First of all, thank you for responding even if most if it is just fluff to avoid addressing 90% of what was said.
Luke, with one or two introductory sessions of Force-training, makes a shot veteran star fighter pilots couldn't make, flying a craft he'd never flow before.
Correction: Didn't make. Veteran star fighter pilots didn't make it. And didn't is not the same as couldn't.
That's not implausible? Is it significantly less so than what Rey did?
No, its not implausible. Squadrons of craft have been engaging difficult targets for most of human history in some form or other and it usually comes done to a numbers game where the number of attempts made are as important as the skill of the attempts made. We have a sample size of two here, so its really impossible for you to extrapolate that its an implausible shot to make or that it required the force to make it.
Did anyone say it was impossible to make? I mean, someone did actually make it...
Not really, when you compare the basic facts. I'll allow that Luke's story is less awkwardly presented (I never claimed that TFA had was a flawless masterpiece of a script), but a few moments' unbiased consideration should make it clear that Rey's feats as a pilot aren't really much more unlikely in the context of the Star Wars franchise. Just not as well-presented.
Reys performance is objectively better than anything ever seen on screen in the SW universe before. This is not debatable. I want you to watch the ROTJ Death Star run again, which was the previous benchmark for the best piloting ever seen on screen, and tell me with a straight face Rey's scene is not more difficult. And then I will call you a liar.
In other words, the audience has to fill in a few more gaps for themselves, perhaps more than they should ideally have to (but at the same time, there's a reason for the maxim "show don't tell), but its not really hard to do so in a plausible way, if you're familiar with Star Wars.
The problem is the movie told us she was not a pilot of that level, because the whole gist of the movie up to this point was that she was a street urchin living hand to mouth sleeping in a dumpster. Telling us she scavenged a few star ship parts and moved a few broke ass junkyard lemons around the lot here in there is not establishing her as a good pilot, its establishing a ceiling to her skill. The circumstances box her in, instead of hinting at something open ended.
I think you understand this just fine, you just don't like it.
And we see Rey working with space craft parts, piloting a speeder, etc. And, as you note below, a line that she has flow shit before. Its not as much, maybe- but then, I don't need the film to hold my hand and drop explanations for every single thing Rey knows how to do. I don't need some exposition explaining how she learned to walk, or talk, or salvage space craft parts for that matter. We've seen time and again that being able to pilot a space craft in Star Wars isn't exactly an elite, high-end skill like it is in the real world, even if you aren't Force sensitive. Its something within the means of ordinary citizens- even not particularly wealthy ones or limited to certain professions.
1.) Working on space craft parts means nothing. Watto worked on space craft parts. Jawas work on space craft parts. You have talked yourself into thinking this is some important bell-weather. Even if it was you are following it the wrong way. Once you are a pilot it probably becomes useful to become familiar with some aircraft parts. The second follows the first. A good aircraft mechanic doesn't have to be a pilot to be good at their job. I said this before, but would you be comfortable with me pulling the myraid Boeing qualified engine mechanics out of their hangers and plopping them into your next airfare's pilot seat?
2.) Piloting (is that what we call that, I am pretty sure way DRIVING a speeder) a speeder is to piloting a space craft as driving a Honda is to flying an F15. And of note the speeders we see on this world (and analogous Tatooine) are not the high flying things or Coruscant. You are welcome to object, but the common folk in Sudan are not driving the Ferraris of LA if you catch my drift. The point is driving speeders is irrelevant. Luke drove a speeder, nobody claims this was some foreshadowing of his piloting skills.
3.) I don't need explanations for everything Rey does, but since I am not watching a two hour Rey variety talent show of unexplained marvels (as see on Ripley's Believe It Or Not!) but instead a movie I expect something to make sense. Part of a movie is telling a story. Part of telling a story is explaining why the things we are seeing are the way they are.
And I'll point to a canon precedent- Anakin Skywalker. Who flew a starfighter and won the battle of Naboo at age nine, despite having previously been a slave on a backwater planet (actually lower in status than Rey appears to have been, and presumably with less life experience due to his age), who's prior flying experience was apparently limited to pod racing.
You keep bringing up canon as if that refutes anything anyone has said. Nobody has denied it is canon. The point, the infuriating and saddening point, is that it IS canon. This unimaginative, poorly written, Mary Sue BS is with us forever. Just like Anakin. You don't seem to be understanding that pointing out hat Rey is just like a universally accepted Mary Sue just proves how much she is one too.
