Saga Mega thread: Sequels and spinoff films and the overall saga

Wether they do get fleshed out in the first movie or not, basic character traits and motivations are always established:

Anakin: "But I want to go, it's what I've always dreamed of doing."

Luke: "I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father."

Rey had no motivation whatsoever for her journey aside from leaving the planet she was in. Why did she, of all people, go to Luke and be trained? We don't know. The writers and director didn't bother to tell us either.

 

Rey goes from vaguely wanting to return to Jakku, for the family that abandoned her (funny she doesn't seem to have any reaction on first leaving the planet she was forced to live on for no good reason). Then by the end of the movie, she no longer has any desire to return to Jakku, seemingly with no clear reason for the change.

She also has no real motivation for helping the Resistance, never seems to really show any strong opinions on the conflict.

 

She is part of an awakening referred to by Snoke.

The lightsaber (Luke and Anakin's saber) induced a force vision in Rey.

The reality check that Maz delivers "You already know the truth, Whomever you are waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back ..(Rey acknowledges with tears). but, there's someone who still could"

Rey :"(Luke!)"

Maz : "The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead....."

Rey is far too frightened by the force vision to accept her place in that context yet. But thankfully she listens to Maz's description of what she just experienced "I am no jedi, but I know the force. It moves through and surrounds every living thing. Close your eyes, feel it. The light. It's always been there. It will guide you" This will save Rey's butt later on and supply Ren with a shock at an already dangerous and fraught moment in his career and development.

The final act of the movie and Rey's ability to prevail (and the psychic connection through the force that she shares with Leia at the moment of Han's death) disabuses her of any further hesitancy at leaving Jakku behind and searching for the belonging she seeks elsewhere. Taking a family heirloom to the forlorn Luke Skywalker in exile, and perhaps providing him with the hope of this newly awoken force user.

You don't have to like the motivation supplied by the movie, it but to maintain that there is no discernible motivation for Rey is absurd. What you mean (by quoting Luke and quoting Anakin) is that at the moment of decision, the character doesn't exposit with dialogue (spell out) what the movie had set up earlier on and conveyed with storytelling rather story explanation.

Spoiler

e.g. "That thing I said I wouldn't do earlier in the film? Well the experiences I have had since then, in case you weren't watching, have supplied me with sufficient confidence to overcome the fear that was holding me back then. So (clears throat) I have changed my mind and I have decided to do what Maz suggested instead of staying on Jakku , which was much more poorly motivated than what I'm doing now."

The pathetic scavenger is spoken to by the instrument of a mythic hero, discovers her gifts with the force and subdues her tormentor in battle. Well that was fun but it's no reason to convince me to continue discovering my potential and my destiny. I'm motivated to return to being exploited on junkyard, which I virtually destroyed while escaping the First Order, with a nonsensical hope that my family are coming back for me there.Which I have already acknowledged is hopeless."

The resistance are the enemy of the First Order who tried to kill her. Captured, tortured and interrogated her. Then aimed to enslave her after mortally wounding her newfound friend (the only person who came back for her in her life). The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Her introduction to Finn shows her eyes lighting up at the mention of the Resistance and is impressed with Finn's supposed involvement.

 

i can't post my trailer remix vid here because of the no self promotion/thread derailing rule but i'd love some constructive criticism since we don't have any concrete plot timeline yet.

Social - Get in line - A Social Countdown to Episode VIII | Page 193 | Jedi Council Forums

Bazinga'd and other mods if this inappropriate please delete. thanks.

 

We don't need dialogue to explain the obvious. "Show don't tell" can be an effective storytelling method. It was shown that Rey was already sympathetic to the Resistance before she even left Jakku. Demonstrated by her positive reaction to Finn when she thought he was with them. So she starts off leaning towards their cause, which automatically puts her against the First Order since that's who the Resistance are resisting. After that she sees first hand how brutal the FO are. And she's rescued & saved by Resistance affiliated people like Han & Chewie. She also knew from the start about the important Resistance mission to get to Luke. So plenty of motivation for her to join the Resistance & help with their mission, & that's before even addressing the Force related stuff. So you add to that her growing Force ability & a desire to get answers & guidance. How much motivation do you need? Of course she's going to volunteer to go on the voyage to meet with Luke. Again, we don't need clumsy exposition that states all of that when it's so plain to see.

