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The Force Awakens: Official Review Thread - ** SPOILERS ** — Page 16

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Jesus Christ, how the hell is everyone 200% positive she hasn’t had Jedi training? I could easily see a scenario down the line where we discover that Rey learned from Luke and/or her family (if Luke isn’t her family) and underwent some kind of Force-induced amnesia for one reason or another. In fact, I’ll be surprised if that isn’t the case. The mind trick is really the only thing that needs explaining anyway, and possibly pulling the lightsaber. As for winning the fight, consider the following:

-Kylo Ren is himself only partially trained. Yes, he has that nifty trick where he stops blaster bolts, and yes, he’s pretty damned effective when he’s the only guy in the room with a lightsaber, but he’s not Vader and the movie never gives the impression that he’s anywhere near that level of control.

-When he fights Rey, Kylo’s just taken a bowcaster bolt to the torso and a couple decent saber hits from Finn. He’s also just murdered his father and is kind of a confused angry mess. This is not Kylo Ren on his A game.

-The movie set up quite organically through the stuff that happens on Jakku that Rey is adept at hand to hand combat and is extremely agile. Couple that with her newly awakened Force sensitivity, and I have no trouble believing she could hold her own against a Kylo Ren in the state I’ve just described.

-If that isn’t enough for you, the Force works in mysterious ways. We’ve seen it set up innumerable coincidences to drive events and shape outcomes. Who’s to say the Force itself didn’t give Rey a boost because it needed to happen? I know there’s no direct precedent for this, but have Luke or Maz expound on it in a well-written monologue in the next movie and I’ll totally buy it.

I know I’m not likely to change anyone’s mind, but when I see people take issue with stuff like this I can’t shake the feeling that it’s because they’re just unwilling to think about it. That if something in a Star Wars movie doesn’t immediately gel with the finite list of things we’ve seen in the other movies, it’s bad writing and poorly done. When I look at Rey’s arc in this movie, I don’t think “pfffft, totally unbelievable, not at all like how it was for Luke”. I think “oh shit, there’s some Force stuff going on here that we haven’t seen before, I wonder where this is going”.

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SilverWook said:

Rey has grown up in a hostile environment. None of the locals seem very friendly, and there seems to be very few other humans around. She’s more friendly to a droid she’s just met. If some guy I just met grabbed my hand, I’d be a little hostile too.

And before things gets dragged into the muck, and further attempts at gender political discussion in this thread will be dealt with swiftly and without any further warning.

under normal circumstances, I would have linked to the politics thread and continued the discussion there, but like I said I feared that would violate the spoiler rules and wouldn’t want to reveal something about the movie someone wouldn’t want to know until they saw it.

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Alderaan said:

As far as her being a Mary Sue … what flaws or limitations did she have? And even if you give her flaws and limitations, but you come up with the excuse that she has some innate ability to overcome those limitations at the whim of the writer, then what is she exactly? This all gets back to how poorly thought out the plot was. Instead of creating a genuine, original story, we had JJ and Kathleen sitting in a room listening to some Disney execs tell them that THIS, and THIS, and THAT, and THAT, and these other 50 things all have to be in the movie to make the most money. That was a recipe for disaster. The plot wound up as an incoherent mess, and that’s really the only criticism I have of Rey’s character. She was basically given “liquid luck” (Harry Potter reference) for any scene in the movie the plot could use it.

From a post I made earlier: “She’s not unflawed. She’s got interesting trust and family issues that are obviously due to what happened to her as a kid and cause her to reject Solo’s offer. It’s a nice arc that’s resolved when Finn and co. come back to save her and she realizes they actually care about her. Of course she also fears her past and the unknown truths about herself which manifest when she touches the lightsaber. She doesn’t just become a full-blown, lightsaber-toting hero right away.”

Her weakness is not external but internal, which in my mind is a pretty good way of showing her vulnerability and humanity.

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There was plenty of vulnerability on display after she had the Force vision. It scared the crap out of her.

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Warbler said:

SilverWook said:

Rey has grown up in a hostile environment. None of the locals seem very friendly, and there seems to be very few other humans around. She’s more friendly to a droid she’s just met. If some guy I just met grabbed my hand, I’d be a little hostile too.

And before things gets dragged into the muck, and further attempts at gender political discussion in this thread will be dealt with swiftly and without any further warning.

under normal circumstances, I would have linked to the politics thread and continued the discussion there, but like I said I feared that would violate the spoiler rules and wouldn’t want to reveal something about the movie someone wouldn’t want to know until they saw it.

