Star Wars: The Last Jedi release thread (spoilers)

[The Romulan Republic]

I'll happily agree Palpatine's scheme involved a lot of 'I totally have this' arrogance, I was just pointing out that within that scheme just gunning down Luke wasn't really an option.

Well yeah, that goes without saying. He still could have taken more precautious, however. Like keeping his bodyguards in the room. Or anticipating the possibility of a Vader betrayal (I mean, that sort of thing is standard practice for the Sith).

[Knife]

Most of that, Sith betraying Sith was old EU. Vader says a couple of times "You don't know the power of the Darkside. I must obey my master."

[The Romulan Republic]

He also tries to turn Luke by offering to unite with him to overthrow the Emperor though. And I might be misremembering, but didn't Dooku make a similar pitch to Kenobi in AotC? RotS discusses it the most of any film though, probably- Anakin openly talks about overthrowing Palpatine to Padme, and then there's "The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise."

The only one who never showed any disloyalty in the films was Maul, and even he ended up at odds with Palpatine in the Clone Wars and Rebels cartoons (which are still canon, of course).

[Knife]

To be fair, when Anakin was plotting the demise of the Emperor in ROTS, he was a sith in name for like a half an hour. He did make a pitch to Luke though. You're right in that. Dooku's pitch to Obi Wan was flat faced and mono toned in the movie so I just took it as Dooku saying what was expected and/or needed to say in those situations. I don't remember how the novel treated it.

And Maul has just about every reason to be disloyal in the Clone Wars/Rebels.

That said, the casualness of the EU seems gone. Anakin's hubris I think we can write off since he came up with it after he was Sith in name only with no training in Sith arts.

I'd also point out the one time in the movies where they talk about a successful Sith student killing a Sith master to take his/her place is Palpatine. But we also know from the same story that Plageius was looking for the proverbial fountain of life. In this context, doesn't take a genius, which I think Palpatine is, to figure out if he doesn't knock of the master he'll be the student who eventually dies a student.

[jollyreaper]

This argument is usually bolstered by comparisons to Luke and Anakin.

Now I think this argument relies too much on guessing people's internal psychology and the assumption that the only difference between Luke and Rey is their sexes.

Bingo. I had a ton of problems with the writing for Anakin but he wasn't a Sue. If Rey became Ray and was a 20-something white blonde male Luke expy written with the same omnicompetence I'd still say he's a Sue and probably grumble about wishing they'd take some risks with giving us a new character instead of recycling young Luke. For the zillionth time I like having a female protagonist.

Luke is a wish fulfillment character for the audience to latch onto and skirted close to being a Sue but fell on his face just enough to avoid it. He was also helped by being in better movies. People are more inclined to forgive the flaws of movies they like vs. the ones they don't. This feels a little too obvious to need stating but we sometimes forget this.

[jollyreaper]

Palpatine was looking to turn Luke and have him replace Vader. Kinda hard to do if you gun him town the moment you have him. Would it have been on hindsight 'Yeah, not gonna turn this guy, better get rid of him' smarter? Absolutely. But Palpatine wanted Luke as his new Vader and didn't know it wouldn't work. Kylo knew there was no fucking way Luke would join him.

The funny thing is I had a different read on that as a kid. Palpatine tempted Luke to strike him down but clearly wasn't looking to die. Vader blocking the blow was what he was supposed to do. So I assumed that the whole taking his father's place at his side thing was another temptation but that wasn't meant to remove Vader. I didn't think that the Emperor was actually planning on losing Vader because why not collect the whole set? Vader's already half-machine so whatever gets smashed up can be repaired and now he's got two Skywalkers on Team Palpy. Plus Vader had used the phrase "join us" rather than "replace me at your side." I'd taken the offer to rule the galaxy as father and son was yet another temptation trick because Vader wasn't really looking to replace Palpy, he was just looking to get his son a position in the family firm.

This interpretation doesn't square with what they actually meant to show but I do have a fondness for it.

[Effie]

I'll be honest and say that I have no idea why "Mary Sue" is supposed to be a meaningful criticism outside of fanfiction, where it's still not particularly meaningful.

[ray245]

I'll be honest and say that I have no idea why "Mary Sue" is supposed to be a meaningful criticism outside of fanfiction, where it's still not particularly meaningful.

Because the recent movies felt a lot like fanfic?

