"Almost in motion the future is." In the context of the literal story Luke was born strong in the force, but the theme for the audience is that greatness is a universal human trait ("luminous beings are we"), not something reserved for those with powerful gifts. It's not genetic, it's not wealth; it's about spirit.
Not in A New Hope. In a new hope the context is very much being the chosen one- the exiled prince in hiding emerging to claim his legacy. Luke doesn't enter the story on his own agency, he enters because Obi Wan had staged him there until he was ready to bring him out. It wasn't happenstance that the Rebellion was in that system it was because Obi Wan had positioned himself near Luke. If the droids hadn't stumbled on Luke first Obi Wan would have grabbed him on the way out anyway or pulled him out of the bag on his own in the next couple of years (hence waiting till he was iold enough)
The whole point of Empire vis a vis the force is "wars not make one great." It isn't the ability to kick ass that makes a person great; or more generally, not the person's material excellence at some task. It's about self-actualization, whatever that entails.
Sure. But we're talking about New Hope as the point of comparison, not Empire. This is the lightweight, fun setup, not the insertion and reveal of the deeper conflict.
So we've got two narratives.
"If you're born to it, you'll be great. If you're not great then it just wasn't your thing"
vs:
"It doesn't matter how much you've got going for you, you've got to make the effort to expand your horizons and try to succeed if you want to do more than just scrape along"
The first narrative possibly fits TFA, since the only reason Rey goes anywhere and does anything is because of her amazing talent, not because she believes in anything.
If you're going to undermine my meaning, at least be explicit about it. From context it was very clear that the first applies to ANH, the second to TFA.
The second narrative is a good one for each of us to remember but nevertheless doesn't apply to either TFA or the original trilogy.
On what basis does it not apply to TFA? It is the overarching point of Rey's story there. You even acknowledge it yourself below, even as you handwave it away here.
For some reason you're stuck on this "born with everything" concept when I certainly didn't bring it up and it definitely isn't what any Star Wars movie is about.
So you're backing away from the complaint that Rey seems to be overly competent? The only reason that I put that is is because you're raising the complaint that she seems to be too naturally gifted in the first place.
Lucas would never have put forward a message that had anything to do with "success." This goes back into Yoda's comment. Life isn't about "succeeding", and the idea that one either turns out to be a success or a failure is a gross capitalist mental trap. Luke's story is about a journey, not about success. He initially thinks it's about success, but he learns very quickly that becoming a better person is about struggling, not about winning.
Sure, but we've got to get to the second movie to get that far. The first one was pretty much a straight walk to success for him- a bit of danger, but ultimately no question that he was going to pull it off with minimal cost along the way. (Obi Wan's death was both completely out of Luke's agency and an intentional act by Obi Wan to push Luke to step up, without even getting into the transition to force-ghost)
There is no destiny in this sense in Star Wars.
That's nonsense, unless you're discarding a great deal of cannon. But even if you disregard the backstory as something added after the fact, you're still left with Luke's destiny directly arising from his relationship to Vader. All of his ambition would have come to nothing if it weren't for the fact that he was Anakin's son. Heck, he'd likely have ended up a Tie Fighter pilot if he'd been able to convince his uncle to let him go to the Academy like he wanted. Or maybe defected to the Rebellion for as long as it would have lasted without the way his inheritance played into his role.
Except, as you noted above, Luke didn't have to find it he already had it, he just needed the limiting factors around him removed. Rey actually had to go into herself and find it. To choose to remove _her own_ limitations that only she could face and change. She certainly has a destiny, but rather than being inevitable, her choice and participation in it are required to engage it.
On a literal level they both had the force, so that's a wash. If anything Luke needed far more help than Rey to 'find it' since it took Ben to tell him that he didn't have to be the person his uncle meant him to be.
Up till now you've been claiming that Luke already had the desire to go out and be part of something larger. Now you're saying he needed help finding that desire? You're response here is completely incoherent unless you're deliberately missing my point above and responding to something completely different that what I said. The force isn't relevant here. The desire, motivation, ambition to be a hero is.
Rey didn't need jack from anyone, she just figured it all out by herself.
Which is why she was stuck scavenging for and abusive employer? She didn't have it figured out. She was wasting her potential away, and needed others to drag her out of that trap and onto a grander path.
