The Compressor Controversy

In the previous review, Rey had released three deadly creatures to save Han and Chewie, who were about to be shot by some goons who wanted their money back. She’d meant to close the doors in front of the goons but made a mistake. After a long, chaotic scene, Han, Finn, Rey and Chewie escape the ship by boarding the Millennium Falcon. They enter into hyperspace, even though the hanger door is supposed to be closed, adding some confusion to lightspeed travel.

While travelling in hyperspace, a warning goes off, and Han says they need to fix the hyperdrive. After Han and Rey struggle for a minute, Rey rips something out of the wall, and the beeping stops. Han asks Rey what she did, and smiling, she says what is possibly the most infamous line to come out of the Disney Trilogy: “I bypassed the Compressor.” Han gives her a look. He seems very perplexed.

Now, I am going to give what will probably be the most unpopular take in this entire series, but I’m going to try and defend this moment in the film. So, to start, let me explain why I think this moment is fair. I won’t say good, but fair. Rey’s piloting abilities are ridiculous. Her later lightsaber abilities and aptitude for the Force are ridiculous. Her skills with a blaster are ridiculous.

But Rey is a scavenger. She’s taken apart Empire-era craft most of her life. She also says she knows what the Falcon’s previous owner has done to the ship and states that she’s even disagreed with the additions he’s made.

So, she knows the ship type, and she knows the modifications. Therefore, it makes sense for her to fix the problem. Plus, the Force has also been shown to give its users an aptitude for machinery. Remember Anakin? He built a podracer and CP3O when he was a child.

I’m not about to defend the first movie’s depiction of Anakin’s mechanical abilities, but my only point is that Lucas established that rule in the first movie, so it’s fair, not good—a child building such machines just doesn’t seem believable—but fair.

The Force seems to be very intuitive, so if the user in question has some exposure to a skill, then their intuition regarding that skill does seem to improve. Also, Han and Chewie were shown to have trouble fixing their ship in The Empire Strikes Back. And why not?

Flying a ship and fixing a ship are two different skills. They were able to patch the ship up well enough, but they couldn’t take care of the problem with the hyperdrive by themselves, which is why they went to Lando in the first place.

Rey’s abilities in this situation are fairly established. Her showing up Han in this circumstance is even fairly set up. So, why didn’t the scene work and not only fail to translate, but also seems to infuriate many fans? Frankly, I think this mostly has to do with the set-up.

First of all, Rey’s piloting abilities are—as I said—absurd. Then there’s Abrams’ complete misread of Han Solo, portraying him as an incompetent swindler rather than a rogue with a heart of gold, or better, the war hero the audience understood him to be by the end of the sixth film.

Basically, the audience has already had to endure several jarring, and, frankly, disappointing events practically back-to-back, so by the time the compressor scene arrives, Rey’s grin and Han’s perplexed expression are enough to bring some fans to conclude that this entire movie is going to be about the new cast showing up the old.

And let’s not kid ourselves; that’s exactly what these movies are trying to do. But, even so, Rey’s mechanical talents are justified, and if the movie had focused on that and made it her unique quality, they would’ve created a more memorable character. But taken together, all these talents have made Rey far too skilled, even if the last talent is reasonable.

The very least they could’ve done is shown Han as competent. He could’ve saved Rey and Finn instead of the other way around. Then when the hyperdrive scene happened, Rey would essentially be proving that she has something to contribute, which would be more believable and would’ve kept the story in the same place. As the scene stands, she may as well be saying, “This is my ship now,” which is, of course, exactly what the writers are saying, and the audience knows it.

Later, after Han agrees to help Finn and Rey take BB-8 to the Resistance, he brings them to a hidden fort in the woods, the home of Maz Kanata. Rey, seeing the trees, mentions the beauty of the foliage.

The writers actually remembered she’s from a desert and made that a part of her character. In the entire trilogy, this is one of two moments where the writers actually take her origins into account. Rey will later go on to know how to swim and pilot a sailboat, but for now, her backstory is still relevant. Furthermore, Han actually offers Rey a job because he is impressed with her technical prowess.

I know critics of the trilogy are going to hate this, and I understand why, but this is fair. Maybe the writers set the sequence up to make it look like Rey was showing up Han, maybe not, but regardless, they did play by the established rules here, even if by accident.

The critics may not like it. I’m not sure I like it. But it is fair. All of her other powers are over the top given the rules provided in the prior movies, but her technical abilities and Han’s limitations are well within what the audience knows about the rules. In this case, the writers haven’t cheated. And, speaking personally, it’s a moving scene. The moment where Han lowers Rey’s pistol when she has it pointed too high is endearing, a small thing, but in a trilogy this bad, anything good is worth pointing out.

I understand why so many people were upset. I just can’t call the scene a plot hole, even if it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The clustering of Rey’s talents was the problem. Han Solo’s introduction was the problem. Bad writing was the problem.

Speaking of bad writing. The goons tell the First Order that the droid is aboard the Millennium Falcon, and the next scene is with Kylo Ren, General Hux, and Snoke. Kylo Ren has not been taking the situation very well. He’s since destroyed a control room, and this is meant to demonstrate his volatile nature.

To make matters worse, he and Hux have something of a rivalry going, and when Hux decides the best thing to do is destroy the Republic using their secret weapon before the Resistance can get the map, Snoke, the apparent ruler of the First Order, agrees.

The scene ends with some very heavy-handed dialogue from Snoke, who makes sure to call Kylo Ren Ben Solo, then further goes out of his way to say that Han Solo is his father. The scene is meant to communicate that Kylo Ren is supposed to kill his father as part of his training. But it comes across as a giant info dump.

So, who is this new big bad called Snoke? How did he manage to seduce Ben Solo and turn him into Kylo Ren? Who are the Knights of Ren, which are mentioned during this scene? The audience waited for the answers to these various questions, and they were disappointed on every point.

But the bottom line is that the First Order means to destroy the Republic with their new super weapon, and Kylo must murder his father to further his training. We’ll cover what happens at Maz Kanata’s fortress in the next review.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44H2_cu02P4