Welcome :)
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.
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.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 does 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The circumstances were different for both cases. Luke was disoriented and had been hung upside down for a considerable amount of time - and in both cases Luke and Rey close their eyes to tap into the Force to accomplish their goals.
What training was he given by Kenobi, exactly? He put on a helmet and deflected a few bolts from a game droid. He didn't even have any actual formal training until Empire and yet at the end of A New Hope he blatantly uses the Force to blow up the Death Star - just because Kenobi told him to "Use the Force". Which is almost exactly how Rey manages to win the fight, just without Lupita Nyongo whispering it in her ear. Nothing Rey did is out of the ordinary given what we see of her experiences in the movie.
He's not cunning or strategic, which is why Hux was about to kill him in that brief window. What he is is unhinged and angry and he has a rather large army at his disposal. The First Order has numbers now that there's no government and the Resistance is scrounging for numbers in the Outer Rim. The fact that he's not a strategist, but an emotional figure is the entire point. Here's someone who has an absolute authority over a military and a vendetta against those who slighted him. The threat comes from the fact that he's willing to use the army for his own selfish goals and it's not like there's a governmental or military body set to oppose him.
Snoke was dumb and killing him to make the actual interesting character the antagonist was the best possible move.
You're right. He's also noted as being rash and prone to poor decision making, overconfidence and poor planning, and ultimately heroic when the need calls for it. He carried on the traditions of his teachers pretty flawlessly too.
Expanding on the concepts is what lead to the only decent bit of Star Wars there is, which was an entire narrative about how the Force is stupid and makes no sense.
The attempt to make the Force anything less than space wizard mana points
Heck yes time for my favorite thing: pointlessly discussing opinions.
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 who isn't even trying to defeat her anyway.
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.
Good thing that's not what Rey's deal is.
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.
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.
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.
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!
I get cannon characters, I don't get the rest