Was Rey Wasted in the Disney Sequel Trilogy?

[Winter]

Much like Finn I'm going to say yes.

While Finn's wasted potential is obvious even when it came to The Force Awakens Rey was, IMO, equally wasted as a character and that she had just as much potential as Finn that COULD have made her great. Unlike Finn, who had a great arc practically gift-wrapped for the creators Rey's issue is that every idea thrown towards her character was each a good idea but filmmakers just couldn't decided which one to use. Is she related to one of the original Trilogy characters, a nobody who has no connection to anyone, is she in love with Kylo Ren or does she hate him? I the end she is all of these things and thus becomes nothing.

I've mentioned before that I feel that Rey lacks any real character development as both The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker just had her go in a circle with the former ending the story as she started, as someone who doesn't know how she fits in this story, who hates Kylo Ren for the death of one of the Original Trio Characters and sees Luke as a great hero. And she ends ROS like she started the Trilogy, as a loner in the desert who has more interest in the past then the future.

It doesn't help that Rey is, let's be honest, a Mary Sue. She's better at everything then everyone else and everyone loves her and those who don't are the villains or idiots who clearly just need to see how great she is. And confounding this is how Rey is able to become as powerful as Luke was at the end of Return of the Jedi (which in and out of universe was about 6 or 7 years) by the end of TFA. This is despite the fact that it's been long established and reestablished that learning how to use the Force takes YEARS of training and that the most people without any training can hope to achieve is to have faster reflexes.

By making Rey a Mary Sue it meant that she never had to struggle, never had to work to achieve anything which is just a waste of time. As I've said elsewhere, in the Lego Star Wars Holiday Special, which is obviously a parody of Star Wars as a whole, had to tone Down how perfect Rey was and ADD flaws to her character. When the Parody is goes, "This is a little to over the top, let's wined it back a bit so the story is a bit more believable" the character has a problem that needs fixing.

Really, any of the ideas could have worked but at no point does the Trilogy DO ANYTHING with the ideas around her. They just go "Rey is a Nobody/Palpatine" and then moves on like this is no big deal. TLJ ignores Rey throughout it's entire 4th act and acts like NOTHING happened to her throughout the film and ROS is so uninterested in her relationship with Palpatine that it as soon as he's dead the film just has her go back to Tatooine like the entire TRILOGY didn't happen.

And again, there is a character in a series that had ALL these same elements up to and including the lead being a nobody while ALSO being related to an Evil Empire who has a complicated relationship with a chief antagonist. Who sought out the teaching of a mentor who covered up a dark secret and told there was someone she see as evil but was actually a victim (only this person wasn't a mass murderer and was in fact a hero) and fought with someone she thought she could trust who was just using her to get what they wanted and said fight resulted in the destruction of a weapon she had a strong bond with. AND fought an evil that had a strong connection to her past but one whom she personally had little connection with.

That character was Adora from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.

Again, sorry for bringing this up but She-Ra showed just what was missing from TDST and how good it could have been. Rey's character COULD have worked with all the elements that are in TDST but the reason it doesn't while She_Ra does is one simple thing. Adora has an on going character arc which is about her coming to except that she deserves love and a future like anyone else and that wanting that doesn't make her a bad person.

When Mara, the previous She-Ra (and named after Mara Jade from Star Wars BTW), tells Adora this it was to get Adora to realize this but when I looked back at the rest of the series I realized that this was always part of her arc. And it made me realize just how nuanced Adora's character was and why all the things in her arc worked for me while they seemed to fail in Rey's arc.

Rey has no central arc, she doesn't really want anything. She has no goal to aspire to, no wants she craves, no manipulations to overcome to see what she wants for herself. She knows nothing about herself. Her only motivation is to relive a past she has no understanding of and ends her story alone and unchanged.

Adora starts the series completely alone, seeing the Princess Alliance as this evil Empire and is convinced that she wants to be Force Captain even though that was a choice forced upon her before she even knew how to spell and trying to convince herself that she doesn't deserve love and that she will only ever be good as a tool to be used and then discarded. Adora ends the series surrounded by friends, with the girl she loves with a united Horde and Princess Alliance and now sees that there is a future for her and that she is more then what she can give to other people. Is she the Force Captain, She-Ra the Princess of Power, the failsafe or the chosen one. She's none that, she's just Adora. The future and love she wants is hers to choose.

Rey, is a tool created to move the plot forward as needed and tossed aside when of no further use.

[MaxWylde]

Yes. She was wasted, as were all the others. They had no plan going into this thing. If I were a shareholder in Disney, I'd have sold my stock and told Iger to get bent!

Because there was no excuse. None whatsoever. They had the money, the time, and the talent. All except in one area: The Producer.

In the effort to make the cliche'd "Strong, Independent Woman" character, they failed to make a good character first with Rey. All for politics, really. In essence, what Disney did was make another Disney Princess.

There are a lot of ways they could've portrayed her, but none of them would've even been allowed had it not been for someone who had some serious anger issues with her previous employers. Kathleen Kennedy does not love Star Wars. You do not put someone like that in charge of this franchise.

I mean, my niece, who's only six, came up with a better story for Rey than what Lucasfilm did. She wanted to see Rey fall to the Dark Side, to save Kylo. Wow. That would've been interesting! To see this character make mistakes would've been interesting! But she makes none.

I've said on other forums that it is possible to create a good Mary Sue/Gary Stu. But, to do that, the story can't be so much about them as it is a ride for the audience, and that the character is a vehicle to ride along. James Bond is a great example. The movies aren't so much about him as they are about the adventure he goes on. Think about it. James Bond, in the films especially (whom I call James-El, cousin to Kal-El, a.k.a. Superman), is a Gary Stu; he knows every language the plot needs him to know; he's an expert in firearms and in hand-to-hand combat; he can pilot anything (including a Space Shuttle, a la Moonraker); his gadgets are precisely whatever he needs for the plot and they work flawlessly and efficiently; he drinks but we never see him drunk; he always gets captured by the big baddie, but this always works out for him to foil the big baddie's plan; he's never seriously injured in his adventures; and if you're an attractive woman with a real role, you stand a 75% chance of sleeping with him, and you will always enjoy it.

That's fine, because the story really isn't about Bond (until the Daniel Craig movies). It's about the ride.


You can't do that with Star Wars, though. You have to think things through, and unfortunately, Disney wanted the low-hanging fruit rather than to make something interesting and different.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Okay, so we were totally subverted when we found out that we get nothing to go on as far as thematic substance when we walked with her into the cave. Okay, so Luke was dealing with the father he looked up to and never met and found out that he's walking the same path. Rey is mad at Kylo Ren but is a diamond in the rough just like him, wants to become a Jedi and does and teaches Luke a thing or two along the way. And that's the best I can do for the movie sorry.

[McAvoy]

She was definitely wasted. She is the same character she was in the beginning. Only that she has some cool powers that no Jedi has shown before, or she can do it better than them.

She is a blank slate.