Any fan backlash against Rogue One anywhere yet? [SPOILERS]

[ray245]

I've always been of the opinion that it was one of those things Kenobi talked about that the Force will obey your command but sometimes, as Luke said, controls your actions.

That would explain a lot of what Rey did in TFA. Even she was amazed at how deftly she piloted the Falcon, so it wouldn't surprise me if the "awakened" Force controlled a great deal of her actions.

It would also explain the ease with which she used the mind trick and held her own with Kylo in single combat. The Force may have been with her to an unprecedented degree. Maybe.

You don't really want that in your story. Having a literal plot device to give your protagonist all the convenient skills she needed is simply going to undermine dramatic tension in the movie. Every time Rey is in trouble, we only to wait for the force to give her more sudden power-ups.

Even Luke failed with his force abilities, when he tried to mind-trick Jabba.

[Galvatron]

Welcome to Star Wars.

[ray245]

Welcome to Star Wars.

You mean the universe Jedi regularly failed while trying to use the force?

[Galvatron]

Yep. Point is, the Force can be used however the writers want to use it which means they can also arbitrarily negate it with the "shroud of the dark side" when necessary.

[ray245]

Yep. Point is, the Force can be used however the writers want to use it which means they can also arbitrarily negate it with the "shroud of the dark side" when necessary.

How about writing scenarios where the heroes got out due to their ingenuity? That would make things more interesting and far less predictable.

Luke pretty much defeated Jabba via planning and quick thinking. Same can be said about the Battle of Endor.

[Knife]

Yep. Point is, the Force can be used however the writers want to use it which means they can also arbitrarily negate it with the "shroud of the dark side" when necessary.

How about writing scenarios where the heroes got out due to their ingenuity? That would make things more interesting and far less predictable.

Luke pretty much defeated Jabba via planning and quick thinking. Same can be said about the Battle of Endor.

LOL double standard. The quote I put up was Obi Wan telling Luke how the Force worked and ANH as well as the OT goes on to have this demonstrated multiple times. Yes, in the OT people get out of situations per their ingenuity, but when Luke does stuff, he gets it done via divine intervention. Even with your Jabba example, Luke was deflecting blaster bolts during that fight with his lightsaber, the very EXACT thing he was training with Obi Wan with when Obi explained it can obey your command or control your actions.

I hate this double standard with Rey and Luke.

[Crazedwraith]

Oh come on. Comparing what Luke does after two films of training and work and leaps of faith to what Rey does with no training and barely any knowledge at all is a ridiculous way to excuse Rey.

[Soontir C'boath]

I thought the whole point of Luke having a new lightsaber and garb was meant to give an obvious hint that he grew further from his time training with an actual Jedi Master ala Yoda and fighting and losing to Vader in-between episodes. We don't get that with Rey unfortunately.

[Knife]

Oh come on. Comparing what Luke does after two films of training and work and leaps of faith to what Rey does with no training and barely any knowledge at all is a ridiculous way to excuse Rey.

Please, it was his example not mine, and in regards to another issue.

But we can play that game. Though what Luke does in the beginning half of TESB would still be under as much training as he had in ANH, not that you are arguing otherwise, just stating.

Luke knew how to fly speeders, or at least what ever a T 16 is, and flew in canyons on Tattoine with enough skill to 'bulls eye romprats'. With that set of skills and with, at best a few hours, of training from Obi Wan on the Force went on to make the decisive blow on the Deathstar in a space fighter. A shot that why possible, an veteran fighter pilot with a targeting computer could not do. The other to make the attempt was shot down.

Rey knew how to fly, she stated she was a pilot before ever getting on board the Falcon, and in fact was headed for an entirely different ship when she told Finn she could pilot a ship. She was then able to out maneuver several fighters in an escape.

With no more training than he had in ANH, Luke was able to telekenesis his lightsaber to him in the ice cave at Hoth against the Wampa.

With no training, Rey was able to telekenesis her lightsaber to herself on Starkiller Base.

