Why Do People Dislike Rey?
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- čas přidán 28. 05. 2024
- Aka The Rey Paradox aka a video essay about not so popular Star Wars character and why she remains that way.
Timecodes:
0:00 Intro
2:27 The Feminist Icon Syndrome
6:44 The Luke Skywalker Issue
11:06 The Identity Problem
14:10 The Conclusion - Krátké a kreslené filmy
EDIT: As to my spelling of "epitome" and the manner of speaking
....English is my third language therefore this is not really the biggest comfort zone for me...so please don't be an asshole and if my voice bothers you so much that you can't get through the video just feel free to click away and don't be a dick about it. Just putting it out there. ❤️
I want to address the elephant in the room *IF you are familiar to my channel* which is that I am in fact not a dude…so there’s that. ♥
Anyway...hope you guys enjoy.
The Kylo Ren tribute makes more sense now 😂
Also, great first video essay! Looking forward to see what you do next. 👍
Top Tier Feminist Editing Icon & Memel̶o̶r̶d̶lady "Nutsa"
@@DarkCyberElf dude... 😂
Even tho you ain’t a dude people will still call you sexist for attacking their sacred cow… so have fun;>
She doesn't feel like a character, she feels like a walking talking plot device
She would be more interesting if she did not talk.
That is true of EVERY Star Wars protagonist.
@@ryanstewart5727 found the guy who didn’t see the original trilogy nor the prequels
@@eropatissier6706 Your lies are noted, and dismissed.
@@ryanstewart5727 My favorite part of Luke being a plot device was when he got his ass beat by Vader and was mostly useless for the first movie.
Disney: "There aren't any strong, independent female Characters in Star Wars!"
Ahsoka Tano, Bastila Shan, Satele Shan, Leia Organa, Bo-Katan and Satine, Etain Tur-mukan, Padme Amidala, Kira Carsen, Ashara Zavros, Jaesa Willsaam, Mara Jade, Anakin's Mom, Atris, Meettra Surik, Kreia, Vette, Mission Vao, Juhani, Empress Acina, Vaylin, Senya, Bariss Offee, Lana Beniko, and many, many others: "Are we a joke to you?"
Nomi Sunrider
In later arcs, Asajj Ventress
Jaina Solo, Shaak Ti, Darth Zannah
Shmi Skywalker- "Sure, take my kid... guess I'll die now (so he'll have some motivation)" isn't how I'd define a "strong, independent female character"
But the greater point stands- and even if you narrow it down to 'canon', we'd still have Leia (I mean, how the fuck did they miss her), Ahsoka, Bo-Katan, Hera, Jyn Erso and (disappointingly brief) Paige Tico, among others. (Plus a decent amount of female Jedi.)
Nadia Grell, Gen. Garza, Elara dorne, Sgt. Jaxo
It’s crazy how the fan base can love Ahsoka, Asajj Ventress, Kreia, Padme, Leia, etc., and Disney still has the GALL to say that Rey is disliked because she’s a woman.
It is slightly true. If it was a male character, he would also be disliked. But not as disliked as Rey. I firmly believe this. People don't realize how many "male" Mary Sues are actually out there, because they don't react as strongly to it.
Consider this for example. Who is still considered to be the best strong female character? Everyone, including myself, still fall back on Alien's Ripley. BRILLIANT CHARACTER. Now, that facker is from 1979. That we haven't topped that yet says something odd about the industry.
@@Genomsnittet this may be random. But Mulan from the cartoon is my favorite woman character. Nothing is forced. No special powers. No crazy strength. Just a brave woman who uses real woman strengths (mental an physical) an kicks ass the whole movie. Nothing is forced.
@@Bobcat161988 i would say mulan too for me. I was so pumped watching her in cinemas when i was younger. And im a guy! i can only imagine how much more special the experience would have been for young girls at the time.
@@Genomsnittet idk if I could list them and I haven't watched alien but every year there's new female characters that also happen to be strong. Off the top of my head I think of Ahsoka, Bo Katan, Satine, Padme. Toph, Katara, Korra, Azula, and Suki from Avatar. Pretty much every female character written in avatar is important to the story in their own way without the simple 'be strong' approach.
My point is that they show up all the time. If you think not having a new best female character is bad then I don't get that. I have favorite male characters as well that have stayed my favorites for years.
@@Genomsnittet you may be right but on the other hand one of the many complaints about anakin in the prequels is that he’s a Gary sue. I think the one thing that saved his character in the long run is his character flaws and him being “the chosen one”. At first I didn’t like the whole chosen one thing but it was saved for me once the idea of palpatine influencing the force to make shmee pregnant was introduced. Like he tried to make an insanely strong force user and left him for the Jedi to find. I think most fans of Star Wars still would’ve hated Rey even if she was a man but Disney lucasfilm constantly antagonizing fans about being sexist for not liking her definitely made fans more upset
She went from not knowing the FORCE even existed to jedi mind tricking people and beating Kylo in a duel in 24hrs. That's why.
Maybe she was a prodigy or unique like Broly among super saiyans. But I agree.
@@liberalsocialist9723 Among the prodigies we know mostly are; Anakin and his offsprings are prodigies, others are Jedi Masters or Sith (Dooku is not yet a Sith but he can fare Yoda). Luke after 3 years of training and was able to overpower Vader when getting close to use dark side. Prodigies has to work to reach their ceilings, otherwise, they cannot improve. Rey has literally done nothing (beside duels) to improve her so it's pretty much a sham.
It's interesting you used Broly as an example (which is a good example); he's pretty much the only prodigy (beside Vegeta but that's King Vegeta's biased opinion). However, Broly trained almost all his life getting to where he can overpower both Saiyans until they resorted to Fusion then straight to SSB to overpower Broly.
@@liberalsocialist9723 thing is, prodigies must have exceptional story arc to be relatable. If anything, she should have turned to the dark side: unlimited power without having earned it almost always corrupts, unless you have a great reason to stay good. Which she hadn't. They could have had her turning to the dark side and Kylo to the light, perhaps finding the way of the grey towards the end when she inevitably kills him due to her superiority, making it far more interesting.
@@liberalsocialist9723
Still doesn't explain why she could fix ships she's never seen, communicate in languages she's never heard, and traverse in ways she would have no way to have learned like swimming.
Both Anakin and Luke were in the family of prodigies, and they needed training to grasp basics.
To be fair, kylo had just killed his dad, was shot with a bowcaster, and wasn't trying to kill Rey.
Let us not forget the greatest cinematic line this trilogy ever produced. “Somehow, palpatine returned.”
I prefer "The dead speak!" personally
You can literally change the word Palpatine with 90% of movie villains/video game antagonists and its always going to be correct
“The dark side of the force is a pathway to abilities many would consider, unnatural.”
One of the best lines from the OT, and they somehow turned it into a nothing burger line in the sequels
@@counterfeit4450 That's... not from the OT lmao
@@nagger8216
The original trilogies*
That person forgot to make is plural.
its okay, none of the sequel trilogy happened, it was just a spice trip luke had.
Luke was trippin' from a death stick.
Luke accidentally ate some of yoda’s “special” herbs on dagobah
@@cobussy so that's why Yoda died, Luke stole his ketamine.
Let's hope!
You mean Rey. Luke was off training his Jedi apprentices while she was getting stoned on Jakku.
Okay for Leia’s golden bikini thingy, I always thought of it as a way of making us hate Jabba more, which is what it made me do when I watched it. After all, making her wear it was an action of Jabba, the secondary villain there.
You are so naïve
Imagine if in Empire Strikes Back Vader made Leia wear a bikini?
@@Snagprophet That'd be ENTIRELY out of character for Vader. Jabba is portrayed, very clearly and intentionally, as a gross, hedonistic crime boss - not a character you were supposed to like, or even any redeeming traits.
Is there misogyny involved in the bikini? Yes. But it's JABBA being misogynistic, and there's no reason to assume the audience were supposed to look at this as a good thing.
The intended reaction is disgust, and that concept: "sexualisation is the kind of thing done by slimy crime bosses" is NOT an endorsement of it.
But also, the bikini thing was there to show off the hotness of a highly attractive actress. They couldn't have pulled that one off with Daisy Ridley, even if they wanted to.
I don’t even find Leia attractive but I never once had that thought lol. All I thought was wow that’s a hot outfit. I must be a piece of shit lol
I always come back to Ellen Ripley. The character wasn't even gendered until after the first couple of drafts and so there was no need to give her over the top masculine traits to show how strong and independent she is. She's just a trucker in space who has to deal with a big monster and she doesn't do it in a badass girl boss type of way, she outthinks it and displays uncanny levels of bravery despite how terrified she is. If she was always in total control and just beat up the alien with her awesome female kung fu skills it wouldn't have had nearly the same weight.
Never really saw her badassery but maybe that’s just cuz I don’t like the Alien franchise
@@iancuneo1820 Ripley gets a significant downgrade after Aliens, but given the script production was basically a mish-mash given birth by committee, just look up until 2: it should be pretty clear how awesome Ripley is.
In Alien, Ripley is the most competent person on the ship, and in a position where she SHOULD be able to give orders... but constantly undervalued by her co-workers and her orders often ignored because she's a woman. She's also the only one able to actually come up with a way to survive, which is pretty clear dialogue on "sexism is wrong".
In the second one, she's again undervalued, although less so. Interestingly, so is Vasquez, for basically the same reason. Vasquez has her own set of... problems, but that's incidental here. Anyway, Ripley is at first dismissed as insane - not because she's a woman, because she's telling a story that logically should be impossible - and learns a few skills, before it turns out she was 100% right about the xenomorphs, and immediately they're eager to bring her back as a consultant to deal with the issue. Which she does, and in the doing so her competence and perseverance earns her de-facto leadership of a Marine group... despite her being a civilian. Also she goes back and risks her life in order to save Newt against seemingly doomed odds, finally using the skills she learned in her civilian life to take out the Queen.
Does that really not strike you as badass? It's not as glamourous as heroes like Rambo, but it's realistic, and shows incredible intelligence, perseverance, and selflessness. What more do you want in a hero?
But she does have quite the few traits that are considered stereotypically masculine. She's very assertive, she had a master's degree in engineering, and she was a pilot. All of these things, are in fact, male traits. Or rather, they are considered stereotypically male traits.
A female character may possess them, it is perfectly fine. It is particularly fine that her skillset and talent is clearly stated. This explains WHY she can do some amazing things. I think the selling point is that even though Ripley is brilliant, as you point out, she's friggin terrified. Despite this, she does her best to stay alive. She's brave in the face of fear.
