Counterpoint: Johnson is a much better director than JJ Abrams and having Rey's parents be nobodies was exactly the right thing to do.
Film Star Wars Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker [Theories]
- Thread starter vidic blood & sand
- Start date
It kind of makes her a Mar-nope, I'm not going to say it. But her powers have definitely not been earned. At this point the only way to save that issue is to make her the daughter of someone who has a great understanding of the Force.
Agreed on both (as an aside which I'm allowed given the Billie Eilish detour - Knives Out looks great). The only misstep was the animals bit, which for some reason Abrams has decided to emulate... (And Superleia)
I think they needed to make her parents be nobodies and somehow nerf her at the same time for any of it to work. The galaxy already feels tiny with all the relations and relatively small group of characters being brought back again and again. The parents being nobodies and the force just finding someone was the right thing to do. The issue is that someone is awfully written and not a good character. Needing to relate them to a better character to justify their powers just highlights how badly mishandled it's been.
I thought TLJ hinted at a vague explanation for her being so powerful when the bad guy told Kylo that as he got stronger his equal on the light side would too (or something like that)? Given so much of the film was about them being linked and her being the last jedi, it made sense to me that she would be as strong as him what with the force supposedly being balanced and all. Though maybe proper Star Wars nuts will have some reason that's wrong.
JJ Abrams will make her Palpatine's long lost second cousin though, cuz that's how he rolls.
What was special about Anakin's mother? How did he earn his powers? Rey also doesn't have to be the daughter of someone to be this powerful. With that being said, JJ is most likely making her the daughter of someone, who is strong in the force. I also share the opinion that she should have struggled more in her character arc.
Theory:
There was nothing interesting in Episodes 7 or 8 to create theories about. The sequel trilogy needs to be carried by this third movie.
There was nothing interesting in Episodes 7 or 8 to create theories about. The sequel trilogy needs to be carried by this third movie.
He was trained as a Jedi from the age of 8?
When Force Awakens came out I made a post on here saying something like it was decent but Rey was too much of a Mary Sue because she was amazing at everything for no real reason (really unique hot take I know). Someone basically told me I was wrong and dumb because it was so obvious that Rey was Luke's daughter or maybe it was Obi Wan's granddaughter and she had been trained by Luke and then had her memory wiped and he had this whole massive fan theory of stuff that wasn't in the movie to explain why the parts of the movie that were bad were actually good. I didn't argue with him much because he seemed extremely invested in the film.
When the scene in Last Jedi happens where it's revealed Rey's parents were nobodies I thought about that guy and his fan theory and it was probably the closest that the movie came to actually entertaining me.
If you cut Rey out of TLJ, it's almost a good film. Finn vaunting off to the riding animal's city was a bit poo, his part of the film was actually a lot better than Rey's. If only he'd been allowed to make that sacrifice.
If you were some wise old Star Wars character, old enough to remember Annakin, Luke and now Rey, wouldn't you think Rey was more likely to turn out like the Darth than Luke?
She has no connections with anyone.
Luke has connections with his friends, his sister, his mentor (even after his death) and connects with his father.
Darth has connections with his mentor and his wife, but his connections with his family are shredded, he has no friends other than Palpatine.
Rey has. What. What conection does Rey have to anyone. Finn?
I was specifically responding to the word earned and talent that is inherited but not refined yet. He was given a gift, then trained. She was given a gift, then trained. Even if Rey's training was poorly executed, that doesn't change, that both didn't earn their powers, they were born with it. Pigeon was saying that she has to be the daughter of somebody to have that gift and that she can't be the daughter of nobodies.
Indeed, casually blowing up space stations by pressing random buttons was just a coincidence.
It's actually a disgrace with they (haven't) done with Rey's character, given the backlash against female characters when hers was first announced.
They had to do it right. Instead they did nothing with it.
Sarah Conner, Ellen Ripley, Buffy Summers.
It's not a long list of iconic female *main* characters in sci-fi and fantasy. They had the chance to add a name to that list and they've done nothing with it.
