ST Daisy Ridley (Rey) in the ST

I think he says “I will not be the last Jedi.”

 

Saw it a second time and saw more meaning to Rey but ONLY if she has a more integral part of the Skywalker story. Something struck me hard when Luke passed away with a tear in his eyes and Rey is there looking out also. You have Luke, Rey, and Leia all very pensive.

TFA showed us that Rey was deeply connected to the Skywalkers. TLJ only showed us a connection to Kylo but due to Snoke linking them. The connection between the two has nothing to do with Snoke. Snoke connected their minds because of the link they already shared. It was simply a way to get information about Luke from Rey. Rey was wired into the Skywalkers WAY before TFA.

 

Agreed.

Yes, when Luke passes, the camera goes first to Rey reacting. Then to Leia (Luke’s twin sister...) reacting. No shot of Kylo’s reaction (implying he had very little or none).

Didn’t look like Rey and Luke really bonded on Achoo. Yet she’s the first one shown sensing his death.

And she’s also the one who senses he died “with peace and purpose.” Pretty stong connection for a girl who’s known Luke all of, what, two days? Vs Leia or Kylo?

 

Personally I'm not buying the idea that Rey is no one.

I'm not sure why we're assuming that a revelation was expected in the 2nd film. Is it because empire did it?

I mean the cave scene is an obvious parallel to ESB where Luke sees a 'mirror' of himself in Vader and I don't think it's a far reach to suggest that Reys moment may have been a callback to that.

To me the shadow in front of her looked like Rotj Luke....

What I took away from Reys story was that her knowing her parantage wasn't going to magically give her an answer to all her problems. Doesn't mean she isn't Lukes illegitimate child or something; just that it doesn't define her.

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While I'm not really too invested in anything concerning her parentage anymore, I'll go ahead and say that's an interesting thought. Saying that she first had to learn and accept who she was as a individual person before being TRULY prepared to know who her parents are/were.

 

Agreed! Y'all can pry Rey Skywalker from my cold dead hands. I know the debate itself is a super dead horse by now, but I can't seem to bury it. Every road leads me back to this conclusion: Luke is Rey's father. Sure it's going to take some explaining, but it's far from impossible at this stage.

No matter who her parents are, Rey should learn to define herself outside of them, that's fine. And maybe some of you sincerely don't care if she has no heiritage but it does matter to me. I've always wanted to see a woman inheirit a legacy like this. Traditionally that role is reserved for men, so Rey taking up the Skywalker mantle instead of Kylo would be like a personal gift from the universe to me.

I mean... Even if Rey is no one I still love her of course. I will continue to cherish her as my groundbreaking leading lady Jedi! That scene of her kicking Kylo's villainous ass into the snow is something that I'm going to carry with me for a long time, maybe even the rest of my life.

 

^^^I like that idea...that she had to establish herself fully on her own first, and then later in life learns she is Luke's daughter. Can definitely be done IF JJ wants to go that way.

Would be a very tricky and risky thing to do though. Though there are many possibilities, including maybe Luke didn't know he had a daughter, or thought she died, etc.

We definitely could use a huge plot twist in IX and that could do it. I'm guessing the biggest "I am your father" moment in TLJ was Luke's Force projection...no one expected that, and people were shocked when they saw what Luke was doing.

 

So, I watched TLJ for the 6th time, today. I noticed some dialogue this time that I did not before. I don't remember exactly which force bond scene it was, but in one of them, Kylo asserts that Rey's parents didn't care about her, and her response it that he's lying.

Even in later scenes when Rey cries about the thought that her parents are "nobodies", she never actually says that they didn't care about her or give any info about the motive they had for leaving her on Jakku. The only motive we get is from Kylo, and even then, she never seems to verify that. Verbally, at least.

In Star Wars, we always discover that there is MUCH more than meets the eye to a hero's parents:

• Luke's parents were supposed to be dead, and his caretakers were just moisture farmers.
• Jyn's parents were also shown to be just farmers, even though her father helped develop the Deathstar.
• Anakin's mother was just a slave, but his "father"...the Force!

There is ALWAYS more to the parents than what we are initially led to believe, and Rey's first intuition seems to be that her parents did care for her. I also do not believe that Rey is a nobody, but Kylo is making her think she is, because he wants to leverage that against her in his pleas for her to join him on the darkside.

 

All very true. But it's also true that as far as we know, right now, Rey is a "nobody." The decision to make her the child of another main character lies with one person and one person only: JJ Abrams. The final decision is up to him, it's that simple. He can do whatever he wants to do.

 

Anakin spent most of his life not even knowing he was a father only to be forgiven by his children for his mistakes after his passing. I could see something similar with Rey and Luke. Him never being able to be what she needed in life only to have them make amends after his death.

Han was like her fantasy of a father come to life. Cool guy who knows about ships that she gets along great with, wants to bring her along on his adventure etc. Luke is the harsh truth.

Rians seen TFA, so why have Ben tell Rey a contradictory story to her vision? How could her parents be dead in the Jakku wastes when we clearly saw Reys dumper fly off world?



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What's the name of that river in Egypt?