And she's not a rambo. People have a harder time digesting a female rambo than a male one (because of obvious sexism), when honestly, no matter the gender, the idea of a rambo is so INSANELY DUMB. If these people actually existed, there would never have to be wars. I mean f, just send rambo and it's an automated win.
Another interesting thing that is discussed here which I think fall completely flat is the talk about the female icon syndrome. "Wah wa wi wa wa female characters shouldn't be strong because they possess typical male traits wa wa wa BULLSHIT". If you are portraying a warrior or a soldier, then i'm sorry to say, strength, fighting ability, tactical brilliance... All of these things are necessary to make a soldier "badass". Imagine a soldier who's weak, can't fight for shit, and make tactically dumb decisions. How would that ever be interesting to watch? Should we have given Ripley or Rey some more typically feminine traits? SHould they both be good at sewing? cooking? How would that help them against aliens/storm troopers?
This is a very contrived way of saying "I don't think women can be soldiers" which again, is nothing but blatant sexism. complaining about giving women soldier traits and saying they should be exclusive to males is NOTHING but sexism. And the content creator here seems to fail to notice this.
The difference between Ripley and Rey is the Genre. You point to Ripley but Ripley is in a widely accepted heroine Genre called... The final girl. She is technically a horror movie icon and final girls are an accepted trope in Horror franchises. The entire series being led by a woman in Star Wars though? That is unacceptable still to this day. People will point to Leia and Ahsoka but Leia was a side character to Luke, and devolved into the widely accepted role of.. 'love interest' and 'damsel in distress'. Ahsoka got her own series and 'fans' have started to turn on the character ever since. These arguments are never in good faith because they always ignore the broader details. Saying.. "I don't hate female leads.. I like Ripley.." Is like saying "I am not racist I have a black friend.."
I think it's funny how the excuse from Disney about why the fans don't like Rey can be so easily proven wrong by pointing out the fact that everyone loves Ahsoka Tano
Facts
Ahsoka is such a good character! You're totally right
Everyone hated her at first
@@benster344 Yeah, but I’m pretty sure that was Filoni’s plan from the start. Making an instantly likable character has its drawbacks. Ahsoka was always meant to actually grow as a character. She has faults and those were evident at the beginning. She worked through them and became a character that evolved every bit as much with her failures or even more so than her triumphs. Rey was instantly perfect and struggled with nothing. She was always one-dimensional.
@@benster344 It was by design bro
Daisy Ridley saying that Rey has no weaknesses is actually hilarious lol
If she approached the character as 'having no weaknesses', it at least explains why I lost interest in Rey's journey before the end of The Force Awakens. Also, Hello Kitty rocks.
So she knows why everyone hates her character 🤣
I liked Rey more in TFA because I thought JJ Abrams was going to make her into a Darth Bane type character.
Rey slowly learns about the force through trial and error, she doesn't know what it is, just that she has it.
This could even be how Rey knows about mind tricks; as a child she began to realize that people just did what she asked, or gave her what she wanted, and over the years played around with what was possible.
Now I don't know anything about piloting, but what if Rey had never flown a ship, but she had been taught to copilot by the dude she's left with, because in his younger days, he still had to fly his own cargo places, idk. The previous training,, coupled with the force would help her fly the Mellon falcon alone.
I realize I'm grasping at straws, but I believe these would've been good changes.
I actually have a story written where Rey's parents are still alive, and she is raised in a John/sarah Conner type deal, but if Kyle Reese was also there too.
@@poliwag9570 To be fair, just
"Rey slowly learns about the force through trial and error, she doesn't know what it is, just that she has it.
This could even be how Rey knows about mind tricks; as a child she began to realize that people just did what she asked, or gave her what she wanted, and over the years played around with what was possible."
sounds like a great setup for a trilogy where a nobody who has no idea about the force and Jedi discovers it all on her own and then gets pulled into the greater world of uncertain universe after the empire collapsed. All the potential political and moral conflicts emerging after emperor's death. There's just so much amazing potential that Disney absolutely ignored because money and political correctness go BRRRRRRR!
@@kaksspl She would have Luke, and Leia to guide her in the force; and to put a name to what it is she has been using.
There is that kid, that snatches up the broom using the force, is there any reason why he would know what the force is called? Maybe he's heard stories, maybe, But he still uses it, and has some skill with it.
I do think you have to acknowledge that you can’t have the protagonist beat the main villain of a trilogy in their first fight. Could you imagine if Luke had beaten Vader on the Death Star?
Agreed, what kind of threat did Kylo pose after getting his ass beat by the end of the first movie? Sure, there’s still Snoke but he was killed in the second movie for seemingly no reason and by the third (say it with me everyone) Somehow, Palpatine returned.
These ridiculous choices leaves us with Kylo being the only consistent villain in the trilogy and again, he got his ass beat in the first film. What a joke!
Vader ends Ep4 losing, flying off out of control in space. He wasn't intended to be more than a one off villain
@@jeff3221 He's very clearly alive after that, and his survival is a foreshadowing moment. Spiraling off into space is hardly a death sentence when you're in a spaceship.
It was one that could have served to end the series, because there was no promise there'd be a sequel. Lucas had basically put everything he had into SW, and gone near-broke in the process. He was convinced it'd be a huge success (and he was correct), but he wasn't exactly signed to a studio where a sequel could be made no matter what.
It could've been an interesting thing, if Kylo Ren was the antihero protagonist and Rey was the villain in the end. But of course, awesome shit is not allowed under Disney.
@@trianglemoebius yeah its very common for nearly all movies like that, the first will nearly always have a miniature start middle end instead of only a start for the sequel films since unless you can be really sure itll pay off enough to finish the story you need to keep that movie contained in itself too. one of the best examples of the contrary is lord of the rings, where all three movies were definitively planed from the get go, so fellowship ends with our heroes group split and two of them dead since they didnt have to make a contained story and could focus on the larger plot
Kylo was the richest character because he had a character arch and shows complex emotions like vulnerability. Rey never seems conflicted. Her being unbothered by his death was anticlimactic.
Kylo's a terrible character and anything liked about him is probably just because Adam Driver is a good actor that did his best with what he was given. Daisy Ridley not getting any other jobs and having said she was done with Rey only to come back a few years later isn't simply because she got type cast.
Anakin: How do I learn to heal people and defeat death?
Palpatine: Literally, "NOT FROM A JEDI."
Rey: Look! I'm healing people and defeating death!
Shes a Palpi tho
@@Vulnresati Also never technically a Jedi. Luke never trained her
@@soaringraven0 So how the hell does she got that?
@@Vulnresati nah even as a joke, not a valid reason. If Force Training was in peoples blood, why have the full on jedi order and trials XD
@@terrified057t4 yeah, but the sequels don't care. Literally the whole reason she can use Force lightning is because Grampa Palpi can.
I love how Mark Hamill knows the Star Wars universe and good characters. He sees right through Disney's bull crap. He's the best
"He ...... is the chosen one"
(its for Anakin i know but still)
Luke- "I see through the lies of Disney"
The man deserves better
Don’t you know he likes the Last Jedi
@@kekoasylva5544 yeah he really walked that shit back
So when episode 7 came out, I had a theory that Rey was initially presented as the protagonist but was going to, throughout the trilogy, become the antagonist. While at the same time, Kylo would take the opposite arc. Parts of episode 8 gave me hope that this was the correct theory, and that the characters would "meet in the middle" and finally balance the force, which requires a victory of neither side but rather a coexistence.
I think this would have been an incredible trilogy had they followed this arc. Heroes can fall, villains can be redeemed. Balance in all things.
Embodiment of FACTS
Revan....
This is a great idea and it has a deeper philosophical core. Unfortunately Disney is a woke brainwashing machine and zero interested to entertain the audience.
they did it different ig. each time they fought it ended in 1 win each and a tie
Yeah, same here. This trilogy was such a series of wasted opportunities.
Rey’s story began as an exact parallel to Luke’s, and then her obscene power escalation was unexplained.
The simplest explanation as to why I dislike Disney Wars VII-IX.
They could have made it so that she could learn things quickly through the Force but if she learned how to use the Force through that she had to learn to master it.
Rey is completely stacked. She got Luke’s origins with Anakin’s potential while also having her Granddaddy Palpatine’s Unlimited Power
"Rey’s story began as an exact parallel to Luke’s"
Except that it isn't. The Plot is parallel, but not the Story. With Luke we see very quickly what his desire is, he wants excitement and adventure. He is looking off to the horizon and dreaming about what is beyond it. He wants to escape Tatooine and join the Rebellion. We also see what holds him back. The voice in his head telling him that he'll never be more than a moisture farmer. The voice of his uncle. It's the voice of doubt that he can be something greater, that he can realize his dreams. It's a voice that crushes hope. Luke's story begins with that conflict, between his desire to get away, to become a hero and have adventures with the Rebellion vs his being fated to be nothing but an ordinary farm boy on a dead-end planet. This is what leads to his rejecting the call to adventure. We literally see this play out on the screen. Luke isn't pushed into adventure, he wants it and chooses it, but only after the literal voice of doubt, his Uncle, dies and is no longer there to speak out against his leaving, to hold Luke back and keep him on Tatooine.
Now look at Rey. Her desire is to remain on Jakku. She doesn't want anything else because she's content waiting there for her parents to return. That's her desire, to sit there doing nothing till her parents come back. She looks at the sunset not because she's wishing to be somewhere else, to see what's over the horizon, but rather because it's a sunset. She doesn't have a deep lie holding her back, because she's already doing what she desires. I guess you could say that the lie is that her parents aren't coming back, but that doesn't conflict with her desire to wait, it doesn't push her forwards, or hold her back. There is no inner conflict here. And to that end, when the plot happens, it happens to her, not because of her. She's not an active protagonist who pushes things forward by making active choices based on her desire and screwing up because of the lie she is telling herself. She goes on adventure because it is thrust onto her and she goes with the flow. She doesn't actively choose it, and it in fact conflicts with her actual desire of staying put.
Luke and Rey's stories are quite opposed to each other. One chooses to go on the adventure he has dreamed of going on all his life, while the other is forced onto an adventure she doesn't want and spends her time telling everyone she really just wants to go home.
@@kylie_h1978 100
Ahsoka was 10 times the "strong female lead" than Rey ever was.
Heck, MY LITTLE PONY has six stronger "female leads" than Rey.
Someone at Disney needs to go ask someone at Hasbro how to write female characters.
Darn right! My little pony is straight up AWESOME
@@shadowhawkrine1947 And they honestly had better Villains than the Sequel Trilogy as well.
