I liked Star Wars:TFA but....characterization

[Cpu46]

She had a fairly good attitude, but it's hard to take seriously when she's hyper-competent and has instant mastery at things she has never done, but that's a discussion for another thread.

I think that while she is hyper competent for the most part it is explainable by her upbringing on Jakku. She learned to speak a variety of languages due to the mixed nature of the scavengers. Her fighting ability is self explanatory due to the rough nature of the locals. She learned how to repair, maintain, and fly ships as those would be essential skills when doing scavenging runs and odd jobs.

A lot of people say she is too good with the blaster but she really only hits 2-3 Stormtroopers who are caught by surprise, Finn and Han are far more competent than she is shown to be as far as shooting.

The force abilities actually comes down to a personal theory of mine. She only exhibits these abilities after the vision caused by grabbing Luke's lightsaber. My theory is that Luke imbued the lightsaber with the vision of Kylo's betrayal and some way to trigger an individual's personal memory to keep them from abandoning the quest. In Rey's case the knowledge that her parents left her and would not be coming back. Additionally he packed it with knowledge about the basic abilities a force user should know in order to give any new force user a jump start and a fighting chance against the Knights of Ren and the First Order.

Its only a personal theory but I feel it makes sense. Kylo is shown to force interrogate, the lightsaber knowledge bomb is pretty much the opposite of that.

She is still a Mary Sue and I hope she gets knocked down a peg in the next 2 movies, but I did actually enjoy her screentime.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Or using them to get the missiles over the exhaust port where they curve themselves. That would actually make sense given that if the computer was telling it where to curve, they could fire from any distance and it would curve. But they wait until they're a specific distance away before they fire, the missiles were likely on fuses.

Okay, this point has been bugging me more and more whenever you bring it up and I cant take it anymore.

Why the hell would an engineer design a missile -a weapon almost exclusively meant for three dimensional air to air combat- in such a way that it automatically turns downward after a set amount of time?

That just doesnt make any sense. It completely negates the weapon's primary purpose of taking out aircraft or aircraft-like spacecraft.

It has a fuse to do so? Apparently if you pay attention when they're going over the plan, the top of the exhaust port is covered so they can't shoot in straight from above (I know I never personally noticed). So perhaps they engineered these missiles specifically to do so?

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Or using them to get the missiles over the exhaust port where they curve themselves. That would actually make sense given that if the computer was telling it where to curve, they could fire from any distance and it would curve. But they wait until they're a specific distance away before they fire, the missiles were likely on fuses.

Okay, this point has been bugging me more and more whenever you bring it up and I cant take it anymore.

Why the hell would an engineer design a missile -a weapon almost exclusively meant for three dimensional air to air combat- in such a way that it automatically turns downward after a set amount of time?

That just doesnt make any sense. It completely negates the weapon's primary purpose of taking out aircraft or aircraft-like spacecraft.

It has a fuse to do so? Apparently if you pay attention when they're going over the plan, the top of the exhaust port is covered so they can't shoot in straight (I know I never personally noticed). So perhaps they engineered these missiles specifically to do so?

But WHY do it that way? Now they have a bunch of missiles that are completely useless except for this one specific situation that only happens once in one mission and never happens ever again.

If we're going the route of "let's custom engineer a bunch of hyper-specialized missiles that are useless for anything but the target of this one mission alone," why wouldnt they program a custom Death Star targeting mode and upload it into all of the X-Wings' targeting computers?

Then you only have to do it once as opposed to like 16 times, one for each missile, AND you dont gimp the combat effectiveness of all of your fighters on the mission or any other future fighter that might have the misfortune to equip any leftover missiles later down the line.

But have we established that the targeting computer communicates with the missile in flight? What if guidance is already on the missiles?

EDIT: going by what somebody in the 70's would think of missile technology, before things like GPS and laser guidance came into the public mind.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Where are you even getting the idea that the missiles have a fuse to make them curve anyway? When do they ever imply that in the movie?

They don't. It's one of those Star Wars space fantasy elements we just kind of took on faith. The primary maxim of Star Wars was always the Rule of Cool.

Except for Rey. She's a horrifying feminist insert and her demonstrating competence ruined the movie.

