I don't care about male or female, but I don't like flawless "characters". Even Leia had her quirks.
Rey is just too slick and bland, I don't see any personality there. Disney obviously wanted to give the neo-fems what they want: Perfect women and not so perfect, maybe a bit dumb but important and "diverse" men. Politics shouldn't have an influence but they always have and the results are not always good.
Finn is raised to be a dumb tool for the empire and at least he seems to be exactly that with the difference of having an active conscience which makes him a more believable character for me while Rey is just a template.

Agreed, the cast itself is, except for the nostalgia division, is very prime focus group centered or however the pricks at PR call it,
What I noticed is, there is literally not a single person above 30 at this so called first order, which makes it appear to me like a field class trip of some wacky students.

I don't know, Rey really worked for me in the beginning up and until she got into the Falcon and started knowing how everything worked. That kind of threw me off. It's as if they left something out. I hope there's going to be some extended version of the film that perhaps adds some extra context for everything.

By the way, I have this weird pet hate with what certain actors do when they try to act, I don't know, poor/desperate: they eat their food quickly and violently. Sometimes it works and is fitting, like when Keira Knightley dines with capt Barbossa on the Black Pearl in the first Pirates of the Caribbean film. But, it doesn't work for Rey when she's eating just before noticing bb-8 struggling in that dude's net. I think it would've been more believable if she took the time to savor her meager little meal at the end of a hard day's worth of scavenging. I kind of find it funny how much that annoys me :P

Just like anyone else with some basi idea how to use a melee weapon. I don't know where the idea you need to be a forse-user to use a lightsabre comes from. It's just a weapon, like any other. We've never seen anything to indicate using it has anything to do with also using the force. It just takes a lot of practice, training an patience to use well, so it's logical it would mostly be used by someone like the Jedi or Sith, who devote their life to such training. We've seen others, like Grevious, use lighsabres.

WAY WAY WAY OT

I recently got a BluRay player and I'd like to get the original trilogy but I heard they fucked up the end of Jedi with Vader screaming as he saves Luke.

I'd honestly just rather keep the DVDs than to have to see that crap.

Do I have any choice with this?

I have heard of some "despecialized edition" floating around the internet, though it appears to not be legal. (Then again, what is a "despecialized edition" anyway? I am looking for a generic answer, not a Star Wars specific one.)

I figure that comes from her scavenging. She obviously knows a lot about various ships/vehicles since she's been scavenging parts from them for years. And since she told Han that the scrap dealer had installed a regulator (or something like that) on the ship, I figured she'd perhaps been on it before or worked on it for him.

*edit* Oh, and Luke had a natural instinct for piloting (just like Rey), and was a pretty good natural mechanic as well (just like Rey). I figure it all fits.
I actually thought that made sense. She remarks to the scrap dealer how the parts she brought in were worth way more just a short time before. And she gets only a half or quarter portion the first time she trades with him. So I think it's reasonable to assume she's not getting enough to eat of late. And expending all that energy scavening would likely make her feel starved. So I doubt she'd take time to savor the not-very-appetizing-looking meal.

I'm sure that scavenging would equip her with some knowledge, but not to the extent that she displays in the film. Also, don't you find it suspect that years worth of scavenging enables her to jump into the Falcon and right of the bat
out maneuver presumably expert first order pilots? Even Luke didn't pilot an X-wing until the end of epIV, by which time he may very well have had significant instruction from both Han and the Rebels. It's been a while since I've seen the film, but I think that the story allows enough offscreen time for such instruction to have taken place.

I'm hoping that perhaps there is more to her character than what meets the eye. Perhaps she was a highly talented young student in Luke's school and for some other reason somebody partially wiped her mind and planted her on the planet or something. That would make more sense to me than her simply being that good.

As for the eating thing. Hunger is a terrific spice! But yeah, eating habits differ. I suppose that I just need far more motivation than most that fast and violent eating is called for :P

Also, I freaking love nerdy discussions like this :D

^ This
It's a fan project that restored the original work in a HD format.
There's nothing official, so it could have been called anything ("the fixed version" lol).
The guy used both the BD remake and the original DVD to rebuild the scenes, removing the CGI crap or other bad changes.
You can just search for it to obtain all the explanation.

I don't mind the enhanced explosions or city scapes or even the added Jabba, but for some reason that Vader scream is just going way too far for me. Guess I'll keep my DVDs.

Lol, really? I didn't know that one. -_-'
Btw it isn't the only bad change.

EDIT: woops, you replied before my edit

I don't know. I didn't get the feeling there was all that much time between when Luke joined the Rebellion at the rebel base and when he was flying out to take out the Death Star. Not enough to explain his flying ability, anyway.

It's a fair point, but I think her ability with ships/vehicles is a similar thing to one of those people that just has a knack at something. I've met a few in my time: the guy that can pick up and play any instrument with strings with no prior lessons and very little practice; that girl that can take apart any mechanical device to see how it works and then put it back together again (I've met both of these, as an example).

*edit* Oh, and the outflying the First Order pilots? I thought that was Force-enhanced. The first awakenings of it, without her being really aware of it.

As for the more than meets the eye part, don't you think it's pretty obvious she's Luke's daughter? I thought they pretty much hammered that into the audience on several occasions in the movie. Only her abilities are even more amplified/extreme than Luke's were.

I think this was completely intentional. Trying to get the Star Wars movies back to the feel of the original trilogy and wipe out the complete destruction of that vibe the prequel films inflicted on the franchise.

Yes, but there is a difference between getting the vibe of the first and basically retelling the film. Don't get me wrong, I prefer it to the recent three, but originality?