Insulted by last Jedi? Does Disney deserve anymore of your money after this?

The whole theme of TLJ regarding Rey is that she is repressing her memories. She has a warped, blinded view of who she is and where she came from. This then perfectly melds with the idea that she had a naive view of her standing in the world. She was, for all intent and purposes, a slave. She had to spend her entire day salvaging parts to get enough portions of food to survive. The only things she possessed where salvaged scraps. Sure, she was free to roam that part of Jakku - but if she didn't get the junk to Plutt, she'd starve to death. And from Plutt's POV, far better to have Rey think she was free so that she'd remain there on Jakku, working hard, until her parents arrived. You can imagine that even he'd spin her some BS about her parents coming back one day. He was probably the one that actually put false ideas in her head about who she was. No doubt he rubbished the idea of the Jedi (and Luke) as well as anything else exciting that could've made Rey wish for a different life.

She was a slave. The story in TLJ made perfect sense to me.

 

Even if we assume Rey is in some denial mode about her past even when confiding in her own diary, let us look at the following facts regarding her circumstances in canon books:

1. Rey did not work for one master. As a little girl, she assisted multiple scavengers and even named some of them. If she were a slave, she would be working for a single master, the one who purchased her. Case in point, Shmi and Anakin working for Watto.

2. Rey herself chose to no longer work for other scavengers since she found she was better at scavenging than the others. Slaves don't have the luxury of choosing who to work or not work for.

3. Unkar only came into the picture when she struck out on her own and he discovered she was his best scavenger, his having chopped off the arms of his previous best scavenger for a minor offense.

4. Unkar is the sort of person who needs to get a return on investment. In the short story True Love, he openly admits he loves nothing more than making money, even killing for it. By letting a little girl he spent money on roam free and potentially get lost and die in the desert makes little to no economic sense.

5. We have to make assumptions that it was Unkar who fed Rey the story of her parents coming back. There is no fact supporting this.

If you like to think Rey was a slave and she painted delusions in her head as a coping mechanism across all canon, that is your prerogative though the canon books clearly paint a completely different picture of her circumstances.

That being said TLJ has made her a slave and so I concede that this is the canon stance....and while I liked the movie, my problem remains that the other canon material before the movie gave a different story.

 

It makes no difference to Plutt. She works and brings him stuff or she doesn't and other people do it. It might even have been that these other scavanger's worked for Plutt and she for them. We're also still viewing her flashback as canon. Might be a false memory.

And nor did she. Look at TFA - everyone, every scavenger is lined up to get rations from Plutt.

Right, so her parents sell her to Plutt because they owe him, he then waits for her to become useful and lets his minions deal with her. When she becomes useful, he takes her on as his main scavenger.

No, she isn't a slave like Anakin was. But to suggest that she wasn't beholden to Plutt is uttery wrong. She worked all day to merely get enough food to live. That's slavery in my book.

The choice was either a little girl or no return from Rey's parent's perhaps? And so he takes this little girl and perhaps rents her to some other scavengers or minions until she becomes useful? Plenty of options here. I don't see an issue.

Indeed. It's up to us. But there is no contradiction, no plot hole. And I don't think it is a huge leap to suggest Unkar was manipulative and knew ways to keep people under his control.

Regardless of what TLJ revealed, Rey was wrong about her past in TFA. She was waiting for her family to return - when they never were. She was deluded. She had repressed memories (Pablo suggested this soon after TFA was released). So I see a clear link with how Rey remained, almost naively, hopeful despite her circumstances. It was her survival mechanism. By believing she was both free and that her parents would return to take her away, she managed to get through her daily life. And thankfully this optimism stayed with her. TLJ just fleshes this out and explains how a girl who was abandoned aged 5 could retain such hope.

 

For your supposition to work, we have to assume that (a) Plutt is her master; and (b) Plutt doesn't care whether she or others bring him the stuff.

If Rey was his slave from the time she was a little girl, he would have got her to bring stuff directly and bought at a lower price if he wanted a better return on investment and not help other sellers who would sell to him for a better price. I doubt he would want random scavengers benefiting from his purchase of the little girl.

Her working with random people so that they could bring him stuff doesn't sound anything like slavery.

Again you are assuming Plutt keeping a little girl around till she becomes useful enough to become his main scavenger. Even if we take your suggestion as true, Rey could have roamed off and/or died at any point of time with Unkar getting zero return on the sale...which makes no sense for someone as greedy as Plutt.

A slave is property....the scavengers on Jakku were all not bought and sold. In Before the Awakeninf, some scavengers help Rey restore a ship and leave on it. People according the Rey;s Survival Gudie come there to hide or are unable to leave due to poverty.

Extreme poverty (and being stranded somewhere as a result) and slavery are different things...maybe not in your books but I personally feel they differ.