Everything else though...Rule of Cool. Totes.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Or using them to get the missiles over the exhaust port where they curve themselves. That would actually make sense given that if the computer was telling it where to curve, they could fire from any distance and it would curve. But they wait until they're a specific distance away before they fire, the missiles were likely on fuses.

Okay, this point has been bugging me more and more whenever you bring it up and I cant take it anymore.

Why the hell would an engineer design a missile -a weapon almost exclusively meant for three dimensional air to air combat- in such a way that it automatically turns downward after a set amount of time?

That just doesnt make any sense. It completely negates the weapon's primary purpose of taking out aircraft or aircraft-like spacecraft.

It has a fuse to do so? Apparently if you pay attention when they're going over the plan, the top of the exhaust port is covered so they can't shoot in straight (I know I never personally noticed). So perhaps they engineered these missiles specifically to do so?

But WHY do it that way? Now they have a bunch of missiles that are completely useless except for this one specific situation that only happens once in one mission and never happens ever again.

If we're going the route of "let's custom engineer a bunch of hyper-specialized missiles that are useless for anything but the target of this one mission alone," why wouldnt they program a custom Death Star targeting mode and upload it into all of the X-Wings' targeting computers?

Then you only have to do it once as opposed to like 16 times, one for each missile, AND you dont gimp the combat effectiveness of all of your fighters on the mission or any other future fighter that might have the misfortune to equip any leftover missiles later down the line.

But have we established that the targeting computer communicates with the missile in flight? What if guidance is already on the missiles?

EDIT: going by what somebody in the 70's would think of missile technology, before things like GPS and laser guidance came into the public mind.

That's literally the entire point behind a targeting computer. How do you think it's supposed to work, the computer takes an intended target, calculates a velocity vector that intersects with the target, downloads it to the missile and THEN fires it without communicating with it after that point? Such a weapon could be trivially defeated by the just changing their velocity vector, an advanced dog-fighting technique also known as "Moving literally anywhere else."

Unless the missile itself was smart. Remember the targeting computer is also used for dummy shots like the lasers.

EDIT: Of course Guppy is right that it's mostly overthinking what's going on.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Or using them to get the missiles over the exhaust port where they curve themselves. That would actually make sense given that if the computer was telling it where to curve, they could fire from any distance and it would curve. But they wait until they're a specific distance away before they fire, the missiles were likely on fuses.

Okay, this point has been bugging me more and more whenever you bring it up and I cant take it anymore.

Why the hell would an engineer design a missile -a weapon almost exclusively meant for three dimensional air to air combat- in such a way that it automatically turns downward after a set amount of time?

That just doesnt make any sense. It completely negates the weapon's primary purpose of taking out aircraft or aircraft-like spacecraft.

It has a fuse to do so? Apparently if you pay attention when they're going over the plan, the top of the exhaust port is covered so they can't shoot in straight (I know I never personally noticed). So perhaps they engineered these missiles specifically to do so?

But WHY do it that way? Now they have a bunch of missiles that are completely useless except for this one specific situation that only happens once in one mission and never happens ever again.

If we're going the route of "let's custom engineer a bunch of hyper-specialized missiles that are useless for anything but the target of this one mission alone," why wouldnt they program a custom Death Star targeting mode and upload it into all of the X-Wings' targeting computers?

Then you only have to do it once as opposed to like 16 times, one for each missile, AND you dont gimp the combat effectiveness of all of your fighters on the mission or any other future fighter that might have the misfortune to equip any leftover missiles later down the line.

But have we established that the targeting computer communicates with the missile in flight? What if guidance is already on the missiles?

EDIT: going by what somebody in the 70's would think of missile technology, before things like GPS and laser guidance came into the public mind.

That's literally the entire point behind a targeting computer. How do you think it's supposed to work, the computer takes an intended target, calculates a velocity vector that intersects with the target, downloads it to the missile and THEN fires it without communicating with it after that point? Such a weapon could be trivially defeated by the just changing their velocity vector, an advanced dog-fighting technique also known as "Moving literally anywhere else."

Unless the missile itself was smart. Remember the targeting computer is also used for dummy shots like the lasers.

EDIT: Of course Guppy is right that it's mostly overthinking what's going on.

