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

[Ikari]

In what universe those movies are "well directed"?

Just a mess of scenes awkwardly connected one to other and people rushing to a place to the other. RoS looks it has been edited by a squirrel on crack. (faster!! faster!! faster!!)

TFA is a well directed movie with a bland story. TLJ is an uneven story very unevenly directed - some parts great, some parts awful with a bizarre structure and pacing. TroS is 2 movies awkwardly tincanned into one and cinematography-wise, is about the best what could be expected from such a horrible premise.
By contrast, the prequels are all badly directed movies with awful and uninspired cinematography. Everything is flat and unengaging, characters look like they are 'floating' in some sterile universe with no sweat, dirt or blood.

Any way, to get back into topic, overpowered characters are not necessarily bad for the story. Lots of the most famous and successful fictional characters are incredibly overpowered in their own universe. I didn't mind Kylo and Rey finding and using new Force powers. In fact one of my peeves of the Prequel Trilogy was that the Jedi were distinctly underpowered. Lucas came up with essentially nothing new for their abilities compared to very basic stuff Luke was doing in OT. They were just using same stuff and wearing same clothes (!) as Ben & Luke in OT.

However the power should have purpose for the story. Some of the stuff Rey does has little purpose except "this is cool". It is not foreshadowed or explained in any way. For some reason, JJ & Kasdan wanted to keep it a surprise that Rey was a force user. Whereas her aptitude on mechanics and close combat is easily explained by her surroundings, and her piloting ability can be somewhat explained too, her Force power really comes out of nowhere and it hurts the story because it looks like she was already reasonably complete character and was given Force ability just for the cool of it. Although I do not think Rey is a Mary-Sue compared to some of the very obvious examples*, it does make her somewhat Sue-ish especially when combined with how powerful she and Kylo are said to be compared to other estabilished Force users (again, for no further explanation).

Does it explain why the sequels were badly received? Not really. I think Rey's character is perfectly fine - though poorly set up - and I rather like Ridley in the role. The biggest problem of the trilogy is that there is not really a coherent story, just bunch of excuses to come up with cool scenes. And here the finger primarily points at the producer who approved this approach.

*examples of much more obvious Mary/Canon Sues:
-Ayla of the Earth's Children
-Jack Ryan of Clancyverse
-Tauriel from Hobbit movies

[BeastieRunner]

TFA is a well directed movie with a bland story. TLJ is an uneven story very unevenly directed - some parts great, some parts awful with a bizarre structure and pacing. TroS is 2 movies awkwardly tincanned into one and cinematography-wise, is about the best what could be expected from such a horrible premise.
By contrast, the prequels are all badly directed movies with awful and uninspired cinematography. Everything is flat and unengaging, characters look like they are 'floating' in some sterile universe with no sweat, dirt or blood.

Any way, to get back into topic, overpowered characters are not necessarily bad for the story. Lots of the most famous and successful fictional characters are incredibly overpowered in their own universe. I didn't mind Kylo and Rey finding and using new Force powers. In fact one of my peeves of the Prequel Trilogy was that the Jedi were distinctly underpowered. Lucas came up with essentially nothing new for their abilities compared to very basic stuff Luke was doing in OT. They were just using same stuff and wearing same clothes (!) as Ben & Luke in OT.

However the power should have purpose for the story. Some of the stuff Rey does has little purpose except "this is cool". It is not foreshadowed or explained in any way. For some reason, JJ & Kasdan wanted to keep it a surprise that Rey was a force user. Whereas her aptitude on mechanics and close combat is easily explained by her surroundings, and her piloting ability can be somewhat explained too, her Force power really comes out of nowhere and it hurts the story because it looks like she was already reasonably complete character and was given Force ability just for the cool of it. Although I do not think Rey is a Mary-Sue compared to some of the very obvious examples*, it does make her somewhat Sue-ish especially when combined with how powerful she and Kylo are said to be compared to other estabilished Force users (again, for no further explanation).

Does it explain why the sequels were badly received? Not really. I think Rey's character is perfectly fine - though poorly set up - and I rather like Ridley in the role. The biggest problem of the trilogy is that there is not really a coherent story, just bunch of excuses to come up with cool scenes. And here the finger primarily points at the producer who approved this approach.

