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[RedRum]

It should have been Phasma fighting Finn in that one fight. Even that little bit would have done her a bit more justice.

And I mean the lightsaber vs whatever the fuck that thing was, fight.

 

[Frog-fu]

Ding ding ding. It felt like fanfiction in regards to her.

Honestly, her character smacks of the worst kind of "girl power." She was written without flaws. She is kind she is selfless, she can fight, she fix things, she can fly, she can magically use the Force, and so on. What exactly about her am I supposed to relate to? As much I found her endearing because I like Daisy Ridley and she does have some genuine pathos, she really is unrelatable by being so perfect at everything.

She is the product of what happens when writers take a literalist approach to what strong female characters are supposed to be. She's a Mary Sue, and I don't think that archetype is particularly progressive because it's the characters with flaws that we really come to enjoy and love and admire the more.

It should be OK for Rey to not be perfect. It should be OK for to struggle with things like everyone else.

Interesting. I found her ability to resist Kylo to be a natural part of her gifts. I had a lot more difficult time buying her ability to defeat him in a light saber battle. That doesn't make sense on any level (sword fighting takes years of training regardless of other powers).

Honestly, I found the interrogation scene significantly worse because she has no training whatsoever in the Force. Literally none. At least with the duel you could say it was more physical and Ren was heavily disadvantaged.

The swordsmanship complaints are absurd. Luke more than held his own against Vader in their first matchup and Vader had absurd levels of training.

There is nothing absurd about it.

Luke held his own in Empire only because Vader allowed it. If Vader wanted Luke dead, he would have killed him with ease.

 

[Jarmel]

Maybe Luke wasn't even teaching his students how to use the saber. Yoda never taught him either.

Well someone taught him considering he was killing students with it at the temple massacre.

 

[golem]

Ding ding ding. It felt like fanfiction in regards to her.

Debating whether the portrayal of her force powers worked within the story at this time is pretty pointless. Either they have a good explanation for it or they don't, we do not know and won't until we learn Rey's true background. Speculation of what she should or shouldn't be capable of is fair but ultimately we just don't have enough information at this time.

 

[sirap]

Her going rogue is my guess, yeah. Out for revenge; she's done what she's had to do in order to make ends meet since having to escape Starkiller.

It'll all be in the execution. Interesting or shoddy.

She's going to be the new Boba Fett. Phasma already has cool armor.

 

[offtopic]

He was not toying the whole fight. Luke put up a shockingly good fight and hurt him. Yes, Vader could have killed him at any time but Luke totally did way better than any amateur had any right to going up against on someone on his level.

Also, someone above said Luke had a year with Yoda. No way. It was whatever time it took for Han and Leia to go from the Asteroid field to Bespin without light speed. And he didn't go back in the six month gap between Empire and Jedi.

Luke didn't even get a degree mill's worth of Jedi training.

He had more than Rey. Wasn't that her first time ever picking up a sword Come on.

There was zero chance Vader was going to lose that fight but Rey made Kylo her little bitch. Then again, Kylo is not Vader yet.

 

[Mandius]

It was about as good as Star Trek Into Darkness.

 

[Pixels]

Do Carry lips move irl?

 

[Scientist Supreme!]

Sleeping on it, it's a real shame that these interesting/charming new characters were trapped in such boring retreading of the first film.
Like someone said in this thread, whatever different direction that wanted to go in these characters could have held it together.

 

[More_Badass]

The more people try to defend Rey's absurd proficiency with the Force and lighsabers as not being too far fetched and within the scope of her abilities for whatever reason, the more I actually dislike those aspects of the film and her character.

Kylo Ren is a powerful Force user who has been training at it and swordsmanship presumably for most of his life. It makes no sense whatsoever that Rey got the better of him during the interrogation exchange. I would have understood and actually liked it if she got a shot in after he extracted what he wanted and that startled him. For her to actually turn it all on him though, I don't think that should have happened. It made Kylo Ren look like a joke and sucked tension out of his subsequent scenes because he was prematurely neutered.

The sword fight at the end you could mitigate to some extent because he was shot and in pain and that clearly affected his stamina, but those should have been the reasons he lost instead of Rey pausing the game, taping into the Force just because he mentioned she needed to be taught how to use it and then suddenly whooping his ass. What that scene needed was an Empire inspired Vader VS Luke but with Ren being significantly more hurt by the end of it but strong enough to end in a tactical retreat either by Rey and Finn or by him after Chewbacca showed up in the Falcon or because, you know, the whole base was blowing up.

