her friend from getting eaten by showing mechanical knowledge. Then they get to Maz Kanata's, where she gets gently dressed down by Han for thinking she knows how to use a blaster, fails to stop her only friend from leaving, freaks out at Force visions, runs away, and is instantly captured. From then on she's basically by herself or with bad guys, which is the time when an action hero is supposed to demonstrate extreme competence. When Finn shows up, she is girlishly grateful, helplessly watches her father figure die, then is immediately knocked unconscious in round 2 with Kylo Ren. When Finn is out of the way and it's just her and the bad guy, again she reaches for the Force and kicks butt. Then she flies to a planet and, well, hikes.

So: in the scenes she shares with other protagonists, she demonstrates competence while they are doing the same, without hogging the spotlight. Sometimes she is the best in the room, sometimes she isn't. Sometimes she messes up, sometimes she's awesome. In the scenes where she's alone or with bad guys, she surprises them and ultimately triumphs. This...seems pretty typical. The only difference I can see is ladyparts.

Anteros

2016-01-08, 03:06 PM

Indeed. When she meets Finn, she accidentally attacks him, then he takes the lead because he knows how the First Order operates. Then she flies the Falcon—badly—with one Force-assisted sweet move, while he mans the guns—badly—until he works them out. Then she demonstrates knowledge of a ship she's had access to for years, which apparently confuses some people. Then she accidentally frees the rathtars, and only stops her friend from getting eaten by showing mechanical knowledge. Then they get to Maz Kanata's, where she gets gently dressed down by Han for thinking she knows how to use a blaster, fails to stop her only friend from leaving, freaks out at Force visions, runs away, and is instantly captured. From then on she's basically by herself or with bad guys, which is the time when an action hero is supposed to demonstrate extreme competence. When Finn shows up, she is girlishly grateful, helplessly watches her father figure die, then is immediately knocked unconscious in round 2 with Kylo Ren. When Finn is out of the way and it's just her and the bad guy, again she reaches for the Force and kicks butt. Then she flies to a planet and, well, hikes.

So: in the scenes she shares with other protagonists, she demonstrates competence while they are doing the same, without hogging the spotlight. Sometimes she is the best in the room, sometimes she isn't. Sometimes she messes up, sometimes she's awesome. In the scenes where she's alone or with bad guys, she surprises them and ultimately triumphs. This...seems pretty typical. The only difference I can see is ladyparts.

Or looking at these exact same events from the other slant.

-When she meets Fin, she easily overpowers 3/4 thugs (I forget exactly how many were attacking her) and a trained trooper because she's just that good at fighting.
-She flies a ship for the first time in her life, outmaneuvering multiple trained Imperial pilots, including ridiculous stunts. Which is impressive considering she's basically a slave caste and I doubt she's ever flown anything before.
-Demonstrates greater knowledge of the ship than its actual owner and leaves him dumbfounded at her ability to repair it.
-She does free the Rathars...which saves everyone. Then she immediately redeems her "mistake" by knowing how to close a random door from the other side of a ship she's never been on before.
-Successfully shoots everything she aims at without ever missing after touching a blaster for the first time after Han's 6 second tutorial.
-Fin comes back for her because he just loves her so much. After all, he's known her for like a whole day.
-Learns the force by being in the same building as a lightsaber.
-Is captured, but uses the opportunity to become a force expert by being in the same room in the bad guy, and free herself.
-Overpowers the trained sith both physically and with the force. Which makes sense. She was in a room with a lightsaber for almost a whole minute, and also had a conversation with a force user once. That's probably worth more than over a decade of training.

cobaltstarfire

2016-01-08, 03:22 PM

-When she meets Fin, she easily overpowers 3/4 thugs (I forget exactly how many were attacking her) and a trained trooper because she's just that good at fighting.

Yeah and? It doesn't stretch credibility that she can fight being that she's grown up largely alone. You think she carries that staff to look cool? It's a pretty normal thing for an action hero to be able to do.

-She flies a ship for the first time in her life, outmaneuvering multiple trained Imperial pilots, including ridiculous stunts. Which is impressive considering she's basically a slave caste and I doubt she's ever flown anything before.

Who says it's the first time she's ever flown a ship other than you?

-Demonstrates greater knowledge of the ship than its actual owner and leaves him dumbfounded at her ability to repair it

Still conveniently ignoring the fact that she's worked on the ship before

-She does free the Rathars...which saves everyone. Then she immediately redeems her "mistake" by knowing how to close a random door from the other side of a ship she's never been on before.

Oh no she fixed a mistake she made, as if people can't try to rectify their mistakes.

-Successfully shoots everything she aims at without ever missing after touching a blaster for the first time after Han's 6 second tutorial.

She missed on several occasions

-Fin comes back for her because he just loves her so much. After all, he's known her for like a whole day.

Fin has shown great compassion for every stranger he has met in the movie

-Learns the force by being in the same building as a lightsaber.

Learns to use the force after someone tries to rummage in her head and gets feedback (her awakening)

-Is captured, but uses the opportunity to become a force expert by being in the same room in the bad guy, and free herself.

He wasn't in the room anymore after she tried to free herself. Though I will admit I didn't like that she could mind trick the storm trooper. Would a been fine with me if she had been saved at this point. Still doesn't make her a Marry Sue by the proper definition.

-Overpowers the trained sith both physically and with the force. Which makes sense. She was in a room with a lightsaber for almost a whole minute, and also had a conversation with a force user once. That's probably worth more than over a decade of training.

Manages to defend herself against someone who is not fully trained, clouded of mind and purpose, without the force to really help him as a result and took a bowcaster shot to the torso. That Ren could walk around and swing a sword at all is an amazing feat on Rens part. We've already been shown that Rey is at least competent with a weapon, and even then it wasn't an easy fight for her, she only really made a come back when she stopped and tried to reach out for the force. Something that people with force sensitivity have been shown to be able to do without training or even knowledge of the force.

Mystic Muse

2016-01-08, 03:29 PM

Or looking at these exact same events from the other slant.

-When she meets Fin, she easily overpowers 3/4 thugs (I forget exactly how many were attacking her) and a trained trooper because she's just that good at fighting. It was two, and I seem to recall Finn not trying to start a fight.

-She flies a ship for the first time in her life, outmaneuvering multiple trained Imperial pilots, including ridiculous stunts. Which is impressive considering she's basically a slave caste and I doubt she's ever flown anything before. She explicitly mentions she's a pilot.

-Demonstrates greater knowledge of the ship than its actual owner and leaves him dumbfounded at her ability to repair it.

Yes, because it's been under the ownership of the person she's basically under indentured servitude to for a very long time, and she has probably worked on it in the past. Han is more of a pilot than a mechanic.