[Effie]

I'll be honest and say that I have no idea why "Mary Sue" is supposed to be a meaningful criticism outside of fanfiction, where it's still not particularly meaningful.

Because the recent movies felt a lot like fanfic?

Well I mean, by definition they aren't fanfic and the reasons why "Mary Sue" held currency in fanfiction criticism don't apply.

[CaoCao]

I am "dodging" nothing- Neither Russia nor the Ukraine is the topic of this thread, and I am under no obligation to explain or defend any position on either of them in this thread.* You want to talk about that, make a thread in the News and Politics forum. I will not address any further posts on that subject.

I wanted to know if you were really progressive/anti nazi or just trying to pass as such.

As to what I mean by "Alt. Reich", it should be fairly obvious to which political movements I am referring, but I'll lay it out anyway: I use the term "Alt. Reich" to refer to a broad collection of reactionary Right-wing groups, generally based on bigotry and a misplaced belief that white people/men/conservatives/etc. are the "real" victims of persecution (by Leftists/women/minorities/"SJWs"). Because "Alt. Right" gave them a sense of mainstream legitimacy that they did not deserve.

The underlying attitude they have in common could probably be summed up as "Society is a zero-sum game played along demographic lines, where only one demographic can win."- though I doubt most of them could or would phrase it that directly, or articulately. With white people, especially white male conservatives, generally treated as the "norm", and any success outside of "traditional" roles by anyone from another group presumed to be at the expense of a more deserving white man. Or, to put it even more succinctly "I've got mine, fuck everyone else."

At last, a definition. If this was some sort of youtube channel, I would buy how this could be brought (plenty of videos on SJW and Star Wars new films). Here? Completely out of place.

I bring it up here because some (not all, some) of the attacks that have been made against TLJ are reminiscent of Alt. Reich narratives (though not so much on this site as some other places). Not always by people who are politically extremist in general, either- one of the nasty things about the Alt. Reich is that it tends to be very good at hijacking other peoples' subcultures to its agenda, and getting people who normally know better to repeat its narrative.

It was not meant, ever, to insinuate that everyone who criticizes TLJ is part of this movement- that is a straw man based on either an honest misinterpretation, or an attempt to derail the thread into personal attacks.

Most people here gave pretty good reasons for their criticism, so stop with the veiled attacks and answer to those criticisms. BTW, "OT angry fans" is also not a very good way of defending this movie (most people here is OT fan).

Reg. plagiarism: So you read the author saying that it wasn't like TLJ, and you still peddled the rumour that it might be plagiarism anyway?

Fuck you.

I never stated it was a copy paste job, but that (as the author stated) it had elements that were, say, "borrowed". And it suits my opinion that, up to TLJ, the new trilogy is a glorified fanfic (a bad one).

People were making the same "but it didn't make as much money in China!" when they were trying to convince everyone that TFA had a popularity problem, too. The idea that China is some sort of arbiter of global popularity is ridiculous. Star Wars has always been a distinctly Western series that makes its money in the English speaking world. No one in China gives much of a shit about Star Wars.

Yeah, it's important to remember that the original movies weren't released in China until actually quite recently. The first releases there were the prequels.

So China doesn't have the cultural history of Star Wars fandom, it's just another movie to them and all the aspects that call back to other movies are talking about things they didn't grow up with or give a shit about.

The problem is by the standards of recent Hollywood movie released in China, TLJ massively underperformed. Audience who may not follow the story usually can still enjoy the spectacle. This isn't the case for TLJ in China.

AFAIK Warcraft did very well there, and it was a "meh" movie. China is a very big market, and quite important for Disney.

[Gunhead]

Well I mean, by definition they aren't fanfic and the reasons why "Mary Sue" held currency in fanfiction criticism don't apply.

Mary Sue as a criticism isn't restricted to fanfiction.

"A Mary Sue is an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character. Often, this character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment. They can usually perform better at tasks than should be possible given the amount of training or experience." -Wikipedia

So no, I don't think Rey is Mary sue, bland, boring and badly written maybe but not a Mary sue.

-Gunhead

[TheFeniX]

Mary Sue as a criticism isn't restricted to fanfiction.

"A Mary Sue is an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character. Often, this character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment. They can usually perform better at tasks than should be possible given the amount of training or experience." -Wikipedia

So no, I don't think Rey is Mary sue, bland, boring and badly written maybe but not a Mary sue.

-Gunhead

You mean like a scavenger piloting the Falcon like a pro, the first time flying it? Even Anakin practiced as a pod racer.