*examples of much more obvious Mary/Canon Sues:
-Ayla of the Earth's Children
-Jack Ryan of Clancyverse
-Tauriel from Hobbit movies

I heard Gendo's voice throughout this entire post.

[Moon Ronin]

...How is mechanically fixing the Millenium Falcon something worth using in this debate? The Force powers are where you need to focus. And keeping the MF flying doesn’t make the military story hinge on her at all, and is arguably the single most reasonable thing she does in the film....

I would think that it's worth using in this debate and goes along with the "Mary Sue" trope. Rey is a scavenger yes so she may have limited knowledge of ship parts but that doesn't make her a hyperdrive expert. She is also a super pilot that can out maneuver trained Tie Fighter pilots when flying a ship that she is not familiar with, the same Ties that Poe only a few scenes before was very impressed with. She can also speak Wookie, Droid, and almost any language that was thrown at her. She is well versed in hand to hand combat as she takes down storm troopers that have been trained from a young age in various forms of combat. Rey's overpowered problem isn't just with the force. And all of this from the sequel movie that I actually liked, before the dark times... before Raylo

Young child Anakin worked at repairing items in Watto's junkshop, he also spent his spare time making a droid and a pod racer in secrets. He is even at a young age veteran of pod racing. When Shmi says " I don't want you to race Anni, it's awful. I die every time Watto makes you do it." This implies that this is not young Anne's first rodeo. That and later mention of the prophecy of the "chosen one" frames him as even more special even among the Jedi.

The prequels trilogy though badly written did set up some explanation where as the in the sequels its "well she scraps old ships and sell them so...." Where the ball was dropped for Rey was in The Last Jedi where arguably the story focused away from Rey and put the spot light on Ben and Luke and to top it all off RJ went and made here a nobody. So here is Rey who can do all of these amazing things with little to know explanation as to why she can... she just can and she saves the day by doing more amazing thing look at me I can move a mountain of rocks with little to no Jedi training... suck it Luke. I honestly believe that her being a Palpatine was only a last ditch effort to try and explain how Rey can do what she can do after TLJ failed.

So no I don't think Rey being overpowered was the reason the sequels "are bad" either. I agree that its that after TFA the focus was taken off Rey and put more on Kylo. Rey's "power level" or the fact that she can do so much outside of using the force, it's that her story was lost and misdirected 1/2 of the way through the trilogy and had a slapped together ending.

[godisawesome]

I would think that it's worth using in this debate and goes along with the "Mary Sue" trope. Rey is a scavenger yes so she may have limited knowledge of ship parts but that doesn't make her a hyperdrive expert. She is also a super pilot that can out maneuver trained Tie Fighter pilots when flying a ship that she is not familiar with, the same Ties that Poe only a few scenes before was very impressed with. She can also speak Wookie, Droid, and almost any language that was thrown at her. She is well versed in hand to hand combat as she takes down storm troopers that have been trained from a young age in various forms of combat. Rey's overpowered problem isn't just with the force. And all of this from the sequel movie that I actually liked, before the dark times... before Raylo

Young child Anakin worked at repairing items in Watto's junkshop, he also spent his spare time making a droid and a pod racer in secrets. He is even at a young age veteran of pod racing. When Shmi says " I don't want you to race Anni, it's awful. I die every time Watto makes you do it." This implies that this is not young Anne's first rodeo. That and later mention of the prophecy of the "chosen one" frames him as even more special even among the Jedi.

The prequels trilogy though badly written did set up some explanation where as the in the sequels its "well she scraps old ships and sell them so...." Where the ball was dropped for Rey was in The Last Jedi where arguably the story focused away from Rey and put the spot light on Ben and Luke and to top it all off RJ went and made here a nobody. So here is Rey who can do all of these amazing things with little to know explanation as to why she can... she just can and she saves the day by doing more amazing thing look at me I can move a mountain of rocks with little to no Jedi training... suck it Luke. I honestly believe that her being a Palpatine was only a last ditch effort to try and explain how Rey can do what she can do after TLJ failed.

So no I don't think Rey being overpowered was the reason the sequels "are bad" either. I agree that its that after TFA the focus was taken off Rey and put more on Kylo. Rey's "power level" or the fact that she can do so much outside of using the force, it's that her story was lost and misdirected 1/2 of the way through the trilogy and had a slapped together ending.

Exactly.

Power fantasy character who are centrally located can still be used well.