-She does free the Rathars...which saves everyone. Then she immediately redeems her "mistake" by knowing how to close a random door from the other side of a ship she's never been on before. Star Wars ships tend to be highly interchangeable as part of the universe, and Rey is shown to be a bit of a mechanic, which makes sense, since she has to scavenge parts to survive.

-Successfully shoots everything she aims at without ever missing after touching a blaster for the first time after Han's 6 second tutorial. This I don't recall well enough to refute, unfortunately.

-Finn comes back for her because he just loves her so much. After all, he's known her for like a whole day. You're probably going to become attached to a person who has saved your life, especially when you know that they're likely to be horribly tortured.

-Learns the force by being in the same building as a lightsaber. You mean gets a highly traumatic vision.

-Is captured, but uses the opportunity to become a force expert by being in the same room in the bad guy, and free herself. She uses one force power she didn't even actually know would work,

-Overpowers the trained sith both physically and with the force. Which makes sense. She was in a room with a lightsaber for almost a whole minute, and also had a conversation with a force user once. That's probably worth more than over a decade of training.

Which makes sense, because said trained Sith would probably be in massive psychological turmoil due to having just killed his father, and been SHOT IN THE SIDE, and up until a certain point, he was still WINNING. This is after taking a blast from something that blows people away from the point of impact. If Kylo hadn't specifically been ordered to take her alive, he absolutely would have won that fight and killed her.

jere7my

2016-01-08, 03:29 PM

Or looking at these exact same events from the other slant.

-When she meets Fin, she easily overpowers 3/4 thugs (I forget exactly how many were attacking her) and a trained trooper because she's just that good at fighting.
-She flies a ship for the first time in her life, outmaneuvering multiple trained Imperial pilots, including ridiculous stunts. Which is impressive considering she's basically a slave caste and I doubt she's ever flown anything before.
-Demonstrates greater knowledge of the ship than its actual owner and leaves him dumbfounded at her ability to repair it.
-She does free the Rathars...which saves everyone. Then she immediately redeems her "mistake" by knowing how to close a random door from the other side of a ship she's never been on before.
-Successfully shoots everything she aims at without ever missing after touching a blaster for the first time after Han's 6 second tutorial.
-Fin comes back for her because he just loves her so much. After all, he's known her for like a whole day.
-Learns the force by being in the same building as a lightsaber.
-Is captured, but uses the opportunity to become a force expert by being in the same room in the bad guy, and free herself.
-Overpowers the trained sith both physically and with the force. Which makes sense. She was in a room with a lightsaber for almost a whole minute, and also had a conversation with a force user once. That's probably worth more than over a decade of training.

Oh, sorry! I thought you had seen the movie. There were two (2) thugs, she explicitly says she's a pilot (though she hasn't flown in space before), she explicitly says she knows the upgrades that have been done to the Falcon since it left Han's possession, and she does indeed miss several times, including the first shot she takes (after remembering to turn off the safety). And Kylo Ren isn't a Sith.

So...again, you're calling her a Mary Sue because she has innate Force sensitivity. In a Star Wars movie. Called The Force Awakens.

For any additional responses, see above. I'm repeating myself a lot.

Anteros

2016-01-08, 03:38 PM

Yeah and? It doesn't stretch credibility that she can fight being that she's grown up largely alone. You think she carries that staff to look cool? It's a pretty normal thing for an action hero to be able to do.

It's fine she can fight. It's a bit strange fight well enough to overpower 4 people at once and a trooper who has specifically been trained in combat since a child without breaking a a sweat.

Who says it's the first time she's ever flown a ship other than you?

She's struggling to get enough food to eat in the movie. When is she going to be going up on Star ships? Maybe she has flown ships in the past during work or something, but they need to actually establish it in the movie if so.

Still conveniently ignoring the fact that she's worked on the ship before

Has she? She knows what it is, and considers it junk. She knew that someone had had something installed on the ship (I can't remember the technobabble they used) but nothing specifically about her working on the ship. Maybe I missed a line though.

Oh no she fixed a mistake she made, as if people can't try to rectify their mistakes.

That's fine, but don't use it as an example of a character mistake when 1.) It had only beneficial results and 2.) She immediately shows that it was a fluke, and she's actually super-competent.

She missed on several occasions

Did she? Aside from when Ren used the force to stop her I remember her hitting everything she aims at. Maybe not with each individual shot, but she certainly disabled her target each time. More than you'd expect from someone who never held a gun.

Fin has shown great compassion for every stranger he has met in the movie

That's true. At least except for all the people he killed.

By the way, does it strike anyone else as odd that he's all anti-violence and then immediately willing to gun down his former squad mates with no remorse? I get that there's a difference between shooting villagers and storm troopers, but he should have shown something after killing people he's known his whole life.

Learns to use the force after someone tries to rummage in her head and gets feedback (her awakening)

I would have actually been ok with this scene in a vacuum. Just not combined with everything else.

Manages to defend herself against someone who is not fully trained, clouded of mind and purpose, without the force to really help him as a result and took a bowcaster shot to the torso. That Ren could walk around and swing a sword at all is an amazing feat on Rens part. We've already been shown that Rey is at least competent with a weapon, and even then it wasn't an easy fight for her, she only really made a come back when she stopped and tried to reach out for the force. Something that people with force sensitivity have been shown to be able to do without training or even knowledge of the force.

Regardless if he's "fully" trained, he still likely has 10-15 years of training compared to her only just learning it isn't a myth.

Emperordaniel

2016-01-08, 03:40 PM

-When she meets Fin, she easily overpowers 3/4 thugs (I forget exactly how many were attacking her) and a trained trooper because she's just that good at fighting.
Daisy Ridley can deadlift 176 lbs., I don't think it'd be too much of a stretch to believe that her character has similar strength. Plus, I don't think it's even possible to grow up in the kind of area that she grew up in and not learn how to fight. EDIT: And it was only two thugs, and she only took down Finn after catching a breather.

-She flies a ship for the first time in her life, outmaneuvering multiple trained Imperial pilots, including ridiculous stunts. Which is impressive considering she's basically a slave caste and I doubt she's ever flown anything before.
I guess you didn't hear the part where she said, "I'm a pilot!" before they were even thinking of boarding the Falcon.

-Demonstrates greater knowledge of the ship than its actual owner and leaves him dumbfounded at her ability to repair it.
Han hasn't seen the ship in at least a decade, while she's consistently kept track of the ship, the modifications that have been added to it, and each owner it's had since it arrived on Jakku, including its most recent owner - that same guy she worked for.

-She does free the Rathars...which saves everyone.
And nearly kills everyone in the process. I say "nearly" because if she had killed everyone in that scene, we wouldn't have the rest of the movie.

