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Spoilers for the film are in this thread, read at your own peril if you have not seen the movie. No more spoiler tags from page 20 |
On January 19 2018 05:15 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On January 19 2018 04:18 Acrofales wrote:On January 19 2018 03:28 Sermokala wrote:On January 18 2018 17:44 levelping wrote:On January 18 2018 04:28 Sermokala wrote:On January 18 2018 03:58 levelping wrote:On January 18 2018 01:49 Sermokala wrote:On January 17 2018 17:14 levelping wrote:On January 17 2018 16:30 Sermokala wrote:On January 17 2018 15:01 levelping wrote:
I feel like Rey really gets a double standard on this whole "power level thing", and well just all round double standards for the character.
Luke = moisture farmer farm boy that manages to fly an x wing in a matter of days, fires an impossible shot without a targeting computer
Anakin-skywalker = builds a robot as a child, destroys trade federation droid ship as a boy.
Star wars is just brimming with unreal power levels. With Rey - they at least tried to set up the plausibility of her defeating Kylo, see - blaster shot etc etc. You're really up a creek on this. Luke makes a comment about being able to shoot vermin off a speeder bike. thats a crazy shot and its implied that obiwan directly tells him how to use the force on it. Building a robot when you have space fairing tech isn't unrealistic. Everything about Anakin is insane, the guy lives in a space fiaring tech level near a bunch of robots and incredibly high tech things. Hes a pod racer so being a pilot isn't that crazy and its highly implied that everything he does in the fighter is purely by accident. With Ray and TWA its acceptable that the fight eventualy goes rays way but that nowhere near shows how she can go from there to slaying pratorian guards better then kylo in at best a week. And you don't have a problem with Luke going from flying dinky tattoine vehicles to a (then) state of the art star fighter, also in at best a week? Anakin did all that as a SLAVE and a NINE YEAR OLD CHILD. Where did he learn robotics as a slave? Slave robot school? Where did he learn how to pilot a pod racer? Slave pod circuit? The movies establish that Rey is proficient in melee fighting because you see her ward off people with her staff very early on. I mean if a one liner that Luke as a farm hand can shoot rats makes it plausible for him (with the force) to blow up a space station, why is it so hard to accept Rey's abilities? Its never said how long it is in episode 4 and its entirely realistic that he was given enough time in a simulator to do it. the new trilogy is on a clock from the start practically and has almost no time skips like episode 4 did. Its the future. The kid doesn't go to school probably and spends his time around mechanics and robots with his pod that he races. Its perfectly conceivable that the threshold for building robots is much lower in the far space fairing future. C3p0 doesn't even look that advanced when you first see him. Its not crazy that he was just tought podraceing alongside other slaves and he just happened to be a prodigy at it being a force wieling skywalker. Fighting with a staff has almost no relevance with fighting with a one handed lazer sword. Ray doesn't even have any one liners explaining why shes managed to learn lightsaber fighting to such a degree that she can defeat praetorian guard within a week of finding out that lightsabers are real. Luke NEVER gets to that level even after three movies and an extremely long time afterwords and extensive training from yoda. Ray gets nothing relevant from luke and has huge power spikes from nothing even dropped slightly from some character. Simulator... I mean do you not see how much you're willing to fill in extraneous detail for Luke and Anakin but not for Rey? If you want to go with space x wing simulator, why couldn't Rey have trained with a sword off screen all the time? There's a pretty glaring double standard going on here. The difference is that there is time for luke, there isn't time for ray. We follow ray almost entirely from when she leaves jakku up until now when shes on the falcon leaving the salt planet. There isn't time past the one scene where she is moving around with her stick until she decides to go to the lightsaber and cuts through the rock. there is a training scene even for luke where he learns to use the lightsaber with obiwan that ray never gets. Rey had her entire childhood to practice with a one handed stick, so maybe she was training with a sword all this while before TFA starts? I mean this is a all round lame excuse but so is the x wing simulator that you've conjured up for Luke. The most hilarious part about the x wing simulator is that why would they even train him in an x wing simulator? Did someone secretly know that the empire would track down the rebel base on yavin and then Luke would need to fly a star fighter to shoot down the super secret death star weak point? Its not an excuse. The movie shows things and you can fill in gaps to explain things. thats suspension of disbelief. Ray has a large staff that she fights with thats a two handed thing that she moves her grip around a lot to use it. Then she goes from that to a one handed weapon where moving from the grip is absolute death. If she trained as a kid with a one handed stick that would be a thing that they would show. but she didn't know lightsabers existed before TFA so there isn't a reason for her to. an X-wing simulator is very well in the bounds of time and technology available. The main character has to be involved in the final