Good Job, Disney. Getting outdone by colorful, talking Horses.
@@johannesseyfried7933 that takes SKILL to screw up a famous franchise so badly
@@johannesseyfried7933 you know the movies are bad, when colorfull unicorn movies about friendship have better character than action sci-fi movies
@@johannesseyfried7933 kylo ren isn't terrible, he has an interesting backstory and is actually flawed unlike Rey, the problem is that he lost to Rey in every single fight so no one feared him at all, and he came off as a bit too whiney sometimes, if everything else in the sequels was fine but he was the same character, he would be a solid character, however with Rey if everything else in the sequels was fine, she would still be a boring, bland character no one cares about
They wanted to make her everything, and they failed. Because no one can be, not even Luke
That's why Luke succeeds as a character, and Rey fails.
Not even Anakin, the chosen one himself. In fact, him trying to have everything led him to becoming Vader. A broken husk of a person
@@Needler13 One of the reasons why Anakin/Vader works is because we sympathize with him because he constantly fails even though he’s always trying his best. Rey is good at pretty much everything, and as such seems more alien than some of the actual aliens in Star Wars.
Also, Rey is just plain boring.
It’s flawed from the start Luke had his reasons to hate the Empire.
Rey got into the conflict and just start murdering people by the thousands.
Rey: doesnt grow in all episodes and has like no consequence of her actions
Luke: ep 4 simple humble hero
Ep 5 misguided/walks into a trap trying to be said hero and gets punished by losing hand as well as confronted with soulcrushing "Im your Father" truth
Ep 6: Stands back up from defeat, confronts his father, resist the emperor finally becoming a true jedi as well as gets rewarded by letting his father be the "Chosen One" and letting him redeem himself for a shortlived family reunion between father and son.
Yes, the character of Princess Leia always wore a costume relevant to whatever situation she was in. When she was a high-ranking noble official, she wore a flawless white dress, as a diplomatic official would. When she was fighting stormtroopers in the forest moon of Endor, she wore camouflage fatigues, as a woodland soldier would. And when she was a sex slave on Jabba's barge, she wore a gold bikini, as a sex slave would. I don't see what the problem is here.
facts
Exactly. Some people just like to ignore the context and cherry pick something to focus on and complain about. Jabba is a gangster, spice dealer, and slave trader, among other questionable and illegal things, but people are upset he treats females as objects. 🙄 Even in the original version of movie you could see females of other species in his palace dressed in similar clothing, but they focus on Leia for some reason. Look at that poor Twi'lek girl who was dancing and then got fed to the rancor. I think her name was Oola or Ulla? She wasn't dressed like a nun. I don't hear anyone making a fuss over what she was wearing.
The sequels make me appreciate the prequels more.
That was The clone Wars job. And that show didn’t have to ruin star wars or split the fan base to do it.
Truth is…the prequels were good from the start.
@@spartanman1084 prequels from the first: The Senate is powerless to stop a corporation from blockading a planet in protest of the taxation of trade routes.
Riveting!
@@russellharrell2747 woosh
@@spartanman1084 zoom zoom!
“Women in Star Wars didn’t need to be rewritten. They just needed to be written more about”
They're written shit, more isn't better
Rey and the trilogy she was in did inspire me!
To never watch Disney again!
I find most protagonists in superhero TV shows, movies, and comic books for the last ten years have been self insert characters for the people behind the scenes. That new Velma show is a perfect example
Rey actually replaces ALL the classic trilogy characters. She's a desert orphan dressed in white linen and learning to use the Force- so she's Luke. She's a sparky teenage girl with an unusual hairstyle taking it to the evil armored white guys- so she's Leia. She flies the Millennium Falcon with Chewbacca- so she's Han Solo. And she spends her time fussing at a cute little round droid- so she's See-Threepio.
My man is speaking facts
C-3PO
She’s also R2, because she somehow saves everyone a few times, and understands other droids somehow. Wait, does she save anyone but Finn? In person or ship, I mean?
I seriously don’t remember now.
I remember R2 shutting down the trash compactor. R2 somehow fixes the hyperdrive in the Falcon. R2 shoots Luke’s saber to him. R2 saves Anakin in the prequel too. R2 gets the shaft in the sequels. Flashbacks!
BB-8 cuddles! Not my R2! 😂
She's also Obi-Wan and Yoda, because she somehow has all the answers and teaches herself everything by the end.
@CorbCorbin you got a point, she did bypass the compressor...
How to write a great female character:
Step 1: Write a good character
Step 2: Make them female
Disney chose:
Step 1: Make them female
Step 2: Profit
Well blame the idiots who keep watching this shit, even their new series, all ass, nothing compared to the quality of the original. Wana watch good science fiction go watch "The Expanse". Star Wars and Star Trek are franchises I used to love, done with both.
Word for word what my argument for female and minority characters has been for years now.
Ahsoka is the proof. An absolutely amazing character who’s gender and species is the least interesting thing about her. Someone incredibly powerful but has earned every power, feat, skill, wit and ability through hard work, training and perseverance. Everything impossible she pulls off is earned and you see Anakins influence on her in action yet she is distinctly her own person, her own powerful presence.
She is an amazing Jedi, the physical embodiment of the light after Mortis, yet nobody complains about any of that. She earned it.
It's clear to me that you know sh1t about writing.
Writing good characters before defining them? seriously? you think writing works this way?
You think you can write a neutral character an then pick any gender you want? don't be naive.
@@ZXPhazze I may be naive, but unless the character arc, or plot require a character to be a specific gender I don't see your point.
E.g. lets say Toph from Avatar is male, since she is one my favorite female characters. Please explain how that impacts the story, because I don't see it
@@axelminus Tbh Toph's gender is kinda important in her backstory because her parents considered her their little, vulnerable, blind girl and she clearly wasn't that. I think it would be less impactful if she was a guy as boys are always considered stronger and parents get more over-protective over girls than boys.
The problem with a lot of movies is that they want a strong female character so bad. They dont care how well written it is.
Yeah, everything is coming down to forcing diversity (especially when it’s not needed)
You know they only care about the money and virtue signalling when they can't write a story better than any random kid's first fanfic.
You know, to me part of what makes Luke likable is that he has feminine qualities, much more than the following female lead in fact. He is kind, peaceful, caring, has kinda soft physical features and so on. He isn't some stoic, no nonsense badass who just waltzes in and solves every conflict through that sheer condensed badassery. Instead the tries to go the peaceful route whenever possible, even to the point of submitting to his father and putting himself in vulnerable position just to have a chance at avoiding bloodshed. He does have courage and at least until end of his trilogy, completely unbreakable will, but that never manifests in ways that make him feel indifferent or asshole towards others. He has pretty much none of the toxic masculine traits like. He even goes against traditional masculine hero tropes to the extent that in the end he's not the one rewarded with a woman.
They already had pretty much ideal template of a hero that ignores the gender tropes and strikes good balance between masculinity and feminity IN THE SAME FRANCHISE so it's maddening that they managed to screw up their own version this badly.
Wow, u just put into words why I vibe with Luke so much! He's my fav character in star wars : )
Luke really brought balance to more than just The Force.
Luke was a man.
I can't "like" this comment enough. 💚
I don't get why people hate the whole "Putting Leia in a golden bikini outfit" part. That is like the best part of female empowerment they had!
Some guys (mainly Jabba) just saw her as an object and trophy and put her in that outfit and chained her up. And what did Leia do? She took those exact same chains and strangled her captor to death with it!
If that is not some kind of power move, then what is?
Agreed. The fact that she is in a "sex-slave outfit" that Jabba forced on her when she kills him is the ultimate female powermove.
@@johantolli372 Jabba better be glad that it was NOT MK's Jade who killed him with her bo and ad one point in the storyline wore a costume similar to Leia
Also, Carrie Fisher wanted to show more skin and that started a whole new fantasies for a lots of nerds. I have no problem with that.
You dont see guys calling fit men showing their bodies on camera, bitching about being objectified
Plus she did it looking hot in it.
It always amazed me how the exact same characteristics that in a man are called "toxic masculinity" in a woman are called "being a strong woman".
Solving your problems through violence is either a good thing or a bad thing. Saying that it's ok when a woman does it sounds like you're saying "I mean, she's a woman, how much damage could she REALLY do?".
quite a lot with weapons involved. people make calculations when weapons are involved, whether you wield it or the other.
Hmm yes eQuAlItY...
literally the entire problem with the feminist movement...it contradicts itself
@@j.a.hernandez9742 Unfortunately, the most toxic people are the loudest....as a feminist myself, I'm ashamed.
@Always Unlucky They handled it quite well in 'Rouge one' and 'Rebels', tbh. The female characters were just well written characters and nobody tried to make them seem 'better' than guys. The biggest problem here is the sequel trilogy....🙄
I feel like Rey becoming a Skywalker was probably planned from the beginning, with the passing comments about her lack of a last name. It might have been cool if we got a more explicitly parental relationship between Rey and either Luke or Leia that was built up during the second and third movie, so that by the end she had actually been adopted as a Skywalker and worthy to take up the name, instead of just claiming it as her own for no reason. Might have also been a good way to continue her struggle over needing parental guidance, and keep forcing her to a lower point as those parent figures are taken away from her for a second and then a third time. Who knows, could have actually been a really great character if communication was a little better at Lucasfilm.
Honestly yeah, the only reason her taking the name bothered me is because there was no scene with like Leia talking to her and after noting the lack of a last name, offers her own. That would take like 20 seconds and still make it feel 1000x better.
Actually, if you look at the bigger picture, Disney re-wrote the prophecy to say she is the Skywalker to take down Palpatine. After learning this I choose not to accept the sequel trilogy as canon.
Dooku went through more in ten minutes of Tales of the Jedi than Rey did in 3 movies.
I say this about every actor in these films, but I do feel bad for Daisy Ridley. She managed to give an enthusiastic and engaging performance despite being given a script with basically 0 character development in it. With better writing and directing, this cast could have made some of the most memorable and enjoyable cinema of the decade. There's hints of that in Rey's force skype calls with Kylo, bickering with Luke, and hall of mirror's scene in TLJ. When the trilogy actually took it's time to just breathe and let the characters have moments to express themselves, and explore their ideologies (superficial though most of them were), there were a few glimmering glimpses at what could have been with just a little bit more passion, and a whooooooolllllllllllllle lot more planning.
