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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

ST Daisy Ridley (Rey) in the ST

Discussion in 'Sequel Trilogy' started by Darth_Voider, Dec 17, 2015.

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  1. Qui-Riv-Brid

    Qui-Riv-Brid Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 18, 2013
    Which is exactly the point. If a writer wants to do that in a story with Luke then make it about new choices not a greatest hits repeat of choices already made and overcome.

    Now why you'd even want to make it that much about Luke who already had an entire trilogy about this when this trilogy should have been about the new hero having that struggle and Luke passing on what he learned previously is an entire other question.

    It's even more perplexing when this trilogy's "set-up" as it were in TFA was about the choices of Ren and where he went wrong under Luke and where Luke couldn't pass on what he learned to him. That was Luke's failure (or should have been). Then Rey is the other character where Luke now gets it right and is able to pass on what he has learned. It's at least a logical progression from the first trilogy in which Anakin falls to the dark side and the second trilogy where Luke is tempted and doesn't fall but also shows his father there is a different path. In the third trilogy Luke can fail in showing Ben Solo the right path but succeed in showing Rey the right path.

    Quite. Luke now doesn't learn and has been taken all the way back where Yoda who he long surpassed now is once again ahead of Luke. Well sort of as Yoda has totally lost it as well making nonsensical statements that aren't in keeping with what is actually happening.

    No benefit at all because they were never going to spend enough time on Luke's story to make any sense of it. Why would he regress into a state of mind from decades earlier but this time make the wrong decision? Why even bother?

    Of course why any of this makes the slightest bit of sense for Rey and Ren is also absent so it's total confusion all around.
     
  2. godisawesome

    godisawesome Skywalker Saga Undersheriff star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Dec 14, 2010
    I think that’s the heart of my subjective rejection of any idea that Rey is really closer or more understanding of Kylo in TLJ when TFA only happened only a few dozen hours before: the emotional storytelling and weight for Rey with Finn and Han, and the visceral disgust and horror with which she reacted to Kylo’s actions *during TFA* do not in any way feel like they were really carried over into TLJ.

    When Rey and Han discuss her joining the Falcon’s crew, they do a great job of establishing why she would see him as a potential father figure, highlighting their mutual admiration for each other and establishing a chemistry full of potential paternal overtones. And when Rey hugs Finn when they meet on Starkiller Base, with the weight of all their previous adventures, his confession to her, and the clear character arc for Rey regarding wanting someone to come back for her? There’s some heavy emotional investment and sincerity and depth to that hug. And there’s very emphatic and sympathetic rage and anger on Rey’s part when she faces Kylo after everything he’s done in TFA, which made a point of making sure that Rey would see him as a monster throughput because that’s the information she’s operating on; we as an audience have seen his hesitation, but she hasn’t.

    TLJ arguably has an instrument that should provide far more emotional depth and understanding in the Force Skype. But I defy anyone to tell me it actually showed depth being discovered or created. Rey and Kylo’s rapport never establishes a chemistry of respect and understanding comparable to Han’s, never partakes in the emotional intimacy of Finn’s confession to Rey, and the central premise that loneliness will bind them the way that the film wants is directly contradicting and fighting the outcome with Rey’s found family in TFA and the righteous wrath she had at the end of that film.

    In order for TLJ’s plot to work, it had to devalue and dismiss the emotional core of TFA’s Story for Rey, all while it simultaneously never even entered the minor leagues in constructing a relationship in terms of depth, scale, or solid foundational work comparable to TFa’s Handling of Rey/Finn and Rey/Han...

    ...and then it asked more of Rey in that relationship than TFA had asked of its own.
    Think Karate Kid and Daniel LaRusso’s problems in Cobra Kai; his new flaws are recognizably extrapolated from his flaws back in the 80’s... but their rejiggered into new forms by his new context, and funneled into fascinating issues for his students to grapple with.
     
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  3. Ancient Whills

    Ancient Whills Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2011
    I disagree that Rey put her compassion for Kylo above her relationship with Han and Finn, two people with whom she connected really fast in TFA. Through their connection she was able to sense the good inside Kylo when before that she just despised him and everything he represents but their relationship evolved from then on.