But since you brought it up AGAIN, Anakin is so much better than Rey. For one, most of the piloting we see Anakin do was autopilot. And "try spinning" and subsequently crashing ain't exactly comparable to what we see Rey do. If you are reading some sort of competent ability into what you we see Anakin do in that scene, latent or otherwise, you missed the point. That scene was about slapstick luck, so divorced in tone and stucture from what we see Rey OR Luke do in their scenes its sort of laughable you feel the need to compare them.
This is one of the primary complaints about TPM, that we are subjected these cartoon kiddie romps in what otherwise a relatively standard (if boring) SW tone drama, whether it be cartoon whatever tripping over themselves in what is supposedly a life or death ground battle or an unnamed Sesame Street extra kid spinning WHEEEEEEE!!!! through a droid command ship supposedly violently oppressing an entire planet of people.
If you are holding Rey up to the light (the garish cartoon light) of TPM for points you have already lost.
Is it silly? Yeah, you could say that. But its no more silly, again, than, say, Neo downloading Kung Fu into his brain, or (for a flying-related example) Trinity instantly downloading how to pilot a helicopter like an ace in The Matrix. Its just how this fictional universe appears to work.
Are you completely oblivious to the amount of time and dialogue devoted to setting up all of that to happen. Literally the entire first movie is about explaining that to you in excruciating detail. This demonstrates the exact opposite of what you are intending it to. Are you thinking about these examples at all before you bring them up?
If you tell me you've driven some jalopies around the junk yard for food rations I will not accept you wining the Indy 500 two scene and a day of movie time later. If you tell me you are a hotrod with your friends in your free time and dirt race Devi's Gouge while shooting raccoons out the drivers window I'll accept accomplishing something more difficult but essentially the same thing later in the same film.
Yeah, because piloting a civilian craft for sport totally prepares you for being a fighter pilot.
You do understand that is EXACTLY how you train actual fighter pilots, right?.
The point isn't that they both use a lesser capable version of the same thing. The point is that in one movie a character does something broadly similar and relevant in the first as he later does in the second, and in another movie the character does nothing at all resembling what she does in the second in the first.
Do you think it was a coincidence that ANH pointed out he was used to flying in canyons and just happened to be end up flying in a (metal) canyon? Do you think it was a coincidence that ANH point it out he was used to shooting a exhaust port sized rodents while flying in said canyon when he just happened to end up shooting a rodent sized exhaust port in a steep sided metal trench?
This thing you seem confused about is called movie writing. I understand your issue as we very rarely see it these days, but its absence is acutely noted when a modern film is intimately linked a quality property from a time people knew how to do it.
This is part of why I bring the gender thing up: because Luke is being held to a different standard in this discussion than Rey.
You have yet to establish this in any way shape or form. And now its confirmed you are using this as a screen to avoid addressing the arguments arrayed against you.
Now, granted, their might be more than one reason for that- Episode IV is a better-written and directed film. Also, Luke has long been established as an iconic character, which means he gets the benefit of nostalgia and rose-tinted glasses.
But the fact remains that, for whatever reasons, Luke is being held to a different standard, to the point that you and Khaat are both severely twisting canon to justify it- as in you actually asserting that flying a star fighter in combat conditions and making a shot that veteran pilots found difficult is "essentially the same thing" as screwing around in a civilian craft on Tatooine. Or both you and Khaat essentially arguing that no, all the indications that it was a difficult-bordering-on-impossible shot in the film, and the film's clear intent to that effect, don't really count. Anything to make Luke's shot seem more "plausible" compared to "Mary Sue" Rey.
Yeah, I gave you a long, reasoned, numbered list supporting all of this. A list you have yet to address. So this is technically a concession by you.
News flash, rookies put in good and even amazing performances all the time. Above and beyond what you expect, but even rookies get recruited out of somewhere. Even walk ons have to pass tryouts. This is what Rey is missing, this bare minimum of characterization. The problem isn't that Rey performed something amazing, its that it was not set up correctly in a dramatic enterprise.
See: this is what I'm talking about.
Rey is show routinely piloting a land speeder, working on and around space craft components, and says she has piloted stuff before. This is reduced to being the equivalent of "I just drove down the street once."
1.) She is not shown routinely piloting a land speeder. We are SHOWN her doing that twice.
2.) Space craft components are irrelevant.
3.) Her piloting establsihment is to stress how little she has done, not how very much.
Yes, this is exactly "grandpappy let me drive his Caddy down the driveway once. (now with TRR bonus commentary track "WHHHHOOOAAAA THATS AWESOME!!!! THATS SO MUCH COOLER THAN THOSE
BOYS")" That's all she is given. Sorry, thats the breaks.
