ST Let's be civil about....Plot Holes! (Debate #3)

Presuming her memory (or that vision) is correct. The great thing about assumptions is that while you can assume she's been completely untrained, I can assume that memory of her as a little girl is a completely false memory created by Rey herself or someone else. Her similar hair style, clothing, and the brief dialogue by Unkar Plutt are too convenient for it to be an actual memory of her being left on Jakku at age 5. So maybe Rey was left on Jakku at an entirely different age and Kylo Ren's probing into her head initiated the breakdown of a barrier that is hiding her true memories.

 

Yes, and that is the crux of the matter at hand. Where Luke is given time to consider his momentous, life altering decision to join Obi-wan on some idealistic crusade, Rey has no time. She's in or she's out right then and there.

Now, we think she has chosen the path because she hands Luke the sword at the end. But, what do we really know? Nothing. The first words out of her mouth could be, "Your sister wanted me to give you this - she needs your help. We can give you a ride on the way to our next smuggling run."

This plays into the point Thrawn082 was making earlier. Maybe the Force is now just a device to generate adventures and Anakin's lightsaber is like the Loc-Nar artifact in Heavy Metal. Each subsequent movie could be only thinly connected with the common theme being that it is all the will of the Force.

 

I think Rey's propensity with the Force can be summed up simply by the movie's title. Something is going on here with the Force. Even Snoke knows it.

 

Nah, that's her accepting the call right there (taking the lightsaber in the forest). The fact that she has to make a life or death decision in the moment of choosing adds so much to the drama for me. Not least because she's putting her life on the line to save someone she loves.

Given that you've got some anxiety about the treatment of the force in the subsequent films however, what do you think of Rian Johnson as a writer/director as opposed to Abrams? Do you know/like his work?

 

I would say that going to Luke was more of accepting the call than getting the lightsaber. She was just saving her bacon (and Finn's) at that point. It was reflexive.

Going to Luke was more of a conscious choice... a search for help and answers.

 

He was already bored of life on the farm, and his aunt and uncle had been killed (the only family that he knew about at the time). So he had ZERO motivation to stay on Tatooine by that point (he only stayed to begin with because his uncle wouldn't let him go).

Which brings me back to my earlier point, Rey probably won't have Luke's exact character arc, which is a GOOD thing imo. They still have to make her arc compelling all on it's own of course. But merely the fact that "it's different from Luke's" doesn't automatically make it BAD for me, just different.

 

I do also presume that she had training before, but you really can't blame people for assuming she didn't.
If she was trained there should of been a scene where she was training...movies don't work by assumption and by only seeing TFA she was not trained.

 

Not really. Not if her past was being played as a deliberate mystery. That'd be going into spoiler territory. Personally, I'm not assuming anything about her at this point. Well except that she's awesome and I love her so much (Daisy to).

 

Making a movie a mystery and making it illogical is not the same thing. To be a good movie anyone who watched the movie should come out and say "OK that makes sense"

Her being someone's daughter is a deliberate mystery and there is no problem with that because that has nothing to do with TFA's plot.
But her doing sudden Jedi tricks don't make sense. Then the movie at some point should of established why she was capable of doing that. You can't rely on the next episode to explain what happen in episode 7, that's not how movie works that is how TV shows works.

 

See I just don't agree that it doesn't make sense. And given that there's been back and forth on the issue, both here and elsewhere, apparently "it doesn't make sense" is FAR from a universal opinion. Also people being able to pull Force-related tricks from seemingly out of nowhere is hardly unique to this film. Again, only difference is context and what power is being used.

And yes, that IS how an ongoing narrative works. You raise some questions, and then pay them off later, it's happened before on film. There is no one "right way" to tell a story.

See that's the thing here. People complain about "familiarity" and "want something new." But then when that does happen, people complain about it because "well that's never been done before."

 

There is a universal opinion that people say it doesn't make sense.

It's not the problem it is not unique, the problem is there was nowhere in the movie that established Rey has that power but suddenly she does it.
It's like a few minutes ago you figured out you are good in math but then you suddenly solve derivative math questions. How? having math talent alone does not make you solve derivative math question.

NO that is not how narrative work, Movies have to work independently. The start of the movie and the end of the movie has to rap up nice in neat it doesn't need to be a happy endding but everything in the movie should be explained at least to the extent the plot make sense. It's not like "SO How could this wonder boy Trucks become a SUPER SAYIAN...Find OUT in the next episode of DRAGON BALL Z!"

