Rey is a trained Jedi. How is PS8 unreasonable?

"Trained" is an interesting way to put "Learns how to Jedi via deus ex machina."

This is true, Rey is neither a Jedi, nor trained. She is just "strong in the force".

Speculation: her vision is more a revelation of a suppressed memory then anything else - it's the only place we see the Knights if Ren, and they are surrounded by dead bodies. In the vision, one of the Knights is about to kill Rey, and Kylo kills the knight instead.

Conclusion: Rey was one of the young Jedi trainees at Luke's school prior to Kylo's attack. He saved for (for reasons yet unclear) and she was left on Jaku with her memory wiped to protect her from Snoke. That's why Kylo freaks out when he hears that a girl helped Finn eacape - he has an inkling who it might be, but then it would contradict his statements to Snoke that indicate he doesn't know her.

How else does Kylo's quote about her becoming more powerful the longer it takes to find her make any sense?

The timeline doesn't really match up. It is looking like the massacre happened around 6 years before TFA. Rey would've been 13. She was much younger when she was abandoned.

We don't know the timeline yet - like I said, it's speculation at this point, and it might be like the speed of ships in most Scifi (including Star Wars) - they all fly at the speed of "plot": the timing is what the story needs it to be. But again, all speculation.

They are beginning to fill in the timeline. The new novel, Bloodlines, takes place 6 years before TFA, and the massacre hasn't happened yet, as Leia was still in contact with Ben.

No if it's not in the movie it's not relevant.

That might be a true statement if the books weren't canon. Except they are...

I didn't read the book so if it isn't in the movie it didn't happen. That was the whole point in killing the EU I'd been following for twenty years -- it wasn't in a movie so for the majority of movie goers it didn't happen.

I've also been around this stuff long enough to know that if it isn't in the movie the creators will also be free to treat it as though it didn't happen. So put it on the screen or own how the film plays because it isn't on the screen. "Didn't you get the memo?" is what happens at work and is the sort of stress I go to movies to relieve not to get more of.

The whole point of killing of the EU was to ot restrict the design space for them to tell whatever stories they wanted to and give them freedom. It would ahve been way harder trying to fit everything into the existing 40 years of books. The fact that they've explicitly stated that all books/games/comics/etc going forward are canon means that "if it isn't in the movie it didn't happen" isn't true.

That's very convenient isn't it? The film-makers now have a get out of jail free card to be sloppy or haphazard and otherwise just half-arse things and leave it to someone else to clean up in a canon tie-in. I shouldn't need to read a novel before I go to your movie. That's the freedom they wanted by nuking the EU. We want to tell stories where the audience won't need to have read a novel to follow along. Yet you make an argument that is it perfectly legit that they want me to read a novel to follow along.

No if it's not in the movie it's not relevant.

That might be a true statement if the books weren't canon. Except they are...

I didn't read the book so if it isn't in the movie it didn't happen. That was the whole point in killing the EU I'd been following for twenty years -- it wasn't in a movie so for the majority of movie goers it didn't happen.

I've also been around this stuff long enough to know that if it isn't in the movie the creators will also be free to treat it as though it didn't happen. So put it on the screen or own how the film plays because it isn't on the screen. "Didn't you get the memo?" is what happens at work and is the sort of stress I go to movies to relieve not to get more of.

The whole point of killing of the EU was to ot restrict the design space for them to tell whatever stories they wanted to and give them freedom. It would ahve been way harder trying to fit everything into the existing 40 years of books. The fact that they've explicitly stated that all books/games/comics/etc going forward are canon means that "if it isn't in the movie it didn't happen" isn't true.

That's very convenient isn't it? The film-makers now have a get out of jail free card to be sloppy or haphazard and otherwise just half-arse things and leave it to someone else to clean up in a canon tie-in. I shouldn't need to read a novel before I go to your movie. That's the freedom they wanted by nuking the EU. We want to tell stories where the audience won't need to have read a novel to follow along. Yet you make an argument that is it perfectly legit that they want me to read a novel to follow along.

It was to allow them freedom to create a new canon, not to never have books again. Ignoring the Black Fleet Crisis or the Yuuzhan Vong (for example) in order to allow them to create something new. They never said "we will never write any more books or comics".

Honestly, Lucas was never beholden to the "canon" of the novels, why the heck would Disney be?

No if it's not in the movie it's not relevant.

That might be a true statement if the books weren't canon. Except they are...

I didn't read the book so if it isn't in the movie it didn't happen. That was the whole point in killing the EU I'd been following for twenty years -- it wasn't in a movie so for the majority of movie goers it didn't happen.

