Force Awakens Complaining.

[The Romulan Republic]

I get Rey having a knowledge of machines- she works around machines, salvaging technology, all the time.

And I can totally buy her picking up other languages, living on a world with a fairly diverse collection of species living their and freighters passing through, especially if she had a natural talent along those lines.

The piloting skill in a space ship... bit of a stretch, but then, small civilian space ships are treated as almost analogous to cars in Star Wars.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, both Anakin and Luke (who may be her father and grandfather, if some speculations are true) performed startlingly well their first time aboard a hyperspace-capable craft, and were able to pilot starfighters under combat conditions despite only limited prior experience with purely atmospheric vehicles.

The combination of latent Force ability, plus familiarity with existing speeders or flying craft, seems to be enough to make someone a very effective pilot even with limited training.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah.

In the end, I think about the only things about Rey that really seem hard to buy are the mind trick and the vision at Maz's castle. I can accept the rest of it.

[Gandalf]

Why is the vision hard to buy? Maybe the Force decided that Rey needed to see stuff to be prompted onto her journey.

The Force flat out created a guy in the PT, so it's not much of a stretch.

[The Romulan Republic]

I suppose.

It just has no real precedent in any of the other films, a neophyte Force user getting a vision that conveniently awakens their knowledge of the Force and hands them a bunch of exposition.

It feels like a clumsy plot device. Which really is what it is.

[APlayerHater]

... clutters up scenes by adding a superfluous character who will often serve no role...

Named Chewbacca.

You're an imbecile.

Good argument. I know BB8 would be creepy with a human voice, but once again plot convenience trumps logic. Anakin was the most technically savvy Jedi in the movies and couldn't understand droid. And again, wookies aren't common. Once again we see no wookies in jakku or in crowd scenes in maz's bar.

And a lightsaber of all things granting a vision is odd. I guess vader's force ghost is up to something? Trying to manifest through all his stuff? (lightsaber/helmet)

[Simon_Jester]

I suppose.

It just has no real precedent in any of the other films, a neophyte Force user getting a vision that conveniently awakens their knowledge of the Force and hands them a bunch of exposition.

The vision did not give Rey Force powers in itself (she didn't use them to escape capture on that planet, at least not above the latent level). And the vision didn't give Rey useful exposition- Maz did, and she knew that information all along and could have told Rey at any time, if she chose.

All the vision actually did for Rey was provide Maz with reason to believe that Rey was a Force sensitive.

... clutters up scenes by adding a superfluous character who will often serve no role...

Named Chewbacca.

If you aren't aware of the reasons Chewbacca is in the movies, you're just being obtuse, and you aren't enough of an art critic to be qualified to have an opinion.

You're an imbecile.

Good argument. I know BB8 would be creepy with a human voice, but once again plot convenience trumps logic. Anakin was the most technically savvy Jedi in the movies and couldn't understand droid.

Going over dialogue from the Clone Wars TV series suggests that he could- he responds to things R2 says, while not in his starfighter. He wouldn't do that if he had no actual way of knowing what R2 says.

And again, wookies aren't common. Once again we see no wookies in jakku or in crowd scenes in maz's bar.

[/quote]In Maz's bar, we also don't see any toilets; are we to assume they don't exist in Star Wars either? We don't see the cooks; does that mean they don't exist? Do health and safety inspectors automatically not exist because we don't see them?

On Jakku we don't see a lot of things and a lot of kinds of aliens who in canon exist; that doesn't mean there are literally none of them on the planet. It is certainly an improbable coincidence that Rey would have gotten to know a Wookiee, but it is very far from impossible, and Force-fueled coincidences are such a common feature of Star Wars plotting that it is stupid to dismiss them out of hand. There is an active, at least quasi-sentient Fate manipulating the actions of people in Star Wars, this is a basic elementary fact about the setting and it's pointless to deny it.

[APlayerHater]

Well there's a deleted scene in Recenge Of The Sith where Obi and Ani speculate what R2's beeps could mean. That could be a future precedent for their not understanding if deleted scenes were canon. Otherwise, who knows.

I highly doubt Maz's bar is visited by health and safety inspectors. If Star Wars had any safety inspectors I would think they would have installed some railings somewhere.

[seanrobertson]

Well there's a deleted scene in Recenge Of The Sith where Obi and Ani speculate what R2's beeps could mean. That could be a future precedent for their not understanding if deleted scenes were canon. Otherwise, who knows.

I highly doubt Maz's bar is visited by health and safety inspectors. If Star Wars had any safety inspectors I would think they would have installed some railings somewhere.

The Clone Wars cartoons Simon mentioned are canon, so the deleted scene you're talking about is irrelevant.

