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

[Powerboy]

Luke had a year with Yoda ultimately and a couple of days with Obi-wan. He's otherwise learning what he can from people and is largely self-trained where in a similar time Rey had Jedi Master Luke for a few days to guide her and Leia within the TLJ and TROS gap.

They're trained in similar time-frames except Rey actually had proper teachers relative to what Luke had.

I fully expect someone in this thread to type a fuckin essay explaining how I'm wrong but there it is.

I don't care that much about Rey's being as good as she was because I really like her although I know that's not the case for everyone. There's almost a pathological hatred of her from some. In movies, it's pretty standard for characters to get a couple of days of training and do stuff that would take years in reality. It goes further with Rey than with most other Star Wars characters.

Luke parried blaster bolts on Day One but, except for the shot at the Death Star, which they set up that he was a great pilot and an accurate shot, was his one big deal after getting tossed around in a bar.

There's no greater grandiose origin than Anakin being born of a virgin. I mean, wtf? But he still needed massive training to develop his potential.

Proportionate to all of the other three-ring circus stuff in 7, 8 and 9 (and now, for the next amazing thing you won't believe and have never seen before- prepare to be amazed- character x will now do something magnitudes beyond anything you've ever seen in a previous SW movie), Rey is just along for the ride. She doesn't do anything that seems ridiculous when you judge on a curve compared to other Force users in TFA, TLJ and TROS. It's only when you compare her to the previous trilogies and ignore that you could take any character from the last trilogy and they are ridiculously overpowered compared to the previous trilogies.

I also find myself drawn into Rey's emotional journey and feeling sympathy for her. Maybe that's because she's a woman. But I think they did a good job of showing her vulnerability which is hard to pull off with a character accused of being the ultimate Mary Sue.

[godisawesome]

I don't care that much about Rey's being as good as she was because I really like her although I know that's not the case for everyone. There's almost a pathological hatred of her from some. In movies, it's pretty standard for characters to get a couple of days of training and do stuff that would take years in reality. It goes further with Rey than with most other Star Wars characters.

Luke parried blaster bolts on Day One but, except for the shot at the Death Star, which they set up that he was a great pilot and an accurate shot, was his one big deal after getting tossed around in a bar.

There's no greater grandiose origin than Anakin being born of a virgin. I mean, wtf? But he still needed massive training to develop his potential.

Proportionate to all of the other three-ring circus stuff in 7, 8 and 9 (and now, for the next amazing thing you won't believe and have never seen before- prepare to be amazed- character x will now do something magnitudes beyond anything you've ever seen in a previous SW movie), Rey is just along for the ride. She doesn't do anything that seems ridiculous when you judge on a curve compared to other Force users in TFA, TLJ and TROS. It's only when you compare her to the previous trilogies and ignore that you could take any character from the last trilogy and they are ridiculously overpowered compared to the previous trilogies.

I also find myself drawn into Rey's emotional journey and feeling sympathy for her. Maybe that's because she's a woman. But I think they did a good job of showing her vulnerability which is hard to pull off with a character accused of being the ultimate Mary Sue.

Rey gets screwed coming and going - her own fanbase is generally fractured around whether or not TLJ and Reylo derailed her characterization, while the old sexist assholes look for any angle to attack her from, and even some Kylo and Reylo fans (...who are often the same thing and rarely every really that invested in Rey separate from Kylo) have turned on her because Abrams tried to make it clear the ST was her franchise by killing off Ben.

I made an threw dher a while back where I argued that if someone accused Rey of being a Mary Sue... they should really level the same accusation at Kylo. He’s a Blackhole Sue if I’ve ever seen one, and the refusal to use him properly as Rey’s antagonist is what screwed over the conflict - they wouldn’t let him really challenge Rey because that would remind the audience he was a loathsome villain.

I mean, I *love* her vulnerability in TFA, and I think they make a good show of it in TROS. But it’s fucked up to have her suddenly become a gullible schoolgirl around Kylo Ren. He’s literally the last person she should empathize with or give a damn about. And it was fucked up that you can see LFL was terrified of letting her show her vulnerability around Finn again after TFA.