I've also been around this stuff long enough to know that if it isn't in the movie the creators will also be free to treat it as though it didn't happen. So put it on the screen or own how the film plays because it isn't on the screen. "Didn't you get the memo?" is what happens at work and is the sort of stress I go to movies to relieve not to get more of.

The whole point of killing of the EU was to ot restrict the design space for them to tell whatever stories they wanted to and give them freedom. It would ahve been way harder trying to fit everything into the existing 40 years of books. The fact that they've explicitly stated that all books/games/comics/etc going forward are canon means that "if it isn't in the movie it didn't happen" isn't true.

That's very convenient isn't it? The film-makers now have a get out of jail free card to be sloppy or haphazard and otherwise just half-arse things and leave it to someone else to clean up in a canon tie-in. I shouldn't need to read a novel before I go to your movie. That's the freedom they wanted by nuking the EU. We want to tell stories where the audience won't need to have read a novel to follow along. Yet you make an argument that is it perfectly legit that they want me to read a novel to follow along.

A lot of us managed to enjoy TFA without feeling nay need to read a book to follow the movie. Personally I feel the movie worked just fine. I like teh books/games/comics for expanded info and stories about the universe that they can't fit into the movies.

The novels are not needed. Except for the fans that feel that they need every little thing explained to them.

Rey says she is a pilot, why do you need more than that.

The novels are not needed. Except for the fans that feel that they need every little thing explained to them.

Rey says she is a pilot, why do you need more than that.

Because flying a freighter is nothing like a fighter bomber, from the falcon cockpit you do not have any clue how close the port side is to an obstruction so if you've never flown it before there's no way you fly through terrain the way she did.

I've been flying star fighters 30 years and I couldn't take the falcon through that wreck, and if I can't do it then some scavenger from tatooine Jr wouldn't do it without being Mary sue.

I will give Rey an 8 when they give Lando an 8. Lando flew the Falcon and kept up with "The Best **** Pilot in the Galaxy". Only knocked the sensor dish off of the Falcon and even fired the shot that destroyed the Death Star II. What has Han done, Successfully navigate an asteroid field odds 3720 to 1. I argue that flying through the Death Star is on par with that.

Just my 2 cents.

But again lando had owned and flown the falcon before doing the death star run he knew it's dimensions and how it handled.

Rey had none of that knowledge.

The novels are not needed. Except for the fans that feel that they need every little thing explained to them.

Rey says she is a pilot, why do you need more than that.

Because flying a freighter is nothing like a fighter bomber, from the falcon cockpit you do not have any clue how close the port side is to an obstruction so if you've never flown it before there's no way you fly through terrain the way she did.

I've been flying star fighters 30 years and I couldn't take the falcon through that wreck, and if I can't do it then some scavenger from tatooine Jr wouldn't do it without being Mary sue.

I can't do something after having played video games (never mind that no star wars flying game is on par with an actual simulator) so clearly neither can someone else!

FYI the first mention of Lukes pilot ability in ANH is by Ben "I hear you've become a pretty good pilot yourself"

I'm watching a ANH right now - Alderan just bit it btw.

luke flew a space cessna around then got tossed into a space warplane and got ps8

rey had training for fun on restored flight simulators then grabbed the falcon and gets ps8

its the force i aint gotta explain ****

I've been flying star fighters 30 years

Thank you for your service.

Wow, I did not expect this level of ire from the community. I suppose that'll teach me too past knee-jerk reactions.

Lesson learned.

As a bit of a flow up, many comments have merit, especially taken from the perspective of the next 2 movies.

Thank you all for the lively discourse.

I think your OP was well framed within X-wing. Should what we've seen so far merit a PS 8 or is it a kind of insurance for what we expect and what happened with Poe? It's a discussion that's been had and is fun to see with any pilot, but it's very odd that it ended up going down the path it did.

Well this thread got derailed rather quickly.

for real non sarcastic response tho, pilot skill is an abstraction that represents the ability of a pilot to see where everyone else is going and react to it while they do it. it isnt just a scale of "this guy is the best pilot and is objectively better at flying space ww2 planes than the other guy."

thats why force users get nice PS, because they see where the battle is headed like you see where a blaster is shooting to deflect it. ps8+ non jedi people are also really good at this because they have a lot of practice in space ww2 air plane war, on top of natural talent etc.

basically Veteran Instincts Vader is the only canon build.

You underestimate the power of MARY SUE

Seems to work for Luke. Dear god, am I tired of this "argument". No one would've batted an eye if it was "Son of Luke".