I saw a spoiler review that brought up a good point. Kylo probably has like zero experience actually fighting against someone else with a lightsaber. Luke is the last Jedi. So who has Kylo fought since the massacre? What experience does he have in actual combat, with a skilled combatant? He's used his saber for sure, as a tool to slaughter people like Sydow's character, but in real fights against someone else wielding a lightsaber? It's probably been many years since that

On the other hand, Rey is a lifelong scavenger skilled in fighting with her staff

 

[LookAtMeGo]

That would've been even worse lol.

Have her armor take the shot but give Finn some precious seconds to escape

Even still. People would be bitching about it. Just saying. People seem to want Phasma to have a big role. Just having that faceoff with Finn wouldnt have suddenly made her character super badass. Its the first movie in the latest trilogy. I'd give her at least one more film to shine before calling her character a waste.

 

[Papercuts]

Ren got shot in the stomach with a ridiculously powerful gun, and got hit like twice by Finn. Had he beaten Rey, it'd be hilarious.

This is what I don't get about the comments about him being hurt/mentally unstable at the point, there was still the whole fight beforehand and not just the conclusion. Rey was being pushed back the entire time and it isn't until she's cornered that she force taps and totally flips everything on him. He was still fighting fine beforehand, and to me punching his wound was showing how adrenaline and rage fueled he was at that point.

I agree with what frog fu is saying. I had more of an issue with other parts besides this, but ultimately Rey so far has been shown to be without any flaws and capable of doing anything.

 

[Monocle]

A major subplot in Episode 8 will involve a main character having to infiltrate or escape the Starkiller ruins via the trash compactor. Then they will face their worst nightmare there.

Subplot? That should be the focus of the film. Sewage Adventures with Captain Phasma.

Srsly though, I like her.

It was about as good as Star Trek Into Darkness.

WTF, lol. I'm sorry but hell no.

 

[NOLA_Gaffer]

Thinking I might try to make a 10am showing tomorrow for my first visit. Only $5 for a ticket.

 

[Pixels]

Sleeping on it, it's a real shame that these interesting/charming new characters were trapped in such boring retreading of the first film.
Like someone said in this thread, whatever different direction that wanted to go in with these characters could have held it together.

^^^

 

[rekameohs]

I really don't know if Rey's really meant to be "relatable" like Luke was. That's clearly Finn's role.

 

[3N16MA]

.

There was zero chance of Luke actually winning that. Rey made Kylo her little bitch.

He just got blasted by a weapon that we were constantly reminded was extremely powerful. Rey proved that she could handle herself with a staff earlier in the film. Combine that with her newly discovered abilities and Kylo being a bit unstable and you have the recipe for a Rey ass whoopin.

 

[Cross-Section]

The planet blew up. Han and Finn took care of her. How would she have gotten off the planet.

We see TIEs taking off and flying away from the crumbling base in the same shot where that one officer starts freaking out about Hux abandoning them.

Wouldn't put it past Phasma to be flying one of those.

 

[Jest Chillin]

The fact that he made such progress in a short time made me think he was impressive.

I guess to others the timeframe means that he couldn't have possibly done that and was actually relatively weak. It's an assessment I don't at all agree with but it seems to be purely conjecture from both sides.

Hell, maybe the 10 year old Jedi kids could influence the weak minded. I don't know that they couldn't.

He was made out to have made a ton of progress for ROTJ because that makes for a more exciting story. However when the rest of the SWU is revealed, it becomes clear that Luke wasn't anything special as a Jedi. That's the problem with looking at the OT and ignoring the other material that's still canon.

Good thing we don't have any Jedi that are instantly perfect at everything without training at all in this movie.

That woulda sucked, you are right.

It's perfectly clear that you don't like how they portrayed Rey's abilities but there is precedence for untrained aptitude in the SWU regardless of whether or not you like it or think it should be that way.

 

[CrichtonKicks]

It wouldn't make a lot of sense, though. She deactivated the shield protecting the Starkiller. Either she will be executed as a traitor, or become a rogue villain like Norrington hunting Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which would just be a distraction.

I don't know if The First Order is as punishing for failures as the Empire was. Finn's inability to act on Jakku in the opening would probably be enough for execution in The Empire but he was still fine when he rescued Poe. Snoke seems to take a lot of the failures pretty reasonably as well. Even Kylo's temper tantrums felt more like "oh, he's in one of *those* moods again" instead of the cold sweats a report to Vader would generate.

I don't think it's a forgone conclusion that she would be executed and,honestly, with the destruction of the base they may not even know it was her.