Didnt you just state that you were basing the entire premise on "what somebody in the 70's would think of missile technology, before things like GPS and laser guidance came into the public mind."?

So GPS and laser guidance are out, but smart missiles arent?

Computers miniaturized and cheap enough to be disposable? Easy. Having a missile see a laser pointer? Preposterous.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Or using them to get the missiles over the exhaust port where they curve themselves. That would actually make sense given that if the computer was telling it where to curve, they could fire from any distance and it would curve. But they wait until they're a specific distance away before they fire, the missiles were likely on fuses.

Okay, this point has been bugging me more and more whenever you bring it up and I cant take it anymore.

Why the hell would an engineer design a missile -a weapon almost exclusively meant for three dimensional air to air combat- in such a way that it automatically turns downward after a set amount of time?

That just doesnt make any sense. It completely negates the weapon's primary purpose of taking out aircraft or aircraft-like spacecraft.

It has a fuse to do so? Apparently if you pay attention when they're going over the plan, the top of the exhaust port is covered so they can't shoot in straight (I know I never personally noticed). So perhaps they engineered these missiles specifically to do so?

But WHY do it that way? Now they have a bunch of missiles that are completely useless except for this one specific situation that only happens once in one mission and never happens ever again.

If we're going the route of "let's custom engineer a bunch of hyper-specialized missiles that are useless for anything but the target of this one mission alone," why wouldnt they program a custom Death Star targeting mode and upload it into all of the X-Wings' targeting computers?

Then you only have to do it once as opposed to like 16 times, one for each missile, AND you dont gimp the combat effectiveness of all of your fighters on the mission or any other future fighter that might have the misfortune to equip any leftover missiles later down the line.

But have we established that the targeting computer communicates with the missile in flight? What if guidance is already on the missiles?

EDIT: going by what somebody in the 70's would think of missile technology, before things like GPS and laser guidance came into the public mind.

That's literally the entire point behind a targeting computer. How do you think it's supposed to work, the computer takes an intended target, calculates a velocity vector that intersects with the target, downloads it to the missile and THEN fires it without communicating with it after that point? Such a weapon could be trivially defeated by the just changing their velocity vector, an advanced dog-fighting technique also known as "Moving literally anywhere else."

Unless the missile itself was smart. Remember the targeting computer is also used for dummy shots like the lasers.

EDIT: Of course Guppy is right that it's mostly overthinking what's going on.

Didnt you just state that you were basing the entire premise on "what somebody in the 70's would think of missile technology, before things like GPS and laser guidance came into the public mind."?

So GPS and laser guidance are out, but smart missiles arent?

Computers miniaturized and cheap enough to be disposable? Easy. Having a missile see a laser pointer? Preposterous.

How is it any more preposterous than cheap tiny computers to a 70s audience?

Because they were watching computers getting miniaturized by then. The Apple I and Commodore Pet were already out by the time the movie came out.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Or using them to get the missiles over the exhaust port where they curve themselves. That would actually make sense given that if the computer was telling it where to curve, they could fire from any distance and it would curve. But they wait until they're a specific distance away before they fire, the missiles were likely on fuses.

Okay, this point has been bugging me more and more whenever you bring it up and I cant take it anymore.

Why the hell would an engineer design a missile -a weapon almost exclusively meant for three dimensional air to air combat- in such a way that it automatically turns downward after a set amount of time?

That just doesnt make any sense. It completely negates the weapon's primary purpose of taking out aircraft or aircraft-like spacecraft.

It has a fuse to do so? Apparently if you pay attention when they're going over the plan, the top of the exhaust port is covered so they can't shoot in straight (I know I never personally noticed). So perhaps they engineered these missiles specifically to do so?

But WHY do it that way? Now they have a bunch of missiles that are completely useless except for this one specific situation that only happens once in one mission and never happens ever again.

If we're going the route of "let's custom engineer a bunch of hyper-specialized missiles that are useless for anything but the target of this one mission alone," why wouldnt they program a custom Death Star targeting mode and upload it into all of the X-Wings' targeting computers?

Then you only have to do it once as opposed to like 16 times, one for each missile, AND you dont gimp the combat effectiveness of all of your fighters on the mission or any other future fighter that might have the misfortune to equip any leftover missiles later down the line.

