I liked Star Wars:TFA but....characterization

[kris40k]

*Sees numerous complaints about how Rey was immediately awesome with the Force and fighting and how it was unrealistic*

*sighs*

I can't tell if people don't pay too much attention to shit or if I just read too much into certain scenes.

Spoiler: spoilered for size

The flashback scene where Rey grabs the lightsaber kind of sums it all up to me, but I find all arguments against her overlook this completely. Simply put, she didn't immediately get good with the force in a handful of minutes. She has been trained to an extent by Luke alongside Kylo Ren and other former (now dead) jedi kids at a young age.

What likely happened (and will be explained soon enough) is that Kylo was falling behind in Luke's class. Getting angry and frustrated with his shortcomings, he tapped into the Dark Side and joined the first order. He began reliving his grandfather's past by murdering children as well. Somehow Rey survives this (again, she's still a child) and is sent away with her memory erased and her powers suppressed (think Superman mental suppression). These memories AWAKEN when she touches the lightsaber and her powers are forced out when Kylo tries to invade her mind, likely a defensive measure Luke left behind in case she was ever captured by Kylo.

Ergo, she might be highly skilled and possibly a prodigy. But she didn't just master the skill in this movie. She trained with Luke before shit got real and had her powers restored to her once specific triggers took place. And it wasn't that she was winning the lightsaber fight against Kylo either. She was actually on the losing end until another trigger (Kylo mentioning the force) gave her the idea to let the force simply guide her through the remainder of the fight. While Kylo used his rage and aggression to overpower her, she used the force to simply turn that against him and not necessarily win, but fend him off so she could escape. This was meant to demonstrate that she isn't more powerful, but more in line with the jedi way of using the force.

Or at least those are my thoughts. But I find it hard to believe I'm the only one who looked that deep into what was shown and no one else is voicing anything similar to this.

I'll admit that it is a very interesting theory you have there, however I think you might be reading too much into it. But hey, nice head-canon. If you are right, I'll come back to this after Ep 8 and give you a round of applause for calling it.

That said, even if you are right, it doesn't make it good filmaking. When leaving out important info from the audience on purpose, the writers and director need to be careful of how they handle that, as it can impact the enjoyment of the movie. This very thread is an example of that if you are right in your guess as people are getting different impressions about it. Another example I can offer is my own from watching Fight Club

Spoiler: Fight Club Continuity Problem/Spoiler

In Fight Club, there is a scene where the protagonist and Tyler Durden (along with two others) are driving in a car and they purposely let the car crash. Leading up to the crash, they make a point of putting on their seat belts. The car goes off the road, and rolls a few times before coming to a stop. Tyler and the protagonist then crawl out of the car from the wrong sides. Being that they were belted in, and it showed the crash from the inside of the car as it occured, they didn't swap sides. I paused and re-winded the movie when I saw it happen, and was lamenting to my friend (who was in on the movie's secret) about how it was an amateurish continuity problem, considering the director made a point of showing them belt themselves down and showing the crash in detail. He was grinning and agreed I was right but to keep watching anyways. Of course, at the end of the movie, there is an explanation for why that happened, but at that very moment I was taken out of the movie by what I felt was shitty work when it was in fact due to lack of information of what was "really happening."

PS Fight Club is awesome.

 

[minkus_draconus]

http://imgur.com/gallery/7EhqwbF

Sums up the arguments here, settles them better than here, and has a voting system to show just how crazy and fringe some here are.

enjoy it.

One of the sub posts there gives an excellent reason why Ren lost the fight (besides being emotionally messed up and having been shot in the gut with the "FU cannon") IMO.

"He was also low on conditioner."

 

[MishaK]

http://imgur.com/gallery/7EhqwbF

Sums up the arguments here, settles them better than here, and has a voting system to show just how crazy and fringe some here are.

enjoy it.

One of the sub posts there gives an excellent reason why Ren lost the fight (besides being emotionally messed up and having been shot in the gut with the "FU cannon") IMO.

"He was also low on conditioner."

His dress was really lovely though, very hippy without being too broad.

