ST Explanation of Rey's "Force Knowledge"

Why are people so in awe of Ren stopping a blaster bolt in midair? Vader stopped several of Han's blasts with his hands.

I think the problem is that most people relate connection in the Force to the powers that a character uses, thanks to video games and the prequels. Connection to the Force is measured by one's character.

Rey is certain of herself. She has grown up all on her own and been forced to take care of herself for her entire life. That confidence, as well as the instinctual will to believe in herself, is what allows her to grasp the Force so quickly. It's kind of that her lack of knowledge of the world allows her to believe that she can grip the Force, and believing, like Yoda said, is over half the battle.

Ren is obviously a very conflicted character, both about himself and his motives. He is overconfident and does not respect the Force. Again, Vader stopped multiple blaster bolts with his hand. Ren stopped one in the air. I don't view that as greater than Vader, I view that as indicative of their characters. Ren is a bit of a coward, hence why he hides behind his mask. He is ashamed of himself. His Force abilities are based around controlling other people, and we see that his real issue is a lack of personal control.

So, when he is confronted by someone willing to stand up to him, Rey, his confidence falters. That is the weakness of the Dark Side. It relies on fear and manipulation, and Rey did not fear him and could not be controlled by him. She won far more than the lightsaber duel.

And remember, good fights are not about the fights themselves.

 

Because Abrams and Kasdan wrote for impatient audiences who equate Star Wars with Light Sabre duels and Force powers. They avoided boring us with Jedi training by just giving her the powers which would be 'explained' at a later date. Admittedly there was a problem as we've already seen an initiate being trained in ANH and ESB, but still, her escape with the mind trick was when the film started losing me.

 

I'm in awe of stopping the blaster fire midair not because it's different, but because it's better. I get that they want to present new and fresh ideas. That's great. But still. Better is better.

I watch TCW. I have seen countless battles that Jedi and Sith engage in. I haven't paid attention 100% of the time (it's more my daughters show), so maybe I missed it, but I never saw a FS person do that. And if the could, why wouldn't they? The Jedi would have loved to protect their clones from blaster fire. Dooku and ventress would have loved to protect themselves or help their bots in battle strategically. It's easier in every way I can think of to freeze frame blasts than awkwardly block blasts with a light saber only when they're an inch from hitting you.

Freeze framing Rey is an example of a skill I can easily accept as the same but we just haven't seen it before. I presume it wouldn't work from Sith to Jedi anyway.

I don't buy that Kylo was a novice. He may be less trained/skilled than Snoke or Luke, but he's not a novice. Rey is the novice.

I also have trouble with the idea that some people are just spiritually more in tune with the force and that explains Rey. I mean, yeah, some people are, but it still takes work and training to master force manipulations, particularly force persuasion. I mean, okay, force pulling the saber fine, but force persuasion? Using the force to best Kylo in a duel? Mind reading? Or the argument that she believes where Luke didn't so she can instantly do all the magic? Luke believed just fine, right from the beginning, but he doubted the strength of force capabilities... Until he saw what Yoda could do, and then he believed no problem. He still was no real competition for Vader (ever imo) or the Emperor, and that was after three movies of training.

If we don't get a story based explanation for it, my opinion is they've retconned the force and/or we have a new space Jesus. I'm not complaining, I can roll with it. I'm not that picky, but it is different. The only story-based explanation I can see fitting it in is the light side of the force was the real awakening, and the need for balance made it stronger, or Rey has suppressed memories of years of Jedi training. Kids in TCW, or rather, younglings/padawans, have really good force skills. Probably not force persuasion or mind reading capabilities, but perceptive empathy and force push/pulling skills. As this movie's Skywalker Jedi (whether actually Skywalker or not), I would see no conflict with Rey being ahead of the curve there.

Edit ~ the Vader thing was a different skill. He absorbed the energy of the blast. That is a very advanced skill that few could do or attempt. Vader was Vader, so sure he could do it. If people are trying to downplay Kylo's skills to justify Rey being able to beat him, comparing him to Vader doing a known but incredibly rare and dangerous force move isn't the way to do it.

 

So, it appears you read the book about jedi tricks which specify what level each power requires and who is allowed to do what?