The only odd ball here is Rey fought Kylo with no Force training while Luke never really did until he had basic training by Yoda. That said, Luke had no melee combat training prior and it seems Rey had either training in melee or at least some experience.

[Knife]

I thought the whole point of Luke having a new lightsaber and garb was meant to give an obvious hint that he grew further from his time training with an actual Jedi Master ala Yoda and fighting and losing to Vader in-between episodes. We don't get that with Rey unfortunately.

Not yet anyway.

[Crazedwraith]

Oh come on. Comparing what Luke does after two films of training and work and leaps of faith to what Rey does with no training and barely any knowledge at all is a ridiculous way to excuse Rey.

Please, it was his example not mine, and in regards to another issue.

But we can play that game. Though what Luke does in the beginning half of TESB would still be under as much training as he had in ANH, not that you are arguing otherwise, just stating.

Luke knew how to fly speeders, or at least what ever a T 16 is, and flew in canyons on Tattoine with enough skill to 'bulls eye romprats'. With that set of skills and with, at best a few hours, of training from Obi Wan on the Force went on to make the decisive blow on the Deathstar in a space fighter. A shot that why possible, an veteran fighter pilot with a targeting computer could not do. The other to make the attempt was shot down.

Rey knew how to fly, she stated she was a pilot before ever getting on board the Falcon, and in fact was headed for an entirely different ship when she told Finn she could pilot a ship. She was then able to out maneuver several fighters in an escape.

With no more training than he had in ANH, Luke was able to telekenesis his lightsaber to him in the ice cave at Hoth against the Wampa.

With no training, Rey was able to telekenesis her lightsaber to herself on Starkiller Base.

The only odd ball here is Rey fought Kylo with no Force training while Luke never really did until he had basic training by Yoda. That said, Luke had no melee combat training prior and it seems Rey had either training in melee or at least some experience.

To be quite fair, while I saw what other people were complaining about in retrospect the only moment that really stood out to me as worth of complaint when I watched TFA was the mind trick she pulled on the Stormtrooper.

That said lets compare those examples. Piloting; Luke was raised in a stable family environment with regular access to a flying vehicle. Rey was a scavenger scraping a subsistence living on scavenging in the wastelands of Jakku. Who is more likely to be able to fly? (Who's ship to Rey learn on? For how long?) Which if these backstories seems more convincing to you?

Force powers: Luke in full knowledge of what he was attempting. Very slowly and after a great effort, just manages to call his lightsabre to himself. Rey manages to pull the lightsabre to herself like a rocket without even know Force TK existed. (okay luke might not of either but he had three years of experimentation off-screen at that point) And Rey does this while another much more experienced force user is trying to TK it.

Luke was trained before fighting Vader. Rey had barely touched a lightsabre before fighting Rey. And staff fighting is not really the same thing at all. (Though she'd be much more willing to put hurt on people. I'd give her that)

It's not just that Rey does the same stuff as Luke. It's that just does it better, more easily and with less investment and training. Luke does two things with the force in ANH: some mildly decent blaster stopping against the remote. (after several failures) and the leap-of-faith shot. He doesn't mind and trick and tk and succeed at everything with little effort.

Of course the main reason for this is sequel escalation. It'd be no fun to watch Rey progress and dither as long as Luke does when we already know all that is possible to do with the force.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, but there is a limit that strains credibility. Janitor to crack shocktrooper is a bit of a stretch. Now Marine grunts onboard ship, and really any post, pull shit duty to keep them entertained. Some peeps detach from the main units and are used as warm bodies for various details. That I can see, but to go from janitorial to among the first picked for point destruction raid is a bit far.

Again, you seem to be assuming here that he's a janitor, i.e. low-level manual labour, and therefore presumably unfit for any other post.

This discounts the fact that a base (or, let's be honest, a planet) the size of Starkiller base would have a maintenance department potentially numbering in the millions, and for all we know, Finn could have held a position as an engineer or high-ranking officer unless it is otherwise specified. It probably wouldn't be the more glorious position, or one directly related to station security, thus explaining his seeming embarrassment over it when talking to Han, but it wouldn't necessarily be a career dead end either.

