Caporegime
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should have just had her take on Snoke directly, absorb his Force lightning that he throws her way and then just utterly destroy him
Star Wars VIII : The Last Jedi [WARNING: SPOILERS]
- Thread starter opstrat
- Start date
should have just had her take on Snoke directly, absorb his Force lightning that he throws her way and then just utterly destroy him
I was thinking how they could save Star Wars from utter destruction in IX. There's a chance the whole thing is a complete misdirect, personally I don't think it's true and its ENTIRELY wishful thinking but... what if:
Snoke is some kind of ancient parasite that attaches itself to powerful force users in order to give himself life. Luke came across Snoke (maybe in a tomb or something) when he was searching for students/artefacts etc. He didn't know at first, it influenced him and his handling of his students which eventually resulted in thinking of killing Ben. Eventually it lead to a downward spiral and Luke is eventually cut-off from the force while Snoke grew in power. Think of it like the cursed King Theoden from LotR: Two Towers.
Events in the last part of TLJ all kind of take place within the same time frame so it's difficult to know exactly the sequence of events. However when Snoke is killed it's around the time Yoda turns up which is also when Luke starts acting like the old Luke and gets his mojo back.
It's already established that Snoke can create cross-galaxy bonds in the minds of force users. So what if Snokes death gave Luke back most of his power and this was why he was able to communicate with his old master and perform that cross-galaxy projection thing.
Maybe Luke's absorption into the force isn't what we think it is and instead is something to do with taking down Snoke. Perhaps it was to prevent Snoke from coming back to life by leeching onto Luke's power. Remember he spoke to Yoda for the first time in what must have been a long while. Like Obi Wan did in ESB, Yoda would have encouraged Luke into fighting the great threat the galaxy is facing rather than simply giving up the ghost (hah!) the way he appears to at the end. He would know what Luke needed to do.
So for IX:
Snoke returns, slaps down Kylo and begins to absorb him to regain his strength. Luke turns up either as a weaker character after re-manifesting to everyones surprise, this time however he's his old self (like King Theoden) and has the knowledge and clarity of mind in how to kill Snoke but can only do it through Rey. We find out who/what Rey is and she goes on to fulfil her destiny in destroying Snoke and saving Kylo. Then Luke along with Rey starts a New Order of Jedi for the distant future.
Without Snoke and Luke episode IX is a lost cause in my opinion. They were the two most important cogs in the story and they're far too easily discarded in the middle movie of the trilogy. I have suspicions that something is amiss, however I also have zero faith in the creative writing capability and foresight of Disney/Lucasfilm.
Snoke is some kind of ancient parasite that attaches itself to powerful force users in order to give himself life. Luke came across Snoke (maybe in a tomb or something) when he was searching for students/artefacts etc. He didn't know at first, it influenced him and his handling of his students which eventually resulted in thinking of killing Ben. Eventually it lead to a downward spiral and Luke is eventually cut-off from the force while Snoke grew in power. Think of it like the cursed King Theoden from LotR: Two Towers.
Events in the last part of TLJ all kind of take place within the same time frame so it's difficult to know exactly the sequence of events. However when Snoke is killed it's around the time Yoda turns up which is also when Luke starts acting like the old Luke and gets his mojo back.
It's already established that Snoke can create cross-galaxy bonds in the minds of force users. So what if Snokes death gave Luke back most of his power and this was why he was able to communicate with his old master and perform that cross-galaxy projection thing.
Maybe Luke's absorption into the force isn't what we think it is and instead is something to do with taking down Snoke. Perhaps it was to prevent Snoke from coming back to life by leeching onto Luke's power. Remember he spoke to Yoda for the first time in what must have been a long while. Like Obi Wan did in ESB, Yoda would have encouraged Luke into fighting the great threat the galaxy is facing rather than simply giving up the ghost (hah!) the way he appears to at the end. He would know what Luke needed to do.
