I just found this and read the first post. I had to laugh at the idea that Rey flew the Falcon so well. She practically crashed the thing trying to take off. Once they were in the air she did pretty good, but when you compare that to Luke, he flew his X-wing like a pro from the beginning.
Luke is the best stunt pilot in the outer rim territories, and has clearly been flying for years. And it’s notable that even he never does anything terribly flashy in the OT. Rey’s handling of the Falcon is about how you’d expect in the first few moments, but after that she successfully executes maneuvers far in excess of anything we’ve seen before. If anything, the contrast between almost crashing and ace-level piloting makes her abilities all the more noticeable.
We don’t know what experience either of them have, but they both obviously have quite a bit. We only see either of them using speeders and are told that Luke has used a Skyhopper before. So Rey does a much worse job than Luke at the start and they both fair about the same not too long later (Luke successfully dogfights with highly trained Imperial pilots who in the end take out 27 of the 30 rebel craft).
Rey has to try things before she succeeds, pretty much the way Luke did. And she does have a teacher. She learns just about everything she does from Kylo Ren.
She has never seen Klyo use a Jedi mind trick or even successfully gain his desired information from interrogation, though she manages a successful and proper mind trick after a minute or two of trying.
She has never seen successful telekinesis or levitation, yet apparently learns this on the first attempt after only a moment of intention from Kylo. Interestingly, Kylo never indicates that he is aware of teaching Rey ‘You need a teacher! I can show you the ways of the Force!’ and Rey never acknowledges that she has gained knowledge from Kylo ‘The Force…’.
Rey read Kylo’s mind. Who know what she may have seen and now knows is possible. She also was given a vision from the Lightsaber. So pretty much anything she tries after that point is not out of thin air. Now if she did everything perfect the first time and didn’t have to try a few times, their might be a point, but she does struggle as much as Luke did learning any particular skill.
I’d still like to know who taught Luke to lift his lightsaber in TESB.
If only there was some sort of Jedi mentor which has been established to help Luke from beyond the grave, or a time jump of several years to help the audience suspend their disbelief. Or both.
Well, from his reaction to seeing Ben, it seems pretty clear Ben had not appeared to him before so Ben would not have been teaching him from beyond the grave. Otherwise there would be no need for Yoda.