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Episode VIII : The Last Jedi - Discussion * SPOILER THREAD * — Page 143

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And I’m not sure that we still know the exact timeline between ROTJ and TFA. But it goes something like this. Luke the Jedi travels around and learns more. He does a lot of research between ROTJ and TFA to find Ach-To. But that could be after Kylo’s turn.

Sometime when Kylo is old enough to be rebellious and a troublesome child, Luke decides to start a new Jedi academy. How many students he takes is unknown, but it appears to be about 20 (assuming half become the Knights of Ren). Ben appears to be in his late teens during the confrontation in the hut that ends in the destruction of the academy. My guess is that Ben was 15 when Luke started and 19 when he turned. So what did Luke do for those 15 years before that? He didn’t just do nothing. I’m sure he helped Leia build the Republic. He probably consolidated all the Jedi lore he could find before starting the school. We know what he did in the Legends timeline and I would assume since the new timeline is often very similar that his did something similar and went to Coruscant and scoured the Jedi Temple and whatever Palpatine had stolen from it. I would also imagine he encountered some of the failed Jedi (Like Kanan from Rebels). From his attitude in TLJ, it sounds like he found enough to train new students in the Jedi way. He learned that Palpatine was Darth Sideous indicating that he found some records from the last days of the purge or was informed by Yoda or Obi-wan.

Luke doesn’t appear to have had many failures before Kylo turned. Yoda and Obi-wan may have been his biggest advisors on his training program. The only thing we can say for certain, is that Luke and Yoda did not communicate AFTER Kylo’s turn. Luke blocked himself of, ran to Ach-To (maybe having to find it first) and hid, blocking himself of from the force. Either Yoda left him alone or couldn’t reach him. What is clear is that Luke learned a lot about the Jedi from before the purge and became very disillusioned with their methods. Yoda never disagrees with him, only tells him he should pass on his failures as a teaching tool to help Rey. I don’t think Yoda and Luke had been silence since ROTJ, just since Kylo’s fall.

I think it might be safe to say that Luke’s curmudgeonliness is likely the result of the same thing that led to Anakin’s fall - attachment. Kylo was his nephew. Luke as a new teacher could have also gotten very attached to his other students so when one half turned to the dark side and killed the other half, he went to a very dark place and let grief take over. I saw a Luke in need of healing and between Rey and Yoda they brought him back. The Luke we saw in ROTJ was riding high on success, but even so he turned dark when Vader threatened Leia. The old Jedi admonishment against attachment is not something he learned. So it is very consistent with his character for him to become attached to his students, especially his nephew and that attachment would derail him as easily as Vader did in threatening to turn Leia. The grief knocks aside all his success and defeatist Luke is back. And this ties in to Kylo’s story. Kylo is trying to be this big dark bad guy so he kills his father (it is Kylo’s belief that the past must die - I have no idea why people ascribe this to Rian Johnson and the entire story of TLJ). But in so doing, he is more of a wreck than ever. And given the opportunity, he can’t even fire on his mother. Only in Killing Snoke does his resolve become clear and all doubt melt away. But Kylo, like Luke and Anakin, has attachment as a weakness. Skywalkers seem to be attached to their family. Suddenly Rey seeming to be a nobody isn’t such a bad or strange thing. She is an anti-Kylo. No attachments, no family, no urge to turn to the dark side (where Kylo idolizes his grandfather and is trying to be dark and evil and not doing an incredibly good job of it). My early prediction for the finale of IX is that she and Kylo will turn out to be yin/yang for the force and end up forming a new Jedi order together.

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Haarspalter said:

Hardcore Legend said:

DominicCobb said:

SilverWook said:

This could all be fixed if it’s revealed she had a bit of training as a toddler by some forgotten survivor of the Jedi purge. 😉

I’d find that neither satisfying or necessary.

Unless knowledge of how to use the force transferred to her from her mind link with Kylo, the simple fact that she on her own thought to use the Jedi mind trick needs some sort of explanation…unless I am forgetting something.

I suspect that Kylo UNLOCKED her force powers during the interrogation scene. Her force powers were sealed by someone who left her behind on Jakku. A planet so remote that even old Luke Skywalker admitted that Jakku is pretty much nowhere. But who was it? My guess: it was Reys mother. When Snoke was actively looking for young untrained force users, Reys mother hid her on Jakku never to be found by Snoke. Snokes search was successful though: he found Ben Solo.

I’m really hoping we will see Reys mother.

All I take from what Kylo told Rey (and the best way to get someone is by saying something true that they don’t want to hear) is that Rey’s parents were no one of significance. That does not mean they were not force sensitive. It just means they were not Skywalkers, Kenobis, or anything else. Star Wars has established that there are force sensitive people throughout the galaxy. The Jedi only trained the ones that they found when they were young enough. Your theory about Rey’s parents locking away her powers could be very true. It would be a way for Abrams to revisit them. But I think it is important that they remain nobodies. But a family where the force occasionally ran strong would not be out of place.

I wonder if one reason the force was out of balance was that when we see the Jedi in the PT, they forbid Jedi to have attachments. Anakin and Padme’s relationship is forbidden. So it is likely that all these Jedi who are not having children is ending many lines of powerful force users and diminishing the force in the Galaxy. Somewhere along the line, the Jedi decided that attachment could turn Jedi to the dark side and forbade it and as a result their powers were weakened. So that is one of the many things that the New Jedi need to undo. Luke obviously didn’t in the canon universe like he did in the Legends universe. I found the Jedi to be one-sided. The Jedi and Sith were polarized. The new Jedi needs to not be. I feel that the Jedi of the PT were incapable of knowing how to stop someone from falling to the dark side. They just forbade every avenue and emotion that they thought might lead there. Basically dark side abstinence. And like with sex, abstinence doesn’t work and when the temptation comes along, that way lies an easy fall.

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yotsuya said:

DominicCobb said:

They’re not in line with rules that people have established based on the previous 6, sure. But there isn’t anything that directly contradicts with what’s actually in the films. It’s only rewriting our perceptions of the universe, not the films themselves.

