SPECULATION Rey - public opinion poll

All the new characters for this ST are fantastic! They did a great job with the casting this time. Same didnt happen with the prequels.
Kylo, Rey, Finn, Poe, Hux and bb-8 are charismatic!

 

In my case i like and love Rey in this new trilogy in SW.I believe that many of us see her in very special way.I can only said....I feel that Rey will be a legend like Luke is a legend for ALL the fans from old school Star Wars era.She is the key of today SW come back and she will bring a lot of energy to SW.We are going to see her in more SW movies.I believe that.I have a GOOD feeling about this.....

 

Yoda: Yes, run! Yes, a Jedi's strength flows from the Force. But beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice.

Luke: Vader... Is the dark side stronger?

Yoda: No, no, no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.

Luke: But how am I to know the good side from the bad?

Yoda: You will know... when you are calm, at peace, passive. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, NEVER for attack.

Luke: But tell my why I can't...

Yoda: No, no! There is no "why".

The only way to save Rey is if her power is explained by her tapping into the dark side and her becoming the villain.

It is heavily implied that the only way to get to Rey's power, skill and ability is through the dark side. So far she seems pretty entrenched in the light side. I have more in Rey "Random", explaining how Luke (and even Anakin) develop their powers over years.

All 3 start as Force sensitives without training who are also "too old" to be trained. Luke had a blank page so his using the force to make that DS shot was accepted because it was in a void of what the Force is. I always took that shot as his aim was somehow enhanced (not him guiding the missile), so luck with making a difficult but not an impossible shot (even without the force). Obi-Wan was also there in spirit which may have helped focus him.

Anakin was the chosen one born from the force (I still have a hard time not smiling at this, not a fan of the PT). He was younger than both Rey and Luke, but seemed to have experience driving pods (and logically, racing in other vehicles prior to that) thus more malleable. His ability could easily be passed off as subconscious as all he'd do is enhance his reflexes, and it wasn't "on" all the time. So far, neither Luke nor Anakin demonstrated skill, but rather instinct without a clear explanation, even to themselves (though Luke had close to the same amount of "training" as Rey has now).

Rey knowing how to fly a ship was fine, her use of the force could have assisted her (she also could fly and considered herself a pilot). Rey fighting off Kylo's mind probe is fine, Leia did something similar when Vader tried torturing her in ANH to glean information (resisted torture even if not a force probe, albeit from an untrained dark force user). My issue was when she used the Jedi mind trick (Jedi implies training from Jedi's, not instinctual). I suppose a Force Adept could figure out how, because they are aware of their affinity to the Force. A force sensitive usually isn't, and even when they are, the path to get there is difficult, even with a teacher. Rey had neither training or a guide. In TLJ she pulls a feat Yoda struggled with in the PT when she lifted all that rubble.

I think even if she's not choosing to use her powers in an evil way, she's somehow using her powers or tapping into a power that is quick and easy. Yoda says so, I'd trust Yoda more than I do Snoke with this whole "the force creating a balance" by infusing Rey with equal power to Kylo.

So yeah, Rey needs some work to make her believable. The actress does a good job with the character as written, but the writers need to flesh her out and reason why she can do the things she does. She needs growth, falling to the dark side could be her consequence just as Luke and Anakin's was losing body parts and learning lessons through failure.

 

TLJ has turned Rey into an unintertesting character, not because her parents are nobodies (which is perfectly fine with me) but because her mysterious parentage can no longer be used to explain how overpowered she is. The character of Rey single-handedly destroys all the expectations we had how a forceuser approaches mastering the force. The need for hard training, a wise master, knowledge and understanding of the force are all gone. Rey's telekinetic abilities surpass anything seen in canon before after a mere days/weeks of training making master Yoda and Palpatine seem like beginners or old men with an incredibly flat learning curve. Rey is portrayed like a chosen one but simultaneously we're told she's just a nobody. Whenever she takes a small step back she proceeds to march ten steps forward. She seems unable to fail, no matter what she's doing. A good example for this would be her confrontation with Snoke. Like Luke, she did not listen to her master and confronted evil before she was ready (or so you would think). Luke lost his hand as a result; Rey came out the winner with Snoke losing much more than just his hand. Not to mention that Rey was wise enough to take the Jedi texts before leaving Anch-To. apparently predicting that Luke planned on destroying them in the future.