Anakin flies pod-racers (distinctly NOT space-capable), and IIRC its mentioned in the film that he never finished a race prior to the movie. This is treated as a more credible basis for him being a successful starfighter pilot, despite the fact that he's a little kid.
Exactly? Was your intent to tell us how just how superior Anakin's driving experience characterization is to Rey's?
Double-standard. Maybe its not about gender. But for whatever reason, you clearly are not holding Rey to the same standard as her predecessors.
There's our comfortable safety blanket again...
There is no double standard for anyone here but you. I am using a single consistent standard, "how much characterization did a protagonist get for the things we see them do later." This has been consistently applied by everyone else here. You literally just typed out the evidence for both Rey and Anakin and then willfully stated 1+1 = 3 for Rey, and 0 for everyone else .
You see the problem, you even state it outright, you just don't like the answer. You have admitted over and over again that Rey is under characterized compared to Luke and Anakin but insist the result is the same. Learn to math son!
Sure. But he was still able to fly a completely unfamiliar type of craft, in combat conditions, and end up as one of the ten percent or so of pilots present who survived, in addition to making that final shot. Hell, he outlasted Wedge fucking Antilese.
Just from looking at them visually, not even taking into consideration form and function, which do you think is more dissimilar? Luke's T-16 and an X-wing or Rey's landspeeder and the MC? This is am objective comparison, the right answer is obvious but I'll just quote someone more knowledgeable on such things:
"T-16s are a lot like the snubfighters we're using." "I know, I looked one over. I'm sure I can handle it."
I'll let you puzzle of who said that, and when. Hint: Its REALLY relevant.
The lengths to which you and Khaat are going to bend over backwards to downplay what Luke did in order to make Rey seem more ridiculous are getting quite silly.
You could say it as that, or you could say its just evidence we are not into wanking characters like you are with (to?) Rey?
There is, to my knowledge, no evidence that Obi-wan was actively assisting Luke's use of the Force. He literally just gave him a five second psychic pep talk to remind him to use the Force rather than do things the "conventional" way.
And while you are correct that Luke was not relying on purely latent ability, in contrast to Rey, I will point again to Anakin as a precedent for latent ability aiding piloting.
I didn't say Obi Wan assisted him using the force, I said he REMINDED him to use it himself. He had to do that because he, a Jedi Master, did not believe in this latent force ability mumbo jumbo you peddle.
Its kind of funny that you are actively diminishing Luke's achievements in order to make him seem better as a character compared to Rey. And I'm saying this as an unapologetic Luke fan boy.
Translation: You are saying this as an nonobjective observer, so we should be discounting most of what you say as unreliable.
Here is your problem, you are wanking Luke. As much as you complain about double standards you are the one putting the male on the pedestal here. You are the one downplaying Rey. You haven't really provided reasons for doing either. Its almost like you have a predilection to build up the achievements of one character over another due a quality unrelated to the actions on screen....
Oh, you don't like that (and don't pretend your sphincter didn't clench in rage as you read that, nobody would believe you)? Then stop doing it to others.
And by the way, I am saying not impressive relative to what we are comparing them to, which is Rey's performance. This is literally the topic of this entire exchange, so yeah...
You are really going to some... impressive extents to bash Rey.
I mean, I sure thought that the film sure treated it as impressive. I kind of thought that was the point of the big build-up, with the multiple failed runs, including a failed shot by the presumably veteran commander of the squadron, and the Rebel pilot saying it was an impossible shot even for a computer, and Luke having to use the Force to do it, before he saves the entire Rebellion in the nick of time by making that big climactic shot.
But I guess it was nothing extraordinary after all. Silly me.
Again, impressive relative to Rey.
However, you seem to have misunderstood that scene. The triumph of it comes from the consequences of what takes place, not from the performance of Luke. Nor does it matter if it was Luke, unless you think if Red Leader had done it the response would have been different. Do you think Luke or Red Leader wouldn't have gotten a medal if they had strolled up the exhaust port unopposed and came back proclaiming it was a piece of cake?
You don't seem to be up on your military culture but there are lots of stories where soldiers try and refuse medals because while the results of their actions turned out momentous or consequential they don't consider their actions individually noteworthy. They were just the ones in the right place at the right time. They just happened to be the SECOND person out of the trench. The enemy just happened to throw that grenade in the foxhole five feet over there. They just happened to be they guy who survived, so they are there to get the medal. They are promptly chastised for thinking they are getting that medal for their own vanity, instead of wearing it for others both to honor (the dead) and inspire (the living). People need heroes, even if we foist that honorific onto the best vessel available because of pesky things like most heroes dying during events that prompt awkward movie finale medal ceremonies. Its even better if the stand in is an involved hero himself (like Luke). That ain't the best lense, however, to evaluate the mechnics of that persons actually involvement in the affair. As I said, Luke just stayed alive, partly because he was being protected by those who died, and got to make an unopposed (eventually) torpedo run.