 

[Sectorseven]

I saw a spoiler review that brought up a good point. Kylo probably has like zero experience actually fighting against someone else with a lightsaber. Luke is the last Jedi. So who has Kylo fought since the massacre? What experience does he have in actual combat, with a skilled combatant? He's used his saber for sure, as a tool to slaughter people like Sydow's character, but in real fights against someone else wielding a lightsaber? It's probably been many years since that

On the other hand, Rey is a lifelong scavenger skilled in fighting with her staff

He could duel with that one stormtrooper.

 

[RedRum]

When they started showing the X-wing pilots was anyone else like..

HOLY SHIT. IT'S MATT PARKMAN.

 

[16BitNova]

People too quick to judge Rey's force abilities. Still have 2 movies to explain this. And the theory that she was previously trained but her memory was wiped is completely possible.

 

[Acerac]

Well someone taught him considering he was killing students with it at the temple massacre.

That's it though, maybe he's the only one of the students that learned. That's why a janitor was able to keep up with him in a lightsaber duel.

He was shitty, but better than the other trash.

Like Luke as a Jedi.

 

[watershed]

Phasma is confirmed to be in Ep. 8. There is no question about whether she survived or not.

 

[SparkleMotion]

In the next movie, I want the resistance base scene with "This is the Death Star...this is the Starkiller...THIS is the Galaxy Pulverizer"

*Starkiller is a small dot next to the new weapon*

Just keep getting bigger each movie.

 

[offtopic]

Honestly, her character smacks of the worst kind of "girl power." She was written without flaws. She is kind she is selfless, she can fight, she fix things, she can fly, she can magically use the Force, and so on. What exactly about her am I supposed to relate to? As much I found her endearing because I like Daisy Ridley and she does have some genuine pathos, she really is unrelatable by being so perfect at everything.

She is the product of what happens when writers take a literalist approach to what strong female characters are supposed to be. She's a Mary Sue, and I don't think that archetype is particularly progressive because it's the characters with flaws that we really come to enjoy and love and admire the more.

It should be OK for Rey to not be perfect. It should be OK for to struggle with things like everyone else.



Honestly, I found the interrogation scene significantly worse because she has no training whatsoever in the Force. Literally none. At least with the duel you could say it was more physical and Ren was heavily disadvantaged.



There is nothing absurd about it.

Luke held his own in Empire only because Vader allowed it. If Vader wanted Luke dead, he would have killed him with ease.

The thing with the interrogation scene is that the mind takes both conscious and subconscious efforts to defend itself (that is just normal everyday psychology). For someone gifted with jedi powers that would seem to be an area where those defenses could come into play without training. A sword fight where you've never swung a weapon before? Please. Even Finn being decent makes some sense as he was trained as a warrior.

 

[injurai]

When they started showing the X-wing pilots was anyone else like..

HOLY SHIT. IT'S MATT PARKMAN.

Probably the most distracting cameo of this film. Also Miles from Lost, lol.

 

[Monocle]

Phasma is confirmed to be in Ep. 8. There is no question about whether she survived or not.

Good.

 

[CaviarMeths]

It seems ludicrously absurd to me to be raking over TFA's script with a fine tooth comb, as if A New Hope wasn't one of the hokiest, pulpiest space movies ever made. Like, damn, it's Star Wars, and we used to love it for its cheese. One of the best creative decisions that Lucasfilm and JJ made with this movie was to make it hokey and pulpy.

 

[Sectorseven]

I don't know if The First Order is as punishing for failures as the Empire was. Finn's inability to act on Jakku in the opening would probably be enough for execution in The Empire but he was still fine when he rescued Poe. Snoke seems to take a lot of the failures pretty reasonably as well. Even Kylo's temper tantrums felt more like "oh, he's in one of *those* moods again" instead of the cold sweats a report to Vader would generate.

I don't think it's a forgone conclusion that she would be executed and,honestly, with the destruction of the base they may not even know it was her.

They could very well have a shortage of manpower.

 

[CrichtonKicks]

He had more than Rey. Wasn't that her first time ever picking up a sword Come on.

There was zero chance Vader was going to lose that fight but Rey made Kylo her little bitch. Then again, Kylo is not Vader yet.

That's what I'm saying. Luke doing as well he did against Vader is no more implausible than Rey defeating Rookie-Leage Ren when he's already taken a bowcaster bolt to the side.

 

[Acerac]

He was made out to have made a ton of progress for ROTJ because that makes for a more exciting story. However when the rest of the SWU is revealed, it becomes clear that Luke wasn't anything special as a Jedi. That's the problem with looking at the OT and ignoring the other material that's still canon.

There we are, that's the heart of my issue, I'm not familiar with what is currently canon.