They had to do it right. Instead they did nothing with it.
Sarah Conner, Ellen Ripley, Buffy Summers.
It's not a long list of iconic female *main* characters in sci-fi and fantasy. They had the chance to add a name to that list and they've done nothing with it.
He was a good pilot. He'd been pod-racing since before he was out of diapers probably.
Annakin being a decent pilot aged 8 is one thing (given that he'd been doing it his whole life). Rey picking up lightsaber and taking on a Sith Lord is quite another.
Come on, he's 8
"I'll try spinning, that's a good trick!" The main dumb thing was the mind trick, which really did come from nowhere.Rey kinda does need a reason, though. And Anakin's mother had a "virgin birth" which means either the force impregnated her, she herself was strong with it, or his father is unknown which leaves the whole thing to interpretation.
I can get behind Rey being the most powerful Jedi we've seen since Luke if - IF - they had shown her share a similar journey to Luke. Instead she takes on the trained son of Leia Skywalker for her first ever fight and pretty much kicks his ass. It's just lazy writing.
This always pisses me off because it's just lazy viewing.
He plays with her for a while despite being badly wounded with a powerful weapon (which they had hinted at several times during the film). So yes she does defeat a heavily wounded opponent. I mean by all means critise her as a character thats fine, but to critise that scene is imo daft.
It's not even like she obliterated him or anything, she was running away and defending for the entire fight. He even has her cornered and gets cocky by deciding to have a conversation and try and lure her to the darkside. At that point she beats him. It's decent writing.
I said she had to earn it, and now the only way to do that, thanks to their poor handling of her character, is to make it a genetic thing. It's too late to bring in any other kind of plot device. If they introduce anything like that "midiclorian" crap in the third film without mentioning it in the first two it'll just be seen as an afterthought. They've backed themselves into a corner. It was bullshit with Anakin when they did it but at least Lucas had the balls to say "here's your mcguffin, deal with it."
They've never once referenced that Rey was born with anything and she definitely did not have training before she fought Kylo the first time. Or are we meant to believe that she somehow downloaded "Light Side Ju Jitsu" like Neo?
It's been a while since I've watched it, granted. I think you're right. I retract that statement.
I guess I'm just longing for a movie version of Bastila Shan and, dammit, I won't stop complaining until they give me it.
Her character had great potential. The first 30 minutes for me is close to perfection, but it's clear that they never really knew what they wanted to achieve with the character and so her writing has been questionable throughout. There's still time to correct her character but that would require some 'yawn' usual family connection bullshit.
They should simply have had her be one of the young jedis who was being taught by Luke and managed to escape but was too young to truly remember. I mean it would have been a horrific scene for her to witness so would have been a good memory to oppress and come up with the abandoned story in her head in an attempt to forget the traumatic experience. Instead we're going to get some bonkers shit.
To be fair, I think the majority of the characters have been written poorly throughout despite having an interesting initial setup. Which is true to JJ Abrahams, someone who has good ideas but fails to execute them properly.
Would’ve also explained her unusually close connection to Kylo, but feck-head in the second film just wanted to play the smart director that double fooled us all.
Say what you want about JJ, but much like the first few episodes of LOST, the start of this trilogy was sensational, it lost a little in the second half of the movie but had a great light saber battle (that needed a little explaining in pt ii), the best use of force I’ve seen in a film (Kylo on the blaster) and was still left in a good enough position to build a top trilogy upon.
Rey can not only fight well, she can fly spacecraft well, repair ships well. Basically she seems to master everything she touches and her only flaw is that her parents might be wankers. That's pretty bold. And it's why I dislike her character. When you have an ensemble cast, all of which have their own individual skills, but one of the group seems to possess all of the combined skills of the rest of the group, why is there anyone else other than Rey?
It's why I don't like Superman being in the Justice League. Just send him alone to deal with the stuff and the rest of you cnuts can just sit around snorting coke all day ffs
Captain Marvel works as an Avenger because she can't be there all the time. Thor has more emotional problems than me after twelve pints and Counting Crows' "Round Here" starts playing on the jukebox. Honestly; I bet you could throw Rey into space with just a flare gun with its instructions in Turkish and she would create the biggest explosion you've ever seen when she successfully hits a super Death Star.
