Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

[Kojiro]

By the end of TFA, Rey is so good with the force that it makes you wonder why did she need to find Luke for training?

The real problem here is that Rey is already better than her adversary, who has at least 10 years on her. Whatever training Kylo has to go to 'finish' it can't be that much. Rey conversely has everything to learn. By rights their next engagement should be even more one sided.

[Captain Seafort]

The real problem here is that Rey is already better than her adversary, who has at least 10 years on her. Whatever training Kylo has to go to 'finish' it can't be that much. Rey conversely has everything to learn. By rights their next engagement should be even more one sided.

Why? Ren was suffering from emotional turmoil and the after-effects of a direct hit from a bowcaster (albeit mitigated by his armour). He was also being cocky and underestimated both Finn and Rey. None of these circumstances are likely to be repeatable.

[Vympel]

Why? Ren was suffering from emotional turmoil and the after-effects of a direct hit from a bowcaster (albeit mitigated by his armour). He was also being cocky and underestimated both Finn and Rey. None of these circumstances are likely to be repeatable.

Let's note once more that when Obi-Wan copped a wound far less than what Kylo Ren did, he collapsed in a heap and Anakin had to save him from getting gutted by Dooku. Kylo took both the bowcaster shot and Finn's lightsabre attack and barely had to take a knee. He's got immense fortitude.

[Lord Revan]

there's also a thing called beginner's luck, since it's blindly obvious to anyone who has seen the film that Kylo Ren is not good at controlling his emotions (to put mildly), it's possible that the combination of his wounds and Rey suddenly being a tougher opponent then before made confused enough that rey was able to score a victory dispite being less skillful and had Kylo Ren been more in control of himself the fight had been more like Luke Vs Vader from Empire Strikes Back (with Rey taking Luke's role obviously)

[ray245]

Yeah, but to the extend Rey has? She's so immensely powerful with the force that she's far more power than Anakin. Unless they are willingly to turn her towards the dark side in the next movie, they have to start explaining to the audience why she can't be kicking everyone's ass again.

Look at how long it took for Luke to trust in the force. Rey can do what Luke did in a matter of days. Rey is portrayed well by Ridley, but her character is actually poorly written.

[Crazedwraith]

Speaking of the final fight, what do we think Kylo Ren patting his bowcaster would was all about? was he trying to stem in blood by pressing is armour against it? Or was he causing himself pain to fuel his anger and dark side powers?

[Prannon]

Speaking of the final fight, what do we think Kylo Ren patting his bowcaster would was all about? was he trying to stem in blood by pressing is armour against it? Or was he causing himself pain to fuel his anger and dark side powers?

I figured it was the latter. I haven't seen the film in a few weeks, but I seem to recall that he was... not all there during that confrontation. He was wounded, losing blood (they emphasized blood in the snow in one of the shots), and had something of a crazed look in his eye. So he put himself in pain to fuel his dark sided rage since that was the only thing keeping him on his feet.

[Channel72]

By the end of TFA, Rey is so good with the force that it makes you wonder why did she need to find Luke for training?

Rey is hardly better than her adversary. This complaint is so ridiculously over-stated. She barely holds her own against a badly wounded Kylo Ren, and only makes a last minute comeback. It's like, I might have a small chance of beating LeBron James at basketball ... if I first shot him in the gut before we started.

Anyway, if anything TFA is way more subtle about force usage than anything in the Prequels. Or did you guys forget that Anakin has almost literal Superman like abilities by Ep2?

[ray245]

By the end of TFA, Rey is so good with the force that it makes you wonder why did she need to find Luke for training?

Rey is hardly better than her adversary. This complaint is so ridiculously over-stated. She barely holds her own against a badly wounded Kylo Ren, and only makes a last minute comeback. It's like, I might have a small chance of beating LeBron James at basketball ... if I first shot him in the gut before we started.

Note, it doesn't matter whether she manage to beat Ren. She can use telekinesis instantly when it took Luke a while to master learn the very basic of what the force could do. Same in regards with her insane flying skills ( which seems much better than Luke and Anakin).

