ST Daisy Ridley (Rey) in Episode VII

See also: Prince. (2016, I will never forgive you.)

The discussion of this as a narrative problem without considering the overall plot of the prior six parts of the story is about the rise then fall then saving of a supreme being who's destiny it was to defeat the evil that is deforming the force. I'm thinking that person somehow is now Rey.

To assume these perceived plot inconsistencies are mistakes on the part of the writers, filmmakers and story group could be in itself a big mistake.

 

Rey's sudden rush of powers in TFA can be explained by the Vision she receives when touching the Lightsaber. The reason she refuses to take Anakin's Lightsaber from Maz demonstrates her desire to not go back and learn the ways of the Force (perhaps because of what transpired in the Vision pertaining to her). Finn's response to the Lightsaber is the opposite, he uses it much like Luke Skywalker did in ANH, like the uninitiated. Rey's resistance to taking the saber, he sudden power and ability to repel Kylo Ren, and when she does on Starkiller base use the weapon (and with considerable skill, even taking Ataru stance like Qui-Gon-Jinn in TPM). I once was critical of Rey's apparent sudden prowess with the Force, but after reading and rethinking, I better understand how she could be so powerful already. One more point, when she offers the lightsaber to Luke, she looks very distressed and like she wants to be done with it, and Luke nods in a response that could be a wizard way of saying, "the fact you don't want the power, to be Jedi, and be powerful Force user confirms you must become one, for Kylo Ren wants power and look at what he has become."

 

Note she is fine with everything after the duel with Kylo Ren. She realizes who she really is and goes to Luke. Then she hands him the lightsaber that she in a past life separated Luke from. Along with his hand that he still hasn't taken proper care of after Jabba's Sail Barge.

 

I just want to say that I liked TFA, Rey, Finn, Kylo, all of that and I'm looking forward to more, including Rogue One. But I do question whether it was a good idea to have the main character beat the main villain so completely in the first movie and I DO think that some people get caught up in the fact that the main character in Star Wars is a girl (which is fantastic!) and how Rey can be a role model for girls, that they're willing to handwave the narrative implications going forward. That, and there was a time after TFA came out where people who did criticize Rey's character for being overpowered were portrayed as misogynists and immature fanboys. But those are small issues. What it is is that I can' remember a single movie or TV show where the main character so utterly defeats the main villain, and then the villain comes back as a legitimate threat. The villain is typically the "mountain" that the protagonist has to climb. I remember watching TFA way back in December and feeling embarrassed for Kylo Ren that he got his **** kicked in by Rey mentally and physically when either she's never used the Force before in her entire life or she hasn't actively used the Force in at least a decade. Should I leave the movie theater hoping that Kylo gets strong enough that he can give a fully trained Rey a challenge in Episode 8? Maybe it will work out and I'll happily eat my words if that's the case, but I feel like having Rey have such a good showing against Kylo came from a good place, but was a bad idea.

 

I don't want Rey to be the new Chosen One like Anakin was or have him retconned that he wasn't the Chosen One and it was always Rey. Do you mean that Rey will go through a "rise-fall-rise" six episode cycle like Anakin did?

 

That's the thing, Anakin never got a chance to make good on all of his crimes or realizing his full potential. Nor did he fulfill his destiny as evidenced by Snoke's ray gun planet. If they are following Campbell's 'monomyth' which I am inclined to believe, then this trilogy will follow the character of Rey carrying with her the same potential Anakin had but also insight into what went horribly wrong.

Something occurred to me that the idea of what "the chosen one" is has barely been addressed. If GL said Anakin's potential was to be 150X more powerful than Palpatine in the force, but Palpatine kept Vader's power stunted at 80% of his own, there must be much more to this.

If Anakin was able to become a force ghost with no training, that means the force wasn't done with him yet. Maybe he was able to return somehow?

 

rey is not the new chosen one. those rumors are garbage.

 

In a simple sense, Rey shouldn't end up following Anakin's footsteps. There already is too much nostalgia in the new trilogy, including a Death Star and its destruction, a rebellion like group, a imperial like group, storm troopers, a dark side master and apprentice, and much more. It would be a shame if Rey's story represents Anakin's but in three episodes, as there is a huge potential of this movies surpassing, in almost every sense, the original and prequel trilogies.

However, I personally believe that the powerful force users in the previous trilogies should have a comeback here. There'so already LUKE, Leia, and Han, but there was also foreshadowing of Anakin (light saber triggering force vision), Obi-Wan (voice in force vision), and YODA (voice in force vision). I think without the latter three, the story wouldn't get a good connection with both the audiences/fans and the overall Star Wars storyline.

Yet, at the end of the day, it's all up to Lucas, Lucasfilms, and Disney. Hopefully Episode 8 is a much better movie that Episode 7, which is saying something since TFA was a pretty good film.

 

I saw the Pablo tweet, the 'leaked script' info dump was garbage, and it was. Listing outlandish plot broad strokes is like listing ingredients and assuming that's the meal. Nobody involved has denied that specific part yet.

That's what I think too, she gets to make her own choices, be the better hero, the one who doesn't succumb to the dark side. How she came to be is still a mystery even if this ends up being the case.

 

I feel like it would be much more interesting if she was a good guy, and Kylo was a grey guy (dark at first, light later). Storyline will be impressive, and I have faith almost any director working closely with JJ and Lucas could accomplish that.

 

I really hope we get to know what turning to the dark side actually means. The way Anakin seemed consumed as if possessed lines up with the little moment of Rey hearing a voice to kill Kylo Ren. If that was Snoke as the audiobook leads you to believe by the way it is read, that could be a clue.

If the first trilogy was showing good turning to evil, and the second was good returning, then this one is about balancing both to coexist. So I think this will be the theme.

