Rey Jumps the Shark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hODJV5YcxhM

In the previous reviews, I discussed the issues with Starkiller Base and the destruction of the Republic. What follows is an attack on Maz’s planet. The whole fight scene is just silly. Finn is given Luke’s lightsaber by Maz, and he tries to use it, but he’s soon attacked by the one stormtrooper in the whole army that has some kind of crowd control taser for no obvious reason. He also has a shield. I don’t know why that shield is so small, and that’s the only reason I can figure for why the stormtrooper tosses it. Apparently, even he realized how useless it was, so points for character consistency, I guess.

Han and Chewie do some fancy shooting; how much sense all that makes is another matter. Apparently, Han can shoot without looking, and he had no idea how powerful Chewie’s bow is. As for Rey, she’s running around the middle of the woods with no idea where she’s going. BB-8 follows her, but he disappears when the plot needs him to, and then Kylo Ren shows up. He Force freezes Rey. She can’t move, nor can she resist him in any way. He knocks her out with the force, and she is powerless to stop him. Please remember that. It becomes relevant later. Kylo Ren places her on his ship and flies away. Finn is very upset about this.

The rest of the heroes are captured as well, and it looks like all is lost, but the Resistance shows up. Not really sure why; I don’t recall there being any reason for this whatsoever within the movie. They just show up and run the First Order off.

Then Leia lands, and what should’ve been a very moving moment becomes very awkward because C-3PO shows up and starts talking about his red arm. He mentions this multiple times for no obvious reason, and it’s as if the writers are screaming, “Look at the arm! It’s important!” Hint: It never comes up again. What should’ve been one of the most important scenes in the film is interrupted by a dropped plot thread.

Leia and Han, somehow, manage to get a few lines in, and when they’re actually allowed to talk, the scenes are nice. The Resistance takes Han, Chewie, BB-8, and Finn to the Resistance base. There we see R2-D2. He’s not working for some reason. Again, this is never explained. C-3PO mentions something about him not working since Luke went away, which implies this was something Luke did, but again, the audience never finds out what that something might’ve been.

Finn and Poe reunite, which is nice, and Poe takes Finn to Leia, who’s eager to find out everything Finn knows about this base. Why he never bothered to mention it before is never addressed. Oh, and if anyone still remembers, BB-8 held a map to Luke Skywalker.

This map was the driving plot point of the entire movie, but it’s incomplete because of course it is. Leia and Han discuss losing their son, who has now turned into Kylo Ren, and through their two or three scenes we learn that the loss of their son is why they broke up because that’s just what everybody wanted to see from their old heroes.

Is there going to be a resolution to their falling out? Nope. They just sort of still got along, so they continue to just sort of still get along because they kind of like each other, but they’re not going to do anything about it for some unknown reason.

After this, there is a basic info dump about the Starkiller Base, where everyone learns two things. It’s big. And there’s a way to blow it up. Finn says he knows how to disable some doors so they can access what amounts to the engine of this planet-sized machine, and Han, knowing a way to get around the planet’s shield, agrees to take Finn to the base.

Looking back at this a decade later, it’s amazing how rushed all of this is. At the time, it was difficult to notice all the issues because the movie kept teasing payoffs. C-3PO has a red arm; not sure why that matters, but it must because why else would the movie interrupt Han and Leia just so we notice it?

Han and Leia seem a little awkward together. That seems weird, but I’m sure it’s fine because I’m sure their relationship will go somewhere. R2-D2 shut off after Luke disappeared; don’t know why he did that, but it must be connected to the map somehow. It looked like the movie was going somewhere, but knowing where the trilogy went, it’s evident that there was never a plan. All these details were either dropped plot points or cheap tricks to keep the audience invested.

Returning to Rey, she’s strapped to the same chair Poe was in toward the beginning of the film. Kylo tries to find the map by reading her mind—he’d concluded that if he had her, he wouldn’t need the droid. He starts out being able to do this, but then, all of the sudden, for no obvious reason, he can’t. Then to make matters worse, Rey jumps into his head and says he’ll never be as strong as Darth Vader. This freaks Kylo out, and he goes to talk to Snoke. While he’s talking to Snoke, Rey tells the guard to undo her restraints and drop his weapon. He doesn’t at first, but then he does.

Now, obviously, none of this makes any sense, but remembering the previous reviews about the shift in the definition of balance, something approximating an explanation becomes apparent. Thanks to the ethical dualism motif the movie has been going for, we can infer that Rey is growing in power because Kylo is powerful, but one: this doesn’t make any sense because she was powerless against him at first since he was able to knock her out, and two: remember what the audience has come to expect from the Force users in the previous films.

It takes Luke years of training to be able to use the mind trick. The audience doesn’t see him even try it until the sixth film, implying that what Obi-Wan did in the first film was an advanced technique. Rey hasn’t even heard of this trick. She has no reason to try it on the guard. She might try to read his mind because Kylo did it, but to infer that she can manipulate him into letting her go is a whole other matter. And why are there no repercussions for suddenly learning to read Kylo’s mind?

Even if she is given power that can match Kylo, thanks to some dualistic principle, why is she not shocked by what she did? Why doesn’t she start having trouble with the minds of the guards near her? The film seems to have a general idea what it wants to do, but it’s so impatient it can’t even be bothered to show Rey learning, let alone struggling, to use her powers.

Anyway, she escapes, and when Kylo returns, he throws a fit. I’ll cover what happens next in the following review.