Star Wars: The Last Jedi Official Trailer Released

Hmm, I just watched the Vader-Luke fight from Empire strikes back and considered how well Luke did. He did OK at first, getting out of trouble a couple of times, but Vader's skill wore him down and he chopped his hand off, giving Luke no chance in the end. Which is consistent with some training in the force, although as Vader said,"You are not a Jedi yet". I always thought that the period of training Luke received was ludicrously short in order to face off against Vader and it is to his credit that he did as well as he did - probably that was more due to his "power" rather "skill" with the force. Note that his upbringing was on a farm owned by a couple who seemed to have no fighting skill to pass on other than pointing a blaster and pulling a trigger. Perhaps not even that.

Contrast that with the Rey situation. It is obvious that in her existence on Jakku was one of self-reliance, quite different from Luke's, and from TFA it is clear she has some considerable fighting skill, although not with the lightsaber. In itself that does not explain her skill with the latter weapon and certainly not her appellation of "Jedi" - for one thing, she would normally need to go through the Jedi Trials in order to attain that rank. Waving a lightsaber about, cutting a rock in half and winning a couple of brief fights isn't nearly enough. Vader acknowledges that Luke has had some training, but at no point does he name him a Jedi, and losing a fight certainly doesn't count as a complete and successful Jedi Trial. So perhaps the accusation that Rey's character is a "Mary Sue" has some validity (Ridley's rejection of the accusation on the basis of "sexism" is ridiculous - she is an actress, not a writer, and the name of the trope is nothing to do with the sex of the character concerned). Perhaps in the context of the story or character (or "equality"), it would not be acceptable to have her lose a fight (and a limb). Whatever happened has happened and cannot be erased.

Hmm. Maybe she isn't quite the Mary Sue some people think she is. Two possible reasons, one more plausible than the other. The first thing we know is that the Force has awakened. Quite what exactly that means I'm not sure, but possibly that means the Force is more accessible and by extension easier to learn and use. What has that to do with lightsaber combat? Well, one of the basics of learning that weapon is using the force to control the blade, presumably to stop nasty self-inflicted injuries (perhaps it can be used to prevent paper cuts?) One of the important facts arising from "Rogue One" is how many force-sensitives there are; they use the force in ways the Jedi don't seem to (check out Chirrut Imwe). The second reason might be that Rey is the force personified, which gives her a natural talent in its uses. I don't give this idea much credence, although I have read it elsewhere and cannot rule it out. As far as I can remember she does not claim to be a Jedi, and it may be that being a trained Jedi is now irrelevant; the force is now undivided, with light and dark sides being of small importance.

No doubt we will never know for sure where her skills come from, and my logic, based on what little we know, might well be incorrect. Perhaps she really is a Mary Sue and all the rest of it doesn't matter. But I'd like to think there's some vague thread of reason in the Force Awakens and Last Jedi. So when's episode IX coming?

Keithy said:

Contrast that with the Rey situation. It is obvious that in her existence on Jakku was one of self-reliance, quite different from Luke's, and from TFA it is clear she has some considerable fighting skill, although not with the lightsaber. In itself that does not explain her skill with the latter weapon and certainly not her appellation of "Jedi" - for one thing, she would normally need to go through the Jedi Trials in order to attain that rank. Waving a lightsaber about, cutting a rock in half and winning a couple of brief fights isn't nearly enough. Vader acknowledges that Luke has had some training, but at no point does he name him a Jedi, and losing a fight certainly doesn't count as a complete and successful Jedi Trial. So perhaps the accusation that Rey's character is a "Mary Sue" has some validity (Ridley's rejection of the accusation on the basis of "sexism" is ridiculous - she is an actress, not a writer, and the name of the trope is nothing to do with the sex of the character concerned). Perhaps in the context of the story or character (or "equality"), it would not be acceptable to have her lose a fight (and a limb). Whatever happened has happened and cannot be erased.

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I just watched an unbearable right-wing review of both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. Apparently, every diverse character is a 'token' something or other, everybody involved witrh this generation of Star Wars movies is from the far left, especially J.J. Abrams, and yes, every woman who has skills is a Mary Sue. So, while the term probably shouldn't be gender-specific, its use sure is. Also, the rebellion is all 'femininity against the male establishment' and that's why they lose in The Last Jedi because, women, right?

As for Rey's skills, my head canon is close to yours - the Force is so strong in Rey because it needs somebody to balance Kylo's Dark Side antics and the Jedi aren't doing much right now. Maybe it's a bit like a seed growing a new seedling after the last one (the Jedi) has run its course and who knows how this one will turn out? (Actually, I'd like that. It would also explain all the new force skills we're seeing in this one.)

Also, Rey's used to fighting with her staff. Can't be that much harder with a light saber.

