ST "You will never be as strong as Darth Vader!"

Also in TCW, Palpatine lifted Maul off the ground and threw him around like a ragdoll. And for another example of Vader's Force usage... how is Vader Force choking someone from a great distance using only his mind "reversing" anything?

 

Is dooku a mortal? he is dark of coarse he can lift his own

Vader could lift a mere mortal

 

Yet another example of lifting dark , vader could lift mortal

 

Yeah, OK.

 

Hey, just my opinion here, but the way you're explaining your theory doesn't make it accessible to those who aren't on board with it, so it's hard to see where you're coming from; would you mind explaining in plain language what you mean with the various terms and concepts, because they definitely aren't mutually understood aspects of Star Wars at all.

 

I think Kylo's inferiority complex is pretty obvious and Rey picks up on it. It doesn't mean he won't be the strongest by the time his story ends. In the original trilogy, we see the good guy as the noob but now the noob is the evil one. Most likely he will be focused on increasing his jedi powers and having definitively gone for the dark side, he isn't going to have any moral hangups that will slow him down. Also his focus is on increasing his powers with the Force whereas Vader seemed more interested in consolidating power and replacing the Emperor as ruler of the galaxy. Kylo Ren seems less interested in this kind of abstract power and totally focused on becoming a kind of superman, so I think Rey was just being rhetorical and probably incorrect in her judgement.

 

Can potential grow? I don't think so. Growth is actualization.

 

The opening scenes with Kylo Ren seems to deliberately serve a mixed bag of arrogance, petulance, poor judgement, and indecision.

With a platoon of stormtroopers keep the crowd controlled and watching his back Kylo "shows" Lor the dark side and immediately fends off Poe's shot of anger.

Yeah it looks cool. But or what purpose though should extra "power" be expended to do that rather than just neutralise the blast without freezing it. And the "power" required to move "big" or "fast" objects, those perceived as having greater mass and/or energy, was defined by Yoda as the wielder's ability to break mental barriers.

Poe then insists that the resistance shall never be intimidated by Ren. I assume he's speaking generally and alluding perhaps to ill gotten title, power or notoriety. The response to this from Ren is to order Phasma to have all the villagers killed.

But then he seemingly senses Finn's dilema, but does nothing. Later on when informed of Finn's escape with the map to Skywalker, that's when he realises his mistake and flips out.

In between he makes a big deal out of getting the fact that the map is in a droid back on the planet. But wait. Wouldn't the Resistance's best pilot have information on the enemy base's wherabouts? This oversight is consistent with Hux prodding Ren about emotional influences.

 

I think JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan were making it up as they went along and didn't care about story logic or internal consistency.

Kasdan: "We definitely wanted it to be open-ended and we didn’t want to dictate where it was going."

So I think the only answer to this question is... whatever a future writer says it is. From a narrative standpoint, The Force Awakens is a pretty sloppy film.

 

It can grow when the external circumstances change.

 

Believing anything anyone involved with a production on this scale says during the promotional period says is folly, especially when it's the first major product of a $4.6 Billion dollar sale.

“We definitely wanted it to be open-ended and we didn’t want to dictate where it was going,” Kasdan told the Empire podcast.


Considering in the Charlie Rose interview George mentioned that handing it over to other directors ended up being more work for him than if he had directed it himself, this statement from Kasdan is riddled with unfinished statements.

They wanted it to be open ended. (But it's probably not)

These movies—and people underestimate this—all six of the movies that preceded this . . . are determined by the director who did them.


Directors would be the right word being that there were three of them, or could he really mean that all six films story was determined by one person. Every interview, commentary track and making of book suggests this. This is all such a snokescreen to make it seem like George's ideas for the end of his magnum opus was thrown in the trash to appease fans who didn't like the prequels.

 

For me, the line is basically a non-sequitur. I don't necessarily mean in the conventional sense, as Rey's response to Kylo. I mean, for that to be true, for that to be in Kylo's head, is nonsense, it seems artificial, forced. Like a non-sequitur, it doesn't belong, it doesn't follow.