Power fantasy characters that feel like they’re only involved because the writer is forced to include them when they want to focus on someone else? More likely to be weirdly disappointing support characters.

[inisideguy]

She is pretty darn powerful thats for sure. I don't know I think the main problems are no clear vision of what story they were suppose to tell which still baffles me in this day and age, and having Carey Fisher die didn't help either. One day there will be a great inside story book about what happened with this series of movies. There are things I do enjoy in all three movies though. I don't hate them as much as many.

[evolutionaryFan]

One thing I really liked in the sequels, and I know I'm in the minority here. Luke's negative attitude towards the jedi. I'm so glad someone in the movies acknowledged how badly the Jedi (especially Yoda) had screwed up during the prequels. Also given all that history... the Force seems to be more trouble than its worth. So if the Jedi order are restored what you gain? Not that much... all you really get are a bunch of super-soldiers. Jedi don't really do anything other than fight. One jedi turns to the darkside and the whole galaxy goes to hell. The risk/reward ratio is not worth it.

Plus I'm not really a fan of the whole redemption arc in ROTJ. It was too cheap and easy given everything Vader has done. I mean one good act and now Vader's redeemed? So his attitude towards Kylo Ren is understandable... I don't like the fact that he was going to kill Kylo... but really can the galaxy afford the kind of naive optimism Luke had in the OT?

[MASTER-OF-SUPRISE]

One thing I really liked in the sequels, and I know I'm in the minority here. Luke's negative attitude towards the jedi. I'm so glad someone in the movies acknowledged how badly the Jedi (especially Yoda) had screwed up during the prequels. Also given all that history... the Force seems to be more trouble than its worth. So if the Jedi order are restored what you gain? Not that much... all you really get are a bunch of super-soldiers. Jedi don't really do anything other than fight. One jedi turns to the darkside and the whole galaxy goes to hell. The risk/reward ratio is not worth it.

Plus I'm not really a fan of the whole redemption arc in ROTJ. It was too cheap and easy given everything Vader has done. I mean one good act and now Vader's redeemed? So his attitude towards Kylo Ren is understandable... I don't like the fact that he was going to kill Kylo... but really can the galaxy afford the kind of naive optimism Luke had in the OT?

As someone who’s in the opposite camp I’m not entirely against a broken Luke. My main problem is how it was executed.Had it been his naive optimism screwing up I think I could of accepted that. Say he decides to be too trusting and that ends up with his nephew becoming Kylo.

[Aahz]

*examples of much more obvious Mary/Canon Sues:
-Ayla of the Earth's Children
-Jack Ryan of Clancyverse
-Tauriel from Hobbit movies

The Mary Sue thing is pretty imo pretty subjective, and you have allways to look at it in the context of the genre and franchise.

Jack Ryan might be a Mary Sue but he is afaik also the original main character of that franchise, so people who like that franchise are very likely ok with him, and people who don't like him are probably just not very invested in the "Clancyverse".

Tauriel seemed to me not really more "sueish" than other characters from the LotR Movies (Legolas, Gandalf, Galadriel ...), wasn't that relevant to the story (especially to the main plot), and in LotR the main charcacter (Bilbo, Frodo and the other Hobbits) are anyway no way near as powerfull and competent as their companions.

Don't know the Earth's Children so no idea what's the deal with Ayla (but like Jack Ryan she seems to be the original main character of the book).

Problem with Rey is that she is not original main character of Star Wars, she is a character added to Franchise that around for roughly 40 years, with a massive fanbase and pretty large number of beloved characters staring movies, TV shows, books, comics and games, with a lot of these characters being among the best in what they are doing in the entire galaxy. And Rey's competence level and the speed at which she develops new force powers is just completly of the charts in comparison to all of these characters.
And it also doesn't help that Finn, her main support character in TFA, is (with exceptions of pure comic relief characters like Jar-Jar and C3-PO) probably the least competent main characters of the franchise.

[Ikari]

The Mary Sue thing is pretty imo pretty subjective, and you have allways to look at it in the context of the genre and franchise.

Jack Ryan might be a Mary Sue but he is afaik also the original main character of that franchise, so people who like that franchise are very likely ok with him, and people who don't like him are probably just not very invested in the "Clancyverse".

