So Rey is not an overly physical strong character but is capable and is the main character and therefor supposed to outshine the others. She has setback after setback in what she wants to do as the story (which you can read as the force) pushes her to her destiny. She is exactly the type of strong character we need and definitely not a Mary Sue.
Maybe the problem is 1) using the term “Mary Sue” 2) politicizing of the issue and 3) amateur Youtube critics.
1)As I said, I didn’t think of the term “Mary Sue” when seeing TFA, and I didn’t think Rey being good at so many things right away was because the character was a woman.
I thought that they further explained her abilities, albeit vaguely, in TLJ. She’s particularly strong with the Force, like the Skywalker family was, for no other reason than the Force chose her. In fact she’s so powerful that it’s implied that she could be tempted to the dark side. But I do think there are some valid criticisms of her character.
- I can sympathize with amateur critics when they believe that the writer’s injecting too much of their own personal opinions, in a way that it’s not done well and it takes you out of the story. However, it seems like the ST has been used by political personalities to further their own agenda.
I went into TLJ ready to dislike it, but despite interpreting, what I believe to be obvious socio-political messages I didn’t find it do be too distracting. I agree with some here that it could have been more subtle, but this is a mainstream popcorn flick, going after the same modern, young crowd who are political aware and involved. The story, characters and effects were done well enough, so I never felt like it took me out of the film.
3)I like average people reviewing movies on Youtube because often times they can be better than the “professional” stuff. But the problem is that some don’t have a solid background in film history and are critiquing movies from a very narrow perspective.
For example, accusations of “forced diversity” while citing how awesome Lando Calrissian is in the OT.
The original Star Wars was criticized for a lack of diversity, and some have said that the inclusion of Billy Dee Williams in ESB was a concession to those critics.