Frame By Frame

> "She used a staff, which is a very similar weapon for years on Jakku to defend herself, so when you're given another Sword-Like Weapon, all Rey did was basically translate her skills and kind of applied her previous skills with the staff to the lightsaber"
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**Jacob Suggs**, aka **Frame By Frame**, is a YouTube video essayist. He is best known for his conceptualization of "Sword-Like Weapons," and is one of two video essayists EFAP has covered who demonstrates mastery of the Pointing technique.

## History

### On the Mary-Sueness of one Rey Skywalker

> "She's the Virgin Mary Sue"
> - JLongbone, on the prospect of Rey going back in time to become Shmi Skywalker
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MauLer, Rags, Drinker, JLongbone, Sitch, Shad, and later Doomcock first encountered Frame By Frame on EFAP 50, where MauLer and the gang went in blind covering his video "**STAR WARS: Why REY Isn't A MARY SUE**". The video opened up with a close-up of his hand starting up a projector, then text on a blank screen while he introduced himself verbally before his face actually showed up on screen, leading Rags to joke that he likes not seeing people's face when they introduce themselves and Sitch to take him seriously. Frame By Frame prefaces his argument by mentioning how he's been a *Star Wars* fan his whole life and *Star Wars* inspired him to write stories, and that he wanted to talk about *Star Wars* more because he'd mostly kept his points to Twitter. His B-roll footage of the Praetorian Guard fight during this segment led to the gang going on several tangents unrelated to the video, because they couldn't go more than a second without finding something wrong with the fight.

Frame By Frame starts off by arguing that Rey is not only not a Mary Sue but also "kind of an amazing character." While he hates the term Mary Sue (while also tying the term to Ghostbusters with no further explanation, and also also bringing up that Max Landis was the first one to call Rey a Mary Sue, pointing out that all of his movies are bad, but not even being able to stick to that because he then admitted *Chronicle* is good), he also agrees that Mary Sues exist, but says that Rey's powers are justified and she also makes mistakes. Those mistakes include ignoring Luke's bad advice and trying to see the good in Kylo, who ends up trying to meet her halfway; "dwelling in the Dark Side" by looking at a spooky hole (that she didn't know was the Dark Side) after Luke told her to explore the island, pushing the wrong button in the Rathtar transport, which ends up saving the day; and not shlurping on Kylo Ren's meat.

Frame By Frame then argued that f Luke can pilot a spacecraft in a straight line and aim really good once, then Rey can fly the Millennium Falcon with no experience. He also mentions how Luke is a good pilot because Anakin was a good pilot, as if piloting skills are stored in your DNA. FBF counters the point that Luke flew a Skyhopper recreationally on Tatooine by saying the same can be said for Rey - her life as a scavenger gave her the knowledge of how to fly any ship, like how a mechanic can drive a race-car professionally. Of course, Rey and Luke also have something called The Force inside them (just a random thought), which allowed Rey to expertly fly a ship that needs two pilots better than anyone has ever flown before, and allowed Luke to aim a little better.

Frame By Frame then introduced his most significant contribution to film analysis to date - the concept of Sword-Like Weapons. Since Rey's staff is a Sword-Like Weapon that she used to hit randoms on Jakku, she could take on a series of trained sword fighters meant to protect the most powerful being in the galaxy. She also swung the lightsaber around a bit. Resident swordsman Shad touched on the similarities between swords and staffs, noting that while some basic skills would transfer over like an understanding of how to hold yourself, staff combat does not transfer to sword combat, especially since Rey holds her staff even less like a sword than how a staff is supposed to be fought with. Of course, Frame By Frame predicted arguments like this, and countered that it didn't have to make sense like he just said it did, because "we're in space movie." Immediately after saying it didn't have to make sense, he then reiterated that it does make sense, because they're both sticks. From this new concept, the EFAP crew were able to deduce that the true reason Rey could fly the Falcon was because it was a Sword-Like Weapon.

His next point was that Rey being able to defeat Kylo Ren in a lightsaber fight makes sense, as Rey didn't grasp the Force before, but did during the fight, which was the point of the scene, making it good. He said it dumbfounded him that people didn't understand the logic behind this, despite having previously said that the movies don't make sense on purpose. He also argued she spent the whole fight running away (while showing footage of her blocking every strike one after another), and only when she started losing that she started winning. It being surprising also made it correct.