But have we established that the targeting computer communicates with the missile in flight? What if guidance is already on the missiles?

EDIT: going by what somebody in the 70's would think of missile technology, before things like GPS and laser guidance came into the public mind.

That's literally the entire point behind a targeting computer. How do you think it's supposed to work, the computer takes an intended target, calculates a velocity vector that intersects with the target, downloads it to the missile and THEN fires it without communicating with it after that point? Such a weapon could be trivially defeated by the just changing their velocity vector, an advanced dog-fighting technique also known as "Moving literally anywhere else."

Unless the missile itself was smart. Remember the targeting computer is also used for dummy shots like the lasers.

EDIT: Of course Guppy is right that it's mostly overthinking what's going on.

Didnt you just state that you were basing the entire premise on "what somebody in the 70's would think of missile technology, before things like GPS and laser guidance came into the public mind."?

So GPS and laser guidance are out, but smart missiles arent?

Computers miniaturized and cheap enough to be disposable? Easy. Having a missile see a laser pointer? Preposterous.

How is it any more preposterous than cheap tiny computers to a 70s audience?

Because they were watching computers getting miniaturized by then. The Apple I and Commodore Pet were already out by the time the movie came out.

So that's one half. What's the other?

Because, if I'm not mistaken, laser guidance wasn't a thing for a couple of decades and GPS wasn't happening until the 90's (not that GPS would even be useful in the context of the Deathstar run).

 

[UsefulPlayer 1]

Was Rey really any less Mary Sue than Anakin though?

Anakin was good with droids, the best pilot in the republic, and an excellent jedi. Was his feats no less fantastic?

He blew up Separatist space stations when he was like 10 years old...

I don't remember anyone suggesting anything Mary Sue about him.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I don't remember anyone suggesting anything Mary Sue about him.

The major complaint around Anakin centered around the actor. Primarily that it was stupid that a little kid was "doing things" of note in a major film. It was also lost in the general storm of anger around many other aspects of the film, although apparently the blow back over the quality of his performance eventually derailed Jake Lloyd's entire life (rather a sad story, and not exactly a glowing endorsement of Star Wars fans).

 

[Orga777]

You'll notice Ben tells him to "stretch out with his feelings" and to "trust his instincts". At no point does he say "Tomorrow we'll do three hours of practice thrusts".

Okay, I am mostly staying out of this, but this is just not a good argument. Reflecting blaster bolts from a practice droid, or even a Storm Trooper for that matter, is NOT the same thing as fighting a trained Force user in a Lightsaber battle, wounded or not. All I have to point to is how Luke gets annihilated by Vader in Empire. Vader only used one hand for almost the whole fight and wasn't even trying. Luke had some training. Rey did not. And I don't care if Ren isn't better than Vader. He is still a trained Force user and knows his way around a fight. Rey should of had no chance. Heck, the fact she knows how to control the Force at all with NOBODY ever telling her how to do so in the first place is an issue all on its own.

Was Rey really any less Mary Sue than Anakin though?

Anakin was good with droids, the best pilot in the republic, and an excellent jedi. Was his feats no less fantastic?

He blew up Separatist space stations when he was like 10 years old...

I don't remember anyone suggesting anything Mary Sue about him.

Using the crappy Prequels as an example is not a good thing, dude. And for such an excellent Jedi, Anakin sure got crushed by Dooku in Episode II and Obi-Wan in Episode III. With all the training. His only major victory against a Force user was against Dooku in Episode III, in a fight he may have been told to throw by Palpatine.

 

[Daelin Dwin]

Was Rey really any less Mary Sue than Anakin though?

Anakin was good with droids, the best pilot in the republic, and an excellent jedi. Was his feats no less fantastic?

He blew up Separatist space stations when he was like 10 years old...

I don't remember anyone suggesting anything Mary Sue about him.

