Ooooookay. Why is the term "Mary Sue" being thrown around like paint?

[hermes]

Because Mary Sues are not objective terms, they are subjective definitions. Unless a character is a particularly egregious example of the trope, there is nothing like universal agreement about what is a Mary Sue. Heck, less than a week ago, there was a thread here that discussed which was a bigger Mary Sue: Batman or Superman. I am sure there are a lot of examples of books that show neither one are, but the term has a catch-all quality to it... it is used to describe all characters that are OP, instead of being OP in one particular way (an author inserted wish fulfillment, perfect in every way and better at everything that everyone else).

The term has come as a resurgence because of Rey in Star Wars, and there are some elements that seems to validate that: she is a force user that can best the best force user the villains have, despite not even knowing about the force more than in the last couple days; she doesn't even know what a lightsaber is one day, yet she can fight better than the person responsible for wiping out the new generation of force users the night after that; she impresses Han Solo so much in the last hours with her innate flying and repairing skills that he offers to put her under his wing; while Poe and Finn both had years of training to justify their badassery in some respects, Rey didn't (except her being a decent mechanic), the skills just felt natural to her. While there are precedent for some of that in Star Wars, the character does have elements to justify being called a wish fulfillment.

 

[THM]

It's also strongly implied that she is familiar with the Falcon by her commenting that it's "garbage" (how would she know it's garbage if she never explored or at least listened to people talking about the ship?) and by her knowing which unnecessary parts Unkar Plutt had installed in it.

Possibly. And I wasn't saying it hadn't been said at all, just that one or two more lines actually spoken by the actual character to address the issue would've improved things. She could've formed the opinion the Falcon was garbage just by looking at it (y'know, like Luke did).

As for the Force stuff...I dunno. Whatever. I've never been that into the whole minutia of SW in the first place.

Like I said (which was ignored), hopefully time will tell and these points will be fleshed out.

 

[Beliyal]

Possibly. And I wasn't saying it hadn't been said at all, just that one or two more lines actually spoken by the actual character to address the issue would've improved things. She could've formed the opinion the Falcon was garbage just by looking at it (y'know, like Luke did).

True, regarding the "garbage" comment. But her knowing exact extra installments inside of it heavily implies that she saw them before or at least heard about it in detail. Which definitely shows some familiarity with the Falcon. Technically, yeah, I guess they could've included a line where she says "Oh yeah, I've been inside a few times." Probably editing and length reasons. I thought it was pretty clear from the whole setup though, even though I must admit they could've included this one line to be absolutely as clear as possible.

Like I said (which was ignored), hopefully time will tell and these points will be fleshed out.

They might choose to flesh it out further, but I don't think it's necessary. The visual presentation of the character in the movie was more than enough for me, honestly. I mean, when a character spends 15 years living from scavenging, learning about technology and vehicles and surviving with that knowledge in a harsh environment, it kinda tells me all I need to know about that character's skills with that specific thing.

What's more, those skills of hers aren't even special in an environment she grew up in. We see many other scavengers doing the same stuff she does. She isn't viewed as some sort of scavenging prodigy, she gets terrible payment, waits in the line as everyone else, gets rushed to work faster and harder. This line of work isn't anything extraordinary on Jakku. I didn't find it incredible or even worth mentioning among her "amazing" skills. It's just stuff a lot of people on Jakku do for a living. Basically something expected of the population to be good at. Her only incredible skill (or at least quick learning after being exposed to it) is actually with the Force, and that's always been a bit ambiguous as to why some people are innately good with the Force (I'm trying to forget the prequels). In-setting, she's not the first person with amazing innate Force powers anyway.

 

[THM]

*snip*

There are at least two other movies to come; guess we'll find out then.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Technically, yeah, I guess they could've included a line where she says "Oh yeah, I've been inside a few times."

That's the kind of direct and cumbersome exposition that the film would (and should) have been rightly skewered for. There shouldn't be a requirement to treat the audience like a pack of four year olds in order for them to grasp simple implications. The maxim of "show don't tell" in storytelling seems to be almost universally understood. The show was MORE than generous with establishing shots and plant/payoffs to create context for the elements people seem to have the most common issues with. Perhaps in Episode VIII they can just have all the major plot beats, characterization and background in a five minute opening crawl so no one gets confused.

 

[Areloch]

Possibly. And I wasn't saying it hadn't been said at all, just that one or two more lines actually spoken by the actual character to address the issue would've improved things. She could've formed the opinion the Falcon was garbage just by looking at it (y'know, like Luke did).

True, regarding the "garbage" comment. But her knowing exact extra installments inside of it heavily implies that she saw them before or at least heard about it in detail. Which definitely shows some familiarity with the Falcon. Technically, yeah, I guess they could've included a line where she says "Oh yeah, I've been inside a few times." Probably editing and length reasons. I thought it was pretty clear from the whole setup though, even though I must admit they could've included this one line to be absolutely as clear as possible.

Like I said (which was ignored), hopefully time will tell and these points will be fleshed out.

They might choose to flesh it out further, but I don't think it's necessary. The visual presentation of the character in the movie was more than enough for me, honestly. I mean, when a character spends 15 years living from scavenging, learning about technology and vehicles and surviving with that knowledge in a harsh environment, it kinda tells me all I need to know about that character's skills with that specific thing.

What's more, those skills of hers aren't even special in an environment she grew up in. We see many other scavengers doing the same stuff she does. She isn't viewed as some sort of scavenging prodigy, she gets terrible payment, waits in the line as everyone else, gets rushed to work faster and harder. This line of work isn't anything extraordinary on Jakku. I didn't find it incredible or even worth mentioning among her "amazing" skills. It's just stuff a lot of people on Jakku do for a living. Basically something expected of the population to be good at. Her only incredible skill (or at least quick learning after being exposed to it) is actually with the Force, and that's always been a bit ambiguous as to why some people are innately good with the Force (I'm trying to forget the prequels). In-setting, she's not the first person with amazing innate Force powers anyway.