Really though, I could nitpick this, but the scene where Leia hugs Rey instead of Chewbacca was really for me the "Look at my special character! You must love her" moment of her character arc. Much like how Leia (once again) has to console a despondent Luke after a man he met 3 days ago died. Meanwhile, she had been tortured for days, if not weeks, and not long ago saw her entire planet blown up. It's a "pay attention to Luke, he's the hero, he's the guy to focus on" moment.

And Luke doesn't make the jump to Marty Stu here because he isn't consistently winning at all the everything. And he needs help, multiple times. Even during the trench run, his "use the force moment," without the other pilots, without Han, Luke's dead and Yavin is blown into chunks.

Even when Rey is losing, she's winning not soon after such as pulling off a Mind Trick on the guard to get released. It all kind of adds up in the end. "The Force" excusing poor writing doesn't really work for me. Finn works much better in this regard. He's getting shit done, but he isn't rolling the hard 6 in every scene and in fact gets his shit kicked in in more than a few areas where it makes sense for that to happen.

Not directed at you: I don't really get where the "sexism" comments come from. Roy would be just as much a Marty Stu.

[Effie]

Well I mean, by definition they aren't fanfic and the reasons why "Mary Sue" held currency in fanfiction criticism don't apply.

Mary Sue as a criticism isn't restricted to fanfiction.

"A Mary Sue is an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character. Often, this character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment. They can usually perform better at tasks than should be possible given the amount of training or experience." -Wikipedia

So no, I don't think Rey is Mary sue, bland, boring and badly written maybe but not a Mary sue.

-Gunhead

None of those are meaningful criticisms outside of fanfic criticism, where the reason the Mary Sue exists as a critique comes down to the idea that the fanfic author must avoid imposing on the original work, and self-insertions and wish fulfillment etc. are considered impositions.

But outside of that:

"Idealized and seemingly perfect": Billy Budd, Zhuge Lang and Liu Bei, etc.

"Author insert": Lancelot du Lac in both Malory and White.

"Wish fulfillment": Robin Hood, William Tell.

"given the amount of training or experience": Sir Galahad, Sir Gareth Beaumains, King David.

There's a lot of fiction with quite respectable backgrounds which fails these criteria.

[The Romulan Republic]

Mary Sue as a criticism isn't restricted to fanfiction.

"A Mary Sue is an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character. Often, this character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment. They can usually perform better at tasks than should be possible given the amount of training or experience." -Wikipedia

So no, I don't think Rey is Mary sue, bland, boring and badly written maybe but not a Mary sue.

-Gunhead

You mean like a scavenger piloting the Falcon like a pro, the first time flying it? Even Anakin practiced as a pod racer.

Really though, I could nitpick this, but the scene where Leia hugs Rey instead of Chewbacca was really for me the "Look at my special character! You must love her" moment of her character arc. Much like how Leia (once again) has to console a despondent Luke after a man he met 3 days ago died. Meanwhile, she had been tortured for days, if not weeks, and not long ago saw her entire planet blown up. It's a "pay attention to Luke, he's the hero, he's the guy to focus on" moment.

And Luke doesn't make the jump to Marty Stu here because he isn't consistently winning at all the everything. And he needs help, multiple times. Even during the trench run, his "use the force moment," without the other pilots, without Han, Luke's dead and Yavin is blown into chunks.

Even when Rey is losing, she's winning not soon after such as pulling off a Mind Trick on the guard to get released. It all kind of adds up in the end. "The Force" excusing poor writing doesn't really work for me. Finn works much better in this regard. He's getting shit done, but he isn't rolling the hard 6 in every scene and in fact gets his shit kicked in in more than a few areas where it makes sense for that to happen.

Not directed at you: I don't really get where the "sexism" comments come from. Roy would be just as much a Marty Stu.

And I reiterate- Rey fails at every major objective she has in TLJ, aside from the final rock-lifting scene. She fails to persuade Luke to come with her or train her (Yoda does that), but ends up dueling him and then leaving instead. She fails to uncover her parentage, and ends up being told that her parents were dead drunks who sold her into slavery. She is easily manipulated by Snoke and Kylo and the Dark Side. She utterly fails to take on Snoke, or kill Kylo (funny that- she woke up first, so did she just assume he was dead, or could she not bring herself to lightsaber an unconscious man?). She only survived her trip to the Supremacy due to Holdo's intervention and pure luck. She gets credit for ultimately resisting the Dark Side when Kylo tried to turn her, but was only in a position to be tempted to begin with because of her own insecurities and inexperience.