Like I said, Rey's motivation is very clear & makes perfect sense. Luke's also, however the waters are muddied slightly by his two seemingly conflicting stances of hating the Empire yet wanting to join the Imperial Academy. We have to assume that he planned to join the Academy to learn how to fight & pilot spacecraft & then defect to the Rebellion, as Biggs did. Still, by cutting out some of the scenes with Biggs the movie doesn't make this clear, so it appears as a contradiction. It's Anakin's motivation that seems the most dubious. We're expected to believe that he'd leave his mother behind to go off with strangers. Yet unlike the other two he can remain behind & live a life with her. With his one & only family member. What's more he can now do so as a free person, which will give him even greater opportunities to help her as he grows older. Compare this with the others. Rey has no one at all to stay for on Jakku. Luke at first refuses Obi-Wan's offer to go off & fulfill his dreams of an adventurous life - because he doesn't want to disappoint his uncle. There's no way Rey or Luke would've left a mother they adored behind. Zero chance of that. Anakin left bcs the plot required him to. It's the least convincing in terms of motivation.

 

I would argue we see the end result of that dream in ROTJ. Rather than just freeing the slaves of Tatooine, Anakin is actually dreaming about freeing the galaxy from the shackles of the Empire. Lucas even tries to make sure this is clear when he has a Gungan say, "Weesa free" during the updated celebration scene.

 

....by accident?

That's merely a by product of him killing the Emperor once it became clear that his Master was intent on destroying his son.

Tatooine wasn't in the republic, remember. The Empire moved in sometime after Anakin chose to help form it. Not really living his dream, was he? And for all we know, Tattooine simply went back to its pre Empire state. An outer rim planet outwith the republic controlled solely by the Hutts and where slavery is legal.

While on Tatooine, Anakin knew nothing about the outside world except what he was told by star pilots. And I imagine everything sounded better than Tatooine. Luke seemed to think so too. I can't imagine Anakin thought that anyone else was as needy of liberation as his mother and other slaves on Tatooine.

 

Anakin's choice boiled down to staying on Tatooine with his slave mother, with no money, and no way to further his force abilities. Of course he was going to go off and be trained, on Coruscant, where money is unimportant to the Jedi.

Rey explicitly wants to stay on Jakku, and nothing after she says that on Takodana should change her mind about that. Nothing confirmed that her family wasn't coming back.

 

Ok, but I find that a long bow to draw. Has nothing to do with the local slavery on Tatooine back then. Anakin's dream was coming back to the planet & freeing them.

Going off to live as a pious monk where, as you say money meant nothing was not going to help his mother. Far less in fact than staying with her as a free person on Tatooine with all of his abilities. Bottom line is family is supposed to be everything. Shmi was his entire family. The only reason Luke & Rey left was bcs they had none. The fact that Shmi was left there & ignored for a decade confirms that she was abandoned. It's very hard to buy a loyal & loving son doing that. But the plot needed him to.

You're missing the fact that it was already absurd to think that her family would come back after so long. She was delusional & in denial. It can often take someone else to point out the obvious, & to then accept it. That's a very human thing.

 

Intent doesn't matter. What we do know is that the galaxy was under the thumb of the Empire, and when Anakin is redeemed by killing the Emperor, the galaxy is free. We even see Tatooine get in on the celebration, so it seems like they're at least expecting good things after the Empire is gone.

So is the Chosen One story arc, but even though Vader isn't thinking about prophecy, he still fulfills it by destroying the Sith. Same deal with the dream. He may have dreamed about physically showing up to Tatooine and freeing the slaves, and he may have had he not gone to the dark side in the first place. But by destroying the Emperor he achieves the same goal (but with greater results--he freed the whole galaxy!), whether he was thinking about that or not.

