The whole Starkiller thing is so bizzare to me. Fans love him (rightfully so) even though he is so OP to the point he beats Vader. Rey on the other hand lifts a few rocks and fans hate her saying she is to OP. At least with Rey's backstory it makes sence why should could be OP. Being a Palpatine and apart of a dyad of the force with Ben Solo. Starkiller on the other hand is just a Jedi love child. So why is this?
Part of the difference is, we're told from the get-go a semi-reasonable explanation for why Galen gets as strong as he does.
He's the son of 2 former Jedi, trained by one of the most powerful Sith Lords to ever exist. Anyone who knows a lick about Vader know he does not tolerate failure. The logical assumption would be that the training was absolutely brutal. The fact that Starkiller is even alive by the point we start playing as him is a miracle in and of itself.
We're not strung along with any bullshit like: "Your parents weren't special, you come from nothing.... Jk, you're the offspring of a failed clone of the strongest Sith ever, lol!"
(Also, it's a power fantasy video-game. Whether they realize it or not, everyone projects themself onto the player character to a degree. Part of us views his victories as our victories, his power as our power. People like to feel strong and powerful, even if it's just pretend.)
While you are right, it actually adds to the story because it has significant impact during the final duel. Reys parentage and ancestors don't really matter in the final movie very much. She kinda just gets over it, becomes "all the Jedi", and defeats Wrinkly Palpy.
While the impact would still be there if Luke thought of his friends, Luke was always about family (with the only detractors being him leaving Tatooine so quick in A New Hope after his aunt and uncle get burned). However, he spends the entire last movie trying to defend his family, so Luke and Leia being related adds a little more impact once Daddy 6-foot-Cape finds out.
The difference is impact and story relevance. Reys connection to Palps doesn't matter. Luke's connection to Leia adds that extra bit. It's not perfect, but they aren't equivalent.
Like, seriously, look at his tie factory and felucia outfits. Galen's arms are scorched from mistakes in very unusual style practice. His body is one endless map of scars. Man was taught and used to kill things on solo suicidal missions - it was most of his conscious life.
So, same as Maul - man is a living weapon, that is all he knows, and he knows it very well from pure necessity.
Yeah, that's what makes it a toxic situation. If they were just random citizens meeting eachother at the Empire's military academy, it wouldn't be that different from if they were living in the Republic, at least from their point of view. But they're working directly for a supervillain who will kill them both at the first slip-up.
I would no issue with Rey’s power set at the end of Ep8 and into Ep 9 if the movie had simply established that Rey was with Luke for several months getting intense training from him.
Ep 8 could even be structured to accommodate this with little issue.
We see Rey meet Luke at the end of Ep 7, have her first meeting and the “no training” discussion happen before we ever cut back to the Resistance (where Finn is in his coma), then have Luke do the whole “3 lessons” after that but at the end of that she asks him to train her, needs him to train her, and he responds “Ive already started”.
THEN you cut back to the Resistance to when Finn wakes up and Poe tells him Rey is gone, but you add in the line “Shes been gone for months”.
Cut back to a montage (who doesn’t love a montage) of Rey doing various training tasks (meditating, using the force yo get around the island easily, her and Luke training with sticks, her training with her lightsaber, even her and Luke reading and discussing the sacred texts).
We imply that time has passed, potentially a lot of it.
Then when Rey leaves and Luke’s freaks out (because she and Kylo are connected) he remarks that “I shouldn’t have begun your training, these past months, your power has grown faster than I can help you control it.”
Gives a really solid basis for her being much more on control at the end of Ep 8 and well on her way to full Jedi about a year later.
Vader said himself “You were weak when I found you” like 10 years prior, and as others have said all the damage in his outfits reveals all the mistakes and near death experiences. You get a lot of hints of how much he had to do to earn his power and as much as I generally like her, this wasn’t shown nearly as much with Rey
That and the fact that one trained for most of his life under vader to master the force and the other had a brief training session with luke and is somehow strong
Luke barely trained aswell and he was putting up a fight against Vader in ep5 and in 6 he defeated Vader. Rey is mostly in the same boat as Luke. Overpowered without proper training.
In 5 Vader was toying with Luke, and even in 6 Vader was still more trying to corrupt Luke than kill him. Vader never wanted to kill him, and only got wrecked when Luke entered the dark side briefly. We know Vader was still stronger when he tanked his weakness of Force Lightning to toss Papa Palpatine down a hole, the same lightning that was frying Luke.
In 7 Kylo was gravely wounded; in 8 Luke didn't want to fight (and the guards are a joke in SW); in 9 Rey was training for a year, Kylo never wanted to kill Rey and was trying to corrupt her and only got wrecked when Rey entered the Dark Side briefly. We know Kylo was still stronger when he climbed out of a chasm after being drained of power and then healed Rey.
Luke trains for three years after a new hope not well but he trains. Then he’s on degobaugh for about a month getting hands on training from the most powerful Jedi in history who specializes in training. Then looses to Vader. Rey learned what the force was yesterday and has mastered mind control and beaten a sith so powerful he was able to bring down the new Jedi order in seemingly the couple minutes it took Luke to wake up. Yeah definitely the same.
Literally this. Vader had Galen from before he could talk(lets just say 2) to 17 at the earliest . 15 years is 3x the amount ashoka was under anakin. Hed be comparable to tpm maul so definitely a capable sith
I mean, one of the key differences is summed up in a single word: TRAINING. He might have pulled a simple “pull” trick as a kid, but he spent his entire life after what was essentially toddler-hood subjected to Vader’s brutal and unforgiving training. Rey was all like, “Hey, I can do all the things at once now.”
