(
WARNING: This post is basically nothing but
SPOILERS for "
Star Wars: The Force Awakens". )
After watching
Star Wars : The Force Awakens ( which I'll just call TFA for the rest of this post ) opening weekend, I was curious to find out what other people thought about the film. So, I headed over to the
IMDB message board for TFA, and the first threads I noticed were full of people saying TFA had a "feminist agenda" and that Rey was a "Mary Sue". I had no idea what a "Mary Sue" was, so I had to look it up. According to Wikipedia, a "Mary Sue" is a term for a female
"idealized fictional character, a young or low-rank person who saves the day through extraordinary abilities", but it seems like the term is mostly used online as a sexist term to describe any strong female character. After reading all the hateful stuff on those message boards, I not only only felt embarrassed by my gender, but embarrassed to be a human being.
I think Rey's a tremendous character, I'm excited the story is centered around her, and I can't wait to see what happen's next in Episode 8. That said, I think most defenses of Rey I've read do a disservice to her character and TFA by refusing to acknowledge any faults with her story arc or with TFA in general.
If we want to defend Rey and TFA against the sexists trolls who call her a "Mary Sue" and claim that TFA isn't a real Star Wars movie then we can't fail to acknowledge that there is something unusual about her character and about her story arc. We can't say that her story arc is no more extraordinary than Luke's in
A New Hope ( ANH ). It's definitely a lot more extraordinary. Only a few hours after she realizes she's Force-sensitive, she's doing thing with the Force that Luke couldn't have dreamed of doing until after he trained with Yoda. I'm not saying this makes Rey's rapid Force proficiency unrealistic, because there are plenty of hints in the film that suggest Episode 8 will explain why she is such a unprecedented Force-prodigy, but I think we do have to acknowledge that the pace at which the Force
awakens in her is
unprecedented in the Star Wars Cinematic Universe. If we fail to acknowledge that, the sexists trolls will just call us
SJWs ( another term I learned since reading the IMBD TFA message boards ) who are defending Rey in a knee-jerk way without considering the facts.
So, I'm going to spend this post reviewing the parts of TFA that could be considered implausible, some which involve Rey, and some which don't. I expect that most of the potentially implausible scenes in TFA will make sense after Episode 8
*, but I fear that some are just examples of poor storytelling and will never be fixed ( particularly the Kylo/Finn battle ).
( * I should also note that I think it's often ( but not always ) a sign of bad storytelling when an author/writer/director gives us a confusing implausible scene with the implicit promise that all will be explained in the next book/movie. I must have watched the 2nd Matrix movie about 20 times trying to construct a narrative that would explain everything that was said in the "Architect" scene. I eventually constructed several narratives for the 3rd Matrix movie that might being able to reconcile the first 2 Matrix movies, but the 3rd Matrix movie wound up being a mess that made no sense at all. Since then, I've just pretended that the 2nd and 3rd Matrix movies never happened. So forgive me if I'm suspicious of any confusing TFA scenes that J.J. might not explain to us until Episodes 8 and 9. )
Let me get all the Rey stuff out of the way first, starting with the Force stuff. The first thing I'll note is that the Force is, for the lack of a better term, magic. Everything about the idea of people moving things with their minds and controlling the minds of others is essentially unrealistic. Clearly, we need to accept that the Force exists in the Star Wars Cinematic Universe, but in accepting that it exists, we also need to accept that the Force is a magical thing that regular rules of logic do not necessarily apply to. So, there's really no rule that says Rey couldn't be extremely strong in the Force without any formal training ( much stronger than Luke or any other Force newbie we've encountered in the previous films ). However, it has been established in the films that Jedi are generally trained starting at a very young age, and it was even mentioned in
The Phantom Menace that young Anikan was "too old" to begin Jedi training. So, while I don't know if a magical power like the Force can have any unbreakable rules, it does seem to be well-established in the Star Wars Cinematic Universe that it would be extremely unusual for somebody as old as Rey to develop Force powers as quickly as she did in TFA. Still, there are enough hints in the film that Rey has been trained before, so for now I'm going to assume she received Jedi training as a young child, her memories of those childhood years have been suppressed or repressed, and the events of TFA
awakened Force powers she had developed many years ago. So, I'm fine with all Rey Force stuff, assuming we are all right about Rey having prior training. If we are not right about her prior training, J.J.'s going to have some
'splainin' to do.
