I staunchly defended Rey after TFA, but have

For starters, she hasn't been tainted by the indoctrination of the Jedi Order.

 

For starters, there have been numerous forceusers throughout canon who haven't been tainted by any doctrine whatsoever. Rey's qualifications are a) she is a nobody, b) has no undertsanding of the force c) isn't influenced by any doctrine. These qualifications aren't special, it's easier to know nothing than it is to know something. If her lack of knowledge is what makes her so powerful there should be tons of uneducated forceusers just as powerful as her.

 

Sure. The new canon has definitely expanded the boundaries of the Force.

For instance, the Nightsisters magic is extremely powerful, despite the fact that they're not Jedi.

Perhaps we, as viewers, should allow our own boundaries of understanding to be expanded as well, instead of closing ourselves off to our own preconceptions.

 

Sorry we are talking about lifting rocks

 

Or you know, we should just expect writers to respect the lore created by Lucas. There is no need for Rey to be as powerful as she is. If she was like Ashoka Tano or Ezra Bridger with flaws and a visible learning curve then nobody would call her a Mary Sue. But using the force as deus ex machina seems to be what Disney is going for. The result is space Leia and Rey outdoing every other canonic forceuser before her in a couple of days.

 

The lore where we'd instead be learning about midichlorians in this sequel trilogy. I mean, if that's what floats your boat...

I don't know man, if you think a force pull and lifting rocks somehow outdoes every other Jedi, I can't think that we can hold an intellectually honest discussion.

 

I don't know much about the lore or other SW stuff apart from the trilogies, but let's not forget that Luke had no clue about the force concept when it was introduced in the first film. He, like the audience, had only the word of Obi One, who swore by it and only showed its power once ("these aren't the droids you're looking for"). Luke had even seen less proof that the force existed than us the audience... We at least had seen Vader perform a force choke, Luke didn't. Luke also spent most of the first film cupped up with Han Solo (who as we know had no time for religious ideas back then) and Leia, who was just concerned with the Rebels and politics. Luke did not believe in the force at first because he had had zero exposure to it. He was also a very well taken care of "mama's" boy of uncle Owen and aunt Beru, who had a very protected, isolated life as a farm boy. His brain did not have to stretch all that much in Tatooine let's just say.

Rey is a completely different story. She has heard about the legend of Luke and the force during her existence in Jakku. She also had these believes confirmed by Finn and Han Solo and exposed to the power of the force in maz's planet and in the interrogation scene early on in the film. The audience already knows about the force and that is powerful, so we are all on the same page. We don't have to take the word of a gnome-like creature in a swamp for it as Luke had to. Rey is experiencing force powers but, as she is in survival mode during the whole of TFA, has no time to analyze what's happening to her until TLJ. It is not hard for her to figure out that her powers have something to do with the force. Lets not forget either that the first film in the ST is entitled "The Force awakens", a title that is setting a completely different scenario from ANH. Luke only found R2 and Leia's recording by a fortuitous coincidence that Obi One exploited. It may have been the force but we do not know for sure. In the case of Rey, it is the force. No doubt. Why she? we may ask. I'm afraid we don't know yet. Snoke had a good theory in TLJ. Clever of the force to chose a girl with a surviving instinct and surviving skills methinks. But JJ will have the final word on this matter.

 

This resonates a lot with me and could explain Rey's adaptability to her force powers that I think is over looked. We saw Anakin had the ability to use the force, even though he may not have known it, through his ability to be the only human to pod race. With Rey, we don't didn't see any force ability until AFTER Kylo's interrogation. Kylo had a one way connection with Rey, until she became determined during that interrogation, which opened that into a 2-way flow. For me, I could see the possibly opening a few doors in Rey's mind to perform some of these force feats she displays. Just my own thoughts.

 

I, however, think that Rey’s awakening happened before. For me, it happened after she committed to BB8 rejecting the 60 portions and fleed in the falcon with Finn. It happened when she started to care about someone else apart from herself and her survival. That act of kindness opened her to the force.

 

Remember how Yoda viewed Luke as well. How Yoda responds to Luke tells us a great deal about Luke. Luke is far more a child at this point then Rey is.
First the comment about Wars dont make someone great, before Luke know that Yoda is a little green man. Once in the hutt Yoda is not impressed with Luke. Luke comes across as Yoda says Luke is filled with anger, has no patience, isnt committed, be serious, doesnt pay attention and just looks for excitement. Luke is simply not in the same state as Rey. When we met him he yearned for friends and fun. Rey is not that. She is focused on survival making it through the next day. Living day to day patiently waiting for her family to return. When Luke leaves he has no desire at all to ever return to Tatooine. When Rey leaves she wants to get back as soon as she can. She has read about the Jedi. Jedi are no longer taboo, but rather mythic. She has heard of what they can do. Luke has no idea. He thinks Jedi are more warriors then peacekeepers.

 

I think there's truth in both statements.
It's possible the force "chose" her because of the BB8 situation but the awakening was Kylo probing the mind and opening doors for her.

 

Yes, all this is subjective, but remember that Snoke told Kylo: "There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?" This conversation was before the interrogation scene and before Rey, Finn and Han landed in Maz's planet. The first time I saw TFA I thought Snoke was talking about Finn.