You could make a "Mary Sue" argument (as offensive and largely meaningless as I find the term) if you looked at just TFA, and interpreted the evidence in an uncharitable light (though even then, her panicked reaction in Maz's castle lead to her getting captured). Factor in TLJ, and it just doesn't hold up. Mary Sues don't fail that badly and repeatedly.

Edit: If I were to broadly summarize Rey's strengths and weaknesses- She has "street smarts" and is very capable at taking care of herself in a crisis. Also very strong in the Force. However, she has very little broader education outside of practical skills, is arguably a somewhat poor judge of character, is not very persuasive, and has deep insecurities about her origins, identity, and place in the universe. She may have overcome the latter, to an extent, but will still have to grow into the role of leader that's been thrust upon her.

Which is... pretty plausible, broadly-speaking, for someone from the environment she grew up in.

[jollyreaper]

I'll be honest and say that I have no idea why "Mary Sue" is supposed to be a meaningful criticism outside of fanfiction, where it's still not particularly meaningful.

Because the recent movies felt a lot like fanfic?

Well I mean, by definition they aren't fanfic and the reasons why "Mary Sue" held currency in fanfiction criticism don't apply.

By strict definition, yes. But let's be honest, we're talking about people who grew up on Star Wars and are now producing it. Maybe you could call it officially licensed fanfic?

You've no doubt heard of the term self-parody and when shows run long enough and the quality drops sufficiently, the result looks like self-parody and is embarrassing. That's the criticism being leveled here.

So if you don't like the specific criticism of Sue, we could generically say the character is poorly-written but that is a generic and unspecific criticism. Jar-Jar was poorly-written, too, but for vastly different reasons. More specificity is useful.

[The Romulan Republic]

Calling it "officially licensed fanfic" is still misleading, because the ST has resources, and, frankly, talent behind it that most fanfic flat-out does not have. And also must operate within greater constraints than most fanfic in terms of the sorts of stories it can tell due to the amount of money involved, the need to appeal to a mass audience, etc. Which is a good thing, because it means we won't get twenty graphic slash pairings for their own sake, like we would in a lot of fanfics.

And "Mary Sue" is also a rather generic criticism, and to the extent that its not generic, its misleading. We'd be better off focusing on specific criticisms, and citing specific evidence of them from canon, the accuracy of which we could then verify or at least debate rationally, instead of substituting a broad label with, frankly, a lot of baggage that poisons the discussion.

[Crazedwraith]

And I reiterate- Rey fails at every major objective she has in TLJ, aside from the final rock-lifting scene. She fails to persuade Luke to come with her or train her (Yoda does that), but ends up dueling him and then leaving instead. She fails to uncover her parentage, and ends up being told that her parents were dead drunks who sold her into slavery. She is easily manipulated by Snoke and Kylo and the Dark Side. She utterly fails to take on Snoke, or kill Kylo (funny that- she woke up first, so did she just assume he was dead, or could she not bring herself to lightsaber an unconscious man?). She only survived her trip to the Supremacy due to Holdo's intervention and pure luck. She gets credit for ultimately resisting the Dark Side when Kylo tried to turn her, but was only in a position to be tempted to begin with because of her own insecurities and inexperience.

You could make a "Mary Sue" argument (as offensive and largely meaningless as I find the term) if you looked at just TFA, and interpreted the evidence in an uncharitable light (though even then, her panicked reaction in Maz's castle lead to her getting captured). Factor in TLJ, and it just doesn't hold up. Mary Sues don't fail that badly and repeatedly.

If you're going to be uncharitable to the TLJ as well, I can see why you might not be convinced. Yes, she doesn't persuade Luke to train her or fight the rebellion specifically herself. But she's already so awesome she doesn't need training (according to Yoda) and Luke does come out of hiding to save the rebellion it may have be Yoda's pep talk that did it immediately but Rey's presence and status as heir to the Jedi is what instigated it.

Likewise she didn't outright best Snoke in anyway but her being their is what allowed him to be killed. Kylo could never have done it in the end. Her failing to convert Ren also is hard to count against her because a) it's Kylo's failing more than hers b) if she hadn't failed there'd be no movie three and c) She wasn't exactly trying very hard. She and Kylo were both counting on prophecy and turns out she wasn't as close to the truth as Ren.

