unicornempire:

astrariums:

crazyintheeast:

Quick reminder that Luke had about five minutes of training with a lightsaber and NONE of it included actually fighting against an other opponent. Remember Ben sparring with Luke? Nope. It was just him playing around with a robot that tased him

Do you remember Yoda sparring with Luke? Nope. He was teaching him about the Force but we never saw him ONCE teaching him how to actually fight with a lightsaber. Luke had precisely ZERO experience when it came to fighting with a lightsaber.  And yet none of you said anything when Luke actually kept up with Vader and later on actually defeated Vader

Rey on the other hand spend her ENTIRE LIFE defending herself with her staff. She is very well versed in fighting with a melee weapon. But when she fought against a HEAVILY INJURED Kylo Ren you immediately cry Mary Sue and unrealistic.

Think about that. Think about what this attitude says about you.

Also an important thing about fight choreography:

A great deal of thought was put into that scene, particularly Rey’s fighting style. She may seem pretty well adapted to lightsaber combat, but in reality she struggles a lot during the fight. 

This is a character who has trained exclusively – as far as we know – with a quarterstaff, which is completely different from fighting with a two-handed weapon. Form, stance, strategy – you name it. And this is actually quite apparent in Rey’s choreography for the first half of the scene.

She starts attacking Kylo Ren with these jabs that would probably crack his ribs if she were wielding her quarterstaff. But since she has a brand new weapon in her hands, the strikes are completely ineffective. 

But that’s what’s so amazing about this scene. Rey adapts. She’s analyzing Kylo Ren’s form the entire time and she’s learning how to apply it to her own fighting. When she uses the Force to help her focus, she overcomes the translation between one style of weapon to another and secures her victory.

Rey is the first character we’ve actually seen learning how to use a lightsaber against another opponent. And we see it happening in the middle of a fight. 

I really enjoyed this scene because I knew they’d spent all this time building up how smart and quick and adaptable Rey is as a character, and we get to see her really shine when she’s pushed into a corner and has to think on her toes.

Remember how she lost that second Tai Fighter when they lost their guns? How she remembered that giant ship she’d been excavating for years and used it to her advantage and knew how to position the gun to get Finn a shot?

Or how she used the doors on that freighter to cut off the (Whatever’s) tentacles when it had ahold of Finn, because she couldn’t run to keep up with it?

There were so many instances of great improvisation for Rey, but I don’t think a lot of people who watched the movie really caught on that she was very quick thinking or smart because the other characters didn’t spend a ton of time congratulating her or patting her on the back for being smart, and these are traits that are often only given to male characters, so people are confused as to why she’s so successful and simply think it’s poor writing, when the reality is that she’s just as smart/quick as Han was in the original Trilogy.