😮
@@brqnded you win for best name
It was definitely never Daisy Ridley’s fault. She did a great job with what she was given.
yeah daisy ridley seems like a lovely woman. they are all really talented i would actually say the sequels had the best acting out of all the films
@@rhys5430 acting isn’t dialogue…
The hardest part I had about accepting her as a Skywalker was that she didn't lose a hand or limb. Any protagonist named Skywalker has to do that. She's a faux Skywalker.
I was kinda hoping for her to accept her Palpatine name and to wipe the slate clean with her future actions. That way, Palpatine would be remembered as the name of Rey Palpatine, the Jedi who stopped the return of the Emperor and destruction of the galaxy, rather than of Emperor Palpatine.
Rey is soo good at fighting she never takes a hit!
Hey Shmi Skywalker never lost a limb, just her life
@@jockturner1547 OK, you can only be a protagonist/antagonist and a Skywalker if you lose a limb.
@@alanruhland2489 Leia didnt
She's not an unlikeable character on a personality level, she's just the ultimate mary Sue.
What exactly makes her a Mary Sue? The fact that she was tough and knew how to fight because of being left to fend for herself from a young age? Her backstory...which is important to her character...literally makes her NOT a Mary Sue. I'm so sick of that term.
@@kaygee2121
I think it's because she was able to pilot a ship and use blasters perfectly even though she never piloted a ship before.
Ray feels more like a plot point than a character in the movie like when a zombie apocalypse movie or show puts in a character just for them to be killed off so the lead character can have an emotional journey of acceptance Ray just feels like a side character but she’s the main character
She feels like the custom character you play in a game, with no defining qualities so that anyone can fit in. But at least with the custom characters, they can wear your ridiculous outfits in the cutscenes.
Daisy said it herself: "Rey has NO weaknesses" and that DOES make her a Mary Sue. Look at Luke's character arc: he was a naïve kid, and a bumpkin, and not really good at much. We watch him fail and fall on his ass again and again, watch him throw petulant tantrums, try to AMOG an actual space pirate, get frustrated again and again, fail to listen to his elders... there was only one thing, just one thing he was really good at- flying. And it took him 'til the end of the first movie before he got to really use that skill.
Exactly! At the end of the first movie, Luke has been shown to be a good pilot, who thinks on his feet and has a strong connection to the force. At the end of her first movie, Rey has been shown to be a great brawler (taking down three thugs by herself), an ace pilot, an excellent mechanic, a crack shot, a force prodigy, and pretty skilled with a lightsaber, despite having no formal training in anything. Jedi are Mary Sue-ish by nature, but Rey takes it to another level.
@water yeah, modern star wars feels like marvel movie. It's like kids playing and shouting "I am stronger I can move rocks!" and the other kid is shouting "I can stop a flying ship! I am stronger". It has no depth to it.
@water I don’t agree with Obi Wan throwing the boulders at Vader as being over the top. Obi Wan was quite powerful using the force and was certainly capable of such an attack. Especially in that he was using everything he had to try and defeat Vader once and for all. You can’t really compare the strengths of the Jedi from the prequels to that of Luke, Ben, Yoda, and even Vader in the original trilogy. Both Ben and Yoda had grown weak over the years and could not wield the power of the force as they had in their youth. Even Vader had weakened to some extent due to having no real adversaries to deal with. And Luke basically had the power of a padawan at the end of episode IV. Every force user that was left at that point was substantially weaker than Jedi of the past.
@water I'm pretty sure they put that in as a retcon for Disney fanatics to use as a defense to go "SEE REY ISN'T A MARY SUE OBIWAN DID IT TOO WITHOUT TRAINING!!!!"
No physical weaknesses. Mental weaknesses though...
A character like Anakin went through an epic saga of a transformation from an altruistic little boy, to angsty confused teen, and finally becoming a Dark Lord. All along the way he failed in many ways, learned hard lessons, won a fair share of moments too. His character development is pretty much centered around his flaws as a person and how his environment easily molded him.
Rey bought the Ultimate Collectors Edition of the Force and power leveled to 100 right away and just speed ran through her saga. She skipped all the cutscenes and didn't even bother with the side quests.
Luke is almost like a mirror image of Anakin when you really think about it. Their stories both revolve around how flawed they are and how their mistakes allow them to grow as people but their circumstances are very different. Rey on the other hand... Well she has a hard upbringing and then... no mistakes ever... Or at least no consequences.
Anakin went from "I will do anything to save my wife" to slaughtering children with absolutely no rhyme or reason. That was a poorly written part. It was like they realized there were a bunch of kid Jedi that were not in the original series and quickly tried to "fix" it.
@@selalewow No reason? He killed Mace Windu (or at least he thought so) saw no way of going back and still needed Palpatine to help him save Padme.
To add to that. He legitimately had come to see the Jedi as corrupt. It's not "for no reason" at all. In fact the moment he was under Palpatine. There was no going back. Palpatine was too powerful for him to resist against and he was essentially fucked beyond that point.
@@Unethical.Dodgson All that happened AFTER he killed the younglings. The only thing that happened before was Palpatine telling him about Darth Sidious.
@@selalewow Anakin killed kids in episode 2 seeking revenge for his mother. I'm sure it wouldn't be much of a leap of logic killing kids to save his wife and child(really children but he didn't know that).
That Was really, really well done…
Your tone and vibe is sick and this somehow added a new take, didn’t think that was possible at this point
I think there's more to the series that was the problem, but what you said is indeed a large one, it's hard to make a likable character when you didn't make a character.
The way Luke and Anakin's mistakes and poor judgement impacted them was pretty big both losing limbs and loved ones. However because Rey's mistakes and poor judgement never actually impact her in any negative way, it makes it so even though she doesn't always win, she never truly loses either and it really makes the tension of any conflict involving her seem incredibly insignificant
Well her negative choices not only don't impact her in a negative way, but OTHER people pay the price for her errors.
Quite frankly, the best way to summarize the issue is, from the first movie onwards, they wrote her using the consequence rules of a side character, saying "yup, she can do this" without explanation, and not showing us any real consequences to her failings. She was, essentially, the Han of the Sequels, rather than the Luke. Instead, the first movie, Finn was the definitive Luke, having conflict, determination, consequences to what he did (even if minor). And what does Disney do for the second movie? Why, they have him take a perfectly reasonable course of action, trying to remove Rey's homing beacon from the seemingly doomed ship as fast as humanly possible so that if all else fails, at least all their eggs are not in a single basket, even if he can only save a minimum. He was making a tough call, but the right one in the scenario. He gets stopped, and then berated for that call, which is honestly worse than the mess with Poe because at least with Poe he was in the wrong (if only because he sent in the absolute worst bomber class ship for the job, resulting in that entire squadron getting killed off due to his mismanagement. Then, Finn gets to go on a magical journey to a gambling den to hear a shady dude foreshadow "capitalism is the real villain in this war" which turns into nothing really fast, and then proceed to have the entire gameplan to get the code breaker bungled because why not? Then, he tried to heroic sacrifice to buy the Resistance enough time to escape, and the same person who stopped him at the escape pod stops him there, putting her at two for two on the "stopping Finn from trying to save lives" board. Then in the last movie he's kinda there, by definition, but not in a role worth having, and the problem is, no one replaces his role as main character after the first movie, leaving them feeling bland and painful to watch.
@@theendersmirk5851 Finn would've been the best main character. A "brainwashed" Stormtrooper that changes sides all of a sudden, develops his force powers that turns to the side of good. Starting off cold and disconnected but warms up to friends, developing his emotions as the story progresses. *Chef's kiss Original character (for the movie's at least). But they make him bumbling and comedic.
None of the characters felt like actual characters, they felt like fans trying to be characters (which was how it was directed). You can tell it was aimed at the kids. Which makes it even worse. Star Wars never felt like a kids movie, it was science fantasy that everyone could enjoy.
@@Raymal100 Ironically, I don't even think he needed Force powers to be relevant. Not that he was going to win the big fights by shooting someone with a blaster, but as the main perspective character, letting us peek very well behind the curtain of what this magic space samurai B.S. looks like to the average citizen of the galaxy would be a refreshing change of pace if nothing else.
@@asaenvolk This is not fair comment. I'm pretty sure I saw Rey with something approaching a bruise at some point. And if it wasn't a bruise it was at least bordering on a mild abrasion. At any rate - her epidermis was seemingly irritated to some extent as a result of her tribulations. And she was presumably forced to deal with the ensuing fallout. Perhaps she had to apply a bandage or even possibly undergo a procedure wherein the bandage was applied to the affected area by a trained professional or a friend who was on hand. The movie doesn't explore this aspect of Rey's journey fully so we'll probably never have a canonical chain of events from which to draw definitive conclusions. Although to be fair - it could have possibly been psoriasis. Which falls more into the category of pre-existing condition. So perhaps you're right after all.
The problem with Rey, in my opinion, boils down to one thing, and you touched on it briefly. That being Rey can do things she should not be able to do. Luke has rudimentary training from Kenobi and Yoda, goes off half cocked to face Vader. Han gets frozen and Luke gets beat up and his hand cut off. Rey has absolutely no training at all and she can have Force visions, Skype calls with Kylo, she can wield a lightsaber and conjure Force lightning, something by the way at one point was stated as only being able to be done by force users with EXTENSIVE training and power.
And her first force? Mind trick a First Order stormtrooper. WITHOUT ANY SETUP.
And if some people think you can siphon knowledge by resisting mind control, then there's no point of kidnapping babies and train them for DECADES.
I think they actually should have used Rey’s inexplicably strong force abilities as a plot point (not in the bloodline way), like what if since Kylo was resisting the light, the “will of the force” kicked in and made Rei super strong for balance.
Also, in fairness, the force Skype calls were set up by Snoke (Papatine)
Doing things that are beyond the ability of a protagonist, especially a skill that requires training and expertise in, is one of the hallmarks of a Mary Sue.
"Skype calls with Kylo." I'm dying. Lmao
Not to mention she can force heal, something so incredibly difficult the chosen one,anakin,a grand master of 10,000,yoda and the most skilled jedi of all time,luke Skywalker, never showed evidence of using or knowing about the ability to force heal,if you except sidious telling anakin a guy with a big head on the opposite side who died during a grandpa nap could do something similar with extreme practice
Meanwhile with rey sky- rey palp-reysi Ridle- marey sue just did it with basically no mention of how or shock from a galaxy that never saw something again except for that horrific snake scene that makes no sense because she didn't mind trick it and- off topic, and to trigger you even more,kylo,a sith assassin who never studies that deeply into the force or even knows about it as shown by his reaction in tros,does it,with no training
H O W
Just
Kill it
I hate to admit it but i think,with the sequels which at least 90% of people didn't like,rebels which was unpopular,the bad batch that for me was disappointing,and the drunken bedroom mistake that was resistance ,i think it's time we put star wars to bed,or at least give it to filoni or lucas,who for the most part(looking at aotc and tbb here) are the essentials of star wars
I think you are spot on with the idea that so many of these female characters are effectively written as idealized males, except that they also hyper exaggerate these qualities, add in everything we think of as extreme female talents and then to top it off - the writers eliminate any negative character traits. In the end, these super-females cannot be related to by anyone.