He then conceded that there actually is no explanation for how she's so powerful, but maybe there will be in the next movie. He ended by saying the film sent a good message that you don't need to have famous blood to be extremely powerful, and that it's canon that the Force just creates powerful people when it needs someone to be powerful. He then said that Rey is just a beginner with the Force, and that we haven't seen her do anything crazier than lifting rocks (not mentioning that it was a mass of rocks able to block off an entire tunnel), which even Luke was able to do (he lifted two). He cited how he had just rewatched the Original Trilogy, and Luke doesn't actually learn anything from Obi-Wan and Yoda by the time he leaves Dagobah, because he disobeyed them once. He then argued that the reason why Rey was so good at using a mind trick for the first time was because she didn't know what she was doing, and Han Solo told her that the Force existed.

But at the end of the day, who cares? Who cares about Luke? It's a movie about space wizards for children, and the movie he said made sense doesn't actually have to make sense because none of it makes sense. He ends off by saying that these complaints are dumb, but you're not dumb if you have complaints, because all film is subjective, but he won't accept "unjustifiably putting a false claim on a film," implying you can in fact be objectively wrong about a film.

During this video, Frame By Frame also made good use of the Pointing technique, before EFAP was aware of it.

## Captain Phasma: The Perfect Authoritarian Figure?

> "'She's very informed by her ack-tions and her characterr.' I think the problem was she was coming off of playing Brienne, who is an actual character"
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> - MauLer, on Gwendolyne Christie's description of Phasma
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MauLer and Rags, joined by Nerdrotic and HeelVsBabyface, returned to Frame By Frame in EFAP 95, where they took a look at his video on Captain Phasma. The gang took note of his very enthusiastic personality. He started off by mentioning how he watched *The Last Jedi* three times (whether or not he was ever bored of it is unknown), and in his opinion, Phasma is the Boba Fett of this generation, in that they both look cool and only do the occasional thing here and there, not realizing the key element that Fett radically impacted the plot by capturing Han Solo while all Phasma did was lose twice. He argues that most of what people know about where Boba Fett comes from, and where he originated from, is from the prequels and the EU, but the latter of the two was decanonized (by Disney), and so most of what someone sees in Boba Fett is what they can imagine about him, and that concept was used by JJ Abrams, the master of the Mystery Box, for Captain Phasma. He brought up how you could similarly learn more about Phasma through the tie-in comics, but he has not done that.

Frame By Frame argues that Phasma's armor is not just there to look cool, but shows her authority without showing her authority, by being able to deflect blasters. She wears a helmet similar to Kylo Ren, someone who has the same motives and morality, and doesn't wear one because he is disfigured, or disoriented, but for intimidation, which is the movies' way of showing how masks work in the *Star Wars* Universe (they cover your face). Phasma is also skilled enough to use not one, but multiple weapons.

Phasma is perfect demonstration of a foil to Finn, a anti-Finn, what film and literature call a dark mirror, as they are both Stormtroopers, but one is good and the other is bad, making them basically good and evil versions of the same character. We don't know about them until we meet them, both in the same battle, and Finn becomes more human by taking off his mask while Phasma keeps her mask on. During their final fight on the Supremacy, in which "the stakes feel like they're there," Phasma's helmet breaks, proving she does indeed have a face and is therefore human. Frame By Frame states that seeing those opposites clash is both literally and metaphorically awesome. Her armor is also made of a Naboo yacht, which is cool. Frame By Frame ends his video by recommending people read the Captain Phasma comics, which he has never read.

This video followed up a video by Joe Tufano, who introduced EFAP to the Pointing technique, and because of that they were able to spot Frame By Frame's Pointing this time around.

#### The Time MauLer Went Too Far

> "What's he lookin' at?"
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> "He's looking at his closet where he needs to put his jacket cuz' he's inside."
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> - HeelVsBabyface and Rags, engaging in bullying
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During EFAP 95, Rags joked offhand about how Frame By Frame was wearing a jacket despite being indoors. This was a joke that clearly crossed the line into bullying, as unbeknownst to Rags, Frame By Frame was dealing with body image issues at the time, which was why he was wearing the jacket. The real villain of this story was MauLer, however, as he sat there silently while Rags said this.

## Trivia

* He was dropped on a frame when he was young
* User of the Pointing technique, and is a double pointer, possibly developed because he doesn't know what else to do with his hands. Only way for him to stop pointing is by making a fist.
* He can't read, not due to a lack of intelligence, but because turning the pages would prevent him from pointing.

## Quotes

* *"There are some truth in legends, I do believe that and there are some interesting things in stories and we see characters do some larger than life feats."*
* *"All film is subjective, all art is subjective."*