strike because hes main character so he learns to fly an xwing in the meantime. Thats okay pulpy explanation. Suddenly flying the falcon expertly when you've been using a sled to go down a hill recently doesn't make sense. learning to use a sword when before you've used a staff doesn't make sense. Not having a week go by from discovery of lightsabers being a thing till when you're doing expert level sword fighting doesn't make sense. You can excuse learning to fly an x-wing in weeks or months from when luke gets to the resistance to when the resistance fights the death star. It's up to you if you want to go to all those lengths to come up with crappy excuses for why Luke was an expert at everything despite poor on-screen justification, and why Rey cannot possibly be an expert because of similarly poor on-screen justification, that's fine. But there really isn't any point in arguing that your mind universe is the true SW universe and anybody who thinks Rey training with a staff is enough of a justification for her to be able to fight with a one-sided staff as long as she remembers to not shift her grip too much. My problem isn't really with your criticism of the new trilogy. I agree with you that it was one of the main weaknesses of TFA that Rey could do absolutely everything instantly. For each individual skill there's a reasonable in-universe explanation, but it's the sheer quantity of elite skills she suddenly turns out to have. She can pilot, fight with a lightsaber, and resist mind probes, all essentially on her first attempt. Yes, she had plenty of time to learn how to fly. Yes, they establish that she could fight against a wounded Kylo, and that she got her ass kicked until she "found balance", and yes, resisting the mind probe isn't all that farfetched. It's just not a very interesting narrative when you make a "hero's journey" movie, but the hero doesn't actually need the journey, because she is already extraordinarily good at everything and the bad guy is a wimp. TLJ actually did a lot to rectify that. Rey got her ass kicked. Maybe not by Kylo, but he played a key part in it. Kylo also went through a lot of growth, while Rey essentially lost time. Kylo ended with a crushing defeat, but so did the entire resistance. I find people are too hooked up on the "well, FO controls the galaxy, resistance is doomed, but has Rey, and there's no big bad guy. movie 9 needs another death star to be interesting". I don't know what JJ is going to do, but if it's a return to all the boring tropes with resistance good, FO evil. Build super weapon, destroy super weapon, Rey saves the day and decapitates FO by killing Kylo (and Hux blows up on Death Star Mk 4), party with *newoks* on *newndor*... THEN the new trilogy is a failure. So far I have seen two rather entertaining movies that add some interesting stuff to the SW universe and do some other stuff badly. They were visually stunning, and had some stupid plotholes. But what TLJ did very well was establish a bad guy who isn't the bad guy "because he's evil", but rather it gave the bad guy actual motives and a backstory. Even with 3 entire movies to give depth to Palpatine we *still* don't know why he was the bad guy and what motivates him (other than a hatred for Jedi, which doesn't really explain his rampage and domination of the galaxy). JJ could broaden that backstory and build a different conclusion to the trilogy that doesn't require a deathstar. And I really hope he does. There are no lengths that I am going for luke. Its a very simple path for him to do what he does. You have to go extreme lengths to justify anything ray does in the movies. Ray doesn't have time to learn to fly a ship she gets into a ship and flys it. She gets a light saber and fights with it. She gets mind probed and can resist it. TLJ makes everything worse by removing even the slightest shade of mary sueness ray could be. Shes a jedi master that can lift far more weight then ever just by having the rocks in front of her without any instruction or anyone telling her how. She fights the best fighters the first order can muster better then the kylo with a weapon she didn't even knew existed a week ago. she doesn't pilot things anymore but simply aims an escape pod to somehow land inside snokes super ship at a docking bay on a ship she had no way of knowing existed. Kylo didn't lose anything in TLJ. he gained the universe and control over the entire first order. They made kylo a good character but they've pinned the trilogy to end just as you said it would to be a failure. Palpatine never needed justification or motivation because the story was never about him. Other characters we knew built him up and his image so when he appeared what we saw was exactly what he needed to be. What does JJ have even to work with? He has no big bad enemy. the evil side has all the material power but lacks any threat to ray and the entire side looks incompetent. The good guys are incredibly weak but lacks any doubt to weather they'll win or not 4 characters in ray poe rose and finn with chewbacka as background support maybe?
Well, she in the third movie could beat even Superman if we go in the line of this trilogy.
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On January 19 2018 05:19 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +There are no lengths that I am going for luke. Its a very simple path for him to do what he does. You have to go extreme lengths to justify anything ray does in the movies. Ray doesn't have time to learn to fly a ship she gets into a ship and flys it. She gets a light saber and fights with it. She gets mind probed and can resist it.
