Just like VIII would explain Rey’s magical force powers?
All force powers are magical.
I meant how she magically acquired them.
The reason is there if you bother to look and think. Imagining that Luke’s training was typical or normal is the first problem. And then realizing that we’ve never seen anyone else’s training in the films. So Rey is only the second Jedi we have followed through the process. I’m not sure how many times Yoda has to point out the flaws in Luke’s thinking for people to realize that Yoda was desperate or Luke would never have been trained at all.
I just don’t buy your reasoning. Rey copying Kylo doesn’t work for me, because watching someone walking a tightrope, doesn’t mean I can also instantly do it. Like I said learning to access and use the Force was intimately connected to personal growth in both the OT and the PT. That element has now been completely removed. The Force awakens in you, because it somehow needs to be in balance, which would then also mean, since it awoke in Rey to counter Kylo, the Force has somehow also predetermined she’s to be or is a force for good. Though I’m not a big fan of the PT’s Chosen One angle, that at least questioned the whole idea of believing in a prophecy predicting balance, and whether the end justifies the means. Anakin did bring balance to the Force, but at a terrible price. Was Anakin created by the Sith? It was hinted at, and Lucas ultimately decided to leave it as a question mark. So, was he ultimately a force for good, or evil? With Rey it thusfar seems pretty well answered, as in my view she’s never been seriously tempted.
I think you’re making a false comparison. Walking a tightrope is a very specified skill that takes a lot of balance. It’s something very artificial because you don’t find tightropes in nature. However if you compare to other things like painting, drawing, singing, math, pod racing, flying, building things, and a host of other items, there’s a lot more realism in what they’ve done with Rey than you seem to give them credit for. People try something and discover that the course they’ve taken in life has prepared them for it and they’re good at it from the moment they start. I’m not saying that Rey is just picking up these skills on the Fly, I’m saying that her life on Jakku prepared her and that she started out in tune with nature and the force even though she didn’t know how to use it and when she sees kylo use it she can see what he’s doing and is copying him, and if it first she doesn’t get it right she does it again until she does get it right. It’s almost as if she can see what he’s doing on a level that lets her copy it precisely. Sort of like if you’re a computer programmer and you’re watching over someone shoulders as they write code that you’ve never tried to do before and you see exactly what they’re doing and so you go to your computer and you try to do the same thing and it doesn’t work the first time but then you to do it again and get it right. It is an unusual though not unheard of ability and we are seeing it in action with the force. Where Luke’s background on Tatooine did not prepare him. Yoda had to retrain him. He had doubts he had dreams and they all got in the way of him accessing the force. When he needed it and didn’t doubt it it was there. But when he thought the X-Wing was too big he couldn’t lift it. Rey sees how Kylo does things so she knows it can be done, sees how to do it, then does it herself. It is not magic. The force is often equated with magic, but the way Rey is picking up these skills is totally believable.
The old Jedi training (which we have never seen in it’s entirety) begins early in childhood. Even 9 year-old Anakin is too old. It progresses, teaching them how to access the force and what they can do with it in a slow methodical process to avoid the temptation of the dark side and build a sure and confident Jedi. The closest we have gotten to that is in Rebels. Ezra has been picking up things faster and easier than Luke. Rey is basically a force genius. Nothing magical about it at all. Let’s take a real world example. T.E. Lawrence was a cartographer. He became a great leader. What training did he have in being a general? He was just a lieutenant. He certainly had no experience. Yet the failures he encountered were not at the beginning. Then let’s take Einstein an his theory of relativity. He came up with the idea in a bus and turned his daydream into provable mathmatic equations. When they make movies about them do they bother explaining how they learn? Nope. They focus on their personal development. Sometime learning a skilled is the story, sometimes that comes too easy and the interesting story lies in other parts of their life. We spent one movie watching Luke struggle to overcome his doubts. Doing it again would be repetative. We skipped that part of Anakin’s life. With Rey, the interesting part is not her learning the force, but her role in the Skywalker saga as the foil to Kylo and part of the Resistance/Rebellion.