Anyway, if anything TFA is way more subtle about force usage than anything in the Prequels. Or did you guys forget that Anakin has almost literal Superman like abilities by Ep2?

Subtle not in terms of abilities, but in terms of how much the force could directly influence things. Anakin even with his abilities could not achieve an instant-win against Dooku with the force. In TFA, drawing upon the force gives you an instant-kill or an instant-win, like some silly video game.

Why? Ren was suffering from emotional turmoil and the after-effects of a direct hit from a bowcaster (albeit mitigated by his armour). He was also being cocky and underestimated both Finn and Rey. None of these circumstances are likely to be repeatable.

Let's note once more that when Obi-Wan copped a wound far less than what Kylo Ren did, he collapsed in a heap and Anakin had to save him from getting gutted by Dooku. Kylo took both the bowcaster shot and Finn's lightsabre attack and barely had to take a knee. He's got immense fortitude.

Darksiders have been known to have insane durability. Darth Maul survived after being cut into half, so surviving after getting shot isn't that big of a deal.

[Crazedwraith]

Why? Ren was suffering from emotional turmoil and the after-effects of a direct hit from a bowcaster (albeit mitigated by his armour). He was also being cocky and underestimated both Finn and Rey. None of these circumstances are likely to be repeatable.

Let's note once more that when Obi-Wan copped a wound far less than what Kylo Ren did, he collapsed in a heap and Anakin had to save him from getting gutted by Dooku. Kylo took both the bowcaster shot and Finn's lightsabre attack and barely had to take a knee. He's got immense fortitude.

Though I mostly credit this to the lightsabres in TFA showing really crappy performance all round. I can't imagine anyway survive that backslash Fin got. And he should not have been able to use that Arm when he got the hilt shoved into his shoulder.

[Knife]

Note, it doesn't matter whether she manage to beat Ren. She can use telekinesis instantly when it took Luke a while to master learn the very basic of what the force could do. Same in regards with her insane flying skills ( which seems much better than Luke and Anakin).

Luke had what, a day and a half training by Ben before Ben died, a couple ghost lessons, and then could pull his lightsaber from the snows in Hoth. It's not like Luke had much more training than Luke. Luke almost immediately showed Force powers with the floating laser ball on the Falcon with just some simple instruction by Ben. Rey, in a dire and life and death situation, was able to burst out some Force as well.

[Mad]

Note, it doesn't matter whether she manage to beat Ren. She can use telekinesis instantly when it took Luke a while to master learn the very basic of what the force could do.

Luke instantly started blocking bolts perfectly from a training droid as soon as he was blindfolded. (Precognition-augmented reflexes, the same thing Anakin was doing when he was completely untrained.)

Same in regards with her insane flying skills ( which seems much better than Luke and Anakin).

Huh? Anakin was the only human who could podrace. Her flying through the SSD wreckage wasn't as impressive as Lando flying through the DS2, as Rey had more clearance and Lando had to travel much, much further.

And how was Rey's one-shot Force-assisted maneuver any different from Luke blindly blocking training bolts? They both involved an untrained Force sensitive using precog to react to something they couldn't see.

Subtle not in terms of abilities, but in terms of how much the force could directly influence things. Anakin even with his abilities could not achieve an instant-win against Dooku with the force. In TFA, drawing upon the force gives you an instant-kill or an instant-win, like some silly video game.

Yeah, drawing on the Dark Side is never an instant win. That's why Obi-Wan was killed fighting Darth Maul and why Darth Vader killed Luke at the Battle of Endor.

Rey just did the same thing Obi-Wan and Luke did. The advantage Rey had was that her opponent was already wounded, which helped make up for her lack of training. (And, anyway, where did Luke get lightsaber training? He had no business pushing back the lightsaber-wielding juggernaut that was Darth Vader. And, yet, he did and nobody seems to have a problem with that.)

Darksiders have been known to have insane durability. Darth Maul survived after being cut into half, so surviving after getting shot isn't that big of a deal.

Surviving isn't the same thing as being in optimal or even good fighting shape. As extreme examples, neither Maul nor Vader were in fighting condition immediately after being sliced up by Obi-Wan's lightsaber, despite surviving.