I think you nailed it. A lot of what I hear (not just here) is that it breaks the rules. And when the rules are spelled out, they aren’t actually rules that the movies dictate. Complaints about how Rey learns the force skills don’t make sense to me. One easy lesson on the Falcon (without Ben demonstrating) and Luke can deflect blaster bolts while blind. Without any lessons or examples, Luke grabs his lightsaber in the Wampa cave. That is the first time we saw any Jedi levitate an object. While it is true that we don’t see the entirely of how Yoda trains Luke, we see Luke levitate small things, up to R2, and then fail to levitate his X-wing. Yoda says it is because he doesn’t believe he can because it is too big. With Rey, we see her exposed to mind reading, force suggestions, levitation, fighting with a lightsaber and then she does them (not all without some failure). From what I see, she learned them as easily as Luke did. She just learned more in a shorter time. Nothing different about how she did it. Implying that there is means you are going off of something that isn’t actually in the OT. (we never see anyone learn new force skills in the PT so any comparison to Anakin is pointless - all his training took place between the movies)

So both Luke and Rey seem to pick up force skills with little training. We never see Luke learn the skills he uses after the Wampa cave. He force jumps out of the carbon freeze chamber. He calls to Leia mentally. He force chokes Jabba’s guards. He uses force suggestion on Bib Fortuna (and tries to on Jabba). His ability with a lightsaber has grown to where he is a match for Vader. And when you look at the films. Luke only has a short time with two masters. The short trip from Tatooine to Alderaan with Ben and the time on Dagobah with Yoda (which was during the time that the Falcon was traveling from Hoth to Bespin - either sublight or a slow backup hyperdrive depending on who you ask). That is far less than the 10 years Anakin spent training. So obviously the Jedi spent a lot of time training on things besides force powers. Yoda spent a lot of the time we see on philosophy rather than skills in what we see with Luke.

So I really have to ask how Rey learns these things faster than Luke did? She learns more skills in a shorter time, but on a skill by skill comparison, she learns just as fast, not faster. That is what the movies show. Where does the idea that she is learning too easily come from? She at least has an example for each of her new skills. Luke doesn’t. Luke learns levitation from desperation, not because he has seen it before. Deflecting blaster bolts (which he doesn’t use until ROTJ) is the only force skill we actually see him learn directly from someone else (and Ben doesn’t demonstrate). In that light, Luke is the super Jedi, not Rey. The biggest difference between them is that Luke has doubts and Rey doesn’t. She sees these things and does them (“do or do not, there is no try” comes to mind).

The answer to this is that Rey learns too much too fast and that seems wrong to some. It isn’t and doesn’t violate a single movie established rule of the Star Wars universe. She goes through a process we have never actually seen before - the learning of force skills by example. We don’t know what is normal except for what little we have seen with Luke. Luke learned somethings completely on his own (there is no evidence that Ben was trying to train him between ANH and TESB so we can’t assume Luke’s attempt to levitate his lightsaber was using anything more than Ben’s vague “Use the force, Luke,” instructions). And Kylo doesn’t seem surprised that she picks up things so fast. Snoke even gets a laugh out of it. No surprise from them or Luke. So it is fan surprise that she learns the way she does at the speed she does that is out of place. If it jerks you out of the movie it means you have build up an idea in your head that isn’t supported by what we have seen in the first two trilogies.

Or some fans are simply willing to ignore what’s in the first two trilogies like RJ did, because it better fits their narrative. You use a ST in-universe reaction from Luke and Snoke to support your thesis, a reaction written by the same person who has no qualms about “bending” the rules to suit his story. If ever there was an unreliable set of references, it is the one you are using now. Rey is able to achieve a combination of incredible feats, including in random order: a Jedi mind trick, levating a ton of boulders, reading Ben Solo’s thoughts and feelings, actively feel Luke through the Force, defeat an experienced albeit wounded dark side user with a lightsaber on her first try, defeat a host of Snoke’s elite guard with her lightsaber on her second try, resist the temptation of the dark side, survive the destruction of the Supremacy, and still be in time to save the day. All this she did within days of first hearing, that the Force, and the Jedi are not just the stuff of myth and legend. I’m fine with anyone willing to accept RJ’s rule bending for the sake of what they consider a great story. I’m not so thrilled about fans pretending these rules never existed, especially in the face of the creator of the first two trilogies crystal clear explanation, that it takes years to learn the Force, and that you don’t just get it. Rey just gets it, ergo she does not play by Lucas’ rules.

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Lucas changed his own rules with each new movie he made. If new creators aren’t allowed to expand our understanding of the universe as Lucas did, why even make new films?

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DominicCobb said:

Lucas changed his own rules with each new movie he made. If new creators aren’t allowed to expand our understanding of the universe as Lucas did, why even make new films?

/thread

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DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

DominicCobb said:

They’re not in line with rules that people have established based on the previous 6, sure. But there isn’t anything that directly contradicts with what’s actually in the films. It’s only rewriting our perceptions of the universe, not the films themselves.

I think you nailed it. A lot of what I hear (not just here) is that it breaks the rules. And when the rules are spelled out, they aren’t actually rules that the movies dictate. Complaints about how Rey learns the force skills don’t make sense to me. One easy lesson on the Falcon (without Ben demonstrating) and Luke can deflect blaster bolts while blind. Without any lessons or examples, Luke grabs his lightsaber in the Wampa cave. That is the first time we saw any Jedi levitate an object. While it is true that we don’t see the entirely of how Yoda trains Luke, we see Luke levitate small things, up to R2, and then fail to levitate his X-wing. Yoda says it is because he doesn’t believe he can because it is too big. With Rey, we see her exposed to mind reading, force suggestions, levitation, fighting with a lightsaber and then she does them (not all without some failure). From what I see, she learned them as easily as Luke did. She just learned more in a shorter time. Nothing different about how she did it. Implying that there is means you are going off of something that isn’t actually in the OT. (we never see anyone learn new force skills in the PT so any comparison to Anakin is pointless - all his training took place between the movies)

So both Luke and Rey seem to pick up force skills with little training. We never see Luke learn the skills he uses after the Wampa cave. He force jumps out of the carbon freeze chamber. He calls to Leia mentally. He force chokes Jabba’s guards. He uses force suggestion on Bib Fortuna (and tries to on Jabba). His ability with a lightsaber has grown to where he is a match for Vader. And when you look at the films. Luke only has a short time with two masters. The short trip from Tatooine to Alderaan with Ben and the time on Dagobah with Yoda (which was during the time that the Falcon was traveling from Hoth to Bespin - either sublight or a slow backup hyperdrive depending on who you ask). That is far less than the 10 years Anakin spent training. So obviously the Jedi spent a lot of time training on things besides force powers. Yoda spent a lot of the time we see on philosophy rather than skills in what we see with Luke.

