Unfortunately the overly competent nature of Rey in the film and her behaviour towards Finn early on does come across like JJ is pushing a PC feminist agenda, I find it disappointing because the last thing anybody want to be reminded of when watching an escapist sci-fi fantasy is the modern world with political correctness and gender politics, it takes you right out of the film IMHO. I’m all for feminism, equality and girl power, but I don’t think this sort of gender politics has any place in Star Wars films that are meant to be universal timeless stories, adding this sort of thing just ties the film down to a certain period in modern history and takes away from that timeless quality that the Original Trilogy had. I don’t want to start a feminism/political correctness debate here, this thread is not the place, it was something that I felt coming across quite strongly in TFA so I felt I should mention it.
Would you feel the same way if you were female? I think if I were female, the last thing I’d want in my escapism is more misogynistic portrayals of women who can’t do anything and who constantly need men to save them.
I don’t think its relevant whether you’re male or female, all that matters is that the character is believable and that the story is worth telling. There have been widely loved female action characters in movie history like Ellen Ripley and Sarah Conner, their being female has never been a problem because they are believable and their stories were worth telling. Rey is not believable to me personally, she is too good at too many things, especially things that she had no previous experience in, that has nothing to do with wanting more misogynistic portrayals of women. I’m not going to say any more about this aspect of TFA because I’m not really interested in getting into a heated discussion about current gender politics and PC in Hollywood.