Its also possible, for I know, that the First Order routinely has its young recruits assigned to low-level, menial positions before moving on to better things. Or yeah, like you said, punishment detail for some minor infraction which he eventually moved past.

"I'm not Resistance. I'm not a hero. I'm a stormtrooper. Like all of them, I was taken from a family I'll never know. And raised to do one thing. But my first battle, I made a choice. I wasn't gonna kill for them."

One thing. So they should make up their mind what that one thing is. Or adjust the dialogue a bit so he was just on a shit detail as punishment of something.

See above. Also, his being a stormtrooper does not preclude being assigned non-combat duties. Indeed the First Order is very militarized, and we see no civilian contractors on board Starkiller Base, so this almost has to be the case.

Here is my problem with Finn, and I do like him as a character but I'm afraid from what I've seen so far that he's badly written and just used as a Mcguffin for Rey. He's a Stormtrooper trained to do one thing but he sucks at it. Really, he is not much of a combatant. Plus the 'addon' things like sanitation just muddle it. Now if they showed the character reflexively rush into every situation blasting things without thinking about it, it would mesh with 'stormtrooper training' and even give opportunity for character growth and some comedic moments.

I'm not sure where you get that impression, honestly. He's no Jedi, but he didn't seem to be bad at combat. His marksmanship is decent, and he was at least semi-competent handling a light sabre, which as I recall is supposed to be a very tricky weapon for a non-Force user to wield (or is that just old EU?). He panicked in his first fight, but that's understandable and he never froze in later engagements. And he was able to break out Poe and break into Starkiller Base (admittedly, First Order internal security is sadly lacking).

And my definition of a classic stormtrooper personality would not be "reflexively rush into every situation blasting things without thinking about it"- it would be more "cooly follows orders without question". Not that Finn does that either, after his first battle, but stormtroopers are not, and have never been, berserker types.

As to his character development, I agree it could have been handled better, and I think its unfortunate that the film tended to use him as its goofy comic relief (though thankfully not to Jar Jar levels). But he is the character who had the closest thing to a clear arc in the film, who actually grew the most.

Rey was mostly "loner who doesn't want to leave Jakku gets caught up in things, spontaneously gets Force powers, and decides that she wants to actually have a meaningful life". I like Rey, her personality, her actor, and I can mostly buy her competency, but she doesn't have much of an arc.

Kylo had his fall, and Luke had his apparently self-imposed exile, but a lot of that happened off-screen. Likewise whatever happened between Han and Leia.

Poe was just Poe. He's a good-natured bad ass at the start, and he's a good-natured bad ass at the end. He doesn't change.

Everyone else was little more than bit parts.

Finn was the one who actually grew and changed the most as a person on-screen, going from a trooper just following orders, to panicking and running after finding out what following orders actually entailed, to eventually finding something he cared about enough to actually take a stand and fight, rather than just run (he went back to face the First Order, which he pretty much saw as unbeatable, for Rey's sake). He had clear growth, a progression as a character, over the course of the film.

This seems to be another odd Abrams quirk. Much as in Star Trek, its not the ostensible protagonist (Kirk, Rey), but the secondary character (Spock, Finn) who has the most character development and growth in the film.

Edit: Although you could probably argue that Finn and Rey are co-protagonists, with the focus being on Finn for the first half, and shifting to Rey for the second half.

[The Romulan Republic]

Hmm, that last post just made me think of something:

We see that First Order internal security is... well, shit. But I wonder if that's a product of their culture, where apparently their troops are indoctrinated from birth, and (at least on Starkiller Base), their doesn't seem to be much, if any, civilian presence. Defection and infiltration are probably rarities. So in a culture which views the only credible threats as being from without, all of their efforts are focussed accordingly, with internal security once someone makes it past the shields and turbo lasers and such almost entirely ignored.

It would be nice if in one of the upcoming films, someone tries to sneak into a First Order ship or installation, and are almost instantly caught because after the events of TFA, they did a complete overhaul of internal security.