Anakin is literally Space Jesus, conceived by midi-chlorians to bring balance to The Force. He is extremely skilled physically, technically and with The Force, but when it comes to his emotions he fails in almost all regards. From Episode 1, everyone but Qui-Gon thinks his emotions will be his downfall, and guess what, they were right.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Okay, I am mostly staying out of this, but this is just not a good argument. Reflecting blaster bolts from a practice droid, or even a Storm Trooper for that matter, is NOT the same thing as fighting a trained Force user in a Lightsaber battle, wounded or not. All I have to point to is how Luke gets annihilated by Vader in Empire. Vader only used one hand for almost the whole fight and wasn't even trying. Luke had some training. Rey did not. And I don't care if Ren isn't better than Vader. He is still a trained Force user and knows his way around a fight. Rey should of had no chance. Heck, the fact she knows how to control the Force at all with NOBODY ever telling her how to do so in the first place is an issue all on its own.

No he didn't. Luke had no training with the saber beyond the few seconds at the beginning of New Hope, during which he shows immediate and remarkable proficiency. All his time spent with Yoda is about mastering his emotions. Be more patient. Be less angry. Master your doubts. Why is this training important? Because of who Luke's father is and what happened to him. When he goes speeding off to face Vader early, the concern is he's still an emotional basket case and he's going to fall to the Dark Side. Yoda doesn't say "NOT READY YOU ARE! ONLY LEVEL 3 LIGHTSABER FIGHTER YOU HAVE BECOME".

Secondly, we have absolutely no idea what training Rey has or hasn't received. The film more or less bludgeons you with clues that Rey has a significant and mysterious history. I've heard the argument that this is somehow "inadmissible" as evidence because it's not explicitly spelled out for us in the first film, often by the same people who refer to Luke's off-screen "training" as ironclad proof of his superior pedigree. If you ascribe to the theory that she's either Luke's daughter or Han and Leia's daughter...which, you should, given the evidence...then how likely is it she wasn't trained? If you'd like to review said evidence, we can do that. There's voluminous amounts of it. The film makes sure to pause every 10-15 minutes to give you another reminder that REY'S PAST IS SIGNIFICANT.

 

[Orga777]

No he didn't. Luke had no training with the saber beyond the few seconds at the beginning of New Hope, during which he shows immediate and remarkable proficiency. All his time spent with Yoda is about mastering his emotions. Be more patient. Be less angry. Master your doubts. Why is this training important? Because of who Luke's father is and what happened to him. When he goes speeding off to face Vader early, the concern is he's still an emotional basket case and he's going to fall to the Dark Side. Yoda doesn't say "NOT READY YOU ARE! ONLY LEVEL 3 LIGHTSABER FIGHTER YOU HAVE BECOME".

Secondly, we have absolutely no idea what training Rey has or hasn't received. The film more or less bludgeons you with clues that Rey has a significant and mysterious history. I've heard the argument that this is somehow "inadmissible" as evidence because it's not explicitly spelled out for us in the first film, often by the same people who refer to Luke's off-screen "training" as ironclad proof of his superior pedigree. If you ascribe to the theory that she's either Luke's daughter or Han and Leia's daughter...which, you should, given the evidence...then how likely is it she wasn't trained? If you'd like to review said evidence, we can do that. There's voluminous amounts of it. The film makes sure to pause every 10-15 minutes to give you another reminder that REY'S PAST IS SIGNIFICANT.

Rey sure doesn't seem to remember anything if she was trained. :/ Sorry, even if she is Luke's daughter, to me, all that means is that she has a high level of Force capability. She shouldn't know how to USE it effectively in a fight against a trained combatant. She out Force Grabbed Kylo Ren before the fight even started.Even after all his training and soul searching between Empire and Jedi, Luke still wasn't much of a match for Vader. he had to go rage inducing curb-stomp mode to beat Vader back in a fight Vader wasn't even going all out in that much. I am sorry, but I just can't buy into this.

 

[Lightknight]

While this film certainly wouldn't fall into anyone's best of the franchise category, it certainly got the feel of Star Wars right.

(Spoilers)

The characterization took the hit it did because of the insane pacing. If you watch the film and pay attention to pacing you'll realize that the whole thing is depicted as having happened in a day or so. Traveling between locations frequently happens while the cast is having a single conversation (like Solo piloting the Falcon to that other planet taking only the length of time that it took to bandage a wookie). It's hard to characterize people when there is no travel dialogue and everything is just rushing to the next thing. I mean, from my perspective Finn and Rey hadn't known each other for even 30 minutes before he confesses feelings about her and maybe an hour or so before he decides he's willing to not be a coward and die for her.