The next Rey-centric thing I'd like to explore is what I'm going to call the "Magical Mechanic Syndrome". Over the last 30+ years, movies and TV shows have been plagued by what I'll call "Magical Hacker Syndrome". It seems that movies and TV shows often have a magical hacker that can break into a system instantly whenever the plot demands it. Whether it was Mathew Broderick in
War Games,
KITT doing impossible things like unlocking door with regular mechanical locks,
Penny doing all sorts of impossible things with her
Computer Book in the non-wired world of the 80's, or hackers breaking into systems instantly by doing a "
SEND SPIKE" in
GoldenEye, it always bothered my computer-geek sensibilities that movies/TV have always made hacking seem so easy. In the same way, I've got to imagine that real mechanics are insulted by how Rey can solve mechanical problems almost instantly. I know the film establishes that Rey is a scavenger who has lots of experience with mechanic devices, but even an expert mechanic should not be able to diagnose and fix mechanical issues as quickly as she did in this movie. It's one thing to be able to recognize every mechanical part, and understand how they work together in general ( which I'm going to assume Rey has the ability to do ); it's quite another thing to walk into a ship you've never been inside before, and almost instantly diagnose the mechanical problems the ship has and fix them all within a few minutes ( which Rey does after entering the Millennium Falcon ). She was so proficient inside the Millennium Falcon, it made me wonder if she had ever been in there before. However, as a scavenger, you would think any time she spent in the Falcon would have been spent stripping it clean, in which case, the Falcon would not be fit for flight. I really like Rey and TFA, so I've been racking my brain trying to think of reasons why she might be familiar with the Falcon ( because it would have been
impossible for
any mechanic to fix
any complex machine that quickly after seeing it for the first time ). She did say it was "garbage" before she and Finn ran to it, so there is a chance her "garbage" comment indicates that she had already seen the "garbage"-y innards of the ship. Perhaps the scavenging boss Unkar Plutt ( the guy who keeps short-changing Rey for the parts she brings him ), had hired Rey to refurbish the Falcon with parts she had scavenged so he could sell it to the highest bidder ( After all, Plutt does yell "That's my ship" when Rey flies off with the Falcon ).
Yeah, let's go with that - let's assume she'd worked on the Falcon for Plutt in the past. That's the only thing that really makes sense, so I'm just going to believe that until somebody proves otherwise. Still, that fact that I've got to construct a narrative to makes sense of Rey's almost instant repair of the Falcon is a storytelling failure on J.J.'s part.
( Jan 1, 2016 Update: I watched TFA a second time today. It was clear from Rey's dialog inside the Falcon that she was aware of and probably participated in Plutt's modifications to the Falcon. At one point she told Han that she disagreed with one of the modifications Plutt had made. Thus, it's almost certain that she had worked on the Falcon before, so it makes perfect sense that she would know the mechanics of the modified Falcon even better than Han did. )
However, even if I construct a Plutt/Rey/Falcon narrative to make sense of the Falcon scenes, it still doesn't explain the other examples of Rey's magical mechanical abilities later in TFA. She seems to know exactly what lever to manipulate to open a panel in a Starkiller Base wall, she is quickly able to manipulate a few compents in a wall to make a bunch of Starkiller Base doors open ( There's no chance she'd been at Starkiller Base before - I doubt there is any chance Starkiller Base was using the same kind of components that were being used in the 30-year old Star Destroyer she was scavenging earlier in the film. ), and she seems to know what fuses in Han's large smuggling ship can be used to open and close doors ( The fact that she opened the wrong doors does add some realism, but not enough for me
* ). Part of me wants to believe that her mechanical abilities/experience combined with some kind of Force instinct gives her the ability to choose the right lever/button to activate, but once again, J.J.'s storytelling should not force me to invent my own narratives to make sense of the plot. Also, the fact that she opened the wrong doors on Han's smuggling ship argues against my Force instinct theory.
