General Star Wars Random Thoughts Thread — Page 330

Would you like some Lemonade, Darth? I made it just for you.

It was. Ben even let his buddy Darth win the second duel.

I just watched the star wars cartoon and I was wondering. Luke asks what R2 was saying. I thought in the movies he understood R2? Am I getting this wrong?

Luke only fully understands what R2 says when in the x-wing cockpit where a little screen shows text of what R2 is saying. Outside of that, neverar is right in that he only understands the general tone, but not the words.

As for Rey, it seems Poe also fully understands BB-8. I just chock it up to a new model that’s been made with a more easily learned droid language. I mean,the first iPhones didn’t have voice recognition or Siri. Now everyone’s phones can listen and talk back…

canofhumdingers said:

As for Rey, it seems Poe also fully understands BB-8. I just chock it up to a new model…

I chock it up to Rey & Poe bein’ a couple-a Mary Sues, amirite???
Who’s with me???

And here we go…

NeverarGreat said:

Rey understands Droid-speak, but I think she’s the only human who can do it 😉

I’m going to need citation on the part where you say Rey may be the only human that knows binary. If you’re right then that’s weird as shit.

We’re talking about humans who can speak to droids, not humans who can speak to animals.

I’d be interested to see if Luke can talk to R2 in TLJ.

NeverarGreat said:

Rey understands Droid-speak, but I think she’s the only human who can do it 😉
Luke only gets the gist of things like strong yes and no answers.

You’re exactly right. Luke even read the translation on his X-wing computer at times. He clearly only understood the gist of R2s beeps, the same way a human understands a cat or dog’s different meows and barks.

SilverWook said:

Obi Wan seemed to understand his Artoo unit in the prequels.

Well, the prequels are trash, so that doesn’t carry much weight.

If Han can understand Chewie, I don’t know why Luke couldn’t understand R2, honestly.

lovelikewinter said:

Maybe understanding droid is something the Jedi teach, along with the other skills. Poe would have learned it growing up with a pilot mom and when he trained it would probably come up. Rey might have learned it from Unkar Plot. Luke might not have had the time to learn it in the OT.

Regardless of who exactly Rey learned it from it is stated in the Visual Dictionary that she learned the language of the Wookies and Droid Binary during her time on Jakku. So in that department Rey is in the clear as far as that Mary Sue stuff goes.

Lord Haseo said:

lovelikewinter said:

Maybe understanding droid is something the Jedi teach, along with the other skills. Poe would have learned it growing up with a pilot mom and when he trained it would probably come up. Rey might have learned it from Unkar Plot. Luke might not have had the time to learn it in the OT.

Regardless of who exactly Rey learned it from it is stated in the Visual Dictionary that she learned the language of the Wookies and Droid Binary during her time on Jakku. So in that department Rey is in the clear as far as that Mary Sue stuff goes.

I think the criticism is that she can do everything, and knows everything, so giving an explanation for why she knows this or knows that, isn’t exactly addressing the criticism.

Alderaan said:

Lord Haseo said:

lovelikewinter said:

Maybe understanding droid is something the Jedi teach, along with the other skills. Poe would have learned it growing up with a pilot mom and when he trained it would probably come up. Rey might have learned it from Unkar Plot. Luke might not have had the time to learn it in the OT.

Regardless of who exactly Rey learned it from it is stated in the Visual Dictionary that she learned the language of the Wookies and Droid Binary during her time on Jakku. So in that department Rey is in the clear as far as that Mary Sue stuff goes.

I think the criticism is that she can do everything, and knows everything, so giving an explanation for why she knows this or knows that, isn’t exactly addressing the criticism.

From my recollection a Mary Sue is a character who is good at everything with no explanation and for the most part that doesn’t fit Rey. If you want to leave the Mary Sue shit out of this and talk about competency in general you would certainly have a case that Rey is really competent but she’s not a Mary Sue. She definitely has a couple Mary Suish traits though.

I don’t care for the term Mary Sue because it unnecessarily inserts gender into a conversation that can apply equally to male and female characters alike. But I don’t think the criticism has to do with no explanation offered. I think it has to do with lazy writing, and having a character who can do seemingly anything and everything whenever convenience calls for it.

Once you have established such a character and such a story, simply going back into the script and inserting an explanation for all of their endless abilities – seems to not address the problem in the first place.

Alderaan said:

I don’t care for the term Mary Sue because it unnecessarily inserts gender into a conversation that can apply equally to male and female characters alike. But I don’t think the criticism has to do with no explanation offered. I think it has to do with lazy writing, and having a character who can do seemingly anything and everything whenever convenience calls for it.

Once you have established such a character and such a story, simply going back into the script and inserting an explanation for all of their endless abilities – seems to not address the problem in the first place.

It’s only lazy writing if the explanations were mere after thoughts and not something integral to the character from her conception. There is no evidence to support our theories on how exactly Rey was written so for me all that matters is that her competency is explained and for the most part it is.