    You can dislike the connection or think it doesn't have depth but LFL, JJ and RJ definitively established some kind of chemistry between them, especially the emphasis on them representing two side of the same coin. Rey's awakening linked to Kylo/Ben Solo's increasing powers, "darkness rises and light to meet it", "powerful light, powerful darkness", it's like the Force is binding them together no matter what are their personal feelings about it. It's really because of that emphasis on this kind of spiritual connection and on balance more specifically that I feel like the Rey and Kylo dynamic is at the core of the ST.

    That doesn't mean that the other relationships she has with Finn and Han aren't important because they are but they didn't develop them as much once they became friends. They became static, while Rey and Kylo's relationship kept evolving throughout the trilogy, they're no longer simply adversaries, it's a more complicated heroine/villain dynamic which is good if you want tension and keep people speculating on where things might go.

    I didn't like that the Skywalker legacy child already fell to the darkside but one of Leia's explicit wish is to bring her son home, I don't see them giving her a bad ending after she lost both her twin brother and her husband. Love and hope are the two most consistent themes of SW since the beginning so I don't expect him to remain a villain forever, nor his relationship with Rey to remain antagonistic, we already saw them fighting back-to-back against a common enemy so there was some level of trust between them.

    George Lucas



    I also was a little disappointed to see that Rey and Finn didn't have a single interaction in TLJ due to them being separated during most of it so their relationship didn't evolve much from where it ended in TFA, though hopefully it could change now that they are back together, however there's also Finn's relationship with Rose to think about because she kissed him and even with I what I saw as a lack of reaction to it, the movie ended with him attending to Rose while Rey was looking on meaning Rey is no longer the only person he cares about.

    I could see tension on how to deal with Kylo since Finn didn't see what she saw and probably never saw him unmasked, so to him he's only just a monster who killed Han Solo and many others and is leading the organization that he ran away from. there will always be some gap between them because he doesn't have as much affinity to the Force as she does, plus, she has this connection to Kylo that no one else does aside from Leia. Rey seemingly found her belonging with Finn, Leia and the Resistance but since there's still one movie left, something is still missing to close not only her story but this nine-part saga.
     
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  4. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    Rey’s relationship with Finn being static and her relationship with Kylo “evolving” is a big part of the problem some of us have.
     
  5. Darth Corydon

    Darth Corydon Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 2018
  6. godisawesome

    godisawesome Skywalker Saga Undersheriff star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Dec 14, 2010
    To me, that comic page just shows that another writer realized some of the context of TFA better than Rian Johnson did, or at least wasn’t afraid to call it for what it was.

    To me, any relationship in a work of art should be strong enough to exist without magical jumbo jumbo forming the largest portion of it, and the goal should be to make sure that the bond is not formed entirely on some magical mumble jumbo in spite of a lack of other reasons for the bond; the other elements are wherein characterization lies, and where the audience is allowed to follow the story’s framework not as exposition but as an experience. The less and less is done to build strong in-story character reasons for a relationship, the weaker and less valuable the experience becomes.

    And that’s the crux of the matter for me with Rey in TLJ: there’s very little of merit gained from her interactions with Kylo, no solid characterization or change that necessitates being addressed in the next film, and no real reason to be invested in the story beyond its core concept. Unless you are already intrigued by the idea of Rey and Kylo having a different relationship than just enemies, and even more so, invested in that idea to the point that the road to get there doesn’t interest you, then there’s no real reason to be invested in it.

    And what makes that egregious is that it’s permanently handicapped the story to some extent, but particularly if the next film attempts to follow the same plot-line. The entire potential of Rey and Kylo having a non-adversarial relationship is undermined and rendered much less then it should be because of TLJ founding the interaction in strictly shallow and unstable premeses; it’s the kind of thing where, if you wanted to actually get the potential for the relationship between the characters to pop and rise to its potential, you’d be better off starting over in the next film, and not building on TLJ’s foundations.

    The handicap exists because the story neglected Rey’s characterization to such an extent that the relationship between the two doesn’t really inform or change her character in an expansive way, and instead ends up retracting and removing depth from her instead. Rey’s relationships with Han and Finn are more valuable to her character because they helped define, flesh out, and change her character in an organic and believable way. The relationship with Kylo doesn’t really bring anything to the table for Rey.