 

Except that Kasdan's comment confirms what I saw with my own eyes when I watched the film. The film is a narrative mess with poorly developed characters who seemed to spring into existence with no coherent backstory and contrived motivations which seemed to exist only to serve the plot and not because they actually made sense for those characters. The reason why there are no satisfying answers to many of the film's questions is because, according to Kasdan, even he and Abrams don't know the answers, and now it's up to future filmmakers to clean up the mess.

 

I think it was intentional to make it seem this way. He even took great pride in misdirecting the audience into not expecting when they would see the Falcon.

I don't think the sequel trilogy storyline is going to wind up being a multi billion dollar game of telephone. They know who Rey really is, then feel the need to keep it a "big secret", my guess is that it has more to do with it tying into the prequels too close for comfort at that stage.

The man who said all this was a major player in one of the greatest twists in history, cinema or otherwise. TESB made the previous four hours of Star Wars into a whole different movie watching it again.

That's probably why TFA feels like such a mess. Unlike ANH, which had to stand on it's own, TFA doesn't, they know 100% the story will be told so they can intentionally leave things left to be explained later.

Why is Kylo Ren so deceptive towards Snoke?

Why does Finn seem to know way too much stuff for a janitor?

Why are Obi-Wan and Yoda speaking directly to Rey in her vision?

Why does Han seem so weird after Luke is mentioned?

Why does Rey recoil anytime anyone asks her anything personal?

Why did Kylo Ren nearly smile in awe when the lightsaber went to Rey instead of him?

Why did Leia wait specifically for Rey and then comfort her without saying a word, even though it was her husband who was killed?

The luxury they have in this concluding trilogy is they can tease this stuff out. And yes, I do feel the movie felt rushed, but the plot holes seem deliberate.

They had at least the broad strokes figured out beforehand.

 

I don't expect any answer to this at all. In fact, I think it's a sort of gag.

I don't even expect any more explanation for why Finn turns from the First Order, other than what was given in TFA, which I found terribly flawed and unconvincing. But that's something more likely to be elaborated on than the janitor explanation.

I don't expect any more follow up on this.

Though I think it's out of place, I don't think an explanation is necessarily needed. It's just a bad choice, imo, but doesn't need to be explained.

I expect at least a little something on this, or at least hope for it.

I expect something on this, and certainly "demand" it...but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't happen. I wouldn't expect it if JJ was still in the lead for VIII and IX.

I think this is just Leia.

Why did Leia comfort Luke after Obi-Wan died, instead of grieving for Alderaan?

Many of them don't seem deliberate, to me. Some do, but many don't.

I think even that is questionable. I also think it's questionable if just having the broad strokes figured out is enough.

 

The story of the editor who was able to get Alec Guinness to say "Rey?" by using a snip of a word being so important to JJ means something. That force vision explained to Rey who she was, just not clearly to us.

When you watch it with the assumption that Luke, Leia, Han, Kylo Ren and Maz are aware of what is going on in the bigger picture but Snoke & Rey don't, then the possible intentionality comes closer to the surface.

 

It's difficult to compare Kylo and Vader, especially because the same character can be depicted wildly different. Anakin defeated Dooku, but only after having lost multiple previous fights.

Anakin then lost a prolonged fight with Obi-Wan.

As far as Force feats, there really aren't many that stand out.

As Vader, he destroys a room upon being given the news that Padme is dead. He fights Ahsoka largely to a draw. In the comics he demonstrates great ability, redirecting blaster shots, bringing down a Y-wing with his
lightsaber, etc.

But ultimately he's defeated by his son who is flailing his lightsaber around with raw emotion, which in a way is mirrored by Rey defeating Kylo.

Kylo Ren probes minds and can freeze people blaster bolts. His insecurities compared to Vader's calm confidence immediately convey an impression that he's weaker, but I'm not sure that's a fair conclusion to draw.

He's definitely less experienced, less confident, and acknowledges his conflict to himself, but as far as raw power goes, it's difficult to compare the two.

