Yet nobody questions him lol. I hope in Episode 8 we get a Finn and Poe team up for a section of it.
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Rey as a Mary Sue [STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS SPOILERS]
- Thread starter Veelk
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Yet nobody questions him lol. I hope in Episode 8 we get a Finn and Poe team up for a section of it.
Poe is the new Boba Fett to me - tons of people saying how awesome he is yet you see almost nothing of him
Mary Sue is a spectrum not a binary label anyway. If people get caught on the term, ditch the term and discuss the merits.
Rey is boring. Her most interesting stories happen before and after the scope of the film. This is also basically true for Kylo. His big climax is weightless because we don't know how he feels about having done it.
Rey is boring. Her most interesting stories happen before and after the scope of the film. This is also basically true for Kylo. His big climax is weightless because we don't know how he feels about having done it.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Poe at least wasn't borderline background decoration like Boba.
heliosRAzi
Banned
Don't forget that her mistakes don't really have any long-lasting consequences. Like the part with the rathtars. She accidentally lets them out, but it all gets quickly resolved.
ProudCanuck
Banned
You know how it's said that force awakens borrows the story structure of a new hope ? People should realize Rey also borrows the from nothing to something concept like for Luke. It's quite simple really
There are some similarities to them, yes, but Star Wars is a fantasy epic and Jason Bourne is an action series.
We have wildly differing expectations of either genre.
I go into a Mission Impossible, Bourne or Bond flick expecting super spies doing super spy shit and being awesome will doing it. I don't care much for consistency or how well written their characters are.
I go into a Star Wars film for the grand adventure, and that adventure, to me anyway, is really only as good as the tension it can generate. Mary Sues and Gary Stus aren't great for that.
It's honestly quite frustrating when people conflate the term with sexism because it's just an awful accusation to lob at someone based on differing opinions.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
He actually straight up says the location of the island.
"I see the island with the ocean."
Implying that Rey is either seeing the future or has been there before. She was way more useful than the droid at that point.
"But Luke isn't a mary sue at all." >:O
After just learning about the nature of the force.
But you'd never see people complaining about that because they conveniently remember how the force works when it's Luke.
It could be a hundred different things. The movie explains fuck-all about Rey and her Jedi ways. I'm not convinced that it's a foregone conclusion that Episode VIII will drop a fully satisfying explanation either but whatever. Anyway, my opinion is that you shouldn't reserve judgement on a movie based on how future sequels that don't actually exist yet might make sense out of something. That's just...nonsense. Of all the movie's failings, I think making Rey to be a mystery is one of the worst mistakes Abrams made. Such an Abramsy thing to do too. This man just has some sort of obsession over casting a veil on shit that didn't need to have any veils cast on them. It does the narrative no favors, so I can only assume he does this shit to artificially create discourse. People are gonna be talking about Rey theories until Episode VIII comes along, after all.
A quick and simple mention if Rey's origins would do away with many complaints lobbied at her as a character, like the little moment where Obi-Wan talks about Luke's father. It was succinct and direct. As of right now she's simply mysteriously and inexplicably powerful with the force.
Correct, but the intend was for it to work for the heel. They did all that so they can make sure Kylo Ren gets taken seriously for the sequels. Rey could of "won" the fight against a non-injured Kylo Ren by just damaging him when no one else could and it would of been much more effective for both their characters.
I agree with both sides here, I don't think Rey is overpowered but I think Ren is an atrociously written villain.
The biggest issue here is Abrams' sheer unwillingness to allow characters to naturally grow.
Every moment has to be a big moment fraught with all sorts of significance. That is fine and well, but it leaves us without a lot of connective tissue.
So we end up with a scene wherein Rey goes from being almost contemptuously dominated in combat by Ren to almost the opposite. If instead the flow of combat had been much more gradual, and less based a specific 'moment', I think we would see significantly less complaints.
As for the term itself, I think it is fine until you want to engage in some sort of meaningful conversation. Then it--like many catch-alls--becomes disruptive to conversation.
Every moment has to be a big moment fraught with all sorts of significance. That is fine and well, but it leaves us without a lot of connective tissue.
