J.J. Abrams Addresses Lack of Rey in The Force Awakens Merchandise

[Therumancer]

eh, this is still dumb. Well, complaining about a lack of characters is fine, it's the accusations of sexism that are dumb.

I get people wanting Rey, but I come on, there's only 4 playable pieces, and it's already split between 1 from each trilogy and 1 from each faction. There was literally one piece that could be swapped out for Rey in that model, and then we'd just be left with accusations of racism instead.

The only reasonable complaint is that only having 4 pieces is shit to begin with. Should have been at least 8, or new trilogy only characters if they really wanted to stick with 4.

In any case, perfect opportunity for them to capitalize on expansion sets of characters.

Wait, racism? For cutting out Darth Vader?

Darth Vader was actually voiced by a black man, none other than James Earl Jones. In today's world of political correctness I wouldn't be surprised if people made a thing about it myself.

 

[Buckets]

Rey is as important to put into the figure lines as anyone else in the movie. She does only need one as there is only one outfit through the whole movie.
Monopoly hardly matters, they could have just put the ships in the game, would have saved all the hassle. As someone else pointed out though, there used to be about 6 different things to choose from so costcutting at play here I think.

 

[Abomination]

People are literally upset about the lack of an inch high figurine.

I hope that sinks in.

 

[Azrael the Cat]

Rey isnt being ignored by manufacturers because she is female. She is being ignored because she is a boring, Mary Sue character who doesnt inspire female nor male children. The more time passes, the more people will get over the buzz, and realize Rey isnt really a Star Wars-worthy character.

You're right, why would they merchandise a bad character? No one ever does that, and now Disney is finally catching up. In fact, they were wrong to put Kylo Ren in the game too, since he's a sissy pansy poopy. And Luke does nothing but look sad, sooo lame. And Vader is like the worst character in the whole movie, just sitting on the desk, all without a body and shit. Why are any of these characters being merchandised at all? Sooo stupid...

You know, they shouldn't merchandise the Hulk anymore either for the Avengers. He's barely a character, he isn't worthy to be a Marvel star. I mean, he's a green monster, not a young white male, what the hell is he doing here???

In fairness, I do remember that, as a kid playing with my friends in the early 80s, we used to play paper-rock-scissors to avoid playing with the Luke figurine. NOBODY wanted to play with Luke - I mean, even as 6 yr old boys, we thought Leia was cool, but Luke was just too whiny.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I bet if they made a gold bikini version of Rey it would sell like hot cakes. lol. Seems weird they cut her out of the game. If they have only 4 pieces to chose from why not have 2 choices for each colour?

 

[Chriss_m]

I bet if they made a gold bikini version of Rey it would sell like hot cakes. lol. Seems weird they cut her out of the game. If they have only 4 pieces to chose from why not have 2 choices for each colour?

Th game was made to accompany the film, but because it was developed so early, they had to broaden it out to be a Star Wars monopoly. So Vader and Luke are in, and then Finn and Kylo - who just so happen to parallel Luke and Vader as the two who have an epic lightsaber battle which is visible in trailers - are in.

I don't understand how people can't see the absurdity of this. If Finn had been cut for her to be in, would BLM be protesting the game's release due to racial discrimination? No, of course not. They're still preoccupied with concocting racism out of Vader.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

I would not be the least bit surprised if this whole thing with the lack of Rey dolls action figures was just a viral advertising gimmick designed and implemented to sell what are essentially useless chunks of plastic to gullible millennials. So that they can be put on shelves and hung off walls to serve as fetishised objects with which to virtue signal to other like-minded consumerists about just how extra double special progressive they are.

Consumption becomes virtue.
Virtue becomes consumption.

Yes, I am a cynic. What on earth gave me away?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Alright, a few things I want to comment on pertaining to this news story and the discussion around it.

THERE ARE A LOT OF REY TOYS

This is not a Black Widow situation, where Disney specifically bought a property (Marvel) to court one demographic (young males) and ignore another (young females) because it already had it locked down (Disney Princesses). Your new Disney Star Wars was an egalitarian wet dream , and you can rest reasonably assured that this was deliberate. This is their mass market "catch as many as you can" IP. And this is Star Wars. LIKE THEY WEREN'T GOING TO MAKE TOYS OUT OF EVERYTHING.