    And it didn’t have to be that way!
    There’s hundreds, if not thousands, of “Reylo” fans who understand the situation post-TFA well enough that they knew they *could* and should address Rey’s perceptions of Kylo and have her uncover his backstory to generate sympathy for him, to actually build their relationship on a foundation sunk in to some depth of their characters. But TLJ didn’t do that, and now, if the Rey and Kylo dynamic is the core fo the ST, it’s hollow, banal, and easy to neglect.

    Authorial fiat does not a story make, not in modern cinema.
     
  7. Ancient Whills

    Ancient Whills Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2011
    Rey's characterization in TFA shows that she's a very forgiving and loyal person, she was waiting for a family who abandoned her on Jakku as a child and with Unkar Plutt as her "guardian", that's the worst thing you can do to a child and yet, she still kept hope. When Finn revealed the truth to her, she wasn't upset with him and as he left her she was reminded of her past due to her abandonment issues. I don't think her characterization is that different from both movies, my issue would be that her characterization in TFA is not what I expected based on her background. I definitively expected the loneliness and the abandonment issues but I expected more bitterness and hotheadedness honestly.

    Don't get me wrong, I liked her in TFA but it's hard to show growth when she's already a compassionate and forgiving person in the first film, it didn't help that the second movie happened right after the first one, I think a time skip would have helped a lot. Her interactions with Kylo Ren is the only times I saw lasting negative emotions from her. Anakin was also shown as a compassionate person in TPM but he was also a child so it made more sense that he would change as a person in AotC since there's usually time skips in SW. What happened in-between is usually mentioned in one line of dialogue and then the story moves on. Most of the heavy lifting is done by supplement materials really.

    Finn was really the first person to come back for her and she was shocked but she didn't really change as a person. She still didn't think she was the heroine of this story and it didn't change her mind on her family. We see she also has a tendency to make assumptions about people who might have harmed people she connected with as we see during Finn and Rey's first meeting but after bonding more, she connected with him really fast. Her meetings with Kylo Ren showed another facet of her character, she was much more angry, you could see moments of darkness especially during their fight on SKB.

    She did learn more about his backstory through her time with Luke: she initially thought Kylo was the one to have failed the master, she kept calling him a monster and Kylo Ren because she didn't forget what happened in TFA, she didn't forget he tortured her, hurt Finn and killed her father figure, it wouldn't make sense for her to forget when the movie started just where TFA ended. She was angry that he killed his own father when she was still waiting for her family to return, she didn't understand how one person could hate one person this much and he didn't even try to deny her accusations or to lie which is what a manipulative person usually does to garner sympathy from the protagonist only to inevitably betray them later. When she finally confronted him about it, he revealed that they might be more alike than she initially thought, he feels like he was abandoned by his parents and he woke up to see his own uncle contemplating to kill him in his sleep which as we know he misread it but from his POV is shown as a betrayal. It's also the only time we see any kind of personal motivation for Kylo beyond the "finishing what you started" part which we still don't know what it actually means by the way.

    Since she couldn't reach Finn or the Resistance, when she was at her lowest moment, she turned to the only other person who she thought could understand what loneliness means and in that moment she felt like she could understand him so she reached out towards him with the same hopefulness she usually shows and when they actually touched hand across the galaxy she thought she saw a "solid and clear" vision of Kylo/Ben turning from the darkside thanks to her help—like Maz prophesized in TFA?—while it was later implied that he saw a vision of her past or what she believes is her past.

    From then on, she only called him "Ben" thinking reminding him of who he really is would help him rethinking what he's doing. She also understood why Luke exiled himself, it wasn't the apprentice who failed the master as she initially thought but it was the other way around, Luke was ashamed of his actions because he assumed Ben's choice was already made, kinda like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now we just have to found out when Snoke's influence started and how long did it last so maybe it will garner more sympathy from the audience to make his redemption arc more believable. I think by that point it was clear to me that she did care for him, that she no longer saw him as a monster otherwise why would she be crying? Why is she pleading him not to to go this way? I don't think she forgot that he tortured her and her friends but she is compassionate enough to think that it's still not too late for him, that there's always another path so long as he's willing to take it. She also believes him turning back would save the Resistance and help end the war. I believe the adult novelization has Kylo Ren believing she spared him because she may care for him and saw this act of compassion as a "foolish sentimental decision".

