MovieChat Forums > Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017) Discussion > Rey and Ren in TFA vs TLJ

Rey and Ren in TFA vs TLJ

posted 7 years ago by pinkled5 (125)
4 replies | jump to latest

I despised Rey in TFA but really liked her in TLJ. We've all heard the Mary Sue accusations for Rey in TFA, and it's true. She could do anything, was successful at everything, had no weaknesses, no flaws, and always made good decisions. Mary Sue characters are BORING. But in TLJ she was interesting, she had flaws and made poor decisions. I like how she lost her temper against Luke. Her decision to confront Ren was very flawed but I understood why she would have done that. She failed to coax Luke out of hiding, but, with the nudge of Yoda, did breach his defenses. She was helpless against Snoke and had to be saved by Ren.

In short, I thought she was an interesting and relateable character.

I hated Kylo Ren in TFA. I thought he was a whiny emo sissy boy who was acting out. In TLJ, however, I really liked him. I could truly sense his inner conflict which made him a much more interesting and complex character. The interactions between he and Rey were the underpinnings of this movie and the foundation that made me like it so much.

Yeah, the rest of the plot was "meh" but the character development triangle between Luke, Rey and Ren was really interesting, imo.

[–] ghostboy (652) 7 years ago

Personally, I thought Rey and Finn were underwritten in this movie, seeing The Last Jedi, you'd swear The Force Awakens was all about Poe given the amount of screentime he has in this.

[–] pinkled5 (125) 7 years ago

Finn continues to be an unnecessary character and it's frustrating. His entire sub plot in TLJ could have been removed without effecting anything. That's sad.

Poe could have been replaced with any hotshot pilot in TFA, but I feel like he had a distinct personality in TLJ and was given some development time. I liked that.

[–] Frogarama (12942) 7 years ago

"She could do anything, was successful at everything, had no weaknesses, no flaws, and always made good decisions."

There are two things funny about this statement. One is that it's almost completely parroted and I see this sentence repeated nearly verbatim on a regular basis. Is there some "anti SJW" website where these are copied from?

The second is that it's only true if you ignore all her flaws from TFA. This is just what I recall offhand: 1) Mindless loyalty toward waiting for her family on Jakku even though it's been 14 years with no results; 2) She screws up on Han's ship and accidentally unleashes the Rathars, which destroys his freighter, almost kills Finn and puts everyone at risk, and almost destroys the Falcon as well; 3) She wanders off from the group from Maz's castle and gets easily captured by Kylo; 4) Despite being good at staff fighting, she looks like a buffoon for most of her saber fight with Kylo, trying the same "forward thrust" attack over and over and over, which is easily deflected by him; 5) Because she had been captured, she has no role in bringing down Starkiller base and is technically a liability because they need to find her and save her.

[–] pinkled5 (125) 7 years ago

Heh. I remember when I came home from the theater and started a thread on IMDB.com's now defunct message boards about how Rey is a Mary Sue. I thought I was so clever and insightful and yet hardly anyone replied. Then I started reading other threads and reviews and discovered the whole "Mary Sue" thing had already blown up and I just didn't know about it.

Rey is the text book definition of a Mary Sue. That doesn't bother some people and they can still enjoy the character despite this, and good for them, but nothing turns me, and a whole lot of other people, off faster than that kind of character.