I think it's a common misconception among fans of the new trilogy that she has the same kind of development as Luke in terms of evolving from virtually nothing into a force competent power. There is a difference between 'incredibly independent' and incredibly skilled on a relatively out of the way world who is not underskilled in anything. I see no real challenges for her. I see little weakness. I see little to grow from, and as a result, I simply don't see the growth. I see the same person in the next movie as I saw in the first movie. Luke was heavily flawed, heavily unskilled save for a couple things (and certainly nowhere near as adept with the Force as she proves to be off the bat). He was rather relatable off the bat for his many flaws, each of which he overcame. I saw little of that in Rey. And that is where I feel she falls flat.
Luke was hardly 'heavily unskilled'. He's a guy that on separate occasions boasts that he can fly better than a professional pilot
and military individuals despite his only piloting experience basically being with hovercrafts and then goes on to literally be the ace pilot that saves the day despite it being his first time in any actual combat experience. Rey's development isn't a 1:1 replica of Luke just like how TFA isn't actually a remake of ANH and people suggesting it as such do a disservice to both. But there are purposeful parallels between the two. The difference is that Luke is an active character while Rey
isn't and that doesn't make her bad because of it, but it's why it takes the efforts of the surrounding cast to propel her.
Luke and Rey are both stuck in places they don't actually want to be. Luke wants to go off and join the Rebels like his friends but his aunt and uncle won't let him; Rey has heard tales and has grown up in the wreckage of the final battle of the previous war and would very much like to be a pilot but she's desperately clinging to the truth she refuses to see. Luke actively takes steps to leave even before he's blatantly forced to while Rey would have been content in the scavving life - not
happy, but content were it not for the conflict rolling up on her. It's why Rey spends the entire first two acts of the movie trying to get back home and why by the end of it her goal has changed and she's started to become more active.
The Rey from the start of TFA is different from the Rey in TLJ though the more negative aspects of her personality are still ever present. They Rey from the start of TFA would not ever have chosen to go after Kylo, if the character remained the same she would've gone back to Jakku after Starkiller Base. Her challenges are, as they are with the central four characters, finding their place in the galaxy. Rey and Ren are both dealing with disappointment from their father figures but one is realizing that there's a better way and the other is compromised and desperate. Rey is in the unique position of having to carry on a legacy that used to mean something and having to do so on her own terms and merits. That's a challenge in itself, and that's without the more personal challenge of saving her friends, which she accomplishes.
How adept with the Force is Rey truly, though? We have yet to see her do anything truly incredible with it. What we've seen Rey do amounts to the Jedi Mind Trick (not exactly a Jedi Master ability) and move rocks around - and Luke was able to move stuff even before Yoda and with what looked like basic sensory training on one trip. Her skill with a lightsaber is questionable, it's not like she's standing toe to toe with a master, and she's arguably more skilled in combat than the Force anyway. Maz Kanata gives Rey the rundown and then Rey puts it into practice, and the Maz Kanata scene is essentially Rey taking steps to being more true and honest with herself, and in turn a more active character.
Rey's been developed quite well, it's just that much of it is internal - except for Maz literally spelling out how Rey wants to belong.
A different set of surroundings and saying 'wellp, I have a point now' to your already developed abilities after seeing each test easily surpassed is another matter entirely. As far as beating Kylo Ren, consider that Rey isn't even remotely trained in lightsaber combat, while Ren was given considerable training in that as well as general force abilities. He was underpresented and she was overpresented.
Finn has zero lightsaber training or experience and fights Kylo. He
loses but it's not like he lost utterly and completely. He holds his own fairly well, even having a clash that ends because of the cross guard and then Finn goes on to actually strike Ren with the saber. Ren is emotionally unstable and nursing a pretty glaring wound. When Rey first engages Kylo, she looks uncertain, confused, and afraid. She's swinging wildly. Her opening move is a lunge, and Kylo is
effortlessly fucking with her. She gets put on the defensive almost right away to the point where she starts to run away. She cuts a tree to try and put distance between herself and Kylo. She gets backed into a corner - because the Starkiller Base is being destroyed and she's pushed to the edge of a newly formed cliff that would kill her. Cue Kylo's recruitment spiel and Rey hearing "The Force" and remembering what Maz told her earlier in the movie.