I wonder how much of what we think we know about the Force is really just what the Jedi told us (or., more to the point, each other) all this time. One thing I wondered when Rey entered the Dark Force hole without, as it seems, being affected by it: is the separation between the Dark Side and the Light a necessary feature of the Force? Or is it maybe a by-product of the Jedi using exclusively the light aspects and leaving the dark out to dry? Without the emphasis of one or the other - is there such a thing as a Mellow Side?

Max Vaehling said:

Also, Rey's used to fighting with her staff. Can't be that much harder with a light saber.

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Unless you have a "double-ended" light saber, seems more like a short sword than a staff? Not nearly as much reach.

Also, a light saber is a blade that's sharp on every surface. Very hard not to maim or kill an opponent with one. Probably have to learn not to injure yourself with one too, I'd think?

FINALLY got to go see this. I ADORE Rose's character. No powers, no fighting skills, just a ton of determination, love for her sister, and dedication to her beliefs. She's the kind of character who could accidentally kill the big bad by tagging along with the main heroes and defending her friends.

I very much think they could sell the idea of Finn as Luke's son to bring in a new generation of Skywalkers. He's used Luke's lighsaber, and he's a bit too "lucky" for a non-force user.

Kinda wish they'd included a few more force ghosts in there - plenty of the actors who played in the prequels are still alive to shoot new footage. It would have even been a nice nod to show force-ghost Luke signing off to Leia at the end.

Also, I know they were taking advantage of the footage Carrie Fisher had shot, but it wouldn't have taken much to switch her position with Laura Dern's Vice Admiral to have Leia be the one who rammed the Star Destroyer at light speed. That would have been an epic send-off for the princess turned rebel general.

Cyia said:

Also, I know they were taking advantage of the footage Carrie Fisher had shot, but it wouldn't have taken much to switch her position with Laura Dern's Vice Admiral to have Leia be the one who rammed the Star Destroyer at light speed. That would have been an epic send-off for the princess turned rebel general.

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This is reasonable, until you realize that then Luke would have lacked a conduit through which to channel his illusion. I suppose that entire scene could have been reshot, but it wouldn't nearly have been as powerful a scene without it starting and ending with Leia.

Cyia said:

I very much think they could sell the idea of Finn as Luke's son to bring in a new generation of Skywalkers. He's used Luke's lighsaber, and he's a bit too "lucky" for a non-force user.

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1)In the star wars universe(and a lot of movies to be honest) 'luck' is relative. How many people(who are supposedly trained to shoot) so terrible with accuracy around our 'hero(s)?'
and
2)As for Finn, he was a Storm Trooper. We've already seen that some of them were trained to fight Jedi or people with sabers. No reason why Finn couldn't have had this training to some degree as well.

Lastly, I'm tired of this trope about family heritage and it explaining why characters are good at something. If it's part of the story, fine but we should never have writers saying "Well, how can we explain this character's skills? I know he's so and so's son(or daughter!)" It's lazy IMO and would diminishe the character. Finn is perfectly fine the way he is(solid even.) The whole point of this Jedi movie with his character development was spot on IMO. I would go into detail but spoilers and all that.

I'm not sure why so many people running around shouting "Mary Sues!" at Rey and Finn when it's known that there's a Force, some people have, or at least can access it, to a high degree even without training, and for goodness sake Luke Skywalker destroyed the Death Star with about an afternoon's worth of training from Obi-Wan. At least Rey had learned to use a staff from childhood and Finn had army training. Luke just practiced slaughter of rodents of unusual size.

It's almost as if there's a difference having a white woman or a black man be good at the Force without much training versus a white teenager.

Finally just saw the movie and I have questions.

1) Were these people yelling Mary Sue yelling it after TFA, too? I don't remember, maybe they were, but Rey & Finn were both mind-boggling in their natural skill with the light saber in that movie, too. It struck me as I sat in the theater to wonder just how, but of course, by then I'd already seen Rey fly the junked Millennium Falcon as effortlessly as Han, so my suspension of disbelief was already fully engaged. Why is it more of a problem with this movie?

2) I love the final image, and the idea that the Force isn't only some kind of familial legacy, but I'm not sold on Kylo's version of Ren's background. If she turns out to be his primary foe, it certainly would be in his interest to both convince her that she's a nobody (assuming, his superiority-complexed mind believes he CAN convince her of this), and more importantly, to convince the powerful people of the various planets and systems she's not worth siding with. "She's a drink-addled junk-trader's daughter, she can't lead the galaxy" as political mud is a pretty classic ploy. I keep thinking about his statement, "they sold you for drink" or whatever it was, vs the image of her memory from TFA, with her crying, dressed in nice-seeming clothes, looking up, the ship streaking through the sky. I mean, it all could just be jumbled-together memories misleading her, but I can't shake the suspicion there's still more to her background than we know. There's also Maz's cryptic words to Rey.