    I think It's also important to note that while they do share some kind of connection through the Force that she still does have her agency so when things didn't turn out as she expected, as Luke warned her on Ahch-To, she severed the connection and closed the door on him as she rightfully should.
     
  8. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    You lost me at “more alike than they initially thought,” because there is literally nothing alike about them other than Force sensitivity. “Shared loneliness” doesn’t do it when he created his own loneliness. It’s Frank leaving his reading glasses behind in Home Alone versus Kate leaving her child behind—someone could argue that “they both left something behind that was important to them, it’s the same feeling”, but context matters a lot.

    On your paragraph about her calling him “Ben” and all the other reasons or ways she tried to reach him—it wasn’t her job, and being willing to put aside his behavior towards her in order to try to reach him, seems to show a lack of self-respect. It is possible to be a compassionate and forgiving person and still have a sense of self-respect.

    I had not heard the “foolish sentimental decision” line before. That makes her characterization go up a few points in my eyes.
     
  9. Ancient Whills

    Ancient Whills Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2011
    Kylo seems particularly attached to his mother so when his parents send him away because they feared that his growing powers would lead him to become a new Vader, he must have felt abandoned by them, add to that that his father thought there was too much Vader in him and Luke thought about killing him in his sleep thus pushing him more towards Snoke who was the one to seduce Ben according to Leia.

    I'm not blaming Luke, Leia or Han because at the end of the day it was still his choice to make and he seemingly made it as an adult so there's no question for me but they certainly did contribute to his downfall just like Obi-Wan's teaching, Palpatine's manipulations, the Jedi Order, the Clone wars, his mother's violent death and his attachments issues contributed to Anakin's. It's not just one factor.

    As for Rey trying to reach Kylo Ren, it's no different than Luke reaching out to Vader after he cut his hand and tortured his friends to lure him out or Zeb forgiving what Kallus did to his people or the whole Ventress/Vos's love story despite her being an assassin before that. Nevertheless, Luke still felt the good inside him (when and how?) mainly because he wanted to connect with his father and he succeeded against all odds. You're right in saying it's not her job to redeem him, because this choice should be up to him but as the protagonist of this trilogy, their story is intertwined, so if he has to be redeemed she has to be involved in some way because this is still her story. Sometimes, I don't think real world logic works in these type of stories.

    She has to show there is another way than violence to solve their problems because SW is mainly about love, hope and faith to me. It's not about characters being dumb for having compassion for bad guys, or lacking self-respect. I imagine if it was about another franchise which showcase other beliefs about good guys and bad guys, I would probably have felt very differently than what I do for SW.

    "Kylo considered that. Rey had recovered first. She must have realized he was at her mercy, yet she'd left him alive.
    Almost as if she cared for him.
    Well, it was another foolish, sentimental decision. And this one would be her destruction"
    TLJ novelization
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2019
  10. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    “Felt abandoned” does not equal actually being abandoned, and a 30-year-old should have the maturity to recognize when his parents have his best interests at heart regardless of how he felt at the time. This again seems like trying to make Kylo’s feelings as important as what actually happened to Rey, and they are not as important. They might be as important to Kylo but I don’t care.

    And Rey’s behavior towards Kylo is not at all the same as Luke’s behavior towards Vader because Vader was Luke’s father, and that makes all the difference when I’m watching the story. I won’t respond to that fact with “so what?” just because the story might want me to or others might,
     
  11. Ancient Whills

    Ancient Whills Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2011
    To me, it would depends on when Snoke's manipulation started. If it started early in his childhood, he could have found ways to turn him against his families such as them not telling the whole story about who was his grandfather or playing on his insecurities.

    This is not a contest on who had it worst. Rey was abandoned by her family, Finn was taken away from his family and Kylo was seduced to the darkside by a very powerful darksider. One backstory doesn't devalue the other. In TFA's novelization, Leia was aware of Snoke's manipulation but she didn't know how to deal with it so she decided to send him to Luke thinking he would be able to reach him like he did with their father. I feel like Leia would have been able to reach him in IX since it was supposed to be her movie. Either her or a mix between Leia and Rey together.