So I really have to ask how Rey learns these things faster than Luke did? She learns more skills in a shorter time, but on a skill by skill comparison, she learns just as fast, not faster. That is what the movies show. Where does the idea that she is learning too easily come from? She at least has an example for each of her new skills. Luke doesn’t. Luke learns levitation from desperation, not because he has seen it before. Deflecting blaster bolts (which he doesn’t use until ROTJ) is the only force skill we actually see him learn directly from someone else (and Ben doesn’t demonstrate). In that light, Luke is the super Jedi, not Rey. The biggest difference between them is that Luke has doubts and Rey doesn’t. She sees these things and does them (“do or do not, there is no try” comes to mind).

The answer to this is that Rey learns too much too fast and that seems wrong to some. It isn’t and doesn’t violate a single movie established rule of the Star Wars universe. She goes through a process we have never actually seen before - the learning of force skills by example. We don’t know what is normal except for what little we have seen with Luke. Luke learned somethings completely on his own (there is no evidence that Ben was trying to train him between ANH and TESB so we can’t assume Luke’s attempt to levitate his lightsaber was using anything more than Ben’s vague “Use the force, Luke,” instructions). And Kylo doesn’t seem surprised that she picks up things so fast. Snoke even gets a laugh out of it. No surprise from them or Luke. So it is fan surprise that she learns the way she does at the speed she does that is out of place. If it jerks you out of the movie it means you have build up an idea in your head that isn’t supported by what we have seen in the first two trilogies.

Or some fans are simply willing to ignore what’s in the first two trilogies like RJ did, because it better fits their narrative. You use a ST in-universe reaction from Luke and Snoke to support your thesis, a reaction written by the same person who has no qualms about “bending” the rules to suit his story. If ever there was an unreliable set of references, it is the one you are using now. Rey is able to achieve a combination of incredible feats, including in random order: a Jedi mind trick, levating a ton of boulders, reading Ben Solo’s thoughts and feelings, actively feel Luke through the Force, defeat an experienced albeit wounded dark side user with a lightsaber on her first try, defeat a host of Snoke’s elite guard with her lightsaber on her second try, resist the temptation of the dark side, survive the destruction of the Supremacy, and still be in time to save the day. All this she did within days of first hearing, that the Force, and the Jedi are not just the stuff of myth and legend. I’m fine with anyone willing to accept RJ’s rule bending for the sake of what they consider a great story. I’m not so thrilled about fans pretending these rules never existed, especially in the face of the creator of the first two trilogies crystal clear explanation, that it takes years to learn the Force, and that you don’t just get it. Rey just gets it, ergo she does not play by Lucas’ rules.

Man, you picked up on that one tiny line and ignored everything else I said. If it takes years to learn the force, how did Luke do it? He had months of training and 1 year between his most intensive training and ROTJ. That isn’t years so Lucas saying that is about as accurate as some other things he has said over the years. Plus you ignore that she was skilled at combat BEFORE TFA starts. Nice job of taking one line and making your rebuttal entirely about something that had very little do to with the rest of what I wrote. Nice job. Good strawman argument. Well done.

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 (Edited)

DominicCobb said:

Lucas changed his own rules with each new movie he made. If new creators aren’t allowed to expand our understanding of the universe as Lucas did, why even make new films?

exactly. they should never have made new films period.

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DominicCobb said:

Lucas changed his own rules with each new movie he made. If new creators aren’t allowed to expand our understanding of the universe as Lucas did, why even make new films?

Yes, Lucas has said a great many things that do not hold up. He is great at the ideas but not so great at explanations. He thought he was creating something he called space fantasy but it is solidly science fiction. I am very familiar with the tropes of science fiction prior to 1977 and Star Wars fits them all. Even the Jedi and their mind reading and telekinesis are just par for the course in science fiction. Nothing new at all. Well, lightsabers were a bit new, but none of the rest of it. So I take a lot of what he says with a grain of salt. Like twins. He had the idea of siblings and twins in the beginning, but he dropped it and brought it back for ROTJ. And then Leia remembering her mother and her mother dying (let’s be generous) hours after her birth. You can explain it away with a force connection that Luke didn’t have, but his changing story ideas make it interesting to wade through the continuity issues they create.

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and lucas was heavily criticized for comtradicting himself. does that excuse other creators contradicting some stuff that came before? imo no it doesn’t.

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Haarspalter said:

Hardcore Legend said:

DominicCobb said:

SilverWook said:

This could all be fixed if it’s revealed she had a bit of training as a toddler by some forgotten survivor of the Jedi purge. 😉

I’d find that neither satisfying or necessary.

Unless knowledge of how to use the force transferred to her from her mind link with Kylo, the simple fact that she on her own thought to use the Jedi mind trick needs some sort of explanation…unless I am forgetting something.

I suspect that Kylo UNLOCKED her force powers during the interrogation scene. Her force powers were sealed by someone who left her behind on Jakku. A planet so remote that even old Luke Skywalker admitted that Jakku is pretty much nowhere. But who was it? My guess: it was Reys mother. When Snoke was actively looking for young untrained force users, Reys mother hid her on Jakku never to be found by Snoke. Snokes search was successful though: he found Ben Solo.

I’m really hoping we will see Reys mother.

