J.J. Abrams responds to criticism over TFA being a rip-off of A New Hope

[NightDragon83]

Soundwave said:

NightDragon83 said:

kurasakiichimaru said:

sabvre42 said:
Its not even about the whole doing Episode IV again for me... but the fact that they fucked the entire lore and trashed the EU.

I am seriously butthurt over Rey becoming a jedi goddess with no training.

If Rey is a man, i bet you all have no problems with it cause reasons x and y.

The sexism in this thread is real.

Yeah, SW fans who don't like Rey pretty much don't like women in general.  Must be why they also hated the "strong female" character of Leia in the original trilogy...oh wait.

The funny thing is that if we were to apply Episode VII logic to the original trilogy, then Leia, as a direct descendant of Anakin Skywalker, should have been AT LEAST as in tune with the Force as her brother was since they are the exact same age.  Yet she exhibited hardly any ability with the Force throughout the entire trilogy other than to be able to sense that her brother is either in danger (end of Empire) or is OK (end of Jedi).

Meanwhile, a character roughly the same age as Luke & Leia were in the original trilogy with absolutely ZERO Force training whatsoever is able to not only fully grasp the concept of the Force nearly all on her own, but ends up being just as adequate with it as a guy who again is a direct descendant of the Skywalker lineage and has had several years worth of formal training from both the Jedi and Sith / dark sides of the Force.

For what it's worth, the funniest part of VII *SPOILER ALERT* was when Han Chewie and the token black guy (TBG) are on the "not-a-Death-Star" base trying to rescue Rey and destroy the shields or whatever, and TBG, after being called out by Han for having no idea how they were going to  accomplish their task, quips that they can just "use the Force"... to which Han retorts "THAT'S NOT HOW THE FORCE WORKS!!!"

Apparently nobody explained to Han that in Rey's case, why yes, that's EXACTLY how the Force works... as a tool to quickly get our characters out of tricky situations and advance the plot when necessary.

Leia isn't really that 'strong' of a character. She needs to be rescued in the first film and she's largely reliant on Luke or Han to do anything. She also knows how to get down in a metal string bikini for the amusement of the male audience too. Her character is tertiary to the plot, Rey is the first Star Wars female character around whom the plot actually centers around. 

If she had penis and looked like Mad Max's character (a desert scavenging bad ass) I'd bet money that a lot of this criticism would be muted, because "dood! he's a bad ass, and obvisouly he's prolly Luke's son! Can't wait for Episode VIII". But there's an awful lot of butt hurt that a little girl beat up the "bad ass" Sith, this violates some serious tenants of male Star Wars insecurities. The woman is too masculine and strong, the "evil guy in a robe" is too weak, this upsets some people. 

Also who's to say the Force manifests itself equally in siblings? A person who is a tremendous athlete with great genetics may have one kid that (to no one's big surprise) turns out to be a very good athlete, and may have another child that turns out to be a fat slob. 

We don't know if Rey has had any Force training either, she obviously has repressed memories, she fairly obviously may have been at Luke's Jedi academy too. She may have much more training than Anakin -- who was the only human to be able to race pods at 9 years old at 1000 mph while building protocol droids for fun and oh yeah his mom randomly got impregnanted with the Force, oh he also blows up the Trade Federation command ship at the end of the first film with zero training (NO NOTHING CRAZY ABOUT THAT Star Wars fans). 

And then there's Luke who manages to out run the best pilot in the galaxy (Vader) and blow up a giant space station *with his eyes closed!* after "training" with a blast shield for all of 10 minutes, lol. Goes from learning about the Force the day earlier to saving the galaxy 24 hours later with his eyes closed, outdoing the Rebellion's best pilots who likely have hundreds of flight hours on him. Sure. Sure. 

Leia isn't really that strong of a character???  Somebody need to go back and re-watch A New Hope and Empire...

At the beginning of ANH, she's established as not just your typical "damsel in distress" princess, but a political leader of the Rebellion who remains defiant against Vader and the Empire to the (would be) bitter end, refusing to give up the location of the rebel base even as they threaten her home planet with annihilation (something that "stronge male character" Po did when being interrogated by Kylo Ren to give up the location of the map to Luke in Episode VII); she helps Luke Han and Chewie out of a jam when they get cornered in the detention block; she then resumes her role as one of the leaders of the Rebel Alliance during the attack on the Death Star and later the battle on Hoth - recall her scene on Hoth laying out the battle plans to all the male speeder pilots and fighters... I'm sure alot of sexist fanboys were butthurt about all the men taking orders from a woman too /sarc; and then aiding in the attempted rescue of Han on Cloud City and later back at Jabba's palace, where she single handedly murdered the big slob himself.

But yeah, she's completely helpless without a man by her side and is just there for the "amusement" of the male audience.  Totally a minor character in the grand scheme of things.

As for comparing Rey's actions in VII to that of 8 year old Anakin's in Episode I... you're not doing yourself any favors by comparing the latest SW film to arguably the worst in the series, one of the many reasons it earns the title being of course the "character" of Young Anakin and the ridiculousness of the plot itself.

And Luke was already established as a decent pilot who could "bullseye womprats with his T-16" before joining the rebels' attack on the Death Star... it's not like he took the helm of the Millenum Falcon in ANH and within 5 minutes could basically replace the roles of Han and Chewie on the ship in terms of both piloting and maintaining / repairing it.