Would you be able to direct me towards some reading I could do on this subject? I'd greatly appreciate it. Apologies for being abrasive, but I'd legitimately like to learn here.

 

[Chitown B]

Probably the most distracting cameo of this film. Also Miles from Lost, lol.

this is what I also think of Miles from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlKhfEWchf8

 

[SparkleMotion]

It seems ludicrously absurd to me to be raking over TFA's script with a fine tooth comb, as if A New Hope wasn't one of the hokiest, pulpiest space movies ever made. Like, damn, it's Star Wars, and we used to love it for its cheese. One of the best creative decisions that Lucasfilm and JJ made with this movie was to make it hokey and pulpy.

This. There are lots of plot holes that can be poked in the old movies that we can overlook because they get a lot right and the movies are fun.

 

[More_Badass]

The thing with the interrogation scene is that the mind takes both conscious and subconscious efforts to defend itself (that is just normal everyday psychology). For someone gifted with jedi powers that would seem to be an area where those defenses could come into play without training. A sword fight where you've never swung a weapon before? Please. Even Finn being decent makes some sense as he was trained as a warrior.

Why do people keep forgetting she knows how to fight with her staff?

 

[Trojan]

In response to the comments about Kylo Ren and how he should have finished off Rey and others easily:

The coolest thing they did in this movie was craft a villain who has serious flaws and weaknesses, then build the story around his growth through those to the Dark Side. His story arc unfolds simultaneously with the hero's, whereas most movie villians have already gone through that growth and the only character change we see is potentially redemption. I think this is such a cool way to build out the trilogy and allows Ren to become much more powerful later.

He's just menacing and evil enough to be scary, but not powerful enough yet where it ruins his character arc. I like that he couldn't easily defeat others and has temper tantrums because his ascent to power in future films will have a bigger payoff. Kylo Ren has a lot more depth and complexity than most villians and he's one of the standout features of the movie.

 

[Jarmel]

I saw a spoiler review that brought up a good point. Kylo probably has like zero experience actually fighting against someone else with a lightsaber. Luke is the last Jedi. So who has Kylo fought since the massacre? What experience does he have in actual combat, with a skilled combatant? He's used his saber for sure, as a tool to slaughter people like Sydow's character, but in real fights against someone else wielding a lightsaber? It's probably been many years since that

On the other hand, Rey is a lifelong scavenger skilled in fighting with her staff

See again this is a part where I feel the script is halfbaked. The film is hurt because parts of it aren't explained and so we have to come up with conjecture like Kylo was slacking for X amount of years despite the film not really implying this. Yes Snoke didn't finish the training with Kylo but I imagine Kylo was doing something in the mean-time like sparring with the other Knights. This wasn't a problem with either the PT or the OT.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Why do people keep forgetting she knows how to fight with her staff?

It's literally HOW she meets Finn.

 

[offtopic]

That's what I'm saying. Luke doing as well he did against Vader is no more implausible than Rey defeating Rookie-Leage Ren when he's already taken a bowcaster bolt to the side.

Luke didn't do "well" against Vader. There was no chance he was going to win that. Rey beat a highly trained dark jedi (and for jedis it doesn't really matter that they are wounded) without any experience with a sword (her sucker-punching Finn not withstanding).

I'm not hating on the movie at all. Loved every second of it.

 

[CaviarMeths]

There we are, that's the heart of my issue, I'm not familiar with what is currently canon.

Would you be able to direct me towards some reading I could do on this subject? I'd greatly appreciate it. Apologies for being abrasive, but I'd legitimately like to learn here.

There is no reading to be done.

There's 7 films and 2 TV shows (The Clone Wars and Rebels). Everything else is non-canon.

 

[EdReedFan20]

So, I was listening to the soundtrack and got to the part where Rey use the force to grab on to Luke's lightsaber before Kylo Ren does and the Force Theme cue is different from the movie. I hoped that was a thing of the past. The prequels did this a lot, where the movies and the soundtracks had different cues.

 

[Frog-fu]

It's canon that Kylo's saber is a janky mock up of an ancient design that he discovered. Combine that with his statement that Luke's saber is his, implies that he was never given a Lightsaber or had training in it's use from Luke. I don't know that it's safe to assume that he's actually practiced swordsmanship, at least a skilled training for it, for most of his life.

Either way, it doesn't appear that he's had extensive training. Snoke comments at the end of the movie that he needs to finish, so there's still much for him to learn. If I had to guess, I'd say that his teachings probably stopped the day of the betrayal and from that point on hunting down Luke became the priority sence there were no other trained Force users to challenge him or Snoke.