Interesting theory, as we now know one can consciously switch off their connection to the Force as Luke has done during his self exile.
It’s also telling that Rey can’t recall what her parents look like, but has a memory of being left behind on Jakku. And the Dark Side cavern she visits can’t show her anything either.

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Collipso said:

and lucas was heavily criticized for comtradicting himself. does that excuse other creators contradicting some stuff that came before? imo no it doesn’t.

Whoa, now. Let’s leave out-of-the-box thinking to the ST, okay?

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Collipso said:

DominicCobb said:

Lucas changed his own rules with each new movie he made. If new creators aren’t allowed to expand our understanding of the universe as Lucas did, why even make new films?

exactly. they should never have made new films period.

I often suspect this is how many feel but they often pretend that’s not the case. Appreciate the honesty.

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Collipso said:

DominicCobb said:

Lucas changed his own rules with each new movie he made. If new creators aren’t allowed to expand our understanding of the universe as Lucas did, why even make new films?

exactly. they should never have made new films period.

Lucas had decided to do treatments for the sequels so this trilogy is his doing even if he isn’t doing more than advise them. Abrams and Kasdan met with Lucas to go over what and was not possible with the force so if you don’t like the result, I suggest you take up with GL himself. He okayed that aspect of what they had planned.

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And I found this quote from Abrams:
“For me when I heard Obi-Wan say that the Force surrounds us and binds us all together, there was no judgement about who you were. This was something that we could all access. Being strong with the Force didn’t mean something scientific, it meant something spiritual. It meant someone who could believe, someone who could reach down to the depths of your feelings and follow this primal energy that was flowing through all of us. I mean, that’s what was said in that first film! And there I am sitting in the theater at almost 11 years old and that was a powerful notion. And I think this is what your point was, we would like to believe that when shit gets serious, that you could harness that Force I was told surrounds not just some of us but every living thing. And so, I really feel like the assumption that any character needs to have inherited a certain number of midi-chlorians or needs to be part of a bloodline. It’s not that I don’t believe that as part of the canon, I’m just saying that at 11 years old, that wasn’t where my heart was. And so I respect and adhere to the canon but I also say that the Force has always seemed to me to be more inclusive and stronger than that.”

from https://www.slashfilm.com/jj-abrams-interview-star-wars-the-force-awakens/

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DominicCobb said:

Collipso said:

DominicCobb said:

Lucas changed his own rules with each new movie he made. If new creators aren’t allowed to expand our understanding of the universe as Lucas did, why even make new films?

exactly. they should never have made new films period.

I often suspect this is how many feel but they often pretend that’s not the case. Appreciate the honesty.

I hope I’m not one of those lumped in with the pretenders.

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Collipso said:

and lucas was heavily criticized for comtradicting himself. does that excuse other creators contradicting some stuff that came before? imo no it doesn’t.

In my mind it all comes down to what services the story. Vader as Luke’s father is a retcon but also one of the most powerful developments in the saga (and cinema history, really). Luke and Leia as siblings isn’t awful but doesn’t ultimately have much bearing on ROTJ. Padme dying in ROTS contradicts a line in the OT but in my opinion is absolutely essential to the story that ROTS is telling, and the movie would be worse without it.

Basically, it depends. Many fans are binary about these things. I don’t think that’s the right way to go about it.

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DuracellEnergizer said:

DominicCobb said:

Collipso said:

DominicCobb said:

Lucas changed his own rules with each new movie he made. If new creators aren’t allowed to expand our understanding of the universe as Lucas did, why even make new films?

exactly. they should never have made new films period.

I often suspect this is how many feel but they often pretend that’s not the case. Appreciate the honesty.

I hope I’m not one of those lumped in with the pretenders.

Nah you’re very upfront about it. Not entirely sure why you’re in this thread though…

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DominicCobb said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

DominicCobb said:

Collipso said:

DominicCobb said:

Lucas changed his own rules with each new movie he made. If new creators aren’t allowed to expand our understanding of the universe as Lucas did, why even make new films?

exactly. they should never have made new films period.

I often suspect this is how many feel but they often pretend that’s not the case. Appreciate the honesty.

I hope I’m not one of those lumped in with the pretenders.

Nah you’re very upfront about it. Not entirely sure why you’re in this thread though…

Boredom, mostly.

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 (Edited)

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

DominicCobb said:

They’re not in line with rules that people have established based on the previous 6, sure. But there isn’t anything that directly contradicts with what’s actually in the films. It’s only rewriting our perceptions of the universe, not the films themselves.

I think you nailed it. A lot of what I hear (not just here) is that it breaks the rules. And when the rules are spelled out, they aren’t actually rules that the movies dictate. Complaints about how Rey learns the force skills don’t make sense to me. One easy lesson on the Falcon (without Ben demonstrating) and Luke can deflect blaster bolts while blind. Without any lessons or examples, Luke grabs his lightsaber in the Wampa cave. That is the first time we saw any Jedi levitate an object. While it is true that we don’t see the entirely of how Yoda trains Luke, we see Luke levitate small things, up to R2, and then fail to levitate his X-wing. Yoda says it is because he doesn’t believe he can because it is too big. With Rey, we see her exposed to mind reading, force suggestions, levitation, fighting with a lightsaber and then she does them (not all without some failure). From what I see, she learned them as easily as Luke did. She just learned more in a shorter time. Nothing different about how she did it. Implying that there is means you are going off of something that isn’t actually in the OT. (we never see anyone learn new force skills in the PT so any comparison to Anakin is pointless - all his training took place between the movies)

So both Luke and Rey seem to pick up force skills with little training. We never see Luke learn the skills he uses after the Wampa cave. He force jumps out of the carbon freeze chamber. He calls to Leia mentally. He force chokes Jabba’s guards. He uses force suggestion on Bib Fortuna (and tries to on Jabba). His ability with a lightsaber has grown to where he is a match for Vader. And when you look at the films. Luke only has a short time with two masters. The short trip from Tatooine to Alderaan with Ben and the time on Dagobah with Yoda (which was during the time that the Falcon was traveling from Hoth to Bespin - either sublight or a slow backup hyperdrive depending on who you ask). That is far less than the 10 years Anakin spent training. So obviously the Jedi spent a lot of time training on things besides force powers. Yoda spent a lot of the time we see on philosophy rather than skills in what we see with Luke.

