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Is Rey the daughter of Luke? (TFA spoilers)


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Plenty of people without that connection have made a major impact: Han, Lando, Mon Mothma, Tarkin, and countless other characters. But the saga has been about the Skywalkers thus far, so it makes sense that it would continue to be. And TFA was about Rey. Much like ANH was about Luke

Granted that the Episodes are about the Skywalkers, but does the Skywalker line only mean those who are genetically related or can it include those who are tied together in other ways? Ben Solo is a Skywalker genetically, and is clearly Anakin's heir in temperament and life choices, but Rey is much more like Luke personality-wise, and that's regardless of any genetic relationship between them.

 

Perhaps the three trilogies are about the emergence, redemption, and destruction of the Skywalker lineage, with replacement of Skywalkers by Rey and her approach to the Force?

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I said nothing about boobs. I'm sorry you're preoccupied with them.

 

Okay, you chose to meet the lighthearted attempt with an insult...

 

You bring up Rey being a girl all the time about everything. It's all brought back to some prism where she's not a character but a social statement. You're obsessed with what is not all that big of a deal. It's 2016 and, even if there should be more, a woman in the lead role is not some big deal. We're past the point where we should be micro-analyzing this character for sexist slights.

 

Rey is character that needs to stand on her own. If you bring up that she's a girl all the time, you diminish her.

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The fact is there aren't that many female leads, and it actually is a big deal that we have Rey as the lead. Pretending that sexism doesn't exist because Rey is a role model is akin to saying racism doesn't exist because Obama was elected president. Racism and sexism are problems in 2016, and they need to be addressed. Star Wars, and science fiction in general, is one place that casting women as leads is making progress.

 

But Rey doesn't have to be related to Luke for that progress to have meaning.

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Rey is so much less if everything you say about her boils down to her sex. Since I've gotten here, it seemingly is all Mara talks about when Rey is discussed. It's a defense, a reason, listed as to why the movie was good, an accusation, and now a preemptive source of victimhood.

 

I'm trying to see a character and a story, but if it's all going to be drowned out by tip-toeing around with what's acceptable to think about her or what storylines are acceptable for her, then it's no wonder Hollywood is slow to introduce more of them. It's a pain in the butt and is distracting from the movie instead of adding to it.

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OR, Mara is a lifelong Star Wars fan and is thrilled to finally have a star that's a women. If you think it's no big deal, check out the social media meltdown that happened because Rogue One also has a female lead.

 

You saying a woman shouldn't make a big deal out of a woman star is akin to asking why black people can have Jet magazine, but a white culture magazine would be considered racist and OMG IT ISN'T FAIR!

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Ren's a Skywalker, Rey's a Kenobi, they are going to make a super-duper force baby together, name him Obi-2 skywalkenobi and will then revolutionize the galaxy's view of the force.

 

Either that, or Palpatine mind tricked a woman and knocked her up cuz dat accent is sooooo Coruscant.

 

Or maybe she's not relays to anybody special and is faking the force

 

Or, you know, she's Luke's daughter because that's where all evidence points to.

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You saying a woman shouldn't make a big deal out of a woman star is akin to asking why black people can have Jet magazine, but a white culture magazine would be considered racist and OMG IT ISN'T FAIR!

 

I find it more limiting to the group that it's aimed at and destructive to their potential than unfair to give so much of one's identity to a collective sense of race. I don't look at a magazine like Jet and wish I could have one. I look at it and am thankful that there isn't one for whites and wish there weren't one for anyone else either.

 

Anyway, to move away from Star Wars a bit, think of it the way Katniss Everdeen is viewed by the general public as some great role-model for young girls. She's strong, she shoots her arrows as good as the boys, and she doesn't need any girly traits like dressing up. Hurrah!

 

Except, that's rather missing the point of a character that has been completely hardened, socialy impaired, untrusting, and disconnected from her feelings into a fatalistic mess who takes a step forward each day out of inertia and obligation to her family (where her mother once failed). And this was before the child death tournament left her with PTSD for the remainder of the series, being haunted through the Epilogue where she becomes a mother out of obligation to Peta. She's a character that shows the devastating effects war, deprivation, and repression have on the human psyche and how you can never fully leave it behind but you keep going anyway.

 

And it's not like the movie just glossed over this. Jennifer Lawrence was so good, particularly in that first movie, that you could practically see the 1st-person thoughts from the novel floating through her brain as she experienced everything.

 

It's sad to think, but by making her protagonist a girl, Suzanne Collins may well have buried her own message underneath what people wanted to see in "a girl who could kick butt". By elevating Katniss as a role model based on her gender, the people championing her diminished her.

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...with white dudes that are experts!

No different that the ever-so-understanding SJW (almost always white) acting as if they can speak for the distinctive historical/cultural perceptions/pain of all non-white people..

 

...while ranting against their fellow white people.

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And also explain why the female hero can't be from that family, too.

Because SW is not damn soap opera, where everyone is related to everyone in a fishbowl. That was one of the great disasters of the prequels--too many convenient, fan-stroking connections beyond that set up in the OT. It made the SW galaxy seem small. Rey will be no less a heroine if she has no blood connection to the Skywalkers. Allegedly, that's where creative screenwriting comes in.

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She can make a big deal about it, but making it out like it would some kind of slight if she wasn't a Skywalker is ridiculous.

 

Didn't say it was a slight, but think about it, really. Why shouldn't she be part of that family, too? Even Leia, who's part of that family, never really developed her Force potential. If you tilt your head and squint, it's almost like female Skywalkers can't be Jedi.

