Ranking the Star Wars films — Page 109

MaximRecoil said:

A lot of words

Holy shit.

Can we instaban anyone who uses the term Mary Sue? Honestly if for no other reason than it dregs up the same tired arguments we’ve been through for the last two years.

SilverWook said:

Getting thrown into a bar table is being beaten up?

If you put someone on the floor, whether via a punch, push, or throw, and they show no indication of being willing or able to fight back, what do you call it? Legally it would be considered assault and/or battery. He was still on the floor until Obi-Wan helped him up after cutting the guy’s arm off, about 30 seconds later, more than long enough to have been “counted out” had it been a refereed fight, which is considered a “knockout”.

Either way, regardless of what you call it, it doesn’t change the point.

adywan said:

The term “Mary Sue” is a misogynistic term, no matter how much you want to pussy foot around it by saying its used for men too. Because it isn’t anywhere near as often as it is towards a female character. . It was used against Rey for the sole fact that she was female by all those idiots that saw her as nothing more than the “Disney agenda” of giving females a strong role. Same crap was thrown at the main character of Rogue One. The second someone uses the term “Mary sue” invalidates any argument.

Ah, sanity.

MaximRecoil said:

NeverarGreat said:
http://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1069656

Rey is more of a Mary Sue than the Mary Sue for which the trope was named, which is funny, considering that, that Mary Sue was already intended to be an exaggerated parody of that type of character. The Mary Sue in the trope-naming parody had at least been through Starfleet Academy, while Rey was nothing more than a scavenger. You’d be hard pressed to find a more blatant Mary Sue than Rey anywhere, even if you look in fan fiction.

This is from a post on another forum, comparing Rey to Luke, by a poster with the username Jedan_Archer:

Quote:

Luke goes indeed from zero to hero (Hero’s journey character). If you really put ANH-Luke and TFA-Rey together, it becomes evident. Most important elements are:

• Rey understands all languages, including Wookie (!) and droid speak (!!) - Luke does not;

• Rey is a formidable fighter beating up thugs and scaring scavengers away from their loot - Luke is not, he is beaten up several times (by the sand people & in the bar) and is in need of protection and help throughout the movie (Han, Obi Wan);

• Rey despite being raised by ruthless scavengers such as Unkar Putt has developed an superhuman morality motivating her to starve rather than to betray a little droid she just met – Luke treats droids like property/slaves;

• Rey immediately is an (untrained) formidable marks man hitting everything at a great distance while running away and shooting a stranger’s gun; Rey can even (incredibly) aim with the turret while she is piloting - Luke cannot, he is an average shot at best missing many shots;

• People and droids follow Rey like puppies, especially BB-8 (who is useless because Rey does all mechanics/engineering and door opening alone) – Luke seems not to have this fascinating effect, his droid R2 tricks him and runs away from him;

• Rey wants to stay home but only leaves for loyalty to her new friends and destiny - Luke wants to leave home, but stays out of weakness and loyalty (Owen/Beru);

• Rey is her own master and independent – Luke is not;

• Rey is an ace climber and spelunker - Luke is not;

• Rey the scavenger is an incredible ace pilot: Without a copilot or any experience with the ship she masterfully pilots the bulky Falcon through an abandoned destroyer and graveyard under fire outmaneuvering trained combat pilots - Luke does not even understand how the cockpit of the MF works (“what’s that flashing?”);

• While flying alone, Rey performs incredible stunt piloting moves, including aligning the Falcon in midair so that Finn just has to pull the trigger (“How did you do that? - I don’t know – That was some flying – It was PERFECT”) - Luke however is mocked, derided and not allowed to pilot, despite being set up as a pilot; and even in empty space in his X-Wing Luke needs constant assistance from R2 and other pilots and Han, who sacrifice themselves for him.

• Rey circumvents the security of Starkiller so that the explosive charges can be placed and the SK base be destroyed - Luke has no such abilities, he needs R2 to get saved from the trash compactor;

• Rey saves herself out of captivity, and only does not flee so that the team can blow up Starkiller, without her they would be lost - Luke plan to save Leia is amateurish and Leia takes over the lead when his poorly thought out plan fails miserably;

• Rey is an incredible mechanic and even a brilliant engineer stunning even Han (“I bypassed the compressor”) - Luke does not show such talents;

• Rey can do advanced Jedi Force tricks without training, like telekinesis, mind tricks, mind reading etc - Luke needs training for very basic Force abilities (knowing when to shoot the torpedo), and only reaches Rey’s ability level when he is a trained Jedi;

• Rey beats the main antagonist (Kylo, Master of the Ren) several times with untrained Force and sword skills - Luke does not even come near the main antagonist (Vader), except for being nearly shot down by him and being saved by others;

• Rey is better with everything and bests everyone at their game (Han, Finn, Kylo, droids etc), even Luke & Poe were partially removed from the script so they cannot steal her spotlight; everybody becomes her cheerleader (Leia, Chewie, Finn etc) - Luke is a whiny, reckless loser at the beginning: Han is cooler, Obi is more powerful, Leia his sister is lightyears ahead of him (Leader, senator), his friends such as Biggs are ahead of him too;

