Are you talking about her fighting skills with a light saber or her force power skills?

If it's her fighting skills, Do you not see her survival on a rough planet fending and defending for herself as "hard work"? You'd know the difference between fighting with a staff as opposed to a sword better than I, but from a laymans stand point, her backstory seemed to be in-line enough to support her ability in combat. Assuming you were able to suspend belief enough to buy that Luke was one of the best pilots in the resistance the very first time he stepped in an xwing. And he was just a farmer his whole life.

If it's her ability with the force that bugs you, rian really didn't have her do much with the force in this movie. She picked up and moved a pile of rocks and had a force tug-o-war with Ren. And its been established that if you have the ability to wield the force, it doesn't take much training to actually wield it. Again, Luke was able to blindly deflect three laser shots on just his second attempt, having no swordsman ship skills to speak of (at least not introduced in the story as Rey's was) with nothing more than a vague sentence from obi wan in the way of training.

It doesn't seem like Reys character is out of bounds at all to me.

Regardless, i enjoy and appreciate the conversation. Saw it for the 4th time just now and each time I like it even better.
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Nice write up. Impressive that you were able to get through the whole thread and save your comments till the end.

I agreed with most of what you said here and walked away from the movie with allot of your same take - aways. However, I didn't follow this sentence above.
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The argument in introducing the kamikaze strategy is why didn't they do it to the death star or starkiller or whatever.

The statement you quoted was the only real way around that is 1. Nobody thought of it, which is lame. or 2. It would cost too much to outfit a kamikaze ship to destroy.

I'm sure hyperdrives cost money and I'm sure the marginal increase in power to move a big ship like the one Hondo used vs a smaller ship with Hyperdrive like an X wing or something. So more mass = more power to get to hyperspace. That would lead to the marginal cost of moving a unit of mass to hyperspace probably is pretty high.

Look at a semi truck vs a pickup truck vs a car. The cost per unit torque between a car and a pickup isn't that much, but as you get heavier, the cost per unit torque between a pickup and a semi is pretty high. Meaning the marginal cost (cost to move up one unit) gets pretty high as you get heavier.

So it is feasible that the hyperdrives for big ships are just too expensive to procure, but that's pretty out there. It's far more likely that it is just a big assed plot hole.

Here is some reading on Marginal costs if your're interested.
https://www.investopedia.com/video/p...st-production/
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I'm glad for you that you enjoyed the film.

This will be the first Star Wars film that I will not purchase on DVD/BluRay/Digital and it's extremely likely that I'll never watch it again. My enthusiasm for Episode IX is at an all time low and I'm expecting Solo to suck so bad that Disney will be forced to make changes at Lucasfilm.

This new trilogy has completely sucked the life out of me as a Star Wars fan, so much so that I couldn't give a rat's ass about the final 7 episodes of Star Wars Rebels or any new Star Wars television properties.
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Man, that sucks, Dane.

But so it goes. Just like the story of Star Wars being generational, the torch is passed. As you and others fall away, me and others fall in to fill the space.

As I said before, my Star Wars fandom is at an all-time high. I'm sorry that so many longtime, diehard fans are feeling such disappointment and even anger toward something they used to love. Never a good thing.
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My kids couldn't give a shit about Episode VIII, either.

I asked them if they wanted to see it in the theater again several times during their 23 Christmas break and each every time, they said "No".

So instead, we saw Wonder, Ferdinand and Coco again while my wife took the oldest to a screening of Jumanji (which they both loved).

And this is from a daughter who was Rey for Halloween two years in a row.

Coco is probably my favorite film of 2017 with The Boss Baby close behind.
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I'm excited to see Coco. Looks great.
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I get where you're coming from, but from my perspective it didn't even matter.

For me, I've given everything I had to sports in my younger years only to have my ass handed to me by more talented people with far less work ethic far too many times to ever truly buy into motivational poster stuff. Please don't take that as an insult to the tenant of your study. I merely mean that given my lack of natural ability, the ideas of "if you can believe it, you can achieve it", "95% mental 5% physical", "you can do anything you put your mind to" kind of thing. I realize those types of things are materially different than mind over matter, and again, I don't intend any offense to your studies.

Beyond that though, that's not the story. Luke's journey was to become a Jedi so he could become a hero. However, Jedi's have failed spectacularly over the course of time so being a Jedi isn't necessarily the path to success. Rey becoming herself is the story and her path to success. Luke failed because his decisions were driven by the ideas of what a Jedi would do. Rey has to become herself and do what is right against her own moral matrix as opposed to a conceived idea of a hero.

Is it likely that she could become as proficient as she is without mental training? I don't know - I'm not a combat guy, but I get the overall picture of what the movie is trying to say and it really resonates with me.
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I'd guess you're right as far as Disney's internal view of the performance.

And maybe this movie doesn't belong in a franchise. Franchises are HARD to keep going through time. And maybe this movie doesn't fit, I don't know. I just don't see how to do it differently and not have it be regurgitation of original trilogy stuff.

Now that JJ is on IX seemingly as a response to this film, I'm not amped about it.

Solo I always thought would be hard to get on screen right. Kenobi would be easier, but still harder. R1 was the easiest because all it was in the original series was a hard drive. Kenobi was a supporting character through 3/4 of a movie, Solo was a major character in all 3. That's tough.
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I've heard others' criticisms regarding this and I respect them. But I don't agree. This movie fits completely with the rest of the Saga, I think. And having rewatched TFA last week, I was stunned just how much of TLJ is really set up. I don't agree with the idea that Rian just said "fuck you JJ and fuck you fans" and totally changed course. It's all there as far as I can see.

But I totally understand those that did not identify or enjoy the new direction or relate to the themes in TLJ. It happened to work for me.
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Coco is great! Highly recommend.
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I agree with this. I think this movie worked very well with the entire saga. I don't know if JJ had something entirely different in mind, but if he did, he didin't relate any of it to Johnson if Johnson is to be believed (and no one has come out to refute it). What Rian produced worked well, IMO, with what was set up in TFA.
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I've been really impressed with all of Rian's responses, too. Love or hate the movie, it's clear that he really put a lot of thought into all the choices he made.
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Agreed. But I’m not trying to manage a giant franchise with media over 40 years.
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Wait....you actually liked The Boss Baby?
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