She still swans about the universe with impunity including effortlessly getting and out of the First Order's flagship. (Likewise in TFA, she may get captured but this leads her to reversing Ren's mind wipe, mind tricking a stormtrooper and ninja-ing about Starkiller with impunity)

Again this is me intentionally being super-uncharitable to her for devil's advocate. That's why I don't call Rey a Mary Sue but do sympathise with the idea she isn't greatly written. It's all in presentation and a person's subjective reading of what showed. You can't just run down a check list and if you tick off a certain number of boxes... Mary Sue! It doesn't work like that.

[The Romulan Republic]

And I reiterate- Rey fails at every major objective she has in TLJ, aside from the final rock-lifting scene. She fails to persuade Luke to come with her or train her (Yoda does that), but ends up dueling him and then leaving instead. She fails to uncover her parentage, and ends up being told that her parents were dead drunks who sold her into slavery. She is easily manipulated by Snoke and Kylo and the Dark Side. She utterly fails to take on Snoke, or kill Kylo (funny that- she woke up first, so did she just assume he was dead, or could she not bring herself to lightsaber an unconscious man?). She only survived her trip to the Supremacy due to Holdo's intervention and pure luck. She gets credit for ultimately resisting the Dark Side when Kylo tried to turn her, but was only in a position to be tempted to begin with because of her own insecurities and inexperience.

You could make a "Mary Sue" argument (as offensive and largely meaningless as I find the term) if you looked at just TFA, and interpreted the evidence in an uncharitable light (though even then, her panicked reaction in Maz's castle lead to her getting captured). Factor in TLJ, and it just doesn't hold up. Mary Sues don't fail that badly and repeatedly.

If you're going to be uncharitable to the TLJ as well, I can see why you might not be convinced. Yes, she doesn't persuade Luke to train her or fight the rebellion specifically herself. But she's already so awesome she doesn't need training (according to Yoda) and Luke does come out of hiding to save the rebellion it may have be Yoda's pep talk that did it immediately but Rey's presence and status as heir to the Jedi is what instigated it.

I... did not get the impression that Rey instigated Luke's change of heart. Unless you mean "She pushed Luke into deciding to BURN IT ALL* in despair, and that prompted Yoda to step in and set Luke straight." Its still Yoda cleaning up Rey and Luke's mess.

I've also read that there's a brief shot of the Jedi texts in the Falcon at the end (meaning that Rey took them instead of destroying them, and that Yoda didn't actually burn the Jedi texts to make his point to Luke). But I don't have a clip on-hand to confirm that.

I guess you could say in that case that Rey is responsible in that by stealing the books, she enabled Yoda to burn down the tree to convince Luke. But that's really tenuous. Like saying I'm responsible for a car crash if a car slows down to let me cross the street and then hits someone else five blocks later. Certainly not something that appeared to be intended on Rey's part.

Likewise she didn't outright best Snoke in anyway but her being their is what allowed him to be killed.

Partially, yes. Kylo was the one that killed him, however, provoked by a combination of his interest in Rey, and probably anger at Snoke for manipulating him. Rey's actions were only one of numerous factors leading to that outcome.

Its funny- Rey's critics complain about how she's supposedly too perfect- then bend over backwards to attribute additional achievements to her in order to bolster that argument.

Kylo could never have done it in the end. Her failing to convert Ren also is hard to count against her because a) it's Kylo's failing more than hers b) if she hadn't failed there'd be no movie three and c) She wasn't exactly trying very hard. She and Kylo were both counting on prophecy and turns out she wasn't as close to the truth as Ren.

But my point is that Rey did fail to turn him, and that that happened because she allowed herself to be fooled by Snoke's manipulations and a false/misleading vision, because of her insecurities and desire for a family/someone to explain her place in relation to the Force.

This is part of my frustration with the "Rey is a Mary Sue" crowd. No matter how much counterevidence you present that Rey isn't "too perfect", it seems that they'll either dismiss it outright or contort themselves to great lengths to say how it "doesn't count". Its that, in part, which makes me inclined to suspect that they have ulterior motives (and yeah, I know you're just playing devil's advocate here, but its still irritating).