So I really have to ask how Rey learns these things faster than Luke did? She learns more skills in a shorter time, but on a skill by skill comparison, she learns just as fast, not faster. That is what the movies show. Where does the idea that she is learning too easily come from? She at least has an example for each of her new skills. Luke doesn’t. Luke learns levitation from desperation, not because he has seen it before. Deflecting blaster bolts (which he doesn’t use until ROTJ) is the only force skill we actually see him learn directly from someone else (and Ben doesn’t demonstrate). In that light, Luke is the super Jedi, not Rey. The biggest difference between them is that Luke has doubts and Rey doesn’t. She sees these things and does them (“do or do not, there is no try” comes to mind).

The answer to this is that Rey learns too much too fast and that seems wrong to some. It isn’t and doesn’t violate a single movie established rule of the Star Wars universe. She goes through a process we have never actually seen before - the learning of force skills by example. We don’t know what is normal except for what little we have seen with Luke. Luke learned somethings completely on his own (there is no evidence that Ben was trying to train him between ANH and TESB so we can’t assume Luke’s attempt to levitate his lightsaber was using anything more than Ben’s vague “Use the force, Luke,” instructions). And Kylo doesn’t seem surprised that she picks up things so fast. Snoke even gets a laugh out of it. No surprise from them or Luke. So it is fan surprise that she learns the way she does at the speed she does that is out of place. If it jerks you out of the movie it means you have build up an idea in your head that isn’t supported by what we have seen in the first two trilogies.

Or some fans are simply willing to ignore what’s in the first two trilogies like RJ did, because it better fits their narrative. You use a ST in-universe reaction from Luke and Snoke to support your thesis, a reaction written by the same person who has no qualms about “bending” the rules to suit his story. If ever there was an unreliable set of references, it is the one you are using now. Rey is able to achieve a combination of incredible feats, including in random order: a Jedi mind trick, levating a ton of boulders, reading Ben Solo’s thoughts and feelings, actively feel Luke through the Force, defeat an experienced albeit wounded dark side user with a lightsaber on her first try, defeat a host of Snoke’s elite guard with her lightsaber on her second try, resist the temptation of the dark side, survive the destruction of the Supremacy, and still be in time to save the day. All this she did within days of first hearing, that the Force, and the Jedi are not just the stuff of myth and legend. I’m fine with anyone willing to accept RJ’s rule bending for the sake of what they consider a great story. I’m not so thrilled about fans pretending these rules never existed, especially in the face of the creator of the first two trilogies crystal clear explanation, that it takes years to learn the Force, and that you don’t just get it. Rey just gets it, ergo she does not play by Lucas’ rules.

Man, you picked up on that one tiny line and ignored everything else I said. If it takes years to learn the force, how did Luke do it? He had months of training and 1 year between his most intensive training and ROTJ. That isn’t years so Lucas saying that is about as accurate as some other things he has said over the years. Plus you ignore that she was skilled at combat BEFORE TFA starts. Nice job of taking one line and making your rebuttal entirely about something that had very little do to with the rest of what I wrote. Nice job. Good strawman argument. Well done.

Skilled at combat does not a good Jedi make. Han was skilled at combat. Does this mean he can pick up a lightsaber, and beat Darth Vader? I think not. You seem to have forgotten Luke’s line in TESB where he literally states: "but I’ve learned so much! Luke had three years to study, and practise the skills he was taught by Obi-Wan, and expand upon them. Yet, it took him three years to be able to pull a lightsaber from the snow, when his life depended on it. It is that hard, even if the Force is stromg in your family. Then he trained with Yoda, after which he spent another year studying his craft. So, yes Luke studied for months if not years, whilst also being trained by the best, Master Yoda. Rey picked up all these advanced Jedi skills in days, in days, despite the fact that Luke refused to help her. There’s just no comparison.

Author
Time

DominicCobb said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

DominicCobb said:

Collipso said:

DominicCobb said:

Lucas changed his own rules with each new movie he made. If new creators aren’t allowed to expand our understanding of the universe as Lucas did, why even make new films?

exactly. they should never have made new films period.

I often suspect this is how many feel but they often pretend that’s not the case. Appreciate the honesty.

I hope I’m not one of those lumped in with the pretenders.

Nah you’re very upfront about it. Not entirely sure why you’re in this thread though…

Why is anyone in this thread?

Author
Time

DominicCobb said:

Collipso said:

and lucas was heavily criticized for comtradicting himself. does that excuse other creators contradicting some stuff that came before? imo no it doesn’t.

In my mind it all comes down to what services the story. Vader as Luke’s father is a retcon but also one of the most powerful developments in the saga (and cinema history, really). Luke and Leia as siblings isn’t awful but doesn’t ultimately have much bearing on ROTJ. Padme dying in ROTS contradicts a line in the OT but in my opinion is absolutely essential to the story that ROTS is telling, and the movie would be worse without it.

Basically, it depends. Many fans are binary about these things. I don’t think that’s the right way to go about it.

I think Lucas could have done something different to end ROTS. We didn’t need to see the twins in their new homes. We didn’t need to see Padme die. Because we did see it, someone watching in episode order would know before ROTJ that Leia is Luke’s sister. If they had done the ending differently they could have made the audience wonder and we wouldn’t have found out until later. We would be surprised to learn that Vader is Luke’s father and surprised to learn he has a twin sister. On the other hand, the end of ROTS is very fulfilling because it closes the circle and brings us back to where the saga began. It made for a very circular story for the first 6 episodes. If you watch in 4,5,6,1,2,3 order it solidly ends the story. But Lucas always had an idea for another trilogy (the first idea had 12 movies and the cut down to 9) and they took his idea and developed it. Kathleen Kennedy said they did it as they would any movie idea. So some of GL’s core ideas are still there (Luke in exile and a female student) and others came from Abrams, Kasdan, and Johnson. They communicated. Some things in TLJ were because of Rian. A lot of things in TLJ were because of TFA or ideas for IX (which wasn’t going to be Abrams at that point). And I hear Lucas is back with an advisory role in the IX script. I think the final version of the ST we get is going to be different but similar to what Lucas would have done himself. Probably less controversial than had he done it all himself (his best work has involved other people being involved in the creative process, fleshing out his ideas).

