Poll Is Rey a Mary Sue?

[Campe]

Also you guys are telling me what I write is nonsense when most of you still believe Rian will have his trilogy? WTF

This has nothing to do with this debate. Leave it at the door.

 

[Spot261]

First, the original Star Wars is my favorite movie. I accept the fact that they take shortcuts because sometimes in film, you don't have to cut corners in order to get the story told.

Still...

• Please tell me in the movie where one suggests that a T-16 and an X-Wing are similar? In the supporting material, absolutely stated. But nowhere in the movie is it suggested.
• Please tell me in the movie where he flies in space prior to the end of the movie? He doesn't.
• Please tell me in the movie where he flies in space against hostile forces prior to the end of the movie?He doesn't.

We give Luke a pass on this stuff which is perfectly fine because, well, its a movie. Honestly though, why is this so different for Rey?

• One can assume that Luke never flew out of the atmosphere of Tatooine. Rey does actually say that she's a pilot but never flew out of the atmosphere of Jakku. What's the difference?
• Luke is able to not only survive impossible odds on his first combat flight but also destroy the biggest weapon the Empire has. Rey flies through the wreckage of a ship she's quite familiar with, having scavenged for years. (She says, in overlapping dialogue with Finn: "I've flown some ships but I've never left the planet!"

T-16 stating "similar controls", but also stating "can reach the troposphere". So no stated experience of space or military equipment of any kind.

Note also the picture, which essentially has Luke as a child playing with a toy, that's the character we are given.

A few days later he's a military hero.

Hardly explains it really does it?

This is a criticism I can agree with. Apparently, she was a little harsher in the original version of the film (particularly the early scenes on the Falcon with Finn) and you can see a little of this with BB-8 but it didn't sit right so they softened her a little bit. I think having her be a little less friendly would have been a better choice. Make it a part of her arc as TFA went along that she became a better person.

Absolutely, but again a flaw endemic to the franchise, how long did Luke stay devastated about the massacre of everyone he had grown up with? Was there even a full hour before they got to Mos Eisley and it was forgotten?

SW characterisation has always been either shallow on the one hand or indulgently contrived on the other.

 

[Spot261]

Luke's big flaw was impatience.. stated over and over again.. and that was a dark side trait.

Also you guys are telling me what I write is nonsense when most of you still believe Rian will have his trilogy? WTF

More simply that you have a pretty weak and transparent case which falls apart at the slightest critical analysis.

 

[fireproof78]

Also you guys are telling me what I write is nonsense when most of you still believe Rian will have his trilogy? WTF

Leave that out of this thread, please. We all know the opinions on Rian Johnson and his trilogy. It doesn't belong here.

 

[Awesome Possum]

People are still ranting that Rey is a Mary Sue?

I think they’re trying to convince themselves at this point and just crave validation.

 

[XCV330]

Mary Sue is a meaningless term. It needs to be airdropped over Antarctica and forgotten.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I'm always impressed (or is it depressed?) by FSM's ability to take 100 long-winded, nonsensical, poorly spelled, faux deep, and undeservedly condescending posts to say that casting anyone else besides a straight white male in the lead of a genre film is "agenda-driven political correctness" or makes them a "Mary Sue" even if the character goes through a similar hero's journey and growth as their straight white male predecessors.

If anyone would like a preview of the next twenty pages of his responses, read his posts in this thread from a couple months ago, which is pretty much the same argument just with less "Mary Sueing":

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/marvel-films-its-time-for-a-black-female-lead.300848/page-5

All his greatest hits are there, including the classic "It would be nice if you actually read my posts" because if we disagree with him it's just because he's too intellectual for us common folk to understand his thought process.

 

[Smellmet]

I'm always impressed (or is it depressed?) by FSM's ability to take 100 long-winded, nonsensical, poorly spelled, faux deep, and undeservedly condescending posts to say that casting anyone else besides a straight white male in the lead of a genre film is "agenda-driven political correctness" even if the character goes through a similar hero's journey and growth as their straight white male predecessors.

If anyone would like a preview of the next twenty pages of his responses, read his posts in this thread from a couple months ago, which is pretty much the same argument just with less "Mary Sueing":

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/marvel-films-its-time-for-a-black-female-lead.300848/page-5

All his greatest hits are there, including the classic "It would be nice if you actually read my posts" because if we disagree with him it's just because he's too intellectual for us common folk to understand his thought process.

He is tenacious and relentless I'll give him that.

 

[Campe]

I'm always impressed (or is it depressed?) by FSM's ability to take 100 long-winded, nonsensical, poorly spelled, faux deep, and undeservedly condescending posts to say that casting anyone else besides a straight white male in the lead of a genre film is "agenda-driven political correctness" even if the character goes through a similar hero's journey and growth as their straight white male predecessors.