One very easy way to make her character more complex would have been to just give her at least some backstory like she has some friends to leave there or has to care for someone.
Her backstory was in TFA! She was left, alone, on Jakku to fend for herself at like six years old. How is that not a struggle?
@@kaygee2121 look, people in media arent normal since their story shall tell the abnormal clashing with normal. Obviously she did struggle, but is there complexity? An example I always use to judge good characters is what questions I would ask them. But Rey? She doesnt have anything I would like to know
I think it’s the fact, that they made her almost instantly good at everything she tried while becoming a Jedi
I genuinely feel that if they made her struggle with the generic lightsabers, but when she got to Luke he gave her the saber staff variant. It would've worked so much better, because we had already seen her be quite proficient with the Bo staff growing up as her weapon of choice. So her translating skills she developed that way would've made at least some logical sense, As well as giving some more Gravitas to Luke as a "This combat style would serve you much better" As it would show he knew what he was talking about. Guy ran a school for Jedi, he shouldn't have issues teaching.
So, like Luke and Anakin?
@@Delta-lu5kf Luke got absolutely stomped by Vader in the Empire Strikes Back and Anakin lost an arm to count Dooku in Attack of the Clones. Rey doesn't have any moments of major failure like they did so she really was just flawless in achieving her goals.
@@woomyboy98 Except Rey was also stumped in her duels. Actually (re)watch her first fight with Kylo. She's literally running away the entire time
@@Delta-lu5kf That makes it even worse, doesn't it? As you said, she is literally losing, but then closes her eyes for three seconds and suddenly wins!?
Leia & Ahsoka are how you write a strong female character.
Yeah correct, or herra syndula as well. And if you wish a good badass female character, you only need to look at fennic.
Padme too from the clone wars show.
there are too many people writing strong female characetrs, when they should write strong characters who just happen to be female
Ahsoka also had more jedi training in her first appearance than Luke had in episode 6.
It's funny, since ahsoka was hated by the community during the first seasons of clone wars. Rightfully so, since she was written precisely to be annoying and kinda unlikable.
Yo honestly if Rey had a strong sense of femininity it would totally change the character for me. So many characters suffer from this nowadays tbh. And I totally agree! Leia is an amazing female character. There's definitely some issues like the scene on Jabba's skiff, but she's also in captivity from Jabba, like it makes sense from a logical perspective and as much as it feels like nerd porn, at least there is a story reason for her to be in that situation
First, Leia was the first named character to kill in the whole franchise. Like, she straight up shoots a trooper, then tries to reposition for a second shot. Then plays it all off straight to Vader's face. Absolute legend.
Second, the parallels with Luke's story make the mary-sue-ness even more apparent. Mary Sue in the original parody was a new Enterprise crew member inserted into the bridge crew, but not a wholesale reskin. What rey did would be like removing Bones, having your own OC (do not steal) replace the ships doctor, acting exactly like the old doctor, but instead of Spock being a counterpoint it's just "I'm a doctor not a diplomat!" "I'm a doctor not a bomb diffuser!" "I'm a doctor not a warp engineer" and spock just saying "But you are the best, it's logical." Then Old bones showing up in act two in a mobile death bed labeled "One beep for yes, two for no, three for 'You are a better doctor than I ever could have been I'm so proud of you and promoting you to captain."
BEEP
BEEP
BEEP
:|
Leia was obviously put in the movie just to prop Luke up, thus why she kisses him on the cheek before he swings to save her from the empire. That's why she keeps kissing BOTH the leading dudes. That's why she comforts a super sad Luke after Ben dies, despite the fact that her home planet just disappeared. Hmm.
THANKFULLY, George Lucas also made her fierce, and competent, instead of JUST a damsel in distress. Imagine if he hadn't..
The whole reason Anakin turned to the dark side was his desire to learn how to cheat death and save Padme. It was a legendary ability that was so unnatural and bizarre that even a sith lord like Palpatine didn't fully understand it. Anakin's desire to learn this secret got Padme killed, got him mutilated and turned him into a tragic villain controlled by the Emperor. So not only was cheating death extremely difficult. Anakin also paid a huge price for wanting to obtain this power. And then there's Rey... She casually heals mortal wounds with ZERO experience or knowledge and faces ZERO consequences for it. It's not only bad storytelling. It's downright disrespectful towards Anakin and previous Star Wars movies.
I will say that Force Healing isn't entirely unprecedented. In Legends, Cade Skywalker is able to use a similar ability, although his takes the form of a sort of "reverse" Force Lightning. In addition, the Jedi Medical Corps were able to use a form of Force Healing, but it required multiple users, took a LOT of effort, and could be dangerous to the users if overused.
@@VestedUTuber Force Healing was also in my favorite Jedi game - Jedi Academy. It's a cool mechanic for a video game but it kind of breaks the logic of Star Wars in movies. It's too powerful and magic-like. Force used to be way more subtle and mystical. It was not a superpower. The only exceptions were some powerful unnatural dark side powers like Force Lightning.
@@CinematicSeriesGaming
Oh yeah, definitely. And even when it did superpower-ish stuff beyond basic telekinesis, there was always a massive cost. Force Lightning required strong, hateful emotions to use and didn't play well with cybernetics. Similarly, both Legends versions of Force Healing had steep costs - the Jedi Medical Corps method pulled from the life force of its users' at a very inefficient rate, and Cade's version was flat-out a Dark Side power in its own right, and a very deep one at that - Cade only avoided completely and irreversibly falling when using it because he didn't want what the Dark Side was trying to tempt him with in the first place.
@@VestedUTuber the problem with that is that most people dont read the additional lore, let alone know what is considered cannon and fanfiction. disney made alot of lore non-cannon, and completely disconnected from anything close to fanfiction, then couldnt decide how to write a story so just clung to the original trilogy, taking a huge dump on it in the process.
it would have fit the narrative if disney wrote force healing and absorption into the new movies as a reason the "force awakens", it would make sense that the old jedi order was stagnant and saturated with mediocrity, and would explain how they misread the prophecy of restoring balance to the force. they also wasted why midichlorian count was even a thing, let alone waste the very reason it indicated jedi potential. it would've been better if they treated being a light or dark force user as a philosophy, a "balanced" force user would be able to draw equally from both sides.
@@thomaslabrum8182 I think you're reading too much into this. I was simply pointing out that force healing itself isn't anything new, nothing more. What Rey's doing is still ridiculous compared to previous examples.
That Abrams bit at 13:38 is mindblowing in how empty-headed it is.
"A kid who doesn't know who "she" is, doesn't know whats going on, and doesn't know "she's" living in Star Wars. What happens if thats our leader character?"
You mean.....Luke Skywalker? Literally Luke Skywalker?
Dude right? Guy was chilling on Tatooine fixing up droids and living with his uncle before his life went to hell. Even throughout the movies you can still feel that general "what's going on" feel at times. Helps him feel real.
There is not a single thought in Abram's brain that is worth anyone's time or attention. The man is void of talent.
Just got here. Lov your voice, how you put down your words, the sluggishness
n good analytic tools. I keep comeing back. Cheerio!
I agree with everything you said here except that we've never seen Leia on the battlefield bc in every one of the original trilogy movies we saw Leia on the battlefield in some capacity. She shot at Stormtroopers during her rescue in IV, engaged them in Bespin while trying to rescue Han from Bobba in V & then again while trying to breach the shield generator on the moon of Endor in VI.
I wonder what her kill-count is, throughout the trilogy. I wouldn't be surprised if she actually shot more Imperials than any other character.
One of my biggest problem with the sequel trilogy is the return of palpating because it completely shits all over the first six movies and just undoes Anakins entire story arc
Somehow the senate returned
@@thexecutor8730 Somehow the Senate returns, but no one cares about the rest of the Galaxy. Like, is the Trade Federation making an embargo at another planet in the Mid rim, and what about the droid attack on the Wookiees?
Yeah my story arc was really cool but some dumbass scavenger ruined it all
Recently watched a Anakin tribute, Made me cry. Then I remembered the sequels and cried harder. It is so depressing, As a kid I loved the prequels and Anakin was and still is my favorite character from star wars. To see his entire story be disrespected like that, It hurt me. I will always disregard the canon, as canon. I love clone wars. Everything else is a insult.
That's the sole reason why I don't care what Disney calls canon in Star Wars. There are definitely *many* reasons to, but they're insignificant next to the power of taking a massive s__t on the stakes of first 6 movies.
When it comes to strong female characters, I always point to Avatar: The Last Airbender.
That show was rife with top quality characters, both male and female. But not a single female felt like she had to shed her womanhood to be considered strong. - Katara was motherly and emotional; Ty Lee was girly and spunky; Suki was supportive and feminine; Ursa was sacrificial and loving; even Toph and Azula who displayed “more masculine traits” (not strength as much as Machiavellian calculations, hardness, and lust for power; not necessarily exclusive to but definitely more commonly found in men) did so in a way that felt natural for a woman to reach that point.
I think Suki summed it up best at the beginning of the show: “I am a warrior; but I’m a girl too.”
You dont even have to go to avatar,
Star wars has plenty of strong women of every kind in the extended universe
@@DarkCharmedFeminity I'm pretty sure he means making a character bland and uninteresting by giving them toxic masculine traits and calling them "strong" in the sense of "shedding womanhood"
I don't usually like female characters in fiction but nobara in jjk is really exceeded my expectations
@@leo-ru8qu
"I dont like female characters"
Damn that reeks of sexism.
I agree. Many writers seem to have mastered the art of the strong female character...until she's in the driver's seat, that is. Fast forward to Legend of Korra, and it was like the writers completely forgot about all the strong female heroes you just mentioned and said, "Okay, so...our strong female lead needs to be brash, and headstrong, and impulsive, and a jock, and kind of dumb when it's funny for her to be."
Korra acts like more of a stereotypical bro than any of the male characters in ATLA. And I really believe that writers just fumble when it comes to putting a woman in the lead.