Knights of the Old Republic is apparently happening, but whether it's the actual story or just from that era isn't known yet.
Well, the repairing ability is fine given thats what she did on her planet, taking shit apart and repairing shit. That's fair game. As is her ability to actually fight given that she used a polearm weapon to defend herself on the same planet (which seemed pretty violent). The flying is granted dumb, I don't get why they couldn't have simply had Finn as the flyer.
Oh don't get me wrong, I like all the films. They all have faults but I enjoy watching them being a big Star Wars nerd. For me, the first 30mins of Force Awakens is probably the best Star Wars outside of Empire and Rogue One. But the final half of the film lost its way as they rehashed (no idea why) the plot of A New Hope. I've watched Last Jedi a few times, parts of it are good but my god they dropped the ball on the middle of the film, it just doesn't work and at times is irritating. I also hated, I mean really hated the opening sequence as well, which immediately puts me on edge. I actually think Rey rescues the film (I know people dont like her character) but she and Kylo rescues Last Jedi imo.
He was created by Sidious. Basically his force ability was as manufactured as a Billie Eilish song.
I very much doubt that that was Lucas' intention. I mean they did that recently in a comic, didn't they? It sounded absolutely crap, when I read that. I'd probably prefer the stupid the force impregnated Shmi storyline.
The lazy writing part I agree with. At this point I just think her parents being nobodies is more interesting than her being a relative of somebody.
Oh, I agree. It's much better. But that should have set her character up to struggle to get to where she is. If she had started off trying and failing to begin with, and we could see her gaining her power, then it would've been great though. That's what I feel they've missed.
Very very very very easy. Approaching stupidly easy.
Comparatively very very hard and where pros earn their money and/or praise. (This is complex territory involving budgets, producers' ability to judge writing, legal/talent issues, investor sign-offs etc etc and that's on top of the aforementioned fact that it's the much much harder part of story-construction)
Not trying to let-off/make excuses for Abrams. He's done absolutely terribly and has zero artistic integrity after TFA. Actually negative artistic integrity. Especially if you include his Star Trek shenanigans.
That being said, he has some talent. It's just hard to tell how much. It's hard to tell if a person can write a symphony when the modern market rewards you exorbitantly for stringing together three minute repetitive AABA' pop song covers (TBF symphonies are structured similarly) into a 'reinterpreting some greatest hits' album. Then again I'm wayyyy too often accused of being too nice/trying to give people the benefit of the doubt.
Not bold. (know you weren't being literal) I think in this case a combination of ignorance/negligence by Kathleen Kennedy and the Lucasfilm story group. They're not equipped to address questions like the ones you raised. (JJ Abrams gets a semi-pass on this since he's clearly not unaware of the issue - regardless of the subjective qualities of his setups regarding that issue)
For omnipotence, the usual 'solution' - pretty much the only one, really - employed is to give the character social interaction issues from a spectrum a-la Sherlock/House MD; I'm-so-much-super-better-than-everyone-I-have-trouble-relating-aka-I'm-so-lonely-why-exactly-do-I-even-bother-trying-to-help-you-plebs. They actually worked with this a bit in Man of Steel.
On a Star-Wars related note, in East Asian mythologies/tropes (using 'trope' synonymously with 'established storytelling tool' here) this is why the 'great long-bearded master' is so often alone behind a waterfall deep in the mountains etc, having risen above 'competition' and above/away from self-image based on social comparison (cough-Obi-Wan/Yoda-cough) and which Luke becomes at the end of RotJ when he throws away his sword; he's realized his self and for him there is now no such thing as better/worse.