Then she immediately redeems her "mistake" by knowing how to close a random door from the other side of a ship she's never been on before.
Because it's not like a door control panel with accompanying video feed has labels saying which buttons and switches are for which doors, right?[/sarcasm]

-Successfully shoots everything she aims at without ever missing after touching a blaster for the first time after Han's 6 second tutorial.
I'd have to rewatch this scene to be sure, but I think she misses a few shots, which is why the Stormtroopers knew to point Kylo Ren in that direction in the first place. EDIT: And since when do run-of-the-mill Stormtroopers not go down after taking a single blaster wound?

-Fin comes back for her because he just loves her so much. After all, he's known her for like a whole day.
'cause it's not like she's one of the only people Finn knows who he can still call "friend" after leaving the First Order, right?[/sarcasm]

-Learns the force by being in the same building as a lightsaber.
Not just any lightsaber, Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber, aka probably the weapon with the most on-screen history we've seen in the canon, and has been possessed by powerful Force-users for a good deal of that history to boot. Heck, the very first vision Rey gets when touching the saber is of the same hallway that Luke and Vader fought in in Empire Strikes Back. The thing's been around for over fifty years by this point (since the beginning of the Clone Wars), and has seen more action than half the characters.

-Is captured, but uses the opportunity to become a force expert by being in the same room in the bad guy, and free herself.
I'll grant you this one, though I wouldn't go so far as to call her a Force expert - plus, as posters above me have mentioned, this is the time when you expect your hero to shine.

-Overpowers the trained sith both physically and with the force. Which makes sense. She was in a room with a lightsaber for almost a whole minute, and also had a conversation with a force user once. That's probably worth more than over a decade of training.
Kylo Ren was:

Not really trained (betrayed Luke while still a student, Snoke says he isn't fully trained yet either)
Not a Sith, doesn't have control over his own fears either (which his icon, Darth Vader, once told Luke he needed in order to defeat him)
Already wounded.
Severely.
In the stomach/hip.
With. A. Bowcaster.
Which had literally sent Stormtroopers flying in earlier scenes.
And still in emotional turmoil from having killed his own father.
Not to mention having been tagged in the shoulder by Finn during their own brief duel.

Frankly, the only reason Kylo Ren lasted as long as he did against Rey was because she wasn't using the Force against him until Kylo himself reminded her.

Anteros

2016-01-08, 03:45 PM

Oh, sorry! I thought you had seen the movie. There were two (2) thugs, she explicitly says she's a pilot (though she hasn't flown in space before), she explicitly says she knows the upgrades that have been done to the Falcon since it left Han's possession, and she does indeed miss several times, including the first shot she takes (after remembering to turn off the safety). And Kylo Ren isn't a Sith.

So...again, you're calling her a Mary Sue because she has innate Force sensitivity. In a Star Wars movie. Called The Force Awakens.

For any additional responses, see above. I'm repeating myself a lot.

The attitude isn't any more necessary or welcome than the name calling was. I think I'm done here. I'm tired of being sniped at or called a misogynist for having a different opinion on the characterization of a fictional movie character. This thread makes me angry every time I open it. There's no reason to try to talk to people when they just insult you every time they disagree.

warty goblin

2016-01-08, 03:52 PM

So I really don't buy the whole 'Rey is a Mary Sue' thing*, but I find the argument that Ren was weak due to emotional turmoil somewhat dubious. Strong emotion, particularly strong negative emotion, like fear, anger etc, have been repeatedly stated to be pathways to the Dark Side, and in fact making one stronger in using it. Which is to say murdering Pops would be very bad news for a Jedi, and make them extremely likely to fall, but for somebody who deliberately sets out to follow the Dark Side, it should be anything but. In terms of ability to use the Force, this should put Ren at the top of his game, not slow him down.

Now the whole bleeding to death thing, that's a guaranteed downer.

*As I've said before, all Mary Sue tells me is the person making the accusation doesn't like the character or story, and probably reads TVTropes. A substantial, interesting or meaningful criticism it is not.

jere7my

2016-01-08, 03:53 PM

GloatingSwine

2016-01-08, 03:56 PM

So I really don't buy the whole 'Rey is a Mary Sue' thing*, but I find the argument that Ren was weak due to emotional turmoil somewhat dubious. Strong emotion, particularly strong negative emotion, like fear, anger etc, have been repeatedly stated to be pathways to the Dark Side, and in fact making one stronger in using it. Which is to say murdering Pops would be very bad news for a Jedi, and make them extremely likely to fall, but for somebody who deliberately sets out to follow the Dark Side, it should be anything but. In terms of ability to use the Force, this should put Ren at the top of his game, not slow him down.

He says prior to that that he feels "tempted by the light", ie he is feeling the pangs of conscience.

The novelisation actually explicitly says that Ren expected it to make him stronger in the dark side and it didn't, he felt weaker instead.

The reason he keeps punching his wound is to cause himself enough pain to block out his conscience.

Darth Credence

2016-01-08, 04:08 PM

The attitude isn't any more necessary or welcome than the name calling was. I think I'm done here. I'm tired of being sniped at or called a misogynist for having a different opinion on the characterization of a fictional movie character. This thread makes me angry every time I open it. There's no reason to try to talk to people when they just insult you every time they disagree.

You are making claims that are verifiably false, and ignoring everyone who has pointed them out to you. This has happened repeatedly, in an attempt to cling to the view that Rey is somehow too competent. You claim that people don't form arguments, but just keep moving the goalposts so they can claim misogyny. I certainly don't think anyone has insulted you, and I haven't seen anyone directly call you a misogynist. I have seen plenty of people point out where you are wrong. The most obvious by far is that you keep inflating the number of people Rey fought on Jakku - you said 3-4, several people said it was 2, you then responded to someone else saying it was 4 (It was 2 - this is not controversial). You also claim that she beat up a trained trooper, when what happened was she knocked down a guy who was running and didn't know she was there, and he didn't attempt to fight back. When you ignore all of this and say that people are moving the goalposts and refusing to form an argument against you, what do you expect? That everyone else will forget what happened in the movie and change to your point of view?

thorgrim29

2016-01-08, 04:11 PM

Mystic Muse

2016-01-08, 04:16 PM

Guys, simmer down. Assigning bad intentions to someone because they disagree with you doesn't help anything. You're just arguing in circles at this point. Specifically this circle, with added insults at each iteration:

- I think Rey is OP
- I disagree and think your opinion is biased by her gender

I personally have made no such claims, I've just disagreed with some of the offered evidence, or pointed out when it was demonstrably false.