    I'm kinda glad the movie simplified it to just Snoke seducing Kylo because this put too much blame on Leia because she could have told Han what was happening at the very least.


    – TFA Novelization
     
  12. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    Whatever Snoke did, “playing into insecurities” means nothing to me, and “turning him against his own family” means he was willing for that to happen. I could understand on some level his falling for garbage as a child, but he has not been a child for awhile when TFA rolls around.

    As far as there being a “contest,” maybe not, but they do not in any way have “shared loneliness” unless all context for what brought about the loneliness is ignored.
     
  13. godisawesome

    godisawesome Skywalker Saga Undersheriff star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Dec 14, 2010
    Rey's perspective matters more than Kylo's for the ST, since she at minimum has far more screen-time than him and theoretically should be the undisputed protagonist and our main POV character. And that's the core of the problem with TLJ; her persepctive is either ignored, downplayed, or obfuscated so much that you can't really identify what it is exactly, and much more emphasis is placed on Kylo's perceptions. That's why the hut incident feels like its so badly played for its purposes - there's no reason why Rey should be ignoring or downplaying or not sympathizing with Kylo's victims in that flashback (since she herself *is* his victim as well!). It shows where the film's priorities and sympathies lie: with Kylo, not with Rey or his other victims.

    And I'm not saying that the film can't offer an explanation for Rey to end up sympathizing with Kylo to the extent that she does... I'm saying the film simply doesn't offer an actual explanation, and leaves you with largely unsupported surmises that end up inevitably being pretty shallow. That's because Kylo's perspective and feelings are given more weight in the film than Rey's perspectives and feelings - because the film's own biases and prejudices discount Kylo's victims, so does Rey, even when that makes no emotional sense for her.

    And any surmise that Rey is simply very forgiving doesn't really address the issue; not only does the film not really present a forgiving nature as her flaw for its story to work (since, again, it simply presupposes that Kylo is that sympathetic), it's plot-line requires Rey to take a much bigger step than simple forgiveness and outright lose her self-preservation instincts and fails to apply basic logic and reasoning. I can't even really say she simply is a bad judge of character, because that's how abrupt and weird her change in opinion is - the change even really happens before anything major happens, when she simply decides not to complain to Luke about having her enemy lurking in her head, even though that's clearly what she would do if the events of TFA had just happened... which, y'know, they *did.*
    The Finn comparison doesn't work for me because TFA actually gives Rey *reasons* to not hold Finn's deception against him, unlike with Kylo and Rey: Finn and she have saved each other's lives several times over by that point, acted as combat allies under extreme duress, and she has him confessing his mistake to her in a contrite manner and asking for forgiveness. At no point does Kylo express any regret or acknowledge his deplorable actions in sorry way. He hasn't saved her life, and he doesn't confide in her why he does what he does, save for the twisted and horribly executed (to the point of contradicting the film's purposes) hut scene.

    And the central issue with me regarding Rey's character growth is that I *do* see character development in TFA, in fact all the character development of TLJ, but done better. Rey gets motivated to take action and save herself and others at the end of TFA; the only reason to suggest she wants someone else to be the hero is if you ignore how personally motivated she is to stand against Kylo Ren and protect herself and her friends... aka, the TLJ approach. And she does have a rough and tumble manner... in TFA. It's just that the individuals she bonds with are either living legends or people who've saved her life (on in BB-8's case, are pathetically cute, and she still seriously thought about selling him.)

    Luke was reaching out to his father, who he actually did know a) had once been a good man vouched for by Obi-Wan and Yoda, and b) had clearly shown a weak spot towards Luke even while thrashing him and chopping his hand off, as well as c) showing the self awareness to understand how terrible his situation was and a willingness to betray Palpatine for strictly selfish reason before hand. And *still,* Luke needed to find out he himself was a danger to the Endor mission before he surrendered himself to Vader, and did so clearly hoping for redemption for his father... but expecting death for all of them.