And concerning health inspectors at Maz' bar ... are you trolling, or did you just miss the point that badly? Your snarkiness doesn't excuse your hasty generalization fallacy: "We don't see Wookies on Jakku, so Rey never met one before she encountered Chewie."

You honestly don't see the fault in that reasoning? We see two settlements on Jakku, an entire planet, for an in-film span of a few days at most. Rey lived there for well over ten YEARS. That is a tremendous amount of time in which she could have gotten to know a Wookiee scavenger, a Wookiee enforcer, a Wookiee trader -- whatever Hell, she could've picked it up before she was left on Jakku in the first place!

Please, let this point go; of all the allegedly spectacular things Rey did, understanding something Chewbacca said is far from incredible.

[APlayerHater]

I'm just saying it's highly improbable that she would have met or interacted with enough wookies often enough for her to have picked up the wookiee language. Rey's backstory doesn't exist until they write her one. Even now they're probably changing and reworking it constantly. Is she a darth revan scenario? Who knows.

As for the health inspectors thing... Well no. We can't assume health inspectors exist. Especially at a smuggler bar. So it's a bad example. Maybe I'm not taking someone seriously when they feel the need to outright insult me.

Chewbacca's story roll in TFA is to plant bombs and hold the bowcaster. They give his bowcaster more screen time and more personality. Claiming that plot convenience alone is a good reason for Rey's improbable abilities, while calling me "not an art critic" is a bit odd. Everybody chill.

I tried to change the subject to speculating about the lightsaber. Or someone else did and I agreed. Is Vader interfering via his old stuff? If so, why

[Khaat]

Is Vader interfering via his old stuff? If so, why

Anakin is the "Chosen One". The only way they can make the ST not an outright "lol-PT/OT!" is that he's still playing a role in "Bringing Balance to the Force." Otherwise, everything else that we've seen didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Dammit. Which means Rey is his granddaughter.

[APlayerHater]

Though we don't know what, if anything, the helmet might have shown Kylo. I guess it's also possible Snoke could be the one causing these visions, but he likely has no way to be connected to these vader artifacts. Guess he could be Darth Vader's holocron, but apparently he's some kind of alien. I think darth plagues's (sic) species?

[Khaat]

Best guess: the helmet gave Ben nothing/the visions he needed to act out*, drawing the attention of Snoak, so Snoak could be "balanced". Now that Snoak is in play, Rey had to be put in play to be the agent for the "balancing."

*Anakin was repentant and did reconcile at the end of his life, and his helmet was burned after that, so... Snoak (not the helmet of Vader) messed with Ben, and convinced him that "Vader will speak to you when you are worthy!", acting as the driver for Ben to commit atrocities, like wiping out Luke's other students (and murdering his father.)

[Khaat]

Rey received visions from Anakin's lightsabre "imprinted" at a very emotionally-charged time (for both Luke and Anakin), and I could see why Rey wants nothing to do with that. Sure, Luke had trained with the lightsabre on Dagobagh before losing it at Bespin, but Luke's vision in the cave wasn't very friendly, either.

Going by the final scene in TFA, Anakin's led Rey to deliver the lightsaber to Luke to clean up the mess (she was offering it to him, "here's excalibur that lightsabre", not "I'm ready to begin my training, I have my Jedi school supplies.")

[seanrobertson]

Player,

I didn't really see that the health inspector bit was intentionally insulting; regardless, you're taking Simon's example too literally. His point is that we didn't see nearly enough of Jakku, Takodana (and for that matter, wherever she spent her early childhood), et al. to discount the possibility Rey's had prior dealings with Wookiees.

Besides, we're already forcing ourselves into a multifaceted false dilemma by assuming she had to have met one or more Wookiees on Jakku or, indeed, that she had to have met one at all. As I noted, she wasn't born on Jakku; she could have learned some Wookiee on her home planet. (Remember, little kids are much better at language acquisition than adults.) Moreover, she spent a loooong time out salvaging things from old Imperial and Rebel equipment -- stuff that could easily contain a linguistic database that she might've studied in all the downtime she likely had. That way, she could follow Chewie even if he actually was the first Wookiee she met -- or, at least, had seen in a very long time.

Naturally, we won't know more about the girl for a time, but I would rather consider some these possibilities than, say, prefer the film saw Rey repeatedly going, "Huh? What did he just growl about?" Not that you're explicitly suggesting as much, mind you, but something like that would have bugged me more than what we got.