Bulldog Psion

2016-01-08, 07:14 PM

Just to be clear, I don't think that anyone here is a misogynist, nor did I wish to imply that anyone is. However, it is certainly possible to be influenced without even realizing it to apply different standards to judging male and female characters. Heck, I've done that plenty myself, though I eventually realized I was doing it and have been trying to remove that reflexive filter on my thinking.

I also stated that it could also be basic dislike of JJ Abrams' films that prompts certain opinions. He seems to be a rather polarizing director. As far as that I goes, I personally don't care about him one way or another; I don't like his first Star Trek film, but I do like "Into Darkness" and this film. However, those who categorically dislike his films seem to do so with intense hostility, so...

When I see all the commentary regarding Rey being some kind of superbeing, when she seems in fact to be a fairly run-of-the-mill adventure movie protagonist, I have to wonder whether it's general Abrams-dislike or reflexive, culturally ingrained reaction to a female action hero -- an extremely new concept, really, if you look at the gender ratio of superhero films, for example.

Anyway, I apologize if I offended anyone.

The endless mantra of "Mary Sue, Mary Sue, Mary Sue" over a character who is in line with a lot of adventure movie characters -- and quite a bit less overwhelming than a lot of them -- does get a trifle irritating after a while, though. And the 16,000 lb elephant in the room is she that draws all this flak because she's "too competent" due to flying one spaceship badly and happening to win a fight against a badly wounded and emotionally shattered opponent ... well, it's hard not to wonder if there's a connection with her being female.

One can be influenced by one's culture subconsciously to parse a character's actions in a certain direction without being a misogynist or a bad person in any way, you know. I don't even know if that's having an influence -- Abrams being as unpopular as he is -- but surely it's interesting and sometimes useful to examine one's own assumptions?

And I still don't think that Rey is a "Mary Sue" or that she is shown as the supreme being of the galaxy with everyone else as her stooges. But jere7my summed up that part a lot better than I can.

TL:DR -- I don't think that anyone here has "bad intentions," nor did I ever intend to imply that. But Rey's moderate competency raising such extreme, and occasionally counterfactual (within the limits of a weird fictional story) antagonism sort of puzzles me and makes me wonder if other factors are influencing some of these opinions.

In a way, I wish everyone could just relax and have fun with a silly adventure movie.

McStabbington

2016-01-08, 11:05 PM

Honestly, if anything I think the problem is a result of studio execs seeing the script, realizing their lead was a girl, and being absolutely desperate to avoid damseling her. This became especially acute when they realized that the progression from Act 2 to Act 3 hinges on Rey being captured and taken to Starkiller Base; it's quite literally the only thing that fuses the Find Skywalker plot to the Destroy the Base plot. So they did what many, many script writers have done before, and pointedly emphasized that this Strong Female Character needed to be a [Strong Female] character.

But the problem is that doesn't fix the problem, because a lot of us aren't impressed by [Strong Female] characters. They really aren't all that uncommon, and they never really impress. And the reason why is because what is important isn't having a [Strong Female] character. It's having a [Strong Character] who is female.

Now don't get me wrong: I think Daisy Ridley deserves every last bit of kudos because her performance added a heck of a lot to the film, and whatever I may say about Abrams' directing chops, the man is one of the most consistently excellent casters in Hollywood, and he hit it out of the park with his casting in this film. But it doesn't change the fact that the character as written suffers more than a little from "Powers as the Plot demands" syndrome, and there are more than a few powers that just really do come out of nowhere. And no, The Force doesn't allow you to just paper those over. By the end of Act III, she's practically got a Checkov's chain gun, where I think they might have set up a bolt-action rifle in Act I (which, by the way, was by far my favorite part of the film; I really thought they were doing a beautiful set up).

And lest you guys think that's just me picking on a woman, let me compare her to my favorite character of last year: Imperator Furiosa from Mad Max. Like Rey, she's an utter badass from minute one. Unlike Rey, it's believable in my eyes largely because they took great care, scene by scene, to establish her bonafides even before we see her abilities. From the very beginning, we are introduced to the fact that the War Boys are generally competent mooks, but close to wild animals in their tenacity and willingness to fight. They might not be as good individually in a fight as Max, but they've got more than enough numbers and simple viciousness to make up for it. And then, after establishing this, even before we've seen Furiosa actually do anything, we see these same War Boys automatically defer to her. There is zero ambiguity that these guys all see Furiosa as the alpha of their particular pack, and while they do ultimately turn on her after they realize that she's betraying their god in Immortan Joe, we've already had the characters, with absolutely zero on-the-nose dialog, establish everything we need to know about Furiosa. And the result is that when she does kick into action, we are amazed far less by the fact that she can do something, but rather just how much of a thing she can do, just like any other well-developed Strong Character in an action film. With a minimum of scripting, but maximal eye for detail, we've established that Furiosa is a Strong Character who, as it turns out, is also a scary-competent female.

What strikes me in comparing the two characters is not so much that one is bad and one is good, but that one was supported by a script that was patient enough to establish every Checkov's gun that later got fired, and the other really didn't. While they, by action and inference of the characters, spent quite literally minutes showing us that absolutely no one willingly crosses the Imperator, we get one throwaway set of lines:

*Action 'splosions galore*
Finn: "We need a pilot!"
Rey: "I'm a pilot!"

The problem with that isn't that there is no setup. It's that it's terrible, half-butted setup, and everyone who compares it with Furiosa's introduction realizes it in an instant. Like Furiosa, we've had, by my guesstimation, about 20 minutes to get to know Rey, and what do we know? She spends most of her time trying to pop parts out of broken-down Star Destroyers to eek out just enough food to live. Tell us she's a pilot, and I think to myself "Well, she's probably not lying, but it's clearly not her main job. At most, she probably pilots much the same way I'd drive just out of driving school: a little hesitantly, a lot poor mechanics and thinking things through rather than doing them automatically, and is highly likely to accidentally leave her parking brake on. I have very little doubt she means she taxis the ships around the junkyard." And then she pulls precision stunts.

Even with The Force being present in Star Wars and absent in Mad Max, that's just Storytelling Fail 101. You're letting your need for an action beat in the script to get to Act II interfere with what I've seen and can reasonably infer. I'm really, truly, incredibly reminded of Kevin Smith's discussion of Superman Reborn, where after he went over his script, the producer of the film critiqued the film by saying that every ten pages, an action beat has to happen. I'm too lazy to link it at the moment, but if you youtube "Kevin Smith Superman", you'll find the story no problem. But the thing is: that story is a high comedy about how a hairdresser, who knows absolutely nothing about basic storytelling or Superman, keeps introducing inanity after inanity into Kevin Smith's script because he's thinking like a businessman rather than just trying to tell a story. Which is how, in that case, we get utter imbecility by having Brainiac wrestling polar bears, and in this case we get what should be a novice pilot outflying what are likely competent to veteran-quality fighter pilots.