I saw the movie last night, and while I don't think she's a 'real' Mary Sue, she did come off as too perfect for my tastes.

(Yar, spoilers ahead)
Almost everything surrounding the millennium falcon is a good example of simply poor writing or editing but not inheriently Mary Sue-ism.

I find the implication that she'd been in the falcon before pretty weak, because if it was owned by the scrapyard owner guy, why would he let some scavenger climb around in his ship? Given how it looks from a ways off, it wouldn't be hard to draw the conclusion that it's a junker, much like seeing a car that's about 50% rust and ducttape from across the street. So her being familiar with what components have been installed seems really bizarre.

Then there's the fact she could fix the falcon on the fly. She knew how to bypass the compressor, and she knew how to fix the gas leak which was very nearly going to kill them all. Knowing how to REPAIR something because you've taken things apart before seems a bit of a stretch to me. It'd be like knowing how to fix a submarine's diesel engine because you've torn apart a scrapyard oil tanker for parts.

For the flying part, in the originals, we were informed that Luke had flown ships before, and hit whomprats while flying, so he clearly had at least SOME training/practice. All we see of Rey is that she drove a hovercar for work.
This would be the equivalent of driving a sedan to and from work, and then being able to fly a helicopter. And given how good new players are at flying helicopters in BATTLEFIELD, let alone real life, I'm going to have to say nay to that.

We get an acknolwedgement from Poe that he's a very experienced pilot with his "I can fly anything" comment, and he shortly thereafter proves it to be the case. Heck, we see it again later when he's flying an x-wing and he manages to mow down 6 or 7 tie fighters in a row. There's a reinforcement being made that his skill is legit, and he's eased into as we see Poe. This wasn't afforded for Rey at all, which is why it's so odd that she seems to have almost no problems flying a much larger and off centered ship.

Sure, she scrapes the sand and a wall or two, but clearly that was paint scraping at worst. And she was able to handily out manuever trained military pilots in fighters with a giant, hulking freighter with no suggested or apparent training? Gunna have to go with no on that one.

Then there's the force parts. This is where she starts getting more mary sue-ish to me and she definitely lost me as a character with the mind trick part. I could sorta see her resisting having her brain played with, because that seems like the sort of thing that would be more of a willpower issue than an issue of skill and nuance, but then she obviously reads Ren's mind with the comment about not living up to Vader, so THAT's kinda weird. And then, with no training, she mind tricks an alert, aggressive guard who is actively thinking "Know what? I'm going to TIGHTEN those restraints, because you're annoying me".

No force training, she didn't even really seem to know the force was a THING until the lightsaber incindent and then talk afterwards, but suddenly she can flawlessly brainwash people? Sure, she "fails" to brainwash him the first 2 or 3 times, but it's at no consequence at all.

Then she can force pull the lightsaber right past Ren - the same Ren who could flawlessly suspend an active blasterbolt mid-air? The same Ren who could physically lock the bodies of people in place, force them to go to sleep, or torture them with the force?

But nah, the girl that has had no training, didn't even know the force was actually a real thing until a few days prior is able to completely outclass Ren. Sure, he was physically and emotionally compromised, but they don't SELL that. Other than pounding his wound and getting a few nicks, he doesn't strike as particularly afflicted, and seems really calm during his fights otherwise.

If they had spent more time actually selling Rey's ability to fly, more time selling Rey's attunement to the force and how she is able to use it so well, and more time selling Ren being compromised during the saber fight, I think a lot of the complaints wouldn't have been made by me or a lot of people.

But they don't sell it, and she comes across as bizarrely fortunate and nearly perfect - which brushes real close to the Mary Sue type. You're just expected to accept "Oh no, she's totally had practice with stuff guys", which not only violates 'show, don't tell', but doesn't even TELL us. It just forces one to assume that she has a reason to be good at this stuff, which is just bad writing.

Even if, as some others were suggesting, it will be explained better later in a different movie, that doesn't negate the fact that it's bad writing.

 

[maninahat]

The thing that confused/annoyed me about the Force persuasion scene was the fact she knew how to do it to begin with. Just because you know how to hit keys on a piano doesn't mean you spontaneously play Mozart.

Because literally in the scene before Ren pushes at her mind to try to get her to tell him what she saw. she experiences it, then tries it and fails the first two times.

And apparently no one finds it weird when we see Luke Skywalker intuiting and learning to do completely new force tricks on the fly (knowing exactly when to make a million to one shot, pulling a lightsaber across a cave, Leia being able to feel her stuck, wounded brother etc). The fact that characters can do magic as long as they plug in to the space mana is well a established yet deliberately vague concept, repeated across the movies. Why are people finding that odd now?

It's like adrenaline in a stressful situation. You become a better shot, you manage to levitate an object, you have this vague sense of someone else's condition (something some twins are said to have IRL). They pull off stuff that's mainly natural reactions juiced up by the Force. If you only have one shot at hitting a target, or if you desperately need to get your weapon or get eaten by a monster, etc. When Luke is training with Yoda, he only barely levitates some boxes after who knows how much training (training montage required )

What would've made sense was that Rey managed to unlock her restraints by using the Force. That would have been a natural reaction suddenly enhanced by her (unintended) awakened Force sensitivity. Won't speak for anyone else, but that's the part that bugs me. The very specific nature of her going "The Force can manipulate other people's minds" instead of going "Oh shit I have to get out somehow, what do I do" and suddenly her restrains bending open.

Get what I mean?