Until we really know how Anakin could go from still being 'good' to baby killing murderer in ten minutes, it's going to be hard to really judge characters as being good or evil.

 

A ******* TREE

But he did. Anakin went about it in a terrible way, but he DID destroy the Sith and break the Rule of Two chain that had been in place since the days of Darth Bane. He turned to the Light and killed Sidious, destroying the Sith. Whatever Kylo and Snoke are, they aren't Sith, they're probably more like dark grey Jedi. And I don't think there needs to be anymore to Anakin's story. Anakin's story was ultimately a tragedy with a bittersweet ending. He never reached his potential, because when he had the ability to reach his potential, he didn't have the correct mindset, and when he had the proper mindset, he was physically limited by his burns and his suit. I think Anakin becoming a Force Ghost is indicitive of the fact that he was literally born of the Force and he always had a super easy time connecting to it compared to other Jedi. I can buy that he might instinctively know how to return to the Force, and I'm okay with Anakin's potential remaining the highest out of any Force User in either the past or future, even among the Skywalker line. Because the way I see it, if Anakin was basically a Force god, then all of his descendants are only demi-gods.

 

We didn't get that information from the movies so I'm not inclined to believe that just yet. If the story was actually over, sure, "The End" is acceptable for that to be the case.

George Lucas said he had the same potential even in the suit, just that Palpatine held him back to remain less powerful than he was. As far as Anakin's story, sure that could be over, but the story is about 'the chosen one balancing the force'. We don't fully know what the heck that all means yet.

100% agree here.

If he was able to return to the force, maybe he was able to manipulate the midi-chlorians to create.... Rey?

 

Now that's new. You're the first person I've heard bring up the possibility that Force Ghost Anakin helped create Rey.

New chosen one birthed by the force, I've heard before, but not this.

 

Well, Snoke is interested in Kylo because of the way the light and dark mingle in him, which is honestly a very un-Sith like thing to be interested in as far as canon goes. The Sith despise the Light Side of the Force as weakness.

I thought George Lucas straight up said that in his mind, balancing the Force meant destroying the Sith and the dark side of the Force. According to Lucas, the dark side of the Force isn't natural like yin and yang, it's like a cancer that eats away at the living Force, so destroying it is the only way to go. And I thought that Kathleen Kenedy said that the story of Star Wars was the story of the Skywalker family (which I feel limits their storytelling options), not that of the Chosen One bringing balance to the Force. Anakin was the only Chosen One according to Lucas, and I think it should stay that way to preserve his uniqueness. I mean, if I can bring in Legends for just a moment, in all the thousands of years before and after Anakin, there's never been a "Chosen One" with as much potential Anakin had. There've been a ton of powerful Force Users that shaped the fate of the galaxy, but none that were conceived through the Force. As for Vader's potential, a lot of writers, including Lucas have gone back and forth on whether Vader was legitimately physically limited by the Force, or whether the potential limit was psychological. I'm inclined to believe that the limit was a physical one, because it's noted that the Force is best conducted through living flesh and that when Sidious sees Vader burned on Mustafar, he thinks that it's a pity that Anakin will never be able to use Force Lightning like a proper Sith Lord.

 

He said that when he was saying in 2005 that there wouldn't be any more Luke, Leia, and Han stories, that it was over. This is also after six years of getting dumped on by the internet during the Prequel era.

Then in 2010ish he started to write Ep VII-IX. Also the Clone wars Mortis arc show that too much abuse of light or dark within the force would destroy life as Anakin knew it. So that's more definitive than what he said when announcing "No more Star Wars movies!"

 

That way by Luke saving Anakin instead of offing him like Obi & Yoda suggested he made it possible for Rey to exist. Angry Sith lords don't get to be force ghosts so....

Maury: LUKE, YOU ARE THE FATHER!!!

 

That is a possibility that I would not discard.

 

https://twitter.com/starwars/status/765533575701749761

 

Not only does Rey beating Kylo become a completely unexpected move in the story, it also allows them to follow a completely different path for her versus Luke or really any other hero.

If she had been defeated herself in TFA, her journey becomes utterly predictable and trope-like; she would pick herself up, go through a training montage and then she would come back for a rematch and win. Alternatively, what they've set up is really quite clever, as no-one has any idea what's going to happen next, with either her training or the next time she faces Kylo. Many just assume that she won't need training as she knows everything already, and that she has nowhere further to develop, but that's due to a lack of imagination and a dependence on the tropes. What if she can't replicate her experience again and struggles even more to learn? What if she develops an overconfidence that along with her natural recklessness leads her into serious trouble? What if her earlier victory leads to an arrogance and ultimately rejection of what Luke is offering?

They've turned the trope on its head and I for one am very excited about where she goes next. It's full of possibility.

 

I like the possibility that Anakin as a force ghost passed on his gift to the next generation in the hopes to save his family and therefore the universe.

 

Valid point and I am a mad Bowie fan but self-taught is still taught - he practiced and learned, he didn't just walk onto the stage one day and compose the Ziggy Stardust intro having never played guitar before. I personally think Rey's Mysterious Pasttm will explain how she's got innate skills she's tapping into instead of being insta-prodigy but it's still pretty glaring that she does pretty well given she's only ever used a long stick before... on screen.

 

Same here - I have absolutely no problem with her being an amazingly talented super special snowflake - both Anakin in the PT and Luke in the OT were basically that archetype - BUT they started out as pretty raw and with great but untapped potential that grew over three films. Rey on the other hand turned out to be an amazing pilot and a great lightsaber duellist right off the bat with no apparent practice or experience beforehand.

As I say, I reckon this actually WILL be explained - but until/unless it is, it remains a perfectly valid criticism.