Rules might be more relaxed when the movie has been out long enough for most people here to have seen it.

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 (Edited)

joefavs said:

Jesus Christ, how the hell is everyone 200% positive she hasn’t had Jedi training?

  1. she never said she had training

  2. She was afraid to touch the lightsaber and I if I remember correctly, at first she didn’t know what it was.

  3. She didn’t act like she had training.

I could easily see a scenario down the line where we discover that Rey learned from Luke and/or her family (if Luke isn’t her family) and underwent some kind of Force-induced amnesia for one reason or another. In fact, I’ll be surprised if that isn’t the case.

possible.

The mind trick is really the only thing that needs explaining anyway, and possibly pulling the lightsaber. As for winning the fight, consider the following:
-Kylo Ren is himself only partially trained. Yes, he has that nifty trick where he stops blaster bolts, and yes, he’s pretty damned effective when he’s the only guy in the room with a lightsaber, but he’s not Vader and the movie never gives the impression that he’s anywhere near that level of control.

He was also effective in getting the info out of Poe and at deducing that Finn was the traitor.

-When he fights Rey, Kylo’s just taken a bowcaster bolt to the torso and a couple decent saber hits from Finn. He’s also just murdered his father and is kind of a confused angry mess. This is not Kylo Ren on his A game.

-The movie set up quite organically through the stuff that happens on Jakku that Rey is adept at hand to hand combat and is extremely agile. Couple that with her newly awakened Force sensitivity, and I have no trouble believing she could hold her own against a Kylo Ren in the state I’ve just described.

ok let us take Luke from time he boarded cloud city. At that time he was partially trained. Shoot him with bowcaster and then hand totally untrained Leia a lightsaber. Who are you going to bet on winning that fight?

-If that isn’t enough for you, the Force works in mysterious ways. We’ve seen it set up innumerable coincidences to drive events and shape outcomes. Who’s to say the Force itself didn’t give Rey a boost because it needed to happen? I know there’s no direct precedent for this, but have Luke or Maz expound on it in a well-written monologue in the next movie and I’ll totally buy it.

possible.

I know I’m not likely to change anyone’s mind, but when I see people take issue with stuff like this I can’t shake the feeling that it’s because they’re just unwilling to think about it. That if something in a Star Wars movie doesn’t immediately gel with the finite list of things we’ve seen in the other movies, it’s bad writing and poorly done.

no, but it is arguably inconsistent with continuity setup so far.

When I look at Rey’s arc in this movie, I don’t think “pfffft, totally unbelievable, not at all like how it was for Luke”. I think “oh shit, there’s some Force stuff going on here that we haven’t seen before, I wonder where this is going”.

and if I thought that, my next thought would be why haven’t we seen this “force stuff going on here that we haven’t seen before” in any of the first six movies. The first six movies make quite clear that someone totally untrained would have no chance against someone as trained Kylo Ren is in this movie.

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SilverWook said:

Warbler said:

SilverWook said:

Rey has grown up in a hostile environment. None of the locals seem very friendly, and there seems to be very few other humans around. She’s more friendly to a droid she’s just met. If some guy I just met grabbed my hand, I’d be a little hostile too.

And before things gets dragged into the muck, and further attempts at gender political discussion in this thread will be dealt with swiftly and without any further warning.

under normal circumstances, I would have linked to the politics thread and continued the discussion there, but like I said I feared that would violate the spoiler rules and wouldn’t want to reveal something about the movie someone wouldn’t want to know until they saw it.

Rules might be more relaxed when the movie has been out long enough for most people here to have seen it.

no problem.

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Warbler said:
ok let us take Luke from time he boarded cloud city. At that time he was partially train. Shoot him with bowcaster and then hand totally untrained Leia a lightsaber. Who are you going to bet on winning that fight?

She’s not Leia though. She’s Rey, who’s been fighting with a staff and jumping around derelict Star Destroyers and taking care of herself with no help in a brutally harsh environment since she was a small child. Melee combat is already part of her skill set regardless of the Force.

and if I thought that, my next thought would be why haven’t we seen this “force stuff going on here that we haven’t seen before” in any of the first six movies. The first six movies make quite clear that someone totally untrained would have no chance against someone as trained Kylo Ren is in this movie.

Before ESB, there were no Force ghosts or visions. TPM turned the whole thing on its head with midichlorians. ROTS introduced power over life and death into the mix. This is how a series works. If we were stuck with only what was explicitly referenced in ANH for nine films, we’d have a pretty boring franchise.