As for "remember that moment", it did have a few. Such as Han's spoilerific scene. Poe's initial snark when captured at the beginning of the film. The Finn and Stormtrooper fight. Ren flipping the hell out and slashing a room with his saber (including the time those stormtroopers stopped and went the other way). There aren't that many, I'll admit, but to dismiss them wholesale would be disingenuous. It was a good but safe movie.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I am sorry, but I just can't buy into this.

Well that's your prerogative. I have very little motivation to try and convince you of the merits of a piece of escapist media. There's more than sufficient evidence in the film to allow for informed speculation on what's going on, but if people want to hand wave it or view it as "excuses", they are free to do so.

 

[Orga777]

I am sorry, but I just can't buy into this.

Well that's your prerogative. I have very little motivation to try and convince you of the merits of a piece of escapist media. There's more than sufficient evidence in the film to allow for informed speculation on what's going on, but if people want to hand wave it or view it as "excuses", they are free to do so.

So she was well-trained at like five years old to do Force abilities on the level of a fully trained Jedi Knight after only a couple seconds of trying? Cause that is the only thing the "evidence" would point to. :/

 

[Lightknight]

I am sorry, but I just can't buy into this.

Well that's your prerogative. I have very little motivation to try and convince you of the merits of a piece of escapist media. There's more than sufficient evidence in the film to allow for informed speculation on what's going on, but if people want to hand wave it or view it as "excuses", they are free to do so.

So she was well-trained at like five years old to do Force abilities on the level of a fully trained Jedi Knight after only a couple seconds of trying? Cause that is the only thing the "evidence" would point to. :/

I think I might consider instead that she has a lot of raw talent and that Ren is currently at war with himself. Especially considering what he had just done and that he was wounded (shot, remember? Also struck by Finn with a saber, all before her turn).

But yeah, she was certainly going faster than others had before. Though remember that Luke wasn't really shown the force until Yoda whereas Rey was being shown the force by Ren.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

So she was well-trained at like five years old to do Force abilities on the level of a fully trained Jedi Knight after only a couple seconds of trying? Cause that is the only thing the "evidence" would point to. :/

This is the kind of thing that just makes me exasperated discussing this character. There's no such thing as reasoned debate or criticism. It's all absurd hyperbole. She's not talented or resourceful, she's THE BEST AT EVERYTHING. She doesn't have two exchanges with Han on his ship, she KNOWS THE FALCON BETTER THAN HAN AND SCHOOLS HIM ON FLYING IT. She doesn't overcome adversity, she NEVER FACES ADVERSITY AT ALL. She doesn't get rescued even during her clear rescue, she WOULD HAVE RESCUED HERSELF EVENTUALLY WITHOUT ASSISTANCE. She doesn't barely overcome a badly wounded, partially trained and emotionally erratic Kylo Ren, she EASILY DEFEATS A SITH LORD. She doesn't show evidence of being an atypically powerful force sensitive, she's A FULLY TRAINED JEDI KNIGHT.

Even if I had some concerns about her characterization, they'd be drowned out by the vociferous Rey-haters. And let's be clear, this wasn't a gritty historical drama, this is an ongoing space fantasy in which mystical forces are perpetually employed by the writers as ass-pulls and the Rule of Cool outweighs narrative exposition by a ratio of about 100:1. In this environment, I'm to believe this character is canon-shattering and cannot be believed.

To quote your pre-edit post..."Okay, bro".

 

[Orga777]

I think I might consider instead that she has a lot of raw talent and that Ren is currently at war with himself. Especially considering what he had just done and that he was wounded (shot, remember? Also struck by Finn with a saber, all before her turn).

But yeah, she was certainly going faster than others had before. Though remember that Luke wasn't really shown the force until Yoda whereas Rey was being shown the force by Ren.

She was shown the Force by Ren as a weapon. Not how to use it herself. It would be like Luke mastering the Jedi mindtrick just because he saw Obi-Wan do it that one time. Being a Jedi should be a lot harder than "just because."