Author
Time

TV’s Frink said:

DominicCobb said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

DominicCobb said:

Collipso said:

DominicCobb said:

Lucas changed his own rules with each new movie he made. If new creators aren’t allowed to expand our understanding of the universe as Lucas did, why even make new films?

exactly. they should never have made new films period.

I often suspect this is how many feel but they often pretend that’s not the case. Appreciate the honesty.

I hope I’m not one of those lumped in with the pretenders.

Nah you’re very upfront about it. Not entirely sure why you’re in this thread though…

Why is anyone in this thread?

DuracellEnergizer said:

DominicCobb said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

DominicCobb said:

Collipso said:

DominicCobb said:

Lucas changed his own rules with each new movie he made. If new creators aren’t allowed to expand our understanding of the universe as Lucas did, why even make new films?

exactly. they should never have made new films period.

I often suspect this is how many feel but they often pretend that’s not the case. Appreciate the honesty.

I hope I’m not one of those lumped in with the pretenders.

Nah you’re very upfront about it. Not entirely sure why you’re in this thread though…

Boredom, mostly.

I assume, anyway. It’s all been said hundreds of times by now.

Author
Time

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

DominicCobb said:

They’re not in line with rules that people have established based on the previous 6, sure. But there isn’t anything that directly contradicts with what’s actually in the films. It’s only rewriting our perceptions of the universe, not the films themselves.

I think you nailed it. A lot of what I hear (not just here) is that it breaks the rules. And when the rules are spelled out, they aren’t actually rules that the movies dictate. Complaints about how Rey learns the force skills don’t make sense to me. One easy lesson on the Falcon (without Ben demonstrating) and Luke can deflect blaster bolts while blind. Without any lessons or examples, Luke grabs his lightsaber in the Wampa cave. That is the first time we saw any Jedi levitate an object. While it is true that we don’t see the entirely of how Yoda trains Luke, we see Luke levitate small things, up to R2, and then fail to levitate his X-wing. Yoda says it is because he doesn’t believe he can because it is too big. With Rey, we see her exposed to mind reading, force suggestions, levitation, fighting with a lightsaber and then she does them (not all without some failure). From what I see, she learned them as easily as Luke did. She just learned more in a shorter time. Nothing different about how she did it. Implying that there is means you are going off of something that isn’t actually in the OT. (we never see anyone learn new force skills in the PT so any comparison to Anakin is pointless - all his training took place between the movies)

So both Luke and Rey seem to pick up force skills with little training. We never see Luke learn the skills he uses after the Wampa cave. He force jumps out of the carbon freeze chamber. He calls to Leia mentally. He force chokes Jabba’s guards. He uses force suggestion on Bib Fortuna (and tries to on Jabba). His ability with a lightsaber has grown to where he is a match for Vader. And when you look at the films. Luke only has a short time with two masters. The short trip from Tatooine to Alderaan with Ben and the time on Dagobah with Yoda (which was during the time that the Falcon was traveling from Hoth to Bespin - either sublight or a slow backup hyperdrive depending on who you ask). That is far less than the 10 years Anakin spent training. So obviously the Jedi spent a lot of time training on things besides force powers. Yoda spent a lot of the time we see on philosophy rather than skills in what we see with Luke.

So I really have to ask how Rey learns these things faster than Luke did? She learns more skills in a shorter time, but on a skill by skill comparison, she learns just as fast, not faster. That is what the movies show. Where does the idea that she is learning too easily come from? She at least has an example for each of her new skills. Luke doesn’t. Luke learns levitation from desperation, not because he has seen it before. Deflecting blaster bolts (which he doesn’t use until ROTJ) is the only force skill we actually see him learn directly from someone else (and Ben doesn’t demonstrate). In that light, Luke is the super Jedi, not Rey. The biggest difference between them is that Luke has doubts and Rey doesn’t. She sees these things and does them (“do or do not, there is no try” comes to mind).

The answer to this is that Rey learns too much too fast and that seems wrong to some. It isn’t and doesn’t violate a single movie established rule of the Star Wars universe. She goes through a process we have never actually seen before - the learning of force skills by example. We don’t know what is normal except for what little we have seen with Luke. Luke learned somethings completely on his own (there is no evidence that Ben was trying to train him between ANH and TESB so we can’t assume Luke’s attempt to levitate his lightsaber was using anything more than Ben’s vague “Use the force, Luke,” instructions). And Kylo doesn’t seem surprised that she picks up things so fast. Snoke even gets a laugh out of it. No surprise from them or Luke. So it is fan surprise that she learns the way she does at the speed she does that is out of place. If it jerks you out of the movie it means you have build up an idea in your head that isn’t supported by what we have seen in the first two trilogies.

Or some fans are simply willing to ignore what’s in the first two trilogies like RJ did, because it better fits their narrative. You use a ST in-universe reaction from Luke and Snoke to support your thesis, a reaction written by the same person who has no qualms about “bending” the rules to suit his story. If ever there was an unreliable set of references, it is the one you are using now. Rey is able to achieve a combination of incredible feats, including in random order: a Jedi mind trick, levating a ton of boulders, reading Ben Solo’s thoughts and feelings, actively feel Luke through the Force, defeat an experienced albeit wounded dark side user with a lightsaber on her first try, defeat a host of Snoke’s elite guard with her lightsaber on her second try, resist the temptation of the dark side, survive the destruction of the Supremacy, and still be in time to save the day. All this she did within days of first hearing, that the Force, and the Jedi are not just the stuff of myth and legend. I’m fine with anyone willing to accept RJ’s rule bending for the sake of what they consider a great story. I’m not so thrilled about fans pretending these rules never existed, especially in the face of the creator of the first two trilogies crystal clear explanation, that it takes years to learn the Force, and that you don’t just get it. Rey just gets it, ergo she does not play by Lucas’ rules.