Tauriel seemed to me not really more "sueish" than other characters from the LotR Movies (Legolas, Gandalf, Galadriel ...), wasn't that relevant to the story (especially to the main plot), and in LotR the main charcacter (Bilbo, Frodo and the other Hobbits) are anyway no way near as powerfull and competent as their companions.

Don't know the Earth's Children so no idea what's the deal with Ayla (but like Jack Ryan she seems to be the original main character of the book).

Well by strict definition, 'Mary Sue' can only ever refer to fan fiction characters added to the existing canon universe (which makes them feel detached and separate in the story), though nowadays it is used in much more liberal fashion, to the point of 'any prominent character I don't like'. In my view, a character is 'Mary Sue' if he/she is defined by her awesomeness. A 'Mary Sue' is someone who writer wishes to be, and who doesn't want to be awesome in every respect?

Character development of Jack Ryan was one of the reasons I gave up Clancyverse. I liked him at first as he was just some pencilneck analyst, very different from your typical thriller protagonist of the day. Then in subsesquent books, Clancy made him a badass action hero who whipped out his gun to kill terrorists, and eventually, President of the United States (!). At that point I gave up because the character had so clearly became a wish-fulfillment device.

Tauriel is extremely Mary Sue. She has no role in the story except to look cool (her introduction scene is obvious example), everything she does is written into movie so she can save canon characters' lives or have them display romantic interest towards her, none of which existed in the original book.

Ayla is tall, strong, extremely beautiful (but of course she doesn't realize it), superb hunter, marvellously intelligent (she learns new languages in weeks, single-handedly invents about 10 000 years worth of Stone Age technology), has nearly mystical connection with wild animals and so on. Basically, almost everything about her is how awesome she is.

Problem with Rey is that she is not original main character of Star Wars, she is a character added to Franchise that around for roughly 40 years, with a massive fanbase and pretty large number of beloved characters staring movies, TV shows, books, comics and games, with a lot of these characters being among the best in what they are doing in the entire galaxy. And Rey's competence level and the speed at which she develops new force powers is just completly of the charts in comparison to all of these characters.
And it also doesn't help that Finn, her main support character in TFA, is (with exceptions of pure comic relief characters like Jar-Jar and C3-PO) probably the least competent main characters of the franchise.

I am not sure how Rey is not an 'original character'. She was not added to the estabilished story, she was always intended to be one of the main characters of the trilogy she was in. Of course she was not part of the very first Star Wars cast, but plenty of such Star Wars characters around.

Rey's non-Force abilities don't seem to be exceptionally unusual compared to Anakin or Luke. It is implied she worked as a mechanic and even pilot for the local crime bosses in-between being a scavenger. Lets not forget that Battle of Yavin was Luke's first gig in an X-Wing, and Anakin was like 10 when he blew up the Droid Command ship, and had NEVER flown any kind of craft either in atmosphere or out of it. His awesome piloting ability came from his Jedi reflexes and few mostly unsuccessful races in 2D-maneuvering racing pods. Oh and he built a whole protocol droid by himself. That's much more impressive than whacking a hyperdrive with a monkey wrench few times.

Agree about Finn. I have talked about him in the past and main problem is that his character was set up so that his arc was completed in the first movie.

[godisawesome]

And it also doesn't help that Finn, her main support character in TFA, is (with exceptions of pure comic relief characters like Jar-Jar and C3-PO) probably the least competent main characters of the franchise.

Agree about Finn. I have talked about him in the past and main problem is that his character was set up so that his arc was completed in the first movie.

I actually think that criticism of Finn is more an example of TLJ retconning in weaker interpretations and treatments of the characters alongside a refusal to actually advance anyone’s storylines, in a manner similar to what happened to Rey.

Finn’s actually quite competent in TFA, in spite of being the Patron Saint of the Scrappy Underdog on the films, accomplishing pretty much all of his individual objectives by using some guile, grit, pragmatism, and cooperation: he successfully frees himself and Poe on the fly, successfully evades the FO’s pursuit and secures the escape route he then decides to avoid taking, successfully gets SKBks shields lowered, and successfully ensures Rey’s escape from Kylo Ren and SKB. Yes, he needed help to do all that... but he got that help, and Poe and Rey aren’t successfully flying away without him as a gunner, Han and Chewie aren’t lowering the shields without his guidance, and Rey ain’t escaping Kylo without him holding Kylo off. He’s not physically impressive, but he’s capable enough to do more than, say, Kylo in accomplishing his objectives, and he doesn’t ever make a mistake quite as big as Rey’s when she runs away from Maz’s palace.