One of the major, if not THE major reasons there aren't a lot of Rey toys is because Rey was very popular, even before the film launched and her toys were selling out.

http://www.mtv.com/news/2688307/female-star-wars-toys-selling-out/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-30/-star-wars-toys-aren-t-just-for-boys-anymore-as-rey-takes-over

Spoiler

Seeking out toys of female characters online rather than going out of your way to brick and mortar stores might be a solution for some, but don?t expect it to be any easier as far as availability goes. Many figures of Rey and Captain Phasma are already sold out or unavailable on the K-mart, Toys ?R? Us, and Disney Store websites. And on Amazon, the standard 3.75 inch Rey figure costs twice its regular retail price via third party sellers ? meaning it?s also been selling out at the retail level.

However, this scarcity doesn?t explicitly mean that there are fewer female action figures in production than male ones, as many customers might fear from checking out their local stores. Several sources we spoke to noted that ?Star Wars: The Force Awakens? figures were produced in relatively equal amounts to one another, because licensors weren?t sure which of the new characters would sell the best ? and are planning to adjust after the movie is released, accordingly.

Retailers also can?t select individual figures to sell more than others in a particular figure line. Right now, they all come bundled together, meaning that stores get as many Finn figures as they get Rey figures in any one shipment. So if you?re seeing a row of 6″ Hasbro Black Series figures with no Rey in sight, it?s more likely that there were just as many Rey toys at one point, and they all got bought out ? versus were never there in the first place.

Talking to Jim Silver, the CEO and editor-in-chief of TTPM ? a well respected aggregator and creator of expert toy and collectible reviews ? simply told MTV News, ?It?s supply and demand. You go back to the old characters, the one thing you knew was that by far Darth Vader was the most popular character, and outsold the other characters in multiples.?

That might be of interest to Zontar and the "Rey is such a shitty character no one wanted a toy of her LUL" gang.

THE "THERE ARE NO REY TOYS" STUPIDITY SWIRLED AROUND TWO PRODUCTS

One was an action figure set containing Poe, Finn, Kylo Ren, Chewbacca, and two Storm Troopers (??). No Han in there either, it was just a random set of six figures. Jamie Ford tweeted a picture of this shrieking about "No Rey", as though Star Wars wasn't the biggest merchandising whore in the history of film franchises, and there wouldn't be Rey toys to find elsewhere. And some Very Excitable People read this on the internet and took it as gospel, because of course they did.

The other was Monopoly, which included 4 figures, two of which were Luke and Darth. Two things leap immediately to mind here. One is that their whole "we were trying to avoid spoilers" excuse is woefully transparent and feeble, and the second is that they really don't require an excuse. It's MONOPOLY. Who FUCKING CARES. There will probably be thirty seven more Force Awakens Monopolies released over the next two years, because Monopoly might be second only to Star Wars in the "whoring itself out" department. They'd make an all IG-88 Monopoly if they thought someone would buy it.

HASBRO PROBABLY THOUGHT FINN WAS THE CENTRAL CHARACTER

Thanks to the film's deliberately misleading marketing. Who knows when these stupid Monopolies went into production. Very little thought likely went into them. Because, you know, Monopoly. Just the fact Luke and Darth are in there and there are only four tokens total tells you how much love and care this product got. It's a lazy cash-in on the new film. Some Taiwanese factory probably had one still from the film to work on five months ago.

TO THE PEOPLE OH SO PREDICTABLY WHINING ABOUT TEH SJWS

Please do give it a rest. You're as bad as, if not actively worse, than the people you are condemning. Just a bunch of outrage addicts, symbiotically generating drama.

 

[Small Moon Rabbit]

Dominic, you make some good points and I appreciate these films can be read differently, so don't take this as a direct attack on you, its more a counterpoint to this "You aren't allowed to describe Rey as a Mary Sue because...INSERT ORIGINAL CHARACTER HERE" argument, mainly because I don't believe most of the examples are valid ones.

Han - You mean the guy all the fans want to be because he's such a bad ass

That doesn't mean he's a Mary Sue. It means people like the character. As a kid I wanted to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Doesn't mean they are Mary Sues.

First off lets get the definitions out the way:

A Mary Sue or Gary Stu or Marty Stu is an idealized fictional character, a young or low-rank person who saves the day through unrealistic abilities. Often this character is recognized as an author insert and/or wish-fulfillment.

Just in case anyone is feeling pedantic, see the word "Often" at the start of the second sentence. OK moving on...

...who only completely fails once (vs Vader and Lando's betrayal) and can otherwise shoot or talk his way out of any given situation.

I see this completely differently and I believe my interpretation is backed up by the actual films. In my interpretation of the character he is constantly failing to make the right choices. Failing but looking good doing it isn't a Mary Sue, maybe there is another word for this kind of character, Google probably has the answer. He's constantly making the wrong choices for the wrong reasons and living by simple luck alone, NOT his competence.

