Why don’t people like the Star Wars character Rey?

[Tonita91996]

[NamerOfStars]

How much time do you have?

Long story short: she's bland, having no defining character traits beyond a vague sense of helpfulness; she has a goal (finding her parents) but takes no actions that move her towards accomplishing it (instead doing things that move her away from it); she takes basically no decisive actions at all, instead moving in the direction the plot pulls her; she has absolutely no character flaws... I could go on and on.

But instead I'll bring up just two related things: first, she's effortlessly good at everything, including things she by any reasonable right should suck at. Modern Hollywood is extremely reluctant to show women failing at anything (in movies, that is; they're allowed to be awful in reality), so it makes sense that they wouldn't want to show any kind of moral or psychological weakness (I'm not saying it's GOOD, but it's comprehensible), but what about, say, swimming? There's a point in the Last Jedi where Rey falls into a cave and has to swim her way through it. The desert-bound hermit who's probably never seen water deeper than a puddle easily swims. Why? Because she's not allowed to fail at anything. It's the Galbrush Paradox in action.

Secondly, building off that first one: Rey's shown early in the movie fending off some thugs. Okay, that makes sense; she's a pretty solitary scavenger who mostly operates alone in a very tough area, so she'd know how to fight, and fight well. But then she comes across Kylo. Now, Finn's a trained stormtrooper (who had apparently never seen battle despite the fact that he'd have to have been one of the first new recruits of the Order, but that's another issue), and it makes sense that he'd've been trained to fight people using lightsabers, and even know how to use one himself. Rey? No. Rey probably wouldn't know what a lightsaber IS. It's not like fighting with a normal weapon; if it touches you, it's going to sever whatever it hits. Fighting with it without killing herself? I can buy that. Defeating a dark Jedi trained for years if not decades by two extremely powerful teachers? Not a chance. Maybe if she'd won by trickery or guile, using the environment to her advantage or somesuch (which not only would've fit in with her rough-and-tumble background better, but added some refreshing ambiguity), but not in a straight fight! This also undercuts the threat Ren poses, since he looks like a total wimp. I mean, the Dark Side is supposed to be the fast, easy route to power; Yoda says as much. But he's ineffectual and weak, despite training for years, and she gets power quickly and effortlessly.

Ultimately- look, remember when they return after Han dies, and Leia ignores Chewbacca, who she's known and interacted with for decades, and then hugs Rey, who she met once for twenty minutes? She steals the limelight of the better characters for no reason other than Disney wants you to love her. Luke, Han, Leia, Lando- they EARNED our fondness. Rey was just shoved into our faces, and Disney expected adulation because, well, they said so. We don't even get to see Luke react to Han's death- the end of friend, his sister's husband, the man who saved his life during the Death Star attack- because that would take time away from Rey.

I think it's best summed up by the words of a guy I overheard as I was walking out of the theater: "This isn't a passing of the torch, it's a torching of the past". And Rey is at the front and center of it.

[TheSpaceGnome]

1. Because her personality is boring and you can't do that with the flat character arc. Look at goku from dragon ball, he has the flat arc, but he's charasmatic and funny and emotional and takes on other's burdens to hijack their character arcs as the story focus and one up them. Rey's story is also obscured and confusing, plot related motives seem to not be there and she is just going with the flow. Her connection with the dark side is also very strong despite her being less emotional than the average council jedi, and that makes zero sense when compared to any other force user in the series and the franchise as a whole, because emotions are what power the dark side of the force.

2. Because the movies she is in have terrible scripts that kill off all the beloved characters from better movies without force ghosting most of them into sequels, and bad acting from some of the new main characters, especially Ben Solo, who is objectively the worst star wars character for acting and plot alone (the diad and love interest thing only made that worse, these characters should hate eachothers guts, but even without that the character is basically napolean dynamite in a discount vader suit).

3. Because to make her succeed as the main protagonist, they had to throw the legacy books' storyline in the trash, and pretty much every star wars fan wanted those to be made into films, be it live action, or animated like the clone wars and rebels tv series.

4. Because her backstory makes no sense, sheev palpatine has never shown any evidence of reproducing or relationships in any star wars media, was interested in immortality and manipulating time, and when looking to sire a child to give him a new body to possess, did so by manipulating the force to create anakin (which is why he had no father), and that venture bit him in the ass so he opted for cloning himself instead of repeating that mistake, thus rey existing makes no sense.

[msmissydc]

Besause her character and the story she is involved in is super weird in that her character arc bassically only makes sense if you either include headcannon or include information from the old cannon which disney specifically decannonized.

[DrPepper12]

Cause she's a charicature of a one dimensional character. Her acting was good but she still is like the "which one of these is not like the other" item that doesn't fit

[Anonymous]

She's a generic insert character with no legitimacy for the skillset she demonstrates and without any kind of limitation or defect.

This does not allow for viewer engagement or investment since it does not feel authentic.

[MemeSupreme]

she's boring and there's no depth

[mickeysmonkey]

Most of them are

[CoolCatMar1]

I don't watch Star wars so idek who is

[CoolCatMar1]

Who she is