I see the contradiction because we have to assume a lot of things and stretch facts to reconcile the ideas (Unkar renting her out etc....which again goes against the fact that she says she chose to work for herself, choice indicating not being a slave)....and that is my issue in a nutshell...I believe one uniform canon means a seamless story...not twisting and wedging of facts like pretzel to make it add up.

My last post never went into her mindset...it only dealt with facts...and the facts were that she worked for people and chose to go independent....Unkar came into the picture when she became independent and then offered her protection. None of these facts match the circumstances of someone sold into slavery.

Now if you are comfortable and happy making countless assumptions to make disparate pieces fit, that is entirely upto you.

I do not see it the same way as I believe other canon must help in the seamless understanding of the story....and while I really liked the movie, I feel it differs a lot from other canon till date....but that is entirely my opinion....and unless you are part of DK Publishing or Marvel comics, I really don't see why you have an issue with my not wanting to buy any more canon materials.

 

You explained that:

3. Unkar only came into the picture when she struck out on her own and he discovered she was his best scavenger, his having chopped off the arms of his previous best scavenger for a minor offense.

Sounds like a slaver to me.

Anyway, just consider what you see in TFA:
Rey is being dragged away by Plutt when her "family" leave in a ship. She is aged 5-7.

So we KNOW from that, that Rey was left with Unkar when she was too young to fend for herself. So clearly, he was in charge of her.
Now, your complaint is that TLJ contradicts the canon story in the Journal book where Rey actually says she works with some other scavengers.
Again, we saw that she was left with Plutt in TFA. So she could've been sold on to them for some time or they worked for Plutt anyway so it made little difference. She was left with Plutt. Aged 5. That's the important part. You can make up anything you like for why her drunkard parents would've done that.

And as for her thinking she isn't really a slave...
You say: "she says she chose to work for herself, choice indicating not being a slave".
What would've happened if she refused to work for Plutt? How would she have survived?

She wouldn't have. She'd have died. Ergo, she was a slave to him.

You also said that it was a guess that "Plutt would've made up stuff about her parents".
Well, again - we see in TFA that Plutt watches Rey's parents leave. Ergo, he must've known them and likely knew why they left.
Yet he obviously never tells Rey this. Instead she is led to believe that she was left by mistake and will return.
To me, it's borderline obvious that Plutt would've put these ideas in her head.

 

1. Being stuck in a bad situation because of poverty/being young and alone and therefore forced to work to survive is completely different from being sold and hence the property of someone, ergo a slave.

2. So Rey's visions which has been described as an 'acid trip' is a reliable source of canon while her diary entries are not?

Those visions could just represent her fears and state of mind....so Unkar being there when she is between 5-7 could be part of her 'acid trip' and nothing to do with his being there when she was that age. Hence we DONT KNOW for certain whether she was left with Unkar at that age.

3. As to your saying she would have died if she didn't work. What abut the fact that Unkar would have lost his money if she had died? If she was roaming free, it is clear he didn't care if she lived or died and therefore her life or death had no economic impact on him....hence, not his slave.

Take Watto...he put electronic chips into Shmi and Anakin and even disabled Shmi's chip fearing she would kill herself when Anakin left since he wanted her to remain alive. Shmi only got freed when she was sold to Owen Lars.....that is how slavery works in TGFFA.

4. And where exactly does it say Unkar watched her parents leave (the same parents who somehow fly away and yet manage to get themselves buried in a pauper's grave in the Jakku desert.)?

Rey's acid trip vision showed a ship leaving...now whether it was a real scene, a part of her past or her present have never been established. So there is nothing to suggest Unkar told her anything.

 

One final merry-go-round...

Except...we don't know what really happened. You might be right, she might not be an actual slave. Maybe Kylo misinterpreted what he saw or maybe, to Rey deep down, she felt like she had been sold off because of their habits? I don't mind either way. It doesn't not make sense to me that she could've been handed to Plutt as way of payment for their drinks tab. There wouldn't be a contract and perhaps actual slavery would've looked bad for Plutt or caused an uprising against him? I don't know. But the way I see it, she was pretty much a slave to him. The main point is that this doesn't contradict her diary book.

You're, right. They could be false. But what we DO KNOW is that her idea of what happened to her family in the diary is false and that she was repressing what actually happened.

You posted above how Unkar killed one of his scavengers for a minor offence. Wouldn't that have cost him something? Clearly, he could afford to play free and easy with the scavengers. We don't even know how much he would've paid for her. And if she was just given to him because of her parent's drinks tab, then she wouldn't have been worth much anyway. It'd have costed him more to feed her before she became of any use. Better to set her free, see if she makes it and then use her as a scavenger slave.

I see no reason to disbelieve that vision - especially now that we know who her parents are and what they did with her. Before I saw TLJ, the debate centred around who left her with Plutt and why. It was always assumed that the vision was real. And no one ever said that the vision contradicted the journal.

My only point here is that there isn't an obvious contradiction in the journal when viewing TLJ. All we are told is that Rey's parents abandoned her for drink money. Any number of scenario's could've played out and in conjunction with her memory repression, add up to a reasonable story that fits the vague journal narrative.