#Fabulous

 

[maninahat]

I'm glad someone brought up the Max Landis's argument about Rey being a Mary Sue... I don't think she is, and I think he is misapplying the term. She is no different from Luke Skywalker or Harry Potter or any other fantasy/sci-fi protagonist who is somehow simultaneously an everyman normal guy yet also the center of the Universe and capable of loads of amazing things. If you were to put any of these characters into a Mary Sue identifying checklist they would come out with a high score, but they are still not Mary Sues. They are not what that term implies - a Mary Sue is a badly written, indulgent author insertion character produced by amateurs who want to be the center of someone else's story. James Bond is an indulgent, but not in someone else's adventure. Harry Potter is unnaturally gifted and important, but the writing is good enough to acknowledge that he isn't the be-all-end-all, and more importantly he doesn't want to be.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the people who not only think Finn wasn't a retardedly written character, but the best in the movie?

JJ gives us this Storm Trooper who was kidnapped as a child and brainwashed into being this merciless soldier and after his first taste at combat where a fellow Trooper died essentially in his arms and watched an innocent village getting mowed down and he turns into typical joke cracking black guy who's nothing but cringeworthy as fuck?

Jar Jar was more logical than this shit.

Look... that's all very true now that I think about it.

However, "Droid Please!" was a really really funny line.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

I'm glad someone brought up the Max Landis's argument about Rey being a Mary Sue... I don't think she is, and I think he is misapplying the term. She is no different from Luke Skywalker or Harry Potter or any other fantasy/sci-fi protagonist who is somehow simultaneously an everyman normal guy yet also the center of the Universe and capable of loads of amazing things. If you were to put any of these characters into a Mary Sue identifying checklist they would come out with a high score, but they are still not Mary Sues. They are not what that term implies - a Mary Sue is a badly written, indulgent author insertion character produced by amateurs who want to be the center of someone else's story. James Bond is an indulgent, but not in someone else's adventure. Harry Potter is unnaturally gifted and important, but the writing is good enough to acknowledge that he isn't the be-all-end-all, and more importantly he doesn't want to be.

Appeals to definitions don't really work here since the term Mary Sue is somewhat ill defined. What you've just said is simply one of the different definitions that get used, and since so many are using it this way then it seems pretty apparent that this is far from a niche usage.

 

[maninahat]

I'm glad someone brought up the Max Landis's argument about Rey being a Mary Sue... I don't think she is, and I think he is misapplying the term. She is no different from Luke Skywalker or Harry Potter or any other fantasy/sci-fi protagonist who is somehow simultaneously an everyman normal guy yet also the center of the Universe and capable of loads of amazing things. If you were to put any of these characters into a Mary Sue identifying checklist they would come out with a high score, but they are still not Mary Sues. They are not what that term implies - a Mary Sue is a badly written, indulgent author insertion character produced by amateurs who want to be the center of someone else's story. James Bond is an indulgent, but not in someone else's adventure. Harry Potter is unnaturally gifted and important, but the writing is good enough to acknowledge that he isn't the be-all-end-all, and more importantly he doesn't want to be.

Appeals to definitions don't really work here since the term Mary Sue is somewhat ill defined. What you've just said is simply one of the different definitions that get used, and since so many are using it this way then it seems pretty apparent that this is far from a niche usage.

What you say is true, but then the term becomes useless once it has been applied to something like every main character in every story. Max Landis is trying to use it in a disparaging sense here, yet what he is criticizing is the standard for most protagonists...and I don't think he thinks those are all Mary Sues.

 

[minkus_draconus]

http://imgur.com/gallery/7EhqwbF

Sums up the arguments here, settles them better than here, and has a voting system to show just how crazy and fringe some here are.

enjoy it.

One of the sub posts there gives an excellent reason why Ren lost the fight (besides being emotionally messed up and having been shot in the gut with the "FU cannon") IMO.

"He was also low on conditioner."

His dress was really lovely though, very hippy without being too broad.

#Fabulous

When he first took off his helmet I had two thoughts.
1. What is Snape doing here?
2. What lovely locks! (see Pixar movie Brave where the suitors are being introduced)