ST Daisy Ridley (Rey) in Episode VII

http://www.starwars.com/databank/reys-quarterstaff

http://www.dk.com/us/9781465438164-star-wars-the-force-awakens-visual-dictionary/

Spoiler: Before The Awakening

In addition, Rey has also trained on flight simulators.

Her known decade and a half of survival on Jakku have honed her into a warrior and pilot.

 

A lot (though not all) of the "Rey is OP" crowd ignores this very simple fact. Rey was shown to be highly proficient with a melee weapon (a staff) at the beginning of the film, so as to set up the plausibility of her wielding a lightsaber with some measure of confidence. She didn't just magically learn to use a sword. She generally knew how to brawl with melee weapons.

 

The other thing bout the "Rey is overpowered" thing is that her power relative to the context of the universe is by design. The execution is obviously up for debate, but when VII is watched as a sequel to VI, we meet this young woman who is written as resourceful, strong, and then strong in the force (to the point where the force is calling to her, with elements of destiny being at play), in a universe where the only good guy alive who is strong in the force is missing in action. it's been done to death, but in the final battle she's only actually fighting a wounded, messed up guy.

 

http://johnaugust.com/2016/scriptnotes-ep-247-the-one-with-lawrence-kasdan-transcript (April 26, 2016)

 

I think that she is too skilled compared to how much training she has had. Sorry but I can't buy that she is this skilled as a character. They should have made a better character of Rey she isn't convincing IMO.

 

I've seen the movie 3 times [I just...cannot enjoy it], but I will say with Rey being OP'd, there is clearly force training going on that we haven't seen, and the rule in the SW universe is essentially if you're not a jedi, you can fly. So i'm okay, even though I prefer my characters to be flawed and not perfect at literally everything.


Boyega's character is still the JJB of the movie for me, however.

 

PodracingSkywalker: What is a JJB?

 

The Visual Dictionary may say this is relevant but it's actually not. A staff is longer, heavier and has a different centre of balance to a normal sword, much less a lightsaber with it's basically weightless blade. Being good with one doesn't remotely connote that you will automatically be good with the other, if she picked up a Maul-style double-blade it would be more plausible. She might not have 'magically' learned to fight but she certainly managed to pull a working knowledge of how to fight with a lightsaber out of somewhere.

 

Because swinging a sword around is just too difficult a concept for anyone to grasp? It's not like she was doing kata and showed technical form and whatever. The point is that her fighting with a staff demonstrates that she knows how to take care of herself, regardless of the actual weapon used. Would you pick a similar hole in Luke's piloting skills, pointing out whether his talent in a Skyhopper in the canyons of Tatooine were really transferable to space flight in an X-wing? Further, you could argue that as the staff is arguably the more difficult weapon to use, her skill with it shows her greater ability when it comes to melee weapons in general...

 

One mistake with a lightsaber and you can dismember yourself.

I wouldn't even be comfortable swinging a regular sword around, they're sharp too, and laymen have been known to severely injure themselves playing with swords.

Even Maul's double-blade isn't plausible. Rey's staff doesn't burn her if any part of her body touches the outer thirds. The regular staff would actually teach her a lot of habits that would be self-harming if transferred over...which they almost certainly would be, because you can't suddenly unlearn years of muscle memory.

 

Any in depth analysis at the level of "likelihood that training with a staff could be detrimental when using a blade of pure energy" needs to be genre savvy as well as analytical. This is an action adventure film. Proficiency with a staff shows proficiency with hand held melee weapons. That + inherent force ability = being able to hold your own against a wounded villain, in storytelling terms.

The only genuine "overpowered" characters, for me, are characters too powerful for the film; if Rey had kicked the crap out of Sidious in Rogue One with the same introduction we had in VII - fine; she's story breakingly OP. But having an awakening in the force that effectively allows her to survive and turn the tables on a wounded baddie isn't overpowered. And the sudden awakenings are the central story theme, not an easy way out of a plot corner.

 

I just realized: Her name is a clue!

Rey - Reyncarnation...

 

As silly as it may sound, it would actually be cool to add this concept to Star Wars. And that would explain why she is able to remember places ("I can see the island" as Kylo reads her mind) and Force concepts she was never exposed to before (as far as we know so far).

 

Which is the point.

If Anakin at 9 had picked up a Lightsaber for the first time in TPM and was taking on Maul then I think some people would have a problem with that but at 19 I guess not anymore than Rey.

So obviously there must be some reason Rey can do all this. The Force is strong with Anakin and Luke but they need time and training to get to where they did that Rey simply did not as far as we know.

 

I'm on board with Rey's piloting and combat abilities, but I frankly reject her use of the Jedi mind trick on the stormtrooper. Up to that point, we'd seen her employing the Force subconsciously which should ultimately culminate in her Force pulling the Skywalker lightsaber from the snow. However, this scene technically displays her first active moment using it consciously, but it feels more like a wink at the audience than an actual moment of growth for her as a character. We as the audience know what Jedi mind tricks are, but I don't buy Rey pulling one off with relative ease.

 

the mind meld! the mind meld people!

 

some people think she learn the mind trick from Kylo's mind, when she turn the tables on Kylo during the force mind struggle.

 

rey and kylo had transference.

 

Rey either accidentally got the mind trick from Kylo Ren or she already knew about it from the legends of the Jedi she'd heard about on Jakku. Either way works, I don't find that aspect unbelievable or whatever.

 

If that's the case, the film did a poor job of communicating it. I don't equivocate Rey peering into Kylo's mind as the same as her learning new Force abilities.

Nevertheless, if Rey is using a Jedi mind trick, that is an active use of the Force rather than intuiting it, like she does when piloting or in combat. Yet when she says, "The Force?!" when dueling Kylo, it's as if she had completely forgotten about it since back on Takodana when Maz had encouraged her to consciously tap into it. She even tells Finn on Starkiller Base that she can't explain how she managed to escape. The specific use of the Jedi mind trick simply feels out of place for her character arc. Contrast that with her genuine astonishment at her own skills after the escape from Jakku.

 

actually you just showed how good it worked.

 

To reiterate, my point is that a Jedi mind trick is an active Force ability that needs to be developed and mastered, not simply inferred and subsequently employed through intuition. Star Wars Rebels does a great job of illustrating this.

 

Did you create the concept of Star Wars? No? Did you write up the concept of the Force and how it should and shouldn't be used? No? Then don't forcesplain.

 

That's a terrible response, IATI.

One does not need to create a concept to talk about how it works and how it should and shouldn't be used.

 

I'm not here to tell people whether they're right or wrong. I simply wanted to explain my interpretation and why I think it doesn't work for the story.