Rey is literally the definition of a Mary Sue in literature. She is overpowered with almost no weaknesses, everyone loves her immediately after they meet her and she's just terribly written.
Very eye opening analysis. Also, I love the editing. Excellent vid!
"Female characters in Star Wars didn't need to be rewritten, they just needed to be written about more."
Most accurate thing anyone has ever said.
So accurate, it's more accurate than your comment saying how accurate it was. Creating a paradox in which it can't in fact be the most accurate thing anybody has ever said, because if it were, the comment saying that it is accurate would be less accurate, this would imply that the 'most accurate thing anybody has ever said' was less accurate.
Help me.
Finn had so much potential to be the main protagonist and Jedi. His background and character was so unique if he was to become a Jedi
Also the fact he could become a jedi or something similar was thrown through the window
And it would have tied in well with the lore too.
The whole reason they stopped using clones and started _literally kidnapping children_ to turn into Stormtroopers was because Clones are 99% of the time devoid of any force powers. A force sensitive clone is one in a million, so they stopped using them because regular humans were more force sensitive.
I would have loved this for Finn
That would have been sweet. Hell early and better scripts we're Finn being force sensitive ex strome trooper that help rey stay in the light or at least netural.
But china didnt like it and the writers are lazy so he takes more and more of a back seat to the point where he's more of a background character than anything and he gets made itty bitty tiny in the chinese poster
I gave the character time but when she beat Luke Skywalker in a quick battle, I threw my hands up and said “Nope!”. I mean really?? Luke Skywalker who has practiced for years? Who fought and defeated Darth Vader? She beats him with absolutely ZERO formal training? And then at the end: she gets his lightsaber, his home, his last name, his best friends ship, and his very own x-wing?? Nope nope nope.
Can’t forget that there isn’t any training (until the literal end). And she is just the best from the beginning.
She should have trained Luke, not the other way around, lol.
"Mary Sue is a female's name so it's sexist."
Have you ever heared of Gary Stue, the male Mary Sue?
Also, the term originated from the very first Mary Sue. They were named Mary Sue and was the protag of a Star Trek fanfic
Gary Stue killed me.
I’ve never heard anyone say it’s offensive but in the end, I really don’t care if people think that
@@silashurd3597 stupid people think that
No, i never heard of Gary Stue.
A number of years ago I said to someone:
"I really dislike The Last Jedi, and wasn't fond of TFA beyond the momentary nostalgia trip (it fell apart once I thought about the film), and their [Disney's] desperate attempt to get us to love the new female Jedi whilst giving her no semblance of struggle or personality sucks"
"so you dislike having strong women in star wars?"
"not really, my favourite character is arguably Ahsoka Tano"
"Who?"
[followed by me explaining who she was and why I love her and why she is a good star wars character and why SW didn't lack for well-written non-males]
by the end they sort of agreed with me
And there’s the issue. A whole bunch of non fans judge the series at a surface level and jump to conclusions based on that. They don’t even know of the full depth of Star Wars lore.
@@DatDude0925 Yeah kinda pisses me off when I see people like dat
Don't forget Mara Jade. She's pretty cool and featured heavily in the original Thrawn Trilogy. I read his more recent trilogy set before the original one and his portrayal of Padme made her a total badass. If he'd written Mara Jade with that same level of experience, she'd probably be one of my favourite Jedi, period.
"Who?"
Honestly that bugs me so much. Ahsoka became such a well developed character that I got excited to see her in Mando and disappointed they did so little with her. At least she's getting a series so it was ALL to get people hyped for the first Jedi in Mando only to drop her
My god. I'm glad you were able to explain it.
Very good analysis, was interesting to watch for even someone like me who has not seen the sequel trilogy.
The editing was also impressive.
In my opinion Rey is an auto-overpowered action-girl. The one type of action-girl that can't be used as a base to write a compelling female character on top
She knows how to repair the Falcon better than the person, who owned and modified the Falcon for decades himself
She stands her ground against a fully trained Sith without any sort of prior training, even though they are supposed to be equals
I just genuinely feel bad for Daisy Ridley.
The writers gave her nothing to work with and yet she did everything she could. They did her so dirty.
Haven’t watched the video but people only hate rey because of the writing or because she took the name skywalker
@@lilj9331 yeah, that is mostly the problem with her character, I don't think it is because of her personality but it is because of her writing and lack of character dev
I don’t she’s a feminist
And what does that have to do with anything?
Mostly however I have heard from others that she agreed with some of her character ha ing no weaknesses or something of that line
The reason Luke was likable was because he says he needs to stay and work with his parents rather than go on a quest with Obi Wan, even though we know we know he wants to. This selflessness is why we like him.
But that’s the initial rejection of the call to adventure that the Hero goes through before deciding to (or being forced to) start his journey. Basic Campbell hero’s journey stuff.
Luke is relatable. They tried to make Rey "likeable". That's the difference.
@@russellharrell2747 Not sure the point you're making here- it's become 'basic Campbell heroes journey stuff' in storytelling because of the way it was used and the impact it made in the original Star Wars.
@@Ruylopez778 Yeah luke was just a whiny kid with some friends who were leaving before he could, he was clueless about the alien world around him and learned the hard way often or needed help from mentors. He was in love with a princess at first sight and jealous when Han entered the picture there. He was just a dude lol
@@mathewstafford7943 And the key thing missing from the sequels; Luke gets *support* from his mentors in the OT. It's what audiences identify with; Rocky, Karate Kid, Million Dollar baby, LOTR, Fast n Furious, Grand Torino, Devil Wears Prada all have this formula.
Sequels are just fractured mentor relationships, broken parents. Rey gets given things. That's about it.
i love your voice, makes me have hope for my transition goals.
good video as well.
She became the most powerful jedi in the blink of an eye. Beating jedi who’ve been training their whole lives. And the return of Grandpa Palpatine ? Screw that nonsense.
It is simple, she never has to work to become what she is portrayed as. She knows how to fix and fly the Millennium Falcon better than Hans and Chewy. She can wield a lightsaber and fight against a person that has been trained by one of the strongest Jedi. She can perform one of the hardest Jedi powers, “Jedi mind trick”, without any training. And with very little training from Luke, she becomes more powerful than him in just a few months. A character’s struggle is what makes them likable and believable.
Mad Munchkin's joke character Mary Sue (yes, the character in her review show is literally names Mary Sue, because she's a joke about Mary Sue characters) is written better... because effort was put into writing Mad Munchkin's Mary Sue character.
Also, she regularly uses her anger in many actions (specially fighting), and that is not the way of the jedi...
She’s a scavenger, A SCAVENGER, she knows how ship parts work, if you were to have robbing houses as a specialty you’d be able to pick locks and possibly fix them, same thing for the falcon
@@Alexisme. there's guys that go around collecting scrap metal in my neighborhood. Doesn't mean they know how any of those metal things actually work or can repair them. It's easy to take things apart. But try putting something together that's the real challenge.
@@ohio948 that’s different, Rey is a scavenger, plus in the Star Wars universe, if you take something apart the wrong way, it breaks, we see an example of this in empire strikes back when they’re on hoth, Chewy tries takes off parts to repair it and ultimately, he fails, in the force awakens, Rey takes off something in the falcon, it didn’t break, Star Wars and real life shouldn’t be too comparable, nothing isn’t supposed to make sense in the end anyway, why? It’s Star Wars
You're absolutely correct. The only thing I'd like to add is that I think TLJ *almost* succeeded in making Rey at least marginally interesting. The only thing that made Rey really interesting was who her parents were, that's tragically how TFA set her up instead of giving her a real personality. So TLJ turned that on its head and said "She's a nobody. She needs to forge her own identity. She doesn't get an easy answer and will have to actually be her own character now."
And then TROS threw that away by attributing everything about her to Palpatine. Rey gets her easy answer ("I'm powerful because I'm a Palpatine") and instead of forging her own identity she takes the name "Skywalker" which she never earned. The Skywalkers are dead and she's still alone on a desert planet lying about her parents, the same way she started the trilogy.
The irony is that Kylo Ren really should have been the main character of this trilogy. He has depth, intrigue, and is an actual fucking Skywalker (you know, the family this saga is supposed to be about).
yes.
It's the highest beings in the galaxy telling the story of the chosen one (which is actually Anakin/Vader). Kylo should have been the main story and he should have replaced Luke after trying to follow Vader.
Instead we got a perfect person doing everything without consequences and pretending to be Luke.
Agreed. It’s funny how a Solo is more Skywalker than the “Skywalker.”
@@fduranthesee His mom is Leia, he's 100% a Skywalker. The last name is irrelevant.
Edit: but yes I agree lol
The disappointing thing is that no characters in the trilogy have an arc at all. Kylo Ren turns good, sure, but why? Because his mom Skype calls him and he just decides to turn good again? Hux is really a spy, but it's obvious there was no hinting at that and they just threw it in there for cheap laughs in the last movie. No arcs, just stagnant characters whose motivations are extremely unclear.
And yes, it is extremely ironic that Rey ends up pretty much right where she started.
She learned her “powers” in like 30 minutes and was one dimensional. That simple.
With regards to the identity problem, I think it’s not just that she’s a self-insert, there are many movies where the protagonist is a blank slate for us to identify with, such as Harry Potter or Neo. The entire world gets explained to us through it bein log explained to these characters. However, the difference between Rey and the others is that Rey has no characterisation outside of this, the plot comes in to allow her to not suffer any consequences. We have no idea how she will act in any situation because, well the writer hasn’t yet decided what new thing is going to be introduced
Rey is anti-Luke. She's a character defined by constant validation of everything she is and the people around her failing horribly at trying to change for the better, none more than Jake Skywalker.
Apparently Mary Sue
Ironically, we're now living in an antichrist society
The problem with Rey is actually a simple one: She lacks depth.
She's so 2 or even 1 dimensional that I'm surprised she didn't fall into any cracks in the floor or stuck in between dimensions
Her character is empty, boring and too perfect.
@@jasminrissanen2317 Other Mary-Sue characters call HER a Mary-Sue.
Tardigrades have better depth than her lol
The funny thing that people agree that R2D2 will win a battle to the death against Ray
Not only did Palpatines re-emerging completely ruin Anakins turn back to the light side to kill him/save Luke, but they made Rey, Palpatines heiress outlive all the skywalker family…
Rey had the most beautiful character introduction. The music, the scenery, the solitude. She's got her little mask on, scavenging, and there's no dialogue. All the little things she does in that portion of the movie are great.
Likewise Kylo is introduced in a pretty threatening way. That scene holds tension and the blaster shot being held mid- air was interesting without totally breaking immersion.
