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Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion (HERE THERE BE SPOILERS)

So....?


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That makes sense for her being able to reverse polarity of the mind-meld through willpower and natural talent. Somehow pulling out the knowledge, technique and experience necessary to then do a bigger mind-trick (as far as making someone knowingly work against their better interest) than we've seen in the entire series. . . .that pushes it.
 
That makes sense for her being able to reverse polarity of the mind-meld through willpower and natural talent. Somehow pulling out the knowledge, technique and experience necessary to then do a bigger mind-trick (as far as making someone knowingly work against their better interest) than we've seen in the entire series. . . .that pushes it.

She did do trial and error. it did not work the first time, nor the second time. She got it, at least somewhat, later with simple commands. Stormtroopers (regardless of era) seem to be weak minded.

She did not try it again in the film that I recall.
 
She didn't. She just "forced harder" until it worked better than any mind trick we've ever seen.

Lets take a moment to look at the various mind tricks we've seen experienced Jedi do throughout the series:

"You don't need to see our identification" is a pretty minor push. All Obi-Wan needs to do is plant the idea that they're either familiar to the Trooper or not worth bothering with. At that point he just reinforces the concept by encouraging him to do what he would normally do in that situation by telling them to move along.

"I must speak with your master" just requires implanting the thought that Luke is important enough that Jabba would entertain his audience. Surely not outside the realm of plausibility since he claims to be a Jedi and choked out the guards. Once that persuasion is done, Bib Fortuna is just doing his job.

"You want to go home and rethink your life" is almost certainly not a novel thought to a drug dealer and we don't see how well it plays out.

Vs. telling a life-long borderline-brainwashed soldier to do the exact opposite of their orders and programming, without even the pretense of justification presented, then go wander without purpose and leave their charge with a weapon.
 
I don't see the big difference between Obi-Wan hand-waving a Stormtrooper and Rey hand-waving a Stormtrooper. It works on the "weak minded", and who's more weak minded than a cult member who's been brain washed from birth never to think for themselves or question orders?
 
I agree. I haven't seen it since it first came into theaters so my memory is a little rusty, but didn't she just keep trying the same thing until it worked?
 
They've done much stronger mind tricks in the Clone Wars and Rebels than anything Rey did. Even using three powerful Jedi to break the will of a strong minded bounty hunter to get him to talk. And this is someone trained to resist Jedi mind tricks.
 
Vs. telling a life-long borderline-brainwashed soldier to do the exact opposite of their orders and programming, without even the pretense of justification presented, then go wander without purpose and leave their charge with a weapon.

Another way to look at it is that she gave a soldier who's been conditioned from childhood to obey orders without question, a new set of orders to follow. It doesn't take much imagination to suppose that the behavioural conditioning they subject Stormtroopers to could make them extremely susceptible to mind tricks.

Another factor to consider is that Rey had basically just leaned this ability existed thanks to Kylo's attempt to get into her head. That she was able to push back and turn the tables just means she's something of a prodigy. And yet it still took her more than one attempt to get the trooper to co-operate.

You know who else was a force prodigy? Anakin and Luke. The former had such fast and accurate prescient reflexes that he was able to participate that was supposedly impossible for his species, let alone a child. The latter was able to make a one in a million shot and move objects with his mind with next to zero training. Like a few hours at most. That's barely enough time to teach him to hold a lightsaber without cutting his own head off.
 
The former had such fast and accurate prescient reflexes that he was able to participate that was supposedly impossible for his species

Which is really kind of an odd claim for TPM to have made. What about podracing is so impossible for humans to achieve, if, say, Mawhonic can do it?

and move objects with his mind with next to zero training. Like a few hours at most. That's barely enough time to teach him to hold a lightsaber without cutting his own head off.

That's assuming there was no training from ghost Obi-Wan at any time between ANH and TESB, and that any self-training Luke may have done during that time doesn't count ( not that I'm saying those are totally unreasonable assumptions ).
 
If the shot was so impossible, why did they base their entire strategy on someone being able to hit it? It was very difficult and he, with the basic lesson in how to give yourself over to the force and let it guide your reflexes, did exactly that. He then spent months or years training himself before he is able to pull a lightsaber to him in a life or death situation. Luke was anything but a prodigy. I don't have a problem with Rey being the most powerful natural Jedi ever, but I do need a justification for that not to come off as lazy storytelling, no matter how much I enjoy the movie.
 
If the shot was so impossible, why did they base their entire strategy on someone being able to hit it?