 

It is a matter of opinion....as I said in an earlier post, if you want to make several assumptions and twist things around to make something fit, that it fine.

While I don't expect other canon material material to make any big reveals, I do not want to think up many "maybe" and "what ifs" to reconcile different sources (Unkar buying her, renting her out, her parents gambling, Rey being payment for a drinks tab etc )

Sorry to burst that bubble but RJ recently confirmed that Rey's backstory could change once more in episode 9.

https://www.express.co.uk/entertain...son-The-Last-Jedi-JJ-Abrams-The-Force-Awakens

They can easily bring up a completely new scenario in episode 9 and turn things on their head again.

There is a big difference.... his former main scavenger was not his slave, someone he paid money for. He could play free and easy with people who did not belong to him....the same would not apply if he spent credits purchasing a person.

Rey's diary says she was stranded on Jakku by mistake....Rey's vision shows her being held by Unkar and a ship flying away.... they are quite different.

You might be happy conjuring hundreds of scenarios to reconcile the two narratives and I completely respect that....please buy/read all the other canon materials and have fun with it.

What I don't get is why my not wanting to waste money just to make wild speculations affecting you in any way (unless you are part of one of the publishing houses, of course). Unlike you, I like the story across different canon materials to be uniform without my having to create scenarios to make things work.

As I keep saying in every post...I liked TLJ a lot and I feel that if I had just watched TFA and then TLJ (without buying other canon material), I would have had no complaints.

 

And she was wrong. In fact, it was always assumed that she was wrong about this - by Rey Skywalker theorists and Rey Randomers alike. Rey believes she was left by mistake because it is a survival mechanism. That's not that big a problem to work out, is it? I mean, we knew she was repressing stuff from TFA.

Anyway, it doesn't affect me - I just hoped that I could show you it wasn't a contradiction but can be explained within the narrative of TLJ.
Personally, I don't buy any of the books or bother looking outside of the films.

 

I just posted a link in my previous post indicating that her parentage could completely change once again in episode 9....so for all we know, either her diary or the vision or neither could be proved right and a third option might arise.... then once again there will be fresh speculation to reconcile the new theory to existing canon.

Since you neither buy the books or bother looking outside films, I honestly don't see why you are on my case to get me to change my mind about purchasing books/comics in the future.

Maybe you don't see a contradiction but kindly stop imposing your perception on others. I respect the fact you don't share my views and I don't wish to change your mind, so kindly respect mine as well.

 

So you only want people who agree with you to talk to you on here?
Okay, I'll take my queue. Ignorance is bliss...

 

I will.

I liked The Last Jedi a lot. It's a film about characters and emotions and yes, as any Star Wars it has its plot holes. Come on people, look at the original trilogy : if the Skywalker twins were supposed to be hidden from Darth Vader, why did they kept the name Luke Skywalker for the boy and just gave him to Vader's step-family in Tatooine? Does that sound as a great plan?

 

I hope you can appreciate the ridiculousness of a person who admits they only watch movies and buy no other material dictating how someone how they should think and feel about other canon material after buying +200 canon books and comics (excluding rpg games, card games and reference books). Lol.

That being said, I didn't come here for an echo chamber but there is something known as agreeing to disagree and not trying to shove opinions down people's throats.

I respect you have a different opinion, kindly respect mine.

 

I'm not telling you to do anything. You said TLJ contradicted Rey's journal. I said it did not and explained why. Feel free to do or think what you want.

 

I feel does and you feel it does not...as I said before, let us just agree to disagree instead of you trying to impose your opinions on me.

 

And don't get me wrong, I love me some SW merch. But, I was thinking after TLJ, I feel really bad for the women who spent good money on that Phasma purse. Or the people who bought those expensive BB-9E spheros. I feel like there has been some broken, albeit implied, promises between the merch and the films. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but, didn't the toys used to come out *after* the films? In other words, you could only decide if you wanted to spend money on a character that was barely in the movie *after* you'd seen the movie. That seems more fair to me. Also, there wasn't the great swath of merch at that time. So if you made a bad choice, you only made it once. Now, sticking with Phasma or BB-9E, you are invited to buy many, many items under the assumption that you'll connect with these characters. People still do, but, the opportunity given to connect is so jarringly small. *shrug* This is all just my 2 cents, mind you.

 

JJ doesn't care either, right?

"We don’t write a treatment but there are countless times we came up with something and said “oh, this would be so great for Episode VIII!” or “Thats what we could get to in IX!” It was just that kind of forward moving story. When Rian who I admire enormously and adore, came on board, we met and talked with him about all the things we were working on and playing with, and he as a spectacular writer and director has taken those things and has written an AMAZING script that I think will be an incredible next chapter, some of which incorporating things we were thinking of and other things are things we could never of dreamed of."

JJ Abrams (Slashfilm, 2015)