I feel like Star Wars is moving away from the Force

Cafe Society
21

A couple of things:

  1. You can’t have major use of the force around Han Solo in ‘Solo’, because the older Han Solo thought the force was a bunch of mystical bunk. This means that not only has Han never had any direct, incontrovertible experience with the force in his past, but that the force itself was not commonly seen among people who were not Jedi or their direct enemies. So no, you shouldn’t see the force very often, and probably not at all in any prequels to Han’s story.

  2. Star Wars barely held together as a coherent universe in the original trilogy, and only then because nothing was really explained. The Empire was just evil Nazis against plucky resistance fighters, and the force was the mechanism by which the plucky fighters could plausibly overthrow the big bad guys. As soon as people tried to turn this into a real, fleshed out universe it all become incoherent and confusing and stupid.

The force worked fine as a mystical, quasi-religious martial art that certain people had a propensity for. It does not work at all as a source of scientific magic. It makes no sense, either scientifically or as a feature in the Star Wars universe. In other words, if the force really did exist and was as ubiquitous as the later movies suggested, it would have had much more effect on the way the Star Wars universe evolved.

The same thing happened to ‘Star Trek’. What worked in vague, broad strokes failed as a universe buildibg exercise when the hollywood machine started fleshing it out with subsequent series and movies until the whole thing became incoherent.

22

I think mostly it is just due to a desire to gravitate towards the time period of the original trilogy, which unfortunately happens to be when most of the Jedi have been killed off.

23

Which is why One Eye, Goblin, and Silent would be the only three (hedge) wizards I’d ever trust.

24

When we first meet Rey she is very mechanically-minded (just like Luke and Anakin), she is an experienced pilot (just like Luke and Anakin), and she is skilled in hand-to-hand combat. I also credit her gift for languages to be an associated skill, but there’s nothing to back that up, it may simply be due to her living in a melting-pot location.

In any case, just like broom boy in The Last Jedi, the idea is ordinary people (like the millions of Jedi that were not Skywalkers who have come before them) have these skills and use them without knowing what they are. They think they’re normal, they develop them without thinking, and now all they need to do is understand them to actively tap into them and manipulate them deliberately.

Rey learned a lot about how to do that when Kylo Ren interrogated her, as she immediately recognised what he was doing and did the same back to him. It’s a basic way to learn, but in this case it’s a powerful ability.

Also, it’s a movie with limited time to tell an epic story. You have to give it some leeway to get the plot moving along.

25

The problem is that you are describing the problem and pretending it excuses the problem. Any terrible storyteller can handwave some objection. And nobody would mind if Rey had one or two of those things as talents. The objection, and the huge story problem, is that the fact that she has all the talents. She’s basically the textbook Mary Sue with, at worst, the slightest trace of a human flaw or failing (but not really). She’s not only completely worthless to the plot (quite literally, the movies would have been better off without her as she adds nothing), yet the entire universe revolves around her.

This is literally worse writing than the earlies epics known to have been created by man. I do not mean “literally” in the sense of “I’m exaggerating for effect” - I mean that this is literally dogshit compared to the the Iliad or Gilgamesh. They also had heroes of truly awe-inspiring ability, yet were also smart enough to know that heroes should have problems that challenges them internally.

Rey doesn’t, to the horrible detriment of the stories. Because she must be perfect, she can never have overcome any internal weakness. And she’s already beaten her only external foe several times now. But the problem here is that she also can’t actually do anything of use

Some leeway is not a license to completely fail at storytelling. This is not J. J. Abram’s or Rian JOhnson’s first rodeo and both should know better. Both of them turned in what was, frankly, hack work.

Let me put it this way. Luke Skywalker frankly had a way better excuse to be really good and fixing mechanery than Rey. He lived on a relatively small farm, but onw with a lot of droids and vehicles and sci-fi gizmo’s to fix. He obviously had time to spend flying and one of his duties was to keep things going. But George Lucas didn’t have him give pointers to Han Solo about improving the Falcon because that would have been, in twowords, fuggen stupid.

In the Force Awakens, the movie is in such a rush to get to the next dull scene that it not only fails to establish that Rey has any such abilities until it is literally immediately required for the plot, but it shows this supposedly capable mechanic on a world with barely any machinery, such that even Tatooine looks like wealthy industrial city next to it.

I could go on, but I doubt anyone really cares. The short version is that the first two films of this supposed new trilogy walled themselves into a corner, such that they’ve bricked off every excuse and escape route on these matters.

26

That’s hardly surprising, given the selection effects. Any story that old that wasn’t exceptionally good wouldn’t have survived to the present day.

