Has your TLJ opinion changed dramatically over time?

And Rey fought with her bo and flew flight simulators. Good there's no more question that Rey isn't "OP" or really any different than Luke.
Glad it's been settled.

 

The funny part is that you're preaching to the choir on this one. I'm not the guy that defends Luke, just making a funny. I've always been up-front about being cool with her being over-powered. My expectation(although at this point they may just make it a Happy Reylo Day to end The Saga :/) being that she gets torn down to the rivets by the end of 9.

Either way, If its good enough for Neo(or Luke)... its fine in TFA imo.

Also, note her downward trajectory. She was shown as clearly Ren's better in TFA. By TLJ they were showing her as his equal. By 9, the power should have completely flipped to Ren with Rey being drawn weak with him going OP, to form that traditional Star Wars Trilogy X narrative.

He who starts out strong goes low. He who starts out low goes strong. Presuming they actually know what they're doing, which has been in question since December, and for which it would take a big set of brass ones to pull off.

The end of 9 has to be as brutal, if not more so, than the end of 3.
​

 

You omitted slave broom boy doing the same manoeuvre with no shown training...

 

Flight simulators? Whuh huh? What flight simulators?

(If you have to go outside the movie to explain something in the movie, that's a shortcoming of the movie)

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 12, 2018, Original Post Date: Jun 12, 2018 ---

I thought the broom boy scene was silly but, conceptually speaking, I don't have a problem with the idea that Force proficiency comes naturally to some people and they are they are able to employ basic, beginners-level techniques without any sort of training or instruction.

 

pick that nit.

 

Um, you're the one who brought up flight simulators. How in the world is it nitpicking to accurately observe that the very thing you're talking about, you know, doesn't actually exist anywhere in the movie..?

When someone says something like "And Rey fought with her bo and flew flight simulators" then it's pretty relevant to respond that, well.... the second part of your statement simply never happened onscreen.

 

And you never saw Luke shoot anything.

 

yes, the simulators came from the EU, but:

Rey in TFA: I've flown some ships but I've never left the planet!​

this is the problem with much of the criticism i've seen. the explanations are in the film, but people dismiss them, discount them, or variously decide "he's lying" or "she's lying"; whenever it suits them. at some point you have to take the film at face value and expect that not everything is some kind of subterfuge or will lead to some startling reveal or (contrariwise) is just dismissable drivel ~ as if it wasn't specifically crafted to suit the character and the plot and tell us something about both.

 

I think it's because it's very obvious what is happening when Luke pulls the saber the first time (and very cool), but what was going on with Leia just *wasn't* ( a very wtf moment due to how it was portrayed, just my opinion).

 

It's not obvious what happens when Leia makes *the* hand gesture and begins to move?

 

I'm on my 3rd watch. Can't say my opinion has changed too much. I don't love it, but I accept it as part of a universe and story that I do love.

On the 3rd watch I'm still pretty much reduced to tears by the finale, so the film is very much in touch with my deep life-long feeling towards Star Wars. If if it did miss some beats, and didn't 'look' quite 'right' to me.

 

The whole sequence was odd, so no. I get that you're insulting me over this, ftr.

 

Yes but there is dialog establishing his abilities. We see the T-16 that he flies. That's all it would have taken in E7, something along those lines. Rey, however, jumps into the Millennium Falcon - a ship which under normal circumstances requires a pilot and a co-pilot - and in about 60 seconds goes from scraping the ground to flying at a level that even Han Solo would be jealous of.

As for your pictures, I still don't see any flight simulators so I am not exactly sure why you posted them.... are you saying that wearing a scavenged helmet somehow magically imparts someone with the ability to fly??

 

Where am I insulting you?
Challenging your belief that it's far-fetched in a galaxy of far-fetchedness isn't insulting. Im trying to find where your disconnect with it occurs, since it really isn't THAT different than other things in Star Wars.

Insulting you would be "You're an idiot for not knowing...."

I'm genuinely asking if it's not obvious when she makes the "force pull" hand gesture (or a variant of) everyone makes in the films.






Im genuinely curious why *this* one is so different.
Is it because she's in space and therefore what is happening is sort of an inverse of what we normally get?
ex: Luke, on a planet with gravity and friction, pulls an object to him vs Leia in space, no gravity and no friction, pulls herself to an object.

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 13, 2018, Original Post Date: Jun 13, 2018 ---

We never see Luke shoot anything in his speeder and he's immediately thrashed by some Tusken Raiders.
Yeah him going full HAM in the last act with no train seems legit.