[kane]

"Pitch Meeting" on you tube commented, that Rey`s "Hero's Journey" lacks the middle part and I agree.

For me Rey did not really earn her power and her victory through hard ship and suffering like Luke did. This is why people became so emotional when Luke appeared on the Mandalorian. Because they went though a lot with him. I doubt that Rey will create the same emotional response decades later, but time will tell.

In ESB despite the training by Yoda and a few years of self training before that, Luke got destroyed by Vader, who was clearly far superior. Luke got his hand cut off and suffered a trauma from descovering the identity of Vader. In RoJ you see a different Luke, older, calmer, more mature and overall a better Jedi. He is able to win against Vader by using the dark side of the force, but then after an emotional struggle he decides to stay true to the light side. And then gets his ass kicked by Palpatine.

The Luke in RotJ is a far different Luke than in NH, forged through years of fighting, suffering, physical and emotional trauma.

I do not see a similar development with Rey. There was no real struggle, neither emotional nor physical. The Rey in RotS is far more powerful by getting her powers served an a silver platter everytime the plot demanded it, but emotionally still not much different than the Rey in TFA.

I also think they should have made all three (Poe, Finn and Rey) Jedi. Maybe each one representing a different aspect of the Force. For example Poe could have been a Jedi with a special affinity for flying, Finn for fighting and Rey for mental manipulation.

[Aahz]

I made an threw dher a while back where I argued that if someone accused Rey of being a Mary Sue... they should really level the same accusation at Kylo. He’s a Blackhole Sue if I’ve ever seen one, and the refusal to use him properly as Rey’s antagonist is what screwed over the conflict - they wouldn’t let him really challenge Rey because that would remind the audience he was a loathsome villain.

The difference is that Kylo is a villain for at least half the story, has actually years of Jedi and Sith training and is kind of pathetic.

He throws tantrums, seems not to be really respected by the rest of the First Order (and those guys come also often off as Jokes), Snoke also doesn't seem to have a particularly high opinion of him and he just doesn't come off as particularly compentent most of the time.

[godisawesome]

The difference is that Kylo is a villain for at least half the story, has actually year of Jedi and Sith training and is kind of pathetic.

He throws tantrums, seems to be really respected by the rest of the First Order (and those guys come also often off as Jokes), Snoke also doesn't have to have a particularly high opinion of him and just doesn't come off as particularly compentent most of the time.

And yet, he still basically steals TLJ from Rey, and the over investment LFL had in him totally changed the final villain from himself to Palpatine, in a film where they solidified pimping out Rey to him.

I’d also note that even though he doesn’t do anything really cool in TLJ... he still ends up winning there and emerging as the Supreme Leader because Rey has no spine or common sense (very peculiar for a scavenger survivalist). He fails upwards in TLJ like he’s Donald Trump. And of course, he gets full Draco In Leather Pants treatment in both TLJ and TROS, with Rey even being portrayed as wrong for stabbing his evil ass in TROS.

Yeah, he lost in TFA... but most people seemed to like that, just like most people liked Rey then as well. And that’s because TFA was written well from a character standpoint, even while shortcutting Rey into enough Force proficiency to win a fight against a handicapped Kylo.

[ChrisIII]

The difference is that Kylo is a villain for at least half the story, has actually years of Jedi and Sith training and is kind of pathetic.

He throws tantrums, seems not to be really respected by the rest of the First Order (and those guys come also often off as Jokes), Snoke also doesn't seem to have a particularly high opinion of him and he just doesn't come off as particularly compentent most of the time.

Vader in the OT was occasionally disrespected; Motti mocks him and Ozzel doesn't seem to take him that seriously either. Even Jerjorodd is a bit defiant (We see more of this in the deleted scenes, and he was a full rival in earlier versions of the script). Of course Vader let them know their place in all examples.