Now, on a meta level they each had to find a reason to put aside their hesitancy and to pursue what they felt was a dream or a purpose. Luke's reason was learning that his father was a great pilot who fought in the Clone Wars, and he realized he wanted to be like his father.
No it wasn't. Even after that he decided to put loyalty first and was intending to drop Obi Wan off and go home. (Not that Obi Wan would have let him do that ultimately) The thing that changed that was teh destruction of his home such that he no longer had that external chain. That certainly is one of the tactics for shortcutting that part of heroic progression if you're not going to make the struggle to accept one's destiny part of the story. In the case of Rey, hey decided to explore that struggle, particularly in the case of a character damaged in such a way that they more actively try to reject their destiny than the classic "Why me?" whine of the standard fantasy hero.
Rey, however, had no reason to leave, and never distinctly chose to. Her only desire was to stay home and be saved.
And there you have the primary conflict that she had to overcome. Not people external to her holding her back, but fighting back against her own self-limitation to accept a higher destiny.
As far as journeys of awakening go she never really began hers on purpose but ended up in a flurry of action by happenstance. Her big choice in the matter was, as JoshCrow put it, not to die. Tough call there.
She could have not died many ways, particularly at the end. She could have ran or tried to fight with conventional weapons as she had resolved to do up to that point, but instead she finally overcame her demons enough to go for the lightsaber instead, a very literal execution of a choice to take up the sword instead of continuing to resist the destiny laid put for her.
Luke was already working hard. All of his hard work would have gotten him nowhere if he hadn't been destined to get there. Rey was also working hard, but was holding herself back from actually getting anywhere. Even without a heroic destiny, should could have made something much more of herself, but was hobbled by her own limitations and lack of vision.
You have your stories backwards. Luke was the one holding himself back. He wanted to go but didn't believe he could defy his uncle.
He was loyal to his uncle. He did not want to defy him, and his uncle was playing on that loyalty to keep him. That's an external pressure, not an internal one, and one that was rendered moot by outside agency even after he technically lost the battle with it.
Rey didn't want to go at all, and while staying on Jakku she was getting exactly what she wanted. Nothing was holding her back; she was already doing what she wanted to do.
Which is it? Nothing was holder her back or she was doing what she wanted to, because what she wanted _was holding her back_. That is a self-limitation, one that she had to overcome to win out in the end. Luke was pared the need to fight himself in the first movie, and only had to fight a similar battle with is own desires later.
It was a lame goal to be pursuing, but nothing was holding her there at all. She had the wrong goal, in other words, and her goal in fact never materially changed until she realized that she could find Luke Skywalker some other way than sitting inside a broken AT-AT. I guess you could call this a lack of vision, but I think it would be better called a lack of ambition. She was entirely lacking all that youthful drive and enthusiasm Luke had. Luke was upset that he couldn't do all the things he wanted to do. Rey was upset but didn't want to do anything.
Indeed, and each of them had to overcome those failings in their own way. Don't forget that Luke's ambition was an echo of what set Anakin up for a fall, and he had to literally fight that part of himself on Dagobah after Yoda chided him:
Yoda: This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away, to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was, hmm? What he was doing. Hmm. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things.
Luke's enthusiasm there is the most clear evidence of Lucas inserting himself into the story and pushing against the more basic structure where the hero has to be forced out into the world rather than remaining in comfortable stagnation. He rubs his own nose in it later by making it the inner demon that Luke has to fight and win out against in the end (and the one that his father failed to get in check which caused him to eventually spin out of control)
In the sense of 'destiny' Luke had a destiny, meaning he had a person he desperately wanted to be and wanted a chance to try to become that person. Rey had no destiny, because there was no 'inner her' wanting to be freed so she could explore life; at least not that we were ever shown.
Sure there was. And we saw it so full of bitterness and resentment from being abandoned that it had taken its ball and gone home in a passive-aggressive fit of waiting to be reclaimed. You're right that she effectively had no destiny when we found her, which is why her first major challenge was overcoming that obstacle. Changing her attitude and choosing to embrace a destiny instead of denying it.
A person made into a hero despite wanting to stay home is a joke on the genre, it's like Achilles staying in the laundry basket on that island and having the Trojan War come to him and winning it anyhow.
And Achilles had to be forced to come back out. "Refusal of the Call" is the second step in the heroic journey, going by Campbell. TFA makes the struggle with that conflict central to the story, were ANH dispensed with it because it wanted to focus more on other elements.