I don't. The very last thing she did before using mind tricks was suffer Kylo's attempt to mind trick her. The implication is that she figured it out from experiencing it first hand. In fact, every time Rey uses the force, it is immediatly after Kylo has tried doing the same specific trick (the mind trick, the light saber pull, using the force to enhance your fencing). She seems naturally talented and very intuitive, but she isn't figuring these things out entirely out of the blue. Instead of just finding she can do certain things, she's sensed someone else doing it and is copying. In some respects, you could argue Luke is more gifted, in that he only needs the suggestion to work this stuff out, rather than have to experience someone else doing it.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I saw the movie last night, and while I don't think she's a 'real' Mary Sue, she did come off as too perfect for my tastes.

Can't debate your tastes, but I'll address a couple things.

I find the implication that she'd been in the falcon before pretty weak, because if it was owned by the scrapyard owner guy

That's Unkar Plutt, the guy we see her being left with as a child in her force vision/flashback. He's basically her boss/caretaker. She knows the inside of the Falcon (directs Finn right to the gunwell, knows about the compressor being installed and "argued against it". She doesn't just have incidental knowledge by virtue of being a scrapper. She's worked on the ship.

She knew how to bypass the compressor

She "bypassed" it by ripping it physically out. Han, rather than being impressed, looks less than impressed and walks away, leaving her crestfallen.

For the flying part, in the originals, we were informed that Luke had flown ships before

You're informed in TFA as well. When Finn expresses incredulity that she is a pilot, she says she's flown before but never off planet. As to how well she flies, it's already an established canonical fact in Star Wars that Force sensitives fly well due to their "precognition". If you're prepared to accept the novelization as additional context, she's also spent time with a simulator (the novel is canon, but it's hard to credit the film with exposition that occurred in a supplementary product).

Then there's the force parts.

Go do some Google searching on "Rey is Luke's daughter". Read the very, very long list of inferences that suggest she's not only part of an unusually powerful Force legacy, but that she was both most likely trained and almost certainly present at the massacre when the Knights of Ren are murdering Luke's students. Recall that memory suppression is part of Star Wars as well (featured most prominently in KOTOR) and a picture starts to form around the girl with a deliberately obfuscated past. TLDR - You're on act one of a three act piece, your protagonist is mysterious and scripted at least in half by a director who absolutely adores misdirects and "mystery boxes". What are the odds she's "just a scavenger"?

If your response to this is "not explaining everything in Act I is bad writing", then...well...I'm sorry. I disagree. Rather vehemently.

 

[happyninja42]

Technically, yeah, I guess they could've included a line where she says "Oh yeah, I've been inside a few times."

That's the kind of direct and cumbersome exposition that the film would (and should) have been rightly skewered for. There shouldn't be a requirement to treat the audience like a pack of four year olds in order for them to grasp simple implications. The maxim of "show don't tell" in storytelling seems to be almost universally understood. The show was MORE than generous with establishing shots and plant/payoffs to create context for the elements people seem to have the most common issues with. Perhaps in Episode VIII they can just have all the major plot beats, characterization and background in a five minute opening crawl so no one gets confused.

I think this is sort of a side-effect of our critical culture when it comes to storytelling. We've had several generations worth of entertainment, designed around the critical analysis and deconstruction of the stories that we consume. And so it's developed an army of armchair critiques when it comes to story structure.

Now, I personally don't see an issue with this, because I think having an understanding of how storytelling works can improve your enjoyment of something, but I think the Dark Side (hah! see what I did there?!) of this, is a lot of mislabeling of common terms when it comes to tropes and story structure. Since the main gist of this thread is Mary Sue, in relation to Rey from Ep. 7, based on the various definitions of Mary Sue that I've seen, from things like TVtropes, and other Mary Sue sites, I would agree that she has some of the traits that are normally attributed to a Mary Sue. But a Mary Sue is, at least to me, a sliding scale of degree. You can have some of the traits of a Mary Sue, and still be a good character. The traits themselves, are not inherently bad, but they can, like the Dark Side, provide the quick and easy path for a writer, and can lead to a bad character.

Personally, I think the things that she was able to do in Ep. 7 actually were intentional, and that Ep 8 will elaborate on just why she is able to "naturally" do these things. And that the twist is that it's not natural at all, that she's had training, but has suppressed it due to the bad shit that happened back then. This is just a theory of course, and if I only take Ep 7 at face value, based on what is presented solely in that movie, eh, yeah she's kind of Mary Sueish. But again, it's a scale. And to me, she's very low on the Sue-Scale. She didn't do everything perfectly, and did take time to learn some things. She wasn't a great fighter, and only beat a foe after he had been shot, emotionally unstable, and had already had a lightsaber fight (where he was injured I might add, people seem to forget Finn cut Kylo Ren).

Secondary question that's been bouncing around in my head for a while actually, directly related to this:

If a character's Mary Sueish traits are subsequently explained in a followup installment of the story, were they actually a Mary Sue? I mean, if the creator of the story intentionally withholds that information from the audience, but from the start, they have had a justified, and legitimate reason for how the MS is portrayed, is it actually a Mary Sue?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Snip

Rey definitely has Protagonist Syndrome. Whether or not this makes her a "Mary Sue" is, as discussed, a question everyone has to answer for themselves, because the term has no meaning. I don't have an issue with people questioning or critiquing the character. I get very fussed when they criticize her based on stuff that isn't true (I.E. "She never faces any adversity"), ignores the fact there's a lot about the character we don't know, is based on a misread or lack of memory as concerns the events in the film, or somehow negatively contrasts her to other pop culture escapism protagonists (Luke, Neo, Kirk, etc) as if she was somehow not crafted from the same mold. But that's just me being cranky about people talking a bunch of shit. It has little or nothing to do with their opinions of Rey in particular. I liked the film and I think she's neat, but I don't traditionally get stroppy because strangers don't share my taste in media.