I think all of this would be ok if Rey was the bad guy in these movies. It is fun to see the bad guy succeed in the early stages of trilogy because it makes his/her defeat much more rewarding and satisfying. It is fun to see the hero struggle and look back on his/her achievements when they are finally strong enough to face up to their nemesis. The sequel trilogy has turned the concepts of storytelling upside down. We see Kylo and his master constantly failing. Kylo, the main antagonist in IX has already been defeated by Rey during the very first movie of the trilogy. Sure this is all unexpected and surprising. But the surprise is created by chaotic and short-sighted storytelling rather than a clever script and the character of Rey fell victim to it. Whatever challenges JJ had planned for her in the future (if any) Rian ignored them when writing his loveletter to Kylo Ren. Rey's character has been robbed of her own, personal heroes journey. I think Daisy plays Rey well and portrays her as a likeable character but still. I'm not keen...

 

I’m a huge advocate of the hero journey and base most of my theories off of it. And I certainly think a lot of what we see Rey experience is through the classic hero journey. However, I cannot deny that there has been less of a journey for her in terms of finding her power than most of her predecessors have experienced. It was also very noticeable that she was usurped by Luke in regards to the dramatic climax of TLJ. I guess that was largely inevitable because Luke had to be dealt with one way or another.

Should Rey have discovered The powers she has so soon? Possibly not to the extent that she did - though it seems that is more of a symptom of the story that was written for TFA. For Rey’s story to be told, she kind of had to develop the powers she had and develop them quickly. And so the idea behind it all, for me, ties into the greater story of the ST. The Force was dormant. Kylo Ren awakened the dark side and his powers are great. Rey then awakened the light and like a volcano the dormancy was broken by an eruption, and the result is that we have more powerful force users that before. Ren is more like a conduit for the dark side and he displays powers we have never seen before. His conflict means he is still no match for Snoke or Luke, yet. But how does Rey stand up to him? She is a conduit for the light side. If she lets the Force in, which she does, then she has the power to repel Kylo - especially an injured, conflicted Kylo who has compassion for her.

I would also say that I have no issue with the idea that Rey saw deep into Kylo and discovered what was possible through the Force. This is a connection like none we have seen before. It isn’t just about communicating but truly feeling and seeing inside of someone as if you’re looking inside yourself. It’s not like she saw some Force archives and downloaded th me mind trick option. She had just seen that Kylo could take things from her mind and she could from his, so why couldn’t she put thoughts into the mind of others?

On that basis and considering Rey’s experiences on the tough world of Jakku, I’m happy to accept her advanced power and abilities. For me the most important thing is that the Jedi/Force philosophy is continued in the right way and that new themes and moral lessons are brought to the saga. TLJ did this and packaged it up in one hell of a ride of a film.

 

This is just wrong and almost objectively so. Luke had a whole lot of emotional depth in A New Hope. From being a teenager who just wants to go hang out with his friends in the city but can't because his Uncle and Aunt want him to do chores at home. The twin sun scene has more emotional impact than any scene in the entire saga; all he wants to do is join his best friend Biggs and the others who went in support of the Rebel Alliance. It's one of the most relatable scenes. He finds an old man who knew his father and is giving him that opportunity to fulfill his desire for adventure and learn of his true past but refuses because his aunt and uncle don't want that for him. He figures out that Imperial Stormtroopers are tracking R2D2 and C3PO which leads them back to his adopted parents homestead where he finds their horribly charred remains. Only then does he finally fulfill his desire but not out of a sense of adventure but because he understands that The Empire needs to be defeated. That is only the first 50 minutes of A New Hope and there's still much more remaining in the first film with losing his mentor and his friend from Tatooine (Biggs).

 

I love Luke in a New Hope. But as I see it there are only 3 concrete moments where the audience in meant to empathize with Luke. The moment when his aunt and uncle dies, but a minute later it is no longer an issue. The second is the moment when Obi Wan dies. The only moment which has concrete emotional repercussions on screen for our hero (the scene with Leia on the falcon). The third is the moment when Han says goodbye. We are supposed to feel Luke's anger about Han selfishness. The twin sun moment is only impactful in retrospect, because you know what's coming.

The reason why Rey's character has more emotional depth, asks you to empathize more frequently and has more layers of mystery and narrative meaning to her is because the writers know that her story has an arc which needs to be followed up in two sequels. Lucas never really thought that he had to continue the story of Luke in two succesive chapters. That's why, according to Lucas, he condensced the story he intended for 3 acts into 1 which became A New Hope. In other words, Luke never got the same treatment as Rey, because Lucas wasn't sure whether he would be able to continue his story. The writers for Rey knew they could.

