Heck yes time for my favorite thing: pointlessly discussing opinions. [quote=@ArenaSnow] -Foremost on my mind is Rey, a character who I believe is simply overpowered and a bad character given her presentation as compared to Luke and [i]later[/i] Anakin. She has little development, no real arcs that I'm aware of, succeeds relatively easily in things she attempts, only gets put to a stop when big bad [s]boring and underdeveloped big bad[/s] Snoke is involved, absurdly powerful in the force at first glance without a proper justification, and easily stands toe to toe with an edgy wannabe Vader who at least has training by a supposedly very competent dark lord of something who is called Snoke.[/quote] This is where I'm gonna jump in to defend Rey since a common misconception about her from episode 7 is that she is a Mary Sue (she isn't) and that her character was established in similar way to Luke from A New Hope. As in: visually. It is contrasted super hard from our introduction to Kylo (who is subverted later due to the introduction to good effect), and to Poe who we are just flatout told is 'the best pilot' Rey's introduction is completely through visual storytelling. She's introduced scavenging through an old Imperial walker, she's shown to be incredibly independent, her makeshift home is basically dug out of wreckage and her putting on of the helmet is about as much of an expression of dream and desire as Luke looking out at the twin suns. This pivots to her meeting BB-8 where her initial reluctance is won over though she's still not exactly interested in it up until the whole exchange at the bazaar. Rey's development is incomplete but she's in a different place at the end of both movies then she was at the start, which is pretty much the basis of any character in film or story telling. By the end of TFA she's willing to embrace what everyone has called her destiny even though all she wants is to cling to the desperate hope that her parents didn't just leave her to fend for herself. She starts the movie as fiercely independent, then finds the father figure she's always desired, and has to watch as that's taken away from her. Her story parallels that of Luke and it's very deliberate. By the end of ANH, Luke basically single handedly destroys the Death Star; by the end of TFA, Rey's biggest accomplishment is beating a very injured and overly emotional Kylo Ren [i]who isn't even trying to defeat her anyway[/i]. Her arcs thus far are about dealing with loss and disappointment yet still having the hope to push on. She lost her parents, her father figure, a man she idolized from legendary stories turned out to be a massive disappointment, and the guy she thought she could save when others failed him turned out to be the biggest disappointment of them all. Unlike Kylo, her disappointment doesn't send her spiraling down a dark path but instead she intends to use it to grow and improve upon it. There's a reason Yoda blatantly spells out the message of failure in TLJ. Nothing Rey has done in the movies have been overpowered. She knows how to fly because Unkar lets her take ships to atmo sometimes, she knows how to fix the Falcon because she was there when the modification was installed and Han wasn't. She's shown to be a capable fighter on Jakku and her entire life to that point is one that suggests learning self defense is vital. At most the case is against her use of the Force with no training, but that's how the Force is and it wasn't like she was doing death defying feats. She'd heard the tales of the Jedi, she got a basic overview from Maz Kanata, and she put it into action by bluffing Kylo and tricking a guard. Force sensitives do weird stuff practically unconsciously. [quote]But after Anakin, I'm a little tired of the superpowered birth gimmick.[/quote] Good thing that's not what Rey's deal is. [quote]- The First Order is lead by bungling idiots from the inept Ren to Snoke's supposed wisdom but semi-frequent failures (including his inglorious death that he somehow never saw coming) to just the officers who somehow made it that far.[/quote] Ren is hardly inept, just emotionally immature, and it's hard to say that the First Order is idiotic considering they're basically winning the conflict and literally made their stamp on the galaxy by taking out the center of the new government. Snoke's wisdom starts and stops with him having knowledge of the Force and basic manipulation tactics. The First Order is made up of people who retreated after the end of the last war, they're Imperial loyalists and those birthed into it, fanatics in other terms. The main problem with them is that their goals are ill defined, but that's because the First Order and the Resistance are just tools to further the development of the main characters. [quote]- The First Order's frequent idiocy is only matched by the Rebel Alliance's also incompetent command and decision making. Unlike earlier movies, it's not a matter of who's smarter. It's a matter of who's stupid enough to make the most fatal mistakes first.[/quote] It's the Resistance, the Rebel Alliance stopped being a thing when they won the war. The Resistance scrounged together an offensive that destroyed a system-killing weapon and then took out a dreadnought (albeit in an engagement with too high a cost) all while being understaffed and underfunded. There's no real government anymore and the Resistance never had the official backing of the Republic anyway. They aren't doing so badly for a bunch of people with dwindling numbers. [quote]- I think Luke's character was butchered, outright. Improperly explained and simply unfitting to me.[/quote] I disagree entirely. The fact that the guy who staunchly refused to fight his father and the evil raisin man would then go on to do the most Jedi thing in the history of Jedi is a fitting coda to his character. [quote]- I dislike the disney trilogy thus far for the same reasons why I dislike the prequels - presentation, character natures/development, and overall plots. Clearly, the movies fit the times, and the times are a bit scary to me considering how much dumbassery is prevalent in the disney movies[/quote] Star Wars has never had dumbass stuff in it. Not like the central conceit of a magical entity that is 'blue is good, red is bad' is dumb or anything!