He also ends the film having completed an arc analogous to Han’s in ANH, had some story elements that seem to have deliberately hinted at Force sensitivity of TROS’s intent is anything to go by, and has the fascinating background of being an escaped child slave. Han’s ANH arc was followed up on by making him the romantic lead for the main female character, Force sensitivity easily leads to Jedi training in most Star Wars material, and we all know someone who speculated about making Finn the Stormtrooper Spartacus.

The problem, of course, is that Rian Johnson didn’t have any ambition, desire or even seemingly tolerance with Finn that would have followed on making him a Jedi or following up on the slave soldier plotline, and indeed seems to have had some kind of bias and prejudice against having him be Rey’s love interest the same way LFL itself did (as John Boyega and Alan Dean a foster both speculated from their more informed POV). I don’t think Johnson really wanted to do anything with Finn beyond demote him from lead and use him to explain themes in an awkwardly small minded way.

...Which is really the same problem he has with Rey. Rey’s clearly set-up to be trained by Luke, deal with dark side wrath towards Kylo, and have an interesting and likely complicating reveal for her parentage. But Johnson has no interest in any of that, and like with Finn also seems to have littler interest in Rey except as an excuse to explore the themes and other character’s arcs.

Heck, it even somewhat applies to Kylo. TFA left him explicitly being set up as needing training from Snoke and Abrams and Kasdan made it clear they wanted him on a “Villain’s Journey” concept arc, only for Johnson to try and ditch all that for reinterpreting him as some weird school shooter version of Heathcliffe from Wuthering Heights via 50 Shades Of Grey.

I think that flat out, even if TLJ had been properly executed (which I think it wasn’t), it wasn’t meant to help the ST as a story; a lot of its decisions feel like sacrificing the ST’s long term viability for some pretentiously abstract payoff within TLJ’s own runtime.

[Aahz]

I am not sure how Rey is not an 'original character'. She was not added to the estabilished story, she was always intended to be one of the main characters of the trilogy she was in. Of course she was not part of the very first Star Wars cast, but plenty of such Star Wars characters around.

That's what I mean by "not original". She is not the first "main character" of the Star Wars Franchise, and for most viewers the Sequels were very likely the first time they had watched Star Wars. So viewers have kind of a base line they compare Rey with.

Rey's non-Force abilities don't seem to be exceptionally unusual compared to Anakin or Luke. It is implied she worked as a mechanic and even pilot for the local crime bosses in-between being a scavenger. Lets not forget that Battle of Yavin was Luke's first gig in an X-Wing, and Anakin was like 10 when he blew up the Droid Command ship, and had NEVER flown any kind of craft either in atmosphere or out of it. His awesome piloting ability came from his Jedi reflexes and few mostly unsuccessful races in 2D-maneuvering racing pods. Oh and he built a whole protocol droid by himself. That's much more impressive than whacking a hyperdrive with a monkey wrench few times.

In Rey's case it is kind of the combination of the sheer amount of her non-Force abilities with her over the top Force abilities.

When it comes to Luke at the Battle of Yarvin it is hard t say how competent he is in comparison to the other Pilots, since there isn't much dog fighting going on. And Luke wasn't particularly competent in anything apart from piloting.

When it comes to Anakin, from what I remember he also didn't do much dog fighting, he escaped from some droids and than somehow landed more or less by accident in the hanger of the Droid Controll Ship. And he wasn't the main protagonist of the Movie, that were Obiwan and Qui-Gon.

That's probaly also the reason why a lot of people gibe Grogu's power a pass, the main character of the series in Mando, a Grogu is on his own even with his powers pretty helpless.

[Aahz]

Finn’s actually quite competent in TFA, in spite of being the Patron Saint of the Scrappy Underdog on the films, accomplishing pretty much all of his individual objectives by using some guile, grit, pragmatism, and cooperation: he successfully frees himself and Poe on the fly, successfully evades the FO’s pursuit and secures the escape route he then decides to avoid taking, successfully gets SKBks shields lowered, and successfully ensures Rey’s escape from Kylo Ren and SKB. Yes, he needed help to do all that... but he got that help, and Poe and Rey aren’t successfully flying away without him as a gunner, Han and Chewie aren’t lowering the shields without his guidance, and Rey ain’t escaping Kylo without him holding Kylo off. He’s not physically impressive, but he’s capable enough to do more than, say, Kylo in accomplishing his objectives, and he doesn’t ever make a mistake quite as big as Rey’s when she runs away from Maz’s palace.