[Shroom Man 777]

Right if presumably the Starkiller base took forever to make... and First Order Stormtroopers like Finn are kidnapped and brainwashed from childhood. Not like clones who're trained and gestated in mere months or stormtrooper recruits who join as adults or young adults. I mean, before the First Order troopers are old enough to send to battle - unless they send teens and pre-teens to war in stormtrooper armor... or unless they use aging-accelerator-drugs which means Finn might be a twelve year old in a twenty-something year old's body... - these young conscripts have a DECADE of idle time. They can't be training forever.

I guess they are assigned to maintenance duties. Like the kids of poorer unimportant members of Scientology and Sea Org. These WRETCHED ORPHANS can be sent into nooks and crannies, inside the dangerous giant mechanisms of their Starkiller Bases... which are probably defective as fuck due to their corner cutting. Imagine Finn's fellow friends getting eaten by mechanisms. Like some Industrial Revolution shit. They are probably sent to dig for khyber in like pit-mines.

Imagine child-Finn shrieking and crying and reciting First Order litanies while in his maintenance duty he has to fight a dianoga larva in the space latrines.

[Kojiro]

At the same time, it was a pivotal moment with Ben coming in to advise Luke to use the Force instead of the targeting computer, so it's rather inexplicable to me, to downsize it as "pulling it out of its ass" as Kojiro seem to think its doing.

To clarify here, I wasn't talking about Luke's shot being 'pulled out of his ass'. Luke has training from Obi-Wan (however brief) as well as direct prompting (possibly even assistance) from the Force ghost of a Jedi Master. Even Vader notes this one is particularly strong with the Force. The set up there has been done to allow me to believe Luke can make the shot. After all, the shot is already possible so it's not a big stretch. It's also a moment, a one off- the Force guides him for an instant only.

My comment referred to Rey, who goes from the equivalent of having trouble pulling out of her driveway to high speed pursuit driving in a few seconds but without the narrative work to establish of her Force sensitivity. Imagine if, when those thugs had been about to jump her, she'd intuitively dodged the attack from the rear? When Finn questions her about it she could just say 'I don't know, I just have a sense for avoiding trouble' or something. But there was nothing, I think in part because Rey being the jedi hero was supposed to be a secret. So we get this scene where it appears the Force isn't just with Rey, it damn near takes her over for a 3 minute chase, so much so even Rey is stunned at what she did.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, their's something to that, I suppose, though I expect most people knew going in that the Force was with Rey.

Its not that what Rey does, for the most part, is particularly implausible by the standards of Star Wars. Its just not very well-presented on-screen. Its a clumsily constructed film.

[Reyvan]

Hmm, that last post just made me think of something:

We see that First Order internal security is... well, shit. But I wonder if that's a product of their culture, where apparently their troops are indoctrinated from birth, and (at least on Starkiller Base), their doesn't seem to be much, if any, civilian presence. Defection and infiltration are probably rarities. So in a culture which views the only credible threats as being from without, all of their efforts are focussed accordingly, with internal security once someone makes it past the shields and turbo lasers and such almost entirely ignored.

It would be nice if in one of the upcoming films, someone tries to sneak into a First Order ship or installation, and are almost instantly caught because after the events of TFA, they did a complete overhaul of internal security.

According the the novelization thats actually pretty much the case. They were slow to respond to Finn and Poe's escape because everyone knows that no one defects from, or escapes from, the First Order. It took them some time to get over their incredulousness to actually respond to the fact that both were happening right then.

[ray245]

Well, their's something to that, I suppose, though I expect most people knew going in that the Force was with Rey.

Its not that what Rey does, for the most part, is particularly implausible by the standards of Star Wars. Its just not very well-presented on-screen. Its a clumsily constructed film.

This is the problem many defenders of Rey failed to understand. We saw how long it took for Luke to fully master the force. Rey is pretty much on par with Luke in ESB, probably even ROTJ in one film.

Sure, she might need some training to control her anger and etc, but she pretty much learned everything she needed to know on her own. This reduces the overall tension of the movie. It makes the whole franchise entirely predictable to a degree. How will Rey escape the first Order again? More force abilities!