 

[happyninja42]

Snip

Rey definitely has Protagonist Syndrome. Whether or not this makes her a "Mary Sue" is, as discussed, a question everyone has to answer for themselves, because the term has no meaning. I don't have an issue with people questioning or critiquing the character. I get very fussed when they criticize her based on stuff that isn't true (I.E. "She never faces any adversity"), ignores the fact there's a lot about the character we don't know, is based on a misread or lack of memory as concerns the events in the film, or somehow negatively contrasts her to other pop culture escapism protagonists (Luke, Neo, Kirk, etc) as if she was somehow not crafted from the same mold. But that's just me being cranky about people talking a bunch of shit. It has little or nothing to do with their opinions of Rey in particular. I liked the film and I think she's neat, but I don't traditionally get stroppy because strangers don't share my taste in media.

Oh I understand, I just don't have as much of an issue with the nebulous definition of Mary Sue. From everything I've seen about the term, it's no one thing, but a list of various traits that, taken as a whole, lead to a poorly fleshed out character. And the term Mary Sue is just an overall term to describe this cluster of traits. And for me, that's fine, I mostly understand what people are saying when they use it, and can follow the context of their discussion in a thread. Sure we will probably disagree on the fine points, and whether or not that particular Sue trait was expressed or not, but that's the point of the discussion.

And I agree, I liked Rey for the most part. I think she had a few things that could've been done better, but very few. Like you, I'm looking at her presentation on the long scale, over the full arc of the trilogy, and I'm comfortable with having some of her stuff being left unsaid for now. I mean, it's not like anyone else in the movie still had unanswered questions. Finn is explained pretty damn simply right from the start. "I was raised a stormtrooper. I saw them do some shit I didn't like, and decided to GTFO." Done. They're never going to elaborate on his past, because his past has been clearly defined. Hitler Youth, turned Rebel. What will be new for him, is his future, where he goes now.

Po Damaran (I think that's how it's spelled?) He's the new generation Han Solo. Cocky, charismatic pilot, scoundrel, even has a leather jacket (temporarily). His past isn't likely to be explored either, because it doesn't need to be. He's an ace pilot, he fights for the Resistance. Just like Finn, he's going to be a "going forward" kind of character.

Only Kylo Ren, and Rey have the structure to allow for development of backstory, and thus, you leave it unexplained for dramatic purposes. Seems perfectly fine to me

 

[Deacon Cole]

The term "Mary Sue" originated with a piece of Star Trek (I think it was the Next Generation) fan fiction.[/quote]

It was original series. The story in question is called "A Trekkie's Tale" [http://www.wiccananime.com/amslt/amslttrekkiestale] by Paula Smith that appeared the fanzine Menagerie in 1973. It was a satire of a feature of fan fiction where the author would insert some new character into the cast who was obviously an author insertion fantasy.

The reason why people are seeing the term mary sue with increased frequency is because people are stupid and lack the ability to think for themselves so they latch onto buzzwords and fling them around in place of have an actual, original thought.

For example, I work in a plastic factory and the idiots in management came up with these cutesy terms for the various parts we make. There's "runners" which are parts we constantly make, "neighbors" which we make often, but not all the time and "strangers" which don't run very often at all. No one uses these terms if they don't wear a button down shirt and tie to work. So in a meeting (always with the fucking useless meetings!) we were talking about some job and someone said that job doesn't run very often and the office drone said out loud, "So it's a 'stranger.'"

Do you see what happened? He had to translate it from English into stupidese. And he had to do it out loud. Because he doesn't know shit about the plastics manufacturing industry, he just parrots stuff.

This is why the term mary sue gets used as much as it does these days. People who should just keep their stupid mouths shut make the wrong decision and have to say something anyway. This is why the internet is terrible. It's full of people and people are stupid. Think about it, if you can.

 

[sageoftruth]

I think Mary Sue often gets misused mainly because identifying one often requires some meta thinking, rather than just checking off a list of traits that one can associate with a Mary Sue. The main question is how the character is being portrayed, rather than what the character can do. If the book/movie/game seems to be trying to make you, the viewer, support every decision the character makes, be impressed by everything the character does, and dislike everyone who opposes the character's choices or actions, then you've got a Mary Sue. In the eyes of the writer/director, the Mary Sue can do no wrong. Even flaws can be Mary Sue material, if they are used only to make the character more endearing to the viewer ("Aww, she's afraid of spiders, how cute!").

A common misconception I often see is the idea that a Mary Sue is someone whose feats break viewer suspension of disbelief. That is merely a possible element of being a Mary Sue.

Anyway, things like framing and portrayal are far less concrete than things like a character's abilities and feats, so it is easy for people to interpret them differently and for one person to see a Mary Sue where others do not.

 

[Beliyal]

That's the kind of direct and cumbersome exposition that the film would (and should) have been rightly skewered for. There shouldn't be a requirement to treat the audience like a pack of four year olds in order for them to grasp simple implications. The maxim of "show don't tell" in storytelling seems to be almost universally understood. The show was MORE than generous with establishing shots and plant/payoffs to create context for the elements people seem to have the most common issues with. Perhaps in Episode VIII they can just have all the major plot beats, characterization and background in a five minute opening crawl so no one gets confused.

Totally agree with this. A lot of visual and otherwise established stuff was pretty apparent to me on my first watch and only more obvious on my second. It continues to be surprising to me how many people ignore, for example, the deadly power of the bowcaster and shrug off Kylo's wounds as not being incredibly severe, thus making him "weak" for losing (while he sported a wound that killed every other person). They couldn't have made this power more obvious and yet people still complained. Did we need Han and Chewie talking about the power level of the bowcaster for at least 5 minutes or more until some people would get the hint? Isn't that one of the things that pretty much ruined the prequels? If TFA did anything right, it was the way it conveyed information without exposition dumps.

But they don't sell it, and she comes across as bizarrely fortunate and nearly perfect - which brushes real close to the Mary Sue type. You're just expected to accept "Oh no, she's totally had practice with stuff guys", which not only violates 'show, don't tell', but doesn't even TELL us. It just forces one to assume that she has a reason to be good at this stuff, which is just bad writing.