She grew up in a refurbished AT&AT which included a lot of information on starships (and a flight simulator) and she's worked in and scrapped ships her entire life. Her most formative thing in her life is a memory of a pilot flying away and later getting a pilot helmet so you know she's motivated in the endeavor. And like I'm not even making that up completely, it's canon from one of the novels they made for the first movie (as much as that counts for the film which isn't too much).
She grew up in a former battlefield and salvaged them for parts. Theres no way walkers have info on star ships and there were no functioning star ships beacuse she was salvaging them for parts.
Anikin at least was from a salvage yard that was organized to sell parts and was involved with racing crazy ships.
Thats not real cannon and doesn't impact the movie.
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So to summarize...
19 year old moisture farmer who has access to a speeder - ok that he can fly
9 year old slave kid - ok that he can fly
17 year old ship scavenger who shows immense interest in piloting and has a speeder - totally unbelievable
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On January 19 2018 06:04 Logo wrote:
So to summarize...
19 year old moisture farmer who has access to a speeder - ok that he can fly
9 year old slave kid - ok that he can fly
17 year old ship scavenger who shows immense interest in piloting and has a speeder - totally unbelievable
Anakin was a pod racer and Luke was already renowned as a pilot before he ever hopped into an X-Wing. Their situations are totally different from Rey, who even admits that she had no idea she could pilot stuff.
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Anakin was magic.
Luke was magic
Rey, also magic, but not believable.
Or everyone in Star Wars can fly a starship except Finn, because they needed him to Bromance with Poe.
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On January 19 2018 06:16 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On January 19 2018 06:04 Logo wrote:
So to summarize...
19 year old moisture farmer who has access to a speeder - ok that he can fly
9 year old slave kid - ok that he can fly
17 year old ship scavenger who shows immense interest in piloting and has a speeder - totally unbelievable Anakin was a pod racer and Luke was already renowned as a pilot before he ever hopped into an X-Wing. Their situations are totally different from Rey, who even admits that she had no idea she could pilot stuff.
How is a pod racer meaningfully different from a speeder in terms of allowing someone to pilot a spaceship?
It just feels like you're trying *really* hard to make some logical consistency that includes Anakin and Luke and excludes Rey in terms of what's acceptable pulp.
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On January 19 2018 06:30 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 19 2018 06:16 xDaunt wrote:On January 19 2018 06:04 Logo wrote:
So to summarize...
19 year old moisture farmer who has access to a speeder - ok that he can fly
9 year old slave kid - ok that he can fly
17 year old ship scavenger who shows immense interest in piloting and has a speeder - totally unbelievable Anakin was a pod racer and Luke was already renowned as a pilot before he ever hopped into an X-Wing. Their situations are totally different from Rey, who even admits that she had no idea she could pilot stuff. How is a pod racer meaningfully different from a speeder in terms of allowing someone to pilot a spaceship?
It is somewhat believable that someone who is accustomed to piloting a high performance vehicle like a pod racer would be able to hop into a starfighter and do the limited piloting that Anakin did in Episode 1. Rey was driving a piece of shit speeder and then did totally bullshit piloting maneuvers with the Millennium Falcon. Not that I really care, but it's very clear which set of circumstances most strains credulity.
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I’m still having a tough time dealing with Luke being able to pilot a fighter because he also flew a crop duster and did some training. Switching from a single engine to a twin is a huge deal for real life pilots. And one does not just hop into a plane and make it go. They are not cars. Call bullshit on one of the characters, you have to call bullshit on them all.
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On January 19 2018 06:40 Plansix wrote:
I’m still having a tough time dealing with Luke being able to pilot a fighter because he also flew a crop duster and did some training. Switching from a single engine to a twin is a huge deal for real life pilots. And one does not just hop into a plane and make it go. They are not cars. Call bullshit on one of the characters, you have to call bullshit on them all.
Luke is by far the easiest of the characters with which to reconcile his piloting abilities. His piloting skills are talked up by multiple characters in Episode 4. You're basing your conclusion here on a bunch of unfounded presumptions.
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On January 19 2018 06:45 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On January 19 2018 06:40 Plansix wrote:
I’m still having a tough time dealing with Luke being able to pilot a fighter because he also flew a crop duster and did some training. Switching from a single engine to a twin is a huge deal for real life pilots. And one does not just hop into a plane and make it go. They are not cars. Call bullshit on one of the characters, you have to call bullshit on them all. Luke is by far the easiest of the characters with which to reconcile his piloting abilities. His piloting skills are talked up by multiple characters in Episode 4. You're basing your conclusion here on a bunch of unfounded presumptions.