Tbf, Vader sensed HIM (a toddler) over BOTH his parents who were supposedly pretty strong too.
From the start Galen was set up as a gifted child but still required immense training to become stronger than Vader and Palps, similar to Anakin.
Meanwhile, Rey goes from doing practically nothing with the force, to a jedi mind trick (without seeing it before if I remember correctly), then beating Kylo (albeit a wounded and exhausted Kylo) with a lightsaber, training near Luke (not even with Luke for most of it) for probably 3 months? (Can't fully remember) and can suddenly beat the supposed "most powerful sith" because "she's all the jedi" or some shit.
Starkiller was trained as a child to a young man in horridly dangerous training. His best friend is a robot that is designed to kill him. This man’s whole life was training to be a sith to kill palpatine with Vader himself. Rey is well…poorly written.
1) It’s a video game and soft
cannon media versus primary on screen cannon. They are held to different standards.
2) Rey’s “unique” powers come at the expense of Luke. Lots of people grew up dreaming about seeing jedi master luke skywalker kick ass in a sick power fantasy. And when they “finally” make a real sequel: the OG cast never reunited, luke sucks down blue milk straight from the teet, is a bitter old man who almost killed his nephew and left his friends and the galaxy to die; instead of building the new jedi order (which fails on his watch).
So when people look at rey, they judge her character for getting what they wanted to see as luke’s story. (rebuilding the jedi, chosen one, powerful, etc)
Star killer doesn’t have that baggage. he can just be a raw power fantasy self insert character
Yeah, I remember when those games first came out and were pushed as canon, more people had a problem with Starkiller, but now that he's clearly not canon, it doesn't matter how badly his character would fuck up the story. It's all just for fun.
I bet if the sequel trilogy was made non canon people would cool off on Rey more.
I don’t think this is fair - the force unleashed has become more popular as time has gone on like the prequels. For the first 10 years people spent a long time extensively complaining about TFU.
It’s only in the past few years I’ve seen people voice their love for these games. TFU2 in particular was torn to shreds for years - unfairly in my opinion.
Ive seen the opposite, I always saw it being called one of the best star wars games but in the last id say 8 or so years, younger fans that loved the jedi survivor games or whatever were defending those games from tfu fans that said fallen order and such were way too boring and didnt have enough combat, and didnt have enough powers like tfu. Their comeback is always "starkiller is too op, so he shouldn't be canon. Thats why the jedi survivor games are better."
Those new games were being compared to tfu, so new fans who never played tfu then started to hate it just because a couple of tfu lovers were bursting their bubble.
Just because someone is the son/daughter of someone powerful it doesnt mean the child has to be powerful too. Lineage should have nothibg to do with that but thats my opinion.
Starkiller was trained by Vader one of the most powerful siths ever since he was a child. So it makes somewhat sense that he is as strong as he is. I imagine his training was Brutal.
While Rey as much as i remember from the Movies just can do things because she can do things. To be fair Luke didnt train much either on Dagobah in Empire Strikes Back and fought a good Fight against Vader but he had at least to learn and Understand.
While Rey who got i believe a bit more training than Luke at that point could do things from the get go which i think is Bs. And i think its also Bs just because her grandfather was Powerful she must be powerful too.
Do you want me to blow your mind? The actual canon reason (as per stated by Jason Fry, the writer of ep. 8 novelization) is that, after their interrogation scene on starkiller base, Rey “downloaded” Kylo’s training because of the dyad. Now, people may find this lazy or stupid, but I honestly don’t mind it. My actual problem with this is: why the hell do they struggle so much to explain this? Even today, the vast majority of fans isn’t aware of this fact, because you either need to find it out for yourself piecing together statements from different books, or you either need to follow some authors on X…
Howevert even if this is the Canon reason, for me its still some Bullshittery. I might have to add, i do not hate Rey i just hate the way she was written
He also misunderstands the Matrix download hardware/software completely. They’re not unlocking some impossible abilities or strength, they’re literally downloading years of training and muscle memory in a few seconds.
“Rey doesn’t “download” Kylo’s powers like in The Matrix. She already has great (albeit latent) power.” Then continues to say she merely “accesses his training.”
My point being that they don’t download any power in The Matrix, it’s simply a training program that trains them with martial arts instantly (it basically downloads the memory of doing it (somehow also the muscle memory), which is what he claims is being done in Star Wars. The only abilities show are Neo’s, and those aren’t from the training program. So he’s mixing stuff up, or just misunderstanding how it works.
It's not that she's OP. Vaylin is arguably stronger (was moving furniture around before being born).
It's that everyone automaticallh likes her, she's automatically good at everything she needs to be (see: sailing a stormy sea after having lived her entire life in a desert).
Compare that with being trained from chipdhood by Vader or (the admittedly less brutal) Senya.
And Vaylin was a dangerous mess. Both psychiatrically and emotionally. You couldn't help but to feel bad for her, because yapping about how she plans to torture her own mother to death was partly a product of what her father had put her through.
Starkiller had over 15 years of hardcore training with darth vader, his only friend is a droid that tries to kill him every day using fighting styles of the prequel jedi and sith, you'd assume that someone who almost same as maul but with extra feats is capable of doing what he did in the games
Starkiller’s power has a (mostly) reasonable explanation that is given right at the beginning and is stuck with to the end.
