What's the point of this trilogy?

The complaint that Rey became a mary sue in TLJ because she didn't lose is frankly a bizarre one. There wasn't even a duel in TLJ for Rey to lose.

It illustrates how fans have constructed totally specious blanket criteria in order to validate their approval of a character. (or certain characters or types of characters). We've now got the fans dictating preconceived plot developments and outcomes that must be delivered in order for them to feel justified in accepting them.

 

Luke knew how to fly the SW universe's equivalent to airplanes. He therefore knows how to fly a space ship? Where there's no gravity? Without any training whatsoever? Stop it.

Oh, he "felt" the Force - which he couldn't use to stop a tiny burst from a blaster - so he can move torpedoes. This is the same logic as above; which is a reach, to put it mildly.

He's a Mary Sue if there every was one and nobody gave a Blast. Ever. So is Rey, but at least she has more real world experience. She had to fend for herself. Fight to survive. She's waaay more battle tested than he as at the beginning of her movie than he is his own. And his feats were greater than hers and NOBODY Maclunkey CARED.

Uncle Owen was not loving, LOL.

 

Yes. That’s why those lines are in the movie. He’s established to be a pilot earlier in the film because that’s the skill he uses at the end of the film. It’s basic setup and payoff. You’re entitled to find it unrealistic. But it wasn’t trying to be true-to-life. It’s a fantasy.

He didn’t “move” torpedoes. He used the Force to target better than the targeting computer could. He ‘let go his conscious self and acted on instinct’. Because “Your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them. Stretch out with your feelings.” That’s why Luke has that moment with Obi-Wan earlier in the film. It’s the skill he uses at the end of the film. It’s basic setup and payoff. Again, you’re entitled to find it unrealistic. But . . . I mean . . . it’s magic.

A “Mary Sue” is a wish-fulfillment, author insert character. It’s who the writer would want to be if they could put themselves into an existing imaginary world. The term comes from a well-established fanfiction trope of a fan writer creating a protagonist that is essentially just a version of themself that excels at everything the property values.

Luke, by definition, cannot be a ‘Mary Sue’. He’s certainly a very tried and true archetypical hero, straight out of the Perseus mold. But he’s not a fanfiction concoction. The sequel trilogy though is literally fanfiction (fiction made by fans). Rey, as its protagonist, is a text book example of a Mary Sue.

And you know what? That’s OK. There’s nothing wrong with that. The trope has existed for so long now that it’s essentially become an archetype to itself. It’s neither ‘good’ or ‘bad’ at this point. It’s all about its execution. And Rey, I happen to believe, is a wonderfully well executed version of this modern-day archetype.

There's no reason to toss this term around like it's some kind of slur. It's just one more model to craft a character from. One more tool in the writing box.

You’re basically parroting my post back to me. The point I was making by quoting you is that it isn’t necessary to lower one thing down in order to raise another thing up. George Lucas did his due diligence in properly setting up Luke’s actions in the final act of ANH. There’s no reason to reframe it as if he didn’t and insult his storytelling just to defend someone else's.

The Rey character doesn’t need that kind of ill-advised help. She’s already great the way she is. She’s her own entity in this series. But some people want to fit her into a preestablished role of what a Star Wars protagonist ‘should’ be - what’s acceptable and what’s not based only on what they’ve seen before. But she isn’t Anakin. And she isn’t Luke. She isn't supposed to be. She’s Rey.

 

He didn't use the magical ability he never had before to move the torpedoes, he used the magical ability he never had before to aim. I have zero interest in this level of semantics.

 

He used the Force skill he learned earlier in the film. The ONLY one he learned in the film. It isn't a very complicated concept.

 

He didn't learn it at all, he Maclunkey failed - and was only putzing around for a few minutes. Yeah, he learned how to channel the Force based on that.

And he had even less training learning to fly an X-Wing. ZERO.

 

I’m not sure I take your meaning.

OBI-WAN: Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him.
LUKE: You mean it controls your actions?
OBI-WAN: Partially, but it also obeys your commands.

In his training: Luke covers his eyes, let’s go, and allows the Force to guide his actions to successfully block against attacks he otherwise couldn’t have.