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joefavs said:

Warbler said:
ok let us take Luke from time he boarded cloud city. At that time he was partially train. Shoot him with bowcaster and then hand totally untrained Leia a lightsaber. Who are you going to bet on winning that fight?

She’s not Leia though. She’s Rey, who’s been fighting with a staff and jumping around derelict Star Destroyers and taking care of herself with no help in a brutally harsh environment since she was a small child. Melee combat is already part of her skill set regardless of the Force.

Yep. She’d had more use with a melee weapon than Luke when he arrived at Cloud City (which is to say none at all).

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Man, the more you all talk about this film, the more I’m loving it. Rey is just gold, and I really feel for her.

The Rise of Failures

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joefavs said:

Warbler said:
ok let us take Luke from time he boarded cloud city. At that time he was partially train. Shoot him with bowcaster and then hand totally untrained Leia a lightsaber. Who are you going to bet on winning that fight?

She’s not Leia though. She’s Rey, who’s been fighting with a staff and jumping around derelict Star Destroyers and taking care of herself with no help in a brutally harsh environment since she was a small child. Melee combat is already part of her skill set regardless of the Force.

and Leia was fighting in a war. Rey is not Leia, but both are untrained force sentients.

and if I thought that, my next thought would be why haven’t we seen this “force stuff going on here that we haven’t seen before” in any of the first six movies. The first six movies make quite clear that someone totally untrained would have no chance against someone as trained Kylo Ren is in this movie.

Before ESB, there were no Force ghosts or visions. TPM turned the whole thing on its head with midichlorians.

and just how well did the midichlorians go over?

This is how a series works. If we were stuck with only what was explicitly referenced in ANH for nine films, we’d have a pretty boring franchise.

but the more movies, the harder it is to introduce new things and still have them believable with the universe already setup.

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Guys, am I taking crazy pills or did anyone not hear and see what was going on in that flashback? Obi-Wan says “Rey, these are your first steps.” Followed by the slaughter of the Jedi by the knights of Ren, followed by a shot of Rey being left on Jakku.

By using some simple logical deduction, Rey has had Jedi training and is being hidden from Ren. It’s when the force is used upon her for interrogation, that these repressed skills are awakened. This isn’t a “Mary Sue” moment where she’s suddenly able to do incredible things from nowhere.

And besides, she’s not perfect. She has serious trust issues and is afraid of change. She spends the film trying to get back to her crummy life on Jakku instead of finding a better one for herself.

I also think some of the dudes here need to realize how important Rey is as a character for young girls. No longer are young female Star Wars fans forced to play Princess Leia in the playground and wait for their other friends to come and rescue them. Now they can play a Jedi who works together with others to defeat the baddie at the end.

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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Are we forgetting the most popular character from The Clone Wars was a female Jedi in training? I’ve seen a lot of girls dressing as Ashoka. And she was brought back for Rebels.

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SilverWook said:

Are we forgetting the most popular character from The Clone Wars was a female Jedi in training? I’ve seen a lot of girls dressing as Ashoka. And she was brought back for Rebels.

I haven’t watched Clone Wars nor Rebels, but that’s great to hear.

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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As for the whole thing about Rey defeating Kylo in a lightsaber suel. Aren’t we forgetting that Luke never had any lightsaber sparring training what-so-ever. He learned to block some laser-bolts from a small harmless droid by Obi-Wan, and then he ran around in a swamp with Yoda on his back learning mostly levitation and some Jedi philosophy. Even if you count the novelization or the deleted scenes as canon all the lightsaber training he did with Yoda was cutting a few metal rods throws into the air. I also seem to recall that he didn’t do that well on that test.
Aren’t we kind of judging this film by PT logic? That it’s the moves that count, not the use of the Force. Pre-PT material often put a lot more of a focus on the importance of channeling the Force and fining inner peace and control, which is exactly what Rey did in TFA. A lot of the mystical elements of the lightsaber was lost in the PT, but Kasdan and Abrams seem to have brought it back here.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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Snoke also did say something about completing Kylo’s training at the end, so he hasn’t earned his Sith diploma quite yet.