[Mad]

Scratch the part on Obi-Wan defeating Maul using the Dark Side, though. He had an advantage for a bit but it wasn't how he won. i misremembered (and the edit window seems to have passed).

[Kojiro]

Why? Ren was suffering from emotional turmoil and the after-effects of a direct hit from a bowcaster (albeit mitigated by his armour). He was also being cocky and underestimated both Finn and Rey. None of these circumstances are likely to be repeatable.

There's a ton to pull apart here.

Let's start first with the bowcaster hit. We are shown repeatedly what happens when you get hit with a bowcaster directly.

What happened to Ren was a glancing side hit. We can see this because a) it's where he's pounding on the wound b) the blood is dripping on his side, not down his front c) if you actually watch it again it looks like he got hit in the side.



Lastly if he'd been hit center mass he'd have gone flying like a rag doll. He did not go flying, ergo he didn't receive as much energy as the targets we see hit directly. Either that or he's significantly heavier than he looks.

Let's not forget that despite that wound, he was able to not only catch up to Finn and Rey, but get out ahead of them to cut them off. Hardly the kind of thing someone suffering a serious wound would be able to do.

But if we're going to discuss physical condition going into the fight, let's not forget Rey.

That to me looks like a pretty nasty impact. Assuming the force push doesn't hurt her at all, she's hitting a tree pretty damn hard there and taking a pretty decent fall, which she seems to land pretty heavily. If she had broken ribs or fractured limbs I would be wholly unsurprisied. She doesn't display any of these symptoms, but then Ren doesn't display any handicap from his bowcaster hit either. What she does display is being knocked out and blurred vision, which by any estimation is a concussion. Being concussed like that can affect pretty much everything, hearing, vision, balance, reflexes and most certainly- which may be relevant for a force user- your ability to focus. Given it knocked her out and blurred her vision rather than just dazed her it's got to be a reasonably serious concussion at that.

As to emotional turmoil, yes, I wholly concede that Ren was suffering that. But stop for a minute and think about Rey, because the last few days haven't exactly been awesome for her. She's been forced to abandon a place she's strongly against leaving- under fire from TIE fighters and stormtroopers no less. That experience alone would be terrifying. But then she goes on to face the monsters on Han's ship and nearly lose Finn. She then has to experience combat again, against stormtroopers no less, and ends up facing Ren. She gets toyed with, hunted down and finally has her bodily integrity compromised, followed by her mind invaded. And of course captured by the First Order- terrifying in anyone's book.

Have we established her emotional state may not be all that good right now? Because after that she's interrogated, mentally invaded again and when she gets free she has to creep around a base for a few hours, one accidental noise away from capture or being blasted. If I were her, I'd be freaking out right now. But it doesn't stop there. Next she gets to watch her father figure/mentor cut down in front of her. Then she gets smashed into a tree and wakes up just in time to see her only friend in the world Finn cop what would certainly appear to be a fatal blow. And of course maybe she's just a *tiny* bit scared of Ren. I mean, last time she fought him he basically locked up her body with TK and then knocked her out by waving his hand at her. She must be super confident going into that fight. So yeah, Kylo Ren is emotionally unstable but Rey can't possibly be in that great a shape herself.

As to the underestimating, that's odd because he outright says she's strong in the force and he's already lost to her twice that this point. He didn't go in thinking he was better and it turned out she was, he actually was better. He fights Rey mostly 1 handed, pushing her back again and again until she hits the precipice. He is 100% in control of the fight. Then, in what felt to me like someone reminding an RPG player 'Oh you have this ability' Rey hits the I win button and the whole thing is reversed.

She realises 'Oh fuck I can just use the Force!' and boom! Instantly she goes from retreating and being pushed back to whooping Ren's ass. This is the third time we've seen her draw on the Force, opposed by Ren and Ren loses. He loses the mind probe, he loses the force pull on the saber and now he's losing this battle. The implication is clear- Rey is stronger in the force than he is. Not just stronger but more capable. Shit, just compare her first saber pull to Luke's. She's insanely strong. It's like she just gets +5 to all stats or something because a moment ago she was running for her life and now she's in total control.