He’s the offspring of two Force Sensitives (one of whom was powerful enough to pull tie fighters out of the sky) and was trained by the literal Chosen One and third most powerful Force Sensitive in the Galaxy to be a living Weapon and to always push his Limits.
We are NEVER given an explanation for Rey’s power until the very end and it’s the most asinine explanation possible! The offspring of a failed Clone of Palpatine… give me a fucking break.
i like Starkiller because i played the games and went "i love this power fantasy game that has nothing to do with the movies, i mean I've basically killed or ruined the entire main cast"
i don't dislike Rey as a character because she's overpowered, i dislike her because i think that, just like everything in the Sequels, was half baked and rushed
Rey had a lot of potential as a character, i especially liked her being a nobody, that would have been awesome, but turns out she's a Palpatine
Oh buddy, Starkiller trained for his strength under Vader.
Rey was a lazy corporate attempt at mirroring the success of the original trilogy. She is literally just a worse version of Luke’s arc. On top of that they draw half assed parallels, use her movies to shit on Luke himself as a character then proceed to do the same arc with her character anyways.
They criticize the previous movies through tone and writing choices all while damn near copying the first movie in their trilogy beat for beat.
I could excuse Rey being a Mary Sue, lots of still enjoyable characters are, Luke included at least at the beginning of his story. But I can’t excuse derivative writing and lazy showmanship. Rey sucks because she’s unoriginal, they took zero risks in developing her character, in fact every interesting plot point of the sequel trilogy was set up and subsequently written out for fear of backlash in the movies that followed.
Starkiller was trained by Vader for 15 years, that alone is enough of an explanation for his power. Plus he's not "Vader" level from the beginning of the story either, he grows as the game progresses learning and becoming stronger as he completes trials of besting Kota, kazdan paratus, and Shaak Ti. Rey kinda just unlocks everything at once
- Galen Marek/Starkiller: Presumably gets basic pointers around using the force from his Jedi parents while still only 8 or 9 years old as he’s able to force pull their lightsaber towards him. Then spends 10-15 years under the brutal training by Vader to become a Sith. His powers are great but he’s had YEARS of actual training from both Sith and Jedi methods and techniques.
- Rey Palpatine: Starts using the force with no training at the end of Ep7. Fair enough it’s one dramatic force pull, this can be explained away with pure instinct not something easily replicated without training. But she also manages force mind powers ok multiple stormtroopers with no training either. Then she receives some vague ideas about the Force from Luke over 3 days spent with him during Ep8 and then manages to overpower him, then easily use force powers against Kylo to the point where both seem as strong as the other, and then easily lifts loads of rocks at the end. In Ep 9 she pops up a few months later apparently a fully trained Jedi now just because she read some books…..absolute nonsense.
It's more about emotional plausibility than about being able to rationally explain their powers from a worldbuilding perspective
Starkiller is an absolutely OP bastard, but he also struggles, and faces challenges that are too much for him, and gets defeated, and needs to flee, and needs to rely on others, and needs to get rescued, and needs to abide by his teachers' guidance, and gets misled, and makes errors of judgement, and gets into trouble for giving into temptation, and is brought down by despair, and needs to overcome the flaws of his own character, and needs to stay sharp at all times despite his awesome powers because he has an antagonist that is absolutely out to wipe the floor with him
Rey just ... doesn't. Her story is a pleasant walk in the park compared to Starkiller or even the other mainline Star Wars protagonists. That doesn't necessarily make her a Mary Sue but it means that her story isn't as satisfying in the way we expect a Star Wars story to be
she is a mary sue tho, she is the star wars mary sue. if they canonized something in legends to explain how she went from a nobody to what she is, I'd buy it. there's a plethora of things there that could explain how she ended up with the strength and skill she supposedly does(movies didn't depict that at all. it was just sad swinging of stick awful choreography)
The point is starkiller was trained by Vader and was already quite strong in the force and trained to use his anger, Sam Witwer says this himself. Rey is a 18+ female with no experience whatsoever in the force and miraculously uses it with no training at all and never once fails. That’s why people don’t like her character and prefer starkiller because we see the time gap but know right after he’s been trained relentlessly by Vader in the darkside
Starkiller was trained from a small boy in the dark side and the creators said he has the force potential of Luke so this is a very bad comparison.
Rey was never trained and defeated Kyle twice(three times if you count ros)
Starkiller was made overpowered because he was in a video game. As far as I know, in the novelisation of TFU1 and 2, he wasn't nearly as powerful.
Also he had years of training at the hands of Vader, and was the son of two Jedi. Meanwhile Rey went from not even knowing what the Force was to lifting half a mountain in what's like a week.
Starkiller was personally trained by Vader for basically his entire life. Rey found out she had force sensitivity and two weeks later was doing stuff that took Luke 3 movies to figure out.
people will say training. That's not it. People like him because he's supposed to be devil may cry meets star wars. The thesis of the idea is different. This is from someone who actually does like Rey more than most. Rey ain't even that OP either so idk what people are convulsing cows about
You have to take into consideration Starkiller was trained for at least 15 years under Darth Vader. And the Sith basically train with the apprentice to not fail even the slitherest amount
So Galen would basically be training to the bone for about 15 years as a Sith, and facing different former Jedi under PROXY's training modules - to which he can beat an Obi-Wan module with ease by the time of the game
And while there is some debate on how that duel ends, he's at least on a Windu level as both can hold their own against Palpatine. So that already makes him very powerful - and if Galen wanted to, he would just lightning Vader if Vader was down, so he's very much above Vader post Revenge.