It's only here that Rey goes on the offensive, getting two hits in before they essentially have a physical struggle which Rey ultimately wins because Kylo wasn't looking. For the majority of their fight, Kylo was absolutely the one with the upper hand. It wasn't like Rey won effortlessly.
- Great fighter including with a lightsaber just by picking it up. Self defense against brigands is another matter from beating the living shit out of basically whatever comes at her in a straight fight.
See above comment.
- Capable force user with a trick of pulling the lightsaber at a time in the movies when Luke, son of a being that was apparently spawned by pure force, was having tons of trouble doing the same.
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.
- Han has many more years around the Falcon then she's had in her life. I'm skeptical that she'd be fully adept at the things he is.
Rey works on ships for Plutt. That includes the Falcon. She knows the workings of the Falcon at this point because she was there when it was modified while Han was not. It's like if someone bought a used car, put in new parts, and the owner came back and was wondering why the handling was different.
- No, that is not 'how the force is', because the only place where that kind of logic could be sustained is in the Phantom Menace where a 9 year old that was apparently made of pure Force (total bullshit plot there, but bear with me) was able to pull droids from his ass and blow up starships single handedly. Luke was fully developed as a human being and given some training in the force by Kenobi at least. And then said 9 year old pretty much fell right into line with the masters by not following the same scale in the second movie onwards as far as power. Someone untrained and unpracticed in the force I believe to be well established as someone who simply can't use it effectively unless given proper training. She had the full grip before training even began, and when it did, she basically had it all on the spot. She's either Palpatine's granddaughter (or some equivalent, but if it's the former, I'll somewhat understand and possibly even like the development if done right) or her balancing is skewed.
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.
We'll have to agree to disagree.
Will we? Considering that TLJ confirms that Rey's literally no one special (which was also brought up in TFA) and that they would be stupid to run it back in episode 9.
I've seen nothing to indicate Ren has a remotely strategic or even cunning mind, and plenty to see as far as his failures. As an antagonist, I'm pretty unconcerned of the idea of the guy chasing me.
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.
Even more so of the fleet that saw itself heavily damaged by dropped bombs in circumstances that could have been rather easily avoided by proper troop deployments. The leader in that scene (whatever his name is, escapes me) I remember best for having a face, voice and presentation (the dialogue... god) better suited to a comedy version of nazi germany than a leader part of the remnants of a fairly professional empire that had many able commanders (surely, not all of them were killed on the second death star >.>).
Of course they weren't all killed in the second Death Star, that wasn't even the end of the war. But the Imperial Remnant retreated and licked their wounds/built their numbers back up. The First Order's biggest loss so far has been of a dreadnought (Which is still a decent loss) and its leader, but it at least remains a unified force. The Resistance lost most of its leadership in the wake of Starkiller Base. The First Order is still ahead in the current war as it stands now.
Snoke is a macguffin of power (or if I'm being critical, a wannabe Palpatine, which I don't go into because I acknowledge that a subplot could be that everyone is simply weaker because the truly skilled forces for light and dark are badly depleted), so not much can really be said to where anything about him begins and ends despite his very stupid death.
Snoke was dumb and killing him to make the actual interesting character the antagonist was the best possible move.
More to him than that, but I doubt going on about it would get anywhere.
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.
You'd think those elements would be reduced, not expanded.
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 was incredibly idiotic and running it back to "Literally anyone can be a Jedi" is a core value of Star Wars that is half the reason so many people like to flail around sticks in the backyard as if they were lightsabers.
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