And that's a problem because the next time they meet, she'll be trained and she'll start off at least that powerful. That's the benchmark Ren has to meet just to stand a chance. Because once she used the Force, it wasn't a fight. It's not even close. He gets off two attacks, one of which is a flailing defensive swipe that comes nowhere near her. The rest is just a barrage from her that ends up with him disarmed, wounded and lying on his ass. He's saved only by the fissure.

TLDR: The reversal where Rey goes from losing badly to winning massively implies her completely untrained force powers are insanely strong.

Sorry for the long post.

[SCRawl]

(And, anyway, where did Luke get lightsaber training? He had no business pushing back the lightsaber-wielding juggernaut that was Darth Vader. And, yet, he did and nobody seems to have a problem with that.)

I'm just going to pick at this particular nit.

In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke is in no way a match for Vader. Vader's entire purpose in that film was to try and capture Luke, ideally undamaged. If Vader wanted Luke dead, Luke would have been dead within a few seconds of their first meeting. Only when Luke managed to get in a strike on Vader's armoured shoulder piece did Vader resort to Plan C and remove Luke's ability to fight back.

In Return of the Jedi, Luke is clearly a more seasoned and prepared combatant, but Vader is also quite conflicted. He was clearly on the receiving end of most of the punishment early in the fight, but to me his heart never really seemed to be in it. Luke was his ticket to getting out from under the Emperor, after all, so killing him isn't really in his best interests. It takes a fit of rage on Luke's part -- perhaps tapping into the Dark Side -- to overcome Vader's defences.

Would Luke, at the top of his game as we've seen him so far, without the benefit of tapping the Dark Side, be able to take on Vader if both are trying with full vigor? My money is on "no", but it's still a matter of discussion.

[Mad]

In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke is in no way a match for Vader. Vader's entire purpose in that film was to try and capture Luke, ideally undamaged. If Vader wanted Luke dead, Luke would have been dead within a few seconds of their first meeting. Only when Luke managed to get in a strike on Vader's armoured shoulder piece did Vader resort to Plan C and remove Luke's ability to fight back.

Agreed. Luke had no lightsaber training, either. Vader was toying with him. At the start of the fight, Vader is batting away Luke's flailing attempts all the while holding his weapon one-handed. Vader doesn't even hold his weapon properly until Luke proves that he presents anything remotely resembling a threat.

In Return of the Jedi, Luke is clearly a more seasoned and prepared combatant,

Seasoned from what, exactly? Vader has had years of lightsaber training (including, potentially, from some of the best, like Mace Windu), and fought and defeated a number of accomplished lightsaber duelists. The Jedi that defeated him, Obi-Wan, also had proven his own prowess with lightsaber combat.

Luke's onscreen lightsaber training consisted of briefly blocking blaster bolts from a training droid. if he did receive any lightsaber combat training from Yoda, it was offscreen. But even then he wasn't a threat to Vader. After that, he has no further opportunity to receive lightsaber training from a Jedi. He goes back to Dagobah but Yoda promptly dies without giving him any additional training. Then Luke goes on to hold his own against Vader.

The fact that he can hold his own at this point is impressive enough. But, how did that happen? An untrained boy against one of the best there ever was?

but Vader is also quite conflicted. He was clearly on the receiving end of most of the punishment early in the fight, but to me his heart never really seemed to be in it. Luke was his ticket to getting out from under the Emperor, after all, so killing him isn't really in his best interests.

Then it should be a stalemate. I highly doubt Vader had ever faced anyone with less lightsaber training than Luke. And with the majority of Vader's movements being done by prosthetics, Vader shouldn't even tire out. He should be able to fend Luke off indefinitely.

BTW, from the TFA novelization regarding Kylo after killing Han: "Following through on the act ought to have made him stronger, a part of him believed. Instead, he found himself weakened."

Kylo also knows more about Rey than we know. "It is you," he says (emphasis in the novel itself). And he has a desire, for whatever reason (potentially related to what he knows) he wishes to train her instead of kill her. He is quite conflicted. And also injured.

It takes a fit of rage on Luke's part -- perhaps tapping into the Dark Side -- to overcome Vader's defences.