Even if, as some others were suggesting, it will be explained better later in a different movie, that doesn't negate the fact that it's bad writing.

BloatedGuppy already addressed what I wanted to address, I just want to add to this.

I didn't find her bizarrely fortunate at all, especially given the franchise we're talking about, where the whole plot is moved by extraordinary coincidences and extraordinary individuals who achieve a lot of extremely fortunate feats. I found the whole background of her character to be very efficiently shown with many hints, and it also hinted at there being something we don't know yet, including her mysterious past prior to being left on Jakku. There's more sense for her to know about ships and technology (as she spent living and surviving directly from utilizing those skills), than there's sense for Luke, raised as a farmer, to know the same. But I definitely buy Luke being so talented due to his heritage and status as a protagonist in a space opera which is heavily focused on exploring a hero's journey. A hero who is always special and has skills above those of regular folk.

All that is, of course, something that doesn't suit everyone. Otherwise the movie would have been perfect, which it isn't. I totally accept that some people don't like this type of storytelling or stories. It just becomes weird when we have two characters who parallel each other (Luke and Rey) and only one gets slammed for being a product of bad writing.

 

[Dazzle Novak]

The thing that confused/annoyed me about the Force persuasion scene was the fact she knew how to do it to begin with. Just because you know how to hit keys on a piano doesn't mean you spontaneously play Mozart.

Because literally in the scene before Ren pushes at her mind to try to get her to tell him what she saw. she experiences it, then tries it and fails the first two times.

And apparently no one finds it weird when we see Luke Skywalker intuiting and learning to do completely new force tricks on the fly (knowing exactly when to make a million to one shot, pulling a lightsaber across a cave, Leia being able to feel her stuck, wounded brother etc). The fact that characters can do magic as long as they plug in to the space mana is well a established yet deliberately vague concept, repeated across the movies. Why are people finding that odd now?

Luke makes a shot all of the other pilots were expected to be able to make and struggled to Force Pull his lightsaber when it was literally an arm's length away (in his second movie). All this after being jumped by a sandperson and shoved to the ground/bullied at Mos Eisley among other gaffes and talked down to by Han.

They weren't expected to make the shot. Han calls it a suicide mission, one of the pilots claims the shot is "impossible", we saw another pilot screw it up, and then there is that small fact of the matter that Luke has never ever either flown the vehicle before, nor used the force to make a precision bombing run. All of this is a simple dramatic ratcheting up of the tension, followed by a chekhov's gun in the force finally becomes useful to Luke.

As far as Luke never flying, the movie claims he has extensive experience with some civilian equivalent of an X-Wing. Bullshit, yes, but they at least make gestures toward explaining it. In reality, a civilian shouldn't be able to survive against military-trained soldiers in any combat scenario, but the bad guys being stunningly incompetent is a required suspension of disbelief for 95% of blockbusters. Not much fun if that trained rifleman got a headshot 2 minutes in.

I didn't say the shot wasn't portrayed as difficult. I'm saying the Rebels didn't formulate a plan around a shot that was literally impossible to make because that'd be pants-on-head fucktarded. They didn't know about Luke being a space wizard when they formulated their strategy for blowing up the death star; ergo, I feel it's reasonable to assume the shot was possible without the Force since all the other pilots were attempting it and no one was positioning Luke as "the one".

Besides that, you sum up the difference when you call it a Chekhov's gun. Bullshit goes down easier if it's set up for the entire movie.

Firstly, she pilots the thing like dog shit for the first ten minutes, constantly crashing it in to stuff and only just managing to pull off some good moves towards the end of the chase and Han is established to be a way better pilot. The mechanics of pulling a light sabre or using a mind trick have never been properly explained, only that some characters can do it when they really need to do it, and that some characters are immune to mind trickery. Being able to hit (2) measly looking scavengers with a stick isn't a special, impossible talent, and she probably has to do that sort of thing all the time (she does, after all, carry a big stick everywhere).

You and I have two fundamentally different definitions of "dog shit". I don't care how wobbly your piloting looks if you're outmaneuvering Tie Fighters and whizzing through the carcass of Space Freighters. Before going too far, let me state the problem isn't any particular instance of Rey being awesome, but their aggregate: Her being a competent pilot AND a competent mechanic AND competent with a blaster AND a competent Jedi renders Finn and Poe redundant. There's not a situation I feel Rey can't get out of on her own. Poe is probably the "much better" pilot, but when you combine "competent" with "the protagonist" then that distinction becomes meaningless because the end result is the same.

I'm basing it off the OT. If Luke "the Chosen One" Skywalker can't or can hardly perform these feats in his second movie which takes place a couple years after his first, I call bullshit on Rey using them in her first. You were the one drawing the comparison between Rey and Luke. Luke gets his ass beat by a single sandperson and a single thug at Mos Eisley. Rey kicks the shit out of three. I'm not even saying Rey has to start off as soft or green as Luke did; I'm simply pointing that their arcs aren't anywhere near as similar as many are insisting to avoid the accusation that Rey is "too good." Compound this with the fact Rey has all the "tough scavenger" cred with none of the expected "darkness" that Luke was burdened by and hopefully you at least start to see where some people are coming from with their complaints.

I don't mind a tough girl protagonist. As portrayed, Rey seems to be having it both ways being all sweetness and relatability personified and "don't need no one but myself" scrappiness. The same applies to Finn to be fair (the world's most charming flop-sweaty ex-Nazi), bu he gets his ass handed to him by a grunt stom trooper, so... I blame it on the script being underwritten rather than the character being inherently bad.

The important point in all these movies is that the character needs to be shown as only just competent to get by - that they are underdogs placed against terrible odds, and only just make it through by the skin of their teeth. That's what creates tension. Rey was already shown as being unable to take on a hale and hearty Kylo, slap dash in her piloting skills, prone to fucking up (the doors in the monster chase/mind control attempts), down on her luck (her poverty and lack of prospects), and emotionally unstable (her response to seeing force visions). Everything she does is by the skin of her teeth, often after a struggle.