Lets just take one sequence for example. Leia's "rescue" from the Detention center in A New Hope. Han needs Luke to come up with a plan to get them into the prison block. Once in the Detention Center he takes command and promptly messes up convincing security that everything is OK. He then retreats into a dead end and guess what? Leia ends up saving them all by taking a blaster from Luke (who is totally a Mary Sue), blasting a hole in the wall and directing them through. Once in the trash compactor he tries to shoot the door, nearly killing them all. Luke is dragged under the water by a creature, Han flails around, has to be told to shoot the thing by Luke, fails at that and Luke is dragged under again. Failing to save Luke Han looks around dumbly and for a moment it seems like Luke is dead, only when the trash compactor starts does Luke resurface. Now the trash compactor starts to close in and its Leia who directs them to try bracing the walls. Luke (being a total Mary Sue) forgets he can contact the droids and only remembers at the last second, because he's perfect like that.

Who saves the protagonists life twice that I remember.

And who is saved multiple times by the other characters (including Leia, I feel I need to make this point as it seems people forget quite how bad-ass Leia is in the original films), see above for two examples in just one scene.

Who gets the Princess by being a bit of a dick.

Who Leia falls in love with because despite his many many flaws she sees he is a good man under all that bluster and bravado. Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to take away Leias agency? (I don't believe you are, I'm just being an ass to make the point, sorry about that).

Who causes a dozen stormtroopers to retreat for backup on their hometurf of the Death Star.

This, to be honest, is a fairly stupid illogical scene, the storm troopers start running after Han shoots the first one, it doesn't make much sense. Maybe they are going for backup? They know they have a room full of friends just around the corner and they have no cover where they are standing. It seems like totally the wrong choice for Han to make in the circumstances and as much as it buys them a few seconds, ultimately its a stupid move that only puts him and chewie in more danger. I did go back and watch this scene to be sure I wasn't talking completely out of my butt.

Who finds Luke in the middle of a snowstorm with no tracking device while Luke is wearing winter camo against impossible odds.

Fair point, however Luke checks in with Han just before he is taken out by the Wampa. "I've finished my circle" implying its probably a predefined route. So as long as he's not dragged off to far Han would have a good idea where to look.

Who wins the trust of the Rebels so easily that they trust him (and Leia) to lead the assault on the mission critical shield generator.

Without spending some time looking up the specific timelines for the original films I'd assume its at least a year or two between the first and third films, plenty of time for the rebels to learn to trust Han, especially after his role in the success of the original Deathstar destruction.

As for the mechanic thing that's Chewies department more so then Solos

True, Chewie does seem to do more of the actual fixing, but maybe thats because, I don't know, someone has to fly the ship? Just a thought.

Side note: None of this is to say I'm a massive fan of character or anything, I just hate the Mary Sue argument, ESPECIALLY when they're far more valid compliants.

I personally don't dislike Rey as a character, however I do believe there are good arguments that she is a Mary Sue character. I'd happy argue my case for Ripley, Furiosa and most other popular female and also male leading characters NOT being Mary Sues, with specific examples in the first films they appear in. I'd be interested to see if someone could do the same with Rey, I'm not sure I could.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I personally don't dislike Rey as a character, however I do believe there are good arguments that she is a Mary Sue character. I'd happy argue my case for Ripley, Furiosa and most other popular female and also male leading characters NOT being Mary Sues, with specific examples in the first films they appear in. I'd be interested to see if someone could do the same with Rey, I'm not sure I could.

Mary Sue has become a colloquially nebulous term, rather loosely applied to a great variety of fictional characters. It's generally used now as a sneer term to indicate "character I dislike", which is rather a far cry from its original employment as "authorial self-insert". As no one likely imagines that Abrams and Kasdan secretly dream of being a hardscrabble 19 year old girl, we can safely assume Rey is not a "Mary Sue" in the traditional sense. Therefore we're left with the colloquial.

The most common reason given is "She's a Mary Sue because everything came too easily/she's too powerful". In which case she has good company among the legions of popular heroes from film and fantasy literature past. We could sit here all day detailing a list that would contain almost every super hero ever, a healthy portion of the Star Wars universe, and numerous popular film protagonists from Kirk to Neo to 80's action heroes. This is an uncomfortable comparison for some, because it ends up looking very much like Rey is catching flak specifically because of her vagina. And due to the inability of a great many people to have civil discussions around gender issues, that's a shit storm no one wants to get involved in.

