ST Daisy Ridley (Rey) in the ST

I really don't mean to twist your words. I was trying to understand your point and that is how I understood it.

She doesn't have anger issues? Well that's a relief. Why did she attack Luke from behind while he was walking away then?

She's on a hero's journey. She's supposed to be the hero. She attacked Luke in a very cowardly way in anger to arrogantly force him to do what she wanted him to do, and then he did it because she attacked him. If her arc isn't to involve challenges dealing with anger and emotion, why was this scene a part of her arc?

 

“Arrogantly Force him to do what she wanted him to do”

Sorry, but that’s a flat out incorrect reading of that scene and of character motivations.

 

Rey is going to be the next Katniss Everdeen for a new generation of young people. When Katniss became the best archer in the world essentially simply from having a hard life and needing to use her bow that was sufficient for an entire generation of Katniss fans. That she could beat Champions who’d trained and fought and been sponsored much of their lives didn’t matter either.

I think some people forget Star Wars realism according to George Lucas is really for the 12 year old crowd first.

Once anyone starts demanding to see Rey’s vacation photos from a water planet with her junker parents prior to arriving on Jakku to explain how she was able to swim into a Dark Side cave of magical power despite growing up on a desert planet it’s clear they want more backstory and realism than what Star Wars (or most films for young people often provide) instead of seeing the action as merely the vehicle to deliver thrills and further plot and get to the emotional drama, which is where the real focus is in this saga.

EDIT: @AhsokaSolo

We were talking about that moment as part of many steps on Rey’s path toward the Dark Side in TLJ yesterday a few pages back in the Luke thread. Rey is slowly creeping toward the Dark Side in this film but doesn’t realize it because she still cares enough for her friends to truly turn. When the moment comes Kylo Ren was wrong. She still thought of her friends first and wanted Ben Solo to join her.

 

Yeah, I think in the future, Star Wars needs to move past the idea of having to show “training” to get to the drama

 

There is no arc there. That isn't in TFA and it's inclusion in TLJ is just riffing on what was already done in TFA. She never thought for one second that her parents were 'anyone' or was upset about them being 'nobody' until that second in TLJ.

She was supposed to be a slave (except she wasn't) there is nothing to indicate how she actually grew up. She has no real relation to Unkar Plutt either.

The ones she didn't know actually existed? Except suddenly she has a history run down out of nowhere.

When did this happen?

Where did this come from? She seems to think whatever is needed at whatever and whenever is needed then forget immediately until needing to remember it again.

Someone who's knowledge rather magically comes and goes when it comes to everything it seems is a quicksand character that you can't build on.

That might be a theme in the ST but unfortunately that's all it is. It's not in the character or story. If that was supposed to be the point then they really did it poorly as Rey is all about not actually learning but simply doing things.

When did she NOT have that already? Again all innate and no learning necessary. I wish she did have to learn things but no.

Not when it's connected to the character and the story. That even the surface level struggle is largely absent from Rey (nevermind actual character ones) is telling. Her setbacks are for plot purposes and don't really reflect on her because they are underplayed.

The reason why Anakin and Luke did is the point though. This has not happened to Rey in any major true sense. Any slight "failure" she has comes out to be for the better for her.

Even her anger that Luke is to her advantage and presents no problems.

Sorry but it's an instant hero "arc" that just is. There is next to nothing to it.

 

I don’t know how anyone could reply to that many micro replies to one post, it’d be more useful to summarise your point with one quote. That’s just battering someone into submission

 

Her setback is that the villain is someone she hoped would turn for her and that they could continue to learn the Force together. He tells her she’s not alone. She tells him “Neither are you” and he removes his glove and they touch skin on skin.

She has developed feelings for the enemy and he brought her closer to the Dark Side through that development than she did bring him to the Light side. She also couldn’t kill him and clearly picked up both broken parts of the sabers, meaning the other went in his direction. She could have killed him and didn’t. Consider how at odds Luke and Vader are at the end of TESB and where they ended. Will she fall for his ways again? Will he fall for her and show selflessness and Light side traits to be with her and give Skywalker bloodline fans some hope for a Rey and Ben union whose offspring could drive X-XII?

He also is aware of all of her weaknesses and values and what matters most to her and can use that against her if he, himself, feels angry at her rejection of his offer to become the equivalent of his queen. He seemed angry at the end of TLJ. Does he mean what he says there about wanting to destroy her or will he change his mind?

