Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

Y'know, it's entirely possible to watch the same scene and come across two different readings of it.
I don't know, that sounds like a film-illiteracy to me.


On a serious note, can we tone down the rhetoric? Someone not liking what you like or liking what you don't like isn't cause for a holy war. Less calls of mary sue or how badwrong the haters are.
 
Name one character trait of hers that isn't "good at everything and pure of heart". Seriously, try. Enthrall me with your acumen. I'll wait as long as needed to let you formulate your excuses so I can rip them to pieces.

She mastered flight, force skills, how to operate and repair antique ships she never seen before, and beat trained Jedi-types at lightsaber and Force combat,all while having no access to any of basis of those skills in her improvished life on Jakku.

Every good character loves/trust her. Resistance trusts her with a sensitive mission within 5 minutes of meeting her. Leia hugs her instead of Chewbacca when she hears about Han's death.

I could go one, but I think you are sufficiently enthralled.
Self-deluding, fearful of abandonment, idolizes people she knows nothing about (Han and Luke) while being quick to demonize people like Ben until shown otherwise. Believes in the Force but misunderstands what it means to be a Jedi. Doesn't actually ever accomplish much besides mind tricking a Stormtrooper, beating Kylo Ren while he is traumatized from killing his father and holding his guts in, and lifting rocks. Literally lifting rocks.

And before you start comparing her to Anakin and Luke, since I bet you're eager to do so since you're so sure Rey is a Sue you smartie you, let me counter you ahead of time: Anakin blew up the Droid Control ship at Naboo from the inside when he was 9, singlehandedly ending the Invasion. When he was nine years old. With no Jedi training. None.

Luke made an impossible Death Star shot without a targeter after being told to use the Force by Obi-Wan's ghost. Know what sounds familiar? "You need a teacher! I can show you the ways of the Force!" "...The Force?"

And now you're gonna say something like how Luke was still weak for much of Empire and needed training. And I'll say you're missing the point, and need to watch the movie again. Luke became powerful the exact instant he stopped doubting himself. "I don't believe it." "That is why you fail."

It's right there in the movie. I'll wait while you go watch it again, since you clearly need to.

The Force is not your masters course. It is not a degree you study for to pass the test. It is a matter of belief in something greater than yourself and your willingness to submit to or dominate it. Your ability is defined by your will, nothing more and nothing less. As Qui-Gon says, "Your focus determines your reality."

Luke's focus in the OT for a long time was held back by his doubt in himself and the Force. When he overcame that doubt, he also found the wisdom to see that nothing was impossible - including the redemption of his father. That's why Luke can do what he does in TLJ.

Rey's focus is said outright in the movie, though it seems I have to repeat it for you. I'll go slowly: "The Force is a power that can control people and move things."

And that's exactly how she has used it so far. And Luke says how she is absolutely wrong and looking at it the wrong way, just like Luke used to. But you seem to think it's okay for Luke but not for Rey because powerful and likeable female equals Sue to you. You throw Sue around like a teenager who's learned to swear, heedless of context and necessity. Read more and watch more media, you have no idea what a Sue is much less how to define one.

Finn likes her because she is not in the First Order. BB8 likes her because she saves him from getting junked. Han doesn't like her until after she proves her worth - and Chewy likes anyone Han likes. The Resistance trusts Rey because Han Solo, the Rebel legend, says she's fine and is willing to help and a ragtag band of rebels doesn't turn their nose up at that. Y'know, because they aren't idiots.

She beats Kylo Ren while he is suffering from a gut wound from a bowcaster that sent stormtroopers flying through the air. While he is explicitly weakened in the Force from killing his father - Last Jedi outright says so, via Snoke. Her combat training is from living alone on a hostile planet, which she clearly exhibits. But I guess you need me to say this since it's rapidly becoming clear you don't have eyes and access to descriptive audio to have the events on the screen explained to you.

She flies the Falcon because it's in the junkyard of the guy she explicitly works for/sells scrap to and who she explicitly helped work on. Implying, you know, she has some knowledge of how a fucking ship works. Also Luke gets into an X-Wing in New Hope and flies like it's nothing. Oh and Anakin flies a Naboo fighter in Phantom Menace with little difficulty and being the one primarily in control of the fighter.

Leia also gives Han and Luke a medal instead of Chewy at the end of New Hope. Maybe she's a little racist. Maybe she hugs the obvious distraught newcomer rather than the old friend who is used to death and loss through war because she knows how to prioritize, isn't that a crazy thought?

So far you haven't impressed me. Maybe watch the movie you're trying to critique, read up on Sues, read up on Star Wars in general, and then come back and talk to me. I'll be waiting.

Edit: Maybe you'll have something snappy to say next time instead of repeating my own words back to me. Truly a devastating comeback; did it take you a while to think of it?
 