If a movie works as a whole trilogy then people should wait to rate TFA before everything ends but that is not the case.

 

If there were a mystical math force that works in mysterious ways, I wouldn't have a problem

I disagree movies *have* to work in any way. The LOTR trilogy, to choose an example, has almost no film that stands alone. We don't know what happens to Merry and Pippin after the first movie (assuming you haven't read the books).

 

Again all Abrams style writting for me throwing in the minimum possible motivation to "explain" something but not enough to actually sell it, not a film to be loved by . Rey's potential force abilities are never even hinted at until she picks up the sabre what an hour into the film? there then quickly mixed in with Maz belately telling her to give up her wait on Jakku.

Basicly Rey's journey to "accepting" the force is having a scary vision halfway though the film and running off then starting to use it almost straight away afterwards. The drama of her waiting for her family simply isn't built up well either, it gets a short mention on Jakku but unlike Luke in ANH it barely comes up as a dramatic point at all until Maz mentions it, Rey doesn't have a difficult emotional decision to leave Jakku she's forced off of it by circumstance.

As far as Han goes the film tells us he's "like a father" to Rey but really what does he do? give her a bit of exposition about Luke and is a chance for her to show off her engineering knowledge. Luke's connection to Obi Wan in ANH is vastly deeper as he's linked into his desire to follow in his fathers footsteps into a wider world as a force user which is where a lot of the drama around his death comes from. The problem basically is that Abrams doesn't turn Han into the mentor like character he should be he wants to play nostalgia games by trying to recreate OT Han as closely as possible(often not effectively) hence he can't have indepth discussions about the real drama around Rey but only talk about fixing the Falcon. Instead we get Maz showhorned in to try and give a quick blast of motivation before vanishing again.

Again for me the Rey/Han surrogate father relationship is really poorly set up so whilst Abrams might refer to it as such that doesn't mean it carrys weight. Basically Kylo is a villain who attacks Rey and then she uses the force to fight back, all that stuff about "training" her depends almost entirely on reference to force users being turned from the OT, it doesn't follow up a story/theme TFA has built up where even the idea of Rey being trained let alone turned has barely been mentioned.

Again the lightsabre and the idea of her using the force aren't even present in the first half of the film and indeed even her motivation to wait for her family isn't present most of the time.

For me the lightsabre generally is a classic example of Abrams depending on nostalgia to sell motivation, Rey's motivation basically comes down to this object closely associated with Luke rather than actually being built up though the character.

Luke in Empire is one film removed from learning the force with the obvious inference that a good deal of time has passed plus of course he had some basic training with Obi Wan. Even then though what do we see in terms of force abilities? Luke barely able to pull his lightsabre from the snow after having been attacked by the wampa. If Abrams had been directing I'd imagine Luke would have killed the Wampa using highly developed force abilties in a cool action scene when it first attacked and then Obi Wan would have showed up telling him to train with Yoda and we'd be wondering "why?".

I'm sorry but for me that last point is so clearly reaching for a defence of TFA that I think it damages the credibility of your opinion on the subject. Yeah you can cobble it together based on a few crumbs and doubtless you'll have many looking to back you up here but lets be honest its not credible at all.

It does seem strangely ironic that a lot of the defence of TFA seems to be based on trying to downplay the OT when I'd imagine much of it is coming from people who have spent the last decade being highly critical of fans of the PT doing exactly the same thing.

 

Well Rey's abilities are indeed hinted at quite early on after the falcon escape ("I, I don't know" after Finn's "how did you do that"), which is later added credence to by Maz with her line, "the light has always been there." As to her family stuff, it's first mentioned with bb8, ("they'll come" scene) which we can then relate to her crossing off the (thousands) of days in the AT AT home - I.e she has waited THIS long for her family to return. It' emphasised with Finn again on the falcon, "I have to get back to Jakku", and when Han offers her a job she says, "I have to get home...I've been away too long". This is all before we even get to Maz, so I felt the build up of this aspect was well done. You can even relate the departing ship in her vision to the departing ship she sees on Jakku when she's at the AT AT. It's a visual callback to that earlier scene, so we can then relate the earlier scene to her departing "family" in the vision scene.