The setback is that our hero has developed feelings for the villain. She was intrigued when the mask came off in TFA and he’s felt their chemistry since back then too. They’ve occupied each other’s minds. She’s cut him badly. He doesn’t care. He seems to like her even more. He’s offered to teach her. She’s let her own parental issues let her look past what he did to Han. She feels she knows him and understands him. He thinks he does her. He’s the one with Force knowledge who had up to this point showed the most interest in helping her and wanting her. This from a girl who was literally abandoned and who didn’t find the answers she hoped for from Luke Skywalker. They’ve touched intimately. He saved her life. They’ve fought together. She didn’t kill him when he was knocked out.

The setback is Kylo Ren continues to make progress in his pursuit of Rey film by film and she hasn’t shown she’s willing to kill him. The setback is she isn’t a ruthless killing machine without feelings and that her feelings for him are a weakness now. She’s come closer to the Dark through him than he has come back to the Light for her. The setback is that we don’t know if there’s anything Ben Solo can do or say that will bring her even closer than she was in VIII in IX, or if she has the inner resolve necessary to kill him if he shows he can’t or won’t change to be with her.

 

Hunger Games clearly establishes that Katniss has been trained in wildlife survival and that archery is her big skill. She wasn`t proficient in lots of other things. She lost a lot and needed a lot of help, she experienced setbacks and true failres. She had clear character flaws.

I see Rey as a complete opposite basically. And if her setback actually was supposed to be falling for Kylo/Ben, than IMO it should have been vital to see a scene where she stands over his unconscious body and is at least shown struggling what to do. Instead, she was up way before he was - so clearly still stronger than him - and just made her easy escape offscreen.

If it was supposed to be that she inched closer to the darkside, I never got the impression at any point in the movie. It was a foregone conclusion that she would not go "okay" when Kylo said to let it all die, including the remaining rebels. The movies up to that point would have never supported her joining him.

 

I agree with most of what you’ve said about the issues with Rey’s character development, but I actually think this idea that Rey is always looking towards others to save the day is one of the few aspects about her that was consistent between TFA and TLJ. In TFA, she’s really just trying to help BB-8 get to the Resistance. She’s not looking to really join the fight and save the day. I think she even tells BB-8 “you’re too important don’t worry about me” or something like that when he follows her into the forest.

So I think the idea that in TLJ she learned that she can’t just keep looking to others is something that makes sense with where she was in TFA. But the problem was TLJ didn’t really emphasize enough her doubts about herself or her choice to finally accept her role as a hero, so it ends up falling flat for most people and feels like nothing about her changed.

 

If this is what they’re going for, great! I would love to see that story. I never felt that Rey was actually in danger of falling to the dark side, so I wish that was a story better told, but I can understand the idea that Rey attacking Luke was meant to come off as Rey inching toward the dark side. I think the case is better made with the deleted third lesson than in the actual movie though, which is too bad.

Don’t apologize, it’s okay. We see it differently. If you’re approaching it from the idea that it’s okay or heroic or not bad to attack an ally in anger when his back is turned, I’m really not surprised that we have very different takes overall on the scene in question.

 

I suspect that they will flash back to the moment in their first talk with each other to be honest. I bet they save it for IX. There may even be a twist where Ben Solo was awake and just tells her to run before the others arrive for all we know and is only pretending to be KO’d when Hux arrives.

In any case, “insta hero” stories like a super genius with superpowers dating a supermodel after being bitten by a radioactive spider have long been some of the most popular of the past 25 years. So long as the hero had a difficult life prior and struggles with the adage of with great power comes great responsibility few care about how amazing their lives are after.

Star Wars is moving more toward a mix of super hero / mutant setup and Samurai. If the Samurai training aspect was one of your favorite parts then I guess that’s another aspect that stings but for all of us Star Wars fans who also love comics and superheroes and the MCU and is less interested in training than the drama that comes from the chess pieces established and in play... this change is a ton of fun.

I personally can’t wait to see the powers and battles in IX. We are already past what was essentially the final combat dynamic (the Throne room scene) of the OT. So, now the ST can go truly epic with a public uprising and a massive scale battle of new allies and new powers Rey has read in the ancient Jedi texts.

IX is going to be amazing!

 

I love the MCU and superhero movies in general and I couldn`t disagree more that the ST and specifically Rey are like that. All the MCU movies that feature origin stories have training, struggle, failure and the heroes losing fights along the way. All of them are a lot closer to the OT than anything in the ST. In that regard I wish they would emulate the MCU.

So Rey should be in episode 9 what everyone said Luke should under no circumstances be in TLJ or else it would make him a bland and boring character?

 

Rey tried the Jedi mind trick. It failed. She tried it again. Improvement.