So for IX:
Snoke returns, slaps down Kylo and begins to absorb him to regain his strength. Luke turns up either as a weaker character after re-manifesting to everyones surprise, this time however he's his old self (like King Theoden) and has the knowledge and clarity of mind in how to kill Snoke but can only do it through Rey. We find out who/what Rey is and she goes on to fulfil her destiny in destroying Snoke and saving Kylo. Then Luke along with Rey starts a New Order of Jedi for the distant future.
Without Snoke and Luke episode IX is a lost cause in my opinion. They were the two most important cogs in the story and they're far too easily discarded in the middle movie of the trilogy. I have suspicions that something is amiss, however I also have zero faith in the creative writing capability and foresight of Disney/Lucasfilm.
Poe wakes up...
@Steampunk I concede that without additional background as to why Rey is quite so powerful, this does make her a weak character. My previous post did not acknowledge that she was overpowered - I still like that’s she’s not from ‘lineage’ but she shouldn’t be quite so overpowered.
Forget the movie ever existed and just completely replace it - I think most of the audience are still in a place where they could accept that if they did something good. Another movie like TLJ and they will I think lose most of the audience who will turn to fan fiction, etc. instead.
One of the things that the first 3 movies did, not quite so well done in the subsequent ones is that if you didn't think too hard about it things like ship mechanics, etc. seemed sort of plausible in TLJ it is so in your face stuff like that isn't remotely plausible (outside of extremely convoluted explanations which says it all) that it makes it almost unwatchable unless you are easily amused.
I think that a background explanation not only would get around all Rey's Mary Sue issues, it would give her motivations for her actions (find her parents, learn her history, save relatives maybe like Kylo or Luke, etc). Rey yearns not just to be a Jedi, but to belong, to connect, to have a family, to give a meaning to her life, to give her a direction to follow. It would round out her character and make her more realised, we'd be able to identify with her on more than just wanting to be a Jedi. It would humanise her. These questions were set up in TFA, and blown out in TLJ, yet those are exactly the things that needed to be done properly across the whole of the writing of the film to bring it to an acceptable level of storytelling.
Even if Rey came from nowhere, teaming her up properly with Luke would have been an opportunity for her to connect to the Jedi and the previous movies. Separating her from Finn further separates her from any meaningful on screen relationship. Heck, even finding out she has some sort of connection to Kylo or Snoke would have set up an emotional and storyline conflict that would have give both characters some kind of motivation and direction.
Like so many blockbusters nowadays, TLJ relied on special effects and big action scenes, and ignored characters and plot. It's what's wrong with so many of today's movies. Without characters and plot, the film has no solid base, no framework to hang events on, and is just a lot of fireworks that end up being empty and meaningless.
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Soldato
The whole Rey MarySue thing is silly, you give her superpowers without training and you take away suspense, you'll just sit there thinking 'yeah she'll get out of this'. I feel like Kennedy/Disney had this idea about just letting anyone be badass, its not about lineage, its about self belief, problem is no one believes that, success is about trial and tribulation, you dont just wake up one day and be awesome, no matter what the media tell you!
You're right, the hero is supposed to have up and downs, is supposed to go on a journey of discovery and of realising themselves, but TLJ doesn't bother with any of that. That's down to Girl Powa Kennedy and bad writing, but I think that JJ Abrams intended to explain it somehow in TLJ. Johnston was not up to the task or willing to take his lead from the previous film
Soldato
On this particular scene what I imagined is that, having had Kylo try a "Jedi Mind Trick" to access her mind she's seen/felt how it's done, which is why she tries it with the Storm-Trooper later on. She doesn't know that it was a "Jedi Mind Trick" but that, having experienced someone try to force her mind do something she didn't want it to, she has learnt how it works and was then trying the same thing herself which, as she is still learning, is why it takes a few attempts before it finally works.
Thats just how I saw it.
Exactly.
It's quite alarming how this has to be explained, maybe if they'd mentioned something about the force being awakened in Rey, perhaps in the title....
I'm more than happy to accept Rey as some kind of avatar of the Force, where she's guided hugely by the Force to explain her capabilities, but there's got to be some kind of explanation or reasoning as to how that's possible ie what makes her different from everyone else, why the Force needs to work through her in this manner. It doesn't have to be realistic, just consistent with the rules of the fictional universe. It's laid out in TFA as something to be explained in the followup, but in TLJ it's just thrown away and not addressed.