That's the accepted explanation, to my knowledge. Rey did the same thing against Kylo.

Would Luke, at the top of his game as we've seen him so far, without the benefit of tapping the Dark Side, be able to take on Vader if both are trying with full vigor? My money is on "no", but it's still a matter of discussion.

What is there to discuss? If Vader wanted Luke dead, then Luke should be dead.

We know Anakin's combat background. He's one of the best. A powerhouse. There were very few who could ever hold their own against him. Even Dooku fell. He is accomplished. There's no way around this.

We don't know Kylo's combat background. It's likely not traditional simply due to his lightsaber style (broadsword instead of a traditional two-handed lightsaber). There's a lot of wiggle room when it comes to figuring out what he's actually capable of.

We don't know Luke's melee combat background. We've never seen him receive any meaningful training, or show any meaningful skill in melee weapons except with the lightsaber. He's unable to fend off Sandpeople in melee combat in ANH.

We know Rey at least has some melee experience. She's able to use a staff to fend off some unarmed attackers, which is more than Luke ever did.

My main point here is that, from what was actually know (and not what we assume after the fact), the Luke vs Vader matchup should be much more one-sided than the Rey vs Kylo matchup.

[Lord Revan]

Just how powerful is Kylo Ren really, nothing besides stopping the blaster bolt mid air was more impressive then in previous canon, while they were more show offy (if that's even a word). have you ever considered that maybe just maybe Kylo Ren is showing off with stopping the Blaster Bolt stopping, while other prefer blocking them with lightsabers even they're in theory capable of stopping a bolt (which btw is all Kylo Ren stops) they might not be able to stop a dozen bolts so it's more practical to focus learning how to stop dozen bolts effectively then to try to learn to stop a bolt using the force.

This is totally within Kylo Ren's character, with the desperate need to prove how powerful he (and by extension the dark side) is, so obviously he'd go for the impressive looking but impractical forms rather then the boring but practical forms of Force use.

That could explain what the training Kylo Ren still needs is, it's so that he understands that flashy=better and that sometimes a more sudtle use of the Force is the more effective one.

[Channel72]

What is there to discuss? If Vader wanted Luke dead, then Luke should be dead.

Yeah really. The complaints about Rey beating Kylo, or Rey learning stuff too fast are entirely overstated. All these complaints apply equally or moreso to Luke.

Luke immediately is able to deflect blaster bolts 3 seconds after picking up a lightsaber. He uses telekenesis in ESB with no (or minimal) formal training. And then he beats Vader in ROTJ after like a 3 day "Jedi seminar" with Yoda. I mean, please.

The fact is, nobody complains about Luke's skills because we're all simply used to it. We just accept he's a hero on a hero's journey. And compared to Luke, Rey isn't even really that impressive. Things like the lightsaber telekenesis are probably just "intuitive" use of the Force - which both Luke and Rey were able to do untrained. As for beating Kylo Ren... so what? He was badly wounded, and not really even trying to kill her. Meanwhile, Luke somehow beat the greatest Sith ever in lightsaber combat, with almost zero formal training.

The point is, both Luke and Rey are implausibly quick learners - unless we simply accept that a lot of basic Force usage is simply intuitive, and doesn't necessarily require much formal training. The difference is, everyone is willing to go out of their way to make up excuses for Luke, but won't do the same for Rey because she's part of a new story which hasn't been brewing around in our collective consciousness for 30+ years.

[Patroklos]

Luke's onscreen lightsaber training consisted of briefly blocking blaster bolts from a training droid. if he did receive any lightsaber combat training from Yoda, it was offscreen. But even then he wasn't a threat to Vader. After that, he has no further opportunity to receive lightsaber training from a Jedi. He goes back to Dagobah but Yoda promptly dies without giving him any additional training. Then Luke goes on to hold his own against Vader.

The fact that he can hold his own at this point is impressive enough. But, how did that happen? An untrained boy against one of the best there ever was?

I don't think we ever see Luke hold his own, but rather we see Vader either play with Luke or sort of just give into Luke's rage.

