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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.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. His confidence in ROTJ is shattered and gone and he is back to having doubts. Not in the force, but in his role in the galaxy. He saw no roll so hid away to live out his life in exile. The Luke of TESB would do that. The Luke of ANH most certainly would do that. Failures in life can cause a person to revert to very childish behavior. I’ve seen it in people close to me. They ride high and are one way and life cuts them down and they are someone totally different. That is Luke. He is prone to giving up. That is a given of his personality in the OT. Abrams and RJ tapped into that to send him into exile. Abrams should have had Luke only in the flashback scenes and ended the movie with Rey and Chewie taking off. After seeing TLJ, I have my TFA edit. The scene only needs to play out as RJ had it because that is what rang true to me. The moment I saw it, I saw the Luke of the OT.
You may not agree, but the logic you have posted leaves a lot to be desired. 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.