 

I'd be arguing the same thing if FInn was the Force user, btw. It's not just because Rey is female. I think these movies need to be about the Skywalkers, both hero AND villain.

 

I'll accept it if I'm wrong and the story's good. I've done so before.

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It's sad to think, but by making her protagonist a girl, Suzanne Collins may well have buried her own message underneath what people wanted to see in "a girl who could kick butt". By elevating Katniss as a role model based on her gender, the people championing her diminished her.

 

I think you need to talk to people who are actual fans of The Hunger Games, because that's not the point of Katniss. People (and women especially) like Katniss because she's a well-rounded character. Not because she's a girl and WOMEN POWER. The sad thing is that women don't get those types of roles very often. Although thankfully, because of Katniss, now that's changing.

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You saying a woman shouldn't make a big deal out of a woman star is akin to asking why black people can have Jet magazine, but a white culture magazine would be considered racist and OMG IT ISN'T FAIR!

I don't look at a magazine like Jet and wish I could have one. I look at it and am thankful that there isn't one for whites and wish there weren't one for anyone else either.

 

 

The point is, you don't get to make that call. That's the problem.

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I think you need to talk to people who are actual fans of The Hunger Games, because that's not the point of Katniss. People (and women especially) like Katniss because she's a well-rounded character.

 

That's the thing. She's kinda not. She's just a damaged person, used by forces bigger than her that she doesn't really understand. An accidental catalyst for a revolution and manufactured symbol that she really doesn't represent (which is somewhat ironic given that she's come to represent a symbol that doesn't fit her in real life as well).

 

She's not one-dimensional or anything, but Katniss's range is fairly small, simple, and enclosed. She's a survivor. Her whole personality is built around doing what it takes to keep herself, or those she's chosen worth sacrificing herself for, alive. Now, this makes her a great soldier and Hunger Games contestant, because she most comes alive during the immediate simplicity of a crisis or mission. But, she's ill-equipped to handle the social complexities of the world. And for the larger story, she's as much a victim and swept away by these terrible events as anyone else. She just so happens to have been given a front-row seat.

 

 

 

The point is, you don't get to make that call. That's the problem.

 

We all get to make the call. It's a message board. Opinions are going to be challenged. Weak/lazy opinions like boiling everything down to a character's gender and defining her on that basis seem ripe to be challenged.

 

 

 

That was one of the great disasters of the prequels--too many convenient, fan-stroking connections beyond that set up in the OT. It made the SW galaxy seem small.

 

The only ones I can really think of were Anakin making C-3PO (objectionable), and young Boba Fett (less objectionable, but could have been done better). Otherwise, I thought the Prequels were rather successful in expanding the scope of the Star Wars universe from the relatively limited scope of the Original Trilogy (basically a series of primitive locales for the good guys mixed with the sterility of the Empire). For the most part, they went ahead and created new instead of calling back to old standards (Tatooine being the exception).

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The point is, you don't get to make that call. That's the problem.

 

We all get to make the call. It's a message board. Opinions are going to be challenged. Weak/lazy opinions like boiling everything down to a character's gender and defining her on that basis seem ripe to be challenged.

 

 

 

...and the hypocrisy of it all is the same people saying you don't get to make that call, do so about people or subjects they are utterly unfit to understand. Again, that's the SJW mindset.

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That was one of the great disasters of the prequels--too many convenient, fan-stroking connections beyond that set up in the OT. It made the SW galaxy seem small.

 

The only ones I can really think of were Anakin making C-3PO (objectionable), and young Boba Fett (less objectionable, but could have been done better). Otherwise, I thought the Prequels were rather successful in expanding the scope of the Star Wars universe from the relatively limited scope of the Original Trilogy (basically a series of primitive locales for the good guys mixed with the sterility of the Empire). For the most part, they went ahead and created new instead of calling back to old standards (Tatooine being the exception).

 

Others too large to ignore:

  • Palpatine just so happened to work for / hail from the same world as the twins' future mother.
  • The Clones just so happened to be based on Boba--I mean Jango Fett, because shoehorning him in there was just to serve as stroking material to Fett-obsessed fanboys. GL had to keep building on a character that was originally a single purpose villain in E5, hence his quick, no-fanfare death in 6.
  • The Geonosians just so happened to design the Death Star.
  • R2-D2 just so happened to be a droid in the service of Padme...and called him out just to scream "see? the gang's all here! Nevermind that it was not necessary for R2 to have a connection to Padme/Naboo"
  • Yoda's special goodbye to Chewbacca. Kashyyyk was fine as a world caught in the conflict, but why did Chewbacca have to be there at all? Was it impossible to think he was--anywhere else in the galaxy, doing anything else?

 

There's more, but that kind of poor, geek-baiting storytelling made the SW universe lose the feeling of a massive, somewhat mysterious realm, and transformed it into the neighborhood, where everyone hangs out on the stoop, and knows everyone else on the block.

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I forgot about Yoda and Chewie being bros. I'll grant you that one. That was pure fan-service.

 

 

 

Palpatine just so happened to work for / hail from the same world as the twins' future mother.

 

Not sure what that has to do with the stroking fans of the Original Trilogy. That seemed to be making everything a part of a unified plot. As a matter of narrative simplicity and focus, I had no issue with that.

 

Anyway, yeah there were a few moments, but overall, The Prequels did a very good job of introducing new things at every turn. More than the Original Trilogy really. I think people were more upset by how frequently they went in their own direction. That's part of why The Force Awakens hugged A New Hope so hard.

 

Now THAT was a movie that shrunk the universe with its coincidences, fan-service, and limited scope.

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