Remember when Luke Skywalker kicked Vader’s ass and saved Obi Wan? Wait a minute…
So the Force Awakens is seen as a beat for beat remake of A New Hope, with very similar characters playing the similar role, sometimes the same character playing said role.
Which also means that we can compare how various characters from the original trilogy compared to the Disney sequels:
-Luke is pretty callow and always being taught lessons
-Luke starts off rather whiny with complaining about how peaceful his life is, a simple farm kid who wishes for big adventures, until it comes to him in a very big way and the most important people in his life are left smouldering skeletons
-Luke’s constantly the butt of jokes from friend and foe alike, but he’s good natured enough to not dwell on it. When Luke cries though, he really just lets out a gut rumbling “BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!”
-Luke’s constantly in need of mentoring and saving (but takes to it well), like when that nasty adult at the bar was gonna molest him but old Ben was there to hack off bad touching hands
-When the big bad Vader comes in Luke is nowhere near ready to face him, his precious mentor Obi Wan who’s the only person that can make sense of this crazy world Luke has fallen into dies before the kid’s eyes
-Kinda sorta attracted to that sailor mouthed princess who turns out to be his sister
Now compare Luke to…
Rey the "Loner, hothead, gear-head, badass… the ultimate outsider and the ultimate disenfranchised person" (actual words used by TFA writers to describe her)
-Rey is an ultra competent, completely self sufficient desert hermit with no family, she just gets in on the action because she believes she is part of a great destiny
-Rey’s cool and stoic while others do the comedic relief routine, even kills some (played by highly respected in their home country) mercenaries in a “kids will love it” joke scene
-Doesn’t “BAAAAAAWWWWW” but does the “I am sad for the suffering of my comrades who I will avenge in the next minute!” dignified tears face
-Rey is an ass kicker who never loses a fight and saves the butts of those around her
-Rey confronts the ‘big bad’ masked man in black who’s been training for years in the ways of space muhajadeen combat and wipes the floor with him.
So comparing the protagonists, Rey is just way, way more powerful than Luke starting off, has a more detached motivation (no revenge for her family), kicking ass in one hand and saving her friend’s butt sin the other. Her opposition she totally schooled was also a lot less ‘dignified’ than…
Vader, the almighty, unstoppable, mysterious force of darkness
-Wreckin’ dudes left and right
-If somebody sass mouths him they get the choke
-Doesn’t lose for two whole movies in man to man combat and when he does in the third it’s the highlight of the entire series, in the first one cuts down Obi Wan and makes hero Luke “BAAAAAAAAAAWWWWW” hard
-Stays mysterious, creating that space for fans imaginations to run wild with love
A far cry from…
Kylo, the emotionally broken failure crawling in his skin
-Started off badass lookin'
-Then he started talking
-Really eager to please his master
-We get to see his room and he’s got some beyond Hot Topic stuff going on in there
-Sure he does kill some fools but one of them was an old man with his guard down. Sure he does get to sass mouth Fin while he puts lashes on Finn’s back for running away, but right after that Kylo is getting his ass booted through the snow by some bumpkin seeing snow for the first time
-When he cries he goes “BAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWW” and breaks things
-We know a lot about his story, who his parents are, and how his emotional wounds will not heal
Now about that runaway…
Finn is constantly getting his ass kicked and being told what to do
-This stormtrooper was raised all his life to be a storm trooper but a captured government agent (but the movie kinda acts like they’re the rebels because the 1st movie was about rebel heroes) gives a really great elevator pitch and in the next scene the ex-trooper is gunning down all those dudes he lived/ate/bunked alongside
-This stormtrooper is immediately accused by the hero Rey of being a thief but he doesn’t take offense and spends the rest of the movie happily following her orders
This stormtrooper is immediately accused by great hero Solo of stealing, but he is a gushing fanboy to old man Solo and also spends the rest of the movie ever so happily taking orders from him
When this stormtrooper meets up with the rebel agent he’s ever so grateful to get named by him like a stray pupper
-Finn isn’t genre savvy enough to know he’s not the hero and gets lashed on the back by angry ex-master Kylo. But the hero Rey is there to immediately avenge him and Finn does his job in a tube to make Rey look really stoic and dignified with motivation to avenge.
To anwer the question of Mary Suedom… I won’t say yes or no but I will argue that the traits people often associate with Mary Sues are much stronger in Rey than Luke or anyone else in the original trilogy. In addition to that the not-Rey characters are much less competent and it’s Rey bailing them out.
But I figure the biggest clincher is that The Force Awakens has
no villains that win their fights or even preserve their dignity.
Luke is battling against the darkside crusader Vader who cut down wise man Obi Wan. Rey is beating the crap out of this sad little boy who was sent far far away by parents afraid of him. Heck even Brienne of Tarth gets Boba Fett’d down a hole before she can do anything worth building a legendary spinoff novel series off of. Nor is there any Grand Moff Tarkin who can hold a polite conversation with Vader.
*The most ironic part is I generally consider Luke a mary sue, what with him going into space for the first time and flying space fighters better than lifetime war aces. Then by the final film he’s been in space crusader training for about as long as it takes an American child to earn a green belt in after school karate, but goes on to whoop his dad in a fight. If anything his initial whining and continued emotional outbursts helped round him out as he really does put his heart and soul into everything he does. But I really have to give it to Disney for being able to outdo this character.