 

Anyone hanging their hopes on a Rey Related reveal is setting themselves up for further disappointment. Could it happen? I guess nothing’s impossible. But when you know RJ’s reasoning for the decision, and that JJ agreed with him, it’s a really slim hope. Which is fine, so long as you remember it’s just that.


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I have a wild pie in the sky theory about Rey’s origins as well as her tragic childhood. I’m not sure if this is an appropriate place to share, but I’d like to preserve these thoughts online forever. It's a long story so I won’t blame anyone for scrolling straight past! Here it goes:

We have no idea what changes Luke made to the Jedi Code, right? He may have thrown out the old rule of “no attachments.” If that’s the case it’s likely that Luke fell in love at some point, i.e. Rey’s mother. Now, Luke and the love of his life were happy together for a handful of years, but their joy was cut painfully short. Snoke wasn’t satisfied with just Ben Solo… His greed compelled him to pursue young Rey as well. In The Last Jedi: The Visual Dictionary it’s revealed that Snoke took Ben Solo as his apprentice because he believed that only someone of the Skywalker bloodline could destroy the last Jedi. Rey, as the youngest Skywalker, would have been a natural target.

We know that Luke eventually picked up on these bad vibes. Surely he wouldn’t search Ben’s head that night without a proper cause, there must have been a powerful series of events that triggered his suspicions and forced him to take action. Since he was closer to his daughter Rey than his nephew, my guess is that he sensed Snoke’s influence on her before Ben.

When they finally learned the truth, Luke and Rey’s mother were devastated that they failed to protect their only child. Snoke had already poisoned Rey to the point that there was more darkness in her than light. She was being groomed to murder her own father. So they made an impossible choice. Rey’s memories were deleted in order to erase Snoke’s influence and protect both Luke & Rey. Like resetting a machine back to default. Can you imagine how horrible that must have been? Perhaps Rey and Ben were close as cousins, so when he learns that Rey won't even recognize him anymore, he is pushed closer to Snoke and the dark side than ever before. That’s when Luke suspects that Snoke has been manipulating Ben too. So he goes to confirm his suspicions and… You know the story. The massacre happens.

As Kylo butchered his fellow students, Rey’s mother grabbed her brain-wiped daughter and fled the planet. I believe that Rey's mom was the one who left her on Jakku in a Moses type of scenario to hide her from Snoke! And she must have put some kind of genetic cloaking device on Rey to throw the predator off his hunt. Leaving her daughter there on Jakku was obviously a very temporary solution, “I'll come back, sweetheart. I promise.”

But sadly, Rey’s mother was killed shortly after leaving Rey with Unkar Plutt. Hence Maz Kanata's line, "Whomever you are waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back. But, there's someone who still could."

"never coming back"=Rey's Mother

"someone who still could"=Rey's Father (Luke)

It would explain why Luke is so utterly broken in The Last Jedi. Snoke and The First Order must have boasted about killing the legendary Luke Skywalker's wife and daughter. And because Luke never got to hear the true story, he believes that his daughter died along with the love of his life! Little does he know, his wife actually managed to hide their child just in time.

Everyone believed that Rey was dead. That is, until Han Solo meets her again. And then there's her aunt Leia who hugs her very tightly when they're reunited. She knows that this is her niece right away, so she immediately sends Rey to Ahch-To with the hope that bringing Luke's daughter back will change everything! But Luke was cut off from the force for so long that he doesn't recognize his own girl standing in front of him anymore. In his mind he's so convinced that she died all those years ago that he misses the obvious truth in front of him. Kylo Ren is a different case. He knows exactly who Rey is from the very moment he hears about her, "What girl?!" He desperately lies about Rey's identity as a tactic to convert her to his side, the motive is there. Now, Snoke is a harder nut to crack. Something must have cloaked her identity from him, I have no idea what could have that power, but in a sci-fi universe like this the possibilities are infinite!

Maybe my theory is kind of out there but... who knows with Star Wars. To me personally, this would be the most satisfying possible backstory for Rey. If this is the truth I’ll be able to forgive Luke for everything, after a personal tragedy of this magnitude I'd go to an island to die too.

 

I got the impression that they're saving it for 9. I'd heard that Rian had commented on the issue but I hadn't actually read what he'd said until now. It seems to me that what he's saying here isn't to far off from what some of us here are thinking.

“And same thing with Rey and her parentage,” he said. “The easy thing would be, ‘Yes, your parents are so and so and here’s your place in the world. There you go.’ The hardest thing she could hear would be [...] ‘No, you’re not going to get the answer. This is not going to define you. You’re going to have to find your own place in this world. Kylo is going to use that even as leverage to try and make you feel insecure, and you’re going to have to stand on your own two feet.’”

“With all of these movies, Obi-Wan’s whole speech about a certain point of view always applies, so I think that you have to always think about the context of how information is given. But for me, dramatically, that’s why that reveal at that moment made sense,” Johnson said.

I've noticed that Rian isn't the best at handling criticism and tends to ethier dig in his heels (like trying to deny changing Bens scar) or buckle under pressure. I think this is an instance of the latter. People made so much hoopla over her parantage that he's buckling and preemptively revealing the truth in an attempt to get people to back off. He plays it like he isn't sure what JJ will do in 9 but like I said I don't buy it.