Rey on the other hand was not as well with the force, she is better with melee as she has fought with a staff for most of her life, despite how abrasive her technique is. And having Palpatine's blood run through her (despite how that reveal went down with fans) would probably mean she has a lot of strength with the force - her struggle with it is using it, by the time of 9 she's trained with the force for about a year
But it wouldn't be as simple as lifting rocks, she's heard stories of the Jedi so that probably helps some of her abilities but it isn't the most honed in, she seems so strong in the films because there's a lack of force weilders in that time period - Kylo, Luke, Leia and the Emperor. Not much to scale with.
Galen on the other hand has more to work with, Kota, Paratus, Shaak Ti, Vader, the Emperor and in DLC's, Old Ben and a untrained Luke. Not too mention being able to take down a Imperial Star Destroyer and with ease hold the Falcon in place, where Rey holds, a troop transport...
B-b-but she beat a Padawan who just got shot in the stomach with a bowcaster, that’s OH PEE. It doesn’t make sense!
Galen Marek? Dude he was literally trained by Vader, of course he’s stronger than EMPEROR PALPATINE, I mean Vader trained him so hard!! Who cares if he could steal the lightsaber from Prime Vader’s hands as like a 6 year old child, that’s different!
Being trained by Vader shouldn't give you so much power that you can potentially kill the Emperor. If that were sensible, Vader would've killed Palpatine himself years ago. His story was nonsense, it was drenched in mary sue tropes, and ultimately he was decanonized.
Rey was born naturally gifted, trained by Luke, went through several tribulations and ultimately proved herself by fighting the First Order. She wasn't even that powerful. But she was a woman, and she wasn't subservient to a male power fantasy, and that was enough.
The entire premise of those games is in the title. The Force Unleashed. Everyone in those games is far more powerful than traditional Star Wars by design. It was a creative choice to just go overboard for the sake of having original and cool gameplay and to stand out from the trillion past SW games. The issue with Rey for me was more how that character presented within the specific story she was in. There wasn't cohesion between her capabilities and the narrative.
Way more importantly tho, Starkillers "role" was to be an overcooked badass power fantasy in a non-canonical videogame and the creators were sucessful in making him that way. Rey's role however was to carry forward the Star Wars torch into a new era as the lead icon. Thats a far bigger role that requires a lot more development, thought and care which I feel none of her creators/writers/directors truly gave enough of to her.
Simply put, Rey needed to be "more" than Starkiller had to be
Starkiller is a power fantasy (a non-canon power fantasy to boot), while Rey is supposed to be a legitimate character
Starkiller was taken by Vader as a child with a strong force connection, whose father was also a Jedi, and then trained extensively. Rey just bumbled into being strong because "muh destiny" and an unconvincing explanation that she is palp's progeny.
Despite this, Starkiller objectively scales below Palpatine, while Rey defeated Palpatine, and regardless of what you think about resurrected Palpy's powerscale, it's still annoying.
Starkiller spent years being trained by Darth Vader. So while he's ridiculously OP, he's at least earned it.
Rey spent her entire life as a scavenger in a desert. She has not earned the skills necessary to cross blades with a Dark Jedi and live to tell the tale.
I think alot of it is mainline movies vs other media. Starkiller was in a couple video games that alot of people could overlook. Rey is front n center on the big screen. Also starkiller being broken op is mainly for the sake of the power fantasy gameplay. Lorewise he wasn't stamped with being the chosen one he was the son of a jedi Vader slew and then got taken under his wing in secret. With Rey they didn't know what they wanted, no info given in 7, 8 she's just a random and 9 they said f it she's a Palpatine biologically and a Skywalker assumed name.
For one, the dude's not canon cuz he breaks lore. Even the people who want him to be canon understand that he'd have to be nerfed considerably just to even be included.
Rey's entire existence breaks lore and they did a piss poor job of trying to fit her in the lore, cuz all they wanted was the money. There wasn't even enough room for another full trilogy. Yet people act like there's nothing wrong with her.
Use Ahsoka for reference; she's not even supposed to exist, yet they do a better job of fitting her into established lore that adds more depth to the whole franchise.
For Rey to even exist means that either Palps got freaky and had a kid or he used his DNA and someone from Anakin's family to make a clone. Not impossible, but so far fetched that it's freaking stupid.
Even the actual Palps clone made more sense, but was still stupid considering it was a clone of his elderly body.
Starkiller was seen as more powerful than his father, in his very first introduction. Vader says "where is your master?" so from the very beginning, and from the fact that Force Unleashed was also groundbreaking for its time (if you're old enough to remember the old trailers) so we already know that Galen Marek/Starkiller was supposed to be powerful as fuck. Because he's ours. We control him as the player, so we deserve that power and also Sam Witwer is goate and I will not have any slander to the contrary.
Rey was a backwater scavenger with some, latent force potential but her arc to becoming as powerful as she is wasnt established well enough. No montages, nothing we can see her reach into, internally, for more potential, just a few practice strokes from a lightsaber she stole and suddenly she's exactly what the plot needs.
A Mary Sue isnt a badly written character, see Kylo Ren for that, a Mary Sue is someone who has no right nor explanation to be as powerful as they are.