A third possibility is that a goodly number of people saw Max Landis discussing the character (or more likely, just read his tweet...he liked the movie and liked Rey, as it happens...or at the very least liked Ridley) and have latched onto his "I don't understand where you go with the story from here" argument as regards Rey overcoming the antagonist and seemingly completing her hero's journey in Act I. To those people I would say "It is Act I" and "Maybe wait until Act III is complete before making authoritative statements about the quality of a completed work or character so you don't end up looking like a tit in 5 years when everything is wrapped up". Rey is a deliberately mysterious character half-written by a man who adores "mystery boxes". We know less about her than we knew about Keyser Soze 30 minutes into "The Usual Suspects". It's fine to be worried or curious, mysteries are supposed to provoke speculation. When folks start declaring that a film racing to become the 2nd highest grossing of all time has "ruined the franchise" because Rey was 0.6% more competent than Luke, they look either like morons who cannot grasp the simplest cinematic language, or like people with a pretty obvious and distasteful agenda.

PS - "Alien" Ripley is not really a "Mary Sue", but the arguments leveled at Rey could VERY easily be applied to "Aliens" Ripley. Has no military training, out-performs an entire squad of fully trained Marines.

PPS - I could do the Rey argument, if you wanted. As I stated, though, it's impossible to argue someone is or isn't a Mary Sue with such a vague working definition.

 

[Chriss_m]

Alright, a few things I want to comment on pertaining to this news story and the discussion around it.

THERE ARE A LOT OF REY TOYS

This is not a Black Widow situation, where Disney specifically bought a property (Marvel) to court one demographic (young males) and ignore another (young females) because it already had it locked down (Disney Princesses). Your new Disney Star Wars was an egalitarian wet dream , and you can rest reasonably assured that this was deliberate. This is their mass market "catch as many as you can" IP. And this is Star Wars. LIKE THEY WEREN'T GOING TO MAKE TOYS OUT OF EVERYTHING.

One of the major, if not THE major reasons there aren't a lot of Rey toys is because Rey was very popular, even before the film launched and her toys were selling out.

http://www.mtv.com/news/2688307/female-star-wars-toys-selling-out/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-30/-star-wars-toys-aren-t-just-for-boys-anymore-as-rey-takes-over

Spoiler

Seeking out toys of female characters online rather than going out of your way to brick and mortar stores might be a solution for some, but don?t expect it to be any easier as far as availability goes. Many figures of Rey and Captain Phasma are already sold out or unavailable on the K-mart, Toys ?R? Us, and Disney Store websites. And on Amazon, the standard 3.75 inch Rey figure costs twice its regular retail price via third party sellers ? meaning it?s also been selling out at the retail level.

However, this scarcity doesn?t explicitly mean that there are fewer female action figures in production than male ones, as many customers might fear from checking out their local stores. Several sources we spoke to noted that ?Star Wars: The Force Awakens? figures were produced in relatively equal amounts to one another, because licensors weren?t sure which of the new characters would sell the best ? and are planning to adjust after the movie is released, accordingly.

Retailers also can?t select individual figures to sell more than others in a particular figure line. Right now, they all come bundled together, meaning that stores get as many Finn figures as they get Rey figures in any one shipment. So if you?re seeing a row of 6″ Hasbro Black Series figures with no Rey in sight, it?s more likely that there were just as many Rey toys at one point, and they all got bought out ? versus were never there in the first place.

Talking to Jim Silver, the CEO and editor-in-chief of TTPM ? a well respected aggregator and creator of expert toy and collectible reviews ? simply told MTV News, ?It?s supply and demand. You go back to the old characters, the one thing you knew was that by far Darth Vader was the most popular character, and outsold the other characters in multiples.?

That might be of interest to Zontar and the "Rey is such a shitty character no one wanted a toy of her LUL" gang.

THE "THERE ARE NO REY TOYS" STUPIDITY SWIRLED AROUND TWO PRODUCTS

One was an action figure set containing Poe, Finn, Kylo Ren, Chewbacca, and two Storm Troopers (??). No Han in there either, it was just a random set of six figures. Jamie Ford tweeted a picture of this shrieking about "No Rey", as though Star Wars wasn't the biggest merchandising whore in the history of film franchises, and there wouldn't be Rey toys to find elsewhere. And some Very Excitable People read this on the internet and took it as gospel, because of course they did.