With Han, he's not exactly a "mentor" figure like Obi Wan, but he does quickly become a sort of surrogate father figure to Rey, which is perhaps unsurprising given that she has no memory or experience of a father herself. I thought it was done really well personally, and so I bought it when Kylo taunts her, "he's the father you wish you had...he would have disappointed you" (paraphrasing). He becomes a part of her "family". Again, her arc differs from Luke, and her motivation does not come "through the Lightsabre" but wanting to fight for, and protect her "new family". She runs from the force and the Lightsabre, and only accepts it at the film's climax (i.e. accepting the call). The sabre itself isn't motivating her throughout the second half of the movie.

Her fighting back against Kylo (during the interrogation) works because she begins to accept her force ability here, after previously rejecting it in the forest. She's fighting for herself sure, after being abused, but also for Han and Finn (and The Resistance) in refusing to give up the map.

And sorry, no we're not "going to be honest" and agree that my argument "isn't credible" thank you very much. As I said, I believe Luke gets practically 0 training until he finds Yoda. All he gets is a small amount of guidance. This is not a flaw, or problem with ANH/ESB in any way, and I'm not downplaying those films. That's your own fiction. We might reasonably assume that Rey's "power level" in TFA (for want of a better term) is around ESB Luke at the beginning of that film, or slightly beyond that. Although nothing is conclusive of course. However, it's not quite as simple as all that, as TFA suggests that the force is actively guiding Rey, and subtly supporting her actions (to some degree or other).

 

I read thru 6 pages, and It's fair to say most discrepancies, inconveniences, or holes have been discussed. I did see the movie 5 times in the theaters. I loved it, but did have 2-3 big issues with the film.

The only glaring plot hole is a failure in logic, and has already been discussed. Rey has never met Leia, yet hugs a total random stranger upon arriving. The force doesn't excuse this hole, two consoling individuals also doesn't explain it, especially since the character Rey is closest to is Finn who is being carted away. When's the last time a loved on didn't follow the cart? Heck chewy did...

I won't discuss my peeves bc it's off topic (sound, bb8, Rey's character)

 

Have to disagree with you here actually. The Lightsabre moment even has the burning homestead theme with it, making the explicit connection to Luke's own moment in ANH. I've seen it mentioned in a lot of media blogs/reviews/analysis that this is her (finally) accepting her destiny, and I agree.

 

Possible for sure but for me I do not need it. The force awakens in her from the point she touches the saber, the force is talking to her, Maz says as much and instructs her on how to listen to it. She is clearly a very proficient survivor and fighter pre-awakening so I have no problems with any of the movie and what transpires in it. Defeating Kylo was no problem for me either, he was defeating her comfortably but clearly weakening as the battle wore on and was not trying to kill her, in fact he was on a recruitment drive. She tapped into the force as instructed by Maz and the force controlled her actions.

It was well explained enough for me and I expect things will be made some what more clear as the trilogy is rolled out. She is no Mary-Sue either, she has power but clearly no idea what it is and how to control it, hence why she knows going to Luke is imperative for her development. You only need to look at her face when she offers him the lightsaber, she is desperate for acceptance

 

I don't know what part you are talking about with Merry and Pippin but you have to consider that LOTR is a book before being a movie. So in certain ways it is unfair to compare it with SW, but if so than that is also a plot hole in LOTR!

 

Really? Rey and Finn babbling over each other played for comedy is hinting at her having force abilities? sorry but that just seems to be using one fault in the film with Reys ability as a pilot to explain another again needing to make a massive leap. As far as Maz telling her "the light has always been there" that's again classic Abrams style writing just like having Kylo tell her Han is like a father to her, sorry but just having a character tell us how we should feel/judge a situation does not make it so. The Han/Leia romance for example has been constantly played up though out ESB, Leia just doesn't say "I always loved you" at the end in place of that.

Basically we get an intro to her wait on Jakku with BB-8 and then it goes totally unmentioned until the line to Han and again almost totally unmentioned until the talk with Maz. Luke's desire to follow his family history and break away from Tatoontie is much more clearly developed than that being repeated multiple times in scenes like the sunsets, the droids, uncle Owen and Obi Wan before finally we get a key scene after his uncle/aunts death where he makes a definite decision to follow Obi Wan. That's the difference between a character driving the plot and the plot driving a character for mer, with Rey breaking free of her attachment to Jakku and "accepting" the force just isn't linked into events that are happening adding drama to them, its an afterthought Abrams hints at a few times.

