"Still upsetting"—When Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley opened up about audience response towards her portrayal of Rey

From Star Wars to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), the franchise went cosmic after the first film came out in 1977. Whenever the fans learn about a new project in the franchise, there's a lot of hope and expectations attached to it.

Be it the story or the characters, if there's something that's bugging them, they are sure to tear down every detail as to what went south and needed to go in a different direction.

It happened with Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey in the franchise's sequel trilogy, which she explained was upsetting to her. She appeared in an interview last year on Ben Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast, just over four years after the trilogy concluded. She said,

"It’s still upsetting. You don’t want people to feel like you’ve not served the thing they’re a fan of. But [The Last Jedi] was so divisive… it felt like the first one everyone was responsive in the same way. The second, super divisive. The last one, super divisive. It didn’t change how I felt about it."

While fans may have given their criticism over Rey, every film in the sequel trilogy collected over a billion dollars in revenue, with Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) garnering the most ($2.07 billion), followed by Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) ($1.3 billion) and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ($1.1 billion).

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Rey is often considered as Star Wars' Mary Sue

Four years before Star Wars came to life, a Star Trek fanwork came to life called A Trekkie's Tale, bringing with it the concept of Mary Sue. The idea described female characters as women of exceptional abilities with the likes of male characters like Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Sometimes that's a mesh; sometimes it can be of one.

In the George Lucas universe, fans labeled Rey as Mary Sue. She almost took down Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) before the planet began collapsing. She didn't need any training or anything, which is likely one of the reasons for fans to put her in the Mary Sue umbrella. The actress stated,

"The Mary Sue thing in itself is sexist because it’s the name of a woman. Everyone was saying that Luke had the exact same [capabilities]. I think Rey is incredibly vulnerable, and nothing she’s doing is for the greater good. She’s just doing what she thinks is the right thing. And she doesn’t want to do some of it, but she feels compelled to do it. So for me, I was just confused."

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Daisy Scott isn't surprised with the Star Wars' fan backlashes

It isn't just her character. Rey in the sequel trilogy, Rian Johnson, the Last Jedi writer-director, met with a ton of backlash from the fans. They weren't happy with what he did to the characters they once loved. Change is really hard to accept, and it was clear in this instance.

However, the actress wasn't surprised by this bit even a bit. She told USA Today that people are going to have an opinion on matters anyway. But she also thinks it's fair only when they are so passionate about something.

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The fan backlash also has backlash

There are fans who don't like Rey, and then there are people who don't like people who don't like Rey. The internet is rife with conversations, dividing them. While we already know about the ones who don't really like Rey in the franchise, there are some who believe that all this backlash isn't worth it.

One fan of Reddit believes that "the Mary Sue argument is pretty invalid.' But the user also believes it to be a bit understandable.

Another one just outright says all of this "has no real basis as genuine criticism."

With a cinematic universe that vast, we are unlikely to see this debate being settled. Though it will be a big sigh of relief if settled. However, that settlement ought to make sense, like this MCU debate discussing Spider-Sense and RADAR Sense, whenever it happens.

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Also Read: 10 Basic differences between Star Trek and Star Wars