The other was Monopoly, which included 4 figures, two of which were Luke and Darth. Two things leap immediately to mind here. One is that their whole "we were trying to avoid spoilers" excuse is woefully transparent and feeble, and the second is that they really don't require an excuse. It's MONOPOLY. Who FUCKING CARES. There will probably be thirty seven more Force Awakens Monopolies released over the next two years, because Monopoly might be second only to Star Wars in the "whoring itself out" department. They'd make an all IG-88 Monopoly if they thought someone would buy it.

HASBRO PROBABLY THOUGHT FINN WAS THE CENTRAL CHARACTER

Thanks to the film's deliberately misleading marketing. Who knows when these stupid Monopolies went into production. Very little thought likely went into them. Because, you know, Monopoly. Just the fact Luke and Darth are in there and there are only four tokens total tells you how much love and care this product got. It's a lazy cash-in on the new film. Some Taiwanese factory probably had one still from the film to work on five months ago.

TO THE PEOPLE OH SO PREDICTABLY WHINING ABOUT TEH SJWS

Please do give it a rest. You're as bad as, if not actively worse, than the people you are condemning. Just a bunch of outrage addicts, symbiotically generating drama.

I enjoy your post. But please. You don't need to pull the false equivalence nonsense. The people saying 'Hey, your conspiracy theory about Hasbro not including Rey because she's a woman? Yeah, that crazy' aren't as bad as the people saying 'Patrairchal Hasbro aren't including Rey because she's a woman! Remove the black guy and put her in!!!'

Seriously. You really don't have to do that to be taken seriously. Like, you're effectively saying that if we dare suggest that there is a group of crazy people consistently pushing bizarre, paranoid delusions into mainstream discussion, then we're just as bad as said people. That really doesn't work.

 

[Janaschi]

eh, this is still dumb. Well, complaining about a lack of characters is fine, it's the accusations of sexism that are dumb.

I get people wanting Rey, but I come on, there's only 4 playable pieces, and it's already split between 1 from each trilogy and 1 from each faction. There was literally one piece that could be swapped out for Rey in that model, and then we'd just be left with accusations of racism instead.

The only reasonable complaint is that only having 4 pieces is shit to begin with. Should have been at least 8, or new trilogy only characters if they really wanted to stick with 4.

In any case, perfect opportunity for them to capitalize on expansion sets of characters.

What accusations of sexism? The main post, its content, and the comments all leading up to yours, never once say anything about actual sexism being involved. Which begs the question: why are 'You', trying to bring sexism into the discussion here, when the purpose of this news was to express the frustration involved at Hasbro not including the 'Main' character of the newest Star Wars movie - notice that they said 'Main', and not 'Female'.

 

[Chriss_m]

eh, this is still dumb. Well, complaining about a lack of characters is fine, it's the accusations of sexism that are dumb.

I get people wanting Rey, but I come on, there's only 4 playable pieces, and it's already split between 1 from each trilogy and 1 from each faction. There was literally one piece that could be swapped out for Rey in that model, and then we'd just be left with accusations of racism instead.

The only reasonable complaint is that only having 4 pieces is shit to begin with. Should have been at least 8, or new trilogy only characters if they really wanted to stick with 4.

In any case, perfect opportunity for them to capitalize on expansion sets of characters.

What accusations of sexism? The main post, its content, and the comments all leading up to yours, never once say anything about actual sexism being involved. Which begs the question: why are 'You', trying to bring sexism into the discussion here, when the purpose of this news was to express the frustration involved at Hasbro not including the 'Main' character of the newest Star Wars movie - notice that they said 'Main', and not 'Female'.

To quote noted philosopher Anita Sarkeesian, these things do not exist in a vacuum. And there absolutely are accusations being made that this is due to sexism. Even Abrams calling it outrageous, and the author suggesting Hasbro are trying to 'get away with it' is very obvious moral condemnation. Why even deny this?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I enjoy your post. But please. You don't need to pull the false equivalence nonsense. The people saying 'Hey, your conspiracy theory about Hasbro not including Rey because she's a woman? Yeah, that crazy' aren't as bad as the people saying 'Patrairchal Hasbro aren't including Rey because she's a woman! Remove the black guy and put her in!!!'

They're not saying that. I'm saying that. I'm saying "It's ridiculous". They're bibbling and jibbling about SJWs and Feminazis and the corruption of entertainment media by ideological fanaticism, as they have been for a few years now. Not remotely a false equivalency. If you can't see the "crazy" in both parties, you're not looking very hard.

Like, you're effectively saying that if we dare suggest that there is a group of crazy people consistently pushing bizarre, paranoid delusions into mainstream discussion, then we're just as bad as said people. That really doesn't work.