She tried to connect to the Force. Couldn’t. Luke helped her. She could.

She tried to apply over a decade of daily staff training and combat to her saber. Failed and cut through the stone. Improved.

I guess people wanted those moments to feature one more failure before the break through?

Like I said... TLJ shows that she clearly practices on her own with her staff. It also clearly shows her looking down at the saber and thinking about trying to apply her staff skills to it. She does both because she likes hand to hand combat.

We never saw Luke practicing even to that degree on screen on his own out of his own interest.

This was Parker’s “awakening” by the way and his punch at the end is his saber catch moment.

 

And then he had the typical struggles in learning to truly control his powers, in learning how to integrate superhero-dom with his everyday life, a villain who nearly killed him so he had to kill them (and ouch for that being the father of his best friend) and all that. Quintessential superhero movie stuff. Yes, Peter enjoyed some perks of his powers at first but his life was by no means continually awesome from that point forward or that he never struggled with anything anymore. He also suffered a very visceral consequence for his prime failure - uncle Ben died.

 

Agreed. If Luke did it you just want “video game level ups”. If Rey does it it is deep personal development and the culmination of her long and tough “character arc”.

 

Rey is struggling with who she is and what these powers mean. She gave up on Luke and kept her secret flirtations with Ben Solo secret. Had she told him he could have warned her it was Snoke. This lead to a huge setback for Luke, who nearly burned down the Order (if the books had still been there) and he ended up dying because she abandoned her mission and fell for and developed feelings for the enemy because of the Force and her issues with rejection and loneliness that Ben Solo called her on in TFA.

 

This makes very little sense from the outset. If she had told him that this was a problem, he would have understood that the problem was far more dire than he initially thought, which would have been more likely to spur him into action. Really, it's almost like Rey wasn't interested in having Luke help her at all. The entire bond that Rey and Ben seem to share is contrived for this very reason. There was no conceivable reason for her to do this other than "the plot demanded it".

 

Rating in Germany for best female action heroine.

 

Luke's journey: Luke believed that he be can a hero like his father before him but had difficulties with his belief in the Force and finding the Force in himself.

Luke desperately wanted to leave his planet.

Rey's journey: Rey doesn't believe she can be a hero because of her parents but has no difficulties with her connection to the Force.

Rey desperately doesn't want to leave her planet.

I really don't understand when people say that Rey doesn't have an arc or Journey. Maybe it wasn't perfect because of ACT IV in TLJ and an ambiguity in TFA. Maybe someone doesn't like it. But it's here, it exists.

A girl who had a power but didn't believe she is worthy to be a hero. Thinking that only Luke Skywalker and Ben Solo can save her friends, own a lightsaber and fix everything.

 

I think it's unclear if Rey is creeping towards the dark side or not. It's possible to meet with the darkness without becoming it.

I also think the dark side can manifest in different ways. For instance something like learned helplessness would arguably be the dark side.

Everyone probably has a different way to fall, and Rey's way might differ significantly from Anakin or Luke.

 

Not really.

 

I get that you see this arc depicted in these two movies so far, but I personally don't. The idea that Rey doesn't believe she can be a hero feels like an arc the internet has concocted more than it is depicted in the actual movies.

Rey didn't run away from Maz in TFA because she didn't believe she could be a hero. Rey wanted to help the Resistance if she could, but her motive was about her family and finding them. Also, the vision the saber gave her was more like a nightmare than a call to adventure. It scared her. The idea that Rey didn't believe in herself to be a hero just didn't exist in TFA. She was a girl that wanted to help secondarily, but primarily wanted to go home to wait for her, as far as she knew, unimportant family that she was convinced loved her. Before she could go home, she was kidnapped against her will and forced to remain in the action.

In TLJ, Rey started the movie wanting to help the Resistance as a representative of the Resistance. She ends the movie trying to help the Resistance as a member of the Resistance. She ends where she started. The idea that Rey needed to learn that she had to be the big hero is completely undercut in TLJ itself. Rey isn't the big hero in TLJ. Luke is. Rey is one of three that ultimately help the last surviving Resistance members escape, but the memorable heroism depicted in the movie is Luke Skywalker's, the guy Leia asked Rey to bring back, and who then came back and renewed his heroic, legendary status.

 

There’s character motivation for her choice even if her choices and naïveté disappoint me and her fans. However, that’s what setbacks are supposed to feel like to fans of those characters.

The very first thing Ben Solo does is plant the idea in her mind that Luke Skywalker is jealous of his students power and will attack them in their sleep for it.

