It’s so hard to put a finger on when Star Wars appears ridiculous or breaks its own supposed rules. Obviously it’s in the eye of the beholder.
I quite liked Rey’s power-levels in TFA because they provided something of a contrast to the Luke experience. Luke was basically a nice suburban kid who was introduced to his Jedi heritage (and potential) in a very linear way. Given that the saga overall has established that certain folks have a knack for this stuff (not thrilled with Midichlorians but anyway…) I love the idea of a potential Jedi honing their abilities completely under the duress of the school of hard knocks. Rey learns to fight and to sense danger because it’s basically do or die. She learns skills like languages and mechanics because she needs every advantage. It’s an interesting idea.
I think my limit in TLJ was the rocks scene. Maybe I need another viewing (I don’t recall any build-up or implied effort, but I could be completely wrong here!) but this just seemed to say “yep, Rey can do anything folks”. It’s hard NOT to consider the precedent set by the previous films on this one. Fighting skills are one thing - it’s easy to imagine Luke gaining such skills had he gone through Rey-like experiences in life. But she never needed to levitate stuff on Jakku. Yoda’s lifting Luke’s X-wing in the swamp was clearly a demonstration of mastery - a kind of faraway point for Luke to aspire to in some distant future if he really knuckled down and applied some serious discipline. Rey defies all this and simply…does it. In the scene she looks as surprised as I was!
The new movies seem to be confused about how they want to depict the Force. They’re edging away from the ‘chosen one’ crap of the Midichlorian-era and returning to the ‘energy field’ we all know and love, yet they also seem to be saying that Force powers are springing up everywhere for no other reason than the Force itself likes to balance itself vicariously through random folks.
Like I said, I’m due another viewing of TLJ, but I’m not sure how I feel about all of this. Fun to discuss though!