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.