Is Rey´s overpowered character the main reason why the sequels are bad?

Forget the whole Mary Sue debate - I dont care that a 19 year old orphan girl that never went to school could be an excellent mechanic, pilot, multilingual and whatever, there are impossible geniuses in many other franchises. Forget also the whole illogical worldbuilding and all other flaws the sequels had. I would argue that the MAIN reason why they are bad is because Rey is overpowered, gets handed her power on a silver platter without any training at all and therefore subverts the classical "Heroes Journey".

It has basically been established in two trilogies and countless other SW media, that even if one has enormous force potential he/she has to train to utilise these abilities to the fullest. Be it Darth Bane, Anakin, Palpatine, Yoda, Luke, Ashoka, Ezra, Kylo, Starkiller ect ect Canon or non Canon makes it clear. If one doesnt train, one can only use the force subconciously or the most basic force skills. Rey on the other hand can use high level force powers DAYS after learning about the force without ANY training. By the first movie she is equal or superior to a Padawan, by the second movie she is a Jedi Knight by the third a Jedi Master. All of this with 0 or almost 0 training. She displays feats and abilities so far above the first two trilogies that it is mind boggling. And this is why the sequels are bad. Rey uses writer/plot induced cheat codes, that make her so undeservingly overpowered that she is a failure of a main character and very hard to identify with, let alone like.

I think there are a number of reasons the movies are not good. I don't think we can point to any one thing and say, "If this were different the movies would have been great."

[QUOTE=Celestialbeyonder;5283704]Forget the whole Mary Sue debate [/QUOTE]

You say this and then go on to explain why she's exactly that.

But, yes. Rey being better than everyone at everything hurt the movies and every other character in it. She's written like a bad Shonen anime protagonist. No one else had a lane. She was Han's successor, Luke's successor, Leia's successor and Sidious' successor. Why were the other characters even there?

[QUOTE=Xero Kaiser;5284294]You say this and then go on to explain why she's exactly that.

But, yes. Rey being better than everyone at everything hurt the movies and every other character in it. She's written like a bad Shonen anime protagonist. No one else had a lane. She was Han's successor, Luke's successor, Leia's successor and Sidious' successor. Why were the other characters even there?[/QUOTE]

They were there to say how great she was and to wonder where she was and what she was doing when she wasn't on screen.

If the films had remembered Kylo was supposed to be a loathsome scumbag who could stop a blaster bolt in midair... or actually bothered to have Rey get training to showcase some flaws or weaknesses, or be tempted to the dark side because, again, Kylo’s a loathsome scumbag... or that Finn was supposed to be the male lead so his own struggled could be front and center instead of something LFL treated as an intrusive obligation... Rey’s power level wouldn’t really be that big of a problem.

I honestly blame them trying to switch male leads to Kylo half way through, and gutting his potential as a villain because they were fixating on him to the exclusion of anything else, even giving Rey a good story.

Like, for comparison... in Wonder Woman, Diana’s pretty [B]clearly[/B] over-powered in some ways... [I]but the film doesn’t try to switch out Steve Trevor for Ares or Ludendorff as her lover[/I], or get stupefied in its devotion to them over her, and remains focused on [I]her[/I], so even if the external battle wasn’t that great, her internal story and the story around her was pretty good.

And, just to point this out... TFA *does* actually work better than TLJ and TROS as a story, even if you still don’t think it works well enough, and that’s the only film that even tried to make Kylo work as a badguy, or wrote Rey in a realistic way around him.

To me, it’s less a matter of “Rey is too damn powerful” and more “The air in the room got sucked out to focus on the Neo-Nazi School Shooter as though he were a handsome romanceable type.”

If the films remembered to tell a cohesive story, then they would not be getting crapped on. The fact that the Mandalorian had great female characters, told a great story, and everyone got their chance to shine. That was what the movie missed. Not Rey being a Mary Sue.
90% of movies are the man being the best there ever was at the thing he's currently doing.

[QUOTE=Xero Kaiser;5284294]You say this and then go on to explain why she's exactly that[/QUOTE] Not really. If a character is "just" OP but has a ton of other flaws he/she is not a Gary Stu/Mary Sue. Thats why I didnt want to start the Mary Sue debate and wanted to concentrate just on the OP aspect. Because some people simply wont accept that Rey is a Mary Sue/ perfect at everything and will make up ridiculous explanations/justifications why its "normal" for her to have these skills.

[QUOTE=Iatet;5285260]90% of movies are the man being the best there ever was at the thing he's currently doing.[/QUOTE]

That may be true. However 90% of them were not the best right at the beginning of a movie/trilogy and had to go through training/struggle to become OP.