Again Kylo says this but really what does the film show us? Han reveals a bit of exposition about Luke and then Rey impresses him with some technical talk about the Falcon. Ultimately what the film spends most of its time with Han trying to have him behave in a similar fashion to the OT to mine nostalgia and then depends on this same nostalgia to give weight to his death. Again classic cheap Abrams writing having the script tell us directly what someones motivation is when really its done very little to build that up.

The way Rey behaves generally never really hints at someone with abandonment issues, when Finn wants to leave at Maz#s bar for example theres no strong emotion there, she should either show some emotion wanting him to stay a lot more than that(everyone I car about leaves) or become angry with him for wanting to leave. Its the same really with Finn, Abrams creates pretty standard personalities and then tries to graft unlearnt motivations onto them with a few lines.

Her fight back vs Kylo is basically just fighting against someone torturing her, theres been hardly any dramatic build up about "her accepting the force", its been mentioned for the first time a few mins ago by Maz again with Abrams trying to infer depth to it he simply hasn't earnt.

I agree its not a flaw in ANH/ESB because the level of force abilities Luke shows is very limited and we do see him get some training/influence from Obi Wan plus an extended time period to practice himself. With Rey in TFA we move from her first learning she might be able to use the force to carrying out a Jedi mind trick a few mins latter without any kind of hint such a thing might even be possible and by the end of the film he's showing powers beyond those of a darkside user with years of training from Luke and Snoke including lightsabre skills she's had no time to practice at all.

Ultimately these debates seem to devolve into "well that's my opinion and you can't say I'm wrong" but claiming the two situations above are the same for me clearly casts doubt on the credibility of your opinion.

 

I have spoken to many first time viewers and many others who have seen Star Wars movies to some degree and not liked them much and yet everyone of these, especially the SW virgins loved the movie. Therefore I am struggling with your point. Maybe its only the viewers with preconceived ideas on what they thought they should see that are having troubles?

 

Sorry but that's not in any way similar, FOTR ends with the story unresolved but we know exactly whats happened to Merry and Pippin, they've been captured by Orcs sent by Saruman after the ring and Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas have desided to go after them. All of that makes perfect sense and has been set up within FOTR.

Rey's force use going against previous canon hasn't been setup in TFA, theres no explanation given and theres not even reaction to it as abnormal with Kylo predicting her very rapidly growing powers.

 

Its seems you have no imagination and need everything explained to you. I saw Star Wars in 78 and have loved all of it ever since. Never have I felt I understood the Force completely and going further I do not believe even Yoda did. Its mystical and mysterious and thats what makes Star Wars so great.

TBH if i ever got to the stage that I thought I knew everything about the force and what it means I suspect that would be the point my interest finally began to wane. I doubt that will ever happen though cos the story writers understand this better than anyone.

 

Well first of all the so called "comedy babbling" scene is clearly not just played for laughs. In fact it's not really "played for laughs" at all, it shows how they quickly bond after a life or death situation, and so it makes perfect sense. It's the elation at having survived almost being killed by the FO, and pulling off a remarkable escape. And yes, Rey's little line here is a subtle hint, and I've seen it picked up on in quite a few reviews/analysis of TFA. Maz's line alludes to this too, and she is justified in her insight, because her "see your eyes" power has already been established prior, as with other aspects of her character. If this was the very first time that we see Maz (Rey and Maz together that is), then you might have had a point. So not just Abrams telling us through Maz.

I've already outlined in my previous post the degree to which Rey's abandonment issues are built up, so take another look. In addition, you are factually incorrect to state that it's never mentioned again until the Han scene, (after the bb8 scene) because she's already said to Finn, "I need to get back to Jakku" prior to this. So for me, it's built up more than enough. No afterthought here.

With regard to Kylos line during the interrogation, we have already been shown the relationship between Han and Rey. So again, it's not just Abrams telling us about it. Now I clearly disagree with you about how Han is handled, and I bought into the relationship established as it was developed onscreen. And that's partly because Rey has not had a father figure growing up on Jakku. It's also partly because "Han Solo" is some sort of hero figure to her. So she' s desperate to impress him at first ("I bypassed the compressor"). Han however finds her annoying at first, but a sort of father/daughter relationship develops based on a kind of mutual respect. If you don't buy it, I probably can't sway you.