So the problem with Rey is she's a loner so no one could speak to her skills? That's much more reasonable than the other way the complaints are thrown out. Basically a line from Plutt or one of the other scavengers early on would fix this whole problem.
But it also seems not even worth mentioning it's so minor.
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On January 19 2018 06:45 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On January 19 2018 06:40 Plansix wrote:
I’m still having a tough time dealing with Luke being able to pilot a fighter because he also flew a crop duster and did some training. Switching from a single engine to a twin is a huge deal for real life pilots. And one does not just hop into a plane and make it go. They are not cars. Call bullshit on one of the characters, you have to call bullshit on them all. Luke is by far the easiest of the characters with which to reconcile his piloting abilities. His piloting skills are talked up by multiple characters in Episode 4. You're basing your conclusion here on a bunch of unfounded presumptions.
So on a backwater planet in the middle of no place he learned to pilot a rebel star fighter through video games? Or his crop duster or whatever trash pile a T-98 is? And at some point he learned to use the ball turret on the Falcon too? I get that they say he is a good pilot out loud, but like fucking how? That makes as much sense as college professor Indian Jones being an expert fist fighter, driver and all around Nazi killer.
But it is pulp so who cares? Heroes like Luke and Rey are powered through talent and youth, not practice and hard work.
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I don't see what's so hard about this to understand. We know, before Luke ever jumps into an X-Wing, that he has had training as a military pilot (including shooting things) and is a great pilot already (see comments from Obi-Wan, Biggs, and Luke). His piloting skills do not show up in a vacuum. In very stark contrast, Rey's do. Whether this discrepancy matters is besides the point. I'm just pointing out how ridiculous it is to draw this false equivalence between Luke and Rey with regards to the piloting thing. This isn't really disputable.
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This is the craft Luke shot womp rats in:
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/Hd0gazO.jpg)
He had a toy model of it in his house. It's not quite a military starfighter but it's far from nothing. He was training to become an Imperial cadet and his piloting skills were hyped up multiple times. And he did end up being a little in over his head; Ben rightfully shot him down when he was cocky enough to say to Han that he'd fly a ship to get past the Imperial blockade. And his struggles to learn the ways of the Jedi were real, lengthy, and included trial by fire.
Rey, on the other hand... while having skills is not a surprise, she's kind of a Mary Sue. It all just comes easily to her, and there's little to indicate that she had to struggle to get the hang of any of it. In E7 it was forgivable because beyond the lightsaber fight it wasn't that bad (and I was hoping it'd be retconned meaningfully) but it was just doubled down upon with no explanation here. Anakin's talents are somewhere in the middle; the Naboo scene where he destroyed the command ship was utter BS but the rest of it could be reasonably justified because he learned the trade over many years. And yes, Phantom Menace did it all pretty badly even though it's less Mary Sue than Rey.
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Of course people saying that the moisture farmer boy is a great pilot sets up him flying the fighter later on. But it makes as much sense as a 19 year old potato farmer knowing how to pilot an F-22.
Edit: So if poor farm boys can get stick time in what appears to be military hardware, Rey can't in a scrap yard? Apparently stick time is free, so anyone can learn(except Finn, because he is Finn).
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On January 19 2018 07:04 LegalLord wrote:
This is the craft Luke shot womp rats in:
He had a toy model of it in his house. It's not quite a military starfighter but it's far from nothing. He was training to become an Imperial cadet and his piloting skills were hyped up multiple times. And he did end up being a little in over his head; Ben rightfully shot him down when he was cocky enough to say to Han that he'd fly a ship to get past the Imperial blockade. And his struggles to learn the ways of the Jedi were real, lengthy, and included trial by fire.
Rey, on the other hand... while having skills is not a surprise, she's kind of a Mary Sue. It all just comes easily to her, and there's little to indicate that she had to struggle to get the hang of any of it. In E7 it was forgivable because beyond the lightsaber fight it wasn't that bad (and I was hoping it'd be retconned meaningfully) but it was just doubled down upon with no explanation here. Anakin's talents are somewhere in the middle; the Naboo scene where he destroyed the command ship was utter BS but the rest of it could be reasonably justified because he learned the trade over many years. And yes, Phantom Menace did it all pretty badly even though it's less Mary Sue than Rey.
Isn't this not usable by the arbitrary rules people before you set up as the criteria of what's acceptable and unacceptable suspension of disbelief?
Like canon wise there's a lot of supporting information for all 3 to be good pilots (i.e Rey had access to a flight simulator is canon).
But watching just the movie you have no idea what Luke piloted or that it's "that thing". A toy of a ship doesn't mean much (certainly means less than Rey owning a pilot's helmet).