LOL double standard. The quote I put up was Obi Wan telling Luke how the Force worked and ANH as well as the OT goes on to have this demonstrated multiple times. Yes, in the OT people get out of situations per their ingenuity, but when Luke does stuff, he gets it done via divine intervention. Even with your Jabba example, Luke was deflecting blaster bolts during that fight with his lightsaber, the very EXACT thing he was training with Obi Wan with when Obi explained it can obey your command or control your actions.

I hate this double standard with Rey and Luke.

The only reason he needed it was because his Jedi mind trick failed on Jabba the first time. That's pretty much a case of divine intervention failing him, and very nearly killing him when eh went up against the Ranchor.

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't think she'd be on par with RotJ Luke in a fight. Maybe as a mechanic or pilot (though even then, I'm skeptical), but RotJ Luke kicked Vader's ass. Kicking wannabe Vader's ass when he's bleeding out isn't quite the same. Vader had more focus, cunning, and experience than Kylo Ren ever demonstrated.

And yes, I think that what Rey will (or should) mainly have to learn, going forward, is not how to fight, but how to control her emotions and use the Force responsibly, but that isn't a minor point.

See, I have a theory that for Force users, or at least the very strong ones like the Skywalker family, what takes years of training is not learning how to use the Force (Anakin, Rey, and Luke all picked things up very fast, and even less exceptional Padawans in their teens or younger could hold their own on the battle field). Its learning how to use the Force responsibly. Even with Luke, Yoda spent at least as much time teaching him philosophy and the right mindset as teaching him specific techniques (and zero screen time teaching him swordsmanship).

I suspect that once one is able to consciously tap into the Force, its not that hard to pick up techniques by sensing what to do through the Force, being guided by it, or imitating others. And its also very much a case of being able to do something if you believe that you can, as seen with Luke on Dagobah. Its the philosophy and mindset that's tricky. Now, Rey does perhaps have an edge on Luke their, as she seems less limited by self-doubt in her abilities. But what she has not learned is the responsible use of all that power she now has. The fact that her big breakthrough was self-teaching mental manipulation is a little concerning too.

[Kojiro]

Its not that what Rey does, for the most part, is particularly implausible by the standards of Star Wars. Its just not very well-presented on-screen. Its a clumsily constructed film.

I think this is really the crux of the resistance to Rey and why comparisons to Luke/Anakin aren't persuasive to some of us. The example I always liked was Tony Stark building the mini arc reactor. The film shows us him on the cover of a dozen prestigious magazines, graduating from MIT at an early age and generally plays up his genius. Most importantly it tells us that arc reactor technology exists and is a Stark design. So when Tony builds the mini one, he's not a random guy building a whole new amazing power source. No, that would be too much of a leap. He's a genius, working in his field, improving an existing family design. The reactor is still fantastical but SoD has been loosened up enough by the film that it can be stretched to cover it. SoD maybe strained, but it's intact. Add to it that this is a comic book film and events are downright plausible.

TFA has actually worked the other way in some respects. The franchise has told us that using the Force can be innate, but it's also shown us that it has deep mysteries, that there is indeed a mastery to be had that can take significant time and effort to achieve. We've been conditioned to believe that sensitives should have some advantages over normals but also that padawan<knight<master. Yoda's prowess with the Force doesn't stem only from the fact he's got a high midichlorian count. Even Anakin as a child is only doing innate things- enhanced reflexes, mechanical tinkering and such. His mother never mentions 'Oh and sometimes tools just fly over to him'. He's only tapping into his nascent abilities he never exceeds this- hit true talents aren't seen on screen until we know he's been training for years and even at the end of his second movie he's still bested by a more experienced force user. This is all fine with us, we expect nothing flashy from him as a child and we can easily grasp why he's bested by an older, wiser Dooku.

