If you haven't seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens, just stop now, because I will spoil the movie for you. You still need to see it, because I think it was an awesome movie. Sure, it had flaws, but it was still an AMAZING movie.
DISCLAIMER - These are my thoughts and opinions. They are mine and are meant for entertainment and rant purposes only.
Now... On to my rant... You have been warned.
To all those nitpickers and whinny bitches that don't like the movie because it is a rehash of the 3-6, shut the hell up. I have been reading the same things over and over. The movie was a patchwork rehash of movies 3-6. Where there are some points that I can agree on and there were a few characters that I believe were completely underutilized, for the most part, I LOVED this movie. Let's take a look at some of the biggest complaints.
1.) One of the main characters found on a desert planet.
This can seem like lazy storytelling. But I think there is a logical explanation for Rey being on Jakku. My theory is this. Rey was hidden there so she wouldn't be discovered by the Dark Side. I'm pretty sure there are a few readers, sitting at their computers saying, "Well DUH..."
If you're thinking this, then why are you bitching about the main character on a desert planet? Follow my logic here... After seeing The Force Awakens a second time, I was able to gleam more clues to Rey's possible parentage and the reasons to why she was sent to Jakku. For now, we will focus on the reasons she was sent to, or rather, abandoned on Jakku.
At the end of Revenge of the Sith, we see Yoda exile himself on Degobah. Why did he go to Degobah? What was so special about Degobah? If someone as powerful as Yoda was going to disappear someplace that someone as powerful as Vader couldn't find him, Dagobah was the place for Yoda to go. According to the official sources, Degobah was so naturally saturated and pure with the Force, Yoda seemingly vanished and became part of the background noise of the planet. So any Sith or Jedi rolling up on the planet wouldn't be able to sense Yoda through all the static. It would be like looking for the copy of the copy, in a stack of copies. Sure, it can be done, but not worth the effort.
Meanwhile, we have Obi-Wan exiling himself to Tatooine. The reasoning for this was to watch over Luke as he grew. There isn't much in the official cannon that gives a reasoning beyond this. For the most part, Tatooine was far enough off the radar of the Empire to care.
There are two reasons that I have for Rey being hidden on Jakku. The first part is because it was far enough off the radar of The First Order, that they didn't care. Second, I think that it's because Rey's abilities were "sealed" to a point where she couldn't use them, or they couldn't be sensed by a Sith or Jedi who just happened by.
2.) Rey is a Mary Sue and 3.) Rey learned to use her powers to quickly.
I'm explaining my theories on these two things together, because they kind of tie together. Anikin's lightsaber is the big clue to this one. Personally, I don't think that Rey is a Skywalker. I hate to bring the midi-chlorians into this, but I think she's is the answer to the mistake that was Anikin. Anikin was supposed to bring balance to the force. There are arguments that he did, because he toppled the Jedi Order and thus there was no Jedi police force looming over the galaxy. However, this in turn, caused the Empire to rule with an iron fist. The galaxy traded one extreme for another.
If the Force is all about balance and the midi-chlorians are as inelegant as they are supposed to be, then it is possible that they created another child as their emissary to restore a balance that was never achieved? The reason why we have no clue as to her parentage, is because she doesn't have one. I don't think she's a female clone of Anikin. That's just some really crazy Mary Sue bullshit right there. You could loosely connect her to Anikin by saying she has the telemechanical aspect and the whole, birthed by midi-chlorians. Otherwise, she is her own person.
Now, we know from her memory flashes that she has met Luke before. We know from the flashes that she was trained at a young age to use the force. From what I could tell, she was as young as 4 and maybe as old as 8 years old. Those memory flashes go by pretty quick. If you didn't catch it the first time, you HEAR both Yoda and Obi-wan talking to her. I think that when shit goes down 10 years prior to the movie, Luke, knowing who and what she is, sealed her powers and memories for her own protection. Then to further protect her, sent her to one of the farthest planet where she would be safest. Once again Jakku is remote, out of the way, and no one cares. The First Order, suffering the fatal flaw of not checking bodies for a pulse, assumed the only one left alive was Luke. They spent all their time looking for Luke and not bothering with the insignificant youngling they thought was dead.
Luke leaves the lightsaber with Maz Kanata, knowing that eventually Rey would end up there looking for him and sends Artoo back to Leia with the last piece of the map to find him. The moment Rey touches the lightsaber, all the barriers and seals to her powers are lifted. With new access to her powers, Rey's training kicks in. It's like riding a bike, you never truly forget how to do it. So it isn't that she learned to use them quickly, she just remembered how to use them.
4.) The Starkiller Base was just Death Star 3.0 and way to easy to blow up.
This one does kind of bother me too. But it isn't something that I'm going to be all upset over. We can just blame really ineffective engineers for the fatal flaws in the building of planets that blow up other planets. You never know, it is very possible that the engineers are a doing their part to quietly subvert the First Order by putting in these fatal flaws for the Resistance to exploit.
5.) The acting wasn't very good.
You have seen the other movies... right? The acting isn't exactly Oscar worthy. Between the awkward chemistry, horrible writing, and the direction of Episodes 1-3, even Samuel L. Jackson didn't come out of those movies unscathed. Moving on to Episodes 4-6, there is a wonderful story of how Alec Guinness didn't even want to acknowledge his participation in the movies. Oscar winning, Sir Alec Guinness... Didn't want ANYONE to know he was in the films. So before you start to shake your fist at the screen and yell about the acting, please go back and watch Episodes 1-6 and then come back to me and whine about the acting in TFA.
Last Thoughts:
To those people out there that want to pick apart this movie, STOP IT! I'm sorry your imagining of the story isn't living up to your expectations. Yes, TFA has flaws. But when you compare it to Episode 1 and Episode 4, it's miles beyond Episode 1 and just short of Episode 4. TFA brought back the magic. It brought back the story telling that we all wanted. I'm interested in seeing the rest of Rey's journey. I'm invested in seeing Finn become more of a badass. I want to see Chewie rip off Ren's arms and beat him to death with those very arms. I am EXCITED like the little girl that ran into the house screaming "TAR WARS! TAR WARS!" Because someone put the music on. I want to burn rings into my Blu Ray copy because I watched it so many times, I know the dialog by heart, because I had to watch it again and again and again, so I can gleam every ounce of information I can, so I can sit with my friends and speculate on the next installment.
That is what Star Wars means to me. It is the mythology. It is the story. It is that good vs. evil fight that we all want to be a part of in some way. It is that escapism to a galaxy far, far away to have an adventure that makes me focus on something other than my mundane, boring life. It's when people nitpick and place real world expectations on a fantasy that ruins it for everyone else.
End Rant.
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