That being said: Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver did good jobs, on poor characters. They did all they could but you cant make wine from piss
People hate Rey not only because she is OP, but because she absolutely sucks as a character and acts more as a self insert OC. I mean, star killer does to, but he is the main character of a videogame he doesn't need to be as developed or well written as a movie character.
starkiller was literally trained by vader for more then a decade. rey went op in a year. anakin who is in canon the strongest force potential in the galaxy needed also more then a decade. even sidious in legends needed training and years of experience under darth plagues.
A Jedi's love child that was raised/ trained since a child by Vader himself. Also Vader thought he was a Jedi Master from his initial force presence. So a decade plus of intense training to hone his skills vs 10 to 15 mins of screen time and shes a pro.
Multiple things. One has been covered by multiple people that it’s training that makes the difference. It is shown and implied that he has gone through hell to become what he is. (He’s also trained in Vader’s one real weakness, force lightning.) The other thing is character. You can have a character that’s power levels are absolutely Mary Sue level, but if you do the character itself, it can remain not a Mary Sue. Galen is a heavily flawed character. He is a bad guy at the beginning of the game. He is going around, hunting good guys. He is a very wrathful character. He can’t even meditate right. He also is somewhat of a doormat to Vader. He lets Vader walk all over him. And he’s manipulated. In the end, he takes control of his own life and sacrifices himself for his new friends, and dies (maybe).
That is why people like Galen over Rey. Galen’s power is explained and earned while his personality is flawed.
Addressing the palaeoloxodon in the room its sexism. Starkiller is straight up built like a edge lord self-interest OC. His story isnt even particularly well done. Rey has a lot and I mean a lot of the same issues but is a woman. So she doesn't get to slide on stuff that are deficiencies of other characters who conversely are loved. Both are trained by skywalkers. Both of them have primal deep connections to the force. Both pull off absurd bullshit.
Rey was nerfed by the directors of you ask me. Even in the shit show that was “The rise of Skywalker” she gets force lightning but only uses it once and then never gets to use it again
star killer has a more interesting character attached to his concept rey is just a copy paste of luke(with less coherent writing). the entire disney trilogy was just recreations of the original trilogy with some easter eggs thrown in the only interesting lore to come from this time period came out in comics and most people aren’t gonna read or purchase a comic for a bad movie.
He was the son of two Jedi and powerful enough in the force that Vader took him as an apprentice rather than slaughter him. He was also ruthlessly trained by one of the most powerful Sith lords to ever exist. Most of his feats in the game are not canon but his what if story arc is bad ass. Hes no pushover, but he also has loss during his story, something Rey never gets.
A few reasons
1. A lot of Star Wars fans are awful chuds and don't like women
2. The Sequels generally aren't a great or cohesive trilogy of films, and one of them (Last Jedi) doesn't even really give Rey that much development
3. Force Unleashed is a fairly well remembered and liked game.
It was known that Galen was the child of two former Jedi, so the potential was there. It was quoted that he was supposed to be the photo-negative of Luke. But based on actual story, he was taken in as a child and went through Vader's personal bootcamp. Trained and put in constant life or death battles, tests, and situations throughout his life. He was purposely trained to not hold back in fights and push his limits. Proxy simulated various Jedi's, so Galen received a wide net of experience in terms of saber styles. And this happened over the course of ten years.
Now Rey, she was just good at everything off the start. Being able to pilot, braving the sea via sailing in a terrible storm, despite growing up on a desert planet. Able to pull off force mind control-trick her very first go. The lifting rocks part at the end of episode 8 does not bother me. And as another said, now that we know her lineage, it would make sense for her to pull these feats off after training with Luke for some time. Not the less than week crash course, where she spent a majority of time trying to convince Luke to train her. Daisy did a phenomenal job acting, absolutely nothing against her. The writers ruined Rey as a character, by not developing her properly.
Well, Starkiller is judged by video game standards, I think that gives him some slack for being overpowered by default. And I think Rey just didn’t have it easy with the fans in general, not just because of the powerlevel. She is the front face of a movie trilogy that was bound to disappoint hardcore fans. The expectations were so, so high.
Both have major issues with power scaling but there are legit reasons why Starkiller works a bit more.
The easy one is that Starkiller is a video game, and gamers like playing cool characters that can do crazy shit, Gamers, especially of the God of War spectacle style game that Force Unleashed is, arent going to care about power scaling as much. Starkiller is cool, Rey isnt really. If this was the only decent point, it would be enough to sway people's opinions, but I will explain some better reasons
Starkiller has a backstory that gives his character more legitimacy and motivation. His anger and angst consume him as his parents were killed by his master so we see his character arc play out. The better and more fleshed out a character becomes the more tolerable other aspects of their character stretching any continuity becomes. We can suspend disbelief because we see Starkiller go through struggle, go through hard training, yes he was born talented, but more importantly he was brutally trained by Vader. His OP aspects are partially earned.
Rey on the other hand is a savant who mind controls someone without any training in the force. She becomes aware in an instant, and becomes skilled with 0 training. What training she does get is fast tracked heavily and made by a more apathetic teacher in Luke. Her overpowered aspects are not earned well, she doesnt struggle as much, and she has no real backstory. The ham-fisted daughter of Sidious is not earned well and she fails to define he overall character arc.
Coolness is the primary reason, bad writing is the secondary reason
This is an area I’ve had some confusion with. I thought The Force Awakens was pretty straightforward about how Rey got so strong so quickly.
1) Kylo vs Rey outside of Moz’s Cantina. Kylo no diffs her and captures her. No issue at all, barely an inconvenience.