Rey says she's a pilot and you see her on a speeder. She has a helmet and doll. That should be enough.

That's as much as Luke had in ANH.

Nitpicking because you don't like her is still just nitpicking.

 

Rey: I've flown some ships but I've never left the planet.

isn't that dialog that establishes Rey's abilities?

 

Yes. And so does Luke's. But there is a difference between Rey and Luke that makes his okay and hers not.
Cant figure out what it is though. And if you try, you're apparently "insulting" people.

 

LOL!!! Yeah, OK. She's a great pilot because she has a helmet and a doll. I really can't argue with that.....

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 14, 2018, Original Post Date: Jun 14, 2018 ---

IMO, not really. "I've flown some ships" doesn't really connect to her taking over a ship which requires a co-pilot and flying it as well as Han ever did by herself. But that's her character. Everything she does, she just immediately becomes a superstar at. Hence: "Mary-Sue."

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 14, 2018 ---

You don't realize it but you helped me prove my point with your very own words. Your very first post in this sidebar said "Rey fought with her bo and used flight simulators."

The fact that your very first comment in this little sidebar involved going outside the movie speaks volumes.

 

i've flown ships before. i used to bullseye womp rats.

i dunno, to me there's no difference whatsoever. if anything, i think Luke's ability to shoot rats is less analogous.
at least flying a ship is actually flying a ship.

 

OK I finally have time to write a long winded response so here we go:

First of all, there are several instances where Luke is established as a pilot ("You bet I could, I'm not such a bad pilot myself" is one you forgot to mention). Obi-Wan vouches for Luke's ability ("I understand you've become quite a good pilot yourself"). The SE adds a line (which I think should have been included in the original) where Biggs vouches for his abilities, calling Luke the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim. This is important dialog. Not only do we know Luke is a pilot, but it speaks volumes that he has a reputation for actually being a good one.

Second of all, Luke is not living in extreme poverty, literally unsure of how much food he will earn tomorrow. We actually see the ship Luke flies and can safely assume he flies it somewhat regularly because his family owns it. My interpretation has always been that he doesn't take the T-16 out for joy-riding, but when he is actually doing chores, he gets a little joy-riding in on the side (not to mention womp rat target practice). Even if you have a different interpretation, we still see the ship Luke flies and it makes sense that Luke would have learned to fly and gets to do so somewhat regularly.

Please note that I haven't had to come up with some imaginary flight simulator from EU sources for any of the above. Everything I mention above is actually in the movie (with one quote being from the SE).

So as we see, with Luke, there's something there to give us a little explanation. With Rey, there is absolutely nothing in the movie that even remotely addresses any of the valid questions the viewer may have. Where are all these ships Rey has flown? Why did she fly them? How much experience does she have? We get none of this.

Now let's examine how good Luke and Rey really are when things get rough. If you think about, for most of the Battle of Yavin, Luke isn't really doing all that great of a job. He starts out very clumsy and nearly blows himself up ("I got a little cooked but I'm OK"). His dogfighting skills are not terribly impressive. At one point, he needs Wedge to save him. Now, obviously, there has to come a point where our hero finally does something heroic (well, unless you're watching E8 that is). This occurs during the trench run. He gets some guidance and wisdom from Obi-Wan. Vader scores a hit and then at the moment of Vader's killshot, for the second time in the battle, someone else saves Luke's life. Now he is all clear and makes a shot which the movie has established is not all that radically different from similar shots he has made in the past. There is a heroic moment, but there's just no Mary Sue moments in there.

Contrast the above to Rey. She starts out clumsy, scraping the ground and destroying the Niima Outpost arch thingy. I liked that part. It made sense that she wouldn't just sit down at the controls and fly with the skills of an expert. Problem is, about 10 seconds later, that's exactly what happens. In less than an instant, she is suddenly flying the Falcon (a freighter meant to be flown by 2 people, by the way) with as much skill as we have ever seen it flown at any point in the saga. She maneuvers the "canyons" of a Star Destroyer graveyard with all the skill of Han Solo in an asteroid field. She swoops into the shell of a Super Star Destroyer, maneuvers expertly through it, and then exits at the perfect time and perfect moment. It just strains credulity far too much.

This is one of her many Mary Sue moments and not even remotely analogous to what we see with Luke. Anyone who can't see the clear differences between the two just isn't paying attention.