3) I don't get why the TrollBros have their tighty-whities in a bunch. Being aware there was "an issue" I was trying to pay attention and watch for the Big Moment that would turn the movie into a SJW Bullhorn. Alas, it never came. What I did see was a movie that shamelessly had a woman or female-presenting character in almost every scene. *gasp* But in almost every scene where a W/F-P character did Something Competent, there was still a man/male-presenting character next to her in the scene, physically or psychically (Frex, Luke was "there" mentally when Rey went into the dark hole, and Kylo was "there" mentally when she was examining herself in the ice). So the fact is, but for the very last act by Laura Dern's Admiral Holdo, W/W-P characters were only ever, at most, 50% of the characters in a scene. And this is what is problematic for the SJW-Screaming crowd? Close to 50/50 rep?

Anyway, I liked the movie. I need to see it again because we had terrible seats and I feel like I missed a lot of detail. I think I still like TFA better because it was the thrilling introduction of new blood into the SW movie universe. This one felt like a middle-of-the-trilogy movie to me, and also I thought it could have used some more "kill your darlings" editing. But those are quibbles. Unlike the Anakin origin movies (1,2,3) I will have no trouble watching TLJ multiple times.

ElaineA said:

1) Were these people yelling Mary Sue yelling it after TFA, too? I don't remember, maybe they were, but Rey & Finn were both mind-boggling in their natural skill with the light saber in that movie, too. It struck me as I sat in the theater to wonder just how, but of course, by then I'd already seen Rey fly the junked Millennium Falcon as effortlessly as Han, so my suspension of disbelief was already fully engaged. Why is it more of a problem with this movie?

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I think that claim has been around ever since TFA launched, for exactly the reasons you mentioned. Maybe it didn't lead into all-out hostility as long as her skills could in theory be traced back to one of those two special families, but I do remember the Mary Sue term coming up here and there.

But in almost every scene where a W/F-P character did Something Competent, there was still a man/male-presenting character next to her in the scene, physically or psychically (Frex, Luke was "there" mentally when Rey went into the dark hole, and Kylo was "there" mentally when she was examining herself in the ice). So the fact is, but for the very last act by Laura Dern's Admiral Holdo, W/W-P characters were only ever, at most, 50% of the characters in a scene. And this is what is problematic for the SJW-Screaming crowd? Close to 50/50 rep?

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From what I remember of the very bad video I mentioned up-thread, it's all about who's in charge. Leia and Holdo are the highest-ranking rebels we see, and the one remaining (male) Jedi master refuses to lead, making the resistance pretty much a matriarchy (yes, that's how they called it). The one sub-plot that's male-dominated (because Rose is involved in the planning, but only along with Finn and Poe), fails. Which clearly makes it all one big SJW lie to make males look incompetent and/or evil (since the First Order is pretty much the opposite of the rebellion, gender-wise). All of this is, of course, entirely different from when Luke failed to save his friends in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK while they were fighting an all-male Empire and Leia was already outranking them all in the rebellion.

ElaineA said:

Finally just saw the movie and I have questions.

1) Were these people yelling Mary Sue yelling it after TFA, too? I don't remember, maybe they were, but Rey & Finn were both mind-boggling in their natural skill with the light saber in that movie, too. It struck me as I sat in the theater to wonder just how, but of course, by then I'd already seen Rey fly the junked Millennium Falcon as effortlessly as Han, so my suspension of disbelief was already fully engaged. Why is it more of a problem with this movie?

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Most, not all, of the people screaming in this movie know why they are doing it. We all do. This petty 'male injustice' nonsense is pathetic. However, if I may, I want to discuss this notion of Rey & Finn were too skilled in TFA with light saber fighting, etc. Rey wasn't some wonderer from a desert planet who hid in fear of everyone or everything. She was a fighter. We saw her leap into God knows what kind of danger saving BB8. We saw her fight off two men trying to steal BB8. We saw her ability to wield a staff pretty well. A staff isn't a light saber obviously but they aren't completely foreign in resemblance from each other. There's also the fact that she would never had been able to do what she did in the forest against Kylo if he wasn't emotional a wreck after what he did previously before that scene. We even had Snoke comment on this(Kylo's imbalance.)

Also, in regards to Rey's flying ability. We were told and shown her ability around ships, etc. She had experience piloting and working on them. Finally, things didn't exactly go smoothly from the start. Rey didn't exactly fly the Falcon as effortlessly as Han. She nearly tore it in half getting it off the ground if you recall as her and Finn attempted their escape.