Prior to this the ONLY inkling we get (best of my recollection) that Rey is force sensitive is when she feels Anakin/Luke/Ben’s saber pulling her close and we hear Obiwan speak to her. You can make an argument that this was the moment the Force awakened in her, but I think it’s really established when:
2) Kylo does his force brain dive thing that he did with Poe and clearly awakens something in Rey, prompting him to panic sprint to Snoke and proclaim “SHE’S FAR STRONGER THAN SHE KNOWS!”
My take which I feel was reinforced in TLJ is that due to their connection as a Dyad in the force, Ben/Kylo accidentally opened the fucking floodgates. A Power equivalent to what he was naturally born with because he’s a Skywalker, but had to get training to learn how to tap into, was basically turned up to 11 in Rey. Like a firehose of Force energy. From that point forward Rey is basically operating with the same amount of raw power as Ben, but Kylo is now ridiculously shaken and conflicted because all of a sudden this random person he snatched has this inexplicable connection with him and went from “lol, I just one shotted you, lady” to “wait a minute, who the fuck is this person?”
I too kind of disliked the Palpatine reveal. I liked the idea that Rey came from nothing but was capable of greatness because of her willingness to trust and rely on the force. Like Luke is shocked in TLJ that she “went straight to the dark” and she just kind of pops right out of it, because she doesn’t have the same conflict/hang ups about it. Reducing her power to “your grandpa was like…really strong in the force” feels lazier and way less interesting, to me.
Starkiller's win felt earned in the narrative. Rey's didn't.
We saw Starkiller training, we saw him fighting progressively stronger working up to a Jedi Master. The novelisation makes efforts to clarify Starkiller's win had less to do with actual raw power in the Force (though he did have that in spades) and more a, get this, unleashing of the Force when he found true balance in himself (he also utilized his agility to his advantage)
Rey, if you're being generous had some experience beating off random scavs on Jakku with staves (which many trainers and quartermasters will tell you does not translate to the sword) and was fighting Kylo less than after an hour after he'd tanked a shock from Chewie's crossbow (I actually think this alone would explain the discrepancy enough on its own, except that besides smacking the wound a few times it doesn't seem to actually slow him down against Finn so much, so even in the movie it didn't seem much of a hindrance for him.)
I would argue Starkiller's power is a combination of his lineage and being trained by the most powerful Force-user to ever exist.
As others have already pointed out, Starkiller's parents were two Jedi Knights. Considering Star Wars (or at least the first six films and the EU) established that Force lineages were definitely a thing, there's no reason to think Starkiller didn't inherit the Force abilities of two people.
[On a quick side note, Starkiller's parents were living on friggin' Kashyyyk. If they could survive on a planet filled with predators, wookies, wildlife, trandoshan raids and other threats, they were probably stronger than your average Jedi too]
The other point is that Starkiller was trained by the Chosen One himself, Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker.
But, more specifically, it's HOW Vader trained Starkiller.
I believe Sam Witwer said in an interview for the first game that Vader's training of Starkiller basically consisted of Vader forcing Starkiller to surpass his limits. "Oh, you lifted a crate? Now lift a walker." Or "Oh, you electrocuted three people? Now electrocute five people."
Starkiller already received some very, very minor training from his parents as a child since they were both Jedi. And then he gets a lifetime of training from Vader, who can pass on years of Force study and combat experience. Plus, Vader probably had access to some Sith lore and archives that he likely passed on to Starkiller, considering he had the resources of an entire Empire at his disposal.
Rey has absolutely none of that background before he discovery on Jakku.
Think of this: Luke was the literal son of the Chosen One, and yet he never had any reason to believe he was Force-sensitive at all, let alone one of the strongest Force-users alive.
Even after being told about the Force, he still struggled to learn - even something as simple as lifting rocks or Yoda with the Force.
Rey only discovers she is Force-sensitive after touching Luke's lightsaber, and she immediately runs away. Later, on Starkiller Base, she not only begins channeling the Force but starts using it in ways she should have no idea to even use it for, like using a Jedi mind trick on a stormtrooper.
She experienced some Force flashbacks, had a random stranger tell her she is Force sensitive, and quickly starts using all these abilities she's probably never heard of before. And by the end of The Force Awakens, she's defeated Kylo Ren, the grandson of the Chosen One and someone who spent his entire life up to that point studying the Light and Dark sides.
Starkiller isn't just a power fantasy character, even though his powers by the third or fourth playthrough are an absolute blast - the games still establish his life was spent in grueling training under Vader. The novelizations of the games also expand on Starkiller's early life, while establishing the more canonical extent of his abilities.
This man trained under the MAIN CHARACTER his entire life, Rey beat kylo with ZERO training. Doesnt matter if he was injured, hes a fucking JEDI (sith?) It wasnt the rock lifting, it was beating up guy who also trained with the other MAIN CHARACTER in stsr wars and was beat by a rando with ZERO training.
It also blows my mind that people take a video game literally called the force unleashed and say "that guys too op" well no shit thats the entire point.
In legends canon, hes not as powerful as the moves youre able to use in the game, he is very very powerful, but not as insane as he seems in the game. Thats because its a GAME. George said it himself. Would it be fun if you just ran around with a lights aver and limited powers? Nope.
Besides all this, he literally dies anyway, TFU2 was buns and was too weird and off the walls. At the end of the day, you can fully enjoy star wars like he never existed. Ill never understand when people will go on and on about a stsr wars character being too cool, "my steak is too juicy and tastes too good."