Finn is an underdog barely getting on by the skin of his teeth (and often not even managing that.) Rey is as good as she needs to be in any scenario.

 

[Areloch]

I saw the movie last night, and while I don't think she's a 'real' Mary Sue, she did come off as too perfect for my tastes.

Can't debate your tastes, but I'll address a couple things.

I find the implication that she'd been in the falcon before pretty weak, because if it was owned by the scrapyard owner guy

That's Unkar Plutt, the guy we see her being left with as a child in her force vision/flashback. He's basically her boss/caretaker. She knows the inside of the Falcon (directs Finn right to the gunwell, knows about the compressor being installed and "argued against it". She doesn't just have incidental knowledge by virtue of being a scrapper. She's worked on the ship.

Man, was that the same guy? I know she was handed off to someone and you see the ship flying away, but if it showed it was actually him, I'm clearly having a MAJOR brainfart. If that is the case though, then yeah, its more likely she's dicked around on the ship before.

She knew how to bypass the compressor

She "bypassed" it by ripping it physically out. Han, rather than being impressed, looks less than impressed and walks away, leaving her crestfallen.

Oh, I liked Han's reaction because it was a really stupid thing to do, but as per the pattern, it happens to work out perfectly fine. I wouldn't imagine ripping out a problematic component of my computer while running would pan out for the best, but it just so happens to work out great for the component gimping the hyperdrive as they're using it.

For the flying part, in the originals, we were informed that Luke had flown ships before

You're informed in TFA as well. When Finn expresses incredulity that she is a pilot, she says she's flown before but never off planet. As to how well she flies, it's already an established canonical fact in Star Wars that Force sensitives fly well due to their "precognition". If you're prepared to accept the novelization as additional context, she's also spent time with a simulator (the novel is canon, but it's hard to credit the film with exposition that occurred in a supplementary product).

Mm, true. I'd read that as her talking about her hovercar...bike...whatever you'd call it, but I suppose that could be pretty easily read as having flown more substantial ships too. We'd only seen her driving the bike thing, so that's what my brain interpreted it in reference to.

Then there's the force parts.

Go do some Google searching on "Rey is Luke's daughter". Read the very, very long list of inferences that suggest she's not only part of an unusually powerful Force legacy, but that she was both most likely trained and almost certainly present at the massacre when the Knights of Ren are murdering Luke's students. Recall that memory suppression is part of Star Wars as well (featured most prominently in KOTOR) and a picture starts to form around the girl with a deliberately obfuscated past. TLDR - You're on act one of a three act piece, your protagonist is mysterious and scripted at least in half by a director who absolutely adores misdirects and "mystery boxes". What are the odds she's "just a scavenger"?

If your response to this is "not explaining everything in Act I is bad writing", then...well...I'm sorry. I disagree. Rather vehemently.

What I mean when I talk about 'selling' or 'affording' isn't "Please feed everything to be in an obvious way, including flashing text on the screen", because I agree, that's lazy and stupid. But you have to actually work at convincing the viewers that what they're seeing works with the setting provided. ESPECIALLY if none of it really gets explained until an entirely different movie.

I mean, suppose we have a story that does everything in it's power to establish that the world is just like real life and thus we intuit the natural order of how it all works from what we know. And then halfway through, without any explanation or justification, someone has superpowers throwing our understanding of the setting into total dissarray. Then the story doesn't do ANYTHING to explain or justify superpower-guy other than the vague hope that it may get explained in the sequel. Superpower-guy just IS, and he exists in the face of the entire rest of our understanding of the story's setting and world.

That's sloppy writing because it detaches the person taking in the story from the setting and characters because there's an element that looks like it is completely out of place. Sure, it may get a wonderful explanation in the sequel that makes everything make sense, but you're gunna have a lot of readers look at that part and go "no, that's stupid" and walk out.

That's basically what's happening with TFA. You have people who have had decades of getting a general feel of the Star Wars universe, that Jedi can intuit stuff, but getting GOOD at it takes time and practice, and then suddenly poof, a character gets a grasp of the force that took all prior force-sensitive characters we see months or years to get good at down in a couple of days tops and then basically told "They'll explain that later in a different movie".

That clearly doesn't jive with a lot of people's understanding of the setting, and that's why people(including myself) feel it's not well written.

Heck, even subtle cues like the force "drum" that they play when someone uses force powers could have been utilized to imply in prior scenes that she was actually using the force, even if she - as a character on screen - doesn't seem aware of it. Subtle cues can be used to great effect to tie such sudden upheavals back into the setting the story's working in, but I didn't really get the impression that they did that for TFA. Which I think is part of the problem.

We're not *shown* why she has the best grasp of any jedi we've ever seen, we're not *told* why she has the best grasp of any jedi we've ever seen. Which means we're left to assume, and that's usually a pretty bad play.

I mean, if you don't really mind that approach to storytelling, then hey, no problems. Obviously that approach clicked with you and I'm legitimately happy it didn't bother you. But it pretty much goes against everything I've ever learned about storytelling and narrative, so it bugs me, and apparently bugs quite a few other people as well.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Man, was that the same guy?

It is definitively him, yeah. Any lingering doubt about it was removed when the script leaked.

That's basically what's happening with TFA. You have people who have had decades of getting a general feel of the Star Wars universe, that Jedi can intuit stuff, but getting GOOD at it takes time and practice.

I want to address this. It's possible you've seen me arguing this point before, so if I'm just repeating myself I apologize.