If anyone would like a preview of the next twenty pages of his responses, read his posts in this thread from a couple months ago, which is pretty much the same argument just with less "Mary Sueing":

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/marvel-films-its-time-for-a-black-female-lead.300848/page-5

All his greatest hits are there, including the classic "It would be nice if you actually read my posts" because if we disagree with him it's just because he's too intellectual for us common folk to understand his thought process.

Pass. I saw all of that at The Battle of Rian's Trilogy.

 

[XCV330]

Jedi and Sith are predisposed to be awesome. They can fly podracers and spacecraft and build robots as young children and apparently are pretty easy for Jedi to discover and wisk away for training. Luke, Anakin, Joey Ramone, and Rey are all particularly powerful force users. Their learning capability is faster, their abilities stronger. This makes them interesting but also very dangerous. There. end of it.

 

[Campe]

Jedi and Sith are predisposed to be awesome. They can fly podracers and spacecraft and build robots as young children and apparently are pretty easy for Jedi to discover and wisk away for training. Luke, Anakin, Joey Ramone, and Rey are all particularly powerful force users. Their learning capability is faster, their abilities stronger. This makes them interesting but also very dangerous. There. end of it.

I always thought Joey Ramone might have been a Force user.

 

[fireproof78]

Mary Sue is a meaningless term. It needs to be airdropped over Antarctica and forgotten.

I quite agree. It's rather meaningless, and more egregious because it can be dropped in without comment. No thought required.

 

[XCV330]

I always thought Joey Ramone might have been a Force user.

I have found that accepting that Kylo Ren actually IS Joey Ramone causes Star Wars to make a lot more sense and is infinitely more watchable.

 

[Campe]

^ I like it!

 

[BillJ]

...also again trying to denegrate a film no one had a problem with for thirty years to defend a gawdawful film isn't really being honest

You're trying to tear down a new film by constantly stating "but Luke!" over and over again. If it is fair for you to constantly compare the films, why can't others? I love the original Star Wars trilogy (have owned it in several formats over the years), but the Luke you keep pointing to simply isn't recognizable to me. It was pretty cut and dry that he had special abilities and mastered them pretty quickly. Yoda declared he was ready to fight Vader early in Return of the Jedi. After chiding him for not being ready at the midpoint of Empire. We don't even know if he returned to Dagobah in the intervening time?

I stand by my original thought on the matter: if Rey is a Mary Sue, then Luke is every bit as much a Mary Sue.

 

[JD]

he real difference between Luke and Rey is the same as the difference between active and passive .. Luke, and characters like him, have clear goals (learn the force and save the princess, or fighting crime or avenging their puppy) , characters like Rey don't.. their goals are mired in "the right thing" in the vaguest way, and by definition she doesn't ASK for anything (even Daisy Ridley when talking about Rey, admits she never asked for anything) .. and while characters like Luke might be special because they are powerful, characters like Rey are powerful because they are special. That means that characters like Luke must continually prove themselves.. they gotta keep doing the awesome shit, and sometimes they will fail, sometimes they won't .. but in the process he is constantly creating who is he is.. the mary sue, by contrast, just is.. she is just awesome by virtue of existing .. and who she is often more important than what she does .. and even if a character like Luke has natural ability, we see them working to keep that ability, it is being tested all the time .. where as Rey and the other mary sue is just born amazing, is gifted the powers when she needs them (why was Rey able to perform a mind trick without having seen it performed?) , she is given powers by needs of the plot, or she was given all her powers in her tragic and unseen backstory, nullifying the need for us to question any of it.. or the need to work that hard for any of it on screen. Even the male characters like Harry Potter than lean toward these traits, there is still a sense that they have many conflicts to overcome, goals that are specific that they want to accomplish, a sense of agency in their own story, Rey like characters will often appear weak and vulnerable when.. as far as the story goes, they are invincible. Take Han in Disney Solo movie, within two minutes of the film and after the character is established, he had three clear goals (to leave Corrilia, to get a ship of his own, and to be with the girl) where as Rey.. eh wants to leave, except she wants to stay and wait for her parents, yet she knows they aren';t coming back, and she doesn't really want to help, and she doens't really want to take Solo's job offer, and yet we know she will do the right thing despite the fact there is no reason considering her background for her to do it. Oh and about that Han solo movie, that three year time jump early on.. implies that he had some kind of training ..