• Rey is the only hot young girl around with a posh accent - Luke is an average small farmboy, one of many kids, who mostly left him behind already;

• Rey gets a glorification hug for no apparent reason from the VIP Resistance leader (Leia) instead of her old friend Chewie or all the returning heroes who Leia leads - Luke does not get any unwarranted hugs but after he succeeds and after he becomes friends with the huggers (Leia/Han);

• Rey becomes captain of the MF after Han’s death, stepping over Chewie who “likes her” and looks at her in an adoring way (like everybody else, the Rebels are even waving her collectively goodbye when she leaves) - Luke does not get any positions and is violently pushed away by Chewie;

• Rey is sent on the most important mission to find Luke, leaving all his friend and family behind her - Luke does not get any solo missions;

• Rey is so important and special that even long lost light sabers and dead VIP masters like Obi Wan and Yoda call out to her - nobody really calls out to Luke;

• Rey is desired by everybody, but she is hard to get: she either friend zones or emasculates the characters who are fascinated by her - Luke does not even get the girl in the end. In the end, Rey gets Han’s gun and ship, Luke’s light saber and R2-droid, and Chewie as a copilot - and she finds MacGuffin-Luke: she is the SOLE HEIR and SAVIOUR of the SW UNIVERSE - Luke gets a medal, but only next to Han, who already is successfully flirting with Luke’s wanna-be girlfriend and sister!

And this is why rey is as boring as hell. She also exudes a meanness that I just can’t stand.

Rey is mean? Well that’s a new one at least.

MaximRecoil said:

SilverWook said:

Getting thrown into a bar table is being beaten up?

If you put someone on the floor, whether via a punch, push, or throw, and they show no indication of being willing or able to fight back, what do you call it? Legally it would be considered assault and/or battery. He was still on the floor until Obi-Wan helped him up after cutting the guy’s arm off, about 30 seconds later, more than long enough to have been “counted out” had it been a refereed fight, which is considered a “knockout”.

Either way, regardless of what you call it, it doesn’t change the point.

30 seconds? I’d be surprised if it was even 10, and he’s already up and okay.

adywan said:

Wrong. She attempts to fire the pistol at the Maz’s castle attack and forgets the safety is on. Then fires and misses before hitting the trooper and then runs away when the other troopers start firing.

Exactly. She goes from a complete novice who has never fired a gun, to an expert after missing just one shot (every subsequent shot was a hit).

And Rey never fires the turret at any time in the movie. Finn is the one using the turret gun

He said “aim the turret while piloting”, which she most certainly did, in one of the most blatant Mary Sue moments of the whole movie.

Rey does not leave out of loyalty. The second they escape the planet, and throughout, she wants to return home but circumstances prevent this. It’s only later on in the film that she decides to stay.

No one was after her initially, they were after the BB8 droid. If not for loyalty to the droid and to Finn she could have simply gone about her scavenging business and she wouldn’t have been involved in any of the events.

And yet he was able to masterfully fly an X-wing, a ship that he had no experience with and had only ever flown a speeder in atmosphere, whereas Rey had said she had piloted ships, albeit only in atmosphere as well…

Luke didn’t masterfully fly the X-wing. He almost crashed (“I got a little cooked but I’m okay”) and was saved by others from being shot down, most notably by Han Solo when Darth Vader had him locked on target and was about to pull the trigger. Additionally, Biggs vouched for Luke when the leader questioned whether he could handle the X-wing: “Sir, Luke is the best bush pilot in the outer rim territories,” which establishes that his existing piloting experience is relevant to piloting an X-wing.

The term “Mary Sue” is a misogynistic term,

That assertion has already been confuted, which negates it. The definition refers to a type of character, without regard to the character’s sex:

A Mary Sue is an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character. Often, this character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment.[1] They can usually perform better at tasks than should be possible given the amount of training or experience. Sometimes, the name is reserved only for women, but more often the name is used for both sexes. A male can also be referred to as a Gary Stu, but more commonly either sex is called a Mary Sue. [2][3]

no matter how much you want to pussy foot around it by saying its used for men too. Because it isn’t anywhere near as often as it is towards a female character. . It was used against Rey for the sole fact that she was female by all those idiots that saw her as nothing more than the “Disney agenda” of giving females a strong role. Same crap was thrown at the main character of Rogue One. The second someone uses the term “Mary sue” invalidates any argument.

First of all, the term isn’t applied to many characters at all (at least not correctly), because Mary Sue characters typically only exist in bad fan fiction which hardly anyone reads. Note that no one (that I know of) calls Ellen Ripley from Alien, or Sarah Connor from Terminator 2 a Mary Sue. I haven’t seen any significant number of people referring to the main character of Rogue One as a Mary Sue either. Rey turned the formerly obscure “Mary Sue” term into a household term, even though she wasn’t even close to being the first female lead in a major movie. This negates your assertions, but more importantly, your demonstrably false premise negates your assertions.