If you listen to what Yoda teaches Luke in ESB, the training is not about learning more and more force tricks like in a video game. The training is about keeping your concentration, and being calm, in control, whatever happens around you. Keeping your connection to the force even under great stress. We see Luke loosing it when he saw the Cloud City vision. Lost his concentration. The exercise wasn't about learning to levitate rocks at all.

As for stopping a blaster in mid-air. What real purpose does it serve. In a battle, you would have to stop the bolt, ask the trooper to move aside, then let the bolt go. Not really useful I would say. Much more useful to block thr shots with the lightsaber and send it back to the shooter.

 

Maybe in VIII, he'll be played by Adam Sandler who will fart out force lightning at Rey, who is now played by Rob Schneider?

 

No. I have no idea what this is. Sarcasm? I can't tell because I could certainly see Lucasfilm publishing such a book.

Yeah, I get it. Not sure what this has to do with Rey's super abilities.

Stopping the blast with your light saber doesn't protect your clone that's ten feet away from you.

 

Freezing a blast doesn't protect the troopers from the 30 pther blast coming their way either.

 

There were countless situations where it would be useful. Any different tool has it's uses in battle. Sometimes a small squad of clones were out with a jedi leader hunting down one or two bad guys, and a clone gets pegged. Sometimes clones were in battle with dozens of jedi, and working together the jedi could stop tons of blasts. Kylo certainly made it look like no big deal. While he held that saber blast he accomplished other force feats. In TCW, the jedi were protective of their clones, and yet there were times they were helpless to protect them. Had they been able to protect them, they would have. Hell, not just clones. Grievous shot at least one jedi dead off the top of my head who's lightsaber was currently busy in a duel. Innocents were shot on that show, too.

Honestly, I don't think arguing that this wouldn't be useful is the way to go, lol.

 

I must respectfully disagree with you. There's tremendous substance to his character. And there wasn't a ton of flash at all. You didn't see him jumping around like a cirque du soleil clown like we saw with some of the PT minstrels.

 

I was talking about his force ability, and not the deprh of his character.

 

People came to conclusions based on the information given on the movie.
When discussing a movie people tend to discuss what the movie is instead of what the movie isnt.

They arent plot holes they are just plot omissions.

 

Has anybody mentioned that Rey had already heard stories about the Jedi and Luke Skywalker though she believed them to be a myth? She could have heard about the Force as well. She seemed quite excited when Finn first mentioned about Luke, and that tells me she was quite into those stories.

On the contrary Luke knew nothing about the Jedi or the Force until Obi-wan told him about them.

 

I imagine, or at least want to believe, that there is an extended scene that references, somehow, Rey having heard about what the Jedi could do, and this is how she thinks to attempt a Force persuasion. Hopefully JJ did think of that, but it got cut from the final movie. This movie certainly feels like it has several scenes missing.

I agree that Kylo is a very deep character. I went into the movie thinking the character looked stupid and would be stupid. I was impressed at how conflicted he was and how well the actor was able to convey all of his confused emotions without being able to speak. Really, the characters are what saved this movie. The plot is a little "what" but the characters make it OK.

The Force does not say that you can only use Dark Side powers if you are a Dark Jedi and light if you are a Jedi. That only exists in video games. Luke chokes two gamorrean guards in his intro to Jedi and attempts to murder Jabba with a blaster. That doesn't make him a Dark Jedi. It makes him a person. He murders and threatens a lot of people in that movie but remains a Jedi the entire time.

Palpatine didn't use Force Lightning because he had unlocked lvl 100 talent lightning spec. He was simply a very powerful Force wielder who chose to use the Force in a frightening means for destroying Luke. He could have choked Luke or broken his spine, but he didn't. We really should be against limiting the Force to powers we've seen in the movie and trying to catalogue everything into Light and Dark. What is important is intention. That's what makes all of Luke's dark decisions in Jedi different from a character like Palpatine, Vader or Ren.

Also, TCW is a cartoon intended for kids and is not very well-thought out or good. I've watched the entire thing and enjoyed the last few seasons but that doesn't make it a credible source. While I like a lot of things that occur in it, there are also many things in there that are dumb. I wouldn't use TCW as a credible source for Star Wars references. Decisions are made based on the needs of the story instead of the reality of the universe in which it is written.