So we end up with a scene wherein Rey goes from being almost contemptuously dominated in combat by Ren to almost the opposite. If instead the flow of combat had been much more gradual, and less based a specific 'moment', I think we would see significantly less complaints.
As for the term itself, I think it is fine until you want to engage in some sort of meaningful conversation. Then it--like many catch-alls--becomes disruptive to conversation.
I have a fun theory (IMO):
Rey is essentially a slave on a desert planet; she has a mysterious backstory that even she seems to only have fuzzy memories of.
Who else in the Star Wars universe was a slave on a desert planet? Anakin Skywalker
Ever read or seen "Boys in Brazil"? It's a story about crazy Natzi's using Hitler DNA to make a bunch of Hitler clones, and then they adopt them out to families that are similar to hitler.. and try to find the ones that grow up the most like him.
Maybe Rey is actually the doing of Snoke; whatever her backstory is, whether she is Luke's daughter and was trained by him and kidnapped by Ben during his raging into Ren, or she's possibly even a clone of Luke or Leia (Leia was the sex slave-like prisoner of some pretty creepy criminals), and whether or not she was mind whiped or otherwise somehow forgot training, or is just super suouped up on midoclorian roids.. wouldn't it be cool if she turned out to be a pawn in Snokes game?
Sent to live a life like Anakin Skywalker in an attempt to create the next Anakin.
Rey is essentially a slave on a desert planet; she has a mysterious backstory that even she seems to only have fuzzy memories of.
Who else in the Star Wars universe was a slave on a desert planet? Anakin Skywalker
Ever read or seen "Boys in Brazil"? It's a story about crazy Natzi's using Hitler DNA to make a bunch of Hitler clones, and then they adopt them out to families that are similar to hitler.. and try to find the ones that grow up the most like him.
Maybe Rey is actually the doing of Snoke; whatever her backstory is, whether she is Luke's daughter and was trained by him and kidnapped by Ben during his raging into Ren, or she's possibly even a clone of Luke or Leia (Leia was the sex slave-like prisoner of some pretty creepy criminals), and whether or not she was mind whiped or otherwise somehow forgot training, or is just super suouped up on midoclorian roids.. wouldn't it be cool if she turned out to be a pawn in Snokes game?
Sent to live a life like Anakin Skywalker in an attempt to create the next Anakin.
Chezzymann
Member
Why is kylo a master swordsman? He's skilled with the force, but the only instance we had of how skilled he is with a lightsaber was at the end. And it seems like he's not all that great. We know that rey is good with combat with her staff, so maybe she's just has more experience with this. Also if anything , Kylo is the one who has to learn and fail right now. His development to the dark side seems to be his arc for this trilogy. I'd imagine he will develop into a powerful sith by episode 9.
Foreground decoration isn't that much better breh
I hope he'll get a better arc in the next episode(s) though.
Finn is part of an army that some time in the previous 3 decades arose from the ashes of the Empire; and he was allegedly assigned to Janitor duty.
Perhaps as a small child he didnt' do well with combat training so they moved him to a more vocational position; but since they are ramping up their attack efforts he's shoved into combat training to be a front line grunt. It seems quite possible that scene with him freaking out and not shooting his weapon was the first live fire he'd ever seen.
Jason Bourne to Rey is a weird as hell comparison. We either knew (or it was implied) Borune had years or secret training to turn him into a trained assassin. As far as we know right now, Rey was abandoned on Jakku as a small child and has worked as a scavenger ever since. The comparison makes no sense.
Poe is barely a character is this movie. There isn't really anything to question because there is nothing there
Poe is barely a character is this movie. There isn't really anything to question because there is nothing there
I like to think that she's like Jason Bourne in that she has had some sort of force training and then something or someone screwed up her memory.
As a side note, I think if folks are having this much discussion on whether or not Rey is a Mary Sue (and she's not), perhaps it wasn't evident enough in the film?
We know for a fact that it was.
heliosRAzi
Banned
And that was the point of the movie: Who is Jason Bourne? By the end of the movie, we knew he was a part of an experimental program for the US government.