It's not that I have a problem with Rey being an ace pilot, any more than I have a problem with Furiosa being a crack shot and war-rig driver. It's explicitly a problem with story structure, and the fact that the flaws in the structure just kept janking me out of the experience of the film. If you guys didn't get that same sensation, I get it: irl, my job is basically to spot plot holes within seconds and point them out. But be that as it may, I do pay very close attention to story structure, it is the alpha and omega of what I like or dislike in a film, and this one played fast and loose too many times for me to think it anything better than "Eh, it was decent."

Renegade Paladin

2016-01-08, 11:26 PM

She's obviously the daughter of Lone Starr and Princess Vespa. :smalltongue:

Zmeoaice

2016-01-09, 02:47 AM

She's obviously the daughter of Lone Starr and Princess Vespa. :smalltongue:

I'll take this over being Luke's daughter.

Bulldog Psion

2016-01-09, 02:54 AM

Kyberwulf

2016-01-09, 04:11 AM

I like how the comment was made that we have to SHOW in cannon where it can be possible that each person could have an an aptitude for certain force powers. But then in the same post, right after the whole cannon crap. It is stated, that she heard some stories that could lead her to just using force powers arbitrarily.

I am not one of the one's saying she is a Mary Sue. She has Mary Sue qualities, to be sure. If you won't admit that, then you are being inane. I am however saying she has a very feminist enforced Power fantasy. I mean she is never just skilled enough to be a Mary Sue. I don't think the creators of this film would be that pedantic. She is always JUST good enough to be better then all her Male counterparts. When watching this, a song kept going though my mind. Anything you can do I can do better. It's like Disney didn't want her to have any weaknesses. She is given powers at the expense of other characters, mostly male characters.

I don't buy most of your guy's arguments. Even if most of her "training" comes off-screen. Which to some people doesn't count cause it isn't shown, there for isn't canon. Even if it is in a book or somewhere else, it doesn't count cause it's offscreen. Despite that, most of it still wouldn't make sense. On screen she is shown to be a scavenger. It doesn't look like she has any other job. Also it doesn't look like anyone particular cares about her. I don't know who would let her anywhere near starships, to clean them let alone work on them. Let alone fly them. Even her scavenging parts doesn't mean she knows her parts. The force could be just like, hey take this part it will get you some chedder...or credits.. or foodstuffs. Whatevers. That is one of the main difference between Luke, Anakin, and Rey. Luke and Anakin are shown to have some semblance of freedom in their offtime. Luke talking about going around town and working on droids and stuff. Anakin, despite being a slave, is shown to work in a junkshop fixing things, and it is alluded to by other characters that he is a good pilot. On screen, it is shown they could logically have some feasible way to draw conclusions about their skill level. Rather then just magically convulsing skills out of thin air.

I think its more disingenuous that some of the points some arguments are making. Rey is being held up against other Male characters. Shooting them down and holding her up as being better then them. Two wrongs don't make a right. Meaning, if there is a problem with other characters, saying she is okay because they are okay doesn't make a good argument. Saying other lore doesn't count becuase it isn't "canon" then going on to claim she has some training or abilities because of off screen training. Again, is a little double standery. Which is why, I have a problem. Rey is getting a pass from a lot of people, because she is a female. She is getting shield from criticism because she is a girl. That to me, is sexist.

I am not saying I hate Ray. I liked her, she was a decent character, and I like the Actor that played her. I just think she was a missed opportunity. She could have still be who she was if they spread out some of her skill sets and other abilities to other more plausible characters. But that, would mean making her more realistic.

Also, I reiterate. This feels like a Disney Princess movie.lol

Also, Finn isn't a pacifist. I don't think he has problems with killing. I think he has a problem with killing innocent people. I imagine most of his training and indoctrination told him all his bosses enemies where dangerous and deserved death. Then most of the people he saw on his first mission where old people and children. I think that is why he defected. Most of the stromtroopers where killed in self defense or in defense of others.

Lethologica

2016-01-09, 04:36 AM

Hopeless

2016-01-09, 05:22 AM

Well I still think if they kept Poe involved we wouldn't even be bothered if she took the opportunity to learn about spaceflight since the book even mentioned needing a co-pilot with the Falcon!

Poe takes them to Han as he recognises the freighter means Han & Chewie don't chase them down and more importantly they make Starkiller Base mobile so we make it more scarier that Leia escaped certain death coming to Maz's because Poe turns up there!

No blowing up Star systems from the opposite side of the galaxy and the ridiculous idea that they can get there fast enough before it recharges and fires again!!!

As for Rey I was actually hoping by the end that she was Ezra's daughter so we'd learn she was trained by the Kanan line so rather than pull Anakin's lightsaber she pulls out the two pieces of Kanan's lightsaber and properly scares Kylo by showing what a true padawan is capable of doing!

Sigh I really want Snoke to turn out to be a disfigured Grand Inquisitor who survived the end of the first season of Star Wars Rebels!
Maybe a bit too much!!

As for Abrams I've yet to watch the Star Trek Reboot Sequel loved the casting for the reboot first movie but ended up wishing it was involved Kirk's dad surviving that opening battle so we see J.T. Kirk grow up since the latest Sequel trailer makes it clear they should involve multiple federation ships if they want to blow one up every movie!!!

Am I being sexist?

No but when even I can poke holes in the story being shown then there's something seriously wrong!

GloatingSwine

2016-01-09, 05:27 AM

Kyberwulf

2016-01-09, 10:40 AM

I don't think anyone said that she couldn't win fights because she was a girl.

The main problem with this, is that even if people came in and said, "I think the main character is way overpowered too soon. They outshine the other characters, and strike me as a power fantasy." Even if people had said that. Someone would have invariably came in and said. "YOU ONLY HAVE A PROBLEM WITH HER BECAUSE SHE IS A GIRL!!!!" It was made worse when people threw around the word Mary-Sue. Which made people feel vindicated about defended her. Which to my mind is totally sexist. If she where a male character, which has been pointed out. Yeah, I wouldn't have minded if it was a guy. The thing is, I also would have been bored if it was the same person but a male. It would have just felt like the same boring standard hero, best at everything. Just like Harry Potter. Which, to be fair, is mocked relentlessly. IT seriously feels like Ray is immune from criticism because of her gender. Also using the word Mary-Sue, is a polarizing thing. It would be just as bad if someone came in and called Finn an Uncle Tom, or said that Kylo Ren should have raped Finn and Rey because he was a "Sith Lord." It's going to make people take an Us vs. them position. Instead of taking an Unbiased view.

jere7my

2016-01-09, 12:00 PM

People on the Internet love to pick things apart with a microscope, period. I wouldn't rule out hating JJ Abrams or gender bias for everyone, but as a general thing, it's generally easier and more accurate to assume pickery is its own motive.