27

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster

28

Rey dismantles starship wrecks for a living, has helped her boss with tinkering on his spaceship collection, built her own speeder, and lives inside an AT-AT. Rey knows about the Falcon’s quirks because she helped install them for Unkar Plutt. Why does Luke have an “excuse” and Rey doesn’t?

Also Luke brags to Han about how great a pilot he is.

Having the Force is all about natural aptitude.

29

Yeah but she’s a giiiiiirrrrrrllll…

30

Dismantling and cleaning old junk isn’t the same thing as being a hotrod mechanic - but that she has that skill isn’t a problem. They could that just fine. The issue is that she can’t have all the skills and be worthwhile character. More to the point, characters in fiction are almost always viewed in perspective to one another (fair or not). You’re also still arguing inside the nonsense box of J. J. Abrams’ writing.

And he is actually a great pilot. That actually is one of his abilities (although he’s not nearly as good as Han Force or no). See above.

Not one other character we’ve seen in Star Wars was ever so good they didn’t need to train and develop their abilities. Rey could probably get away with having a talent for one special Force trick without really understanding it. But they had to give her multiple Force abilities AND superior skills AND absolutely no pesky humanity.

Ah yes, the old: if you can’t win, it’s unfair.

Rey doesn’t exist. She’s not a girl, she’s a collection of sound clips and still images run through a projector. She’s a character thought up by two men, neither of whom is well-known for their quality writing. Actually, scratch that: one is somewhat infamously questionable in that area, and the other almost unknown. Criticizing a worthless character is criticizing bad writing, not showing hatred of women.

Also, ad hominems don’t go very far on this board.

31

I now have no idea what you’re talking about.

32

Actually, Luke Skywalker is the only character we ever see train and develop his abilities.

33

For about a day or two, which was the amount of time he spent on Dagobah.

34

Obviously, we see Rey train with Luke Skywalker, in scenes that are obviously meant to mirror the scenes in “Empire Strikes Back” where Luke traings.

That said, the general criticism of Rey as a character is rather hard to contradict; she is, at the rate we’re seeing her grow, not only the most powerful force user who ever lived, but the most capable human being in the history of the Star Wars galaxy. She’s also morally perfect, which adds to the boredom. Luke was morally perfect too, but he was portrayed as being vulnerable and imperfect in other ways, so he worked as a character. I don’t understand what Rey’s weakness is, what she’s overcoming. She’s already immensely talented in the Force, she’s kicked the bad guy’s ass, and the lame internal conflict she did sort of have seems to be out of the way.

The original trilogy isn’t Shakespeare, but Luke’s development is nicely spread out. At the end of “Star Wars” he uses the force, probably, to help destroy the Death Star, but otherwise he has demonstrated little Force ability. In “The Empire Strikes Back” he learns obvious Force ability, but gets his ass kicked by Darth Vader, who is clearly vastly more powerful. Only at the end of “Jedi” do his powers truly reach their pinnacle and even then he’s nearly killed by the Emperor.

It is to the enormous credit of Daisy Ridley that she can make Rey kind of likable anyway. I still like the movies, but Rey’s seemingly limitless abilities were ill-advised.

35

She really is good. Her smile is so dazzling, it sometimes takes me out of the movie.

36

This is where I land, too, for the record. Rey doesn’t break me out of the movie because I like Ridley’s portrayal a lot. I still enjoyed the movies fine-ish. But I think she’s weak on paper and a wasted opportunity to developer a richer hero for the series.

37

I realize there’s a ton of misogynist CHUDs out there banging the same drum, but, to put it simply, I prefer female-led stories. Strong female heroes are great, and I have been mentally cataloging series with strong female protagonists so my daughter will have good, diverse role models in the stories she grows up with.

Rey being female is the least of my complaints, and, if the character was male, I’d probably like him less. My only issue with her gender is the really clunky interactions with Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi felt…weird.

38

We must have seen completely different movies.

39

No way I’d actually trust One Eye or Goblin! Silent, sure, but not the other two! Well, I’d trust them to be dipshits and cheat at cards but that’s about it.

40

You really think she kicked ass? Her failures to do so at this point are what define her as a character.

Yes, channelling the force - and learning to be calm - allowed her to fight off a nearly mortally wounded Kylo Ren at the end of The Force Awakens. Fine. But she didn’t actually defeat him one on one. Even at the end, they don’t get to finish because of the sudden chasm between them.

Side note: I always yell, “GODAMMIT FORCE!” when the chasm appears. It’s clear that the force doesn’t WANT Ren off the board at that point and is intervening.

In The Last Jedi she fails with Ren horribly. Her goal there is to reproduce what Luke did with Vader…convince him of the error of his ways. The fight with Snoke’s guard was incidental to that (still cool, though). Her overarching failure was that Ren still took her actions as a path to power and not a path to wisdom.

That’s where we are now. She’s failed at her own self-appointed goal.