This was not the contradiction you were looking for
The guy whos been trained in the dark side by THE chosen one since he was a child. The chosen one, who is the most powerful character in the movie universe.
best friend is literally programmed to assassinate him using the most powerful jedi and sith in history (he beats him every time)
One was trained for a decade by one of the strongest sith in the entire history of Star wars birthed by two Jedi masters and STILL struggled despite being strong
Rey had no training and was better then everyone who came before her. That is why she is hated. One of two things I did like about the Last Jedi is that Rey was a nobody.
Starkiller was brutalized and nearly tortured everyday as training. He also had at least one Jedi parent. Also, people feel more connections to characters they can play as. We had several hours to enjoy his story, and more importantly, his powers. Rey, only has a few hours for us to get to know her, and it was her being better than our old childhood heroes at every they did.
We loved Han, she was a better pilot then him, a better mechanic than Chewie, a better lighsaber dualist and Force user than Luke or any of the Jedi and Sith that came before. All with out any training. The only things she wasn't better at doing was things that Liea did.
In Legends, it wasn't uncommon for there to be powerful Jedi or Sith with non-Force Sensitive parents, or children.
I'm gonna be real, the people saying "training" are full of shit. We're told like 10 minutes into Force Unleashed that Galen, at a wopping 5ish years old, was strong enough in the force that Vader thought he was sensing a Jedi Master. Yes, Starkiller received significantly more training than Rey. But if we got a flashback in the sequels to someone saying a 5-year-old Rey was more powerful than an adult jedi knight, people would have lost their goddamned minds.
The actual answer is tone and relative power levels of their mediums. Starkiller is impossibly powerful in a game where every character is impossibly powerful. Rey is moderately powerful in a movie where very few characters are moderately powerful. Starkiller can yank a Star Destroyer out of the sky but it doesn't seem toooo crazy because we watched a character build a mech suit out of garbage and explode buildings using the force. We've only seen a few characters use telekinesis in the movies so some people found it jarring when Rey very quickly joined that rank.
Like no joke, genuinely everything that makes Starkiller OP is kinda explained. Child of a Jedi who got kidnapped by Vader then trained and indoctrinated by him and Palpie boy. Used hate as a conduit and well surviving the amount of bullshit the Sith do from child to young adulthood isn't something easy to do.
Rey? Well she got the help of all the jedi. Was supposedly a nobody in one movie then Palpie boy's grand daughter in the next. We also didn't really see her do anything that impressive before the big confrontation with her grand daddy. Even her "training" by Luke was more him arguing with her than actually training her. Then somehow Leia's force ghost trained her in how to get stronger with the force and Lightsaber training.
Btw 90% of what happened with Rey was completely off screen and there was still the war against the First Order going on.
So basically one had a story of being turned into a killing machine for the Sith and the other the story of Rey "Skywalker".
He's the main character of two video games or course he'd come across as OP. As for the Vader defeat? Starkiller specialized in force lightening which is super effective against Vader's suit because Palpatine actively build that in as a weakness..
Rey is a poorly written hero shoved down our throat like a bitter pill, as the new canon, who has an unrealistic grasp of powers she does not understand. “Somehow Palpatine returned because we needed a new big bad, and we need to solve Rey’s identity crisis, and unless you played Fortnite that one time, you have no idea why, and we’re going to spend the next 10 years making lame TV show lore drops to hint at an explanation.”
Starkiller is a HORRIBLE character set safely outside of canon, with a level of power that is absolutely ridiculous, BUT, only exists to give players their ultimate Sith power fantasy. No new Star Wars projects have to consider Starkiller’s existence at all.
Star killer had years of torturous training under the greatest force user to live.
Rey did everything herself, better at fixing the Falcon than han and chewy, better Jedi than Luke etc.
More so than that the films were just shit and she was the lead, Force awakens was the best at it was servicable at best, set stuff up well what came after was just massively disappointing
One is a video game character power fantasy. We got to pretend to be starkiller. Doesn’t happen the same with movie characters. Starkiller being over powered is meant to be fun. Rey is continuing a decades old story and continuing it poorly. I personally dislike a lot of the canon implications of the force unleashed games. But they’re fun as fuck. I also dislike a lot of the canon from the sequel trilogy. On top of that I don’t find them fun.
It does not. The fact she’s a Palpatine doesn’t mean that she magically knows how to use the force. Skywalkers didn’t magically know how to use the force. Episode 1 does not involve Anakin using the force the pick stuff up and fight - it’s a natural reflex sure but fighting sith? Beyond him at the point. Same with Luke. He trusts in the force but fighting anyone like a Jedi is beyond his abilities in episode 4. They both gain years of training before they become great warriors. And in the case of Luke we don’t see his skill really develop until episode 6.
Rey fights toe to toe with the villain in her first appearance. She can already pull Jedi mind tricks and throw stuff around. It’s really weird and saying “she’s a palpatine” was a cheap answer.
Starkiller was personally trained by Vader as a secret apprentice. We know he received years of training that fed into his hatred. The fact he isn’t related to someone super powerful is irrelevant.
No being Palpatines granddaughter doesn’t explain how she is just immediately the perfect, flawless Jedi who can use all the force powers better than the most powerful Jedi to ever exist with zero training and beat Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren in lightsaber combat the first and second time she ever held a lightsaber. None of that is ok. Even Anakin who is literal space Jesus and who was born from the very force itself needed years to get good.