Neo goes through hell before he becomes the best.So does the Master Chief, Sheppard, Goku, John Connor and many others. A cohesive story is important. A good character through which you tell the story, is equally important.

The reason they are terrible is because they had zero plan going forward. Those films were simply cash grabs with no heart, soul, or point.

You don't need to turn it into a fuckin math problem.
They're bad for the same reason the prequels are. The script and VFX aren't great.

And frankly Anakin is the worst main character in that not only does he become Vader but before that he's a creepy, whiny, entitled brat, who believes in fascism while also killing people because he's angry. The man was always going to be a villain and somehow people got it in their heads he's a hero and someone to be respected. He's not.

They're bad because JJ Abrams is a bad writer and has an undeserved reputation in Hollywood and nobody seems willing to admit it. The [I]Star Trek [/I]movie should have been a red flag to Disney and wasn't. Rey is almost secondary to me considering the way the original cast was treated. Han went back to being a smuggler. Leia spent the rest of her life essentially still fighting the empire. And Luke spent the rest of his life in penance for trying to kill his nephew. Nobody got a happy ending here. These things bother me way more than some Mary Sue character. Luke was a Mary Sue in the first movies too. Nobody seemed to have a problem with that. This is why trying to assess what's wrong with the sequels is such a pointless endeavor. The list is extensive and covers a lot of ground. Was Rey a Mary Sue? Sure. Is that even remotely the biggest problem with these movies? Not even close.

Someone at Disney should have looked over Abrams script and saw the way the original characters were being treated, and should have realized fans would hate it. This isn't that hard. If Disney deserves hate for anything, it's that. Any main character that has force powers, regardless of gender, will be labeled a Mary Sue. The movies had a lot of faults. All of the characters were wooden boards and were more ideas or concepts than people. Han was the rogue. Luke was the kid on a journey. Leia was the tough leader. What was Rey's personality? What was Finn's? Poe was the closest one to an actual character. Long story short: Abrams is a bad writer and someone at Disney should have caught that.

[QUOTE=SuperiorIronman;5285533]You don't need to turn it into a fuckin math problem.
They're bad for the same reason the prequels are. The script and VFX aren't great.

And frankly Anakin is the worst main character in that not only does he become Vader but before that he's a creepy, whiny, entitled brat, who believes in fascism while also killing people because he's angry. The man was always going to be a villain and somehow people got it in their heads he's a hero and someone to be respected. He's not.[/QUOTE]

You can fault the prequels for many things but at least they told a coherent story and Lucas had a vision for them. You can’t say the same for the sequels .

[QUOTE=SuperiorIronman;5285533]

And frankly Anakin is the worst main character in that not only does he become Vader but before that he's a creepy, whiny, entitled brat, who believes in fascism while also killing people because he's angry. The man was always going to be a villain and somehow people got it in their heads he's a hero and someone to be respected. He's not.[/QUOTE]

Movie Anakin sucked.

Clone Wars Anakin was awesome.

[QUOTE=superduperman;5286124]The movies had a lot of faults. All of the characters were wooden boards and were more ideas or concepts than people. Han was the rogue. Luke was the kid on a journey. Leia was the tough leader. What was Rey's personality? What was Finn's? Poe was the closest one to an actual character. Long story short: Abrams is a bad writer and someone at Disney should have caught that.[/QUOTE]

Most people (not me) enjoyed TFA even though it was a flawed movie (basically ANH with worse world building) because Rey was not so OP yet/ people were willing to accept her OP because they were waiting for explanations that would justify things. It was not until the monstosity of TLJ that things fell apart.

[QUOTE=Celestialbeyonder;5286729]Most people (not me) enjoyed TFA even though it was a flawed movie (basically ANH with worse world building) because Rey was not so OP yet/ people were willing to accept her OP because they were waiting for explanations that would justify things. It was not until the monstosity of TLJ that things fell apart.[/QUOTE]

My problem with the sequels was the way the original characters were treated. You give Han, Luke, and Leia a happy ending, and you can make the main character a transgender black lesbian who is the most powerful Jedi of all time for all I care. But you can't attach a good story to what happened to the original characters. This is why I don't like the sequels. What happened to the three main characters from the original trilogy. Someone at Disney should have seen what Abrams was proposing and red flagged it. This is why all the political talk about "Mary Sues" or whatever is irrelevant to me. Everyone is overlooking the real problem which is that the original characters got thrown under the bus.