There is someone in this very thread who has complained about the "feminist message" in TFA. I understand some people complain just to complain, but there's no need to overlook something that's demonstrably happening here and elsewhere (see: the Return of Kings MRA site, author John C. Wright's blog, etc.). We shouldn't make assumptions about an individual's motives without evidence, but the anti-feminist motivation for critiques of Rey is real and widespread.

GloatingSwine

2016-01-09, 12:07 PM

I don't think anyone said that she couldn't win fights because she was a girl.

Not in this thread, I have seen it specifically in those terms though, but it's literally the only reason anyone would nitpick "action hero fends off nameless mooks in physical altercation" as showing that an action hero is "too competent".

Action heroes beating up nameless mooks is the expected norm, but people right here in this thread are actually using it as "evidence" that Rey is too good at stuff to be a proper character.

Darth Ultron

2016-01-09, 01:42 PM

Yeah I'm about 90% sure she's not a Skywalker.

The problem here is the whole ''the Force is strong in the Skywalker family'' bit.

If Rey is just a normal, weak Jedi, then she is not special. And it makes it odd for her to fight the Darth Solo/Skywalker guy and win.

But, maybe:

She could be another ''Force birth''. Where the Meti-Clorins just made her to, um, bring balance to the awakened Force.

Is the Darth Plegus created Ankin cannon? The movies never say(right?). DP could ''create life'', right? So he did, um, go to Tattooe and, um, randomly pick a slave girl and make her pregnant with the force, and then sluked back into the darkness?

Well, if that is true.....maybe DP used the force on other slave girls too? Maybe there could be a bunch of ''Force babies''?

Rakaydos

2016-01-09, 02:26 PM

Yeah, but if we take that to its logical conclusion, then activating the hyperdrive would sheathe the ships in fire.

Blue fire, perhaps?
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/1/1c/Hyperspacefalcon.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20111104205249

Lethologica

2016-01-09, 02:51 PM

Whilst you could argue that people are "nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking", some of the complaints about Rey are specific to her gender.

Most obviously complaints about the early fight on Jakku, where the complaint is basically "girls can't win fights".

This doesn't mean that people necessarily have malice in their hearts, but they don't need to to have harmful opinions.

There is someone in this very thread who has complained about the "feminist message" in TFA. I understand some people complain just to complain, but there's no need to overlook something that's demonstrably happening here and elsewhere (see: the Return of Kings MRA site, author John C. Wright's blog, etc.). We shouldn't make assumptions about an individual's motives without evidence, but the anti-feminist motivation for critiques of Rey is real and widespread.
Yes, the anti-feminist motivation for critiques of Rey is real and includes at least one person in this thread and (debatably) at least one claimed criticism. Which fits with the caveats I took care to put in my comment, and I'm glad no one acknowledged that, because it just warms my heart when people don't think I'm capable of reading this thread.

But when people say it's difficult to find a motive for criticism other than gender bias, or that the main cause of criticism is hating Abrams, I have to wonder if they're just forgetting they're on the Internet. Hell, I have to wonder if they're forgetting the subject matter. TFA is the strongest geek magnet on the planet right now. Geeks love to scrutinize their hobbies/interests in detail, practically by definition. So when people express surprise that TFA (or, say, the main character in TFA) is especially scrutinized, and then start imputing unhealthy motives from that in order to delegitimize the picking, I don't know what to tell them. Where unhealthy motives reveal themselves, great! Go after them with a clue-by-four! But the scrutiny is not itself evidence of unhealthy motives.

jere7my

2016-01-09, 04:09 PM

Yes, the anti-feminist motivation for critiques of Rey is real and includes at least one person in this thread and (debatably) at least one claimed criticism. Which fits with the caveats I took care to put in my comment, and I'm glad no one acknowledged that, because it just warms my heart when people don't think I'm capable of reading this thread.

But when people say it's difficult to find a motive for criticism other than gender bias, or that the main cause of criticism is hating Abrams, I have to wonder if they're just forgetting they're on the Internet. Hell, I have to wonder if they're forgetting the subject matter. TFA is the strongest geek magnet on the planet right now. Geeks love to scrutinize their hobbies/interests in detail, practically by definition. So when people express surprise that TFA (or, say, the main character in TFA) is especially scrutinized, and then start imputing unhealthy motives from that in order to delegitimize the picking, I don't know what to tell them. Where unhealthy motives reveal themselves, great! Go after them with a clue-by-four! But the scrutiny is not itself evidence of unhealthy motives.

Scrutiny doesn't exist in a vacuum. We can look at the scrutiny applied by the internet to similar male characters (like Anakin) and other female action heroes (like Furiosa) and draw some conclusions. Female characters are subjected to disproportionate scrutiny across a wide swath of the internet; it's not just "geeks nitpick things." Not all things are nitpicked equally, and there's nowt wrong with looking into why.

Lethologica

2016-01-09, 04:52 PM

Scrutiny doesn't exist in a vacuum. We can look at the scrutiny applied by the internet to similar male characters (like Anakin) and other female action heroes (like Furiosa) and draw some conclusions. Female characters are subjected to disproportionate scrutiny across a wide swath of the internet; it's not just "geeks nitpick things." Not all things are nitpicked equally, and there's nowt wrong with looking into why.
I dunno about you, but I live in a world where movie-length reviews are devoted to scrutinizing (i.e. hating on) everything about Anakin and most of the Internet loves Furiosa. Clearly there is some additional scrutiny of female characters, ceteris paribus, but that effect is dominated by other effects in the examples you've given. So when you talk about why scrutiny is applied unequally, sure! Go for it! But don't just pay attention to the reasons why scrutiny might be unequal that allow you to dismiss people who disagree with you.

McStabbington

2016-01-09, 10:07 PM

Well, in my case at least, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree and leave it that. Though you have changed my mind; I think that the main cause of the "Rey is overpowered" thing isn't due to her being female, but because people love to hate Abrams and pick everything he does apart with a microscope, while someone like Spielberg gets a pass for absolutely atrocious directing, like the screaming plot holes in "Jurassic Park I."

(I'm not saying that 2, 3, or that hideous Jurassic World were any better -- they were even worse. But apart from the special effects, I personally think that the original Jurassic Park is a horribly bad movie, thrown together without any regard for logic, and designed to ride on the Spielberg name and DINOSAURS!!!!!, which it does.)

Abrams can Do No Right. That's probably the whole basis of this entire disagreement. It's starting to remind me of an argument with my wife -- no matter what Abrams had done, it would be wrong because Abrams did it. And when something starts to remind me of an argument with my wife ... well, I'm outta here. Sorry if I stepped on any toes.