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ZkinandBonez said:

As for the whole thing about Rey defeating Kylo in a lightsaber suel. Aren’t we forgetting that Luke never had any lightsaber sparring training what-so-ever. He learned to block some laser-bolts from a small harmless droid by Obi-Wan, and then he ran around in a swamp with Yoda on his back learning mostly levitation and some Jedi philosophy. Even if you count the novelization or the deleted scenes as canon all the lightsaber training he did with Yoda was cutting a few metal rods throws into the air. I also seem to recall that he didn’t do that well on that test.
Aren’t we kind of judging this film by PT logic? That it’s the moves that count, not the use of the Force. Pre-PT material often put a lot more of a focus on the importance of channeling the Force and fining inner peace and control, which is exactly what Rey did in TFA. A lot of the mystical elements of the lightsaber was lost in the PT, but Kasdan and Abrams seem to have brought it back here.

Luke got his ass kicked by Vader. Then he trained for three more years to finally become a Jedi. Where and how he trained nobody knows, but it’s nice to have movies that don’t spoon feed you everything, and allow you to fill in the blanks yourself. The only relevant exposition needed at the start of Jedi was that Luke’s powers had grown immensely since the previous film.

Even then, Luke wasn’t able to defeat Vader until he used the dark side of the force in their last battle.

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So this is still the review thread, and I just saw it for the first time tonight and have some strong issues, so I’m going to chime in. Apologies if I repeat something someone else said in the previous 16 pages most of which i don’t have the time to read.

I understand if no one wants to read my omnibus here. But you might want to at least skip to the end and read that.

Honestly, I loved it. But there were some serious flaws that shouldn’t be glossed over. First of all, it is indeed a mashup of mostly ANH plus a few elements of ESB and RotJ. I am definitely disappointed there. I like JJ Abrams enough to have expected more than that.

Thankfully, he did provide a bit more, by creating new and original characters. So I think the device at play was to use the old as the scaffold for the new. I don’t think any of this (yea or nay) will be evident for sure as “the vision for the entire new trilogy” until the next one. Let’s hope the next one invents more. BUT - what was done in this movie was done well enough that I’m in. I care about these characters. Now I have some new characters I’ll be demanding writers and directors do justice to in creative treatments - as well as the old ones.

Unfortunately, the “professions” of the characters are not a different case than the plot - basically using an old scaffold: the REALLY GOOD pilot, the hardscrabble desert child, the dangerously powerful dark force user being used in turn by a powerful emperor communicating via sinister holograms. But the personalities behind the characters are totally fresh - and I so appreciate that. The least of these is the new emperor, but even so, he is still new, behavior-wise.

I know that the producers probably deliberately set this formula in motion, as some kind of potion to syncretize old and new audiences, but it is underwhelmingly simplistic. They can do better, and I know this for a fact because I have seen how sophisticated some of the other elements they’ve used are, at least in the context of the Star Wars Universe, which traditionally is pretty simplistic. It is based on black-and-white ideology, after all.

[Side note; re: black and white: this brings to mind something: the greater quest in the story arc of all of the previous six films was bringing balance to the force. We see a universe torn between opposite manifestations of an ultimate power, and remember this - the Skeksis and the Urdu from The Dark Crystal, a Jim Henson vehicle no less. We see SWU directors spending an awful lot of time struggling to find stuff for the characters to do, and being so stumped in this pursuit that they’ve come up with the death star THREE TIMES, but a real balancing of the force could be a truly original event. Are we really doomed to watch a never-ending story about a quest for an event that will never happen, or will we get grey Jedi finally, the Skeksis and the Urdu merged into those tall “light beings”, and the world can actually evolve?]

Those other elements - the sophisticated devices - the enormous crashed star destroyer hulk, Rey as a solitary survivalist orphan on a planet that hates her, Finn as a mutation, whose deviation is pure compassion and/or jarring clarity in an insane world {in him we have inspiration from First Lieutenant John J. Dunbar of Dances with Wolves), new technology, new interpretations of how old technology would be realistically used, seriously old people as adventure heroes, new classes of stormtroopers, non-patronizing characters, Chewie displaying previously unrevealed personality traits while being treated in the med bay.

So! Just before I get into the total fails of this movie, I will re-state that the spirit is strong and ultimately it succeeds. But here are the UNFORGIVABLE flaws as I see them, in order of most petty to most heinous:

When Finn, Chewbacca, and Han are looking for Rey, first of all - how are they going to find her on an Order base so large that it is built into a death beam installation the size of 1/18th of a planet? Well- ok, so we suddenly see her scaling the wall opposite the side of an enormous chasm the aforementioned trio are on, and perhaps we can say the force brought them al to the same place at the same time, but HOW THE HELL do said trio IMMEDIATELY join her across said huge chasm and LOCATE THE EXACT ROOM SHE WAS IN with NO TROUBLE OR DELAY? That part - totally unbelievable.

