The Genius of Rey Skywalker's Character Arc

Ultimately the question is can the audience relate and connect with the protagonist and understand the journey. In this case, Rey. And in this case, the heroine’s journey.

And I have to say, Rey’s (Star Wars) journey feels somewhat messy. The author of the video grabbed different scenes from the trilogy and lined them up with the bullet points of the heroine’s journey. But watching it in real time through the 3 movies, Rey’s version feels choppy. It’s not fluid.

And to be honest, most of time it looks like Rey is confused and always moves along this journey by de facto status. In other words, circumstances or other people are always pushing her into the forefront (often against her will or objective). And this moves her along this journey.

Also the journey shouldn’t require reinventing established characters to fit some purpose to move the journey forward for Rey, and check one of the journey’s boxes. That was obviously done with Luke Skywalker. As his entire characterization was changed into a jaded, bitter, impotent hermit to fit the inadequate, disillusioned father figure.

And throughout the trilogy, Rey’s connection to the Force is still farcical, even in the context of the heroine’s journey. It was often a trump card/McGuffin used to advance her along the journey when they didn’t seem to have any rational or practical way to do it.

So all of this doesn’t do a good job of portraying discernible character development when it comes to Rey.

The shame is Rey & the actress were hornswoggled into that trilogy's trainwreck of a writing scheme.

I don't like the sequel trilogy, I've no opinion on Rey or the performance frankly. I know that's not very constructive of me, yet she was a pawn in JJ & co's absurd mystery box horseshit.

Most of the characters in TLJ are given arcs. Unfortunately, TRoS seems to spend its runtime apologizing for their character development and undoing everything.

"That stuff we set up in the first stale rehash film?  None of it meant anything, sucker," is not a proper arc.  Worse, TLJ decided to undo Luke's arc, and turn him into an asshole in order to prop up Rey.  It also used a clumsy commentary on animal cruelty as a major subplot, and I'm only scratching the surface of nonsensical creative choices in that film.  It was so terrible that they tried to course correct in the next movie, but the damage had been done.  There was no sensible way to dig out of that shit pile.  The sequel trilogy was a disaster from top to bottom.

There are ways to integrate new characters into the narrative and hand them the baton from legacy characters, but nobody involved in this trilogy figured out how to do it.         

The movie ruined Luke's established arc from the previous films, that's what I was referring to.  He spent years believing he could turn Darth Vader to the light again, and having accomplished that, his first instinct when detecting the dark side in his nephew is to assassinate him in his sleep.  It's absurd.  He was rebuilding the Jedi, but that one confrontation caused him to abandon all hope.  Again, after turning Darth Vader.   

To me, the movie is filled with hollow characters that sound good in theory, but the creators never could decide what they wanted to do with them.  SW always had commentary, but side quests during a slow speed chase in space (WTF?) to make a lazy commentary on animal cruelty was Johnson trying too hard to shoehorn activism into the plot.  (And I never said that had to do with a character arc, I said it was one of many lame creative choices made in this movie.  We can all agree animal cruelty is awful, but this entire sequence was clunky and unnecessary.)  

I get that some people liked these movies, and that's fine.  But they didn't work for me (to say the least).  Like TDKR, I immediately deleted them from my head canon.              

I didn't really get that Luke spent *years* thinking he could turn Vader. For one thing, only one year passes between Luke learning Vader is his father and the events of RotJ. Luke then doesn't bring up sensing good in Vader until they meet again on Endor toward the end of the movie, and even then the scene ends with Luke saying "Then my father is truly dead". He wavers back and forth then on. One moment, he refuses to fight Vader. The next, he is hacking away at his father with every intent to cause bodily harm.

Rather, he spent years wanting to *kill* Vader as revenge for the deaths of his father and Ben. This inner darkness in Luke then resurfaces again when Luke, by mere words, is driven into an insane fit of rage culminating in chopping Vader's hand off - that's kind of a big deal that many "Luke is a boyscout" people gloss over. He quite nearly turns to the dark side in that moment himself, only regaining his cool when he sees the wires in Vader's stump reminding him of his own hand and the path he is going down.

I empathize that it can be frustrating when a character regresses, but to me, it was not unfounded. Luke is a conflicted character, much like his father, and realistically, saying "I'm a Jedi like my father before me" seconds after turning into a psycho and trying to murder said father would not be the end of his conflict. Likewise - and this is mainly personal - Luke being in a state of nihilism about the Jedi (especially following the prequels) was a more interesting direction for the character to go down then if he had just been another Ben Kenobi, which wouldn't have really made sense given the plot of TFA anyway.

*(And I never said that had to do with a character arc, I said it was one of many lame creative choices made in this movie.  We can all agree animal cruelty is awful, but this entire sequence was clunky and unnecessary.)" - but here's the deal, when you criticized TLJ for the lack of character arcs, and I responded that it did have character arcs, I was hoping to somewhat stay on that topic. It wasn't necessary an invitation to hear you rant about every random problem you had with the movie, of which TLJ certainly has its share. It's not a perfect movie by any means. But it does have its qualities. Unfortunately, it's damn near impossible to talk with haters about them. Even when I counter that the "animal cruelty side quest" had a point in Finn's arc, you double downed on the word "unnecessary".

That really depends on the universe that the storyteller creates and the central characters in it.

In Marvel and DC there’s not much of other than inner conflict and some journey to master it; i.e. Batman, The Hulk, Iron Man.

But in Star Wars there’s plenty of it. The original protagonist Luke. Anakin of the prequels had this journey that went in reverse to where he developed into the primary villain. Even when we don’t see character development/journey, it’s implied…

ObiWan: “I’m getting too old for this sort of thing, Luke.” He’s basically telling Luke he is transitioning from the hero to the mentor.

The Jedi: They are all on a journey in the light side of the Force. From padawan to knight to master. Even the Sith have “journey” goals.

So saying “the hero’s journey is a silly concept” is not a blanket statement that you can apply to every story universe or central character.

Apples & oranges - I was listening to pod Stick the Landing about tv finales... & they did Freaks & Geeks, & all its majestic glory of a history.

NBC kept hammering they wanted the kids to have more wins. Apatow & co. said F that, & like when Bill & the geeks make a great baseball play, celebrate, it's only the 2nd out & all goes awry.
I never thought of that before - the show's magic was reality based where, not every character needs a winning curtain call, & probably none of them truly.

Heroes can be mundane, esp. if in Star Wars they keep being found on a f'n desert planet. Are we doing a solar system far far away, or a galaxy?? Tatooine can't be forever.