That's what I thought they were suggesting with the scenes with them checking his weapon and talking about maybe discliplining him but I wasn't sure I heard right.
Then how does he get the position he gets in? Even if he is barely above average that should still make him far superior to Rey. If there is a better fighter than Kylo Ren or a more powerful entity in the First Order then surely that person would hold his position? Or how do you think the First Order functions? Kylo Ren is not some old politician, he is not a skilled diplomat. Its pretty obvious that his major attribute is his power. People fear him.
How can she be trained in anything half as much as people who were bred to be soldiers? She entered tournaments in the desert to fight sand people from age 4? Am i suppose to seriously believe something like that?
Rey collecting garbage on a desert planet of shit should not ever be comparable to being trained from childhood to be a soldier. It makes the First Order seem completely inept. The villains are completely useless in every way imaginable. Every military custom they have, all the equipment, all the discipline and organization, all of that is for nothing. Just go collect junk and live in a trash can and you will learn more or less the same, if not better. The entire film is thrown under the bus because we gotta rush and make Rey into Luke RoTJ.
You are more than welcome to pretend that Rey has spent her entire life fighting giant monsters and learning the way of the force since she was an infant. And that the First Order merely elected Kylo Ren because of his giant nose, and he is but a bumbling swordsman. But what i see from the movie, is a character forced to take leaps, because the movie requires certain scenes, damn development. Lightsaber duel is far more important than Rey being built up like most protagonists.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Oh that ether._. I definitely agree that we need way more of him and Phasma, he was great in the few scenes he had.Foreground decoration isn't that much better breh
I hope he'll get a better arc in the next episode(s) though.
"But Luke isn't a mary sue at all." >:O
After just learning about the nature of the force.
But you'd never see people complaining about that because they conveniently remember how the force works when it's Luke.
Boring comparison. Right after Luke does this, Han blows it off. "Good against remotes is one thing, good against the living... that's something else."
Nobody calls Luke a Mary Sue because why would they. If we need to encapsulate Luke in one sentence or even one word we already have a term for him "monomyth". And that term can play derisive just as Mary Sue. "Boring" can follow "monomyth" just as it can "Mary Sue".
He actually straight up says the location of the island.
"I see the island with the ocean."
Implying that Rey is either seeing the future or has been there before. She was way more useful than the droid at that point.
"But Luke isn't a mary sue at all." >:O
After just learning about the nature of the force.
But you'd never see people complaining about that because they conveniently remember how the force works when it's Luke.
You laugh, but I have been a pariah amongst my Star Wars friends for years now for arguing that Luke's development into super capable Jedi and pilot is entirely unbelievable.
Of all the things, I really don't understand why was Christie such a big part of the PR tour. It's the equivalent of having one of Vader's minions from ESB sharing interview time with Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford. I really wish someone would ask JJ about this to his face. Maybe he'll end up admitting it was all a big joke/troll.
Hell, he even mentioned she was his favorite new character in the movie months ago. She.oh god please no
JJ needs to drop in and say something like "It was kinda strange how quickly she picked up on all that, wasn't it ; ) #Reymysterio #EpisodeVIII"
SonicMegaDrive
Member
Oh, I don't reserve judgement on the movie in any way. I've already made my mind up that the movie is fine, with or without any explanation of Rey's backstory in future installments. Rey's character has a bit of mystery to it, that much is made clear with the brief flashback snippets we're given. I'm OK with being left in the dark for the time being, that doesn't diminish the movie, at least not as far as I'm concerned.
Let the fans theorize, that's part of the fun of being a fan.
Your post would be better in the spoiler thread, but Rey isn't a slave. She's free to come and go as she pleases, and she also has to look out for her own well-being as the film demonstrates.
The "it's not plausible" arguments just don't fly in a movie series about a magical force that allows people to do incredible things. Arguments about how interesting a character is, sure, but there's no in-universe reason to disbelieve that Rey is capable of the things she accomplishes.