As the guy who's been the most ardent critic of the directing and scripting, and the guy who keeps steering the conversation in the "there are some fundamental problems with the script" direction that implicate Abrams, I take exception to this statement. A lot.

I don't have any particular problems with Abrams himself. I even think there are some very solid things to say about his directing that work to his credit. He's a great caster, some of his cinematography is very distinctive, and he's absolutely fantastic at stage managing actors (especially child actors), which is very, very tough to do well. I recall a scene in Super 8 where the kids are trying to create a movie and cast a new character played by (I think) Elle Fanning, that was absolutely spellbinding. It was probably the best and most naturalistic bit of child acting I can recall since E.T., which is extraordinary high praise.

My problem with Abrams isn't that he's bad at directing, or that the things he focuses on are things that he really shouldn't be focusing on. He's definitely superior to Lucas at directing at this point, and he's infinitely less infuriating than a director like Michael Bay or Zach Snyder. Rather, my problem is that he's falsely advertised. He basically is to science fiction blockbusters what Nora Ephron is to so-called "chick flicks". I've seen enough Nora Ephron to know exactly what her strengths are: she knows her target audience (middle-class, mildly-dissatisfied white women aged 30 to 55 years old), she knows that the biggest thing she needs to do is get out of the way and not do anything showy or flashy, and above all that her audience is not there to see her, but rather to just indulge in their fantasies of inserting themselves into Meg Ryan's shoes and being swept off their feet by the story for a few hours. See here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFhaSnf6sJ0&list=PL2kosbNKPHJCXUw7xDtgTky9Tj82e85pH&index=80) for an excellent, non-judgmental dissertation on the positives and negatives of a definitive piece of the Nora Ephron canon.

But like Nora Ephron, Abrams' strengths, his real strengths and not just the pretensions we get about him being an artiste, are strengths for the studio, not the audience. He creates decent, B+ level genre fare on budget and on time for the studio, he's never seen a studio note from an executive that he didn't just include without argument in his films regardless of the effect it has on his film, and the results consistently do at least middling at the box office, if not outstanding. He's the anti-Steven Spielberg, who also makes insanely profitable movies, but is also known for screwing up a studio's schedule if it means getting the product right. Spielberg almost didn't get to make Raiders of the Lost Ark not because of profitability (two of three preceding films, Jaws and Close Encounters, were blockbuster smashes), but because he continually went overbudget and overtime to do the work justice. In point of fact, many of the earliest stories about what a great filmmaker he was are also stories about narrative tricks he had to pull because he had fallen so far behind schedule and had to take steps not to be removed from his projects. The first half of Jaws legendarily doesn't show the shark, which turned out to work phenomenally at building tension, but was done at the time just to keep shooting while the animatronic shark got repaired.

And so long as we're on the subject of Spielberg, if you call Spielberg bad at understanding story, then you clearly understand neither Spielberg nor story structure, because Spielberg is the. absolute. best. at understanding exactly when to depart from story logic: when the emotional beats of the film demand it. The T-Rex attack in Jurassic Park is terrible from a purely story logic perspective, but it is fantastic at sustaining narrative tension, which is why the scene is still remembered even if the cliff that suddenly appears in the Tyrannosaur paddock makes no logical sense. I am thrilled by that scene even though story structure is my alpha and omega precisely because of how fascinating I find it that people, myself included, really don't care about plot holes if the plot holes feel right emotionally. By contrast, I'm complaining about Abrams' direction in this film precisely because they jar in ways that make no emotional sense, regardless of story logic. The scene where Rey looks up at the ships departing Jakku? That was included specifically to call back to ANH. But it doesn't make sense given what we've been told in the film: Rey doesn't want to leave Jakku. She wants to stay. Her heart is telling her to stay, because her parents might come back. So why is she looking up with longing and wonder at the world out there? I mean, besides that it is a story beat in a different movie that they are calling back to here, despite the fact that the characters have exactly the opposite motivations? Can you give me a character-specific reason?

Long story short, if people just advertised Abrams as exactly what he is, I would have no problem with it. He does what he does, he creates movies that are reliably profitable. But if you want me to list exactly what my problem is with the Star Wars film, I will: I did not feel like this was a Star Wars film. This felt to me exactly what every other Abrams' film I've ever seen felt like: generic, with every bit of flavor or nuance that was distinctive to Star Wars sanded out of it. I'm not going to call it bad, because it isn't. It was exactly like every other 3 of 5 star action blockbuster I've seen, with an action beat at exactly the moments I have come to expect. But to the extent that it even approached Star Wars, it was less because it recreated the feel of Star Wars, and rather that Star Wars has become the template for all other action sci-fi blockbusters, so they couldn't help but ape it. It had the right beats, but none of the heart. It had the proper form, but no attunement to emotional function.

Is it as infuriating or frustrating as the prequels? Nope. Is it's application of the formula solid? Eh, pretty much. But so much about it is just . . . generic, when the joy of the OT was precisely that so much of the universe felt alive and vibrant. Take the two toughs from the bar in ANH that tried to bully Luke, the walrus guy and the pug nose guy. I don't know their names, I don't know their species, but I can tell you a lot about their characters just from a 30-second scene wherein the only story purpose they served was to show that Luke was deeply out of his depth on his own, and that Obi-Wan Kenobi was both not to be trifled with, and surprisingly adept at getting from A to B. By contrast, I can't tell you anything about Maz Kanata outside of her occupation, physical description, and the fact that they were obviously trying to pass her off as wise mentor figure. Such basic questions as "What the heck makes Maz competent to discuss the Force with anyone", or "Why does she care about the Jedi" or "Why exactly did she keep a lightsaber in her basement" or "How the deuce do you turn a profit running a bar in the middle of a bloody jungle?" go unanswered, because her entire point was just to move the plot along. She was generic. She had no life outside of that functional purpose to the plot. Take the plot suddenly intruding into her bar away from her, and I really have no clue about what she does with herself or how she acts. And I can't help but feel that this is apparent to everyone, but people really, really, really want to like Star Wars again, so they are just determinedly whistling past the same things I'm noticing in their effort to like this film. Which in its own way is just like coming out of the TPM in 1999 all over again.

Emperordaniel

2016-01-09, 11:46 PM

The scene where Rey looks up at the ships departing Jakku? That was included specifically to call back to ANH. But it doesn't make sense given what we've been told in the film: Rey doesn't want to leave Jakku. She wants to stay. Her heart is telling her to stay, because her parents might come back. So why is she looking up with longing and wonder at the world out there? I mean, besides that it is a story beat in a different movie that they are calling back to here, despite the fact that the characters have exactly the opposite motivations? Can you give me a character-specific reason?