You seem to forget, that even Einstein went to school. Genius doesn’t just magically happen. It’s not like some random bus driver suddenly invents the theory of relativity. Einstein didn’t invent his theory, and then go to a physics professor, and tell him or her, the knowledge just awoke in him, and he was afraid. Genius is an extreme of talent, but it is not boundless, and it doesn’t happen instanteously, as it does with Rey. There’s no level of understanding with Rey, as there is with genius, no learning curve. That’s not how genius works, or the Force.
TLJ is different, not because it tells a very different story set in the same universe. It tells a very similar story set in a different universe. The Star Wars universe and it’s rules were broken to force different outcomes in almost identical situations. TLJ is a mix of TESB and ROTJ set in an alternate universe with similar aesthetics. The most obvious example is the character of Luke , who was deconstructed and then reassembled to fit into this alternate universe, as an alternate nihilist Yoda. You accept the alternate universe, then you accept this Luke Skywalker, but for people like me he’s a different character.
You aren’t even making sense. You are stuck with an impression that many do not agree with. If you watch eps 4, 5, and 8 together, you will see one Luke. One. You have imagined Luke from how he acts in ROTJ. That is the confident, self assured Luke. The Luke we get in TLJ is the same doubting one we get in ANH, and TESB. The same. Why? Because he self assurance was broken by the events that came before TFA. Nothing is broken or rewritten. Rian Johnson is a Star Wars fan and told a story that fits better with the OT than TFA does.
There’s a reason there’s an episode 6. The Luke in eps 4, 5, and 6 has an arc. The Luke of episode 5 is not the Luke from episode 4. The Luke from episode 5 is a leader of the rebellion, as is evident in the battle of Hoth, something he learned in the battle of Yavin, when he had to take charge after red leader was killed. The Luke of episode 5 has learned more about the Force through self-learning. The Luke in episode 6 has gone through the ordeal of discovering Vader is his father. He overcame that shattering experience. He has grown in his abilities and his confidence, and is trying to cope with the knowledge of his evil father. His way to cope with such tragedy is to try and fix the situation, to redeem his father, and he succeeds. Episode 6 tells us how Luke deals with tragedy. He doesn’t run away from it, or hide under a rock. He faces his problems, and solves them. You’re willfully ignoring Luke’s arc from eps 4-6, because it doesn’t fit your narrative. Your argument is that there’s one Luke in eps 4 and 5, and another one in 6. This is just wrong. Luke’s arc in eps 4-6 has him experience great tragedy, and it tells us how the character of Luke operates under those conditions. To me and a lot of other fans RJ’s version of Luke does not fit his arc in eps 4-6.
As for genius, Good Will Hunting. There is such a thing as self-taught or experience taught. You do not have to go to school and study in a prescribed manner to be a genius and be able to do what people who have gone to school for a decade to learn to do. Good Will Hunting is fiction, but real people like that exist.
Self-taught is a form of learning that takes time. You can have all the talent in the world, but you either get taught or you teach yourself. In either case it takes time. One aspect of genius is, that it takes less time, but it still takes time to learn new things. Rey does not meet those criteria. She’s not been taught, and she’s not self-taught. She just instantaneously knows, and doesn’t understand how. That is not genius. That’s magic.
Rey is one of those with the force. Her life on Jakku, by a lucky chance, trained her in the way she needed to be able to pick up these skills from Kylo Ren. You, in virtually every post, have described a preconception you came to the movie with that the movie blew apart and you don’t like it. You have yet to prove that it is not logical to the Star Wars universe. Abrams did pass all his ides past Lucas for what is and is not possible with the Force and apparently Lucas approved it. You had the expectation that Rey would have the same difficult journey to becoming a Jedi that Luke had. That is an expectation on your part and in no way means the movie is flawed. The movie went a different direction. Learning the Force is like any other skill. You can learn it in school or learn it in the school of life.
Rey did not learn the Force. She just knows. It wasn’t available to her before, and alakazam, it suddenly is. As she states in TLJ. Something has awakened inside me, something I don’t understand, and I’m afraid. Everything she said is at odds with your interpretation.