But the worst one, the very worst one by far, was the total lack of reverberations and fallout after the Death of Han. Sure, Leia got kind of verklempt at the console, and Chewie went berserk for a few seconds and later sat in a corner for a moment, thank you for that JJ. But of all the relationships in the SWU, Chewie and Han were the best and most intense example of best friends. They were inseparable for DECADES. Chewie would not be emotionally functional after Han’s death, he would enter a persistent traumatic state that either manifested as rage and bloodlust, or despair, shock, and crippling grief. Necessity of escape or no, he wouldn’t be dutifully sitting beside the new pilot of the Millenium falcon and interacting normally, or when they got back, interacting with other characters normally at all. Since Chewie can’t have a lot of expressions facially, we should have seen it in body language and actions. Slumped shoulders, unresponsiveness in social situations, spasms of (even more than usual) unreasonable anger, maybe even up to abandoning the rebellion. In short, something visible, persistent, and extreme. Instead we see him more or less shrug it off after a moment of outrage.

And the final thing is connected to the previous. When Rey and Chewie return to base after the starkiller is destroyed, they exit the falcon and Leia is standing, waiting, bittersweet. Chewie and Rey approach. Closer. LEIA COMPLETELY IGNORES CHEWBACCA, and HE IGNORES HER AND CALMLY WALKS PAST, and then - AND THEN - to share her grief, LEIA EMBRACES NEW GIRL SHE NEVER MET. WHAT THE FUCK. REALLY? We are supposed to believe that the two people who loved Han more than anyone else just pay no attention to one another at all after his horrific death? And instead Leia hugs some fucking stranger?

For me this severed the emotional thread of the entire film. Suddenly there was a total void made by sloppy negligence in what otherwise was a movie that thoughtfully invested in each and every character. They did go some way toward better development of Chewie’s character, but it looks like he still gets treated like a big non-sentient animal sometimes. Even dogs get hugged when someone in the family dies. And at least Adywan gave Chewbacca a medal!!

And before anyone says anything like “maybe Chewbacca and Leia haven’t been speaking to each other or some reason” or “maybe wookies deal with death differently” or “maybe Leia secretly knew Rey was some important family relation and this was BRILLIANT FORESHADOWING” or “maybe Leia and Chewbacca had their moment offscreen”, just no. This isn’t the fanfic or retconning thread. These things didn’t exist in this cut. And who cares if Leia had some secret knowledge - the Leia/Chewbacca interaction was still shit.

Here’s what I think should happen to fix this lame thing (this isn’t fanfic or retconning because it relates to future concepts): first of all, some moment where Leia and Chewie share some emotions, either somehow in a fanedit of this movie, or a scene in the VIII theater release. This is crucial. Secondly, Chewbacca should for the most part leave the rebellion as a consistent soldier and become a sort of bounty hunter specializing in collecting sith heads, or if that is too NC-17, then sith lightsabers, which Luke or Rey or Finn modify to produce white, blue, or green blades. Chewie can show up at some point in a room that everyone is in and drop an armload of sith lightsabers onto a table while everyone in the room stares at them and goes pale. The modified lightsabers can be given to new jedis in training, and the combo of sith hardware and jedi colors can be a small symbol of the light and dark sides beginning to find balance.

And Chewie’s look should definitely change to reflect his state, maybe more weapons, dirtier fur. Maybe some of the war leaders on Kashyyyk could be used as stylistic references as well, for cultural consistency.

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Cyclista, that was an opus that could have benefited from some editing, but I’m often guilty of that too. I always enjoy reading someone’s heartfelt feelings on this forum.

Anyway, I agree about Han’s death being handled very poorly. I said the same thing to my family about Chewie, that it was like he screamed for a couple of seconds and then whoops, guess life goes on and he’s back in the copilot seat taking off with Rey.

I also wondered why on earth Leia and Rey were hugging each other at the end. The two didn’t even know each other. I failed to notice as you did, however, that Leia and Chewie should have been together. You’re absolutely right. They should have been. Remember Han telling Chewie to take care of her after he was gone in Empire? How the fuck did that get missed?! That’s just another bullshit example of Disney trying to force new characters on us. They want to pass the torch from Leia to Rey, and that’s fine. I’m all down for that. But make it happen naturally in the fucking story universe. Don’t give us a lazy, incompetent plot, and then just put two characters together at the end who don’t even know each other.