( * I thought the scene where Rey opens the doors on Han's smuggling ship was the most unrealistic mechanical/engineering part of the movie, even though Rey opened the wrong doors. Putting aside Rey's magical abikity to instantly figure out which fuses regulated power to the doors , it makes no sense that pulling fuses would open or close doors. Both opening and closing the doors requires power, so if you cut off the power to a door by pulling a fuse, the door is likely to remain in the position it was in before you pulled the fuse. Expecting the doors on Han's ship to open and close when a fuse is pulled is like expecting automatic garage door to open or close when you flip off the circuit breaker that controls the power to the doors. I guess it is possible that the fuses Rey magically identified regulated the control signal to the doors and main power was still being supplied to the doors' motors, but if the control signal was interrupted to a door and the control system to that door wanted to return the door to a default position, it would make the most sense if the default position for the door was closed and locked. In any case, I'm sure I'm probably nit-picking too much here. I know that Star Wars is more of a space fantasy rather than science fiction, and I guess I shouldn't expect too much technical accuracy from a series that maintains that a parsec is a unit of time. Still as a person who spent 5 years studying Mechanical Engineering in school, this stuff bothers me. )
In any case. I'll let the mechanical issues slide for now, because it is not a core part of the film. Still, I think it's bad storytelling on J.J's part, because he could have found ways to show us Rey was an expert mechanic without breaking the rules of common sense. I guess J.J. and his team are no more guilty than than other movie/TV writers and directors. In addition to magical hackers, and magical mechanics, movies and TV are full of magical doctors, magical lawyers, magical scientists, magical detectives, and magical politicians. I don't like it, but these magical short-cuts are always going to be a part of movies and TV.
The last Rey issue that needs to be addressed is the criticism that she was portrayed as being too good of a pilot. I don't have any problem with her piloting skills at all. Admittedly, we are only working with a sample size of two people, but what we've seen from Anakin and Luke suggest that ...
1) People who are strong in the Force are great pilots.
2) People with Skywalker blood are great pilots.
Well, we already know that Rey is extremely strong in the Force and many believe that she is a Skywalker. There's no reason to believe she wouldn't be a great pilot if she had enough experience flying a skip. My only small quibble with TFA is that we don't get any information about how she learned to fly a ship. Maybe flying a ship is just like driving a car is the Star Wars Cinematic Universe, and almost everyone is trained in the basics of flying a ship. However, part of me wonders where she had the opportunity to pilot a ship prior to taking the controls of the Falcon. We leaned in ANH that Luke used to "bullseye womp rats" in his "T-16" in "Beggar's Canyon", which fortuitously enough, was just the kind of training needed to hit a target in a Death Star trench. I've always assumed that Luke's Uncle Owen either bought Luke the T-16 or gave Luke enough of an allowance for his farm work so Luke could buy the T-16 himself. It's not clear if Rey ever had enough money to buy a ship considering she was poor enough to be living in a discarded AT-AT. Perhaps she picked up flying experience running missions for Plutt
( If Plutt needed somebody to fly missions for him in his scavenger community, Rey would be the best choice, because as somebody with no desire to leave her home on Jakku , she could always be counted on to return back to the community with Plutt's ships. I could be wrong, but when we see that flashback of young Rey watching that spaceship ( presumably carrying one or both or her parents) leave Jakku, I think the hand that is grabbing her belongs to Plutt. If that's true, Plutt knows Rey is likely to stick around and not fly off with one of his ships. ), but it would be nice to eventually get some background on Rey's flying experience just like ANH gave us tidbits about Luke's background as a pilot.
( January 1, 2016 Update: According to Rey's Survival Guide, Rey learned to fly using a Y-wing simulator.
)
So, I hope by now I've debunked the Rey "Mary Sue" stuff while acknowledging some of the flaws in J.J's storytelling. However, the storytelling issues related to Rey are nothing compared the storytelling issue with some other parts of the movie. I'll start with the some of the my smaller quibbles first before getting to the big one.
- A 3rd Death Star? Really? Oh, it's a "Starkiller Base", is it? Sure - keep telling yourself that. You know the Death Star thing is a problem for the
Star Wars franchise when the rebels in TFA start comparing the size of Starkiller Base to the size of the Death Star and you find yourself thinking "Are they talking about the Death Star in the original
Star Wars or the
other Death Star in
Return of the Jedi?