Kylo could have created the saber after he fell to the Dark Side and began training under Snoke. For all we know the model was particular to the Sith and before that he wielded a regular one. That doesn't really matter. We know for a fact that Ren has much more experience in swordplay and the Force than Rey.

I don't deny that her tapping into the force and all was kind of bullshit, but you can't pull this particular rug out from under Rey without pulling it out under Luke as well.

A New Hope: How much force training did Ben give him? Intercepting some toy drone blasts blindfolded. This was all that was needed to give him the ability to make a one in a million shot?

Empire Strikes Back: Granted, Luke got his ass beat, but at the same time, he did conspicuously well for a guy who had, what, a weeks training with Yoda. After this, he goes back to Yoda for more training....

Return of the Jedi: just for him to die after telling him that he has to confront Darth Vader to become a Jedi knight. Apparently, the reason he wasn't ready to fight Vader in Empire is because he didn't know he had to fight Vader. From here, Luke is still not strong enough to defeat Vader...unless he's really really mad.

Yeah, you can argue that it's character stuff that determines strength in the force, but looking at it logically, Luke should be an utter noob, and his abilities are as BS as Rey's. Which is kind of why I feel the movie works. The flaws it has are the flaws that the originals suffer from. If you can ignore them in the originals, you can ignore them here.

Luke in ANH had Obiwan's guidance to focus for that one shot. That's nowhere near as impressive as Rey punking Kylo twice without any formal training.

Vader never tried killing Luke for real in the OT. In Empire he had orders not to. In Jedi he was conflicted about murdering his own son.

It's quite possibly Luke didn't surpass Vader until years after the OT - if ever - however, the important thing to keep in mind is that Luke had Obiwan and Yoda and several years passed between ANH and Jedi.

Luke and Rey just don't compare. His proficiency was earned. Rey's was not.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

There is no reading to be done.

There's 7 films and 2 TV shows (The Clone Wars and Rebels). Everything else is non-canon.

No, this isn't true. Every book after "A New Dawn" and every comic after Star Wars #1 from Marvel (and Sons of Dathomir from Dark Horse) is canon.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

Why do people keep forgetting she knows how to fight with her staff?

Like.. she scared Finn so much he ran away from her like a pussy and he's a badass storm trooper.

 

[GhaleonEB]

I bought Rey's accelerated growth in her abilities. Partly because I think they established that she is really freaking powerful - or at least, off the charts potential. And partly because she was, through the entire arc, imitating abilities she had seen Kylo using. She was basically, going, hmm. I wonder if I can do that...and she could. Just raw untapped power.

The only scene I thought was a stretch was mind controlling the storm trooper, but it was a fun enough callback and with a big enough payoff that I decided not to care.

I liked that they established her as a superb, agile fighter with a staff early in the film. I didn't see it coming, but I thought that setup her going toe to toe with Kylo believable for that reason, once she had the right weapon and nascent force awareness.

Han's death was predictable as soon as he was sent to go get his boy, but they handled it well overall. I still don't think it was necessary and it felt overly manipulative, but it fit within the story. And thank goodness they didn't make the mistake of killing off Kylo in the first film. Enough of the rotating villains the prequels used.

 

[offtopic]

It's literally HOW she meets Finn.

Staffs and swords are the same thing...OK...

 

[RedRum]

In response to the comments about Kylo Ren and how he should have finished off Rey and others easily:

The coolest thing they did in this movie was craft a villain who has serious flaws and weaknesses, then build the story around his growth through those to the Dark Side. His story arc unfolds simultaneously with the hero's, whereas most movie villians have already gone through that growth and the only character change we see is potentially redemption. I think this is such a cool way to build out the trilogy and allows Ren to become much more powerful later.

He's just menacing and evil enough to be scary, but not powerful enough yet where it ruins his character arc. I like that he couldn't easily defeat others and has temper tantrums because his ascent to power in future films will have a bigger payoff. Kylo Ren has a lot more depth and complexity than most villians and he's one of the standout features of the movie.

This. All the way.

 

[Spiritreaver]

Kylo ain't shit. He can't even build a proper saber. We knew this before the film was out. He's a wannabe, that's always been the description of his character. He has Skywalker blood so I'm sure he feels like he has to be a prodigy, or special. That's probably part of why he goes batshit on Luke's academy.

EDIT: I'm not saying he sucks. I'm just saying it's completely plausible for someone who actually knows how to fight (Rey) to beat him, lol.

 

[Croatoan]

There is no reading to be done.

There's 7 films and 2 TV shows (The Clone Wars and Rebels). Everything else is non-canon.

New books and comics are all canon. Some games will be canon.