[Aahz]

I think this scene here shows pretty well, what I meant. From how Snokes treats him and tells him out to how the two Imperials at the end look at him when he comes out of the elevator.

[Derek Metaltron]

I do wonder if the biggest issue with Last Jedi is that they didn’t do what Empire did by not allowing for a time jump of a year or so in order to make Rey’s experience increases make sense. We believe that Luke has improved because we have seen him go from being new to the concepts with ANH to being more focused and intuitive even before he goes to Dagobah because we know that time has passed. So many of the films issues stem from the need to be right after Force Awakens and also limit the entire Sequel Trilogy by having all of it within the space of a single year.

[godisawesome]

I think this scene here shows pretty well, what I meant. From how Snokes treats him and tells him out to how the two Imperials at the end look at him when he comes out of the elevator.

Is it a pathetic way to treat a villain? Yeah!

Is it clearly trying to “woobify” Kylo, downgrade some of his villainous characteristics, and fit with trying to make him sympathetic? Also yes.

And that’s the problem. Kylo having his face scarred and his helmet made fun of is valued more highly than Finn waking from a near fatal coma (which was instead played as “Haha laugh at the goofy black guy in the weird suit!”) or his violating Rey’s mind - and hell, it’s even given equal or greater dramatic import to his murder of Han.

And then the film tries to blame Luke for Ben going bad, instead of acknowledging this story reinforces the “Ben was a School Shooter” aspect it confirms as well.

And all of that demonstrates the film dowgrading and denigrating the previous suffering and successes of the heroes for the sake of Ben. And Rey gets the worst of that - she suddenly stops acting like a hardened survivor, Finn’s best friend, Han’ surrogate daughter, or Kylo’s victim.

To sell Ben Solo as something worthwhile, Rian Johnson stripped Rey of every part of her personality from the previous film *AND* of the middle part of the story arc she was supposed to have... leaving only a perfunctory acknoweldgement she was supposed to have the power to be the hero.


There’s a hell of a lot more wrong with Ben Solo/Kylo Ren than there is with Rey... largely because Rey’s biggest problem *IS* Ben Solo.

[Jackalope89]

I think Rey is in keeping with just about everything that is problematic about 7, 8 and 9. She can do things without any training and, in some cases, far beyond what has been done before.

Leia can fly and through outer space at that.

Luke can astrally project while still alive and at a galactic range.

Yoda can now do damage in the physical world, destroying things with lightning.

The Emperor can destroy ships with the Force (don't remember for sure as I've only seen it once).

Rey and Kylo can teleport things between them.

Children who have an affinity for the Force can move objects with zero training.

This is all hand waved as the Force exerting itself like it hasn't in ages though I think that explanation was in TROS as a last minute explanation because of the complaints about the vast inconsistency with the previous trilogies.

It's all part of the same problem.

Well, destroying ships with Force Lightning does have some history in Star Wars. But, it was from Legends. And a couple of video games at that. Force Unleashed 1 and 2, you can destroy TIE Fighters with Force Lightning. Or even Force Grab them, shock them, then use them like over-sized grenades.

The rest though... Yeah. WTF.

[Moon Ronin]

Rey lifting the boulders never bothered me because of the 'size matters not' scene where Yoda explains that there's no difference between a small rock and a full-sized X-Wing and that Luke only failed to lift the ship because he didn't believe he could.

You have to remember this is only literal days, not even a week has passed since Rey even discovered that the Force was even real. Where as Luke had been aware of the force for years by the time he started training with Yoda. It is not that she shouldn't have the ability to so its that she wasn't even given Yoda mind over "crude" matter lesson. In The Last Jedi Rey was reduced to a Plot Device,a clumsy Deus ex machina in this instance.

[Powerboy]

Well, destroying ships with Force Lightning does have some history in Star Wars. But, it was from Legends. And a couple of video games at that. Force Unleashed 1 and 2, you can destroy TIE Fighters with Force Lightning. Or even Force Grab them, shock them, then use them like over-sized grenades.