As for Finn, he was a storm trooper. We saw the other storm trooper use the weapon he did to fight Finn with a saber. I believe it's also been established in previous star wars mythology that storm troopers(or at least a certain sect of them) were trained to fight light saber wielders. In any event, we saw that at work in TFA against Finn so there's reasonable logic to believe that Finn himself had at least some workable knowledge in wielding a saber like weapon(much like the one who fought him did.)

I found it all believable based on the evidence that was provided so I never put stock into this Mary Sue nonsense like some apparently did but to each his/her own I guess

The only oddity with Finn and the lightsaber involves book-canon which may no longer apply. Supposedly only Jedi/Sith can wield a lightsaber because without the concentrated use of the Force, a stable blade won't form. To me, this lends weight to the idea that we're still getting a "Skywalker" story, we just haven't been told Finn's actual parentage.

My mother (of all people) actually watched TLJ and her take was that Finn and Rey are probably brother and sister (and both Skywalkers) to mirror Luke and Leia's relationship. That would make for a great reveal if it pans out. Luke's been out there for a while. He's a galactic legend. It's not hard to envision a scenario where he could have a few kids dotting the place, even if he doesn't know they're there.

I really hope they don't turn out Skywalkers (or Kenobis). The mirroring of Leia and Luke would be in line with what this trilogy has done so far, but it would invalidate so much of TLJ that it wouldn't be worth it.

Cyia said:

Supposedly only Jedi/Sith can wield a lightsaber because without the concentrated use of the Force, a stable blade won't form.

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So how did Han cut open the taun-taun on Hoth?

Cyia said:

The only oddity with Finn and the lightsaber involves book-canon which may no longer apply. Supposedly only Jedi/Sith can wield a lightsaber because without the concentrated use of the Force, a stable blade won't form. To me, this lends weight to the idea that we're still getting a "Skywalker" story, we just haven't been told Finn's actual parentage.

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That isn't correct. The lightsaber blade itself is weightless and has a gyroscopic effect that makes it difficult to use and, given the nature of the weapon, extremely dangerous for someone who can't wield it properly.

However, I did see an image from one of the new-canon comics that had Han Solo wielding a lightsaber. He wasn't Force-sensitive in the original canon, so who knows if that bit of lore still applies.

Cyia said:

The only oddity with Finn and the lightsaber involves book-canon which may no longer apply. Supposedly only Jedi/Sith can wield a lightsaber because without the concentrated use of the Force, a stable blade won't form. To me, this lends weight to the idea that we're still getting a "Skywalker" story, we just haven't been told Finn's actual parentage.

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This may have been suggested at one point, but in the hundreds of Star Wars items I've consumed, this was never canon. Many Mandalorians, for instance, wielded lightsabers they took off their victims. There was the pretty big problem that without the Force you need to be a master swordsman not to accidentally maim yourself with a lightsaber, and a small number of lightsabers had the activation switch inside (requiring the Force to activate it, which may or may not be what you were referring to), but it was never generally required.

ManInBlack said:

This may have been suggested at one point, but in the hundreds of Star Wars items I've consumed, this was never canon. Many Mandalorians, for instance, wielded lightsabers they took off their victims. There was the pretty big problem that without the Force you need to be a master swordsman not to accidentally maim yourself with a lightsaber, and a small number of lightsabers had the activation switch inside (requiring the Force to activate it, which may or may not be what you were referring to), but it was never generally required.

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I've often wondered why people proficient with the force - flinging lightning around, doing mind control etc - need "laser swords" too. You'd think the force would be enough to protect yourself.

Keithy said:

I've often wondered why people proficient with the force - flinging lightning around, doing mind control etc - need "laser swords" too. You'd think the force would be enough to protect yourself.

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It's an equalizer. Someone like Yoda or Vader doesn't truly need it - before 2002, it was widely believed that neither Yoda nor Palpatine even used one. That said, it makes a huge difference for less powerful (or worn out) Jedi, as well as the status symbol that it affected in the prequel era.

Keithy said:

I've often wondered why people proficient with the force - flinging lightning around, doing mind control etc - need "laser swords" too. You'd think the force would be enough to protect yourself.

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Maybe because Star Wars began life as a movie? In the 1970's? It's visual, and special effects at the time were pretty lame (see: the floppy teeth on the shark in JAWS). Glowy swords were AWEsome!

Filmmaker's gotta make a choice.

Three different ways of justifying it...and I think all correct, in their own realms.

Rule of Cool, I think it's called.

I'm way more confused about how space battles work in the Star Wars universe, anyway. Particularly why they seem to need to drop gravity bombs on a Star Destroyer. Has no-one ever invented missiles? Hell, hyperdrives seem to fit into arbitrarily small craft, so why don't the rebels build hypermissiles armed with powerful nukes? The Empire 2.0 New Order would never see them coming.