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yeah why couldn't they show scenes of Luke flying through Beggar's Canyon before his Death Star run where he outflies trained Imperial pilots in an X-wing he's never touched before

oh my bad different film lol
 
FWIW, in the Star Wars book, Chewbacca does in fact get a medal, with Leia 'straining' a bit to get it over his head, but for whatever reason the movie doesn't have it. I figure it's because trying to put a medal on Chewie would've looked ridiculous on account of the size issues :V
 
Rey can't be a Sue. Marry Sues refers only to fan created characters. You can't have a canon character be a Sue, because several elements of a Sue are simply part of being a protagonist. "Good at everything" and "important to the story" are part of a Sue but stuff like "taking attention from the plot to focus on the OC" and "having a background that is important to the plot like being a chosen one" are just functions of a main character, and stuff like "has abilities in conflict with established setting" and "is related to the cast but was never mentioned before" are only able to apply to fan characters. Rey is fairly OP (which is basically how Star Wars heroes are no matter what) but that's a symptom of the larger disease of Suedom not the disease itself.
 
Rey can't be a Sue. Marry Sues refers only to fan created characters. You can't have a canon character be a Sue, because several elements of a Sue are simply part of being a protagonist. "Good at everything" and "important to the story" are part of a Sue but stuff like "taking attention from the plot to focus on the OC" and "having a background that is important to the plot like being a chosen one" are just functions of a main character, and stuff like "has abilities in conflict with established setting" and "is related to the cast but was never mentioned before" are only able to apply to fan characters. Rey is fairly OP (which is basically how Star Wars heroes are no matter what) but that's a symptom of the larger disease of Suedom not the disease itself.

Mary Sue has just become a catchall term for when people are discussing characters that do not like that embody some of the traditional qualities that Mary Sues have.

It is really no different to people derisively labeling canon stories they do not like as "fan fiction".
 
Rey is fairly OP (which is basically how Star Wars heroes are no matter what)

And this is very much a vital thing: People being that OP is an established canon Thing That HappensTM. In-canon there's Luke, Anakin, and Kylo. Plenty of EU characters too.



Note how she didn't lose either TIE despite going through a known-course when other Falcon pilots have managed to do so (and Chewie does better the next movie), as a pilot she's solid but not Luke or even Han level. She beat Kylo.. who was shot in the side, further wounded by Finn, could not pursue so every time he knocked an enemy back he gave them a chance to recover, and even then it was a rough fight. And remember- she had previously been working on the Falcon and likely responsible for the modification she fixed but in any case knew about it while Han didn't know what had been done since he'd left her.
 
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I think people really make much ado about nothing when it comes to Rey's supposed perfection. Luke and Anakin do the same unbelievable stuff when they first start their own journeys.

I mean a nine year old, human slave child can pilot Pod Racers, some thing explicitly stated to be impossible for Humans to do (without the Force). Utilizing his knowledge of Pod Racers, Anakin is able to pilot a space fighter and blow up a very large, well armed and well defended driod control ship.... You know, because your skills at driving Formula One cars directly translate to piloting F-35 Lightning II's (they do not because, you know, driving cars is nothing like piloting super sonic fighters).
 
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I think people really make much ado about nothing when it comes to Rey's supposed perfection. Luke and Anakin do the same unbelievable stuff when they first start their own journeys.

I mean a nine year old, human slave child can pilot Pod Racers, some thing explicitly stated to be impossible for Humans to do (without the Force). Utilizing his knowledge of Pod Racers, Anakin is able to pilot a space fighter and blow up a very large, well armed and well defended driod control ship.... You know, because your skills at driving Formula One cars directly translates to piloting F-35 Lightning II's (they do not because, you know, driving cars is nothing like piloting super sonic fighters).
Well there is one big difference between Luke/Anakin and Rey that might cause parts of the fan base to classify her as a Sue.
 
Well there is one big difference between Luke/Anakin and Rey that might cause parts of the fan base to classify her as a Sue.
For a lot of fans, Rey being female plays a HUGE role in the character being labeled as a Mary Sue.*

I know people in real life that have basically written all of Star Wars off because the main protagonists of two films were female (Rey and Jyn).

Like I said a few pages back, you cannot engage with those people because their position in such a debate stems from something much deeper and more malignant than a dislike of a few characters in a couple of movies.


*This same issue cropped up when Finn was initially presented as the main protagonist of TFA (because he was seen holding the lightsaber). The only difference between Anakin/Luke and Finn (based purely on screen shots and posters) is the color of his skin.I remember reading lots of Facebook and Youtube Comments stating that Lucasfilm was catering to SJWs and PC culture by casting a black man as the lead character.
 