The rest though... Yeah. WTF.

Oh, I'm sure the EU has all kinds of things that are magnitudes beyond what anyone could do in the movies. But this stuff in episodes 7, 8 and 9 was in the movies.

[Powerboy]

You have to remember this is only literal days, not even a week has passed since Rey even discovered that the Force was even real. Where as Luke had been aware of the force for years by the time he started training with Yoda. It is not that she shouldn't have the ability to so its that she wasn't even given Yoda mind over "crude" matter lesson. In The Last Jedi Rey was reduced to a Plot Device,a clumsy Deus ex machina in this instance.

I believe that, at the time, it was said that Empire began about six months after the end of the original movie. Still, in Empire, he was no match for Vader, who was just toying with him. It wasn't until considerable training that he could truly beat Vader in Return of the Jedi.

[godisawesome]

You have to remember this is only literal days, not even a week has passed since Rey even discovered that the Force was even real. Where as Luke had been aware of the force for years by the time he started training with Yoda. It is not that she shouldn't have the ability to so its that she wasn't even given Yoda mind over "crude" matter lesson. In The Last Jedi Rey was reduced to a Plot Device,a clumsy Deus ex machina in this instance.

I believe that, at the time, it was said that Empire began about six months after the end of the original movie. Still, in Empire, he was no match for Vader, who was just toying with him. It wasn't until considerable training that he could truly beat Vader in Return of the Jedi.

Now that's a specific comparison I can get behind. She basically loses the dramatic “rising action” part of a multi-film story arc, and Johnson instead seems to try ramping up her power progression to an almost parody-level extent either to compensate for it, or because it was a convenient way to excuse the major storyline ideas for others he was interested in.

So the two most plausible scenarios are that he either had a bit of insecurity about how little he was doing with Rey as a character and gave her a power upgrade to try and make up for it... or that he found it very convenient to just make her good enough to help Kylo’s story of ascending to Supreme Leader, and very convenient to write his way out of the “no escape” scenario he created on Crait. And considering how apathetic he was towards Rey being violated by Kylo in the previous film... eh, it’s probably apathy towards Rey mixed with finding her a useful plot tool.

He really should have centered the story so that she’d go through some kind of struggle or failure that made sense in TLJ, and he didn’t. He could have had Kylo get payback against her, which would arguably have suited the short timeline of the story well, as Kylo was clearly more experienced and skilled than she was in TFA and she needed help the first time. Instead he had her... mistakenly think he would save the day?

What?!?

[Moon Ronin]

He really should have centered the story so that she’d go through some kind of struggle or failure that made sense in TLJ, and he didn’t.

But he only used her as a plot device. Even her parents were a red herring, after leaving TFA people spent 2 years with theories and speculation and went into the last Jedi with expectations. Her parents were being nobodies was just set up so that Kilo Ren could use it to manipulate her and really didn't move her story up or down as she didn't seem to really have expatiations were some great awesome people, just seem to what to know why they abandoned her.
She is the flash back trigger for both Luke and Kilo to show both sides to THEIR story about BEN being pushed to the dark side. (some one earlier in this thread said that they felt that Luke was torn down for Rey development but it was more to the sake of Kilo Ren) She was just the device used to tell the "tragic" story of how mean ole Luke who himself almost gave into the dark side while facing Vader, has a laps in judgment and went to kill his young nephew.
She was Finn's magnetic device as to his motivation to flee the ship and find her. then Finn got lost on a side quest for a MacGuffin code breaker that was a complete waste of time and a waste of Finns potential as a character.
On Crait her two deus ex machina scenes. One with the Millennium falcon comes out of no where when all hope is lost and allows the resistance to retreat back to the bunker. Look Mr. Frodo the eagles! The show of "Force" when all hope is lost as the resistance tries to escape out and low and behold here comes Rey with the biggest show "force lift" ever seen in the movies, which is not bad for some one that thought the Force was a myth a week ago.