Whatever Luke's skill level he has three years of in universe time to work on it roughly from start to end of the OT. Maybe he found and studied under some regular swordsman and then improvised the rest. Perhaps he just watched youtube videos. Whatever the reason we see him go from noob to sort of competent over a long time period and that is a far more believable talent arc than we see in TFA. We don't actually see him use the thing as a weapon until 20 minutes into ESB and that is just him wildly hacking away at a reaching arm, not a sword fight. The first time Luke uses his lightsaber competently in a way I wouldn't expect anyone else to be able to is during the escape from Jabba's pleasure barge, two and a half movies into his character arc.

With Rey its sort of like if John McClane had been a shoe salesman instead of a cop. Yeah, a cop really shouldn't be able to do what we see him do either, but a cop is a hell of a lot more to work with.

Then it should be a stalemate. I highly doubt Vader had ever faced anyone with less lightsaber training than Luke. And with the majority of Vader's movements being done by prosthetics, Vader shouldn't even tire out. He should be able to fend Luke off indefinitely.

There is also the question of who Vader's had around to keep his skills up since the fall of the Republic. I am sure the EU will fill that in but its not like Vader has a lot of force vs force hours logged so to speak since then.

BTW, from the TFA novelization regarding Kylo after killing Han: "Following through on the act ought to have made him stronger, a part of him believed. Instead, he found himself weakened."

That's the accepted explanation, to my knowledge. Rey did the same thing against Kylo.

Again, it takes Luke three movies to get to that point and his rage takes place during epic events triggered by facing his villain father, rebuking the Emperor, and a threat to his sister. Rey has nothing to inspire Sith destroying rage except fear for her own life. It wasn't Finn, she saw that before the fight started and it didn't inspire it. It appears only after Ren is about to best her.

We just accept he's a hero on a hero's journey. And compared to Luke, Rey isn't even really that impressive. Things like the lightsaber telekenesis are probably just "intuitive" use of the Force - which both Luke and Rey were able to do untrained.

Except your own training drone example disproves this. Beating that drone was NOT intuitive to Luke as we see him try on his own and fail several times. It is only when under further instruction, and god knows what Obi could have been doing to help in that scene, that we see Luke able to tap into the force and we can visually see him actively trying to channel it. Just like on the DS attack, where in both instances of him using the force he has to be specifically directed to do so in the moment rather than just calling on it by himself and again it was not some background thing but we actually see him meditate/commune/whatever to actually do it.

[Mad]

I don't think we ever see Luke hold his own, but rather we see Vader either play with Luke or sort of just give into Luke's rage.

Luke was holding his own in RotJ. Vader wasn't obviously toying with him the way he was at the start of the fight on Bespin. Unless you want to speculate?

Whatever Luke's skill level he has three years of in universe time to work on it roughly from start to end of the OT. Maybe he found and studied under some regular swordsman and then improvised the rest. Perhaps he just watched youtube videos. Whatever the reason we see him go from noob to sort of competent over a long time period and that is a far more believable talent arc than we see in TFA. We don't actually see him use the thing as a weapon until 20 minutes into ESB and that is just him wildly hacking away at a reaching arm, not a sword fight. The first time Luke uses his lightsaber competently in a way I wouldn't expect anyone else to be able to is during the escape from Jabba's pleasure barge, two and a half movies into his character arc.

We see Luke have exactly zero melee experience. The only time we see him get anything close to melee experience is when Vader toys with him on Bespin. Anything else else speculation. But you give him the benefit of the doubt. You try to come up with things we're never shown.

On the other hand, we are shown that Rey had melee experience when she defends herself from the unarmed assailants on Jakku. There is no speculation: she has done this before. But you don't give her the benefit of the doubt when she fights Kylo Ren. You are unwilling to come up with things we aren't shown, and even try to ignore that which we are directly shown.

This is simply a double standard.

There is also the question of who Vader's had around to keep his skills up since the fall of the Republic. I am sure the EU will fill that in but its not like Vader has a lot of force vs force hours logged so to speak since then.

Speculation. As stated in the films, Darth Vader hunted down the remaining Jedi Knights. How long did that take? We don't know.