Rey clearly shows a hell of a lot of emotion when Finn is leaving. Beyond me stating this, and you simply watching the scene again with an open mind, I'm not sure what more I can do. She also shows the right amount of emotion with regard to the build up of her "leaving Jakku issue". So she expresses concern at first, then with the Han scene there's some distress and regret. It then culminates in a full scale breakdown when the prospect of her having to leave Jakku is tied into her having to accept the sabre and the force. Which is pretty daunting. So there's a pretty big emotional breakdown, with her fleeing into the woods, so the build up is in fact just right.

And there certainly HAS been dramatic build up prior to the Kylo interrogation scene. As mentioned above she's just had this hugely dramatic "breakdown" fleeing into the woods. She is then pursued by Storm troopers and Kylo. Kylo then freezes her, invades her mind, and knocks her out, carrying her off. She had the opportunity to listen to Maz's words here, and use the force, but she doesn't, or isn't able. Remember also that Rey "accepting the force" or "accepting her destiny" happens at the end of the movie, with the sabre pull, when everything's at stake and she has to defend her new "family". And there is an incredible amount of drama in this scene. Her entire arc has built towards it, and her inner conflict is resolved.

Finally, on the force stuff, Luke may continue his training with Obi Wan on the falcon, but it's AFTER he appears to "master" the sabre deflections with practically 0 training. IMO he just gets some guidance (same with the torpedo shot, and the hoth pull, which obviously has 0 training or guidance). So the filmmakers of TFA have some leeway with implementing this kind of stuff in the film. Now obviously there's already been big debates as to whether this has been done to people's personal satisfaction or not, so I won't go into all of that again here. So, credibility intact.

 

Its basically played as two young people getting rather over exited at the elation of having escaped talking over each other before being interrupted. its most clearly not played up as both characters being so amazed as what Rey has done that the force is suspected as an influence. If that's a "subtle" hint its an incredibly subtle one with a line we can barely here in a sign but played for gravitas at all and clearly for me does not provide any real buildup to her using the force later.

I said "barely" mentioned which I think is correct but even moreso I think the important point is that the story is not driven by dramatic decisions based on Rey's character. In ANH as I pointed out we see Luke's growing desire to leave built up to the point where he makes a dramatic decision to do so. We do not get a scene between Rey and Finn where the former has to dramatically give up her wait on Jakku, there thrown together and then forced off of Jakku by the FO, a sign of the negatives of Abrams focus on very rapid plotting.

I think you touch on the truth there, the film has Rey view Han not as a "father" but rather as a "hero" because this allows it to mine nostalgia more effectively, Rey is basically put in the audiences position of seeing "cool Han Solo", the same is true with her attachment to Luke. Really though I view this as a rather weak and easy stand in for actually building a strong dramatic link between the two of them that could have been based on he lost family, his lost son and potentially her force use.

As I said I don't think she does show the kind of reaction to Finn leaving that you'd expect of someone with abandonment issues, I think she shows more the kind of emotion Luke does when Han leaves in ANH. Someone in her position should as I said either become very attached to a new friend in that position OR become very angery at that person for leaving.

The problem really for me is that Abrams builds Rey's personality more along the lines of Luke from ANH but then includes very different motivations for her that mismatch with that personally. One instance of that would also for me be her reaction to the vision which seems very much out of line with her previous bravery.

We see Rey have a scary vision that has some kind of hint at potential force abilities and then a few mins latter we see her using the force. If this is her "entire arc" then its a poorly handled and shallow one that's ignored though the majority of the film being introduced and resolved within a few mins of screen time for her.

If Abrams had really wanted to give this arc depth he should have introduced the potential for Rey's force abilities much earlier in the story and given her much more time to make clear her feelings about them similar to Luke in ANH although really I would argue that the force alone isn't his motivation but rather the desire to become a hero following his father.

Again I think the problems are that firstly Abrams doesn't want to have enough slower character scenes to achieve this and secondly that he doesn't really have a clear idea of what he's after character wise just as with Finn. He wants Rey as a Luke like figure but he gives her very different motivations that are much harder to bring out in the same kind of situations. Luke's story in ANH is actually a very simple one indeed BUT its a simple story told well rather than a more complex one told badly.

Sorry but again you reaching massively here, we see Luke deflect a couple of shots after getting hit showing an ability that Han can dismiss as "luck". We see Rey carry out the Jedi Mid trick(never having seen it before) and show both more powerful telekensis and sabre fighting ability(again with no experience) than someone with years of training.