Perhaps the most jarring incident with Rey comes from her besting Kylo. Not that she wins per se, but that she again goes from retreat, running and falling back only to suddenly remember the Force. The only real parallel to this is Luke's reversal on Vader in RotJ but there's some extremely important context and story missing. In addition to having trained under Yoda now, Luke doesn't win because he's awesome. He wins because he taps into something powerful. He taps into the Dark Side. And we see him go right up to the edge, only to realise he's about to fall off it, as his father did. A great moment to be sure. But Luke abandons that path immediately, like a true hero should and refuses to finish Vader. Rey has the same turn around, but without any reason- or consequence- deeper than because she can. We know where Luke's power comes from- his rage, his desire to protect those he loves and his fear for them. That is how he overpowers Vader.

What is the source of Rey's power? Is it her hatred for Kylo? Her fear at the situation? Her anger over being imprisoned and violated? Those would be fine things but it's just now what we see.

[Lord Revan]

What helps with Tony Stark and hurts Rey is that Stark's major SoD streaching achiviements are also more spead out, the magnet that orginal arc reactor powered first ran out of car battery so it's not totally implausible that you possibly build something gave the same amount of power but was smaller and the mark I didn't have that many high power demand systems. When the Mark II and Mark III armors come along Stark has already built improved arc reactor using the tech from his home lab (and he presumebly have access to his company's research notes as well), so Tony Stark doesn't do that much "in cave with a box of scraps".

Where as Rey seems to go from 1 to 100 "because the Force wills it", there's no things like the Valley of the Jedi (from the legendaries that explains how Kyle katarn could go from essentially no Jedi powers to decently powerful in Jedi Outcast) to explain the sudden leap to skill.

[Knife]

I don't think she'd be on par with RotJ Luke in a fight. Maybe as a mechanic or pilot (though even then, I'm skeptical), but RotJ Luke kicked Vader's ass. Kicking wannabe Vader's ass when he's bleeding out isn't quite the same. Vader had more focus, cunning, and experience than Kylo Ren ever demonstrated.

And yes, I think that what Rey will (or should) mainly have to learn, going forward, is not how to fight, but how to control her emotions and use the Force responsibly, but that isn't a minor point.

See, I have a theory that for Force users, or at least the very strong ones like the Skywalker family, what takes years of training is not learning how to use the Force (Anakin, Rey, and Luke all picked things up very fast, and even less exceptional Padawans in their teens or younger could hold their own on the battle field). Its learning how to use the Force responsibly. Even with Luke, Yoda spent at least as much time teaching him philosophy and the right mindset as teaching him specific techniques (and zero screen time teaching him swordsmanship).

Indeed. We see this in AOTC with Anakin discussing it with Amadala, that he feels Obi Wan is slowing him down and holding him back. Further when Obi Wan is in the Temple with the other Jedi Masters saying how powerful Anakin is but it makes him arrogant.

I suspect that once one is able to consciously tap into the Force, its not that hard to pick up techniques by sensing what to do through the Force, being guided by it, or imitating others. And its also very much a case of being able to do something if you believe that you can, as seen with Luke on Dagobah. Its the philosophy and mindset that's tricky. Now, Rey does perhaps have an edge on Luke their, as she seems less limited by self-doubt in her abilities. But what she has not learned is the responsible use of all that power she now has. The fact that her big breakthrough was self-teaching mental manipulation is a little concerning too.

Even Yoda with Luke had to preach control.

[Shroom Man 777]

The Tony Stark thing was SUPER ESTABLISHED before he went to the cave with a box of scraps. Like, we were shown how he was an asshat arms designer super-billionaire dude.

[Knife]

Not sure anyone would wanna watch another 30 minutes of Rey scavenging, fixing, and perhaps piloting a flight to BF nowhere to establish these things. Rey's a pilot with as much on screen back ground as Luke.

[Crazedwraith]

Not sure anyone would wanna watch another 30 minutes of Rey scavenging, fixing, and perhaps piloting a flight to BF nowhere to establish these things. Rey's a pilot with as much on screen back ground as Luke.

Except as I pointed out before. Luke's and Rey's backstories are different. To the point where it's much more plausible Luke the farmboy has flying experience than Rey the subsistence scavenger with no ship does.