Again, it takes Luke three movies to get to that point and his rage takes place during epic events triggered by facing his villain father, rebuking the Emperor, and a threat to his sister. Rey has nothing to inspire Sith destroying rage except fear for her own life. It wasn't Finn, she saw that before the fight started and it didn't inspire it. It appears only after Ren is about to best her.

You were left on a planet all by yourself. The only people who were nice to you are either dead or dying. Some creep acts like he knows more about you than you do. This isn't, on some level, rage-inducing? Yeah, maybe it's not quite as personal as it was for Luke or Obi-Wan, but there's still plenty of rage to go around here, and Kylo Ren already isn't in the best of shape himself.

Except your own training drone example disproves this. Beating that drone was NOT intuitive to Luke as we see him try on his own and fail several times. It is only when under further instruction, and god knows what Obi could have been doing to help in that scene, that we see Luke able to tap into the force and we can visually see him actively trying to channel it. Just like on the DS attack, where in both instances of him using the force he has to be specifically directed to do so in the moment rather than just calling on it by himself and again it was not some background thing but we actually see him meditate/commune/whatever to actually do it.

It was intuitive to Anakin. Anakin did it with no training whatsoever, and at an earlier age.

[Channel72]

We just accept he's a hero on a hero's journey. And compared to Luke, Rey isn't even really that impressive. Things like the lightsaber telekenesis are probably just "intuitive" use of the Force - which both Luke and Rey were able to do untrained.

Except your own training drone example disproves this. Beating that drone was NOT intuitive to Luke as we see him try on his own and fail several times. It is only when under further instruction, and god knows what Obi could have been doing to help in that scene, that we see Luke able to tap into the force and we can visually see him actively trying to channel it. Just like on the DS attack, where in both instances of him using the force he has to be specifically directed to do so in the moment rather than just calling on it by himself and again it was not some background thing but we actually see him meditate/commune/whatever to actually do it.

Eh... sort of. Luke deflects a series of blaster bolts after like... what? A brief nudge from Obi Wan? He was able to do it when he put on the blaster helmet and stopped relying on his vision, meaning that he sort of just intuitively used the force. Rey does something similar when she pulls the move with the Falcon - she can't see what's going on and is forced to sort of just rely on intuition to pull off that move where she aligns Finn's gun. It's really more or less the same thing.

I can appreciate the point that Luke at least had a mentor around to point him in the right direction. But Obi Wan barely gave Luke any practical training. He mostly just informed him about the existence of the Force, and showed him a useful trick (rely on intuition over vision). Rey didn't have an Obi Wan figure around, but instead she sort of just intuitively picked up on basic Force usage through interacting with Ren. I can grant that having a mentor figure in the script definitely helps with plausibility - but like, given how little Obi Wan actually did, it only barely helps differentiate Luke and Rey. Like, how did Luke even know telekenesis would be possible when he tried to summon the lightsaber in ESB? He obviously just somehow intuitively knew. At least Rey intellectually knew what the Force could do, since Ren used it on her many times.

I mean, the OT clearly shows us that a lot of basic Force usage is about feelings and intuition. The difference is Luke had Obi Wan nudging him along, whereas Rey was forced to rely on intuition and feeling by her circumstance.

[Patroklos]

Luke was holding his own in RotJ. Vader wasn't obviously toying with him the way he was at the start of the fight on Bespin. Unless you want to speculate?

I don't actually see Vader fight back in ROTJ when Luke goes all rage on him. My interpretation of that scene is that Vader is as much defeated by facing and cowering before Luke's near dark side rage rather than anything else, and its that power that Luke then conciously decides to shun that gives his decision power.

That may not be intended, but rather bad choreography on the movies part, but Vader just doesn't look like a competent swordsman at that part of the move. Its bothered me for a long time.

We see Luke have exactly zero melee experience. The only time we see him get anything close to melee experience is when Vader toys with him on Bespin. Anything else else speculation. But you give him the benefit of the doubt. You try to come up with things we're never shown.

All true, but irrelevant to my point. My point was there is TIME for an arc when it comes to what we see Luke do. We don't see him train with the light saber, but at least we know he has one in his procession, has been introduced tot he force by Obi Want, and is an active fighter in a military organization with every motivation to develope skills applicable to that.

