Nadru Posted December 21, 2015 Share Posted December 21, 2015 (edited) I already warned you but hit the button anyway! A lot has been made of Rey's ability to "use the force" without training. It made me think about exactly how much force training characters we know had, and I thought it interesting enough to have a discussion. To start off with, prior to Revenge of the Sith, Jedi began their training while they were toddlers. Five was considered a late age to begin training. Under this pretense, Rey's feat of picking up the force seems untenable, but remember, we are after Revenge of the Sith in the timeline. Jedi trained after Revenge of the Sith did not have the same skill level, especially when it came to saber fighting. This is shown in the different fighting styles and explained by Lucas on several occasions. Luke always used two hands on the saber, where better trained Jedi were able to use them one handed. Now we've talked about post Revenge of the Sith Jedi, but essentially that is Luke, Kylo, a bunch of people Kylo killed and Rey. So let's look at Luke: Luke got trained by Obi Wan during a 25 minute hyperspace flight between Tatooine and Alderaan. He was shown how to deflect blaster fire with a lightsaber, by feeling the force and letting it guide him. After this flight, Obi Wan is killed. Luke's next bit of "training" is a disembodied voice telling him to use the force and trust his feelings versus using his targeting computer. And that is the end of A New Hope. Empire Strikes Back opens with Luke having to pull his lightsaber to him from the snow. While some time has passed between ANH and ESB, Luke did not have a trainer. His reaction to Obi Wan on Hoth would make one assume Obi Wan had not manifested himself to Luke before in such a manner. Add this to the fact that Obi Wan would have directed him to Degobah sooner if he had. So, Luke had exactly 25 minutes of training. How does this relate to Rey? She grew up on her own. She has a strong connection to the force, but she does not understand it. She has extensive melee weapon experience. When Kylo Ren tried to read her mind, she started to understand her power. This makes perfect sense for the following reasons: Jedi mind-tricks only work on weak minded. Rey is not weak-minded.Force users can sense other forcer users. When Kylo Ren attempted to read her mind, she could feel what he was doing and she was able to fight him, but more importantly mimick him. Kylo even refrences this when he say, Do not be afraid, I feel it too.Using her experience from that encounter, she attempted to mind-trick the Stormtroopers. Her first two attempts failed, then she focused and cleared her mind and was sucessful. For these reasons, I don't feel this was far-fetched. Again if you think back to Obi Wan and Yoda training Luke, his biggest problems were himself. Clearing your mind, letting the force flow, these were the things they had to teach him. He was always gun-ho and wanting to do something. On the other hand, Rey lived a very calm and peaceful life. She was hardly even around anyone to talk with, off alone with her thoughts. Clearing her mind would be a much easier task for her. Which brings us to her force pulling the lightsaber. First we've already established that Luke performed the same feat with hardly any training. Second we've established that she has a much calmer mind. When she saw Kylo going for the saber, it would be very easy for her to close her mind, and picture the weapon coming to her. Kylo also made this easier for her as he was the one that removed it from the snow bank. Once it was free, snatching it from the sky would have been easier. Remember Yoda's words to Luke when he raised the X-Wing from the swamp. Luke said I don't believe it. Yoda replied, that is why you fail. Lastly we have the lightsaber duel. While not directly using the force, we know Rey has experience with melee weapons. We do not know how much training Kylo has. We know he had some training from Luke, who had little training and was not as accomplished with a saber as pre Revenge of the Sith jedi. Add into this that Kylo is injured, the fight is not unbelievable. IMHO Edited December 21, 2015 by Nadru Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxetius Posted December 21, 2015 Share Posted December 21, 2015 (edited) Novelization covers the fight nicely. She beat Ben because he was badly injured by the bow caster and really, really trying not to injure her - he was trying to break her mentally - He actually recognizes her as someone from his past. Who is left a question mark though. And yes, she was using the force. The movie actually references this. Earlier she's told to 'close your eyes and let the force guide her' and she balks at this and runs away. At the end of the movie she - closes her eyes and lets the force guide her. In the novelization, she also feels the call of the dark side as she lands the final blow and a voice telling her to finish Ben off, although she recoils from it. Since it also reveals that Snoke was 'whispering' to Ben since he was a child, it seems he was whispering to Rey as well. Edited December 21, 2015 by maxetius Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DinoDo Posted December 21, 2015 Share Posted December 21, 2015 Novelization covers the fight nicely.Should movie goers really be forced to read additional material in order to fully understand a scene in they watched for themselves? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SithKoriandr Posted December 21, 2015 Share Posted December 21, 2015 Should movie goers really be forced to read additional material in order to fully understand a scene in they watched for themselves? Outside of anal retentive star wars fans, I'd say the general SW fan accepted what played out and saw Ben was injured during the fight, and didn't seem to be after killing her, watching again last night, Snoke even wanted Rey brought to him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SootyTX Posted December 21, 2015 Share Posted December 21, 2015 Should movie goers really be forced to read additional material in order to fully understand a scene in they watched for themselves? I've only seen TFA once and picked up almost all that without having to read anything, other than the explicit identity of anyone whispering in Rey's mind. I think she did a great job of conveying that something was going on internally, that there was something, or someone, guiding her in a small way. Also, we don't know what will be revealed in the next 2 movies. I think it's a little sad that people can't bear to allow things to remain a mystery and see how it plays out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldskoolfunk Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 (edited) I already warned you but hit the button anyway! A lot has been made of Rey's ability to "use the force" without training. It made me think about exactly how much force training characters we know had, and I thought it interesting enough to have a discussion. To start off with, prior to Revenge of the Sith, Jedi began their training while they were toddlers. Five was considered a late age to begin training. Under this pretense, Rey's feat of picking up the force seems untenable, but remember, we are after Revenge of the Sith in the timeline. Jedi trained after Revenge of the Sith did not have the same skill level, especially when it came to saber fighting. This is shown in the different fighting styles and explained by Lucas on several occasions. Luke always used two hands on the saber, where better trained Jedi were able to use them one handed. Now we've talked about post Revenge of the Sith Jedi, but essentially that is Luke, Kylo, a bunch of people Kylo killed and Rey. So let's look at Luke: Luke got trained by Obi Wan during a 25 minute hyperspace flight between Tatooine and Alderaan. He was shown how to deflect blaster fire with a lightsaber, by feeling the force and letting it guide him. After this flight, Obi Wan is killed. Luke's next bit of "training" is a disembodied voice telling him to use the force and trust his feelings versus using his targeting computer. And that is the end of A New Hope. Empire Strikes Back opens with Luke having to pull his lightsaber to him from the snow. While some time has passed between ANH and ESB, Luke did not have a trainer. His reaction to Obi Wan on Hoth would make one assume Obi Wan had not manifested himself to Luke before in such a manner. Add this to the fact that Obi Wan would have directed him to Degobah sooner if he had. So, Luke had exactly 25 minutes of training. How does this relate to Rey? She grew up on her own. She has a strong connection to the force, but she does not understand it. She has extensive melee weapon experience. When Kylo Ren tried to read her mind, she started to understand her power. This makes perfect sense for the following reasons: Jedi mind-tricks only work on weak minded. Rey is not weak-minded.Force users can sense other forcer users. When Kylo Ren attempted to read her mind, she could feel what he was doing and she was able to fight him, but more importantly mimick him. Kylo even refrences this when he say, Do not be afraid, I feel it too.Using her experience from that encounter, she attempted to mind-trick the Stormtroopers. Her first two attempts failed, then she focused and cleared her mind and was sucessful. For these reasons, I don't feel this was far-fetched. Again if you think back to Obi Wan and Yoda training Luke, his biggest problems were himself. Clearing your mind, letting the force flow, these were the things they had to teach him. He was always gun-ho and wanting to do something. On the other hand, Rey lived a very calm and peaceful life. She was hardly even around anyone to talk with, off alone with her thoughts. Clearing her mind would be a much easier task for her. Which brings us to her force pulling the lightsaber. First we've already established that Luke performed the same feat with hardly any training. Second we've established that she has a much calmer mind. When she saw Kylo going for the saber, it would be very easy for her to close her mind, and picture the weapon coming to her. Kylo also made this easier for her as he was the one that removed it from the snow bank. Once it was free, snatching it from the sky would have been easier. Remember Yoda's words to Luke when he raised the X-Wing from the swamp. Luke said I don't believe it. Yoda replied, that is why you fail. Lastly we have the lightsaber duel. While not directly using the force, we know Rey has experience with melee weapons. We do not know how much training Kylo has. We know he had some training from Luke, who had little training and was not as accomplished with a saber as pre Revenge of the Sith jedi. Add into this that Kylo is injured, the fight is not unbelievable. IMHO Sorry, but I feel a lot of the people so puzzled by this have lost the idea of what the force is, and what Jedi training is for. Jedi/Sith training is not about discovering the force in their selves. It is about controlling their emotions. The Jedi train physically to build discipline and focus. This is to avoid giving in to deeper passions like fear or anger. Anakin's younger self was amazingly good at pod racing because of his connection to the force and his strength in it. Ezra in Star Wars Rebels (canon by Disney standards) performs feats bolstered by the force without any training in the pilot episode. Again, the training isn't about gaining force abilities. It is about controlling oneself. That was always the point. Edited December 22, 2015 by oldskoolfunk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeTone Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 I really get the feeling that Rey was once a Youngling and the sole survivor of the Jedi Massacre. The main conflict is that she has never met Luke before (but dreams about him / his location). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gothshark Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 I really get the feeling that Rey was once a Youngling and the sole survivor of the Jedi Massacre. The main conflict is that she has never met Luke before (but dreams about him / his location). no, 20+30 years = 50 years since Empire Day. That would make her older than Luke. She is most likely Lukes Daughter. She has Skywalker levels of force power, and the First truly calm mind in a Skywalker. What I find interesting is Finn, he's also very obviously Force Sensitive, although no where on the Skywalker level. He's probably on the Han Solo level, yes Han Solo was Force Sensitive. Although on a weak level, which is why he's such a good pilot and why it took his son to kill him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxetius Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 (edited) She's a Skywalker for sure. It's the reason every time someone talked about her the scene immediately cut away. It's why Kylo recognized her and didn't torture the bejeezus out of her when he easily could have. "You're my guest." There's a reason why in their conversation when he goes through her mind he mentions he sees an island on a great ocean, which is WHERE SHE FINDS LUKE AT THE END. EVERYONE knows who she is except she herself. which i guess is part of her heroes journey. Edited December 22, 2015 by maxetius Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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