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Alderaan said:

ZkinandBonez said:

As for the whole thing about Rey defeating Kylo in a lightsaber suel. Aren’t we forgetting that Luke never had any lightsaber sparring training what-so-ever. He learned to block some laser-bolts from a small harmless droid by Obi-Wan, and then he ran around in a swamp with Yoda on his back learning mostly levitation and some Jedi philosophy. Even if you count the novelization or the deleted scenes as canon all the lightsaber training he did with Yoda was cutting a few metal rods throws into the air. I also seem to recall that he didn’t do that well on that test.
Aren’t we kind of judging this film by PT logic? That it’s the moves that count, not the use of the Force. Pre-PT material often put a lot more of a focus on the importance of channeling the Force and fining inner peace and control, which is exactly what Rey did in TFA. A lot of the mystical elements of the lightsaber was lost in the PT, but Kasdan and Abrams seem to have brought it back here.

Luke got his ass kicked by Vader. Then he trained for three more years to finally become a Jedi. Where and how he trained nobody knows, but it’s nice to have movies that don’t spoon feed you everything, and allow you to fill in the blanks yourself. The only relevant exposition needed at the start of Jedi was that Luke’s powers had grown immensely since the previous film.

Even then, Luke wasn’t able to defeat Vader until he used the dark side of the force in their last battle.

Luke lost yes, but he still gave Vader a run for his money, even to the point of wounding him slightly. Also, there’s two-ish years between ANH and ESB, in which he only had himself to train with. He had no practical fighting experience until he faced Vader. And there were only a few months that passed between ESB and ROTJ.
The OT was more focused on the Force rather than sparring skills. And yes, Luke only won in ROTJ because he used the Dark Side. But that seems to be what the OT went for, Force skills over dueling moves. Vader and Luke won because they used their aggression to overpower and frighten their opponent, and Rey as well as Obi-Wan (before he let himself get killed) used calmness to channel the Force in order to win/survive.

I haven’t’ actually red the novelization of ANH, but I recall from the comic adaption(s) that it talked about how they channeled the Force through their blades. Even before the ESB fight, Lucas had a pretty decent excuse for the slowness of the fight. It’s more of duel of wills then sword-waving-skills. If Rey managed to find her inner calmness, then purely as a fight of wills and Force strenght it’s really not that weird that she managed to defeat the wounded, angry, emotionally conflicted, and even somewhat frightened, Kylo Ren. And she’s proven that she has some skills with a melee weapon before (e.g. her staff).

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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ZkinandBonez said:
Luke lost yes, but he still gave Vader a run for his money, even to the point of wounding him slightly.

What? No. Vader trolled him the entire fight. As soon as Vader’s shoulder was hit by the lightsaber, he dispensed with the pretense and cut off Luke’s hand within seconds. He could have killed Luke immediately after he walked into the freezing chamber if he had wanted to.

ZkinandBonez said:
Also, there’s two-ish years between ANH and ESB, in which he only had himself to train with. He had no practical fighting experience until he faced Vader. And there were only a few months that passed between ESB and ROTJ.

Three years between Empire and Jedi.

And regardless of the time interval, the exposition was clear that Luke’s power had grown immensely between the two films.

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Alderaan said:
Remember Han telling Chewie to take care of her after he was gone in Empire? How the fuck did that get missed?! That’s just another bullshit example of Disney trying to force new characters on us. They want to pass the torch from Leia to Rey, and that’s fine. I’m all down for that. But make it happen naturally in the fucking story universe. Don’t give us a lazy, incompetent plot, and then just put two characters together at the end who don’t even know each other.

That was three decades ago, in a very, very different situation. When he said that she was a prisoner of Vader in Cloud City and Luke was running into a trap. It was a moment of great hopelessness.
Thirty years later in TFA Leia is general, and I don’t think she needs a Wookiee to follow her around while all the time at this point, especially now that she’s surrounded by hundreds of soldiers 24/7. Also Han came “back-to-life” in ROTJ so I think that “deal” stopped counting then.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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 (Edited)

I don’t understand why some of you think the mind trick is too far fetched?
Kylo Ren is “interrogating” her with the force, he is in her head, the scene goes on and on and on, while you watch her struggling at first but then beginning to push back. And suddenly she is in his head. She feels his fear and insecurity. She heard stories about the Jedi and maybe about the mind trick. So, she read the mind of a very powerful opponent, so why not try influencing a strormtrooper? I thought it was believable.