The character was given room to grow, and we see that even after two movies he is still largely an incompetent.

On the other hand, we are shown that Rey had melee experience when she defends herself from the unarmed assailants on Jakku. There is no speculation: she has done this before. But you don't give her the benefit of the doubt when she fights Kylo Ren. You are unwilling to come up with things we aren't shown, and even try to ignore that which we are directly shown.

We see she has melee skills that are completely irrelevant to the weapon she uses later. A staff is not a sword. A helicopter is not a jet. An arc welder is not a plasma torch. All of those pairs of tools do roughly the same thing as the other, but if I just introduced you to one an hour ago it would be completely useless to you even if you were an expert at the other.

There is no time for Rey to go from staff fighter to sword fighter. There was time for Luke to go from playing with a lightsaber for five minutes to sort of was able to use it like a hatchet.

This is simply a double standard.

Its the exact same standard applied evenly to two different time lines (twently minutes of one movie, 1 and a half feature length movies)

Speculation. As stated in the films, Darth Vader hunted down the remaining Jedi Knights. How long did that take? We don't know.

We don't but Motti lets us know it wasn't anytime recently.

You were left on a planet all by yourself. The only people who were nice to you are either dead or dying. Some creep acts like he knows more about you than you do. This isn't, on some level, rage-inducing? Yeah, maybe it's not quite as personal as it was for Luke or Obi-Wan, but there's still plenty of rage to go around here, and Kylo Ren already isn't in the best of shape himself.

No, honestly, its not. And its not acute either. All the things I mentioned were happening to Luke right then and there in the Throne room. Now, if there was a scene where we have the background you just mentioned and Ren had just said "I forced your parents to abandon you, and I killed them. Thats why they never came back!" or "I know where your parents are, and I am going to cut them down when I am done with you!". Link the a long standing pain of her abandonment to a shocking revelation and a dire threat to overwhelm her all at once. That's drama.

The other issue with Rey in this scene that is different that Luke (and they don't have to be the same, but since we are comparing) is that Rey had zero connection to the rest of the events at this point. Luke knew about the DSII, knew about the Rebel attack, knew about the Endor moon operation and its importance, had been a Rebellion fighter for years and was personally invested in its success or failure. He was connected to all of it the Emperor ticks off the pending destruction of all of those things from a checklist on top of all the force/father/destiny stuff.

Rey, on the other hand, was kidnapped before she had a chance to be incorporated into all of this stuff (obviously she is missing the multi movie buildup for dramatic effect). So again, her rage motivations are quite minimal comared to whats going on with Luke.

It was intuitive to Anakin. Anakin did it with no training whatsoever, and at an earlier age.

True, and the prequels were shit movies in part because of that. Again, living down to the prequels is not helpful in discussing whether TFA is a good movie or not. This is not a continuity discussion, at least not for me. I am reviewing a movie, which is the topic of this thread.

[Kurgan]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abra ... 95598.html

Last week, I wrote two pieces panning Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The first one went viral -- around 100,000 "likes" and more than 12,000 shares at last count -- while the second one, intended in part to clarify the first, was widely read, but less so.
...

Seth Abramson is Series Editor for Best American Experimental Writing and an Assistant Professor of English at University of New Hampshire. His most recent book is Metamericana (BlazeVOX, 2015).

Droid, please. That's not how the Force works!

[Kojiro]

On the other hand, we are shown that Rey had melee experience when she defends herself from the unarmed assailants on Jakku. There is no speculation: she has done this before. But you don't give her the benefit of the doubt when she fights Kylo Ren. You are unwilling to come up with things we aren't shown, and even try to ignore that which we are directly shown.

The problem with that assertion is she spends the first half of that fight blatantly losing and running away. Her skills, such as they are, are not doing jack shit to save her. The force ex machina saves her when she has a moment of realisation, literally sits there and goes '..the force...' closes her eyes and gets an instant fucking power up.

[ray245]

This also undermine the difficulties of mastering the force. The greatest challenge Luke had was learning to let go and trust his feelings.

Letting go isn't supposed to be something easy for any Jedi wannabe to achieve.