I've destroyed this argument so many times that it's almost tiring at this point. I need to keep a copy.Luke was never a Mary Sue. In fact, if you think he was, I question if you've ever actually seen Star Wars, and if you have, I know for a fact that you have no idea what a Mary Sue character is. You seem to understand it as "Protagonist", lol.Luke spends most of the movies having to be saved. He gets beat up by sand people. Obi Wan saves him in the cantina. Han Solo saves all of them with the Millennium Falcon. C3PO saves them from the garbage compactor. Luke impulsively destroys the controls to the bridge. Wedge saves him in his X-Wing. Han Solo saves him in his X-Wing. Luke Skywalker's only contribution to victory in the first film is to use his meager piloting skills, and a helpful reminder from Obi Wan Kenobi.Then we have The Empire Strikes Back, which, except for a fleeting moment of glory when he destroys an AT=AT through ingenuity, is entirely dedicated to Luke failing at things. He gets beaten up by a Wampa, and Han has to save him. He sucks so badly at being a Jedi, that Yoda is constantly disappointed with him, and contemplates not training him at all. Then, he runs away, leaving his training unfinished because he is impetuous and undisciplined. He gets to Cloud City and not only does he not rescue any of his friends, he sucks so bad at lightsaber fighting that Darth Vader gets bored of dueling and decides to throw things at him instead. And, in the end, he has to get saved by Leia. It isn't until Return of the Jedi that Luke manages to master anything Force related other than "Summon lightsaber in less than three tries." Rey is, inarguably, a terribly written character. When she needs to fly, she's an ace. When the spaceship breaks down, she's an engineer. All skills she learned picking up trash on Planet Afghanistan. Every time she suffers "adversity", it's actually just a vehicle to show the next thing she is really great at. She gets captured so we can find out that she can Jedi by epiphany and escape. She doesn't get rescued so much as "Oh look, I know you guys! That's convenient, I was just escaping on my own!" Then, when she meets a trained Force user, he kicks her butt. Until, that is, she learns to Jedi by Deus Ex Machina. If only Luke had realized it was as easy as muttering "The Force" to himself, he could have beaten Darth Vader in Empire. See, the characters in the original films had strengths and weaknesses, and power and skills that made them the heroes in some parts, and vulnerable in others. Rey doesn't have any of that. She is Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo. In fact, she's so good at being Han Solo, she's better at it than Han Solo is. A character with no flaws, who suffers no adversity, and wins at everything is a Mary Sue. A character who does a few good things in the midst of a ton of struggle and failure is not.

Last I checked she has flaws; she yearns to get off Jakku but is so tied to her belief her family will return. She wants to go back to Jakku despite this, to the point that she runs (literally) from her destiny which ends up I her ultimately getting captured (that she is unable to prevent despite people saying she is flawless). While hiding on the salvaging ship she accidentally unleashed dangerous creatures with a fearsome reputation that nearly resulted in the death of one or more main characters and hardened criminals that Han was trying to avoid a direct physical confrontation with.

She does indeed manage to resist Ren, and escape through tapping into her untrained (although naturally gifted) Force abilities. I sincerely doubt Luke reached for the lightsaber thinking he could move it into his hand. After escaping....then What? She went for a ship, saw she couldn't get to one and hid.

Her connection to Finn almost results in her death if Chewie did not save the day. Plus according to the novelisation she had a brush with the dark side...Ren killed a father figure to her, a mentor who had just given her the chance of a new and better life. Had the planet not broke apart who knows what she would have done.

Was the film perfect, far from it, but I don't feel she should get as much criticism as...say....Poe Dameron? Who mysteriously survives and then singlehandedly finishes off star killer base and seemingly has no flaws to his character?

and seemingly has no flaws to his character?

To be fair... Poe didn't have enough screen time to develop much character wise.

I do concede that, however he is a main character, part of the main cast and the same criticism can be levelled. Likewise we do not know enough about Rey to judge her, she is a mystery and we have two more films to see how she develops, this is a trilogy after all.

Shut up, Poe Dameron is awesome, he is not a Gary Stu! PS 9 is True Poe.

Anyway...

People are mad that TFA was. 'clone' of ANH or referenced the OT way too much. People are mad that it was the movie they were wanting after 30 years. So any flaws in the movie are magnified and of course the main character gets ripped a new one for being the main character.

Well...guess what, it WAS the movie I was waiting for! And I love Rey, and Finn, and Poe, and Kylo Ren too. It felt like a fun, exciting SW movie that answered some questions and asked even more. It was awesome, I saw it three times in the theater in the first week and I cried each time because it was Star Wars, not prequel crap, no teddy bears, hard hitting Saga stuff with a good amount of humor thrown in.

