ST If Luke was Rey in ANH Rewrite

Her combat feats against other force sensitives are above what Luke did until Return of the Jedi (maybe), and what Anakin did until after Attack of the Clones.

 

You can't say this until you take a pissed off Wookie and his big frakoff gun and allow the guy to get a few shots in before the duel starts.

 

He has been working on his pod racer for years. Please note that I did not count Rey's piloting abilites as something she learned, because she has developed them for years.

He has been racing podracers for a long time. He never finished a race before, though, so that is an incredible achievement.

Actually, Qui-Gon states that. And he also states that it is a trait of THE jedi.

Ok, that is something I hadn't considered. To me it seemed like he just stated what he wanted. But maybe you are right.

Just like Rey knows exactly where the TIE is. That seems definitely like a force ability. Not a pilot ability.

Yes, that is again an incredible achievement.

Do you think that Rey couldn't have done the same?

I don't know if the noise about Rey is much louder. But it's possible, maybe even likely. I just don't think you can reduce everything to sexism. One thing is that Anakin was presented as the chosen one, to have been created directly by the force. Rey hasn't been presented as such (yet).

To me it seems that Rey achieves more than Anakin on her own will (try, repeat, succeed) , whereas Anakin achieves a lot of the stuff because the Force takes control of him / shows him the way. Anakins defeat of the droid ship seems like fumbling around (which buttons should I press here?), whereas Rey's achievements are largely based on her own skill. This is well explained by her life.

 

Really? I must have missed the bit in AOTC where Dooku got a blaster bolt to the abdomen and a lightsaber dig to the shoulder before fighting Anakin

 

You've posted your opinions after the separate points I made, but they're not really arguments against my underlying point which is that basically Anakin's portrayal, combined with that we don't know Rey's lineage, means that we really should hold fire on this.

And I didn't accuse anyone of sexism, I just observed that Anakin didn't have nearly as much criticism about his power at 8 years of as Rey does at 20, and that Anakin's ability is what establishes in canon that some incredible force ability can be inherent. The only argument I've seen against that is the bizarre one that apparently ONLY the exact force abilities Anakin showed are appropriate for others to have inherently, which is a bit weird and not really worth debating with because there's no logic to it

 

Anakin lost to Count Dooku, Luke lost to Vader. But, you knew this. Rey beating Kylo is incredible. However, even if it was as unimpressive as any other victory in a saber duel, still something Anakin or Luke didn't do.

 

Some of you miss a vital difference here. An untrained, very talented Force user CAN do amazing things compared to avarage people. Can fly better ( when it really matters), can build something when he/she really needs it, can be rather intelligent and can see things, have premonitions from time to time. These abilities are not consistent. Sometimes they work, sometimes they do not work. When they work, than it IS amazing.

But, just because these abilities are not controlled, not consistently working it is IMPOSSIBLE that an untrained Force user can hold their own against a trained and relatively talented Jedi/Sith/knight of Ren. Against them these random awesome deeds do not matter. They can do equal awesome things and they can do them any time and cosciously. So when Rey beats Ren, it is not possible (no, injury doesn't matter that much, she also should be injured, just made a very hard contact with a tree, just regained consciousness), also the conscious use of mind trick shouldn't work.

 

So you're point blank ignoring Kylo Ren's injuries as a factor?

 

The problem with Rey is not what she does but her actions not getting explanations.
There is no reason given why she helps the droid, she just does.
Most of the thing she does get no reasons which make the character look bad.

 

I didn't understand your point correctly, then. I agree that we should hold fire. Luke, Anakin and Rey were portrayed similar, each achieving great feats without much struggle. The main difference I see is that Rey earned her feats, whereas Luke and Anakin got lucky. Luke and Anakin started struggling in the second movie and I guess, so will Rey.

 

There is also the fact that Kylo Ren can stop laser bolts in midair and freeze people where they stand. Even Vader wasn't able to do that. And I don't take him being injured as something that can really work in Rey's favor. I mean when we see him, he's literally hitting himself to cause him more pain. The pain just makes him stronger with the darkside. Sure he might be a bit slower when it comes to fighting, but there is no way in hell Rey should have been able to wrestle Luke's lightsaber from Rey's force-grasp. The first time we see Luke doing that in Empire it takes him tons of tries to get it right, and that's just him by himself. He's not playing tug-of-war with a force user that by all logic should outclass him ten-to-one.

Rey better have had force training when she was younger and had it blocked from her memory. Because as it is now, none of that final fight makes any sense.