In the finale: Luke shuts off his targeting computer, let’s go, and allows the Force to guide his actions to successfully hit a target he otherwise couldn’t have.

He learned a skill. Then he used that skill. SETUP→→→→→→→PAYOFF

This is now a 45 year old plot point. I don’t understand what you don’t understand.

 

I didn't see her as a MS in TLJ....apart from the last bit perhaps...only in TROS. There were dozens of explanations they could have used in the final film to justify her Jedi mind trick et al, but instead they.....made her a Mary Sue.

--- Double Post Merged, Sep 22, 2022, Original Post Date: Sep 22, 2022 ---

He must have been, because Luke was devastated at his death, and Beru's. Owen's 'control freakery' behaviour was because he was afraid of Luke becoming another Vader....as, ironically, was Han with Ben. Anakin's fall had tragic repercussions for ALL of his family.

 

OK so we're back to ignoring everything that's been discussed and just banging the mary sue drum regardless.


What do you mean by "explanations they could have used"? Used to do what? Spell out to the audience how the force works for the dozenth time?

And what Jedi mind trick are you referring to in the final film? Do you mean the one way back in TFA was still waiting to be justified by a piece of dialogue in TROS?

The "explanation" is apparent in TFA. Kylo pushed. Rey pushed back. Having had the mind trick done to her, and then instinctively learning to resist it, it took no special explanation or excuse for her to use it on a weak minded trooper.

The demands you are making on the script have virtually nothing to do with actual storytelling or scriptwriting standards. It's like calling Phoebe Cates character in Gremlins a mary sue because she works out how to switch the lights on in the department store.. She doesn't work there. Hasn't been in the office before, Hasn't seen the switch boxes. Doesn't know which switch turns on which lights if any. And yet she eventually does this thing she's never done before because the story needs her to.

For goodness sake, it's a staple feature of adventure/fantasy/action films to have characters being forced to adapt and do things they are not accustomed to in order to survive and progress.

--- Double Post Merged, Sep 22, 2022, Original Post Date: Sep 22, 2022 ---

Some of the most important and overlooked lines in the saga.

Ironically this scene is often cited as Luke receiving the essential basic training that justifies every miraculous feat he pulls off between now and his meeting with Yoda. Yet it does not meet the criteria for "training" that is expected for other characters.

No one ever recognises what the training actually is. Basically Obi Wan is telling him either you will or you won't. You are destined to succeed in doing improbable and seemingly impossible things, if you take ownership of your destiny. Destiny controls you in a way but it also requires you to face that destiny. You will instinctively parry the laser blasts, if that is your destiny. And it will be your destiny if you choose to face it with belief and commitment.

There's a complete absence of "Here's what you need to know and what you need to do and not do in order to successfully perform this skill". Yet here we are nearly fifty years later and people are still demanding to see or have it explained to them exactly how and where a force sensitive learned to do a specific skill.

 

Round and round it goes... IMHO, these aren't discussions anymore. I've given up myself. Yeah, real coward, me. Just can't...

 

You're worse than Luke Skywalker.

 

Well, Luke Skywalker was my childhood idol (still is, to be honest), and I certainly can't measure up to him! So, yeah, I am, definitelly, worse than Luke Skywalker

 

What Kylo used on Rey was not a 'Jedi mind trick'.

 

What Kylo does to Rey in the interrogation scene in TFA, to me, is more akin to what Vader does to Luke in ROTJ: “…sister. So, you have a twin sister.” He’s digging into Luke’s mind and pulling information out that he didn’t want him to have. “You imagine an ocean. I see it. I see the island.”

Kylo isn’t issuing an authoritative command like “You will take me to Jabba now” or “You will remove these restraints”. So, while we (the audience) are ‘supposed’ to read these two things as the same thing, the film grammar between them isn’t the same. So it doesn’t really work as intended.

 

Exactly what I mean.

Jedi mind trick Obi Wan version

A lot more brutal than what he did with Rey...but this emphasises the difference

 

We are splitting hairs here. It's not like a mind probe and a mind trick are meant to be as different from each other as operating a fork lift truck and driving a formula 1 car.