With Anakin, the emotional depth to his character derives from "what will eventually occur". You know he will be Darth Vader. Its a tragedy. The result of his arc is fixed. The journey to that result is not. But each element in that arc will always be interpreted in light of the question: "how did this boy Anakin become evil Darth Vader". In this sense Anakin has more emotional depth and layers than Luke in A New Hope. But it has less so than Rey, precisely because we don't know what is going to happen to her. We are forced to read a lot more in Rey, to empathize more, because she's a mystery. Her character screams for audience engagement.

This of course not to go into a discussion which of 3 movies is better. But I hope, you can to some extent understand why I said it.

 

They need to come up with new types of characters, i.e., not borrowed from OT.

 

You mean someone like Rey, a nobody: Finn, a deserted stormtrooper: Poe, an ace pilot; Rose, a mechanic; Holdo, a feminine hard ass; Kylo Ren, a conflicted villain who uses light and dark whenever he sees fit.

All sounds pretty much new to me

 

I loved Rey in TFA. I still like her in TLJ, but she seems less intelligent, less compassionate.
Rey forgot what Maz taught her about the Force & tells Luke the Force lets you control people and make things float. Since she defeated Kylo in the big lightsaber fight in TFA, I hoped she developed consistency in her mastery of the Force. No such luck.
Combined with how dismissive Rey became of Han's murder, Rey's character lacks an emotional element in TLJ. She cannot sense her friends in danger and doesn't demonstrate compassion for their suffering. I can understand her not being too upset with Luke's death; he didn't do much for her. The tormented Luke so many praise RJ for in TLJ because everyone is flawed has been lost on Rey. She seems completely immune to temptations of power, fear, anger and loss.

Rey seems under appreciated by the Resistance. She helped get Luke to show up, rescued the remaining Resistance members from Crait 3 times. I could see her saying, "Hello, I saved you. I distracted the Tie fighters, lifted the rocks & provided escape on the Falcon. Luke who? Those doors lasted decades & would have lasted 5 minutes of blasting. I'm joining the FO & I'll control them to be good." Okay, not really. She lacks any arrogance or vanity.

I look forward to seeing Rey's character development in the next movie.

 

Yes, methinks Deliberate. Rey still has her V-Card and so does Daisy. This is a fair and important point to made about young Star Wars characters!

 

Rey obviously alludes to Luke, who was born in a desert planet, dealt with junk dealers, drove around in a floating jalopy, etc. The same thing applies to Kylo Ren, who obviously alludes to Darth Vader, Poe (who is like Luke the skilled fighter pilot), and more.

 

Now you're forcing a square peg down a round hole. The whole point of the last movie is that Rey is not like Luke, Luke is 'royalty', Rey is nobody - and that Kylo sheds the idea of him being a new vader by breaking his mark, killing his dark master and becoming supreme leader.

Poe is a pilot yes, but also a leader. I don't see the comparison with Luke. He has more in common with Porkins than with Luke if we were to push the similarity.

 

They're both orphans, from desert planets, have floating jalopies, befriend adorable robots, and deal with junk dealers. That's five coincidences. Not exactly a square peg.

We have to face the obvious facts that the films are riddled with formulas borrowed from the previous films. Even one of the directors acknowledges this, and for good reason: it is possible that not just this but other films are being targeted to international audiences, many of whom are young and barely know about OT. The result, not surprisingly, is something that is both a sequel and a partial reboot, similar to what happened to the latest films for the Alien, Mad Max, and Star Trek franchises.

 

I *want* to like Rey, but, so far she is entirely boring. She is instantly good at everything, trusted by everyone, and struggles against nothing. I think Daisy Ridley is a *fantastic* actress and I think she makes a yawn-fest of a character very watchable. But, we need to give Rey some failures and shortcomings in episode IX or else the main character of this trilogy will go down as completely forgettable -- by me anyway.

Flaws make the best characters, and "failure, the best teacher is." Can't disagree with Yoda ;-)

 

Her and Finn have no real reason to help the Resistance. She was waiting for her family in TFA. Now It's all about bringing Kylo Ren back? Rey is a strange character.

 

I love Rey to death, just like all new characters.. But she's way to skilled with the force/lightsaber imo..

 

I think she's awesome and I hope she can make a new Jedi Order that will be free of all the problems of the previous ones.

 

Anyone can learn to fight with a stick. Just practice enough, and you'll become proficient. Sword fighting and the skill required to it properly is terribly overrated. If she really practiced with her stick day in day out for 12 years or more, then she is still rather lacking in skill

 

I like her, but I don't love her. I find her more likable when she interacted with Finn and Han. Otherwise, she is not a big favorite of mine.

Emotionally, I don't regard her as a Mary Sue. But when viewing her from her Force abilities . . . she is a Mary Sue to me.