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[Reelya]

There's no way I'm not counting attempts a few seconds apart as separate attempts. Basically she came up with the concept on her own and completely mastered it a few seconds later.

It just smacks of all being too easy, but I guess having 1.5 movies about her learning the ways of The Force like Luke had to wouldn't get to where they want to get to.

[hector13]

There's no way I'm not counting attempts a few seconds apart as separate attempts. Basically she came up with the concept on her own and completely mastered it a few seconds later.

I would hardly consider one success mastery.

[Reelya]

I don't agree. Pulling that off even once should be a big deal. Consider that it took Luke until the third movie, and training under two separate Jedi masters to achieve that, and it just looks cheap when Rey does it. Same with the telekinesis. Making those things require zero training or practice to pull off devalues them.

[hector13]

I agree, but it was a stormtrooper so apparently they're just weak-minded fools, all of them.

Rey is something of a Mary Sue...

[Putnam]

There's no way I'm not counting attempts a few seconds apart as separate attempts. Basically she came up with the concept on her own and completely mastered it a few seconds later.

It just smacks of all being too easy, but I guess having 1.5 movies about her learning the ways of The Force like Luke had to wouldn't get to where they want to get to.

kylo ren was doing what was basically a mind trick to her for an entire two minute scene before hand

this comes up every single time anyone complains about that scene

[hector13]

There's no way I'm not counting attempts a few seconds apart as separate attempts. Basically she came up with the concept on her own and completely mastered it a few seconds later.

It just smacks of all being too easy, but I guess having 1.5 movies about her learning the ways of The Force like Luke had to wouldn't get to where they want to get to.

kylo ren was doing what was basically a mind trick to her for an entire two minute scene before hand

this comes up every single time anyone complains about that scene

Didn't she manage to not only defend against that, but also push back and find out stuff about him?

[Egan_BW]

Rey is OP. I think that might be the point.

[MrRoboto75]

The midiclorians are strong 

[Ghills]

Rey is OP. I think that might be the point.

Compared to who?

Luke who took down a Death Star the first time he got into an X-Wing in ANH? Anakin The Chosen One? Obi-Wan the incredible mind-bending ninja dance fighter? Kylo Ren who holds a blaster bolt in mid-air without breaking a sweat? Yoda? *facepalm*

All Jedi are overpowered.  Protagonist Jedi are especially overpowered. This is true in every single movie. It's practically a Star Wars requirement.   Rey is quite possibly the least stupidly-OP Jedi protagonist I've watched.  Look at the evidence:

She's established as a kickass survivalist, fighter and pilot from the get-go, where Luke went from unskilled whiny brat to amazing fighter pilot in a single movie. Luke's so much more believable amirite?    Luke's story is a great one and he's a great character, but he's definitely OP by the end of the first movie.  Rey fights with her lightsaber like someone who's good at stick fighting, it's pretty realistic.

When Kylo Ren sets up a Force link between them, she senses what he's doing and tries to reverse it on him, getting some weird confused flashes from his mind. That's pretty typical coming-of-age trope for a wizard/mental powers stories.  It doesn't give her any obvious power upgrades, summon help, or do anything other than scare off Kylo Ren.  Logical, not OP.

She uses a single mind trick after she's had an extensive demonstration of Jedi mind powers, and is also majorly motivated by fear for her life.  Anakin was doing probably-Force-suggestion stuff at younger ages and with less provocation. 

Rey's skills flow logically from her characterization and backstory. She's a hero going on a hero's journey and there are things that come with that, like being or very quickly becoming highly skilled. That's just a feature of this type of power fantasy.

Rey's weaknesses also flow logically from her backstory in TFA, so I expect we'll get the hero's journey of awesome-fighting-person-learns-to-feel-emotions-and-handle-abandonment-issues, instead of Luke's journey of emotional-person-learns-control-and-decisiveness.  But that's a slightly different discussion.

[mainiac]

Luke was already a pilot before the first movie started.  The only thing the force did was let him make a single shot accurately.  Luke struggled to move his lightsaber a meter or two in the Wompa cave.  That was after 18 months of practice for one of the most powerful Jedi in a long time.