Luke had all the wrong lessons the Yoda had to correct (which is there in the TESB dialog) and Rey had all the right lessons. Rey has the patience Luke lacked (demonstrated by waiting for her parents to come back for a decade), she has the disciple Luke lacked (demonstrated by having to work hard to find usable parts just to eat), Rey has the fighting skill (demonstrated by how she defends BB-8). Rey comes to the story already trained in most of the way that Luke lacked. It was not something we are told, but something we are shown. Luke struggled to get to the right place to utilize the force properly, Rey is there already and just needs someone to show her what she can do.
She has patience, so she should be able to teach herself, but she doesn’t. She just knows. The Force put it in her head, just like that. This has nothing to do with her experience on Jakku. It awoke inside her, as a reaction to Kylo Ren, and then she could do this amazing stuff, just like a super hero. Ordinary person one moment, deux ex machina later a super hero.
Luke needed a patient teacher and Rey needs a powerful example. They are very different characters and their ability to tap the force starts at a very different place. I can find no way to follow your logic except by ignoring what I have seen and heard in TESB and TFA. You seem to be blinded by how Luke appears in ROTJ. That Luke was strong in the force and riding a wave of success and had confidence.
Riding a wave of success? Luke has experienced the most devastating upset in his life. Everything he believed in was a lie. He spent his life trying to follow in his father’s footsteps, only to discover his father was the second most evil person in the galaxy, a father who maimed him, by cutting off his hand. That experience could have broken him, but it didn’t. He used the experience to grow beyond his father, and ultimately became an example to his father, who then followed in Luke’s footsteps, and was redeemed. That was Luke’s arc. He went to hell, and found his way back, not only for himself, but also for his father. This experience made him a Jedi.
He was ready to face Vader and Palpatine. The Luke we get in TFA and TLJ is broken, wounded by betrayal and failure. He is lost. He has closed himself off from the force and is blind to the plight of the galaxy. He is the same Luke from the OT, but broken by what happened. Given his personality in ANH and TESB, this is entirely a logical turn of events.
No, because we already know from ROTJ, that Luke can experience great personal tragedy, and become stronger, that Luke would not be broken by his nephews betrayal, as he wasn’t by his father’s. Therefore, Luke’s journey in TLJ is not logical, and is inconsistent with his arc in the OT.
You may not agree, but the logic you have posted leaves a lot to be desired.
Not at all. Your posts show, that you’re willing to ignore Luke’s arc from eps 4-6 in order for 8 to make sense. To you there’s one Luke of 4,5, and 8, while 6 is the outlier. This is wrong in my view. There’s not one Luke from 4, 5, and 8. There’s a logical evolution of the character from 4 to 6, and 8 is the outlier, the one that breaks with the trend set by 4-6. Luke was a caterpillar in 4, was in a cocoon in 5, and became a butterflie in 6. Then he’s a dung beetle in 8. Why? Because Rey presents him with nectar at the end of 7, and at the beginning of 8 he just tosses it away, because he knows, he’s now only allowed to eat ****.
I’ve been watching Star Wars since I was 7. I saw the original 10 times before TESB came out and I bought the video tapes as soon as I had a VCR. I bought the widescreen version as soon as it was available on VHS. I played with the action figures. I read the books, owned the comics. The characters are like old friends. The Luke I saw in TLJ was familiar and like a friend down on his luck. I see a film made by a fan for fans who didn’t want to see a rehash of old material (the single biggest complaint about TFA). I see a filmmaker who didn’t like Abrams mystery boxes any more than I did. I see Abrams as the flawed filmmaker, not RJ. Abrams gave us a lackluster installment and RJ gave us a return to quality story telling. As I said, you may not agree. I just disagree with the logic you present. I can’t follow it because it doesn’t match the Star Wars I grew up with and have spent so much time trying to make presentable so I can share it with my kids. People fail, even icons. All TLJ does is remind us that Luke is human.
I’ve been around since before the first film’s release in 1977. Most of us have owned every version of the OT available. We’ve played with the action figures, and consider these characters as part of our family. This doesn’t buy me extra credibility credits, and it doesn’t do for you, or anyone else. You have your personal reasons for wanting to accept RJ’s premise, and I have mine for rejecting it. This forum gives us the opportunity to present our view points.