[quote=@Fabricant451]I hate Star Wars but I can't help myself from talking about it. It is my Sisyphean torture. I appreciate that it's been civil which seems like a rarity within Stahr Wahrs. Of course I do agree that Rey's character isn't as well defined as the OT trio, but she's at least above prequel tier. And I get it, I get the issues many have, there's a lot of greater issues with the sequels (like a lack of a defined plan), but episode 8 was like a reminder why I thought Star Wars was neato skeeto. That said, once more around the horn.[/quote]

My primary issue with Star Wars these days isn't the amount of holes you can pick from it, but from the fanatical lining up into camps. I am both a disney shill to some and a complete sexist dickbag to others for expressing generally the same line of opinions because while I dislike various elements, there are others which I can excuse. Everyone else has their own limits, and they take the entire affair so seriously that their interpretation is gospel. It's amusing and sad. Going above prequel tier is really not a great accomplishment, but while I have many fundamental bones with the new disney trilogy, I consider it foolish to say that problems in continuity, character development and mmany more aspects only started there. I'd say the problem comes from Star Wars itself and the loose continuity of its own original creators. An action movie series more intent on the wows and raw impact of its time that is taken far too seriously. It was never even meant to be expanded and nitpicked as far as it has. I know, the irony of me nitpicking it now.

[quote=@Fabricant451]I'm not sure distance matters quite as much. Rey was in fight or flight mode and the lightsaber 'called to her' so the script said earlier. The Force doesn't mean someone needs training to tap into it - Broom Kid is proof enough of that - but given that Rey is 'embracing her destiny' with that moment, it's equal parts dramatic coda and character defining. Luke was under duress and struggled and Rey struggled as well - against Kylo who was also trying to get the saber. [/quote] I chalk that scene down to cinematic convenience and the aforementioned wow effect that isn't really meant to have much logical depth behind it. My main issue is that based on what I've seen of star wars over the years, distance [i]does[/i] play a part. It is good to bring up the 'fight or flight' line of logic as I can factor it in as a rather potent modifier for the scene, but I think the distance was a bit excessive for someone who simply never went in that direction in the first place. But, again, it is not something I can argue any further for, as I simply don't have enough familiarity with the scene nor enough ideas of how it fits into everything else for me to be confident in trying to press my case home.

[quote=@Fabricant451]I don't think there's much of an issue with a lack of 'practice' given that all we ever see Luke do on screen is deflect bolts, move his saber, and do some gymnastics with rocks. Episode 6 has the implication that he went back for more training but the same isn't exactly said for episode 5. Luke's training was never really the vital point so much as it was expansion of the Force - that even someone like Yoda could do extraordinary things. Luke in the movies isn't exactly the most competent of Jedi even with his masters being two of the best. [/quote]
He is far from the most competent, to be sure, but I dismiss any claims that the practice he did receive was not instrumental in him being able to use what force he could, as well as he did. I factor in the idea that more happens with characters than what is literally displayed on screen. You do not see every detail, but that does not mean nothing happened - you might as well say Leia just stared at the interrogation droid in the very first movie if one only considers what happened on screen after the various cuts of film.

[quote=@Fabricant451]I clicked it, yes, but I didn't watch it. I intend to if only because it's probably a perspective that I can't exactly have. [/quote]
I don't fully agree with him or his presentation, but I think there are plenty of good points raised that I [i]do[/i] agree with that serve as a good part of my distaste for the latest offerings.

[quote=@Fabricant451]You'll have to ask Kasdan and Abrams for that. I don't disagree, which is why Snoke dying is the best thing they could've done. [/quote]
Sure, if one sticks with the idea that all you can do is continue. I simply cannot acknowledge that their proofreading and ideas were so poor in the first place that you first have a flimsy character stringing along the 'big bad' trope who then goes out in a similarly poor way. It's the kind of handling that I think is found across both movies, and it's the sort of thing that makes me dislike them.

[quote=@Fabricant451]The Jedi are constant failures no matter what point of history it is, so Luke does carry on the tradition of failing and learning from it only when an opportune moment arises to do so. It's what makes his ultimate fate in TLJ so satisfying because he learns his greatest lesson and does the single coolest thing a Jedi has done on screen. Luke was awesome. [/quote]
Luke fails, and then he learns. That's what I like about him, really. The Jedi are clearly all about cycles; they become stagnant, end up with an existential crisis as a result, have a generation that learns the hard way, and proceeds to come out on top because they learned. I could argue that's at the heart of Star Wars, the cycle of learning and eventually forgetting. That's part of why I don't carry too far on into future Luke, because while I don't like how the scenes with him turned out, I do think some of the ideas that went into them had potential. To say someone cannot become a failure with age is simply to be buried in pointless nostalgia.

[quote=@Fabricant451]I think a major problem is because The Force is so ill defined that it creates situations where expanding it just creates more problems. Star Wars works best when it's not taken super seriously, but that doesn't mean serious and good stories can't be told within universe. [/quote]
Like everything else, it requires it to be done properly. A cohesive Force that isn't totally fleshed out but has many more defined elements than not is something I'd advocate. The problem is
 - The prequels muddled and bungled it
 - Legends totally muddled, contradicted, butchered, pieced together, etc etc it
 - The original creators weren't particularly consistent about it
 - Disney walks in and pretty much continues the cycle

I have my own set of ideas for how the force operates, as I'm sure many others do, because what is provided is simply too vague at the source (although that is a good thing in its own right) and then expanded in too many directions (among people who are supposed to be making canon shit. Not a good thing).

What I'm primarily looking for is not necessarily for each aspect of things to be explicitly defined, but instead easily argued for and consistent with itself in basically all presentations that are supposed to make canon and thus give easy food for people to expand on from there without going "so that movie does this... but wait, another movie does this, shit... wait, why are those guys totally incompetent- wha-" etc. In this, I engage pretty much the entirety of Star Wars, not just the disney contributions. And while I haven't thrown much shade at the originals, they too created the occasional implausible scenario in their own continuity.

But I wrap this up by going back to the first point, it's all moot because it's an action series created by the world's biggest troll who plainly didn't give that much of a shit about all the dynamics I'm trying to argue for. In short, Lucas is a brilliant troll.