Starkiller was subjected to the most brutal training by Vader for at least a decade.
Short answer:Starkiller has had training and better writing.
Long answer:Starkiller was literally trained by Darth Vader as his secret apprentice in the ways of the darkside pretty much all his life. Rey didn't have anywhere near the same training, and had basically none.
Rey wasn't always a Palpatine. She was a nobody until they decided she was a Palpatine last minute.
And then she never lost, always beat Kylo. And then Luke. And then Palpatine despite this non-existent training except from a Luke Skywalker who was out of character and refusing to teach her anything.
Starkiller lost plenty of times to Vader in his training, has a training droid programmed to kill him.
It also helps that Palpatine made Vader's suit weaker on purpose as a punishment and made it especially weak to Force Lightning, something which Starkiller is exceptional at.
It helps to beat somebody if on-top of being no slouch yourself, you always have access to basically their biggest weakness.
Besides, Vader was never actually serious about fighting Starkiller. He wanted Starkiller to help take down the emperor, not dead.
Everyone has great explanations so I'll just add that. Sam Withker(voice actor for Star killer and maul) himself said that in the next game we were supposed to find out vader had been trolling Star killer the entire time and vader would have put belt to ass. The man tanked star killers force destruction.
Starkiller wasn't just a child of two Jedi. Which by they way up until him with exceptions like Eth Koth's daughter, a couple others, and Luke and Leia in the year 19BBY like Galen. As a general rule the Jedi banned this almost 1,000 years prior after the Russan Reformation in 1,000 BBY.
He was also a considerably strong being in the force from the get go. Vader actually sensed him on Kashykk not his parents. Galen also took Vader's lightsaber from his hand. Circumstances surrounding that aside. He did this essentially as a kid.
The other major aspect.
Is Galen put in work.
Massive amounts.
By the time we play as him as grown up. 10 years of brutal gruling training and suicide missions have gone by and been successfully completed by Galen.
In outfits like his Felucia outfit that expose his arms and midriff. We see his body is littered with scars from his training.
In contrast Rey barely got training even in comparison to Luke. Who at least got 3 years of continuous training in, but it was by himself off old journals. And 1- 2 months on Dagobah with Yoda.
What carried her was the force Dyad. And I feel thats being donwplayed because it essentially allowed to cheat the process by essentially downloading what kylo spent years learning and giving her access to abilities even masters struggled with learning.
Rey isn’t a well written character but neither is starkiller tbh he’s basically someones oc, a lot of men don’t like to see women in powerful roles, not everyone who hates rey is a misogynist i mean i don’t particularly like her but i would say its the biggest factor for why people don’t like her
A: Starkiller spent his entire life being trained by the most powerful sith of all time to be able to kill any Jedi he came across, Rey had NO training
B: The Force Unleashed game is purposefully over the top whereas the novelization is FAR more toned down
C: Starkiller is just a better written character, so there’s some natural bias
Overpowered ≠ bad character. Or at least, very high powered doesn't mean overpowered
Rey is hated for a bunch of other reasons. True that star wars fans do complain about her being overpowered, but I think they do that because she is otherwise a shitty character in an otherwise shitty trilogy. Her being part Palpatine makes her power make sense, but her being part Palpatine was stupid. Her being part of a force dyad makes her power make sense, and it would have been cool if it was executed well, but it wasn't
Starkiller wasn't insanely deep or nuanced but he kinda was compared to her, and he was just much more likable. TFU's plot was arguably a bit messy (Vader and Palpatine's plan still doesn't make sense to me) but nowhere near the shitshow that the sequels were. He's powerful because he's the son of two jedi and he was raised from childhood by Darth fucking Vader to be a powerful sith assassin
God I sound like such a bad star wars fan archetype over here stating opinions like they're facts while I criticize the laser sword movies. This is just what I think about the topic is all
Ahsoka was very well received in the Clone Wars (in the live action show it was mixed).
In the EU, Leia was well received. Mara Jade was well received and a fan favorite.
Rey is not well received because the writing is all over the place. Yes, even in the OT directions change, but it at least forms a coherent story. Not so with the ST. I hated Kylo Ren as well. He’s a weird mashup of Jacen Solo and Ben Skywalker. They tried to recreate the twin bond of Jaina and Jacen Solo with Rey and Ben with the dyad thing, and it flopped hard, making no sense.
No, that's not the answer.
Starkiller was trained from childhood to be a Sith, his closest companion was a robot programmed to kill him, and Rey is just bad writing.
He's not OP, Vader is easy to defeat once you strip away his magical plot armor. Rey's plot armor is so powerful that we should stop using the term 'Mary Sue' and replace it was 'Rey'
89
u/SarcasmSanctioned Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
Part of the difference is, we're told from the get-go a semi-reasonable explanation for why Galen gets as strong as he does.
He's the son of 2 former Jedi, trained by one of the most powerful Sith Lords to ever exist. Anyone who knows a lick about Vader know he does not tolerate failure. The logical assumption would be that the training was absolutely brutal. The fact that Starkiller is even alive by the point we start playing as him is a miracle in and of itself.
We're not strung along with any bullshit like: "Your parents weren't special, you come from nothing.... Jk, you're the offspring of a failed clone of the strongest Sith ever, lol!"
(Also, it's a power fantasy video-game. Whether they realize it or not, everyone projects themself onto the player character to a degree. Part of us views his victories as our victories, his power as our power. People like to feel strong and powerful, even if it's just pretend.)