It's also unlikely Kylo Ren would know the extent of Vader's power. I doubt Luke told him anything positive about Vader or his power. He would have no way of knowing. So even if Kylo surpasses Vader, it would be difficult for him to know. The only thing he knows is that Vader helped destroy the Jedi, but that he failed to kill Luke and it brought down the Empire.

Probably the only way to surpass Vader in Kylo's mind is to defeat Luke. And he probably is uncertain that he's up to the task. Yet he already passed the test that Vader failed. Vader destroyed the Empire when he turned on the Empire to save his son. Kylo on the other hand has killed his father to prove himself to Snoke.

He accomplished something that even Vader was not evil enough to do, and it was probably the desire to surpass Vader that drove him to do it. Whether or not Kylo has surpassed Vader in his own mind unknown as of yet, given that we never really got insight into his mind following Han's death.

Given that he suffered defeat by an untrained Scavenger and was unable to stop her from reaching Luke though, I'd assume he's not feeling too good about his
abilities.

Whether Vader is stronger than Kylo is unknown. But due to his hero worship of his grandfather, I find it unlikely that Kylo will ever feel like he's surpassed his father, even if/when he does.


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I think a lot of what you see in the movie is because Abrams and Kasdan thought it was a cool idea in the moment and didn't really think things through, and this is supported by Kasdan's own admission. For instance, why did Leia hug Rey instead of Chewie, which would have made more sense? As it turns out, Abrams straight up admitted that this was an oversight on his part.

Frankly, I would not be surprised if a lot of this stuff is left unexplained simply because there's really no good explanation for it.

 

No, it was an oversight to not have Leia and Chewie hug. It wasn't an oversight to have Leia and Rey hug. That was obviously deliberate (and a poignant moment, IMO). There's something deeper and more spiritual about two people who don't know each other, understanding each other, and comforting each other. Leia and Rey hugging goes beyond the plain sentimentalism of Leia and Chewie hugging. It's a transcendent moment, and perfectly fitting for Star Wars.

 

Finn is not a "janitor". He is a soldier who had sanitation duty while stationed on SKB, just like real soldiers do. We've been over this.

 

People who are on the promotional tour train say a lot of things. They need to promote the movie and in this case keep it's secrets too, especially ones that will be revealed later.

The stuff that is said in interviews by these people is all carefully thought out before the interviews even happen. Even when JJ went off script and said Rey's parents weren't even in TFA twitter exploded.

I'll stand by my thoughts that I think there is a lot going on between the frames we have. We just won't know for another year and a halfish.

 

Funny thing is, the Leia and Chewie "problem" actually makes more sense than you'd think.

First of all, in Empire Strikes Back, Chewie appears to grieve alone, so Leia may know to give him space (some people do process grief alone first). Also, Chewie seemed occupied with Finn (the junior novelization emphasizes that Chewie knew that Han would've wanted him to make sure "the kids" got out okay).

Admittedly, we don't know what Leia knew about Rey, beyond that she was someone Finn cared for (the novelization even hints that she empathizes with Finn's worry over her when first meeting him, per her own experiences in ESB and ROTJ). It's not even clear if Leia knew that Rey was close to Han, too. But, we can easily infer the following. Leia would know what it's like to be held prisoner and tortured. Even beyond that, Rey is pretty clearly not in good shape emotionally, the most important person in her life is in critical condition, she's starting to fall apart, and doesn't have any sort of support group.

Notice how when we see the long shot, that Rey and Leia are all alone, meaning that if Leia hadn't gone over, Rey would've essentially been abandoned (at this point, the people she was most connected to were Finn, Han, BB-8, maybe Chewie; one's dead, one may be dead soon, and the rest are occupied elsewhere). I don't know. Even if we assume that Leia wasn't giving Chewie the space he needed, objectively, offering support to a frightened girl (Rey is only nineteen) who's been through some traumatic stuff, is really all alone in a big world, and is otherwise being ignored, would be the priority.

 

Not to mention that both Leia and Rey are force sensitive, and can likely connect in that way...

Something many critics of the hug scene conveniently forget.