I don’t see how Rey overcoming family dark side baggage is any different than Luke doing the same. Especially redundant because that’s part of the reason why we are to believe that Ben is Kylo (the Vader in him).
Rey Nobody is compelling because she is forced to determine her own path. It’s uncharted territory which is what makes it so interesting. Kylo/Ben is a compelling character because he has always struggled with the pull between the light and dark. Vader was an inherently different character because he was pure evil before his son managed to pull him back. There were a number of different ways they could have taken either of their stories (and how they’re intertwined) but the result they came up with is purely unimaginative, plain and simple. There is more to characters, their journeys, and their choices than just what “team” they’re on.
The idea of her being Nobody is compelling but does it make for a good movie? If I play out that scenario to it’s conclusion what do we have? She decides to be good or evil based on…what exactly? With a natural proclivity to be evil supposedly I see it as more heroic or meaningful that she decides to kill Palpartine…now, if she decides to be evil without that…now that would be interesting.
It’s a compelling idea and, from where I’m standing, it made for two good movies so far, I’d say it could last at least one more (if not more).
To me it’s so lazy to define a character simply based on who they’re related to. It’s much more interesting if she’s forced to go the path on her own. She struggles with both the light and the dark because everybody does, because everybody has the potential for both good and bad. And maybe I was crazy for thinking that they could have made a storyline where she comes to realize that learning to reconcile the light and the dark is healthy, and that trying to ignore and suppress the darkness can lead to the darkness taking over when you don’t expect it.
What I loved so much about the end of The Last Jedi was it put her in a place where she was forced to carry on the legacy of the Jedi by herself. So much of the last two films were about legacy, and with the end of the last film specifically being about how the legend of Luke is spreading, how does Rey help to continue that narrative and preserve that legacy, while crafting a legacy of her own? As much as I like that Leia ended up being her master, it’s a much more interesting storyline to have her try to learn the ways of the Jedi without any lifeline. That was what they were setting up, that it was on her now, and that because she didn’t have formal Jedi training she would be wide open to discovering new things, to become that new, better source of light that Luke had wanted (and because she wouldn’t have a teacher it be much easier for her to stray to the dark).
Why couldn’t we have seen her trying to build her new order? Why did it have to mirror the story of ROTJ, where she’s stuck trying to get over her dark side lineage and doesn’t rebuild the order until offscreen, after the film? Why couldn’t she have been trying to train Finn? Couldn’t that have been an interesting story for both of them? Why couldn’t her goal this film be to find a way to defeat the bad guys using love not hate? Why did they have to resolve her story in the laziest way possible?
I like your ideas and I also like Rey being a nobody but they had one movie to resolve it. Your post cannot be done properly with one movie. With one movie you need something to play against/fight against that is tangible.
I honestly think they should have stuck with Snoke instead of bringing Palpatine back but imo he just represents the dark side of the force…it could have been anything but it had to be a thing, not a character/personality stuggle within Rey.
Disagree. There’s a lot of ways it could have been handled, my post is just elucidating some of the ways (not necessarily saying they all had to be done, just giving options). I don’t think bringing back Palpatine was a necessity, but even sticking with the narrative JJ and Terrio came up with, you could have easily kept it Rey nobody. Palpatine saw Rey’s future and how powerful she would become, and wanted her killed, but her parents died protecting her. Rey learns this and wants to kill Palpatine as revenge for killing her parents and robbing her of a family. But actually, Rey learns that revenge is not a way to live and that she already has a family that loves her. There you go, easy.
I don’t think I would want to watch Rey struggle with her internal temptations without a protagonist to play against.
I assume you mean antagonist, but now that you mention it I would have actually really liked that. Doubling down on the characters and the themes, as opposed to conjuring up a new plot with a new threat with new goals, etc. sounds 10x more interesting than what we got. Rey forging her own future with the Force, Ben grappling with having everything he wanted at the cost of his soul, Poe stepping up as a responsible leader, etc.
A lower key, character-driven conclusion that follows up on TLJ’s themes would justify the sequel trilogy more imo. As it ended up being, the ST is just a new (barely) story with new characters. In a lot of ways the same story, just again. Why should we care? Because new and exciting? No, it needed to be more than that. If it could have doubled down on being about the generational fallout of the OT as legend, as TLJ tried to do, the ST could stand neatly in the saga as something of an epilogue to the first 6.
It didn’t need to try to outdo ROTJ, be a bigger, more bombastic, cumulative finale. I would have been really interested to see a more spiritual closing. And of course there’d still be action and thrills, but it wouldn’t need to be the point of tension or climax.
Of course the film could be a lot of different things with many different plots. My main point with this whole discussion is that considering the film we got I really don’t care if Rey was a Palpatine or not. She could also be a nobody and I would be fine with it as long as they could make it work. As I said to Dom, It is hard to present an antagonist for Rey in this film without someone like Palpatine. The relationship between her and Kylo is a different thing imo and has been from the beginning. It took the emperor to change them both.