Star Wars: The Force Awakens - 8 Things The Prequels Did Better

2. They Adhere To The Workings Of The Force

The Phantom Menace is practically devoted in its entirety to establishing how crucial training in the Force really is. Even at such a young age, Anakin is considered by Yoda to be too old to train. Many years pass between The Phantom Menace and The Clone Wars, so viewers get a sense of the scope of his training when it comes to seeing Anakin use the Force. In essence, it's been a long time coming. Hell, even in the original trilogy, Luke Skywalker (who is presumably around Rey's age) doesn't directly use the Force in the first film, and he's shown to be pretty bad with a lightsaber. His closeness to the Force manifests itself in amazing piloting, which we see Rey knock out of the park within the first half an hour of The Force Awakens. You certainly don't see him using Jedi mind tricks and going toe to toe with a trained Sith after five minutes. The point isn't that Rey hasn't received any training €“ she undoubtedly will, the ending of the film hinges on it €“ it's the uncharacteristic swiftness with which she becomes proficient that's completely off. In The Force Awakens, Rey learns the Force as the plot demands it (like in order to escape captivity) which just doesn't align with how it's treated in the originals or prequels. And sure, you can try and explain it away by saying Rey's more Force sensitive than any other Jedi we've ever seen in any of the other films, but that's a lazy explanation for disregarding what we know about the Force.