Man, you picked up on that one tiny line and ignored everything else I said. If it takes years to learn the force, how did Luke do it? He had months of training and 1 year between his most intensive training and ROTJ. That isn’t years so Lucas saying that is about as accurate as some other things he has said over the years. Plus you ignore that she was skilled at combat BEFORE TFA starts. Nice job of taking one line and making your rebuttal entirely about something that had very little do to with the rest of what I wrote. Nice job. Good strawman argument. Well done.

Skilled at combat does not a good Jedi make. Han was skilled at combat. Does this mean he can pick up a lightsaber, and beat Darth Vader? I think not. You seem to have forgotten Luke’s line in TESB where he literally states: "but I’ve learned so much! Luke had three years to study, and practise the skills he was taught by Obi-Wan, and expand upon it. Yet, it took him three years to be able to pull a lightsaber from the snow when his life depended on it. Then he trained with Yoda, after which he spent another year studying his craft. So, yes Luke studied for years, whilst also being trained by Yoda.

Yeah, from what Yoda said in TESB, Luke hadn’t been studying. Dabbling, but not studying. He had very little to go one. A couple of things from Obi-wan about instinct and trusting the force, but not enough to do anything. And in TESB, Luke is in that “look what I’ve learned” phase before the master swats him down. Vader played with him in TESB. The best Luke could do was a glancing blow on Vader’s armor. I would say Luke trained for 2-months and the rest of what he did can hardly be called training. And it hadn’t done him much good since he couldn’t lift the X-wing. Meanwhile, you forget that Rey was in a school of a different sort on Jakku. You ignore that not all lessons can be learned in a formal environment. You give Luke credit for the two tiny lessons Ben gave him, but none for the time that Rey spent on Jakku. Yes, I am suggesting kind of a Karate Kid type training where learning to wax a car and paint a fence turns out to be training for martial arts. But what the force requires is faith. But what can be clearly seen, is that whatever prerequisite for learning force skills and making use of them that Rey learned on Jakku and Luke had some very counter productive life lessons on Tatooine. Obi-wan and Yoda had to overcome how Luke was raised. Rey does not have that problem. She has other issues. She didn’t see her parents in the cave, she saw no one but herself. Luke saw himself in Vader. And according to the great Miyamoto Musashi, if you are a skilled fighter, you should be able to pick up any weapons. Finn picked up the lightsaber and did a passable job against Kylo. Rey was doing a passable job until Kylo basically paused and told her to use the force and she did and she beat him. She then used the lightsaber as effortlessly as she had her staff. Your argument makes a lot of assumptions. I try to build mine with facts. Not all are from Star Wars, but I either rely on what the movies show or what people are really like and capable of.

Author
Time

TV’s Frink said:

TV’s Frink said:

DominicCobb said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

DominicCobb said:

Collipso said:

DominicCobb said:

Lucas changed his own rules with each new movie he made. If new creators aren’t allowed to expand our understanding of the universe as Lucas did, why even make new films?

exactly. they should never have made new films period.

I often suspect this is how many feel but they often pretend that’s not the case. Appreciate the honesty.

I hope I’m not one of those lumped in with the pretenders.

Nah you’re very upfront about it. Not entirely sure why you’re in this thread though…

Why is anyone in this thread?

DuracellEnergizer said:

DominicCobb said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

DominicCobb said:

Collipso said:

DominicCobb said:

Lucas changed his own rules with each new movie he made. If new creators aren’t allowed to expand our understanding of the universe as Lucas did, why even make new films?

exactly. they should never have made new films period.

I often suspect this is how many feel but they often pretend that’s not the case. Appreciate the honesty.

I hope I’m not one of those lumped in with the pretenders.

Nah you’re very upfront about it. Not entirely sure why you’re in this thread though…

Boredom, mostly.

I assume, anyway. It’s all been said hundreds of times by now.

Boredom sometimes. But even while we don’t agree, the conversation is often stimulating and interesting. I learn a lot, even if I don’t agree with everything.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

DominicCobb said:

They’re not in line with rules that people have established based on the previous 6, sure. But there isn’t anything that directly contradicts with what’s actually in the films. It’s only rewriting our perceptions of the universe, not the films themselves.

I think you nailed it. A lot of what I hear (not just here) is that it breaks the rules. And when the rules are spelled out, they aren’t actually rules that the movies dictate. Complaints about how Rey learns the force skills don’t make sense to me. One easy lesson on the Falcon (without Ben demonstrating) and Luke can deflect blaster bolts while blind. Without any lessons or examples, Luke grabs his lightsaber in the Wampa cave. That is the first time we saw any Jedi levitate an object. While it is true that we don’t see the entirely of how Yoda trains Luke, we see Luke levitate small things, up to R2, and then fail to levitate his X-wing. Yoda says it is because he doesn’t believe he can because it is too big. With Rey, we see her exposed to mind reading, force suggestions, levitation, fighting with a lightsaber and then she does them (not all without some failure). From what I see, she learned them as easily as Luke did. She just learned more in a shorter time. Nothing different about how she did it. Implying that there is means you are going off of something that isn’t actually in the OT. (we never see anyone learn new force skills in the PT so any comparison to Anakin is pointless - all his training took place between the movies)

So both Luke and Rey seem to pick up force skills with little training. We never see Luke learn the skills he uses after the Wampa cave. He force jumps out of the carbon freeze chamber. He calls to Leia mentally. He force chokes Jabba’s guards. He uses force suggestion on Bib Fortuna (and tries to on Jabba). His ability with a lightsaber has grown to where he is a match for Vader. And when you look at the films. Luke only has a short time with two masters. The short trip from Tatooine to Alderaan with Ben and the time on Dagobah with Yoda (which was during the time that the Falcon was traveling from Hoth to Bespin - either sublight or a slow backup hyperdrive depending on who you ask). That is far less than the 10 years Anakin spent training. So obviously the Jedi spent a lot of time training on things besides force powers. Yoda spent a lot of the time we see on philosophy rather than skills in what we see with Luke.

