At least Midsommar was ABOUT its heroine’s agency getting undermined and her trauma being exploited, TROS’ director literally called its heroine a ‘vessel’ for Luke and Leia as if it were a great thing and the movie spends the majority of its runtime explaining why Rey’s power actually has a source and her darkness has a source and nothing is hers. And TROS makes it seem like this is something good, something to be celebrated, like her identity being subsumed under Luke’s is a happy ending
like her identity being subsumed under Luke’s is a happy ending
see also this twitter thread. TROS validates Rey’s desperate need for father figures to worship and please as a GOOD thing. in TLJ and even TFA this was presented, interestingly, and correctly, as a character flaw that was keeping her from becoming her true self. TROS redeems and celebrates it. Coddles her for it. Her best quality is apparently her humble loyalty to an old generation. “One day I will earn your brother’s saber”. (cue a thousand 40-something star wars dudebros sighing in appreciation, finally satisfied that the little bitch is showing deference to their untouchable childhood hero.)
TROS celebrates “Rey Someone”, as in Rey being defined by attaching someone else’s identity and legacy on her. Palpatine, Skywalker. Accepting to be a vessel. The (attempted) superficial message is that you can choose your own path and identity in spite of where you came from, but it’s actually the opposite: where you come from DOES matter. You need to claim a cool last name to be someone, or you’re “just” you. (And no, excuse me if I don’t buy the adoption narrative, when all the members of the adoptive family are DEAD.) TROS makes a point of making “just Rey” an obstacle that needs to be fixed, a wound that needs to be healed. It then proceeds to reveal that Rey is someone(’s), but the wrong someone. And then fixes it again by making Rey the RIGHT someone’s.
In the hands of a decent storyteller (like Rian), Rey’s angst over her parents would have been a plot device to tell us something about her character. In TROS, it became the be all end all of her character, her entire arc. And if you look at the ST as a whole, it’s a convoluted one, where her crux is first her abandonment issues, then learning that her parents were pieces of shit who will never come back for her because they’re dead, then learning that OOPS no they were good people who tried to protect her, but surprise her grandfather is Palpatine, to NOT dealing with this supposedly inherited darkness in any significant way, to finally rejecting that absolutely irrelevant inherited darkness, to embracing the good one. PHEW! What a ride! What about Rey’s character, though? Who is going to remember what her character conflict was in 20 years, or even 3 years?
They didn’t treat her as a character, they treated her as a piece of trivia to prop up a fake House Skywalker vs House Palpatine final battle and capitalize on nostalgia.
The problem is not “Rey Skywalker” per se. The problem is Rey Skywalker coupled with how horridly written her arc was, the unilateral hero-worship of Luke & the Jedi, her infantilisation and denial of all the interesting traits that were set up in TLJ, the loss of her soulmate being just another bullet point to drive her to the final scene where’s she’d be just fanservice fodder for the OT fans. She was done so dirty.
Anonymous said:
The infantilisation of Rey makes a little more sense when you consider that TROS was a movie made by and for middle-aged men who are OT fans. From JJ’s perspective, Rey IS a metaphorical “daughter” figure: he isn’t seeing her as a hero in her coming-of-age arc towards adulthood and fulfillment, he’s looking at her from the perspective of Luke and Leia
TROS was a movie made by and for middle-aged men who are OT fans
Exactly. Only superficially and disingenuously marketed to children. I have no doubt that a child can watch TROS and be vaguely entertained but I struggle to see how any of its major points and empty OT callbacks could matter ANYTHING to this child. Rey Skywalker? What’s a skywalker again? Palpatine? Probably Snoke’s old uncle. Tatooine????...?? ??
it’s just so ironic than in trying to please OT fans they made the saga almost unrewatchable PARTICULARLY for OT fans who prayed this trilogy could add something good and not like, retroactively ruin everything they loved about SW.