    Zeb only grew warmer towards Kallus when a) they were forced by events outside their control to work together (no volunteering to die for the other's sake here without prompting) and b) when Kallus revealed he actually wasn't behind the massacre of Zeb's people as he'd previously stated, and even then they didn't actually grow a friendship until Kallus flat out joined the Rebellion.

    And when Vos and Ventress had their thing, Ventress was already a neutral player for some time, and rather significantly, had not been targeting Vos beforehand, all while Vos is joining her for a specific mission. Later revelations introduce strain and conflict... but the relationship was built on cooperation at the start.

    TLJ is asking the audience to watch a pantomime of ROTJ without actually writing the story to get there.
    Again, I think its very important to note that Rey's reason for being lonely in TLJ is Kylo. A kinship based on loneliness with the person who made you lonely is a bit of a farce.
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2019
  14. Jedi_Fenrir767

    Jedi_Fenrir767 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 16, 2013
    The fact that most of the arguments being used to argue in favor of some of the decisions made regarding Rey largely come from material outside of the films themselves and are Canon as long as it's okay that they are. Lots of the TFA novelization is no longer considered canon already goes to show you just how problematic the actually telling of Rey and Kylo's stories has been on screen.
     
  15. godisawesome

    godisawesome Skywalker Saga Undersheriff star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Dec 14, 2010
    It does make some sense that Rian Johnson, beginning his work with a different iteration of the TFA script and getting updated on dailies as they were produced, would start from a slightly different place regarding Rey and Kylo's interactions and the general view that the audience and Rey were supposed to start off with, that he simply constructed his overall meta-narrative from a standpoint that wound up just pitched in a totally different dynamic than what Abrams wound up putting on the screen for TFA after rewrites and reshoots designed to hit the audience in a more emotionally sure-footed manner.

    From an emotionally sincere standpoint, TFA poured a lot of venom and bitter hatred into Rey and Kylo's interactions, and removed whatever nuance LFL and everyone else may have expected in it, to the point where Rey's feelings towards Kylo were pretty much all 100% justifiably negative and visceral. And that probably does have more to do with Abrams fine-tuning the film's story for maximum impact as a stand alone from a character perspective; to better finesse and emphasize the emotional core of TFA being centered around Rey and Finn, and to better fine tune Kylo as an antagonist and foil for TFA, he wound up making the central premise that Rian Johnson was operating on unsupported.

    That's why people who bought into the characterization of TFA for Rey and her relationship with Kylo find something so hollow and artificial in TLJ; it's operating from an entirely different creative genesis in regards to those two characters and indeed the entire emotional dynamic from TFA.
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2019
  16. MagnarTheGreat

    MagnarTheGreat Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 21, 2016
    Abrams used Rey and Finn like Kirk and Spock and Kylo Ren like Eric Bana's Nero character in Star Trek '09.
     
  17. Ancient Whills

    Ancient Whills Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2011
    I'm pretty sure RJ's intention was to show that the mysterious bond uniting Rey and Kylo is mainly emotional than anything else. They both have access to each other's thoughts and feelings, they can't lie to the other and they can't hide behind masks . Rey knows what are his deepest fears as he does hers. Whether I like it or not, as the legacy Skywalker legacy child, Kylo is de facto considered a main character by the ST of the Skywalker saga, even as an antagonist. Rey's most important relationships are with Finn, Han, Luke and Kylo so while TFA dd focus on Rey and Finn's relationship, it also established her main conflict: Kylo.

    It's clear to me from both movies that his and Rey's story are intimately intertwined. It's best represented by their tug of war over Anakin's lightsaber: while in TFA it easily came to Rey's hand as if she earned it over the one who claimed it was his, in TLJ neither won. In TFA, she was surprised to see a young man when he unmasked because she expected to see a "creature in a mask". Most of her growth in the Force comes from her interactions with him. The anger seemed also pretty one-sided, mostly from Rey's POV. Kylo was much more intrigued by "the girl", even more so after she was able to resist his mind probe, he was horrified that she find out about his deepest fears. Then again later when she got the lightsaber, there was no anger on his face. He wanted to be her teacher while she just wanted to save her friends. For their relationship to evolve beyond simple adversaries, Rey has to deal with the anger and the resentment she has against him, which is exactly what TLJ did even if it was in an unusual way through this Force connection.

