Luke had been training for hours when he guided that bomb down the shoot. Remember what the Force really is: wish fulfillment. People strong in the Force can make ANYTHING they want happen. Most of Force training consists of 2 things: learning you can do anything you want, and learning to not do anything you want (at least on the Jedi side). And Luke’s piloting skills are NOT justified. He winds up the one of the best pilots in the Death Star assault even though he’s never been in an X-Wing before.
Rey had discussed flying previously also, so if Luke’s skill was justified so was hers. And it’s not like she was really that good, she bounced the Falcon off a lot of stuff. And she had heard of the Force before, Luke hadn’t. And Rey wasn’t good in the fight either. She “won” that because Kylo Ren was injured, and he was fighting to subdue her with big long slow attacks that are specifically designed to be blockable.
Sorry but Luke IS a Marty Stu, he is a complete stand-in for Lucas, they have the same thumbnail bio. Losing to the Sand Person doesn’t change that, nor does Han taking care of Vader. Those were all necessary step for him to form the “party”, that’s just part of movie story telling where every loss is necessary for the win. If the Sand Person doesn’t pop him he doesn’t meet Obi Wan, Han popping Vader is really about Han fully joining the group that Luke brought him into.
There was plenty of incidental dialog setting up everything. We knew she knew how to fly stuff (it is the SW universe EVERYBODY knows how to fly stuff, it’s like driving a car in a modern placed movie), she knew the Falcon was a piece of junk, and she didn’t really fly it very well.
People make too much out of the Viet Cong thing. Here’s the punchline on that: if that was his message he did a lousy job of it because literally NOBODY sees it until they see him explaining it. One of the interesting things about SW is it’s a very “blank” universe, you can see in it what you want to see. Lucas can look at the Rebellion and see the Viet Cong, liberals can look at the Rebellion and see diversity made manifest, conservatives can look at the Rebellion and see a well armed militia. If you want to see a Mary Sue being all feminist you can. What I see are fun B movies with an A budget, they’re a good ride, but don’t look at them too closely because there’s some serious cracks in that makeup.
And I just don’t understand people who go to movies just to not like them, especially not those who dislike them for hours at a time. I don’t like King Kong, never interested me, saw a couple of the movies when I was young because I was “supposed to” (you know education of the nerd and all) but I didn’t enjoy them. So when Skull Island got announced I knew I wouldn’t see it, and I didn’t. Was it a good movie? Don’t know, don’t care, don’t like Kong, didn’t see it. A lot of the people whining about SW hate it way more than I dislike Kong, and I shake my head at why they even went. Some people just don’t seem to feel whole if they ain’t bitching.
I watched The Force Awakens, and I generally have a pretty good knack for observing small details even in stuff I absolutely loathe, and I don’t recall Rey EVER discussing having flown before. In fact, if I remember correctly, she actually was at a loss as to how she could pilot the Millennium Falcon at all when Finn asked her. And I really wouldn’t call her skills with the Millennium Falcon bad, especially considering she managed to pull off a pretty good loop among other ace flying skills. As far as Rey beating Ren, last I recall, he told her to draw out the Force, she did, and literally beat him to a pulp before the ground cracked and forced them to separate.
I’m not saying that Luke isn’t a stand-in for George Lucas or a self-insert character (as you yourself pointed out, his first name had obvious similarities with “Lucas.”). However, generally, Mary Sues, or their male equivalent Marty Stus, generally aren’t allowed to have ANY flaws or get beaten, often having it all and being written as perfect, everyone being ants by comparison, and often being the hero characters. For a good example, try Alice from the Resident Evil movies where she made everyone look utterly incompetent, even those who were actually from the games (and it’s also one of the reasons why she was utterly HATED by most of the viewers). Luke had none of that. If he needed help getting out of a lam, and actually GOT that help, he by definition is NOT a marty stu, period.
As far as Luke’s piloting, it was mentioned in incidental dialogue that he piloted a Skyhopper and often raced Biggs at Beggar’s Canyon, and that the Skyhopper had similar controls. THAT’S the justification. What WASN’T justified was her completely handing Kylo Ren his butt despite having literally NO training in lightsaber techniques at all (Luke, for the record, ended up losing his hand when he tried to confront Darth Vader. And bear in mind, like Ren, Vader ALSO was trying to subdue Luke with big long slow attacks that were specifically designed to be blockable, not to mention actually DID get injured at one point during the fight when Luke managed to leave a cut on Vader’s upper arm.).
Lucas repeatedly made it clear that the Rebels were the Vietcong, and the Empire was supposed to be America and left absolutely NO room for ambiguity as to his intentions there. He even made such clear in the actual development notes for the actual movie, AND Walter Murch, one of his associates at the time, confirmed as much. It’s one of the few consistent things he’s said about the movie that can actually be backed up. I haven’t gotten the book yet, but I’ll probably get The Making of Star Wars just to get the full notes and post them. I will tell you this much though, the few stuff posted here and there on the internet definitely didn’t indicate Lucas was settling for a blank universe at all when making the film and that, if anything, he was very agenda driven:
“I [George Lucas] started to work on Star Wars rather than continue on Apocalypse Now. I had worked on Apocalypse Now for about four years and I had very strong feelings about it. I wanted to do it, but could not get it off the ground... A lot of my interest in Apocalypse Now was carried over into Star Wars. I figured I couldn’t make that film because it was about the Vietnam War, so I would essentially deal with some of the same interesting concepts that I was going to use and convert them into space fantasy, so you’d have essentially a large technological empire going after a small group of freedom fighters or human beings... a small independent country like North Vietnam threatened by a neighbor or provincial rebellion, instigated by gangsters aided by empire. [...] The empire is like America ten years from now, after Nixonian gangsters assassinated the Emperor and were elevated to power in a rigged election; created civil disorder by instigating race riots aiding rebel groups and allowing the crime rate to rise to the point where a ‘total control’ police state was welcomed by the people. Then the people were exploited with high taxes, utility and transport costs.”
This was on Pages 7-8 to 17 of The Making of Star Wars. On that note, he also wrote the following of Page 26 of the same book:
“Theme: Aquilae is a small independent country like North Vietnam threatened by a neighbor or provincial rebellion, instigated by gangsters aided by empire. Fight to get rightful planet back. Half of system has been lost to gangsters[…]The Empire is like America ten years from now[…]We are at a turning point: fascism or revolution.”
So no, back then, it was most certainly meant to be Vietcong propaganda. And he clearly didn’t give up on that theme considering he tried to push it AGAIN in Return of the Jedi, even going as far as to not only compare Palpatine to Nixon, but also telling Ian McDiarmid, Palpatine’s actor, that he deliberately modeled the throne room after the Oval Office in terms of shape because of it.
And he kept on saying this up to Revenge of the Sith’s release at Cannes film festival. If he was aiming for a blank slate universe, he would have essentially wrote that the story was “a movie about nothing besides what the viewers take of it.” And he most certainly wouldn’t try to keep on hammering from development notes right up to the release of his final Star Wars movie in the saga that the Empire was Nixon’s America and the Rebels were Vietcong expies.
And for the record, I’m not even planning to see The Last Jedi at this point, so don’t think I’m like those other people. At least I’m actually practicing what I preach and most likely sitting this one out, and probably the next three movies including the anthology series. And for the record, I was considering sitting out even BEFORE the messup with Beauty and the Beast happened [while Rogue One was definitely pretty good, I’m still not optimistic about The Last Jedi.].).