Then it all got "subverted". Rey was not some naive, starry-eyed girl about to be dragged into a massive clash among the stars. She was just the amazing perfect Chosen One and the universe was just stupid for letting her languish.
And Kylo was actually being controlled, and generally a petulant man-child throwing tantrums. By the end of the movie he had nowhere near the gravitas of Vader. How could he? He's a guy after all. He stabbed his dad sure, but then that fight outside... meh.
Honestly, that last bit of yours is also why I hated Reva too. Outwardly, Vader was generally this calm, well-spoken guy who just happened to be big and burly and wearing a mech-suit that most folks who didn't really know him could probably just ignore as some kind of intimidation tactic...until they crossed a line with him and suddenly found themselves slammed against a wall or caught in a Force Choke or something, while Vader's still off to the side standing basically still and telling them how badly they fucked up in that same deceptively chill voice, or just moving on and talking to his victim's successor while said victim is still in the process of asphyxiating. THAT'S intimidating, THAT'S terrifying, because there's never any outward sign that you're GOING too far with the guy. Just the fallout and the price you pay after you already HAVE. Hell, you could even take away Vader's suit and size and just present him as a regular, normal-sized dude like Hayden Christensen was/is, and that sort of behavior is still gonna rattle you even if the character doesn't have that first intimidating impression on his side.(As a side note to this, the fact that Tarkin had the balls to constantly question Vader's methods and priorities AND GOT AWAY WITH IT made him seem like more of a badass by proxy.)
Kylo Ren started off similarly cool, especially with the bit you mentioned with him catching and holding a blaster bolt with the Force before completely mind-raping Poe for all the info the First Order needed from him. He was a total badass...for all of about 20 real-world minutes. Then Finn and Rey left Jakku with BB-8 and Kylo started destroying what I assume was some fairly important machinery on the bridge of his ship, and I almost laughed at how absurd it was. Vader RULED his negative emotions in order to draw power from them; Kylo was ruled BY his. And to me, that made him less imposing as a villain.
And Reva was just more of the same, only without the initial buildup to make her seem cool. We see the Grand Inquisitor being calm and chillingly intimidating while looking for their missing Jedi, while Reva just scowls in a corner for a bit before she ruins it all by being loud and petulant and just threatening violence if she doesn't get her way. Whereas the Grand Inquisitor was kind of a Vader Lite, Reva was just Kylo's successor...or predecessor, depending on whether you look at them from our chronological perspective or the show's. Neither of them worked as the (supposed) primary threats of their respective entries in the franchise because they both just acted like whiny children crying and making a scene in the store when Mommy and Daddy wouldn't buy them the toy they wanted. And as the audience, you're--or at least I'M--not intimidated by that. You're not scared of the guy screaming his throat hoarse when things go wrong. You're scared of the guy you know can kill someone with a gesture but gives no outward sign of when or if that gesture is coming.
I actually really liked that bit about Kylo. He was definitely not Vader, but rather a guy desperately *trying* to be Vader. Michael's right that he was ruled by his negative emotions instead of ruling them as Vader did, but I think his deliberate decision to kill his own father to further his descent to the dark side was really well done. You can see his uncertainty about his path, that he knows that what he's doing is wrong, but he chooses to do it anyway. The way he repeatedly thumps his own injury while outside afterwards to fuel his pain and hate was a great touch. If they had actually kept with that and made him the primary villain it would have been great, but of course they had to ruin it in the third movie by making him 'turn good' and help Rey.
I think the biggest mistake they had was making Poe shit-talk him when they brought him in. None of the characters are allowed to be intimidated by the villains, so none of the characters show the villains any respect. Phasma just has Finn talking smack to her and then gets chucked down a garbage chute. Hux was absolutely ruined in TLJ because they turned him into a joke, instead of him being about on par with Kylo Ren and competing with him for power, influence and Snoke's favour.
Episode 7 wasn't the best movie. It had pretty good setup; introduced some likable characters and then just didn't capitalize on it.
Rey was given about as much character as a piece of drywall.
They couldn't decide what character arc to give Finn, so they just gave him all of them and never finished any of them. And he was my favorite character in concept. We'd never gotten a former stormtrooper protagonist before.
Poe wasn't too bad. He's not a direct parallel to any of the original cast; though he's basically Maverick: Star Wars edition.
Kylo Ren was whiny; but he gets a "bad guy" pass- except the writers could never decide who's side he was on. It's not that he couldn't decide who's side he was on, that would have been a cool arc. He was on whoever's side the story demanded only for as long as the story demanded.
Could Kylo's character have been saved with a different actor?
I thought whatshisname was far too mature looking to pull off childish tantrum, but what if he'd been younger, and less intimidating under the mask?
Picture all of Rens scenes but with, say, Tom Holland under the mask
@@Damianweibler Still, Adam Driver absolutely carried the Sequels. Doing honestly pretty well with awful writing.
Imagine if Hux had been Tim Curry
"Rey is fine, she's fine, completely fine... no consequences... and Rey at the end of TLJ is... fine." The way you said it, was the way I felt back then after watching the movie.
I felt like The Force Awakens significantly undermined the prior movies and offered very little of interest in return, and The Last Jedi destroyed what little they had going for it.
She is fine, though. But only in looks.
You make a good point about Rey never suffering for her bad actions, but take a look at Luke vs Rey in terms of their character growth:
Luke’s force sensitivity for the torpedo on The Death Star was the Will of the force, and yeah is a Gary sue problem, but everything after?
Luke, after 8-10 weeks of intense training with Yoda on Dagobah barely lasts long enough against Vader before he easily chops his hand off.
After another YEAR of training, Luke is only able to defeat Vader after tapping into the dark side, and gets wrecked by Palpatine.
Rey?
Beats Kylo Ren first try after never knowing what The Force is until like a day before going against Ben, has ONE LESSON with Luke and is stupidly powerful, absolutely wrecks the Praetorian Guards, has a force-off with Kylo, Lifts 30x more rocks than Luke was able to after weeks, knows how to fucking FORCE HEAL, beats him AGAIN on the Second Death Star wreckage, and beats Palpatine, all while doing this relatively low effort.
Rey is so overpowered it’s not even funny compared to Luke, and never grows. I hate her.
Here's a problem I noticed with the whole Luke v Rey thing, you touched on it for a second.
It's what I like to call the "whiny little bitch" phase, where they have this Adventure thrust on them and they don't want any part of it.
With Luke, that phase ended almost right away with one of his most famous lines, he was like no, I can't leave, then he went back and saw his aunt and uncle dead, came back and said "I wanna go with you to alderaan, and learn the ways of the force and become a jedi like my father" from that moment on his attitude changes to, basically, "it's on"
Meanwhile halfway through the first sequel, Rey's still like, no, fuck you, I'm leaving, they'll come back.. blehh
It's refreshing watching a woman making a nerd-movie video essay I didn't expect it until you started to talk lol.
Blame CZcams. The one who got put on the front are people who follow their narrative. There are actually plenty of women who called out this fake wokeness on Hollywood movies. They are just suppressed by CZcams.
@@Acueil exactly. We’re able to explain why their fakeness actually sets us back rather than propels us forward
Here's an idea, Hollywood:
Write a script with genderless characters, all with definitive, easily destinguishable character traits from one another, THEN assign them names, genders, etc.
Only exception might be if they have to perform a gender-specific action, I guess
They'll take that gender-specific action thing and go a mile with it.
Have heard that was how Ridley Scott wrote the original Alien film.
Arcane did this beautifully
Didn't Alien do that? Maybe it might be a good idea to try that again.
How they already knew what characters they were working with
To sympathize with a character they have to have something called: a character arc. The fact that Disney is saying we don’t like Rey because we’re all bigoted is honestly insulting and shows how little they respect their own audience.
I think you made some great points illustrating clear writing mistakes instead of just using buzz words. When you point out the lack of suffering it all adds up and is the key to why she is disliked, she doesn't have to evolve through the plot which makes her one dimensional.
My issues with Rey, apart from her handling, is that she does have flaws and faults.
*BUT*
They're just there. They don't really play into anything, they're just there. She's impulsive and easy to anger, but this never leads to any sort of consequence for her or those she's involved with.
Exactly, and because there are no consequences she's never forced to grow or change. Compare Luke at the end of his three films to Rey at the end of hers. Luke is an almost different character, still an idealist and optimist but with maturity and leadership and who really does look like a role model to those around him compared to the snotty kid he was in the first film.
Compare and contrast with Rey.
@@lawrencesmeaton6930 Rey is not even 1% of Ahsoka
There's a great video from Literature Devil that talks about how the "Mary Sue" character can still have flaws, but the point is--as you've expressed it--the flaws are inconsequential and therefore meaningless. If the flaws don't cause the character to reflect, change and grow, then they don't matter in the hero's journey.
@@krishnarjunar2724 Ahsoka is just too much for Disney. Try comparing Rey with Jyn Erso.
At the begining of the story Jyn tries to run away from the imperials AND THE REBELION even though the rebelion saved her from a imperial camp. At the end, she sacrifices herself for the rebelion.
Rey starts off as an alone scavenger. Rey ends her story as jedi. No character development. She just learned about the force and met some people on her journey which is totally normal. Jyn made some friends while having a character development. Luke both made friends and both learned about the force while also having a character development.
@@ImDoneArguingOnYTComments Luke had the toughest journey. Learning the terrible truth that the most powerful and evil man in the galaxy is his father. The temptation from both his Jedi masters to kill his father who is lost forever, which is what the emperor wants, but Luke proves them all wrong in a way and saved his father who in turn saved his son and sacrificed for him. The story of a true hero through struggles, consequences and pain. Luke Skywalker is a perfect example of a great character.
Also Luke evolved he grew as a person, he became wiser, less reckless, Rey was just the same in every movie
You can tell with just the costumes:
Luke, his changed every movie, from white to more grey tone, to full on black. Signifying his growth and his draw to the darkside.
Rey hasn't changed her clothing since she was a child, except maybe once at the end of the Last Jedi, but then immediately changed back by the start of the last movie.
Same with anakin
Movie 7,8 and 9 all happened within the same 48 hours the movies 1-6 was months and even years apart so the characters had time to grow
And this vid gets recommended a few days after Disney announced more Rey movies.
That he has put an image of Descartes (1:23 - 1:24) to use it as a graphic representation of "therefore" is a wink that represents a good taste for general culture.
Very good video I'm already subscribing.