- I still haven't decided if Poe leaving the secret map with BB-8 at the start of TFA is an homage to the Leia/R2-D2 secret plans moment at the start of ANH or just a rip-off of it.
- All serious
Star Wars fans know Harrison Ford has wanted Han to die since
Empire, so we all assumed Ford would only agree to appear in TFA if the script called for Han to be killed off in it. So, as soon as Han stepped onto the walkway with Kylo, we knew Kylo was going to kill him. Ideally, that Han/Kylo moment should have been one of the more emotional/shocking moments of the film, but no true
Star Wars fan was shocked by it, and Han and Kylo didn't interact enough to draw me in emotionally before Han was killed. I know J.J. was in a tough spot accommodating Ford's wishes, but he could have handled this pivotal scene better.
OK, so now let's get to my biggest issue - Kylo Ren.
Don't get me wrong, I think Kylo is a great character and Adam Driver was great in the role, but the movie was inconsistent about Klyo's mastery of the Force, and that's a pretty big deal considering that Kylo is the primary villain in the film. When we first see Kylo, he's stopping a blaster bolt with his mind. This led me to believe he was extremely powerful in the Force, and would be an very formidable foe for our heroes. In all 6 previous
Star Wars films, we had never seen any Jedi or Sith stop a blaster bolt with their mind. Not Obi Wan, not Luke, not Anakin/Vader, not Darth Maul, not Windu, not Dooku, not Yoda, not Palpatine, not anybody. Every Jedi/Sith needed to deflect a blaster bolt with a lightsaber rather than stop the bolt in mid-flight. So, my first impression of Kylo Ren was "This guy is more powerful in the Force than any
Star Wars character I've ever seen." That's why it made made no sense at the end of movie when he had a fight with Finn that lasted more than one second.
I don't care that Kylo had been shot in the side by Chewbacca; I don't care how much pain he was in or how much blood he was losing or how conflicted he felt about just murdering his father. He has just effortlessly Force-thrown strong-in-the-Force Rey up against a tree. He could have done that to Finn over and over again. Considering he was strong enough in the Force to stop a blaster bolt and toss Rey he probably could have used the Force to break Finn's neck instantly. There was no reason for Finn to engage Finn in lightsaber duel. He engaged Rey in a lightsaber duel because his goal was to subdue her and turn her to the dark side rather than kill her, but there was no reason for him to engage Finn in a fair fight. Finn should have been killed instantly.
Now don't get me wrong; I absolutely love Finn's character and I don't want him to die in any of the new films, but if you don't want a character to to die, you shouldn't put him is situation in which it is laughably ridiculous that he would survive. The entire Kylo/Finn thing is a huge storytelling failure on J.J.'s part and I don't think anything can be done in the next 2 films to fix this.
What's most frustrating is that the Kylo stuff would have been be such an easy thing to fix. If you just remove the Kylo-freezes-a-blaster-bolt thing and have Kylo dismissively thrown Finn into a tree ( in a non-fatal way ) before engaging Rey, the Kylo portion of the movie would be perfect. I like the petulant poser Kylo who can't control his emotions or his Force powers properly. J.J. should have just stuck with that and shouldn't have tried to wow us with the blaster bolt stuff ( I'll admit, I was wowed by the blaster blot stuff, but it just doesn't fit with the portrayal of Kylo in the rest of the film ).
All my criticisms aside, I loved this movie and I can't wait to see it again. I thought everything up to point where Rey and Finn entered the Falcon was the best start to a
Star Wars film I'd ever seen. The chemistry between Finn and Rey was fantastic. The chemistry between Finn and Poe was fantastic. The chemistry between BB-8 and
everybody was fantastic. The humor was amazing - there was more humor in the first 30 minutest of TFA than the 3 prequels combined. The root of my disappointment with TFA is that the rest of TFA did not live up to the fantastic start. There was point in the early part of the film where I was absolutely giddy - more giddy than I had been in a theater for more than 30 years. I was giddy with the hope that this
Star Wars film would be as great as
The Empire Strikes Back or as great as
A New Hope. In the end, I think TFA was as good as
Return of the Jedi, which still makes it a worthy successor to the original trilogy. It was one hell of a film, but I just wish it could have been a little bit better.
Rich