Eh, I don't think they're comparable. Luke is clearly much slower at picking up the Force than Rey. Luke only does a mind trick in the third film, after having trained with two Jedi masters. Rey does a successful mind trick on her third try in the first movie, despite having never trained. This is one reason why people think she's too powerful, and it is legitimate.
I don't mind myself, though. So Rey is much more of a natural at using the Force than Luke was, so what? Not everything has to mirror the original trilogy exactly.
I'd rather she wasn't like Bourne, but I guess it'd retroactively mitigate the showdown in TFA.
The whole Mary Sue discussion is mystifying to me because it should be so blatantly obvious.
The pre-established lore of Star Wars has always been very clear on what it takes to use the Force and be a competent lightsaber duelist. It takes time, training and dedication, and lots of it. Rey has not done anything to earn her proficiency in either.
Now, while I don't care so much about her other traits - flying, fixing things, no real character flaws that dont just make her more sympathetic, etc. - by the end of it, it all does add up and you're left with a very lopsided character that just seems too perfect.
And it's not like I don't like Rey. That couldn't be farther from the truth. She is easily one of my favourite characters in the entire series. I think it's fantastic we have a strong female lead and Daisy Ridley is a gem.
But it should be okay to like something and still be critical of it, and the more I discuss the topic of her being a Mary Sue, the more I get the impression people are being apologists because they don't want to acknowledge that the way she is written can be problematic in a storytelling sense.
igordennis
Member
Small correction, i think the way those lines go is like this:
Talks about how she cant sleep
"You imagine an ocean"
"I see the island"
Not sure if this is word for word how it is but they are separate phrases im pretty sure. Veelk mentioned that this could also be indicating Rey's incredible potential (ocean) and Ren's loneliness (island).
I really dont think its about her seeing he future.
I know she's not a slave; she essentially is with the way her life plays out on the planet. She works all day for barely enough to eat. Being in the wrong thread duly noted though lol.
It's totally unclear that she could come and go. Girl can't even earn herself a full day's rations. We don't even see a Mos Eisley-esque space port at which she might sign in to a ship's crew.
We get more info about Bourne's background and quicker than we do for Rey. SonicMegaDrive has an interesting and plausible hypothesis but we can't test it until more movies are out. Maybe after this new trilogy is complete we can have a better comparison?
'Mary Sue' is juvenile and outdated. But I do think Rey is a shallow character. Landis may have overreacted in his video but he is right. Movies aren't TV. Abrams 'Mystery Boxing' her past to be filled in at a latter date and maybe explain her power was poor form. In my opinion, anyway.
Again, none of that is in the movie. There's all this foreshadowing for some pay-off we can expect in 2 or 4 years. A ~dark and mysterious past~ does not properly set audience expectations for character nuance. Rey could be the best Jedi in the world who's had her memory wiped, but we don't know that. We can assume she knows about space ships because of the shot of her wearing the helmet but we don't know that. When Luke said:
"It's not impossible. I used to bull's-eye womp rats in my T-sixteen back home. They're not much bigger than two meters."
It was kind of BS, but it gave us an idea about Luke's skill set. So when he hits the Death Star later it isn't some big shock. On top of that, Luke using the force to make that shot is the climax of the film. We are with him as he puts everything on the line for his faith.
Here the force is kind of just... there, I guess? To be used to get out of a tough situation as needed. There's no mystery there anymore. Rey can throw around force powers without any build up or release of tension.
Sculli was dead-on when he said this movie did to the force what the prequels did to lightsabers.
This is all fan-fic tier writing. The movie is slick enough to pull it off, but 'The Force' shouldn't be used as a stand in for character growth and development.
Again, none of that is in the movie. There's all this foreshadowing for some pay-off we can expect in 2 or 4 years. A ~dark and mysterious past~ does not properly set audience expectations for character nuance. Rey could be the best Jedi in the world who's had her memory wiped, but we don't know that. We can assume she knows about space ships because of the shot of her wearing the helmet but we don't know that. When Luke said:
"It's not impossible. I used to bull's-eye womp rats in my T-sixteen back home. They're not much bigger than two meters."