She still swans about the universe with impunity including effortlessly getting and out of the First Order's flagship. (Likewise in TFA, she may get captured but this leads her to reversing Ren's mind wipe, mind tricking a stormtrooper and ninja-ing about Starkiller with impunity)

She got on the Supremacy because Kylo Rey was expecting her and wanted her to come aboard, so he could turn her. This was no display of skill or good fortune on her part. Shear guts, yes, but not skill or luck. It was her falling into a trap. And you count this as a possible point in favor of the "Rey is a Mary Sue" argument?

She escaped the Supremacy because the ship was falling apart thanks to Holdo's sacrifice, and she was lucky enough to wake up first and be in a position to steal a shuttle. So yeah, lucky, but not really at a level beyond what action movie protagonists tend to enjoy.

As to TFA- she suffered a set-back due to her own (admittedly understandable) actions, and then was able to (partially) get herself out of it (she'd have died on Starkiller Base without the Falcon, Han, Chewie, and Finn to rescue her). I'd call that a wash over all.

I mean, isn't the ability to learn from and recover from one's mistakes part of what we expect from a protagonist?

Again this is me intentionally being super-uncharitable to her for devil's advocate. That's why I don't call Rey a Mary Sue but do sympathise with the idea she isn't greatly written. It's all in presentation and a person's subjective reading of what showed. You can't just run down a check list and if you tick off a certain number of boxes... Mary Sue! It doesn't work like that.

To some extent, maybe. But I don't care how "subjective" you want to call it- you can't "interpret" "Rey walks into an obvious trap and gets captured" as "Rey effortlessly gets aboard the enemy flagship." That's not subjective interpretation- its ignoring evidence.



*Oh that's kind of funny now that I think of it. Given the way the Joker was described in the Nolan films ("Some men just want to watch the world burn."), and who Hamill is most famous for playing after Luke Skywalker. I doubt that was in any way an intended reference (its too tenuous a connection for that), but it amuses me in hindsight.

[The Romulan Republic]

Random idea to try to reconcile the implication in TFA (at least in my opinion) that Rey is a Skywalker with Kylo Ren's story about Rey's past:

At one point, Luke visited Jakku (he's familiar with it in TLJ, at least enough to recognize it by name and know that its a shit hole, though I don't know offhand if he was present at the Battle of Jakku). While there, he had a relationship, or maybe just a one-night stand, with a local woman. That woman is Rey's mother. Rey is, unknowingly, Luke's bastard daughter. Luke left after he found out Rey's mother was a drunk/asshole/in a relationship with someone else/after his shore leave was finished, and never knew.

Now, I don't expect this to actually be canon, of course, and there are advantages to having Rey be "nobody", thematically and character-wise. But just a fun theory if anyone wants to try to reconcile the two possibilities.

Or, of course, Kylo Ren just lied. He read Rey's insecurities, what Rey was afraid was the truth, and convinced her it was suppressed memories of the actual truth.

[Crazedwraith]

Stuff

Do you really want me to respond and cut all this down into even more line by line quote spaghetti? I mean I can if you want.

But you didn't really need to refute arguments that I already know are super uncharitable examples. I probably put more down than I needed did to. Especially when I explicitly said I wasn't try to argue she was a Mary Sue.

I was attempting to illustrate the subjective nature of character assessment and how if you are sufficiently ill disposed to a character you can see things in a different light. Just like if you are well disposed to a character, or the an actor is charismatic enough you might overlook plot holes or objection behaviour you might otherwise not like.

[The Romulan Republic]

Stuff

Do you really want me to respond and cut all this down into even more line by line quote spaghetti? I mean I can if you want.

Yeah, probably best not to.

But you didn't really need to refute arguments that I already know are super uncharitable examples. I probably put more down than I needed did to. Especially when I explicit said I wasn't try to argue she was a Mary Sue.

As I said, I know what you're doing. But I want to refute them anyway, because you just know someone else is going to run with those same arguments as serious arguments.

I was attempting to illustrate the subjective nature of character assessment and how if you are sufficiently ill disposed to a character you can see things in a different light. Just like if you are well disposed to a character, or the an actor is charismatic enough you might overlook plot holes or objection behaviour you might otherwise not like.

Fair enough, in and of itself.

Though I do maintain that the "getting aboard the Supremacy" example goes beyond subjective interpretation and into the realm of contradicting evidence.

[Rogue 9]

[Crazedwraith]

tag

My memory of the film is getting more and more hazy as time goes by but her getting on the Supremacy as far as I recall wasn't her "falling for a trap", it was her going to Kylo on a mission and the 'trap' was basically 'all is proceeding as I have foreseen' for the both of them. They both saw the same vision of the future and made radically different assumptions about how things were going to go.