yes.. actual training


I'm not saying that Luke is a super deep character.. it is a heros' journey.. a formula that might be as old as the hills, but popular culture really needed a new take on it when it came out. He was peppered with more complexity as the story went on.. peppered.. like sprinkled,, they didn't really radically change the simplistic aspects of his character too much.. unlike TLJ which decided "let's make Luke an asshole and totally different and fool people into thinking he is the same character because thirty years later he COULD be like that, but let's not earn it through real storytelling"..

he real difference between Luke and Rey is the same as the difference between active and passive .. Luke, and characters like him, have clear goals (learn the force and save the princess, or fighting crime or avenging their puppy) , characters like Rey don't.. their goals are mired in "the right thing" in the vaguest way, and by definition she doesn't ASK for anything (even Daisy Ridley when talking about Rey, admits she never asked for anything) .. and while characters like Luke might be special because they are powerful, characters like Rey are powerful because they are special. That means that characters like Luke must continually prove themselves.. they gotta keep doing the awesome shit, and sometimes they will fail, sometimes they won't .. but in the process he is constantly creating who is he is.. the mary sue, by contrast, just is.. she is just awesome by virtue of existing .. and who she is often more important than what she does .. and even if a character like Luke has natural ability, we see them working to keep that ability, it is being tested all the time .. where as Rey and the other mary sue is just born amazing, is gifted the powers when she needs them (why was Rey able to perform a mind trick without having seen it performed?) , she is given powers by needs of the plot, or she was given all her powers in her tragic and unseen backstory, nullifying the need for us to question any of it.. or the need to work that hard for any of it on screen. Even the male characters like Harry Potter than lean toward these traits, there is still a sense that they have many conflicts to overcome, goals that are specific that they want to accomplish, a sense of agency in their own story, Rey like characters will often appear weak and vulnerable when.. as far as the story goes, they are invincible. Take Han in Disney Solo movie, within two minutes of the film and after the character is established, he had three clear goals (to leave Corrilia, to get a ship of his own, and to be with the girl) where as Rey.. eh wants to leave, except she wants to stay and wait for her parents, yet she knows they aren';t coming back, and she doesn't really want to help, and she doens't really want to take Solo's job offer, and yet we know she will do the right thing despite the fact there is no reason considering her background for her to do it. Oh and about that Han solo movie, that three year time jump early on.. implies that he had some kind of training ..


yes.. actual training


I'm not saying that Luke is a super deep character.. it is a heros' journey.. a formula that might be as old as the hills, but popular culture really needed a new take on it when it came out. He was peppered with more complexity as the story went on.. peppered.. like sprinkled,, they didn't really radically change the simplistic aspects of his character too much.. unlike TLJ which decided "let's make Luke an asshole and totally different and fool people into thinking he is the same character because thirty years later he COULD be like that, but let's not earn it through real storytelling"..

You really need to just stop repeating the same stuff over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, if we disagreed with you the first, second, third, and fourth times, we're not going to just spontaneously start agreeing with you the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth time.
If your arguments aren't changing our minds, and you really want to, then you might want to try taking a different approach, and see if maybe you can get us to look at things that way. All you do when you keep repeating yourself is annoy people.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Mary Sue is a meaningless term. It needs to be airdropped over Antarctica and forgotten.

It used to have an actual meaning when it was about fan fiction and obvious self insert characters. It was the author’s fantasy playing out in fiction, which does not imply to Rey in any way. Now that run of Spider-Man written by JJ and his son has a decent example of a Mary Sue (or Gary Stu to be accurate), but Rey is your basic hero’s journey character.

A similar thing happened with plot holes. Plot holes were issues with writing that impact a story. Really as a tongue in cheek thing, like why could ET heal himself with his magic finger. But now it’s minor nitpicks and a lot of it is just people not paying attention to the story and blaming the movie for their confusion. Plus they’re treated as something that ruins a film instead of being an excuse for drama. Like in Alien, if they had listened to Ripley nothing would’ve happened. But a movie where a woman prevents an encounter with a terrifying monster from your deepest primal fears by following protocol is pretty boring.

 

[Masiral]

but the Luke you keep pointing to simply isn't recognizable to me.

This is something I've noticed a lot among those who attack the sequels. They seem to have a perfect, flawless, idealized version of the original trilogy in their heads that doesn't match reality.

 

[Spot261]

I always thought Joey Ramone might have been a Force user.

Jedi is a runt
The Rebels went down to Hoth, joined the Ice Capades
The X Wings they did fly
Oh, I don't know why
Perhaps they'll die, oh yeah

 

[Campe]

This is something I've noticed a lot among those who attack the sequels. They seem to have a perfect, flawless, idealized version of the original trilogy in their heads that doesn't match reality.

God, I love the OT, but perfect it is most definitely not.