Poor Rey. She spends her whole life surviving with no family on a planet with even less going for it than Dagobah or Tatooine, and does so after being traumatically dropped off there when she was, what, 4 years old? Assuming she was never anyone's sex slave at any point, the next 15 or so years show her scavangong around extremely dangerous starship wrecks risking radiation or other hazardous exposure, injuries from collapsing debris or just falling to her death, and being able to identify the choicest bits of wreckage after the majority of it has been picked clean. And living on a hostile desert planet with sinking sand and who knows what weird alien creatures. And Teedo, what an ass. No social life, she spent any free time flying a Y-wing simulator dreaming of leaving that hell hole and being a great pilot and hero.

After all that and more, she has a fateful run in with a droid, a Stormtrooper, and some Flyjng Garbage and...there's an Awakening, have you felt it? The MFing Living Force Awakens in this girl, and she basically becomes a conduit for it. She didn't want it, she ran from it. Only when she accepted her Force powered destiny did she become bad ass enough to beat Kylo Ren. This is all unusual, it's not going to be like anything before. The Force is Awakening, and great things are happening.

You don't have to believe it though. But as a couple folks in a swamp once said:

Luke: I don't believe it!

Yoda: That...is why you fail.

Poe is a minor character. And really there is nothing to argue about here, he is stupidly OP, I strongly dislike his piloting skills, but that's just Abrams for you, "You thought you've seen good pilots in the previous movies? Ha! Look at my awesome Poe Dameron! He kills 40 people in 10 seconds! He is an ace pilot and a super spy! Look at his awesome exciting special snowflake starfighter! Look at him, he doesn't even pretend to be worried, he just has fun, how cool is that? Look how aweosme he is destroying that oscilator by firing 12+ torpedoes even though his X-wing carries only 6! How exciting!!!"

I just want Wedge to come back, and put Poe in his place. Bonus points if Wedge is his uncle or something.

Poe is a minor character. And really there is nothing to argue about here, he is stupidly OP, I strongly dislike his piloting skills, but that's just Abrams for you, "You thought you've seen good pilots in the previous movies? Ha! Look at my awesome Poe Dameron! He kills 40 people in 10 seconds! He is an ace pilot and a super spy! Look at his awesome exciting special snowflake starfighter! Look at him, he doesn't even pretend to be worried, he just has fun, how cool is that? Look how aweosme he is destroying that oscilator by firing 12+ torpedoes even though his X-wing carries only 6! How exciting!!!"

>super spy

>gets captured, interrogated, gives up crucial information

You need to be Dhalsim to reach that far, mate. 3/10.

You undersestimate the power of MARY SUE

If she's a Mary Sue, then so is Luke.

Considering she went from padawan apprentice to jedi master in half a movie and it took Luke an entire trilogy and the loss of a hand to do the same. I would confidently say that Rey's Mary-Sue factor > Luke's Garry-Stu factor.

Poe is a minor character. And really there is nothing to argue about here, he is stupidly OP, I strongly dislike his piloting skills, but that's just Abrams for you, "You thought you've seen good pilots in the previous movies? Ha! Look at my awesome Poe Dameron! He kills 40 people in 10 seconds! He is an ace pilot and a super spy! Look at his awesome exciting special snowflake starfighter! Look at him, he doesn't even pretend to be worried, he just has fun, how cool is that? Look how aweosme he is destroying that oscilator by firing 12+ torpedoes even though his X-wing carries only 6! How exciting!!!"

Then again Wedge was also a minor character and he was Pilot Skill 9. However in both cases the backstory was not explained in the movie how those two became such skilled pilots. Although Wedge has a more humanizing factor when he got hit by Darth Vader and had to pull off. I guess you could say the same about Poe as he got captured by Darth Emo and his pilot skill 8 ship got disabled by a single blaster shot, but at the time Poe was not in his ship and you normally expect pilots to be the best fighters when on foot against foot troops.

I think it seems like TFA suffers a little from "they're too good" syndrome. A little more than the first Star Wars episode. Then again you could argue that bullzeying womp rats is way harder than bullzeying stormtroopers.

Poe is a minor character. And really there is nothing to argue about here, he is stupidly OP, I strongly dislike his piloting skills, but that's just Abrams for you, "You thought you've seen good pilots in the previous movies? Ha! Look at my awesome Poe Dameron! He kills 40 people in 10 seconds! He is an ace pilot and a super spy! Look at his awesome exciting special snowflake starfighter! Look at him, he doesn't even pretend to be worried, he just has fun, how cool is that? Look how aweosme he is destroying that oscilator by firing 12+ torpedoes even though his X-wing carries only 6! How exciting!!!"