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Comment by Cthulhu_ | Hacker News Reader

It takes away from the other films as well by cheapening the force and the ability to wield it. Luke barely manages to lift some rocks after a lot of training montage, Rei lifts heaps of rocks without formal training. I don't think there's many people that liked the sequels. I can't believe they went in with those gung-ho, without the story fleshed out already. I mean the stakes were incredibly high, billions in revenue for the foreseeable future.

It's telling that the secondary things - Rogue One, Mandalorian - are fan favorites instead.

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To be fair, Rey turned out to be the grand-daughter of one of the strongest Sith lords of all time. She was probably naturally strong in the force (like Anakin for example). I enjoyed the sequels (but I also enjoy most movies because my super power is the ability to turn off my brain and not over think things).

Star Wars is impossible to enjoy without a very generous suspension of disbelief, which is why I was practically offended by TLJ. It away full of cynical rug pulls that not only failed to reward, but actively punished, that suspension of disbelief. The first movie hinted at Rey's parents being somebody relevant, and the second movie doubles down on it, only to reveal that Rey was a "nobody" after all. It's like a magician making your $20 bill disappear and it never comes back.

Even if Rey was naturally gifted - the whole idea of her being the granddaughter of a sith lord did not feel like a natural thing. The exposition was horrible. It was as if Rey was a souped up Luke again instead of being Rey. And the audience is not stupid as they thought. The Mandolorian writers must have seen those movies and laughed as they cooked up a potential Star Wars classic.

> I mean the stakes were incredibly high, billions in revenue for the foreseeable future.

That's exactly why the first sequel movie (EpVII: TFA) was so timid; I'm sure it was the most de-risked thing the writers and execs could think of—just a re-skin of the original.

> cheapening the force and the ability to wield it… It's telling that the secondary things - Rogue One, Mandalorian - are fan favorites instead.

Star Wars suffers from power and stakes creep: Death Star I is a planet-killer; DS2 kills planets and ships: Starkiller Base is a multi-planet killer; every ship in the Exegol fleet is a planet-killer. Force abilities are another example.

The Force co-opts any story it touches into one about destiny. And sometimes that's not appropriate, as in tales about rebel troopers or backwater mercenaries. As much as I adored The Child and was excited about Luke's cameo, I'm really glad those two things exited the show, hopefully resetting the stakes at a lower level.

There are tons of ways to write a story involving the force that doesn't boil down to destiny or power creep. Jedi are essentially swordsmen / samurai / ronin characters; and not every swordsman needs to be in a hero villain pair.

And there's plenty of fun stuff in the EU (Luke's Jedi academy, the force blocking Ysalamari lizards, Sith Holocrons, etc.) that could have been used to write a solid force-centric plot.

Though as you say the writers were too timid to do anything really interesting with it.

I think all the EU things you just mentioned are their own versions of Force scope/power creep. The Sith Holocrons are very deeply implicated in some of the power creep in the EU. The lizards were added to fight a power creep in one book and then became their own obstacle that in turn caused new power creep in a later book. Luke's Jedi Academy turned out some OP members no better/worse than what the Disney era sequels did with Kylo Ren.

The EU definitely isn't a great example for avoiding Force power creep, either. I'm not sure Star Wars has a good example.

(In general I'm not sure much of fandom anywhere has a good long term cure for power creep: the stakes inflation race is a huge problem in almost every similar franchise, too. Avatar: TLA saw its own stakes inflation over the seasons and between the shows. DBZ is a classic case where stakes inflation just gets baked into the manga/anime's formats and assumed as a given for every storyline that follows. Comics both DC and Marvel have long struggled with it and their properties in other media such as films have done nothing but inherit it. And so forth…)

> Luke barely manages to lift some rocks after a lot of training montage...

He also manages to guide a proton torpedo into the Death Star after just a couple hours chat with Obi-Wan.

Rey is also on an island that hosted the first Jedi Temple and where Yoda's Force ghost can physically manifest. Much in Star Wars requires suspension of disbelief; is it insane to think maybe the Jedi originally trained somewhere where the Force is naturally stronger?

For the Rey vs Luke thing I took it to mean they had different strengths. Rey is physically strong, while Luke is more foresight strong. We never see Rey pull off finesse moves like the Death Star shot.

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