The most widely accepted "best" Star Wars film is Empire Strikes Back (ironically, it was also met with harsh public scrutiny when it aired in theaters, with critics blasting it for being too derivative and safe, but I digress). The part I want to call attention to is Luke and Yoda in the swamp, with the X-Wing. Luke has only just recently arrived on Dagobah. He's had no teacher during this interim period. No one to train with, no one to teach him new Jedi tricks. He's had a go at telekinesis once, and barely got his saber out of the snow. Yoda, without preamble or consideration for his pupil's lack of practice, tells him to lift his X-Wing out of the swamp. Luke balks and says it can't be done, Yoda chides him. He tries, fails, and Yoda looks dismayed.

If "use of the Force" was something that required lengthy practice and repetition to employ, why did Yoda ask Luke to do this? Why not start with small rocks and work up? Build up his Force Muscles? What is Yoda's primary complaint and criticism of Luke? It's that he's too impatient, too full of fear and anger and indecision. Too much like his father. At no point does Yoda say "He's not had enough saber practice" or "His telekinesis game is weak". Yoda and Obi-Wan are worried that Luke is not MENTALLY ready to face Vader. That he's at danger of sliding to the Dark Side, especially if Vader reveals the truth about his parentage.

Another scene, in New Hope. Ben is having Luke fight the little remote. Luke is flailing around pointlessly. He puts the helmet on him and tells him to reach out with his feelings, and he blocks two shots while blind. Did Luke have hundreds of hours of off-screen practice that we missed and he's just remembering them at this moment? Or is this lesson not so much about Luke practicing good saber form and more about Luke learning to touch and feel the Force? He never practices again, but when Ben's ghost shows up near the end of the movie, he tells Luke to "use the Force" to accomplish his task.

Let's switch to Rey's fight with Ren. When he's hammering her back and she suddenly turns the tables on him. What does she do, right before that happens? She closes her eyes and enters a momentary meditative state. She's connecting to the Force and letting it guide her.

If you subscribe at all to the theory that she's a Skywalker (or at the bare minimum a second Solo), and quite possibly has already had training, there is nothing even remotely unusual about her doing these things. Indeed, even if she was NOTHING MORE than a gifted Force Sensitive like Anakin and Luke, touching a wellspring of power via connection to the Force is entirely canonical, and VERY in keeping with the spirit of Star Wars as it was established through the films. I cannot speak as to the EU, or video games where Force Powers are tiered and you have to be like, a level 15 Jedi to Force Push or some bullshit. The Force in the films is literal magic. It does whatever the plot requires it to do.

 

[Areloch]

Man, was that the same guy?

It is definitively him, yeah. Any lingering doubt about it was removed when the script leaked.

Ah, see, I hadn't looked at the script leaks. So fair enough there. (Slightly weak way of finding that out, but hey)

That's basically what's happening with TFA. You have people who have had decades of getting a general feel of the Star Wars universe, that Jedi can intuit stuff, but getting GOOD at it takes time and practice.

I want to address this. It's possible you've seen me arguing this point before, so if I'm just repeating myself I apologize.

The most widely accepted "best" Star Wars film is Empire Strikes Back (ironically, it was also met with harsh public scrutiny when it aired in theaters, with critics blasting it for being too derivative and safe, but I digress). The part I want to call attention to is Luke and Yoda in the swamp, with the X-Wing. Luke has only just recently arrived on Dagobah. He's had no teacher during this interim period. No one to train with, no one to teach him new Jedi tricks. He's had a go at telekinesis once, and barely got his saber out of the snow. Yoda, without preamble or consideration for his pupil's lack of practice, tells him to lift his X-Wing out of the swamp. Luke balks and says it can't be done, Yoda chides him. He tries, fails, and Yoda looks dismayed.

If "use of the Force" was something that required lengthy practice and repetition to employ, why did Yoda ask Luke to do this? Why not start with small rocks and work up? Build up his Force Muscles? What is Yoda's primary complaint and criticism of Luke? It's that he's too impatient, too full of fear and anger and indecision. Too much like his father. At no point does Yoda say "He's not had enough saber practice" or "His telekinesis game is weak". Yoda and Obi-Wan are worried that Luke is not MENTALLY ready to face Vader. That he's at danger of sliding to the Dark Side, especially if Vader reveals the truth about his parentage.

Another scene, in New Hope. Ben is having Luke fight the little remote. Luke is flailing around pointlessly. He puts the helmet on him and tells him to reach out with his feelings, and he blocks two shots while blind. Did Luke have hundreds of hours of off-screen practice that we missed and he's just remembering them at this moment? Or is this lesson not so much about Luke practicing good saber form and more about Luke learning to touch and feel the Force? He never practices again, but when Ben's ghost shows up near the end of the movie, he tells Luke to "use the Force" to accomplish his task.

Let's switch to Rey's fight with Ren. When he's hammering her back and she suddenly turns the tables on him. What does she do, right before that happens? She closes her eyes and enters a momentary meditative state. She's connecting to the Force and letting it guide her.

If you subscribe at all to the theory that she's a Skywalker (or at the bare minimum a second Solo), and quite possibly has already had training, there is nothing even remotely unusual about her doing these things. Indeed, even if she was NOTHING MORE than a gifted Force Sensitive like Anakin and Luke, touching a wellspring of power via connection to the Force is entirely canonical, and VERY in keeping with the spirit of Star Wars as it was established through the films. I cannot speak as to the EU, or video games where Force Powers are tiered and you have to be like, a level 15 Jedi to Force Push or some bullshit. The Force in the films is literal magic. It does whatever the plot requires it to do.

Yeah, that's a pretty fair point(and I hadn't seen you post that before, so no worries).

I guess it really boils down to how we see every other jedi, in some capacity either already wizened by decades of practice being a jedi, or having to go through a development arc to really learn what it means to be a jedi.

So it just feels really lazy to me to just go "Eh, she can just do it". As you point out, mechanically, there's nothing really wrong with that, but it just FEELS poorly handled. I prefer direct-but-subtle cues to attach stuff together(like my suggestion of utilizing the force 'drum' sound when we see her doing stuff) because it gives that concrete - but still very subtle and not 'BEHOLD MY EXPOSITION AND DESPAIR' - connection. There's also the fact that every other jedi we've seen in the series has had to sacrifice SOMETHING on their journey to become a jedi or sith. The only one to date that hasn't suffered ANYTHING was Rey. No doubt that'll change, but it does feel like a bit too easy of an entrance.