Who is the "we" here? Are you taking ownership for every paranoid nutcase who ever posted on an internet forum? Are you suggesting they all think with one mind?

There's a sane and sensible way to approach twitter/outrage drama. Ignore it, or scoff gently and move on with your life. Starting a counter-drama is not any kind of solution.

 

[Chriss_m]

I enjoy your post. But please. You don't need to pull the false equivalence nonsense. The people saying 'Hey, your conspiracy theory about Hasbro not including Rey because she's a woman? Yeah, that crazy' aren't as bad as the people saying 'Patrairchal Hasbro aren't including Rey because she's a woman! Remove the black guy and put her in!!!'

They're not saying that. I'm saying that. I'm saying "It's ridiculous". They're bibbling and jibbling about SJWs and Feminazis and the corruption of entertainment media by ideological fanaticism, as they have been for a few years now. Not remotely a false equivalency. If you can't see the "crazy" in both parties, you're not looking very hard.

Like, you're effectively saying that if we dare suggest that there is a group of crazy people consistently pushing bizarre, paranoid delusions into mainstream discussion, then we're just as bad as said people. That really doesn't work.

Who is the "we" here? Are you taking ownership for every paranoid nutcase who ever posted on an internet forum? Are you suggesting they all think with one mind?

There's a sane and sensible way to approach twitter/outrage drama. Ignore it, or scoff gently and move on with your life. Starting a counter-drama is not any kind of solution.

No, I'm fitting myself right into the group of people saying that SJWs in the media stoked this outrage based on some paranoid conspiracy theory. And I can evidence that.

You say that starting a counter drama is not a solution, and to simply ignore it. Fair enough. But that's not a solution either. That's simply conceding the argument to the nutcases. Is there a case for Rey being included? Absolutely. She's the main character, for fuck sake. Should they be pressured to include her to bat away the moral condemnation? Absolutely not. This is not a civil rights battle. And people can't be afraid to say 'Hey, this weird toy drama thing is being motivated by ideologues' without being dismissed. It's a perfectly valid point of view, and it is easily supported by near enough any article you read on this whole thing.

 

[Small Moon Rabbit]

I personally don't dislike Rey as a character, however I do believe there are good arguments that she is a Mary Sue character. I'd happy argue my case for Ripley, Furiosa and most other popular female and also male leading characters NOT being Mary Sues, with specific examples in the first films they appear in. I'd be interested to see if someone could do the same with Rey, I'm not sure I could.

Mary Sue has become a colloquially nebulous term, rather loosely applied to a great variety of fictional characters. It's generally used now as a sneer term to indicate "character I dislike", which is rather a far cry from its original employment as "authorial self-insert". As no one likely imagines that Abrams and Kasdan secretly dream of being a hardscrabble 19 year old girl, we can safely assume Rey is not a "Mary Sue" in the traditional sense. Therefore we're left with the colloquial.

The most common reason given is "She's a Mary Sue because everything came too easily/she's too powerful". In which case she has good company among the legions of popular heroes from film and fantasy literature past. We could sit here all day detailing a list that would contain almost every super hero ever, a healthy portion of the Star Wars universe, and numerous popular film protagonists from Kirk to Neo to 80's action heroes. This is an uncomfortable comparison for some, because it ends up looking very much like Rey is catching flak specifically because of her vagina. And due to the inability of a great many people to have civil discussions around gender issues, that's a shit storm no one wants to get involved in.

A third possibility is that a goodly number of people saw Max Landis discussing the character (or more likely, just read his tweet...he liked the movie and liked Rey, as it happens...or at the very least liked Ridley) and have latched onto his "I don't understand where you go with the story from here" argument as regards Rey overcoming the antagonist and seemingly completing her hero's journey in Act I. To those people I would say "It is Act I" and "Maybe wait until Act III is complete before making authoritative statements about the quality of a completed work or character so you don't end up looking like a tit in 5 years when everything is wrapped up". Rey is a deliberately mysterious character half-written by a man who adores "mystery boxes". We know less about her than we knew about Keyser Soze 30 minutes into "The Usual Suspects". It's fine to be worried or curious, mysteries are supposed to provoke speculation. When folks start declaring that a film racing to become the 2nd highest grossing of all time has "ruined the franchise" because Rey was 0.6% more competent than Luke, they look either like morons who cannot grasp the simplest cinematic language, or like people with a pretty obvious and distasteful agenda.

