this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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Maybe he would have had a chance as the bad guy if he wasn't defeated in the first movie by someone who picked up a lightsaber for the first time.
Eh, Star Wars has always played it pretty heavy with "the will of the Force." Luke one-in-a-million shot at the Death Star towards the end of ANH, for example. It's not like Rey had an easy life growing up as an orphan on a poor desert planet as a scavenger.
It was clearly demonstrated in the beginning of The Force Awakens that Rey is proficient with a quarterstaff so I had no trouble accepting she could pick up a lightsaber and grok it immediately. Quarterstaff to lightsaber should translate more easily than quarterstaff to longsword—eg no worries about edge alignment. Especially considering force sensitivity and all that pizazz.
Star Wars tells a story at the pace of a children’s tv show. Which is why we love it so much, it fits so much in.
Luke blasted womp rats, Anakin was a pod racer and Rey did crazy acrobatic shit while scavenging.
We got a small explanation which works if you know it’s Star Wars and you stop looking for a volume of exposition.
What was wrong with Darth Edgelord von Worf Effect vs Jedi Master Mary Sue?
I like to imagine Jaina Solo endlessly ribbing her brother over the absolute dumpster fire they replaced him with.
I'm not actually against this decision at all, I kind of liked the idea that he wasn't ready to live up to his potential. A hero in a trilogy needs their journey from farm boy to knight, and I was really ready for focus on the villain actually growing in ability. It would be hard not to like an antagonist with well written drive that we needed to see on screen, and we nearly got this too.
I didn't particularly like the force awakens in cinema but that's mostly because it didn't do anything new, except have a villain who both started as a villain and had a lot of potential to grow without redemption, which would have actually been kinda new for starwars where basically every character arc with growth is a good character corrupted or a bad one redeemed.
After the emotional turmoil of killing his father, and the massive gut wound caused by the bowcaster. He wasn't exactly fighting at 100%.
Also he didn't want to kill Rey, he wanted to convert her to the darkside, so he wasn't fighting to kill.
They explained that in context. He told Rey she needed a teacher, and she used the Force Knowledge Extract trick he unwittingly taught her when she was a prisoner.
Watch the fight again... She's getting her ass kicked, doesn't even know how to hold a lightsaber.
"You need a teacher..."
"You're right." Closes her eyes, force downloads the techniques Matrix style, THEN kicks his ass.
Also Ren had just killed his own dad and survived being shot by a gun that launches everyone else it hits clean off their feet. He wasn't exactly on his A game for that fight and the film made that clear
Killing his dad threw him into emotional turmoil, the light was gripping at him.
That’s why he kept punching his wound, to try to be angry instead of sad.
Even wounded he could have force choked her walked over and stabbed her through the guts with his lightsaber.
This would be a much better ending, because we all know getting stabbed by a lightsaber in Disney Star Wars is barely a flesh wound and she could be back for the next movie.
But he didn't want to kill her, he wanted to turn her to the dark side.
I still think Finn should have turned on the lightsaber, given it a dramatic twirl, and immediately cut off his own leg just to demonstrate how dangerous lightsabers are.
I mean... he picked up the lightsaber, dramatically went one on one with Kylo Ren and immediately got the shit kicked out of him. I thought that was fairly sensible.
It underlines that he's all rage and no restraint, straining to live up to Vader's reputation as an unstoppable force.
Or at least it should have if the movie was directed by someone less flashy and shallow than JJ Abrams. Studios have to stop giving that man final edit. Did we learn nothing from Schumacher's Batman films?