Like I'd said though, if it jived for you, then hey, that works. It's just definitely a bit of an itchy thing for me.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Ah, see, I hadn't looked at the script leaks. So fair enough there. (Slightly weak way of finding that out, but hey)

Well, we see his hand in her vision, and we hear his voice growl "Quiet girl" as she shrieks for whomever left her there to come back (while wearing something that looks very much like 'Padawan clothes'). This wasn't enough for some folks, evidence wise, which is why I mention that the script removes all doubt. It was Unkar Plutt. She doesn't live with him, and their relationship hardly seems fond, but she works for him, and was left with him.

So it just feels really lazy to me to just go "Eh, she can just do it". As you point out, mechanically, there's nothing really wrong with that, but it just FEELS poorly handled. I prefer direct-but-subtle cues to attach stuff together(like my suggestion of utilizing the force 'drum' sound when we see her doing stuff) because it gives that concrete - but still very subtle and not 'BEHOLD MY EXPOSITION AND DESPAIR' - connection. There's also the fact that every other jedi we've seen in the series has had to sacrifice SOMETHING on their journey to become a jedi or sith. The only one to date that hasn't suffered ANYTHING was Rey. No doubt that'll change, but it does feel like a bit too easy of an entrance.

Like I'd said though, if it jived for you, then hey, that works. It's just definitely a bit of an itchy thing for me.

I do feel that she suffered. She initially seemed horrified at the memories touching the saber triggered, was captured by Ren, subject to interrogation, saw her new (and only) friend cut down in front of her and her new (and only) father figure murdered, had to fight for her life, and got air-lifted off an exploding planet at the last second by a legendary Wookie. I have to take the whole "Rey has things too easy" with a grain of salt. She's very competent and self-reliant, yes, but that's in keeping with her hardscrabble life on Jakku. By comparison, Luke was a rich kid from the suburbs.

She's not perfect...watching protagonists suffer is how we build tension, after all, and Rey definitely needs her share of major setbacks...but the protagonist emerging victorious in Act 1 is something of a Star Wars tradition. To say nothing of the fact that Kylo Ren is not Darth Maul...he's not a prop with a red lightsaber. He's a major character in his own right, and losing that fight is very likely important for HIS arc.

Admittedly, I'm also a huge sucker for the moment when she pulls the saber from the snow with the Force theme from "Burning Homestead" playing. I get all verklempt. Might be one of my favorite all time Star Wars moments.

 

[Areloch]

Ah, see, I hadn't looked at the script leaks. So fair enough there. (Slightly weak way of finding that out, but hey)

Well, we see his hand in her vision, and we hear his voice growl "Quiet girl" as she shrieks for whomever left her there to come back (while wearing something that looks very much like 'Padawan clothes'). This wasn't enough for some folks, evidence wise, which is why I mention that the script removes all doubt. It was Unkar Plutt. She doesn't live with him, and their relationship hardly seems fond, but she works for him, and was left with him.

Aye, fair enough.

So it just feels really lazy to me to just go "Eh, she can just do it". As you point out, mechanically, there's nothing really wrong with that, but it just FEELS poorly handled. I prefer direct-but-subtle cues to attach stuff together(like my suggestion of utilizing the force 'drum' sound when we see her doing stuff) because it gives that concrete - but still very subtle and not 'BEHOLD MY EXPOSITION AND DESPAIR' - connection. There's also the fact that every other jedi we've seen in the series has had to sacrifice SOMETHING on their journey to become a jedi or sith. The only one to date that hasn't suffered ANYTHING was Rey. No doubt that'll change, but it does feel like a bit too easy of an entrance.

Like I'd said though, if it jived for you, then hey, that works. It's just definitely a bit of an itchy thing for me.

I do feel that she suffered. She initially seemed horrified at the memories touching the saber triggered, was captured by Ren, subject to interrogation, saw her new (and only) friend cut down in front of her and her new (and only) father figure murdered, had to fight for her life, and got air-lifted off an exploding planet at the last second by a legendary Wookie. I have to take the whole "Rey has things too easy" with a grain of salt. She's very competent and self-reliant, yes, but that's in keeping with her hardscrabble life on Jakku. By comparison, Luke was a rich kid from the suburbs.

She's not perfect...watching protagonists suffer is how we build tension, after all, and Rey definitely needs her share of major setbacks...but the protagonist emerging victorious in Act 1 is something of a Star Wars tradition. To say nothing of the fact that Kylo Ren is not Darth Maul...he's not a prop with a red lightsaber. He's a major character in his own right, and losing that fight is very likely important for HIS arc.

Yeah, I suppose if you take Han to really be her "father she never had", then that does fairly well mirror Luke seeing Ben die in A New Hope.

Pretty sure we're not getting a blue ghost Han though

Admittedly, I'm also a huge sucker for the moment when she pulls the saber from the snow with the Force theme from "Burning Homestead" playing. I get all verklempt. Might be one of my favorite all time Star Wars moments.

Haha, yeah. I may not be totally fond with how they handled her in the broad strokes, but her moment-to-moment cool spots were top notch to be sure. Dat Millennium Falcon drift. Unf.

But yeah, really good movie, and I plan to see it again, so it's not like I'm over here like "NYAAAAR ME HATE MOVIE" or anything. I just think the broad handling is a bit weak and banks rather heavily on the trilogy arc rather than the individual movie arc. Not how I would do it, but I don't think it RUINED anything.

That, and I've spent the last several years trying to hone my designer craft working up to the game I'm working on, so I tend to fall into a nitpicky mode as practice.


Seriously though. Blue Ghost Han for president.