PS - "Alien" Ripley is not really a "Mary Sue", but the arguments leveled at Rey could VERY easily be applied to "Aliens" Ripley. Has no military training, out-performs an entire squad of fully trained Marines.

PPS - I could do the Rey argument, if you wanted. As I stated, though, it's impossible to argue someone is or isn't a Mary Sue with such a vague working definition.

I agree with most of what you have to say in your other post about the toys/merch and I agree largely with your points here as well, although I could take issue with a few of your examples, but this thread really isn't the place for that (yes yes my last post was WAY off topic).

As for the Mary Sue Rey thing, I'm sure you could make some good arguments. This film is written with future films in mind, so all the "overpowered" and "why can Rey do that?" complaints can be hand waved away with "it will be explained in a future film". I personally don't feel its very good film making but thats a personal opinion and doesn't invalidate the argument.

However I'm really not that invested in 'winning' any argument on this topic, as much as my last post implied otherwise. I can actually tolerate people with different opinions on a topic/film, which seems to be a rapidly diminishing trait on the internet today. It would just be nice to talk about this film and its characters without the implication that I'm sexist, racist, a butt hurt fanboy or a Hipster that hates everything, just because I had some problems with the film and its characters and shock horror actually wanted to talk about it. Also, I'm not accusing anyone in this thread of that, which is refreshing.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Big whoop, so she is only missing at the Monopoly and that group toy set or which other mechandise she was excluded from?

As far as I concern, I saw her among the toy figure sets (lol they were kinda misleading cos one of them had Kylo on a speeder bike) and she was part of these cup top figures from Cineworld (they didn't had Finn and yet they included Chewbacca and a snowtrooper in their set. Before you asked, the last two were BB8 and Kylo) so I don't see it much of an issue.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

However I'm really not that invested in 'winning' any argument on this topic, as much as my last post implied otherwise. I can actually tolerate people with different opinions on a topic/film, which seems to be a rapidly diminishing trait on the internet today.

Amen to that, brother. If you ever want to have a civil discussion about the film, by all means hit me up.

You say that starting a counter drama is not a solution, and to simply ignore it. Fair enough. But that's not a solution either. That's simply conceding the argument to the nutcases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

 

[The Material Sheep]

Alright, a few things I want to comment on pertaining to this news story and the discussion around it.

THERE ARE A LOT OF REY TOYS

This is not a Black Widow situation, where Disney specifically bought a property (Marvel) to court one demographic (young males) and ignore another (young females) because it already had it locked down (Disney Princesses). Your new Disney Star Wars was an egalitarian wet dream , and you can rest reasonably assured that this was deliberate. This is their mass market "catch as many as you can" IP. And this is Star Wars. LIKE THEY WEREN'T GOING TO MAKE TOYS OUT OF EVERYTHING.

One of the major, if not THE major reasons there aren't a lot of Rey toys is because Rey was very popular, even before the film launched and her toys were selling out.

http://www.mtv.com/news/2688307/female-star-wars-toys-selling-out/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-30/-star-wars-toys-aren-t-just-for-boys-anymore-as-rey-takes-over

Spoiler

Seeking out toys of female characters online rather than going out of your way to brick and mortar stores might be a solution for some, but don?t expect it to be any easier as far as availability goes. Many figures of Rey and Captain Phasma are already sold out or unavailable on the K-mart, Toys ?R? Us, and Disney Store websites. And on Amazon, the standard 3.75 inch Rey figure costs twice its regular retail price via third party sellers ? meaning it?s also been selling out at the retail level.

However, this scarcity doesn?t explicitly mean that there are fewer female action figures in production than male ones, as many customers might fear from checking out their local stores. Several sources we spoke to noted that ?Star Wars: The Force Awakens? figures were produced in relatively equal amounts to one another, because licensors weren?t sure which of the new characters would sell the best ? and are planning to adjust after the movie is released, accordingly.

Retailers also can?t select individual figures to sell more than others in a particular figure line. Right now, they all come bundled together, meaning that stores get as many Finn figures as they get Rey figures in any one shipment. So if you?re seeing a row of 6″ Hasbro Black Series figures with no Rey in sight, it?s more likely that there were just as many Rey toys at one point, and they all got bought out ? versus were never there in the first place.

Talking to Jim Silver, the CEO and editor-in-chief of TTPM ? a well respected aggregator and creator of expert toy and collectible reviews ? simply told MTV News, ?It?s supply and demand. You go back to the old characters, the one thing you knew was that by far Darth Vader was the most popular character, and outsold the other characters in multiples.?

