And that's sad too. That shouldn't be happening.
I don't know if we've talked about this. I forget who I have had my discussions with
. But as I see it. In TLJ, Rian goes out of his way to make Rey fail. I mean she wants to bring Luke back, fails. (Sure she helped, but ultimately it's Yoda) Wants to be trained as a Jedi by Luke, fails. Wants to turn Ben, fails. Wants to discover her parents' identity, fails. The only thing she really succeded in doing is defeating some non-Force sensitive guards. Her big win that everyone brings up is her defeating Ben in TFA. (though technically it's the Force using her to defeat Ben) But Anakin and Luke both had their big win in the first movie. (Anakin had 2 actually) Rey defeating Ben is just her big win for the first film, making TFA rhyme with TPM and ANH.
Are those actually character failures though? Like does she herself fail and have very real repercussions of that failure in any real measurable way in which she then grows from? I honestly don't think so. And when you see her all excited at the end of TLJ shooting down ties x3 and such it becomes very strange to see her laughing and smiling when it's a point in the film/story where she should be at her lowest.
To compare, Lukes actual failure in ESB was overconfidence and underestimating how powerful his enemy was when he went to save his friends. Both Obi-wan, Yoda, and the vision in the cave well beforehand all acted as warnings to Luke which he flagrantly ignores, because hes young, naive and reckless. The very qualities Yoda pointed out to him earlier when he agreed to train him. This eventually leads him to being trapped, failing to save his friends, loses a hand and is defeated by Vader climaxing with him essentially throwing his life away rather than choosing to join the evil standing before him offering him a way out, only to have it be his fleeing friends be the ones that save him in the end. THAT is Failure and the kind of failure that is essential for a protagonist to feel human and be able to relate to.
This is what character arcs are made of, and Rey barely has any of it
Ridiculously powerful? Would we say that? We've seen other characters use the Force without any training. So that's not out of the ordinary.
The only amazing thing, maybe, is her ability with the lightsaber. But even then the TFA and TLJ showed us that she is a bad a** with the staff. So her skills with the staff and melee fighting along with the help of the Force, means she can pick up and use a completely foreign weapon that she's never used before. But we see the same with Anakin and Luke. Anakin and Luke are both very competent pilots. Anakin's piloting skills with some help from the Force, means he can fly two completely foreign craft that he's never flown before. And same with Luke, his piloting skills with some help from the Force, means he can fly a completely foreign craft that he's never flown before. Plus TFA already showed us, that like Anakin, Rey is been subconsciously drawing on the Force to assist her piloting skills. As shown with her own amazement with being able to fly the Falcon.
So I'm going to be completely honest here. I kinda hate this sort of reasoning simply because I find it is so oversimplified. It just comes off as an incredible stretch away from realism for me and I just find that frustrating.. more than likely one of those things we just wont agree on. To me, Rey's ability to use a staff (which is barely even seen in TFA mind you) in no way automatically = proficiency with a light saber. They just simply aren't the remotely the same weapons other than being melee weapons on their most face value and even then aren't even on the same level. It'd be like if I were proficient with Nun-chucks and you tossed me a katana. There's literally no reason you would expect me to know what I'm doing with something so different.. Just like her ripping junk out of downed star destroyers in no way explains her fixing the Falcon better than Han and Chewie could. As for people flying star ships being more proficient with them because of the force. I've never actually thought of it that way where the force was helping them beyond the moment in the death star trench run. Both had prior experience flying space craft and I would assume that just like we do with cars and planes, the controls would be
more or less fairly universal across the majority of them. IE I drive a Mustang, but I could just as easily hop behind the wheel of a Tesla and be pretty fine. Plain and simple things come to Rey infinitely easier than they have any of her predecessors and its enough of a separation from reality to make her not relatable for me because she feels more like Space ***** than a real person. Superman syndrome if you will.
That was a booboo with the choreography/editing. And something you can only see if you slow it down.(AT-AT Chat has a fun video on that I recommend watching) There is some many more booboos in the other films. The Prequels are the worst. Their sabers are swing clashing together way out in front of them, they couldn't kill the other person if they wanted to. Lightsabers magically swap hands. The choreography/editing in the prequels makes me shudder. And in ESB, Luke hit's Vader in the neck, but the sparks and smoke fly off of his pauldron
.
Anyways just some of my thoughts.
Oh I too truly hate the Prequel saber fighting for the exact reason of it being all flash and no substance so I'm right with you there, hahaha. I actually loved the return of the OT fighting style in TFA, and think it's a shame that it was reduced to what it was for TLJ. As for the Luke hitting Vader in the side of the head instead of the shoulder like he was supposed to, the editing team masked this choreography error pretty well by inserting a white frame in the moment Luke's saber makes contact obscuring the error, this is very minor if a real error at all. On the otherhand, Rey, our protagonist, only survives because this knife disapears. That is a HUGE error in the scene and I will never understand why they didn't reshoot this other than they hoped people wouldn't notice. That entire throneroom fight scene is a basket of horrors when you actually examine it