It the case of Rey, however, her performance doesn't matter to anyone at that point. Had she died the entire SW universe wouldn't have even spared the energy to yawn. And of course she didn't get a medal ceremony. However, I hope you realize your reaction to the post DS explosion in ANH is skewed if you though they were all cheering and happy just because Luke is so freaking awesome. There was a bit more to it that that.
There's no indication that he telekinetically pushed the torpedoes- but if he did, that would likely be a far more impressive feat than simply using the Force to assist his piloting/targeting, and actually make Luke's feat more ridiculously impressive, not less. Which would strengthen my argument.
Yeah, that was my point. But it didn't so your position remains weak.
And sure, he was shooting at a stationary target... while moving very fast, trying not to crash into the walls of the trench, aiming at a target that was only slightly wider than the torpedoes he was trying to fire down it, and which prior attack runs had failed to hit.
We wend over this already, however do you think Begger's Canyon was straight as an arrow? Do you think womp rats are stationary? Which one's more impressive again, flying straight and shooting stationary targets or flying not straight and hitting moving targets?
As noted, Red Leader was being shot at. Luke wasn't.
Or the Will of the Force.
Simple viewers require simple movies.
No way to say weather Red Leader would have made it under the same circumstances as Luke. All we know is that Red Leader didn't make it, and Luke did, by using a technique that was unavailable to any of the other pilots there.
Red Leader didn't make it....while being shot at. You can't make the comparison you want to, Luke had the easiest run of all the pilots that got a shot at the port. This doesn't suggest the force was needed to make the shot.
But I'm not going to spend any more time trying to convince you that Luke hitting the Death Star port was a big deal, because this is getting too silly.
You concession is accepted. Thats what it means when you refuse to address arguments made.
I strongly suspect, in hindsight, that he was using the Force latently, just like Anakin and Rey. Because otherwise, him surviving that fight, with or without help, when 90% of the pilots present bought it and he had never flown an X-wing or flown in space combat before, would be every bit as implausible as anything Rey did. I expect, barring some EU statement on it, there's no way to prove it either way, however.
In your mind, do you believe that when bomber formations went over Germany in WWII 100% of survivors were veterans, and 100% of rookies were included in the casualties?
You seem to be suggesting that if any rookie survives, all or at least most veterans must be dead already. Or that surviving in and of itself makes you the most impressive person that went out in the first place vice the only one left to honor. That the person who brings the baton across the finish line is more important that the person who passed it to them (and in Luke's case died passing it to him).
When I watch the ANH Death Star scene I see a heroic Luke, but I also see far more competent and brave pilots doing far more impressive things like taking it upon themselves to be the first ones int he trench at the height of enemy opposition. But hey, you go for the shiny living object.
I'll also point out that Rey might have been flying in more difficult terrain, but it was also terrain she personally was likely very familiar with, and it was likely at considerably lower velocities.
I drive by lots of buildings on my way to work. I have even been in many of them. The giant one I work in I know like the back of my hand. I couldn't drive my car through it without killing myself, or at least destroying my car. The chances for me and my vehicle doesn't change if I do it with an F-16 instead of a Toyota.
Again, I acknowledge that their may be other reasons why people hold Luke to a different standard, but in some cases it is about gender, I think. And unfortunately, once a meme takes root, people start buying into it unthinkingly, even if they don't have the same motives.
I am not calling anyone here a misogynist. The closest I came was probably my "its okay because he has a dick" comment to Khaat earlier, and that was partly just me repaying needless snideness in kind.
You make it sound like I am using accusations of sexism to dodge having to refute others' arguments. This is not the case. I have provided multiple counterarguments (which have been met by some of the most ridiculous rebuttals I've ever seen) that had nothing to do with gender.
And I mentioned it because I think that in some cases, it applies. As to weather it applies to any specific person posting in this thread, I can't say.
I didn't make it sound like that. This is exactly what I said. You continue to do this.
In summary:
Nothing Rey does is necessarily extraordinarily implausible or rediculous by the established standards of the Star Wars franchise. However, the inferior presentation (and the fact that A New Hope is a beloved classic) may make it harder for some of the audience to suspend disbelieve for Rey and TFA.
You just called her a Mary Sue.
Also, for whatever reason (and in some cases, though not all, I do think its partly about gender), I also feel Luke and Anakin are being held to a laxer standard of criticism and evidence than Rey.
Do you want to support this (No, you have not done so yet)?