Looks kind of dumb, so it's very Star Wars alright. (Off-Topic)

by Harmanimus , Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 23:43 (1829 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

So, I can totally accept if Rey doesn't jive with you as a character. That's fair, not all characters have to with everyone.

She’s just impossibly powerful for no good reason. It isn’t tied to her developing her character, inner strength, moral compass... Rey is perpetually unstoppable, and always right.

I don't want to reach my arm too far into this bag of cats. However, Rey is handled in EP7 nearly identically to the handling of Luke in EP4, to include the level of explanation of her capabilities. Her arc in EP8 explicitly mirrors that of Luke's in EP5. There is nothing in the movies to support the assertion that she is impossibly powerful, unstoppable, or always right anymore than there is to make the same judgment of Luke. In fact, there is less reasons to suggest that capabilities are without merit than there are for Luke.

there’s no echo of Luke or Obi-Wan’s or Yoda’s “power”. For all of the great Jedi, their power was a manifestation of their inner strength and moral character.

The only defining feature that carries through for the great Jedi in the SW Film Canon is that they are all failed. For every height of inner strength or moral character they are sundered by their hubris, emotional responses, selective ignorance, or some other extreme character flaw keeping them from success. This includes Rey.

I agree with most of the rest of your commentary. Not so much with the groundwork for a redemption arc for Ren, but that doesn't mean it will stop them from doing. Just like there is absolutely no reason to bring in a romantic subplot or superplot regarding Rey or Kylo (let alone both) but that won't necessarily stop them from doing it.

But Rey is more fleshed out as a central character than either Luke or Anakin (if you argue that the Prequels are about Obi-Wan it is much less clear) were by their second, possibly even the third.