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Rey being a decent pilot is ok. Rey mastering everything ever in record time is problematic. Luke wasn't a master at everything he ever did, so why is she?
Luke definitely had quite a few factors supporting that he was a good pilot. But he was never so good as to be a Mary Sue. So actual character development.
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She nearly crashed the Falcon, gets wrecked by Kylo up until the point where the Force decides it is balance time, forgets to take the safety off the gun, pulls the wrong fuses and gets caught by Kylo.
But yeah, other than those things she is great at everything. But they should have had some lines about how good she was at things before she did them so people could be mad at those lines.
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On January 19 2018 07:07 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 19 2018 07:04 LegalLord wrote:
This is the craft Luke shot womp rats in:
He had a toy model of it in his house. It's not quite a military starfighter but it's far from nothing. He was training to become an Imperial cadet and his piloting skills were hyped up multiple times. And he did end up being a little in over his head; Ben rightfully shot him down when he was cocky enough to say to Han that he'd fly a ship to get past the Imperial blockade. And his struggles to learn the ways of the Jedi were real, lengthy, and included trial by fire.
Rey, on the other hand... while having skills is not a surprise, she's kind of a Mary Sue. It all just comes easily to her, and there's little to indicate that she had to struggle to get the hang of any of it. In E7 it was forgivable because beyond the lightsaber fight it wasn't that bad (and I was hoping it'd be retconned meaningfully) but it was just doubled down upon with no explanation here. Anakin's talents are somewhere in the middle; the Naboo scene where he destroyed the command ship was utter BS but the rest of it could be reasonably justified because he learned the trade over many years. And yes, Phantom Menace did it all pretty badly even though it's less Mary Sue than Rey. Isn't this not usable by the arbitrary rules people before you set up as the criteria of what's acceptable and unacceptable suspension of disbelief? Like canon wise there's a lot of supporting information for all 3 to be good pilots (i.e Rey had access to a flight simulator is canon). But watching just the movie you have no idea what Luke piloted or that it's "that thing". A toy of a ship doesn't mean much (certainly means less than Rey owning a pilot's helmet).
Just as an aside, "suspension of disbelief" doesn't mean that. It means accepting the rules of the new universe the movie has put you in. It doesn't mean excusing bad writing (particularly when there are easy fixes like time lapsing the island training or having Leia not be the most incompetent general since Douglas Haig). Indeed, half the complaints about 7&8 is that they don't abide by the rules of the universe as previously understood, thus shattering one's suspension of disbelief.
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On January 19 2018 07:26 Plansix wrote:
She nearly crashed the Falcon, gets wrecked by Kylo up until the point where the Force decides it is balance time, forgets to take the safety off the gun, pulls the wrong fuses and gets caught by Kylo.
But yeah, other than those things she is great at everything. But they should have had some lines about how good she was at things before she did them so people could be mad at those lines.
And in TFA that stuff happens and its okay. what we're discussing is what happens in TLJ and how TLJ doesn't include any of the mistakes or explanations for the spike between 7 and 8 in her abilities. in TWA we can excuse a lot of what she does to kylo being injured or the force being with her to make her lucky. In TLJ shes better then anyone else in the galaxy at everything she does.
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On January 19 2018 08:20 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On January 19 2018 07:26 Plansix wrote:
She nearly crashed the Falcon, gets wrecked by Kylo up until the point where the Force decides it is balance time, forgets to take the safety off the gun, pulls the wrong fuses and gets caught by Kylo.
But yeah, other than those things she is great at everything. But they should have had some lines about how good she was at things before she did them so people could be mad at those lines. And in TFA that stuff happens and its okay. what we're discussing is what happens in TLJ and how TLJ doesn't include any of the mistakes or explanations for the spike between 7 and 8 in her abilities. in TWA we can excuse a lot of what she does to kylo being injured or the force being with her to make her lucky. In TLJ shes better then anyone else in the galaxy at everything she does.
Spike in her abilities? She lifts a pile of rocks... I'm not sure why that qualifies as such a big deal. Luke lifted his X-Wing from a swamp, and in general, force lifting stuff is not that special. Unlike stopping a laser in mid air, which Kylo did without breaking a sweat.
Unless you mean killing a bunch of red shirts. Sure, they had cool armor, but they were destined to die from the moment anybody noticed there were nameless guards with swords standing around. As for people saying she did better in that fight than Kylo, I kinda got the exact opposite feeling. She was barely holding her own while Kylo took out a few. It was only right at the beginning and right at the end that Rey killed a few (albeit with badass moves). But I will admit I have only seen the movie once so far.
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EPT