If you were the sort to criticise 'Ren lets her board and takes directly where she needs to go to do most damage' could be an example of her warping the plot to her advantage. It's not really because it's fairly well set up and makes sense. (And also Ren does most of the damage, it's his plan that works)


Like I said Rey doesn't succeed much herself on her own, but she is catalyst and instigator for most of the big things that happen in TLJ, as she should be being the main character. That Luke and Snoke have relatively little regard for her does help counter act TFA's flaws in this regard.

EnterpriseSovereign beat you by like two pages.

[Effie]

Because the recent movies felt a lot like fanfic?

Well I mean, by definition they aren't fanfic and the reasons why "Mary Sue" held currency in fanfiction criticism don't apply.

By strict definition, yes. But let's be honest, we're talking about people who grew up on Star Wars and are now producing it. Maybe you could call it officially licensed fanfic?

You've no doubt heard of the term self-parody and when shows run long enough and the quality drops sufficiently, the result looks like self-parody and is embarrassing. That's the criticism being leveled here.

So if you don't like the specific criticism of Sue, we could generically say the character is poorly-written but that is a generic and unspecific criticism. Jar-Jar was poorly-written, too, but for vastly different reasons. More specificity is useful.

No, I don't think you could, because fanfiction doesn't have any meaning except in terms of authorship, and unquestionably the people making these movies cannot be described as anything other than official authors.

I don't see the connection between your second sentence and your first one. And your third seems to be equally unconnected. That is, in order to make the criticism meaningful, you have to explain why it's a criticism in the first place, why "Mary Sue" 1. applies and 2. is bad.

[The Romulan Republic]

My memory of the film is getting more and more hazy as time goes by but her getting on the Supremacy as far as I recall wasn't her "falling for a trap", it was her going to Kylo on a mission and the 'trap' was basically 'all is proceeding as I have foreseen' for the both of them. They both saw the same vision of the future and made radically different assumptions about how things were going to go.

Snoke says he bridged Kylo and Rey's minds and basically both fed them a story they wanted to believe.

Rey fell into Snoke's trap, not Kylo's (presuming Snoke was telling the truth then). Kylo was an unwitting dupe in setting up Snoke's trap.

And seriously, people: watch the movie again (even if you hated it). Because this is a film that is full of misdirection, and surprises, and you WILL miss important stuff. Maybe that's a flaw in the structure of the film, but it certainly rewards repeat viewing, in that sense.

If you were the sort to criticise 'Ren lets her board and takes directly where she needs to go to do most damage' could be an example of her warping the plot to her advantage. It's not really because it's fairly well set up and makes sense. (And also Ren does most of the damage, it's his plan that works)

Indeed. I can see someone arguing that, if they're looking for reasons to attack the film, but it would still be twisting the evidence.

Like I said Rey doesn't succeed much herself on her own, but she is catalyst and instigator for most of the big things that happen in TLJ, as she should be being the main character.

Even that's stretching things, arguably- she's one of the factors (indirectly) in Luke's decision to leave, and in Snoke's death. But Yoda is the direct catalyst for the former, and Kylo and Snoke's actions both play a major role in the latter.

The only time that she is directly accomplishes something big is when she saves the Resistance at the end, and even that was after various people (most notably Luke) buying her time to do so. And not falling to the Dark Side, though that's not so much a positive accomplishment as it is simply avoiding a catastrophic failure.

That Luke and Snoke have relatively little regard for her does help counter act TFA's flaws in this regard.

I don't really have a problem with others' reactions to Rey in TFA, aside from Leia immediately going to Rey, not Chewie, after Han's death I guess. It makes sense with Finn given his personality, that he quickly attaches himself to the few friends he has. Han... I get the feeling that Han is a good judge of potential in people, and quick to make friends (remember, in ANH, he invited Luke to join him on the Falcon as well). Chewie will go with whatever Han decides in that regard. BB-8 just needed a meatbag friend to get off Jakku, I suppose. Plus, Rey in TFA is just a rather likeable person.

Kylo and Snoke both just see a powerful Force user and potential asset/threat, though their interest might be more justified if Rey had turned out to be a Skywalker.

But yeah, TLJ pretty much sinks "everyone loves Rey", which as I understand it is one of the common criteria for a Mary Sue.