I think the OP aspect is less important then how mystical things are.  The force is subtle in the original trilogy.  That created a really cool setup for the emperor using force lightning in Return of the Jedi.  But that was only cool as long as it's the FREAKING EMPEROR and he's using it for the really big fight.  I blame Kyle Katarn, when he started using force lightning because it was easier then pulling his blaster out of a holster, it disrupted the entire system.  Pretty soon you have the force being no different from Vancian magic in DnD and you have characters mastering force powers without them being "earned" through narrative development.  It's not longer about Luke being powerful because he's mastered the Jedi techniques like clouding the minds of the ignorant.

[Ghills]

There's no way I'm not counting attempts a few seconds apart as separate attempts. Basically she came up with the concept on her own and completely mastered it a few seconds later.

It just smacks of all being too easy, but I guess having 1.5 movies about her learning the ways of The Force like Luke had to wouldn't get to where they want to get to.

kylo ren was doing what was basically a mind trick to her for an entire two minute scene before hand

this comes up every single time anyone complains about that scene

Didn't she manage to not only defend against that, but also push back and find out stuff about him?

It's pretty standard for mind-power-interrogation to be turned on the interrogator if they're weak-willed. Kylo Ren is clearly internally conflicted and bad at emotional control. Rey is clearly used to shutting down her emotional issues so she can do what she needs to survive.  It makes total sense that Rey would be able to turn it on Kylo Ren, and she doesn't get that much.  She gets a few flashes of stuff she doesn't understand and gets some basic read on his emotions, but that's it.

[ChairmanPoo]

Agreed. The emperor's force lightning was dramatic in ROTJ because so far no character had shown that kind of power. Furthermore, it places the previous scenes in perspective: he hasn't got a lightsaber, and is not concerned about Luke getting hold of his, because he is reasonably confident that he can manage the situation without one.

Following on that concept, they should have kept Yoda and Palpatine from using lightsabers at all in the prequels. In fact, the second half of the yoda-palps fight had the right idea(although not the best implementation): have the two force-wizards dish it out using exclusively their powers

[Ghills]

Luke was already a pilot before the first movie started.  The only thing the force did was let him make a single shot accurately.  Luke struggled to move his lightsaber a meter or two in the Wompa cave.  That was after 18 months of practice for one of the most powerful Jedi in a long time.

I think the OP aspect is less important then how mystical things are.  The force is subtle in the original trilogy.  That created a really cool setup for the emperor using force lightning in Return of the Jedi.  But that was only cool as long as it's the FREAKING EMPEROR and he's using it for the really big fight.  I blame Kyle Katarn, when he started using force lightning because it was easier then pulling his blaster out of a holster, it disrupted the entire system.  Pretty soon you have the force being no different from Vancian magic in DnD and you have characters mastering force powers without them being "earned" through narrative development.  It's not longer about Luke being powerful because he's mastered the Jedi techniques like clouding the minds of the ignorant.

We're told Luke was good at flying speeders - i.e. the local equivalent of cars- a few minutes before he gets into the X-Wing. This is like some teen claiming that mad drag racing skills mean they can fly an Air Force plane. It only makes sense if the audience doesn't think about it.  We're never shown Luke being a good pilot in ANH, so there's nothing to back up his claim or make him look less ridiculous for saying it.

It could easily be that Luke is just not that good at the physical aspects of the Force - which makes sense with his personality - or that he's just not a good Jedi overall.  His academy did fail for exactly the same reason the Jedi Temple fell, and the Jedi Temple were clearly way out of line by the end of the trilogy.

[Ghills]

Agreed. The emperor's force lightning was dramatic in ROTJ because so far no character had shown that kind of power. Furthermore, it places the previous scenes in perspective: he hasn't got a lightsaber, and is not concerned about Luke getting hold of his, because he is reasonably confident that he can manage the situation without one.

Following on that concept, they should have kept Yoda and Palpatine from using lightsabers at all in the prequels. In fact, the second half of the yoda-palps fight had the right idea(although not the best implementation): have the two force-wizards dish it out using exclusively their powers

Yeah, if they'd stuck with that approach it would have worked better thematically I think. But Lucas didn't, so we have to work with what's there. And what's undeniably there is that the Jedi are clearly typically OP dance-fighting mind-bending, sort-of-flying master ninjas with freaky telekinesis powers.  There's clearly a reason the Jedi Temple started training early, and that reason was because they needed to inculcate the proper gravity-is-optional approach early.

Luke, as OP as he is, is clearly atypically slow with his physical combat skills.

[mainiac]

We're told Luke was good at flying speeders

Aircraft actually.  The speeder he drives to find R2 is one of two vehicles you can see in his garage.