Possessed said:

30 seconds? I’d be surprised if it was even 10, and he’s already up and okay.

I checked the time before I posted. It was close to 30 seconds between the time that he was pushed and the time that Obi-Wan helped him up.

adywan said:

Maybe you should go back and watch the film. Rey fires twice before hitting the first trooper and then fires twice to hit the second one and then runs off.

No, she fires once to hit the second one. You’re confusing the sound of the trooper firing at her as she’s turning to fire, for her having fired twice. Watch it frame by frame.

Both times she misses with her first shot.

No, only on her first shot did she miss. See above.

Then the next time she shoot a gun is when Kylo is approaching her and he is originally just a few feet from her, yet she still doesn’t get a hit (kylo doesn’t even deflect all of them as her shots hit the rocks next to him)and, when he finally gets her trapped it is still hit and miss.

That’s not the next time she shoots. She hits another trooper with one shot, and that was with a quick turn-around shot no less. As for Kylo Ren, it had already been established in the movie that he can use the force to manipulate fired blaster bolts, to the point of even freezing them in mid-air for an extended period of time, so there’s no way to know if her aim is off or if he’s altering the course of the bolt.

Next time she even fires a gun is when Han is killed and her aim is all over the place. Finn is also firing and yet they only manage to hit 2 troopers, and that could have been Finn hitting his mark.

They don’t even show where her shots were going in that scene. They showed her firing but kept the camera on her, and when they did cut away they showed two troopers getting shot, with no indication of who fired the shots. In other words, that scene is irrelevant, because the camera didn’t show whether she hit anything or not.

MaximRecoil said:

• Rey immediately is an (untrained) formidable marks man hitting everything at a great distance while…

It’s “markswoman” you sexist misognyst!

😛 (kidding)

But no, Rey is not a Mary Sue. There are some definite convenient coincidences and plot holes when measured against the OT lore but they are plainly just lazy plot devices or writing.

I’m not sure where the sexist and misognyst claims about using the Mary Sue descriptor come from on this site though as it’s the first place I’ve encountered such comments about it. I don’t link any particular gender with it when I see it used (despite the obviously female name due to I believe the term’s origins) except for the gender of the person it is being referred to by. It’s simply a term describing the way a character is written into a story.

You could use the Gary Stu term for a male if you wanted to be more politically correct but the original term has long been gender nonspecific and therefore should be used without fear of offending anyone anyway. As long as it is being used in the spirit and sense of the term’s meaning I’m not ever going to be offended by it’s use in constructive debate. If I were to detect that it is being used with inappropriate intent though to be purposefully sexist or offensive then I would object and reprimand the abuser.

The matter simply strikes me as another example of misplaced and overzealous feminism where you can’t say a female character is a Mary Sue simply because they both originate from the female gender. It’s like you can’t say an orange is orange and instead must instead say it yellow with purple polka dots to avoid offending everyone, even though you would just as soon say a mandarin is orange as well…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

A Mary Sue is an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character. Often, this character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment. They can usually perform better at tasks than should be possible given the amount of training or experience. Sometimes, the name is reserved only for women, but more often the name is used for both sexes.

I do understand it can be an easy throw away statement for some people when debating an issue that clearly doesn’t fit the picture, but I would just respectfully state that you disagree and move on as we’ve all seen how debates devolve into petty arguments when going back on forth on whether someone qualifies as a Mary Sue or arguing the merits of using such a term as we are seeing here.

.Val

adywan said:
…yet was able to expertly shoot out the door controls from the other side of the hangar bay with one shot?

I just realised something when you mentioned the above which at least for this scene, explains somewhat why Storm Troopers are such bad shots. As you say, Luke one shots the door controls as well as taking out 2 or 3 Storm Troopers all the while they can’t hit the side of a barn. You’ll notice a difference though in the way each are firing their weapons - Luke actually aims his gun by bringing it up in front of his face. I wouldn’t say he is using the scope but he could very well be said to be iron / barrel sighting it to an extent which would account for much greater accuracy whereas all the Storm Troopers in this scene are firing from the hip and it’s in a surprised and panicked state as they are caught off guard and attacked, quickly loosing multiple fellow troopers.

Obviously the combat scenario and mental state of these particular Storm Troopers doesn’t extend to others throughout the movies but the hip firing does as it’s not very often at all that you see any of them taking a proper aim.

Anyway, just a random thought I had while reading your post 😉

.Val

I think the argument does have some merit, and shouldn’t be outright dismissed.

And about Luke not actually being a great pilot because he gets helped a couple times, agree you forgetting he and wedge are the only ones who even survive?

I have heard many men call female characters a Mary Sue. The only time I’ve ever heard anyone call someone a Gary Stu is in a sad desperate attempt to defend their use of Mary Sue.

You want to argue that Rey does not earn her abilities? I disagree with you, but feel free to make the argument.

You want to do it in a derogatory way? Congratulations.

Also, rating TFA a -1/10 has always been and will continue to be nothing more than a troll move to illicit negative reactions. So again, congratulations.