ST Rey Skywalker/Daisy Ridley Discussion Thread

Yeah, I've seen the movie. I don't disagree with anything you've said here.

Yep core to the movie. Well developed. Important. I am not debating that.

Yet, held up to the Star Wars films/series/media that came after, The Force in the first Star Wars was/is minimal in comparison. That's not a slight. It's a necessity. It was/is genius. ANH still serves as the best entry point into the SW franchise and a big part of that is how efficient the use/explanation of The Force is.

That said, I will repeat that the depth, the nuance, and the mythology of The Force really didn't start to take a firm hold and rapidly expand until ESB and beyond...

 

I feel the Holiday Special is the best way to see get a peak at how Star Wars was interpreted by the audience before Empire came out. Lucas had very little input in the holiday special so its basically written by people replicating Star Wars based on what they see and know. in the story Han is off with Chewy as expected, they started as a duel so of course they would go back to that. Luke is fixing his ship because he is a proper pilot now after the first Star Wars. Leia is doing princess stuff because princess. You get this cartoon with Boba Fett which is a little mini adventure and is about the 3 of them on an adventure. This is not a force related adventure that would become expected after Empire.

So when you look at how Lucas translated the first Star Wars movie. Yeah the force aspect is not fleshed out or at least to the point where people knew what he was trying to say with it.

After Empire, you got into the dark side, the light side, fear is bad, do or do not, etc ect.

 

Totally agree with that. One of the reasons why ANH works so well, and is/was so accessible, is the amount of information given to establish the fictional world. There’s just enough exposition in ANH, just enough detail to give the audience an insight without bogging them down in the politics or socio-econmic elements. It’s brevity is what works to pull audiences in and become engaged in the concepts/situations. It’s a really quite sophisticated piece, IMO, when broken down. However, yes, it’s TESB that starts to develop all the concepts.

 

I guess this is one of those pov things. I think ANH tells us a lot about the Force and how it works in that universe. It's not just explaining the magic, it's the explanation of the Jedi who wield it, how one can be seduced to the dark side, the Empire that took over from the OR. It's a rich tapestry of exposition going on. And most of it is done in the first 20 minutes.

On a minute to minute basis, yeah, Empire probably has more force screen time. But ANH lays that foundation so that the weird magic stuff makes sense within universe. So much so that a talking frog wizard teaching Luke about this magic feels .... believable and makes total sense.

The Force in ANH is the meat and potatoes. (Along with the Empire, the Jedi, the history) It's not something just added to the plate to make it look pretty.

 

I agree. It's the core to the movie. Calling it a "garnish" was not the correct terminology.

Yet, Star Wars is about so much more than The Force and the teacher/student dynamic.

Consider: Not as much time and energy and focus is devoted to teachings of The Force in ANH as compared to, for example, Mr. Miyagi 's philosophy/ teachings in The Karate Kid. Or boxing/training in a Rocky movie.

You can have Star Wars movies without The Force and it will still be Star Wars. The film(s) and franchise are about so much more than The Force. You cannot have a Rocky movie without boxing.

Does this make sense?

 

Abrams has neither the intellect or cinematic creative talent to make anything resembling ANH or TESB. I'm not even sure he thinks about these films at a quarter of the level we would (although I'm sure he loved the films as a 7 year old). To use a Beatles music analogy... it's like someone thinking they can replicate the song/recording of Help!, by using a similar guitar sound, whilst simultaneously not understanding the importance of its melody or lyrical content... or thinking that 1967 era Beatles can be distilled down to the sound of a sitar. It's that level of disconnect/misunderstanding of the subject matter that the likes of Abrams frequently demonstrate.

 

This is partially agree with you on. Andor is absolutely some of the best SW recently and it has no Jedi/Force story. (That we know of thus far lol). I just argue against the point (that Daxon originally mentioned) that the force is undeveloped in ANH or not central to that story.

 

Now I want to do princess stuff because princess.

Oh and I agree — ANH is the best entry point.

 

her entire character felt like fan-service. first they hammer in that shes a nobody yet she is skilled in everything out of nowhere. the fans call her nope and then as a response they make her palpatine grandaughter. this came out of nowhere and was just a way to justify her being a nope.

 

Forgive me if anyone has asked this before and maybe it has since this thread is up to 427 pages, and I don't feel like going through every single one to find out. Anyway does anyone have an idea of in at least The Force Awakens, Rey knows how to use the Jedi mind trick on that Stormtrooper? Up until that point she had no Jedi training.

 

If I remember rightly, the usual theory is that Kylo's invasion of her mind, and her turning it round on him, was a variation of the mind trick - and that gave her the idea that it could be used in other ways.

 

The real reason is that the mind trick is in ANH. So JJ had to have it in here somewhere.

It's still a pretty big leap to go from Kylo invaded my mind. Then I naturally invaded his. So now I think I'll just start mind-controlling people out of the blue. And remember Rey doesn't even really know she has the Force. Or what that even means. No one has explained anything to her other than, 'its real, all of it".

It's like she watched ANH, as a fan, and went ... this is the part where I could try the ol' Kenobi mind trick thing on some stormtroopers.

 

So, I guess that same logic could be applied to when she used the force to get Luke's lightsaber away from Kylo? Like with the mind trick how else would she also know to do that?

 

This is the JJ way.

 

Yes indeed... if only the Jedi Order had realised that instead of taking little children away from their parents, and spending circa 20 years training them, they could have just projected those skills into their minds instead... It would have saved a lot of bloomin' angst and time...

 

anakinfan edit: posts from ‘Is Rey an underrated character?’ thread moved here.

I think so, no one really cares about her.

 

She's overrated and I do not care for her.

 

She is the best and the future

 

It was the nail in the coffin of her character when they made her the granddaughter of Palpatine. In Abrams desperation, they made her pretty unsalvageable. The more DLF attempt to cling onto her character for further sequels, the more SW sequels will ultimately fail. They'd be better off dispensing with her completely, or simply having her as a middle aged sage passing on the torch.

 

Well they wont. And they will never go away with the character, because of some fans