 

I think Abrams and Kasdan watched a certain trilogy of films and realized that having every character spend minutes vomiting exposition onto the screen makes for utterly terrible filmmaking.

 

Eh? You want a reason for Rey to help the droid?

Rey helping BB-8 is a quick useful way of establishing that she is a good guy, while having her meet an important character for the plot. Not sure what more you'd need there, really. Should she have a droid rights poster on her wall to establish that she cares about droids or something?

 

No, most assuredly not. I've discussed his injury extensively. He was able to unleash a devastating force push, run, jump, and outduel Finn before fighting Rey. He is capable of combat. The scene's portrayal attributes a lot of credit to Rey for this victory. She goes from being dominated to dominating in seconds. This is not the process of gradual injury causing defeat. She also recovers quickly from what should be a very traumatic incident, and pulls a blade away from a telekinetic expert. This is her very first experience with a lightsaber.

However, if you still want to say her victory is unimpressive, which is beyond me, my point that she did something Anakin or Luke did not still stands.

 

1: the film seems to imply that immediately after killing his father, Kylo isn't as focused as he should be, which is how he gets injured despite the audience knowing he has the ability to stop blaster bolts.

2: "he's literally hitting himself to cause more pain" that's your reading of it, not mine. I saw it as frustration, anguish and pain from a serious wound that he knows he shouldn't have sustained

3: Rey didn't wrestle the lightsaber from Ren, as far as I can see; we have been told that the lightsaber is calling to Rey, the lightsaber also inspired her vision. The lightsaber, through the force, WANTED to go to Rey. She was as surprised as Kylo

4: Rey's backstory has been kept mysterious for a reason. Speculate away but don't talk yourself into thinking there's something the filmmakers HAVE to do, because they simply don't; plenty of people are OK with any number of ways they choose to go. All you're doing is narrowing your chances of enjoying the films

 

I didn't say her victory was unimpressive. Her victory is believable and makes sense. It is still impressive. My argument is with people who think she was overpowered, not people who think she was impressive.

 

You do realize that trauma also degrades the human body's ability to function over time, right? As does physical exertion and exhaustion?

 

You do realize the film clearly shows Rey getting back up after being thrown in to a tree and falling 25 feet? Do injuries only apply to villains? The film is trying to attribute credit to Rey. Look at the power up scene, do you think they would injure Kylo so significantly that Rey's victory is completely unimpressive? That would be rather odd.

 

Okay, she has an impressive victory in saber combat, which took Anakin and Luke three movies.

 

So once again, we're at "it's OK for Luke and Anakin to have inherent force ability in some areas, but not for Rey"


This despite the fact that Rey clearly already is proficient at melee combat, and that her ability improves when she allows the force to guide her (something that enhanced both Anakin and Luke's abilities in the first film they were in)

 

Just curious, do think think that Luke or Anakin are superior to Rey in Force abilities or abilities in general - after their respective first movie?

 

Proficient in melee combat? With a staff? Going from a staff to a longsword would be a nightmare if you had to do it suddenly... Going from a staff to a lightsaber would be ridiculously hard to manage...

She is naturally proficient in force sensitive combat to a degree that is unprecedented. It is that simple.

 

She is established as a good guy through the movie several times in better scenes.
Yes, we know this was to meet the character but the point is that it was an empty scene. It just happens.
The scene would've been better if instead of wasting time by having speak alienese, we hear the reason why she helps. That she understands the droid and tells that dude the droid has a master and he is going to look for him in town.

 

I don't think of force ability as top trumps, there are too many variables. I prefer to look at whether the story works given the context and situations, and I think it does work, and that the circumstances of Kylo Ren at the time mean that Rey's fight wasn't against someone at the peak of their power.

Anyway, I'm done with this thread, this has all been gone over already and the thread itself is redundant.

 

It didn't seem obvious to me, but if this is the case, then a lot of the issues I had with TFA are null and void, and I hope they are. To me, a Jedi mind trick is an advanced power, one that needs to be taught, so Rey should not have been able to just do it 10 minutes after finding out the force is real. If she is rediscovering a power she already had, then great. I can live with it though, anyway, if she has heard stories about force powers, but this should have been expanded upon.

I just think characters need to have some weaknesses in order for them to grow. Rey shouldn't have been good at everything. When she told Han how to fix the falcon, I rolled my eyes. Anakin was impatient. That was his weakness. Luke was, let's face it, rubbish to begin with . He survived because the force was strong with him, but he couldn't use force techniques. He needed training before he could do any significant force powers. When he went up against Vader, I thought he had no chance. Rey has already beaten her adversary, which from a trilogy narrative perspective, doesn't make sense.