If I recall correctly, the ship (singular) that she sees departing Jakku closely resembles the ship that her childhood self was calling out to to "come back" in her vision - I'd need to rewatch the two scenes to be sure, but it might even be the same model of ship - so the way I see it, she's not looking at the ship with a desire to leave Jakku. She's looking at the ship, hoping against hope that her parents may be on that ship, and reminding herself that they still may come back some day.

McStabbington

2016-01-10, 12:23 AM

If I recall correctly, the ship (singular) that she sees departing Jakku closely resembles the ship that her childhood self was calling out to to "come back" in her vision - I'd need to rewatch the two scenes to be sure, but it might even be the same model of ship - so the way I see it, she's not looking at the ship with a desire to leave Jakku. She's looking at the ship, hoping against hope that her parents may be on that ship, and reminding herself that they still may come back some day.

. . .That's not completely implausible, but then why isn't she looking at a ship that's landing?

And the question answers itself: because that changes the reference, and they were more interested in making the reference rather than saying something true about the character.

Zalabim

2016-01-10, 03:45 AM

. . .That's not completely implausible, but then why isn't she looking at a ship that's landing?

And the question answers itself: because that changes the reference, and they were more interested in making the reference rather than saying something true about the character.

She isn't looking at a ship that's landing because she doesn't have an emotional memory of a ship landing. She has an emotional memory of a ship leaving.

danzibr

2016-01-10, 08:03 AM

It wasn't in the original version, but only because that specific scene was cut for time and pacing. It was included in later versions, specifically because it does add something: Biggs Darklighter and Luke re-unite, have a happy moment, then Red Leader comes up to Luke and they have the following exchange of dialogue:

Red Leader: "Are you sure you can handle one of these machines?"
Biggs: "Sir, Luke is the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim territories."

And I just want to repeat that while it may not have been in the very first version of the film, the scene was filmed, shot and only edited out in the final edits, and has been included in subsequent releases of the film. And in that scene, Biggs is quite clear that he's completely comfortable going into a fight where his life is on the line with Luke. So it's canon status may actually be higher than some of the other scenes in the film like Han shooting first (I mean, granted, I don't like that, but this was one scene that really did improve the Special Editions). It's also clear that as Luke was the best shot, but not the most experienced pilot, it would be only natural for him to take the final trench run should Red Leader fail, with the more experienced pilots Biggs and Wedge running cover for him.

Believe it or not, the script of Ep. IV really did a very good job of setting up just about every Checkov's gun that later got fired. There's a reason why so many movies, including Ep. VII, seem like pale knockoffs of that script.
I'm not sure I follow.

Bulldog Psion

2016-01-10, 09:07 AM

Okay, I've got two Crowd-Pleasing Rewrites of the Star Wars VII script for everybody:

Best case scenario: Disney invents a time machine, and sends Donald Trump back in a Darth Vader costume to confront JJ Abrams at the start of filming. Mr. Trump announces:

"I find your lack of talent disturbing. You're fired!"

Then he proceeds to fire everybody else, and Disney locks away their Star Wars property in the vault with instructions that nobody is ever to make another movie. In fact, the only actions taken are:

The Prequels are declared non-canon.
The EU novels are declared canon.
The original cut is released and declared the only canon version of the films.

-------------------------------------------------------
Failing that, here's a rewrite of the script to make it better:

At the start of the movie, Finn and Poe both get out of the wreck and go to the town.

Rey is attacked by two thugs, who take her staff and beat her up until Finn and Poe come to her rescue, putting the thugs to flight.

The First Order attacks, and Poe flies the Falcon out while Finn mans the gun and Rey straps in for the ride.

Han Solo tractors them in, Rey lets the Rathtars loose, Han manages to save Finn at the last moment and mutters something about "can't let that girl outta my sight for a minute."

They fly off to Maz Kanata's castle. Han gives Rey a gun, tells her Chewie likes her.

Rey is drawn down to the basement, then realizes that the visions are actually triggered by the proximity of Finn to the lightsaber.

She runs out of the place, the First Order attacks, Rey draws her blaster and manages to blow her own foot off with the first shot. Kylo Ren comes along and scoops her up.

Finn, Han, Poe, and Chewie decide to pursue.

Rey wakes up with an artificial foot attached. Kylo extracts the information from her mind and tosses her in the brig -- "We'll have some fun later, me proud beauty, mwahahahaha!"

Leia reveals to Finn, Han, & co. that the First Order is a bunch of small-time Empire wannabes hanging around on planet undergoing an ice age at a former bar named the Rancid Rancor. She further indicates that she tried to get the Rebellion to send someone to deal with the First Order, but Admiral Ackbar just laughed and said, "We have bigger fish to fry than those losers."

Finn, Han, etc. break into the Rancid Rancor and go on a rampage. At this point, JJ Abrams appears as a cameo of a First Order goon; Chewie stuffs him head-first down a toilet, while Han remarks, "Whoa, that thing looks like it was really built to accommodate rancor crap."

Chewie: "Rrrrraggghhh!"

Kylo grabs Rey and takes off on a snowspeeder. Han, Chewie, Finn, and Poe grab speeders and take off after him.

Han finally gets in a clear shot and brings down Kylo's snowspeeder. Kylo goes berserk because Han's shot also destroyed his limited edition Anakin Skywalker figure, and kills Han with a lightsaber thrust.

Rey, infuriated at the death of her new father figure, grabs up the blue lightsaber and attacks Kylo. Unfortunately, her lightsaber skills are about what you'd expect, and she cuts off her other foot.

Kylo force-slams Chewie into a tree, knocking him out.

Finn grabs the lightsaber. As he touches it, a series of visions reveal that he is in the fact the son of Mace M*****-****ing Windu, and the lightsaber blade turns purple. Finn hacks Kylo to bits after a difficult and dramatic fight in the snowy forest.

Finn returns to collect Chewie and Rey. Rey, coming around in the medbay in Leia's base to find a new pair of feet being grown for her (honestly, these people can clone an entire person but can't grow someone a new hand or foot?), is greeted by a relieved Master Finn Windu.

Rey says, "Hey Finn, can I be your sidekick?" -- "Sure, Rey -- though first, I'd like you to take a 12-month course in piloting, plus spend some time at the range with your blaster. Then we'll go looking for Luke." -- "Will do!"

Momentary final cut to the toilet in the Rancid Rancor, with an actual Rancor sitting down on the vast toilet we saw JJ Abrams' cameo character heaved into. We hear the muffled voice of Abrams screaming, "Oh, come on, wasn't it enough to just flush me? Aaaaaaaaaaaaa--"

Roll credits. :smallbiggrin: