The Force Belongs to Us: THE LAST JEDI’s Beautiful Refocusing of Star Wars

I think it's more profound than that. It was the image of seeing his son do what he could not when he was a young man that turns Vader in the last moments of his life. Luke's firm refusal of the Emperor's offer and staying true to who he is even in the face of cruel uncertainty.

 

@thrawn_lives Yea, I mean, I'm not trying to say the Skywalker family can't suffer or struggle or have bad things happen to them. Quite the opposite. I think flaws are what make for interesting characters. Frankly, my biggest gripe with Rey is that she doesn't have *enough* struggles or weaknesses. Where as Kylo is m'boy and he's just about the most damaged character in the entire franchise ^_^

But, again, it's a false dichotomy to think that you have to somehow wipe away what people loved about the old in order to make room for the new. And if the filmmakers felt they were running out of room, maybe don't have a 30-minute side-quest in a casino. ;-)

 

It was introduced much sooner than that : in TPM with that stupid prophecy. Before that point Luke was just the son of a powerful Jedi.
But once GL decided to retcon Anakin into space-jesus, things quickly derailed.

Also, from what i've heard, the old EU didn't help either.

 

The prophecy was only really a tool of showing that the Jedi had fallen to some of the weaknesses expanded upon in the PT: fear and superstition. There was really nothing more special about Anakin than what you'd expect from any other well-developed Jedi knight. It was still his past, his temperament and his actions that were exploited by the Emperor, not his "lineage".

 

Are you kidding? Rey has been suffering and struggling from the moment she was abandoned on Jakku. And during the entire TFA. In TLJ she struggled to find her destiny, only to learn that she was going to have to figure out her place in the universe without the benefit of a destiny or biological family to align with. She needs to make her own family.

 

The Prophecy was nothing of the sort : it was just a cheap & stupid storytelling trick to make Anakin feel "extra-special" and justify any extra-power he mght have.

Spoiler

(and Palpatine targeted him precisely because of that heritage)

But that poorly thought idea greatly damaged the future of the story (OT & ST).

 

@thrawn_lives *yawn* Looks to me like she's a pretty awesome scavenger. Puts on old rebel pilot helmets and has a nice comfy day dream in her down time. These struggles don't hold a candle to being a slave like Anakin or having limbs cut off or learning that the source of all evil was your father or not being able to manifest power when it's needed or .... etc.

But the "Rey's too powerful without earning it" debate is one that's been going on for a LONG time and not one we need to have here. =)

And like I said, I wanted Kylo and Rey to team up, so, I'm hardly anti-Rey. I just want her to be a more interested character.

 

She was forced to scavenge for food. Anakin was forced to work in a junkyard. And she was a lot older than Anakin. But when she was younger, she didn't have a mom to help protect her. She did it on her own. Way harder.

 

And yet her character doesn't reflect that at all. She would have been far more interesting as a brutal and cynical character who does things by necessity because it matches the cruelty of her existence.

 

It does to me. It is interesting that you seem to find her struggles less earned and less difficult. I think that says less about what's on the screen than you'd think.

 

Wow, what an interesting and substantive argument.

Actually, her struggles when her journey actually starts are pretty much less arduous than Luke's by a significant measure. When mind control becomes something you pick up instinctively, you've officially made everything incredibly easy which explains why you could hardly call Luke a mentor in this film. She spends more time lecturing him in this film than anything else. Luke doesn't do that to Yoda or Ben until he finally gets the tools and skills he needs.

 

She doesn't get mind control instinctively. Like Luke, she learns powers by observing others use them. She saw Kylo try it on her, and when in his mind she learned more. Luke was never interrogated by Vader.

All I know is if I could have the life circumstances of either Anakin or Luke or Rey, up until their second film, I'd pick Luke or Anakin. At least they had a family and friends. Rey had been alone. Finn appears to be her first friend.

 

Yeah, Anakins life as a slave was Soooo hard. But yeah, slavery is bad, so your not wrong. Lol

 

So that means Luke should have just started busting out the jazz hands in order to make the entirety of Leia's rescue easier because he saw Obi-Wan do the same thing on Tatooine as well. Oh wait, that would have been boring as Blast.

 

lol. It is true, Episode I kinda takes a pretty safe approach to the concept of slavery =P But still, it's slavery. Rey seems free to start a life on a new planet any time she wants. But she's held back by wanting her parents to come back. Which is certainly a flawed and sympathetic mindset, but, it doesn't compare in my assessment. This is all subjective of course.

 

Rey was inside Kylo's head. She learned he had Vader inferiority complex. She leaned some tricks there as well.

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Omg, what? She spends all day scavenging for scraps of food. How is she going to afford to get off world? Anakin had a house, a Droid and pod racing hobby, and quite the food selection. Anakin was called a slave, and lived in relative luxury compared to Rey. She was a slave in all but name.

 

Oh, so that's all it took, right? Simple as that? So where did Rey gain the ability to hold her own against some of the finest melee fighters in the galaxy? Did she use her brilliant perception to analyze Kylo Ren's fighting style when she was fighting him with a gaping hole in his torso on Starkiller Base? Is there anything she can't absorb through osmosis so that her journey feels compelling?

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Well, for one, she could have used her brilliant mechanical skills in order to fix up a ship with the many available parts in the desert and find a job in a place that isn't a sandy hellhole.

 

Um, no. She had her staff on Jakku. She survived on a dangerous planet as a child without parents, and can defend herself from the moment we meet her. Unlike Luke and Anakin, she was actually a street fighter before becoming a Jedi. As we saw when she kicked Unkar Plutts goons when they came for BB-8.

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Couldn't Anakin have done the same?

 

Apparently, Plutt's hired goons have the same level of skill as the Elite Praetorian Guard. That's hilarious. My point is that her ability to hold up against the finest combatants in the First Order is entirely unearned yet again.

Yeah, except there's a problem and exception that you or someone else already hinted to in regards to this. Anakin is a slave by contract. Meaning, if he escapes or tries to escape, he will be hunted, captured and would probably put his mother at risk. Rey, on the other hand, is not bound by any sort of contract as Plutt doesn't care whether she lives or dies and she doesn't really have an attachment to anyone besides that family that she apparently knows abandoned her for drinking money.

 

At some point what your saying is starting to come around as sexist. A force powerful girl that has survived a childhood on a dangerous planet can't be a good fighter without a 5 second training session with Obi-wan or Yoda?

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The republic doesn't allow slavery. If he left to the republic they would have taken him in.

And Kylo says Rey was sold for drinking money.. so there.