He had made some important contribution for the win of the good guys (but so did Jar-Jar in Episode 1), and he is not completely incompetent, but in comparison to other major Star Wars characters he is still comes of as unimpressive and uncool imo.

If for example Poe would have been the co lead in TFA, I don't think that Rey would have looked that "sueish" as she did in comparison to Finn.

[Celestialbeyonder]

That's probaly also the reason why a lot of people gibe Grogu's power a pass, the main character of the series in Mando, a Grogu is on his own even with his powers pretty helpless.

Grogu had some training in the Jedi temple and he litterally passes out if he uses to much of the force and without Mando protecting him he would have been dead/captured.
Luke is literally saved in the last second by Han, otherwise Vader would have shot him down.
Anakin has help from R2 in piloting the ship and he survives and defeats the droid control ship more or less by accident. His win at the pod race was more or less an accident as well.
Rey managed everything on her own and doesnt need any help.

- 2 vs 1? She beats them up
- 2 vs 1? She "needs" Fin only to pull the trigger - without him she would have shaken them of
- Escaping from a prison cell? She does it be herself
- Defeating a somewhat wounded force user vastly superior to her? She defeats him on her own
- Sneaking onto the Supremacy - she does it by herself
- Defeating a bunch of highly trained warriors - she does it by herself
- Escaping from Kylo Ren by waking up before him, without killing him - she does it herself
- Saving the Resistance by lifting 50 tons of rocks without any training - she does it by herself. You might argue that the 20 minutes or so of time Luke got her was help - but it was only "help" so that she could get there and save everyone by herself.

[Ikari]

- 2 vs 1? She beats them up
- 2 vs 1? She "needs" Fin only to pull the trigger - without him she would have shaken them of
- Escaping from a prison cell? She does it be herself
- Defeating a somewhat wounded force user vastly superior to her? She defeats him on her own
- Sneaking onto the Supremacy - she does it by herself
- Defeating a bunch of highly trained warriors - she does it by herself

Umm, I think you are editing your memories a bit there - Chewbacca and Finn softened up Kylo for her (who didn't even try to kill her). She was let into Snoke's flagship, then she was completely helpless against Snoke and they killed Snoke's guards together with Kylo.
I do agree that some aspects of Rey are badly written, but lets be fair here.

[Ikari]

That's what I mean by "not original". She is not the first "main character" of the Star Wars Franchise, and for most viewers the Sequels were very likely the first time they had watched Star Wars. So viewers have kind of a base line they compare Rey with.

I really do not understand what you are saying here. Your statement seems self-contradictory, how can viewers have a 'baseline' if that's the first Star Wars movie they see?

In Rey's case it is kind of the combination of the sheer amount of her non-Force abilities with her over the top Force abilities.

When it comes to Luke at the Battle of Yarvin it is hard t say how competent he is in comparison to the other Pilots, since there isn't much dog fighting going on. And Luke wasn't particularly competent in anything apart from piloting.

Well, by same token Rey's piloting skill demonstration is to maneuver desperately in a ship known for its awesome capabilities in this regard. Without her latent Force abilities she probably would have crashed it quickly. She is never shown to do any combat piloting beyond that. She is never shown flying a starfighter in combat, unlike Luke, Mara Jade, Obi-Wan, Anakin and so on.

Rey's piloting ability seems a product of TFA plot purpose: since Finn and Poe are separated and Finn can't pilot, he needs another pilot to fly him off Jakku. Unless they want to introduce another character, that can only be Rey. I suppose they may have also used the chase scene to foreshadow Rey's force reflexes, but that might be giving writers of TFA too much credit.

When it comes to Anakin, from what I remember he also didn't do much dog fighting, he escaped from some droids and than somehow landed more or less by accident in the hanger of the Droid Controll Ship. And he wasn't the main protagonist of the Movie, that were Obiwan and Qui-Gon.

All of which makes it worse. Any way, I really do not like using Anakin as a counterexample here as I pretty much think kid Anakin is the worst character in all of Star Wars.