Because the alternative was sitting around waiting to die. It was an act of pure desperation, mounted with little time and next to no resources or materials and a mixture of kids and old veterans as pilots. All under the impending doom that the Death Star would be there before they could hope to evacuate.
Indeed, that they let Luke fly at all speaks to how few options they had. He was an amateur bush pilot, a farm boy who'd only ever flown a T-16 airspeeder and prior to that very day, had never left his homeworld's atmosphere.

Also remember this was a plan that was cooked up on the fly. They didn't even know what if any weaknesses were there to be exploited until Leia arrived with the plans. It's not like they had the luxury of time to find a better way to go about this.

Which is really kind of an odd claim for TPM to have made. What about podracing is so impossible for humans to achieve, if, say, Mawhonic can do it?

I don't disagree, but that's what was said so we just have to take the movie's word for it. It's not like we have any basis of comparison.

That's assuming there was no training from ghost Obi-Wan at any time between ANH and TESB, and that any self-training Luke may have done during that time doesn't count ( not that I'm saying those are totally unreasonable assumptions ).

We can only go by what we saw and what was saw was just a couple brief lectures. We also have no reason to assume Obi-Wan ever spoke to him once in the intervening years. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that the movies give you no reason to take this as a given.

There's no question that Rey appears to pick up force abilities a bit faster than Luke, but it's all trial by fire stuff. Luke wasn't put under anywhere near as much stress over a protracted period. Though their paths were similar, they weren't identical. I won't to a full blow by blow, but briefly compare coming home to a farm already on fire vs. running away from a camp in the process of being blown up. Or being voluntarily let go by trash compactor vermin vs. running away from a pair of lethal and pissed of predators.
Apply that to the rest of their individual adventures and while they're both clearly thrown in at the deep end, Rey's pool quite apparently also had the proverbial sharks-with-laser-beams-on-their-heads.

We never saw what Anakin did immediately after he became a padawan as for the rest of the movie, he's little more than a bystander. Even in the space battle, it's not clear how much is his innate talent, how much is dumb luck and how much is R2 keeping him alive. So it's hard to make a comparison there.

Still, one point of comparison I think people overlook when they complain about Rey "suddenly becoming a sword master" is that the equivalent scene to this, is actually this.
It wasn't that Rey suddenly had superior talent, she opened herself to the force and it *briefly* controlled her action (partially. ;) )
Other considerations to consider: Kylo's multiple injuries from Chewie & Finn. Rey already shown to be proficient with a staff and her strikes against Kylo were hardly skilful. They were wild, reckless and barely controlled.
 
But if Rey was a Luke Padawan, she may have already been trained (and made to forget) and Ren probing her mind AWAKENED the FORCE in her.
 
I don't believe she was one of Luke's students, either. I'm not certain she's his daughter and was placed into hiding to protect her from his enemies, but I'm just not getting the feeling that she was a youngling being trained by Luke to become a Jedi.
 
Yeah the whole "she forgot she was a student" theory never made sense to me. She remembers being dropped off by her family, but not that they were Luke "I thought he was a Myth?" Skywalker and/or his possibly non-existent wife? Or (if she was just a student) *anything* about her life before Jakku? She was a child sure, but not so young as to not remember. How could she obsess over and fantasise about a family that's coming back for her, if she can't remember? Makes no sense.

Lets face it, in all likelihood Rey's parents were just Rey's parents. That they left her on Jakku either means that they're just deadbeats who abandoned a child/sold her to a junk dealer for parts/left her there while they went on a job that ended up getting them all killed.

As Maz said, the family she's looking for is in front of her, not behind because they're *never* coming back and Rey knows it.

But if Rey was a Luke Padawan, she may have already been trained (and made to forget) and Ren probing her mind AWAKENED the FORCE in her.

And if a frog had wheels it'd be a rollerskate.
 
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The theory is that she was mind-wiped like Revan was.
To what end?

Revan was a Jedi General turned Sith Lord, wiping his memory was an attempt at using him to understand and defeat his former apprentice. What possibly use could there be in mind-wiping a child who you're just going to abandon on a forsaken backwater anyway?
If she was put into hiding like Luke then there should have been an equivalent to Obi-Wan. A guardian that knew her secret and would protect/retrieve her when the time was right. There was no such guardian and she was left in the custody of an untrustworthy criminal.

Face it, she's just an orphan. If her family is still alive they've probably long forgotten about here. Not all subjects of the Hero's Journey trope have some secret noble or divine heritage. Some are just ordinary people, many are slaves.
 
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