That might be of interest to Zontar and the "Rey is such a shitty character no one wanted a toy of her LUL" gang.

THE "THERE ARE NO REY TOYS" STUPIDITY SWIRLED AROUND TWO PRODUCTS

One was an action figure set containing Poe, Finn, Kylo Ren, Chewbacca, and two Storm Troopers (??). No Han in there either, it was just a random set of six figures. Jamie Ford tweeted a picture of this shrieking about "No Rey", as though Star Wars wasn't the biggest merchandising whore in the history of film franchises, and there wouldn't be Rey toys to find elsewhere. And some Very Excitable People read this on the internet and took it as gospel, because of course they did.

The other was Monopoly, which included 4 figures, two of which were Luke and Darth. Two things leap immediately to mind here. One is that their whole "we were trying to avoid spoilers" excuse is woefully transparent and feeble, and the second is that they really don't require an excuse. It's MONOPOLY. Who FUCKING CARES. There will probably be thirty seven more Force Awakens Monopolies released over the next two years, because Monopoly might be second only to Star Wars in the "whoring itself out" department. They'd make an all IG-88 Monopoly if they thought someone would buy it.

HASBRO PROBABLY THOUGHT FINN WAS THE CENTRAL CHARACTER

Thanks to the film's deliberately misleading marketing. Who knows when these stupid Monopolies went into production. Very little thought likely went into them. Because, you know, Monopoly. Just the fact Luke and Darth are in there and there are only four tokens total tells you how much love and care this product got. It's a lazy cash-in on the new film. Some Taiwanese factory probably had one still from the film to work on five months ago.

TO THE PEOPLE OH SO PREDICTABLY WHINING ABOUT TEH SJWS

Please do give it a rest. You're as bad as, if not actively worse, than the people you are condemning. Just a bunch of outrage addicts, symbiotically generating drama.

Thank you... fucking thank you. People want to turn this into another example of something to be aggrieved over. Feminists want to say Rey is being purposefully under produced. Anti Feminists want to say she's justifiably under sold because she's a mary sue. Its neither. Her toy is super popular and has been selling out. Its got nothing to do with either, its just star wars and shes a cool star wars character.

Also speaking to the idea of a mary sue. Rey isn't a mary sue, yet. If her somewhat ridiculous competence in force techniques isn't explained next film, than yes she'll be a mary sue. However I think that will actually be a core part of next film, especially given some of the things that were explained in the novelization of the book. If not though... yeah she'll be a very young character who was inexplicably talented in unrealistic ways and is universally praised and accepted by the powers at be. Having a mary sue isn't the worst, it's just kind of annoying. Harry Potter being a huge mary sue wasn't the reason those books kind of started sucking. So... meh I'll stop rambling and commend you sir for giving a good post responding to why this is a completely forced controversy, thank you.

 

[Janaschi]

eh, this is still dumb. Well, complaining about a lack of characters is fine, it's the accusations of sexism that are dumb.

I get people wanting Rey, but I come on, there's only 4 playable pieces, and it's already split between 1 from each trilogy and 1 from each faction. There was literally one piece that could be swapped out for Rey in that model, and then we'd just be left with accusations of racism instead.

The only reasonable complaint is that only having 4 pieces is shit to begin with. Should have been at least 8, or new trilogy only characters if they really wanted to stick with 4.

In any case, perfect opportunity for them to capitalize on expansion sets of characters.

What accusations of sexism? The main post, its content, and the comments all leading up to yours, never once say anything about actual sexism being involved. Which begs the question: why are 'You', trying to bring sexism into the discussion here, when the purpose of this news was to express the frustration involved at Hasbro not including the 'Main' character of the newest Star Wars movie - notice that they said 'Main', and not 'Female'.

To quote noted philosopher Anita Sarkeesian, these things do not exist in a vacuum. And there absolutely are accusations being made that this is due to sexism. Even Abrams calling it outrageous, and the author suggesting Hasbro are trying to 'get away with it' is very obvious moral condemnation. Why even deny this?

I deny nothing. What I have an issue with, are self-fulfilling prophecies inherent in these types of argument points. The reason why hot-topic issues such as racism and sexism become overbearing on forums such as The Escapist, is because people keep bringing it all up every single chance that they can find.

If the author had written in a biased enough manner to make the issue entirely about sexism, then I would understand your argument. But he did not, and up until your comment, sexism was never directly implied. So why exasperate it? Especially when the issue at hand has already been handled both professionally, and in a hasty manner?

It all boils down to the incessant need to start up drama/controversy, where it is not needed.