The only heroic figure I can think of that isn't explained, has no meaningful background and just "is", is probably The Tick. That's part of the joke though, that the question is never answered.
The only heroic figure I can think of that isn't explained, has no meaningful background and just "is", is probably The Tick. That's part of the joke though, that the question is never answered.
in reply to nitefly above i can't really say it better than this.
rays parents don't have to be someone we've heard of (a skywaker etc.) but she needs some kind of explanation as to why she is so powerful, something at least moderately consistent with the fictional universe she exists in.
heroes need something to overcome, they need a hardship so we can root for them, and characters need appropriate back stories - thats just how good fiction works.
It was set up to have something like that in TFA - lots of potentially interesting threads were set up in TFA and they were all thrown away in TLJ; which is fine, but only if you replace them with something else, but we got NOTHING.
Now JJ has to rescue this piece of crap story and will likely retcon the whole thing because something has to be done.
Soldato
Exactly, i have no issue if they want to introduce this idea that hey anyone can be a force user, we saw this in the prequels with the jedi temple, thousands of people using and training with the force. Its not some royalty that use it, everyone has the opportunity to be a jedi. Just dont throw a MarySue at us and expect us to just accept it, jedis need training and if they dont why isnt everyone in ANH just force pushing everyone into garbage compactors?
Soldato
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If they’d just followed the usual trope of her pod delivering her to Jakku when her home World Krypton exploded when she was a baby it would have been so much clearer.
But of course I’m being a grouch cos we all remember how Luke learned the Jedi mind trick after seeing it once in Mos Eisley and it wasn’t like we had to wait until he’d been trained by Yoda and fought his dad ESB and returned to Tatooine in ROTJ before he uses it. Right.
Soldato
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I have the slightly different take that Kylo inadvertently broke something that had been supressing her force abilities. Possibly placed on her, as well as being left on Jakku, for her own safety.
But hey, thanks Rian for ‘subverting’ that.
Soldato
I gave my understanding of the scene which may/may not be correct but at least I stayed factual - As I said, someone used a mind trick on Rey and "maybe" that's how she learned it, from the experience of having it done to her, not because she "saw it once" which is just a bad example of a strawman IMHO.
Again, thats just my interpretation of that one specific scene.
Soldato
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@ianh I apologise if I was unnecessarily sarcastic it was not aimed so much at you as the possibility that that was RJ’s intent and what I see as a cavalier attitude to the lore and canon of probably the biggest IP in the World.
Soldato
No probs.
I agree with this absolutely, it almost feels like he's somehow anti-SW with the way he's treated the SW saga with TLJ.
I agree with this absolutely, it almost feels like he's somehow anti-SW with the way he's treated the SW saga with TLJ.
Caporegime
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This is akin to the Abrams revelation on Star Trek to I think it was...Colbert maybe? He said something like so did you love Star Trek as a kid, and he said he never liked it and didn't watch it.
How do literally billion dollar franchise owners not go hey, do you, you know, like Star Wars/Star Trek and understand what the film needs to be about? No, okay we'll go with someone who does.
Abrams just utterly changed everything about Star Trek and Johnson did the same with Star Wars.
They both made them as if for the most part they didn't exist in a broader universe but only their own films so how any of the tech/science worked had no meaning. But those things that stay consistent from one film/series to the next is exactly the fundamental reason that fans get drawn into franchises, the quality of the world.
The best book series, the best films, the best tv shows all build brilliant worlds and let people live out stories in them. If you just randomly change the entire world, then suddenly everything you know is wrong and nothing makes any sense any more.
Abrams and Johnson both wrote and made their films as if the previous worlds simply never existed (outside of character names) and just did whatever they wanted no matter how much it utterly broke everything that came before and MUCH more importantly, broke most of the things people actually liked about those universes.
Absolutely - especially the importance of the quality of the world is something that seems to have been thrown under a bus of late.