People forget that the child version of Anakin in TPM received criticism for being a badly written character within the context of the SW universe. Jake Lloyd even received death threats from prequel haters for that very reason.
Apples and oranges comparison.
I was on IMDb when TPM was released and I defended it for years with hundreds of posts.
- Young, 9 year old Anakin on IMDb from 1999 to 2003 was never criticized for being the best human pod racer in the galaxy.
- At that time it was just accepted that Anakin could do amazing things.
Don't confuse the criticism of Lloyd's poor acting with the broad acceptance that a male character could do incredible things (especially when TPM was released).
Strawman argument.
No one I know of is saying that Rey was as good a pilot as Luke.
- The comparison is usually between Rey and 9 year old Anakin.
- Fact; Rey is a pilot.
Anakin is not a pilot.
- Untrained Anakin and Rey (a pilot) show about equal piloting skills in evading enemies.
- Untrained Anakin fires weapons from a fighter and destroyed the droid control ship.
Rey never fires a weapon from a ship.
5 years old starts the beginning of the sixth year. That year is 365/6 days long.
A person can be 5 years old for 364 days and if they were full time in boarding school (including summer school), they could get instruction for almost that long a time ~300 days.
- Luke got a few minutes of Force instruction in ANH and then uses the Force.
- Rey could have gotten instruction of a time period up to about three hundred days before going to Jakku.
Instruction within ~three hundred days is much longer than a few minutes.
It contradicts nothing.
Force abilities can improve in a struggle with an opponent.
That is established in the fight between Luke and Vader in ESB.
At the beginning of the fight Luke is terrible. As Vader says;
"All too easy."But as the fight goes on Luke gets much better.
Another strawman argument which I've seen no one promote.
The reason for Kylo's defeat is a combination of many things.
As for Rey's high level in using a staff, that is in the film.
A misunderstanding of a label of behavior.
No one who is lucid/competent is 100% unfocused or 100% focused.
Behavior varies.
For a high level Force user, Kylo has several episodes where he is very unfocused.
The existence of his tantrums support that.
Imo this argument does not make sense and is wishful thinking.
- A wounded person can walk but they are still wounded. A wound where blood is falling on the ground is extremely serious.
- In the situation, serious wound and where a planet is exploding, extending the fight with Finn is a very bad idea.
It is either;
1. Kylo was injured and could not quickly defeat a mediocre former Stormtrooper.
2. Kylo is delusional and just wants to play while a planet explodes around him and he bleeds out.
#2 does not make sense.
Therefore the logical conclusion is that Kylo actions are because he was injured.
* An example of how crippling such an injury can be to a Force user is shown with Obi-Wan's fight against Dooku in AOTC where eventually Obi-Wan could no longer effectively use his Force power.
That is due to a combination of Rey's relatively poor skills and Kylo even in a very diminished state being better.
But Kylo was making a terrible mistake when he tried to mind control Rey again.
He was bleeding out and losing power.
And there came a moment when Rey had the ability to beat him.
This theory does not make sense as I've discussed because it argues that Kylo extending the fight with Finn was a good idea.
It wasn't. Not with the planet exploding around them and with Kylo bleeding out.
The evidence suggests that once the fight with Finn begins, Kylo has lost most of his Force power.
1. Wrong. Kylo knocks Rey out at Maz Kanata's place.
2. Rey resisting Kylo's mind probe is no different that Leia resisting Vader's mind probe in ANH. A minor setback.
But while Vader is calm in such a situation, Kylo falls apart mentally and runs to Snoke which is one of many examples of Kylo's mental problems.
3. Sometimes the Star Wars franchise adds something new.
For instance 9 year old Anakin with no pilot training destroying the droid control ship.
* What is needed is; can what happens be explained with what has been established in the franchise?
The franchise shows how a trained Force user can lose their power (in ANH) which could lead to a defeat (with TFA).
Imo at least, BB ;-)