So I really have to ask how Rey learns these things faster than Luke did? She learns more skills in a shorter time, but on a skill by skill comparison, she learns just as fast, not faster. That is what the movies show. Where does the idea that she is learning too easily come from? She at least has an example for each of her new skills. Luke doesn’t. Luke learns levitation from desperation, not because he has seen it before. Deflecting blaster bolts (which he doesn’t use until ROTJ) is the only force skill we actually see him learn directly from someone else (and Ben doesn’t demonstrate). In that light, Luke is the super Jedi, not Rey. The biggest difference between them is that Luke has doubts and Rey doesn’t. She sees these things and does them (“do or do not, there is no try” comes to mind).

The answer to this is that Rey learns too much too fast and that seems wrong to some. It isn’t and doesn’t violate a single movie established rule of the Star Wars universe. She goes through a process we have never actually seen before - the learning of force skills by example. We don’t know what is normal except for what little we have seen with Luke. Luke learned somethings completely on his own (there is no evidence that Ben was trying to train him between ANH and TESB so we can’t assume Luke’s attempt to levitate his lightsaber was using anything more than Ben’s vague “Use the force, Luke,” instructions). And Kylo doesn’t seem surprised that she picks up things so fast. Snoke even gets a laugh out of it. No surprise from them or Luke. So it is fan surprise that she learns the way she does at the speed she does that is out of place. If it jerks you out of the movie it means you have build up an idea in your head that isn’t supported by what we have seen in the first two trilogies.

Or some fans are simply willing to ignore what’s in the first two trilogies like RJ did, because it better fits their narrative. You use a ST in-universe reaction from Luke and Snoke to support your thesis, a reaction written by the same person who has no qualms about “bending” the rules to suit his story. If ever there was an unreliable set of references, it is the one you are using now. Rey is able to achieve a combination of incredible feats, including in random order: a Jedi mind trick, levating a ton of boulders, reading Ben Solo’s thoughts and feelings, actively feel Luke through the Force, defeat an experienced albeit wounded dark side user with a lightsaber on her first try, defeat a host of Snoke’s elite guard with her lightsaber on her second try, resist the temptation of the dark side, survive the destruction of the Supremacy, and still be in time to save the day. All this she did within days of first hearing, that the Force, and the Jedi are not just the stuff of myth and legend. I’m fine with anyone willing to accept RJ’s rule bending for the sake of what they consider a great story. I’m not so thrilled about fans pretending these rules never existed, especially in the face of the creator of the first two trilogies crystal clear explanation, that it takes years to learn the Force, and that you don’t just get it. Rey just gets it, ergo she does not play by Lucas’ rules.

Man, you picked up on that one tiny line and ignored everything else I said. If it takes years to learn the force, how did Luke do it? He had months of training and 1 year between his most intensive training and ROTJ. That isn’t years so Lucas saying that is about as accurate as some other things he has said over the years. Plus you ignore that she was skilled at combat BEFORE TFA starts. Nice job of taking one line and making your rebuttal entirely about something that had very little do to with the rest of what I wrote. Nice job. Good strawman argument. Well done.

Skilled at combat does not a good Jedi make. Han was skilled at combat. Does this mean he can pick up a lightsaber, and beat Darth Vader? I think not. You seem to have forgotten Luke’s line in TESB where he literally states: "but I’ve learned so much! Luke had three years to study, and practise the skills he was taught by Obi-Wan, and expand upon it. Yet, it took him three years to be able to pull a lightsaber from the snow when his life depended on it. Then he trained with Yoda, after which he spent another year studying his craft. So, yes Luke studied for years, whilst also being trained by Yoda.

Yeah, from what Yoda said in TESB, Luke hadn’t been studying. Dabbling, but not studying. He had very little to go one. A couple of things from Obi-wan about instinct and trusting the force, but not enough to do anything. And in TESB, Luke is in that “look what I’ve learned” phase before the master swats him down. Vader played with him in TESB. The best Luke could do was a glancing blow on Vader’s armor. I would say Luke trained for 2-months and the rest of what he did can hardly be called training. And it hadn’t done him much good since he couldn’t lift the X-wing. Meanwhile, you forget that Rey was in a school of a different sort on Jakku. You ignore that not all lessons can be learned in a formal environment. You give Luke credit for the two tiny lessons Ben gave him, but none for the time that Rey spent on Jakku. Yes, I am suggesting kind of a Karate Kid type training where learning to wax a car and paint a fence turns out to be training for martial arts. But what the force requires is faith. But what can be clearly seen, is that whatever prerequisite for learning force skills and making use of them that Rey learned on Jakku and Luke had some very counter productive life lessons on Tatooine. Obi-wan and Yoda had to overcome how Luke was raised. Rey does not have that problem. She has other issues. She didn’t see her parents in the cave, she saw no one but herself. Luke saw himself in Vader. And according to the great Miyamoto Musashi, if you are a skilled fighter, you should be able to pick up any weapons. Finn picked up the lightsaber and did a passable job against Kylo. Rey was doing a passable job until Kylo basically paused and told her to use the force and she did and she beat him. She then used the lightsaber as effortlessly as she had her staff. Your argument makes a lot of assumptions. I try to build mine with facts. Not all are from Star Wars, but I either rely on what the movies show or what people are really like and capable of.

Yes, I know you’re the only person here dealing with facts. You’re the only objective person in the room, and the only person capable of correctly interpreting Lucas’ movies. Heck, even Lucas doesn’t know what he’s talking about. His point of view doesn’t fit your narrative, so he must be talking nonsense. Sorry to be so sarcastic, but you really invite these reactions with statements like: “I try to build mine with facts. Not all are from Star Wars, but I either rely on what the movies show or what people are really like and capable of.” We can disagree about the interpretations of movies, but I really can’t stand this attitude, which boils down to my opinion objectively better than yours.