 

You probably aren't going to find a satisfying in-universe explanation for the power-up. The simplest answer is that the writers designed force.exe first and then constructed the story around her. Perhaps you should just accept it without justification; water is wet, the sun is hot and force.exe is the point.

 

The thing is we don't even know if Rey could call upon the force again if she tried. People are really assuming a lot of thing

 

We are also witnessing a return to OT Force. Luke never witnesses a Jedi using the Force to pull a lightsaber through the air and into his hand. He simply learns that the Force is an extension of himself. He doesn't look up a manual to see if that is a valid Force Power and what level he needs to be to unlock it. The Force is available for anyone who is open to it. I think that is what make's Rey's innocence so beautiful. She is perfectly willing and accepting of the Force, and that is why it flows through her so strongly. She has no reason to doubt it.

 

I have almost no idea how they can explain this. The best explanation is that she had training as a child, but she would have only been trained until she was like 4 or 5. This leaves the remaining explanation that she surpasses Anakin, Luke, and probably Yoda/Sidious in talent, which sits sourly in my stomach. It really depends on exactly how they attempt to portray this talent.

 

I think that the explanation for Rey's knowledge is that it's simply repressed memories from her time training with Luke before Kylo Ren fell to the Dark Side. The thing is, even if Rey was only there for a year, if she became an apprentice at 4 years old, that's still plenty of time to learn the ways of the Force. People complained that there was a continuity issue regarding who trained Obi-Wan. There is no issue. Yoda taught Obi-Wan the ways of the Force. By the time he became a padawan to Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan already had all his Jedi skills. Ashoka Tano already had her lightsaber built by the time she became Anakin's apprentice. Her skills were complete. Becoming a padawan and being one for a decade was more about gaining experience and learning about the nuances of the Force.

It only takes a few lessons to be able to drive a car. But to become a race car driver requires something beyond basic driving skill. It's the same with the Jedi Arts. A Force Sensitive child can learn the basics of the Force in a very short period of time. If Rey turns out to be a Skywalker, her natural affinity will give her an edge but even if she isn't, a few weeks of Jedi training as a 4 or 5 year old would be enough to learn those skills.

As for Kylo stopping the blaster bolt, I don't think there's a certain set of skills that can be learned and everything else is impossible. I don't think Luke or Snoke taught him how to do that. He just reached out through the Force and did it. He was simply confident in his power and managed to do something that may never have been done before. There's nothing wrong with that. There was a time in the universe before the first Force Push, the first blast of lightning. What Kylo did is perfectly feasible when dealing with the Force.

 

Again - people are making wild assumptions based on nothing. Rey used the force in 2 places in the entire film. She hasn't necessarily mastered anything. In fact there was more the implication that her use was flukey and only under stress.

We have no idea if she could even repeat either of the things she did in the movie

 

She even said she didn't know what she did...

 

There is a continuity error. Qui-Gon's character was not essential. I love him, but the movie would have been stronger if Obi-Wan had been the focus character. Qui-Gon did little to show that he was instructing Obi-Wan and he really didn't do anything with Anakin. I think he existed basically to die, and maybe because Lucas forgot that Obi-Wan said Yoda trained him. But mostly to die and be a new character they could make a toy out of. I think he was supposed to have a greater part in the trilogy but Neeson couldn't because of filming schedules or something.

Obi could have easily been asking Yoda for direction while on this mission where he meets Anakin and it would have created a stronger bond between the two characters. But anyways, this is all a discussion for another forum.

My point is, no, Qui-Gon is a continuity error created by Lucas. It's just a fact. You don't quote your 1st grade teacher as being the one who trained you for your Master's Degree. There was no idea of Qui-Gon existing at the time the originals were created.

 

Nice post. The invasive nature of the process would be abhorrent to a Jedi Master and would place "the teacher" in a vulnerable position.. The only reason it worked in this particular case was because Ren assumed he had a much stronger mind than Rey.

When, during their struggle, she gained the upper hand and had a glimpse into his mind, I doubt she even realized what she had learned about The Force. It just seemed 'intuitive' to her.

 

Force absorb ala megaman download, seems like the most plausible explanation.