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Imo, it's one of those classic discourse things. Because there's so many fans out there who will just hate any female protagonist, you just have to work around sounding like one if you want to criticize the character yourself. Which, tbh, I find Rey thinly drawn. It's less her OPness and more the void in their depiction of her (she is 200% willpower and focus) that makes me bounce off her as a viewer. By contrast, I feel I know Rose a lot better despite having a whole movie less of her.
 
I don't need clips to deal with someone like you, lol. Rey doesn't "outfly" anyone: both the TIE's stay right on her ass until the very end, when one of them fucks up and the Force gives her the instinct to flip the Falcon to line up a shot for Finn to take out the other. The only reason she survives is because the Falcon is way more durable, especially considering how many things she crashed into.
Not that I care to dredge up an argument that was old when The Force Awakens was new, but trying to recast the dogfight sequence as Rey being a terrible pilot is a hard sell... because the script immediately has Finn outright tell Rey (and by extension the audience, fresh off an exciting and tense dogfight) that her flying was amazing, and he can hardly believe she wasn't trained.

Finn: The Force Awakens said:
"Now that was some flying! How did you do that?! No one trained you? No one? That was amazing!"

It's possible this was meant to be Finn buttering her up, but neither the script nor the actor sold it that way. So if Rey was meant to be a poor pilot who scraped through with luck and grit, the film portrayed that extraordinarily badly to the point of explicitly telling us the opposite.
 
It's possible this was meant to be Finn buttering her up, but neither the script nor the actor sold it that way. So if Rey was meant to be a poor pilot who scraped through with luck and grit, the film portrayed that extraordinarily badly to the point of explicitly telling us the opposite.

It's almost like they both just survived an incredibly dangerous experience together and were babbling in each others' faces excitedly about how awesome they were.
 
People call Rey OP and not one points out the a cene in the Vader comics where he wipes out a Rebel battalion with armored support all on his own.
 
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People call Rey OP and not one points out the a cene in the Vader comics where he wipes out a Rebel battalion with armored support all on his own.
Vader has also been using the force for years, and was taught by the best training the Jedi (and Sith) could provide, but you know what's the difference between someone trained for ages by masters and someone who has just picked up the skill?
 
Honestly, there are good criticisms to be made about the new Star Wars movies but the one about the Sueness of Rey aren't among them : Force users, in general, do impossible things without training, when they do train they hone those abilities and gain a measure of control on their use. The more exceptionally attuned you are to the Force the more absurd you are. From Anakin to Rey that hasn't changed. I think it's correct to say that generally the "power level" for lack of a better word, of the characters get higher as more films are released and that Rey but more blatantly Kylo who fucking stop blaster fire with his mind, are perhaps more obviously powerful than previous characters of the franchise but neither one represent some kind of anomaly.
 
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(...)
Edit: Maybe you'll have something snappy to say next time instead of repeating my own words back to me. Truly a devastating comeback; did it take you a while to think of it?

I was mocking your Internet tough guy posturing.

@changeling

I'm still waiting for you to tear apart my argument like you promised. Clock's ticking.

You're cute.


And before you start comparing her to Anakin and Luke, since I bet you're eager to do so since you're so sure Rey is a Sue you smartie you, let me counter you ahead of time: (...)

Congratulation on rehashing the first Google' page of "is Rey Mary Sue debate". Now go and do the same for the other side's rebuttal.
 
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Rey is a solid all-rounder with huge potential, and she is not as capable as Ben is repeatedly shown to be, much less Anakin at age 8.

Weirdly enough, people don't use the hugely distorted catchall for a supposedly overly competent character they don't like to denigrate the place either of those two hold in the narrative.

I wonder why...


To be clear, this is not to say that everyone who thinks Rey is a Mary Sue is being misogynistic, but in making criticisms of her character which share a lot of idea space with people who are, it's something of which one need be mindful.

Question why you think this character is unacceptably good at things when you don't make the same observations about Ben, for instance.
 
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Rey can't be a Sue. Marry Sues refers only to fan created characters. You can't have a canon character be a Sue, because several elements of a Sue are simply part of being a protagonist. "Good at everything" and "important to the story" are part of a Sue but stuff like "taking attention from the plot to focus on the OC" and "having a background that is important to the plot like being a chosen one" are just functions of a main character, and stuff like "has abilities in conflict with established setting" and "is related to the cast but was never mentioned before" are only able to apply to fan characters. Rey is fairly OP (which is basically how Star Wars heroes are no matter what) but that's a symptom of the larger disease of Suedom not the disease itself.

Main characters can be Sues if they make no sense in-universe or have egregious fluffy/edgy stuff. Eragon and Honor Harrington are all but universally considered to be Sues.

Star Wars Force-sensitive protagonists however...they have literal subconscious God Mode because the universe says so. That's the rule.
 
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