The moment he tells her he will train her Johnson cleverly sets it at night when she’s sleeping with Luke looming over her just as Ben Solo described.

She then decides she’s going listen to both and decide which one is more helpful. In the end she comes to think Ben Solo might be the “one who might come back.”

Her lack of patience, keeping the Ben Solo moments secret, and optimism in Ben instead of Luke ultimately lead her to failing Leia’s mission, which lead Luke to having to find his own way to return. A way that helped him become what everyone wanted but a way that also ultimately killed him.

We are meant to wonder what Rey could have done better on her mission to bring Luke back and meant to wonder how different things could have been had she told Luke what was going on with the mind bridge, and if she’d shown more patience and not listened to Ben Solo’s Dark Side gaslighting tactics.

These were her setbacks and learning lessons heading into IX.

EDIT: @AhsokaSolo . The internet is seeing it because it’s there to see. Rey didnt see herself as the hero in the story. She wanted to help but has been looking of others to take the saber from her. Her moment in TFA was for her own survival. Her moment in TLJ is heroic and helping others with the Force. In some ways it mirrors the arc that Finn is on. First his heroism is directed toward Rey. By the end of the TLJ it’s for the entire Resistance movement. In both cases their efforts grow larger and for more people by the end of TLJ.

 

Her motive is much more complicated after TLJ. She wanted to return on Jakku, to her comfy illusion that her adult "full" life will start when her "family" returns. She knows that it won't happen in that moment with Maz because she knows that her family threw her away. But illusion is sweet.

We are talking about a character who called herself "No one."

She ends as the last Jedi. And as a person who doesn't chase illusions and who doesn't believe anymore that she needs to ask for help two powerful dudes, good or evil. And as only one person who can stop Ren.

Does Luke ends ESB as Supreme Leader or in some position that was very different from the beginning of ESB?

I agree, I wrote that Act IV was meh for Rey. I guess it was inevitable with Luke Skywalker, the question was only will Luke steal TFA or Ep VIII.

 

Not at all. Plenty of posters like myself do that all the time. I liked that the poster explained themselves so well and there were a lot of points to address.

The general point thought is that Rey is a non-character character who is emotion and plot with at best a rough thematic arc but one that in actual story and character is so all over the place trying to make it solid is like trying to build on quicksand. She is what they need her to be at any point.

It's telling that after an entire movie in TFA and one movie later in TLJ (set hours later) that so many things between the two movies simply do not connect, flow or are even touched upon (of if they are they have to be forgotten and reinterpreted).

Many people have gone far, far deeper into it but when you break it down in terms of what is on the screen plus what we can infer, deduce and extract from the movies the almost total disconnect between TFA and TLJ is startling.

The idea that one might think that they are using is trying to apply the shift between ANH and TESB. The problem there of course is that Lucas didn't know he was going to make another movie while they did. Plus it was set several years later and while yes we have to make some allowances for changes the clear storytelling gives goodwill to allow this to occur. Is Han REALLY the same guy from ANH? Not really but we allow for character growth because of the solid base. Is Vader REALLY the same guy? Not really but we still allow for growth and he became what a lot of people felt he was in ANH (even if he really wasn't). Besides that he actually was not in ANH that much so a lot was left unsaid. He never meets Luke and Luke expresses no hatred for Vader. What telling is Luke's attitude towards Vader. Rey is actually angry and Ren (which is fine) but what happens to that?

I want Rey to be interesting but it's almost as if at every turn they say "What will reduce Rey's importance to the story, undermine any character development and simply keep her status quo hero with zero actual struggle or learning. Let's do that."

I wanted to be extremely charitable to TLJ but when one movie does such an intentionally mediocre introduction to Rey that is emotion and plot but low on character and story (because of MYSTERY!) then the next does the same (but has SUBVERSION!) then I can't help but feel all they have is a hollow, shallow character that if there is a plan for then IX has got to have one incredible story for her to make sense of it all.

I wish that actually was in the movies for Rey as a character because at least that would be something.

I can see why people can dig deep and pull that theme out. I don't know that it's one that RJ actually had in there. RJ's themes are fairly easy to pick up on. He's pretty blatant about them. I don't think the actual presentation in the movie actually helps these because it's so simplistic then confused by the subversion. It goes to what to many is the nonsensical "I wanted my parents to be somebodies so I would be a somebody and important to the story" but that is so twisting and without basis from TFA in the first place. It exists outside the movie in terms of fan theories of Rey's origin (which bizarrely has by some been said to be fan creations in the first place! So again NOT in the movie).