It was kind of BS, but it gave us an idea about Luke's skill set. So when he hits the Death Star later it isn't some big shock. On top of that, Luke using the force to make that shot is the climax of the film. We are with him as he puts everything on the line for his faith.
Here the force is kind of just... there, I guess? To be used to get out of a tough situation as needed. There's no mystery there anymore. Rey can throw around force powers without any build up or release of tension.
Sculli was dead-on when he said this movie did to the force what the prequels did to lightsabers.
This is all fan-fic tier writing. The movie is slick enough to pull it off, but 'The Force' shouldn't be used as a stand in for character growth and development.
Jason Bourne to Rey is a weird as hell comparison. We either knew (or it was implied) Borune had years or secret training to turn him into a trained assassin. As far as we know right now, Rey was abandoned on Jakku as a small child and has worked as a scavenger ever since. The comparison makes no sense.
Poe is barely a character is this movie. There isn't really anything to question because there is nothing there
But his actor conveys that well. Poe is totally believable. Like everyone else in the main cast. Nobody even questioned him being dead. Just a simple " I ejected. Didn't see you or the ship" or something along those lines.
The One and Done
Member
Damn you Max Landis!!!!!
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
I was poking fun at the notion that a character being good at things makes them a Mary Sue, we're talking about a magical energy that borderline controls your actions when your when you believe in it and allow it to guide you. But with the complaints of Rey you'd think she had done this or something similar.
It's the standard hero's journey but with a gritty space wizard twist.
Black-Wind
Member
I feel like she ... just doesn't match her setting at all.
OK, from what we know she's been abandoned on this junk yard planet sence she was 5 or something, right? She's been living alone and on her own for most of her life ... right? She's been "Waiting" for who ever abandoned her (Luke?) to come back for her ... and she's dirt proof on this sand ball being scammed by some PoS and eating slim bread around a ton of other ass holes, right?
Why is she so smart and polite and patient? Why is she like ... prime "jedi" cut beef who is great at fixing shit and great at flying random shit and can understand all these languages and can master the force in no time? IMO growing up like that should make her crass. She would be non-trusting, a bit wild and not optimistic at all.
But I didn't mind so much, felt more like Finn was the character with a more interesting set up and is far more relatable.
OK, from what we know she's been abandoned on this junk yard planet sence she was 5 or something, right? She's been living alone and on her own for most of her life ... right? She's been "Waiting" for who ever abandoned her (Luke?) to come back for her ... and she's dirt proof on this sand ball being scammed by some PoS and eating slim bread around a ton of other ass holes, right?
Why is she so smart and polite and patient? Why is she like ... prime "jedi" cut beef who is great at fixing shit and great at flying random shit and can understand all these languages and can master the force in no time? IMO growing up like that should make her crass. She would be non-trusting, a bit wild and not optimistic at all.
But I didn't mind so much, felt more like Finn was the character with a more interesting set up and is far more relatable.
No need to upstage Han during his swan song. Dameron got just enough material to establish him as an interesting and charismatic character who can vibe off of the other leads in the future.
LookAtMeGo
Member
Lol, I like Kylo. I think he is bad ass. Finn is pretty bad ass too. I just also think Rey is badass. You are welcome to believe that all Rey did was collect garbage too. She is just miraculously skilled with a staff for no reason at all other than its just bad writing or whatever.
You could still argue that.
The reason people don't is because he's not a lead and we don't know much about him. We know he's an ace pilot and very charismatic, but beyond that there's not much we can say about his character because we just haven't seen enough of him.
He does fit the handsome hero archtype though, even in a supportive capacity, and I've seen some people rip on him for that even though he hasn't done anything yet to deserve it.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
If we're talking about impossible things, lets not forget that Luke hoped into an X-Wing no (or little) training and successfully survived the first Death Star attack while using the force to make an impossible shot.
That handing over BB-8 or not is a decision entirely in her hands pretty clearly rules out her being a slave. Slaves have no real property or claim to anything. We know the SW universe subscribes to that.
The Librarian
Banned
Yes but he's a character that men want to be, so it's OK.
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