So there was a moment in the film when the awakening was flagged and my feeling is that it happened in Jakku. What I think, however (and I think this has been confirmed by JJ or perhaps in the novelization of TFA), is that during the interrogation Rey became self-aware of her force power, we could say.

 

Give me just one canonic example of a forceuser who became as powerful in the force as her within such a short timeframe, starting at such an "old" age and with so little training. If you're honestly arguing that her learning curve isn't far superior to that of everybody else in canon before then you haven't been paining attention. Uness they make Rey special in some way in IX (doesn't have to be related to her ancestry) to explain why the force is so strong in her she will be one of the most underwritten protagonist in the history of SW.

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 19, 2018, Original Post Date: Jun 19, 2018 ---

There are a couple of problems with that theory though:

a) Why didn't the force react in a similar way when the Jedi ruled the Galaxy for over 1000 years? Why did the dark side have to wait a millenia before they managed to dethrone the Jedi? Why didn't Luke get a powerup to balance out Yoda's death in ROTJ? This whole concept of "light to meet dark" sn't supported in any way in earlier canonic work. It not only makes the living force look biased towards the light side but also highly random in how quickly the force responds to imbalance.

b) The concept is incredibly boring. The living force is like a god and if a god takes side of our heroes there is no real challenge anymore. Whenever Rey needs power the force is going to give it to her and since the force capabilities are presumeably limitless then so are Rey's. With the force as her (biased) ally Rey learns a new ability whenever she needs it like mindcontrol or lifitng huge amounts of rock. Deus ex machina par excellence.

c) There can never be harmony and balance as long as the force exists. If one side is in a position of power the other will eventually overthrow them and so one and so forth. If Snoke's theroy is true then balance could only be achieved if the force ceased to exist which is a terrifiying thought.

So I honestly hope that JJ doesn'tz give a damn about Rian's "theory" and goes for a more interesting approach to explain why the force seems to work through Rey.

 

I'm happy with a force that evolves, that manifests itself differently and works in mysterious ways. I don't need consistency in the force. I don't think that the Jedi or the Sith, or the audience or even George Lucas (even with all that midi-chodian theory) know exactly what the force is all about and how it operates. The force as a lose concept works better as a story telling device in the Saga.

What I would find more boring would be to have a hero's journey similar to Luke's. It's been done before, so I respect JJ Abrams deciding to create a different sort of hero experiencing force powers. JJ used the force as a tool to introduce a heroine in a world she did not belong to and doing so created mystery, tension and drama. Rey being so attuned to the force gave rise to many questions and curiosity in the audience. I call that good story telling. Afterwards RJ fulfilled that curiosity about Rey with possible answer that so far work for me.

But you see, the interesting thing for me it's not "why Rey is so powerful?", but rather "what is Rey going to do with this power she's got?" For me it's all about Rey evolving as a character in the story, as a person interacting with other characters, problems and conflict. The force did not teach her to be wise, or not to trust a conflicted yet soft spoken man, or to accept and come to terms with her lonely orphan past and future. It was the experiences RJ put her through what did that.

And we still don't know the consequences of Rey's mistake trusting Kylo... We have to wait and see if there will be repercussions for her.

I don't disagree with you. As I said before, the force works in mysterious ways. That's how I like it.

 

I mean, they have heavily implied Rey is special in some way, or at least that the Force is specifically channeling her.

And timelines in Star Wars are notoriously vague, so I'm sure you can bend this logic however you like, but Savage Opress's entire arc happened within the span of a year. So there's definitely that.

 

Savage Opress was the last man standing in a deathmatch of dozens of highly trained warriors. He was then infused with the dark force alchemy of an entire Dathomir witchcult. He then went on to train about a year with 3 very experienced and dedicated masters only to be killed with ease by palpatine in a 2vs1.

Rey on the other hand is a street-smart oprhan who earns her living by salvaging junk instead of being a warrior. She defeates Kylo, the praetorians and (arguably) Luke within a couple of days after holding a lightsaber for the first time.

The fact that you mentioned Savage Opress as an example of someone who is similar to Rey in terms of "backstory vs powers" is quite telling. I think we both know that Rey doesn't behave like a normal forceuser and I'm under the impression that this needs to be adressed. "God (the force) works in mysterious ways" is as unsatisfying in a movie as it is in real life. I really hope JJ adresses Rey's powers in IX.

 

Like I said... feel free to criticize it and continue to try to quantify the Force. I'm not going to argue with you about the training regimen of one fictional force user vs another- because when you get down to it, I think that's an outdated understanding of the Force anyway.

We've talked in circles for a while now, and I think we simply have extremely different views on the Force. I'm not saying yours is necessarily wrong (because again, we're trying to define fictional space magic), but I do feel like you're trying to apply a Legends understanding to the current canon. I don't think it works that way. If you like Legends, that's fine. But things have changed.

 

Well, considering that the force isn’t real, I think the above is a pretty satisfying explanation for it in real life...

And as for the SW movies, at least in the trilogy I’m most familiar with, the force was never at the core of the story. It was an element of the narrative, a device constructed to make an insignificant farmboy like Luke save the day and give him a connection with the story’s most emblematic villain, Darth Vader.

The force was an elusive mystical element in the OT and I think the ST is trying to honour that same idea. I know the PT was a little more force heavy in content. That's probably the reason I enjoyed those films less. I just think that making the force too much of "discipline" with a set of components and rules does not add anything interesting to these stories which are primordially about justice, family and friendship.