 

Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps the former slave owners of Tatooine were celebrating the Empire's demise. So they can go back to their old ways. I'd find that very easy to believe.

 

You're a glass half empty kinda guy, aren't you DD?

 

A realist JH. Someone has to be.

 

Rey inexplicably has faith in her family returning after all those years. The movie gives us a giant hint about her destiny if she does not change it in the first scene where she gazes at the withered old woman sitting next to her, cleaning her pile of junk. Maz challenges her "You already know the truth... they are never coming back." Rey tearfully acknowledges this. She does not deny it.She does not argue. If she is genuinely so convinced that it's what she wants. this is point where Rey stands her ground and makes her case for going back to Jakku. The alternative that Maz proposes, however, is too terrifying to contemplate following her experience with the saber. By the end of the movie, more dimension is added to her awakening to the force to the point that she cannot ignore it and decides to search for the belonging she seeks in the place that Maz proposed.


Did Anakin say he was motivated to not be poor? To be away from his mother? Was there ever any confirmation that Anakin couldn't develop more force abilities (or did he even express a desire to develop more of them) or break free from poverty on Tatooine? Like become an even more skillful pod-racer until he wins enough races to afford his mother's freedom? Anakin was now a Tatooine celebrity and he was free. He was still on Tatooine but now in control of his own destiny. He became a Jedi because as a nine year old he thought it was right to try and help people. Qui Gon believed that becoming a Jedi was the best way to do that (Only within the Republic though. Not on Tatooine. Plus Qui Gon had ulterior motives, even though he knew Anakin was already too old to be trained.) and that this was his opportunity.

 

There's no allusion to or indication of ordinary people being any better or worse of before, during or after the Empire. Tatooine was all Anakin knew and anywhere else was better. Imagine you were a kid growing up in inner city hellhole and had dreams of being a public servant. Of making a difference. You find your vocation but it immediately places you somewhere that is far less needing or deserving of your skills by comparison. Meanwhile your old friends and family in your hometown were being left to rot for all you know. It's incredible that Anakin wasn't motivated to say. "Thanks Jedi. But I can't ignore the suffering I left behind any more just for the sake if the idealised relationship between us privileged individuals and an institution that is clearly flawed and undeserving. I'm abdicating my knighthood and going back to Tatooine, but on good terms. I may be back. In the meantime, see ya on the starting grid "Wizard!!!!"

Short answer. Ending the Empire doesn't mean ending slavery on Tatooine. It may even mean the opposite of that since slavery was popular until the Empire came along.

 

No, it doesn't. But based on the visual information provided to me at the end of ROTJ, the entire planet seems to be having a ho-down about the Empire being gone. This being a fantasy world, I would say that discussing what the real world ramifications are and assuming slavery may return to the planet is being a tad harsh. This was supposed to be Lucas's happy ending. Happy endings don't tend to involve a return to slavery.

 

The celebration scenes are a puzzlement in the wake of the prequel trilogy. They are at odds with everything TPM goes out of its way to tell us about Tatooine's place in the galaxy. It's not in the Republic and it is of so little interest to the Empire or Vader by the time of ANH he doesn't blink an eyelid at it being on Leai's route; Luke calls it the furthest thing from "the bright centre of the universe"; It's for this reason that Obi Wan finds it safe to secrete Luke and keep watch over him under the name "Kenobi".

 

Is she? How do you know?

Yes, and then what?

Close your eyes, you'll be able to read other people's minds, hold your own with a lightsaber and fully do a Jedi mind trick without training.

Back to my point, that doesn't explain Rey's motivation. You're simply corroborating what I already said: no motive is established for her journey aside from leaving the planet she was in.

That shoehorning of circunstances still doesn't provide a motive. Where was it ever established the lack of "belonging"? Why is the "belonging" with Luke of all people and not, for example, the Rebel Alliance?

I can't dislike what doesn't exist. I'm apathic towards her character because of that.