    In TLJ, she initially thought she knew everything she needed to know about him when it wasn't entirely true because she didn't have Luke's real perspective. She didn't forget anything he did at all, she fired at him as soon as she saw him when she woke up, no question asked first and she called him a monster multiple times so I don't really understand why people believe she had completely forgot what he did to her and her friends or any of his other victims as if she instantly changed her mind on Kylo overnight. One thing that RJ kept saying was that Kylo never lied to Rey about his POV of the events, he never tried to mislead her and was always sincere toward her while Luke was the one to omit an important detail in the first flashback which I didn't really like personally.

    The 2 keys scenes that show the biggest evolution in their interaction to me are the hut scene and the throne room scene. When Luke finally told her the truth behind his exile, it was Rey's choice to ship herself to the Supremacy in a coffin in the hope to reach the light inside the villain and make him join the Resistance cause, nobody forced her to do that. She believed in a vision she saw the same way Luke did in ESB, she had faith in what the Force showed her. I don't want a character who doesn't make any mistakes and her having visions of a future in which Kylo turned from the darkside is more convincing than other alternatives because there is precedent from both trilogies, my only complaint is that we didn't see glimpses of it. You could argue that him taking advantage of Snoke's distraction to kill him is an example of him "saving" Rey even if the outcome didn't end well. More importantly, Rey still has her agency while despite her consistently hopeful nature, and when things didn't turn out as she expected, she took charge. She also learned that visions of the future can be easily misinterpreted and that turning from the darkside isn't so easy, Kylo has to make the first step, she severed the connection because she still has her own morals and his action went against them. Her joining him wouldn't make any sense to me, judging by her characterization in bot TFA and TLJ.

    I'm honestly hopeful to see Rey and Luke having more positive interactions now that he finally confronted his guilt, even if it will be one or two scenes.
    I love Finn and Rey's relationship but I hope they show more conflict and then overcoming them together, partly why I was disappointed they nearly didn't have any interaction even if I knew one of RJ's goal was to isolate Rey so that she would have a reason to interact with Kylo and develop their relationship by making her face her initial anger and hate she felt towards him and learn more about his motivation. I don't want to see her and Rose clash over Finn's affection, please don't do it JJ.
     
  18. godisawesome

    godisawesome Skywalker Saga Undersheriff star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Dec 14, 2010
    That's a decent comparison: both films focus on having a "triangle" core to the film's ensemble, but not a romantic one, since one "angle" is strictly played as an antagonistic force that drives the other two angles towards each other and against itself. Kylo's a tool for Rey and Finn, as an antagonist and foil for both, designed to draw out their characteristics and kick-start and define their arcs, with his own arc meant to do the same thing. He devolves and breaks-down as they grow and rise.

    I'd actually say that TFA does a better job with the concept than ST09.

    TLJ's issue is trying to make the core of the film more of a reciprocal triangle, with the intention being that Luke, Kylo, and Rey would feed into each other's stories as combination protagonists and antagonists to each other (thus the "half the protagonist" thing between Rey and Kylo that Jonson intended.)

    However, because of Johnson's flaws in writing Rey, he wound up instead kind of putting her in Kylo's old position in TFA: Luke and Kylo are given more active and significant plot arcs, and she becomes primarily a tool for their stories. She's an audience for Luke to exposit and explain himself to, and wrapped around Kylo's perspective and objectives. She doesn't really get anything out of either interaction, and in fact loses some things to help their stories along, like Rey not getting any training with Luke or having her motivation against Kylo effectively silenced.
     
  19. Ancient Whills

    Ancient Whills Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2011
    I think Rey's motivation hasn't been silenced so much as it has evolved, especially considering how Kylo has not been shown as a one dimensional villain, probably due to his connection to our past heroes. Now we have to see it from Rey's perspective because she is our main character.

    If LFL didn't think Rian's vision of the story or the characters wasn't in accordance with their vision of ST, then KK would have make some change, however they didn't do anything to restrain his more out-there ideas, even better, they encouraged it.