I'm in two minds about Daisy Ridley. On the one hand she doesn't seem to have a lot of range or charisma as an actress, but on the other hand it sounds like she had pretty much nothing to work with. I feel like, if they'd hired a more experienced actress to play her, Rey might have been more likeable, but that doesn't solve the glaring issues of writing so I don't know if it would make a lot of difference to the overall quality of the movie.
I'll go with the latter. Ewan McGregor had bad lines as obi wan, some good and memeable but he pulled it off because he's a great actor and made it iconic. Disney had no writing talent when it comes to starwars
I think it can be blamed on the writing too. Actors like Morgan Freeman can't save a terrible script.
@@sultanzod6720 it’s a mix of both. While I absolutely cannot take Kylo Ren seriously whenever I see that massive schlong of a nose that Adam Driver has, he’s a much better actor than Daisy Ridley, and seems to have been the best of an absolute train wreck of a movie. Fans don’t like him because Kylo Ren was well written, or because Adam Driver did a particularly great job, just because his job was serviceable & that was the best Disney could produce.
Daisy is not Haden Christensen. Haden Christensen could shine in certain moments, and actually sold the part of a socially inept Padawan much, much too well in Episode II, and that’s why his convincing performance was hard to watch. However, even in scenes when he’s alone, or with Palpatine, he especially shines. As well as that “I hate you”.
Haden Christensen was relatively humble about the backlash he got from the two films. Daisy Ridley called her critics sexist. That alone highlights how Daisy Ridley was not exactly a very self aware individual; she likely thought her character was good for a long period of time, until it was evident that if she subtly starts to show less & less affection & attachment to her pathetic performance of her pathetic character, her career would likely suffer less.
Have you seen her in the Murder on The Orient express? Will your opinion the same as before?
@@soundwavesuperior28 he had the emotions put into his lines, but yeah his hair was bad...
It's really simple:
The audience likes characters that they can relate to, an 'underdog' if you will that fights the system and has to endure tough struggles before becoming victorious. It's boring af when you write a character that's already strong and flawless because we can't relate to that as human beings, it's way more interesting to see how they got that powerful; not a story OF them already being powerful and wiping the floor with everyone.
This only works with antonagists to remind the audience that they are a threat, it rarely ever connects properly when it's the protagonist doing all the asskicking.
Unless its Saitama, but he's an exception
@@charlescourtwright2229 The thing there though is with Saitama, all of his issues to overcome are things that he cant just punch, be it lack of meaning and challenge, beaurcracy and social stigma or mosquitos. Which even without godlike punch powers are things people can relate to.
@@Eclypsia13 Yeah, Saitama is the story of, I'm now the strongest, what the fuck do I do?
The main character doesn't need to be an underdog though, they just have to have a character arch where they struggle to overcome something, and that in itself is relatable.
Probably why stormtroopers aren't perceived as threatening anymore, since in rogue one, the mandalorian and the sequel trilogy they're constantly getting mowed down by the protagonists and can't hit the broadside of a barn.
They're meant to be the special forces of the empire, but they keep getting portrayed as incompetent cannonfodder.
I think it’s more the fact that everyone else took decades to learn how to properly apply the force and duel, it took rey about 5 minutes
Great analysis, and some new perspective and points I hadn't considered.
I wouldn't say the issue is as much the lack of consequences, there usually ARE consequences, it's just that they are always positive and the world around Rey seems to go out of it's way to make sure she is always right in the end.
She jumps into action way before she is ready. That makes her end up captured by Kylo Ren. What is the consequence? The rebels have an insider in the Death Star 3 and only because of her sabotage do the rebels end up winning. If Rey hadn't been captured, the rebels would have lost. So thank god Rey was reckless because otherwise, everyone would have lost. Also obviously she didn't need help anyway because she just freed herself.
Same in The Last Jedi. She gets captured and brought before Sith Lord 2. Consequence? Sith Lord 2 dies, bad guys flagship blows up, Phasma dies, Rey saves the day.
She blows up the transport she thinks Chewie is on? Well it takes out Kylo Ren, Chewie isn't dead after all, and actually ends up being an asset later on when they find him and free him and it just so works out that the wookie they didn't blow up was captured instead and ended up exactly where he had to be in order to end up helping them way more than if he had just been around the whole time.
There's so many examples of this where obviously bad or stupid decisions not only make her get out scoff free, no they turn out for the better. Not only does she never face any consequences for selfish or stupud actions, she is always outright rewarded for them because "everything just works out in the end" and she always ends up better off than she started for every stupid decision she makes.
This is what a Mary Sue actually is: she's not a perfect or flawless or even an overpowered character, but a black hole who warps the fabric of reality forcing everything to revolve around her, drawing in plot and logic to be consumed by the same event horizon which also stops the audience from seeing all but the most basic of her characteristics.
@@clovernacknime6984 I genuinely wonder about that, though. I mean, really think about it, right? Of course everything revolves around Rey, she's the main character. Everything revolves around Luke in the original films, too. Same for Anakin and Obi-Wan in the prequels.
I think the real problem people have isn't really Mary Sues or that the plot revolves around the main lead or how overpowered or vulnerable people are. It's more that the character writing just sucks. There's nothing to really latch onto to make her feel human or relatable. You can relate to Luke being kind-of whiny in a realistic way but also wanting to help people, but Rey isn't really ever pushed out of her comfort zone in the same way.
Take that first film and re-write it so Rey has a more distinct and recognizable personality and I can guarantee she'd be more likable, even with the events staying exactly the same. Just having her get frustrated with things and react more realistically would add a ton to her appeal as a character.
@@clovernacknime6984 Ah, remember, it was the will of the Force. Yeah, that explains it.
@@clovernacknime6984 Great description.
She should've just changed her name to Domino at the end of the trilogy and paired up with Deadpool 😂
Absolutely spot on with the fact that she faces no consequences. And The difference between Luke and Rey is that Luke spends two movies being rescued by his friends and allies. Rey does all the saving. You can go Scene by scene and it’s almost exact opposites. Luke is being rescued while Rey is rescuing.
Aye I think the thing that makes Luke tick is that we get the impression he is a guy who is both honourable and cares deeply for the people in his life. He absolutely refuses to go on the quest because despite his complaints, he loves his adoptive parents and only their death makes him move on. Likewise the same traits that make him fantastic in a new hope are his downfall in the following movie. But we understand why he does it and he’s ultimately helped in his times of dire need. Even when he’s fighting the Emperor, the stakes are highly personal to him despite being tiny in the greater conflict.
Issue with Rey is she’s a very insular character who doesn’t seem to care about the people around her. Luke is important to her because he can help her, but she rarely goes out of her way to seek out Finn or any member of the cast. E.g. she doesn’t rescue Chewie in ep 9 but wanders into Kylos vault instead. Likewise, she is never helped by anyone either, the only time she doesn’t explicitly save herself in my mind is when Leia kills her self to reach out to Kylo. So, she feels divorced from the narrative in a way I don’t feel strongly about, yet is so critical that the war would be lost without her.
Luke got rescued in all 3 movies. First by Han then by Leia and lastly by Vader.
@@BadassDwarff yes Vader does technically save Luke but in ROTJ, Luke is in Control of almost all his situations. He is no longer helpless and in need of rescuing. On the Death Star Luke didn’t NEED rescuing. He wasn’t in that situation because of incompetence. He went to save his father knowing it most likely was a death sentence and he went on his own free will.
Luke spends the previous movies learning how to be this way. That’s what I mean by my previous comments.
@@BossDoogles I didn't try to disprove your point. Just add to your comment that Luke is far from an overpowered character.
To be clear, this isn't a disagreement - I'm also backing up your point.
Luke's a person with a rather mediocre grasp of the Force for most of the OT. Being able to use it at all puts him above most average people, and he does manage to pull victories over them using fairly minor Force abilities, but the second he's fighting someone who actually knows how to use The Force, he takes a massive L. Heck, it doesn't even always work on non-Force opponents, and you see there are situations where his - again rather medicore - grasp on it isn't enough to change the odds (eg, Hoth).
Luke's power is his near-infinite faith in others, and that's a big part of why "cynical old man Luke" feels so wrong. Luke is endlessly dedicated and positive, able to inspire those around him with such. Which, first off, makes any time his positivity begins to falter a massive, dramatic "oh shit" moment, but secondly: people reciprocate. Luke's primary means of winning isn't necessarily being better than other people, it's having so much faith that others cannot help but rise to the challenge when he needs them.
Think of how many times Luke gets bailed out of situations. He'd have died in the Death Star Trench if not for Han, he'd have died on Bespin if not for Leia, and he'd have died above Endor if not for Anakin/Vader. Because Luke is *not* good at everything, but he's a damn fine leader, and it shows.
She claimed that she had never flown a ship before yet somehow flew the Falcon perfectly..
Rey: "rEy sKyWaLkEr"
Nute Gunray: "She can't do that! Shoot her... or something!"
The sequels actually helped me.
They showed me how not to structure a story and characters. I took notes on what I saw, what confused me, how I felt, how and where I was disappointed or wow'd, what moved me, what didn't ect. I took those notes back to my own soft sci-fi novel where some of those points pinged in my head and re read it with new eyes. Thanks to those movies, I was able to see where I'd been unknowingly making the same mistakes, and fixed them.
(I've been a Star Wars fan since the womb.)
Hey, out of curiosity, has your book been published?
I mean, we are getting more and more of this stuff. Bland flawless female characters, whether they are protagonists, side characters or antagonists. For example, Karli from Falcon and winter soldier is straight up evil and show portrays her as confused person trying to do what's right. She killed bunch of innocent people and gets sympathy from our protagonist, that's really sad.
What's more sad is that "critics" buy this whole narrative and present it as truth, which leads to more and more people buying into this stuff.
Which is why I love stuff like this, well edited, well argumented and presented, no word salads. Also, I miss female characters like Beatrix Kiddo, Sarah Connor, Jackie Brown, Ripley.
dang way to make a brief list of fetishized female characters as your list of "things you want"
also, beatrix*
@@randombjorksong Beatrix, correct, my mistake. Also what do you mean by "fetishized"? I literally pulled them out my ass in a second as example for flawed strong female characters.
@@zzickos Didn't you know feminists are perfect. They are an all-round can do anything superhero.
The point of Karli is that people never start out evil, but are led down an antagonistic path due to outside forces (in her case the government) creating what she inevitably turned out to be. Which is literally what almost every tragic character turned villain can be described as. Take for instance, Eren Yeager
Even Ahsoka has my respect even more. She’s humble and hard working and nothing was handed to her on a silver plater. She was written by a 13 year old fanboy.