They are not spelling out anything. They are replying to characters (and the audience) who are expecting an answer about what they want and are aiming for. We don't know what Rey wants. Nothing was "conveyed with storytelling", hence the speculation.

 

So you just don't like, accept or agree with what's provided as motivation then. You've just went out of your way to declare and describe in several points your dislike for things, using your interpretations and notions of what constitutes training, which is not the topic at hand, and that you claim you can't dislike because of their non-existence.

She discovers she has aptitude at the thing that she was frightened of at first and now that thing has replaced the unreasonable desire to stay on Jakku long after it has stopped making sense.

It's in the film. She resisted the mind probe. She did mind trick the guard. She did defeat Kylo. All in the film

All ample motivation to further discover her powers at the feet of a master. The last Jedi.

Oh yeah. And she has the description of Luke's island in her head. She's been dreaming about it here whole life.

 

No, I don't take your attempt to explain her motivation as valid. Like I said, I can't dislike, unaccept or disagree with what doesn't exist.

'dislike for things'? No, I dislike what they've made. I question what they didn't establish. The latter is what's being discussed.

Where exactly did I do that? I don't recall ever interpreting what constitutes training or not. I do go by what the previous movies have established, which is in order to do certain feats you do require training. And yes, Jedi feats (not traits) do require Jedi training.

Since what doesn't exist is character motivation, I can't dislike said motivation (which you falsely claimed I did).

Mind tricks, mind reading and lightsaber combat? I don't recall she ever fearing that.

 

She discovers her power and has success with it in the film. Previously, she ran in terror from Maz's suggestion that her destiny lay with feeling the force and letting it guide her right after she had the braids scared off of her by a force vision. In the film. "I'm never touching that thing again... I don't want any part of this."

You don't like the motivation and the way they gave it to her. Just leave it at that. It's not doing your argument any favours the deny the very existence of scenes and lines of dialogue that are in the movie.

 

You're right!
Except, well, some minor details.
Anakin was a slave and he always admired the Jedi. He thought they're impossible to kill, he dreamt he was a Jedi who returned to Tatooine and freed all the slaves, then, after the podrace, his mother tells him that he's free now and he can fulfill his dreams. Qui-Gon confirms that Anakin will go with him and become a Jedi and then he, Qui-Gon, tells Anakin that it'll be a hard life. Anakin says that he wants to go, he always dreamed of doing that. He wants to see all the planets, right. So, the Jedi were some kind of heroes to him and he wanted to become one to free all the slaves.
And that's nothing to Rey's motivation, which is... I can't remember. If there is any.

Interesting. Anakin was freed in TPM, his mother sent him to be trained as a Jedi so he can become what he wanted to and then he left her there. It's a very tricky situation; the Jedi prohibit that kind of relationship, perhaps Anakin was not a son every mother would like to have, but he eventually came back and saw her. Anakin was, like George Costanza, a bad son, bad husband, bad father. To me, Anakin is very human; when you're a kid, you have dreams which you forget as you get older.

But, if family is supposed to be everything, did the plot required Kylo killing Han?

 

Slavery never ended on Tatooine, as we see Jabba holds slaves in ROTJ, and it's pretty safe bet that he did during ANH and ESB, too. It seems the Empire did nothing to stop slavery on Tatooine, which is perfectly consistent, as the Empire itself practiced slavery.

Slavery was there while Luke was on Tatooine, but Luke left to save some princess instead. He could have learned the ways of the Force with Ben and used it to stop slavery on Tatooine, but he didn't. He left. He left slaves behind in slavery. When he comes back to Tatooine, he doesn't come to free slaves, he comes to rescue his friend. He was willing to bargain with a slaver for his friend and leave the rest of the slaves behind. He let Oola get eaten by the Rancor. By the time of TFA, apparently he's been in exile doing nothing for anyone for some years. He didn't free Finn from slavery, that's for sure. I doubt he freed any of the kids the First Order enslaved.

It seems not even Luke "I Care" Skywalker cares about slavery.