In all fairness, I will concede that this didn't have to be an issue at all. I find it nitpicking, but Player is far from the only netizen who found fault with it. When Finn asked Rey, "You understand that thing?", a throwaway line like, "I have met Wookiees" would've been fine. JJ, on the other hand, was more interested in Han shooting back, "That 'thing' understands you, too," which was a helluva lot funnier and in-keeping with the movie's fast pace. (Aside: apart from the boring Starkiller, the pacing was my only real gripe with TFA. At times I wanted them to slow down! Appropriately, I enjoyed some of the expository scenes most, like when Han was talking about the Jedi and the Force.)

[APlayerHater]

You're an imbecile.

Good argument. [/quotet]

It was more this conversation I was commenting on.

I complain about chewie because chewie, R2 and 3PO seemed like completely different characters. Chewie was just and action sasquatch. C3PO sounded like he had dementia. And R2 could barelyy move it seems like. I know the actors are old, and we really didn't have time for them. But, eh... Saw C3PO and I was like "hey it's 3PO" and then he just sounds like he has alzelheimers(sic). Kenny baker seems like he could barely move the suit, so R2 just felt like an R2D2 themed trashcan sitting in the corner, and I know chewie had a new stunt/standing up without a cane man, so maybe that colored my perceptions.

I dunno. Just felt a little odd. Maybe I didn't realize just how old everyone was.

[seanrobertson]

FWIW, all, I just checked the Wookiepedia, and it turns out that Rey did deal with a pair of the hairy kind whilst she lived on Jakku. I cannot speak to the source of this information, but it is supposedly part of the current canon .

[APlayerHater]

Fine. Fine. Still veeeeeery convenient, but an explanation at least.

[The Romulan Republic]

Another thing, which came up on the preceding page, is that her ability with the Force could have aided her. Again, their is some precedent for a Force user being remarkably gifted with languages (though I'm not sure if it was the Force that made them so), even if its no longer canon. Remember Revan in Knights of the Old Republic?

Actually, weather intentionally or not, I think TFA took a lot from KotOR. You can draw parallels between the Starkiller Base and the Starforge. Finding the pieces of a star map scattered around the galaxy to locate the key to victory being a major part of the plot. A protagonist who doesn't remember their past and rapidly acquires Force abilities as an adult (and also has a gift with languages, apparently). I recall some people even saying Kylo looked like Revan in his mask, and I can see it, vaguely.

Definitely was a KotOR fan or two working on this film, I think.

[APlayerHater]

Yeah we'd mentioned how Revan apparently copied knowledge of the rakata language from the rakata's brains via the force in KOTOR. And how Rey possibly had the training/mindwipe backstory as per the fan theory.

But jedi mind tricks don't work on droids. On the other hand- Revan spoke droid also. But I didn't think Revan was canon anymore so I didn't mention.

When I saw starkiller base I was just like: "Great... Another deathstar. Shame on you, movie" and then I think 4 -sh planets blew up. Oh JJ.

[Simon_Jester]

Is Vader interfering via his old stuff? If so, why

Anakin is the "Chosen One". The only way they can make the ST not an outright "lol-PT/OT!" is that he's still playing a role in "Bringing Balance to the Force." Otherwise, everything else that we've seen didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Dammit. Which means Rey is his granddaughter.

Oh, I don't know. Maybe Anakin has done enough. It's clear that literally everything going on now is a direct or indirect consequence of his legacy; it's the galaxy Anakin built, both by breaking down the old order and by permitting the new Jedi order to be born by saving Luke, and then having this new Jedi system be in turn destroyed by one of his descendants who is obsessed with living up to his legacy.

[Patroklos]

- Luke and Han kill over a dozen Stormtroopers between them, so I have no idea what you're on about. Luke in particular is a dead eye shot with a blaster and has no convincing justiifcation for being one apart from being Force sensitive. Somehow, no one complains.

Do you think the average backwoods farm boy in the Ozarks has issues operating your standard configuration firearm? Nope? Well then you have your answer.

I would have extended the same logic to Rey after growing up in a rough and tumble scavenger town and a blaster pistol but the movie makes a point to tell/show us she has zero experience with blasters. And its not the safety thing. Lots of firearms don't have safeties or have them in sometimes odd places which might lead to even someone familiar with firearms to mess that up. Its how her interacts with characters regarding blasters.

[Simon_Jester]

Rey doesn't shoot through as many stormtroopers as Luke did, as far as I can remember- so the fact that she has less experience with blasters doesn't strike me as problematic.

[Terralthra]

Rey misses a bunch with the blaster Han gives her, and I don't think she even fires the carbine Daniel Craig dropped.

[Elheru Aran]

She seems to have an aversion to weapons in general; she didn't want to take the blaster from Han and initially wasn't interested in taking the lightsaber either. IIRC the general theory is that this is from trauma caused by witnessing Kylo Ren's massacre of the Jedi.