    My main issues with Rey in TLJ is that I didn't feel like she was struggling with the darkside as much as Anakin and Luke at this stage. She seemed unfazed by its temptation and I do think the movie should have portrayed her attacking Luke from behind as her showing a darker side rather than siding with her.

    I didn't believe there was anything going on between Rey and Kylo in TFA beyond the fact that she was able to turn the tables on him during the interrogation scene and her kicking his *** later after being on the defensive during most of the fight.

    The emphasis on this dynamic in TLJ made me rethink that in retrospect. I still believe Finn and Rey to be the heart of TFA but all the secrecy surrounding Kylo's fate and his connection to Rey makes me believe his and Rey's dynamic is really the core of the ST. That doesn't make Finn any less important of course because he still has an arc of his own, both with Rey and with other people.
     
  20. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    Know what would have helped in this respect? Showing a need for it.

    I know TLJ is supposed to be this story of a self-doubting Rey finding her way to confidence at the end and all that, but as of the end of TFA, she'd decked Kylo, ambushed Finn, flown the Falcon - where is the training need here? She has no difficulty tapping into or even getting her head around the counter-intuitive nature of the Force. TLJ sets up the island cave as this dark side, super dangerous place and what happens? Rey waltzes in, Rey waltzes out - no biggie. If the throne room in TLJ was meant to evoke ROTJ's DS2 then there ought to be a serious, nigh-on irresistible dark side temptation there for Rey, but nope.

    The way this is going, Wile E Kylo-te is going to get a massive power-up in Ep IX, take out his ACME Rey-smasher fighter, it gets smashed up. Cue final fight, Rey, perfect model of Qui-Gon serenity, goes full Highlander and decapitates him with ease. Where's the challenges that she will struggle to overcome? I'm not seeing them. This is about the only thing that, for me, links TFA and TLJ Rey.
     
  21. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    Rey’s motivation being all about saving Kylo from darkness is not an “evolution.”
     
  22. Ancient Whills

    Ancient Whills Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2011
    She went from wanting to kill him in anger to showing him compassion by not killing him when the opportunity arose. She let him live when she could have ended his reign of terror as Supreme Leader instead, the same dilemma Luke was given when he sensed darkness in his nephew, but "revenge is not the Jedi way" right? Now she no longer only sees him as a monster nor does she want to kill him in anger but she also couldn't say with him as he is now so she stopped looking for the new hope and finally too charge of things. She also finally confronted her denial about her parents and stopped looking for them everywhere. That's what I meant by "evolution". It always comes back to the same old selfish vs selflessness dilemma which is at the core of the saga.

    It would have been a problem if the movie showed saving Kylo Ren as her one and only motivation which I don't think it did. Finn, Leia and the Resistance's survival were still her main priority in TLJ. We see it by the beacon Leia gave to Rey so she could find her way back home and her trying to reach them while on Ahch-To. Then after the fight ended on the Supremacy, her first thought went to the Resistance fleet. When Kylo pleaded her to join him, she partly refused because the Resistance's survival is still her main concern. In the end, she severed the connection by closing the door and went back to the Resistance where she finally met Poe for the first time and saw Finn attending to another person while she sat alone with the two parts of the broken lightsaber. Leia reassured her by telling her they have everything they need to rebuild the Resistance.
     
  23. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    I would say her behavior (and hopefully her feelings) towards Kylo at the end of the movie is an evolution from her behavior (and apparently feelings) towards him on Ach-To.

    But from TFA to Ach-To, her feelings and behavior did not so much evolve as devolve.
     
  24. christophero30

    christophero30 Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 18, 2017
    I'm no fan of Reylo but the door slamming on Kylo at the end of TLJ seems pretty final as far as that nonsense is concerned.
     
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  25. Ancient Whills

    Ancient Whills Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2011
    Also not a Reylo fan but for me it's too early to say that with any certainty, especially with one movie left to wrap everything up just as we don't know how her relationship with other characters end.

    I just hope Finn won't sacrifice himself for Rey at the end, not after Rose saved him from doing exactly that in TLJ. I hope IX can show Rey and Finn having a healthy relationship in which they can fight but they could solve their issues by talking to each other like two adults and that it's ok to do that. I want that it shows their personal growths both from when they were together and apart.
     
    christophero30 likes this.
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