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. 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. I’d still like to know who taught Luke to lift his lightsaber in TESB.
I think she has the help of adrenaline, she has the help of Finn shooting (and she doesn’t want to crash him or bb-8, giving her motivation to survive) she’s said she’s flown ships before, but never left the planet. She has a great knowledge of Star Wars technology from her many wreckage hunts, and she grew up with Unkar Plutt who traded salvage for portion packs. Luke’s flown those tatooine triangle ships before, but I seriously doubt that he had to combat training. The same can be said of Rey, but not Finn, who’s had combat training. When I watched TFA I didn’t really think about how plausible it all was, because Star Wars hasn’t been the most plausible from the beginning. The force wills stuff to happen, right? But that’s probably not a good excuse for anything in the saga.
But Rey is strong in the force. And she does struggle.
At Star Wars land I was able to pilot the Millennium Falcon pretty good, despite being a horrible flyer and despite it being my first time. L3 is part of the ship so I imagine that has to do with something. Overall, I don’t think it’s really worth debating over, whether or not it was plausible for Rey to do really good, or whether she’s a Mary sure, or whatever. Cus what’s stopping her from having some offscreen time from training with Luke (or herself) it’s not like in the movies all happen like we see them, condensed into 2 hours. Star Wars is like a buffet, basically. Take what you want, and leave what you don’t. That was admittedly stolen from someone else but it’s true.