From this particular point you can also get into a discussion into Rian Johnson's professional integrity/stupidity when he flips this trope into the disillusioned/wounded has-been trope - the old alcoholic detective/swordsman/hockey player who comes out to right one last wrong/help the inner city ice hockey team etc - and tries to justify it as 'subverting expectations'. To the general public, this act is like a sort-of professional artist, who's sold a painting or two, turning a masterpiece upside down and claiming the act itself as intellectually/artistically relevant and then charging money for it. You either have to be ignorant of what you just did, or morally questionable, as you're relying on the ignorance of the buyer and/or harboring contempt for their lack of information.
TBF regarding Superman in JL (and progression through DoJ), that's actually a decent case of where they did try to address the issue of his omnipotence.
They had the basic story points/beats set up to try and give Superman some inner conflict: hardworking blue-collar Superman disillusioned/manipulated by and maligned before the megalomaniacal billionaire-class and constant corruption despite his everyman daily slog leading to why-should-I-help-humanity-when-the-'best'-of-them-become-monsters-like-this. Paranoid/terribly-scarred BW and kind-to-a-fault, raised-on-Americana CK finding they complement each other. It's very clear they intended the above juxtapositions; Bruce, one of the 'evil corporate guys/monsters' helps out Clark's mom out in the end etc. Again, all of this approaches stupidly easy to do.
Then they stumble horrifically in fleshing-out/executing/maintaining that conflict/tension and developing those relationships, leaving only those grandiose ideas and none of the required connective tissue. Which is actually kind of impressive considering how easy a setup theirs is to execute. It's actually sad. For example, everyone can point out that Superman fought the monster at the end. Not everyone can point out that flannel-and-jeans Clark Kent from Kansas fought TWO big-city billionaire-created monsters in that movie. They set up a lot of big ideas in that movie and then bowled a gutterball.
All that being said, the infamous 'more than half female! woohoo!' Star Wars Story Group had/has, IIRC, zero established professional writers on it.
If they read a post/criticism like yours they would likely not know they had such tools to work with. They were poorly equipped to oversee Abrams/Johnson and, ironically, likely to defer to the latter white males' opinions.
Last edited:
Actually I think it was his intention from way back when. At least since he wrote the prequels. There’s a scene he wrote for ROTS where Palpatine outright tells him he’s his daddy, but he felt it too similar to Empire so he added the opera scene instead where he merely hints at it.
Ugh. Making Palpatine this all foreseeing mastermind is just as boring as making Rey flawless.
Was there actually that much of a backlash against female characters? A lot of it seemed to come from them trying to deflect from their bad writing by blaming sexists and angry white males. I mean they were blaming the very people that grew up with characters like Ripley, Sarah Connor, Buffy and Leia.
It feels more like the other way around, they did a terrible job with the character then used any criticism of Rey as a shield. They got so wrapped up in writing a strong female that they forgot the character bit, then blamed everyone else when people didn't like it.
You're forgetting Finn can't pilot ships.
Don't feel bad thou, Rian Johnson forgot that too in TLJ.
But thats my point. Why not simply have his character as a pilot from the start. The only piloting Rey ever did was in Force Awakens after all, so just have Finn be the pilot and have Rey the gunner.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
I grew up on the prequels, but being a grown adult with even a small amount of critical thinking, I can recognise that they aren't as good as the 3 that came years before I was born.
For all the shit the prequels get, I really enjoyed return of the Sith. I’m in a minority though apparently.
Revenge of the Sith definitely has its moments ("Execute Order 66" is one of the best moments in the entire saga, the duel on Mustafar is great), and even Phantom Menace is good fun even if it is pretty mediocre, but man, Attack of the Clones...
The dual on Mustafar is dreadful over-choreographed indulgent nonsense.Revenge of the Sith definitely has its moments ("Execute Order 66" is one of the best moments in the entire saga, the duel on Mustafar is great), and even Phantom Menace is good fun even if it is pretty mediocre, but man, Attack of the Clones...
Attack of the Clones is, nonetheless, I agree, the worst of the prequels which is a highly competitive field.
I liked ROTS, although it was effected by the same things that plagued the 2 before it, namely poor dialogue and direction. The story itself was fine, which easily makes it the best prequel since there was no story in the others really.