"Only different in your mind."

Nevertheless. Kylo does attempt a mind trick on both Poe and Rey. He first commands them to tell him what he wants to know and then attempts to just take it when they don't cooperate.

 

The Mind Trick is a very gentle persuasion, and a much more subtle skill than a Mind Probe.
A Mind Probe could far more easily be attributed to a 'raw power' (which both Rey and Kylo had) than a Mind Trick ....subtle skill sets like that would be a lot harder to master. But, even without this theory looking at Luke and Obi Wan using Mind Tricks and Kylo using a Mind Probe shows how very different they are....telepathy and telekinesis are both mental powers but completely different.
The difference between picking a lock and using a sledgehammer.

 

"Only different in your mind"

I don't see how Kylo managed to get the specific details about the map and BB8 out of Poe using this sledgehammer analogy.

Doesn't really work. And the description of different force abilities goes against the actual principles expressed by Yoda and Obi-Wan.

These are just spurious rules voluntarily imposed on the saga and the lore by fans attempting to compartmentalise and make Star Wars fit into a linear power/skill scale, like a video game (sigh).

It has nothing to do with what the Force and Force users represent. The different concepts of destiny and fate, viewed through the journey of adolescence to relative maturity presented against a pseudo historical backdrop. A fairy tale.

(This is why the Jedi-free Andor series is most definitely not intended to be fairy tale material.)

 

Well, a story that ends with all the heroes dead and their enemy's offspring standing on their graves doesn't seem much like a fairytale to me!

And the way Kylo ripped open Poe's mind on the Finaliser was pretty brutal to me. Mind probe's essentially force their way through a person's mental defenses, mind trick's alter their perceptions. There IS a difference.

 

The analogy, I think, is to view someone’s mind like a locked house. You could get inside by passively picking the lock like the Jedi appear to, or you could aggressively kick down the door like the Sith appear to*. To me, they’re two sides of the same coin. Same ends, but different means. And those means represent the competing ideologies of those opposing forces. Personally, I’m a fan of the idea.

But to continue the analogy: If someone observed a burglar kick a door in to someone’s house, would that then grant them the perspective to know to pick the lock instead? Most people, I reckon, would probably say ‘no’ to that. That’s not the same thing.

I think the intent was for Rey to be performing the ‘light side’ equivalent to Kylo’s ‘dark side’ ability. Rey wouldn’t brutally force her way into someone’s mind like he did to her. It’s not in her nature. That’s the thematic intonation of the fairy tale’s didacticism. Bad guys do X. Good guys do Y.

It’s the deliberate specificity, I think, that threw so many for a loop and pushed them to reject it.

REY: You will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open.
FN-007: l will remove these restraints and leave the cell with the door open.
REY: And you'll drop your weapon.
FN-007: And I’ll drop my weapon.

To ensure the audience understood what Rey was doing in the scene, it’s purposely structured with a familiar cadence.

OBI-WAN: You don't want to sell me death sticks.
ELAN: I don't want to sell you death sticks.
OBI-WAN: You want to go home and rethink your life.
ELAN: I want to go home and rethink my life.

The presentation serves to remind us of previous Star Wars films. We know what she’s doing because we’ve seen it before. It unfortunately though also immediately begs us to ask the question: But how does SHE know about this thing? She didn’t see those movies. She doesn’t have the same frame of reference that we do.

And since the previous scene with Kylo isn’t delivered with that same recognizable and familiar cadence, we don’t see it as ‘the same but different’. It’s just . . . different. They don’t read as the same thing. So Rey seemingly pulls an established Force ability right out of thin air for no reason other than she happens to be the hero of the story.

And I think that’s where this criticism is coming from. The author’s intent wasn’t made clear and led a big part of the audience to draw a false conclusion that hampered their accepting of the film’s premise: ‘Rey’s an immaculate Mary Sue that has everything easily handed to her’. Even though that’s not at all compatible with what the film is actually saying.

*I know Snoke and Kylo aren’t truly ‘Sith’ in terms of the story. It’s just easier to call them that.