Others may see it differently, however. Again I don't get why he'd have Ben blatantly contradict TFA but I digress.

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Rey Parentage needed closure. And actually seeing them is the least the film could do. If they are not on-screen, then it's hopeless to end the debate.

And really, I thought for Rey Random, at least they would show the parents as the bums and drunks just to put an end to the misery. Not necessarily their names, but at least some kind of appearance to prove they exist. But instead, they just mention it from an unreliable source (Kylo Ren) as a potential story escape route should reveal prove to be too unpopular. As if they themselves are not entirely confident that this what they want Rey's story to be.

Meet the Robinsons, for example, didn't explain anything Lewis's mother or why she abandoned Lewis. But at least we get a scene of Lewis seeing his biological mother and having a chance to meet her only to refuse because of the lessons he learned in his adventure. And the rest of the movie was him finding a family he never thought he would never have.

 

I think that Rey will stay Rey Random because Disney likes their anti-traditionalist take on the Force and Jedi.

But her parents could also be - both - drunks who sold her - and former Jedi’s or other Force sensitives. Remember Cade Skywalker in the Legacy comics?

 

Its super interesting that this parentage thing is still coming up. My family left TLJ absolutely certain she’s still Luke’s daughter. When we talked about it, my husband and sister both said it just doesn’t make sense otherwise. It’s too dark, she’s too powerful, etc. I don’t really think she’s Luke’s daughter anymore, but I also don’t care because my investment in that has completely disappeared, so either way it’s whatever to me. Regardless of who her parents are, I totally agree that this plot angle is not done. TLJ left it a mystery just like TFA, and it’s left unresolved in Rey herself. In private, Rey asked to see them, and she was denied. Whatever she “knows,” she doesn’t actually know, and all TLJ told us is what she “knows,” (imo, what she fears). At the end of the movie she’s still crying about it, so no emotional closure either.

 

I think Daisy was best when she was bouncing off of Mark
It’s also amazing that she came from almost no where before 7. I guess that’s what Star Wars does.

 

There was some interesting comments and subtext from Rian Johnson in the Empire podcast on Rey's path in TLJ. My impressions:

- That Rey was repressing her painful past and trying to only see the best of it instead of coming to terms fully with it.
- That Kylo Ren was manipulating that, which initially lead to her doing the same with him.
- That Kylo Ren was trying to create a scenario where she felt only he wanted her in the hopes that she would feel the need to lean on him for support.
- That despite Kylo Ren clearly aiming to gaslight manipulate her Johnson feels he does think he's helping her and thinks that he is changing for her already by saying "Please."
- That Rey, like Luke, realizes she can no longer repress the past and must face it to move forward. Presumably implying that she's realized a weakness in herself that can be exploited (Her ability to deny painful truths in the hopes of trying to see the best in others) and has learned this as a valuable life lesson heading into IX. Presumably as exemplified by her shutting the door on him at the end and being happy for Finn and Rose and possibly realizing her inner strength and the independence that have allowed her to get as far as she has in life.

All of those comments from Johnson and subtext seems to support more of the direction and intent I think you were hoping for. Which, if I'm not mistake was that... It's only okay for the filmmakers to set her character up for her 2nd act setback/mistake like this in VIII so long as the goal is more that she's learned this lesson and won't make the same mistake twice. Based on what I heard in that Podcast that's the impression I think Johnson feels he's setup for IX.

To be honest, I had never really tied together the parallel of her denying the worst in her parents and talking herself into them not being so bad and what she does in VIII with Kylo Ren. Now that I see that it does seem like it was the most clear psychological weakness that was setup for her in TFA so it does make sense in a way for that to be the hardest lesson she needs to learn. What do you think?

EDIT: Also, after hearing the podcast and thinking about her Dark Side cave moment more I think the point is that her parents have never been the ones who defined who she's become or will become over time. Her sense of purpose and direction is not going to come from what her parents did or didn't do; it's going to have to come from within her.

 

Link?

 

Stuff like the bolded is exactly why I don't think RJ gets the implications of this dynamic. Lucky Rey, Kylo thinks he's bettering himself for her despite how awfully he treats her! RJ gets that it's manipulative, but he somehow still thinks Kylo deserves credit for his supposed little baby steps. That is exactly the manipulation that comes from this type of abuse. Give a little, take it all back and then some. That's the entire point of abuse. Make the person feel like garbage so they're dependent, then make them grateful for the tiny meaningless scraps thrown at them in between all the degradation. What an empowering message. Rey is on the receiving end of abuse, and in the end tearfully rejected it without an empowering "FU" type of moment.

I think this is obviously the point of the scene, but it nonetheless establishes that at the end of the day, Rey doesn't know anything. Moreover, if the point of the movie was establishing that Rey is defined by herself regardless of her parents, that arc was never finalized internally in Rey. Rey didn't come to that realization in the cave. The cave made her cry. When Kylo taunted her with her parents, she cried again. In the end, the only affirmation Rey got about Rey being important and special all by herself came from someone else - Poe.

 

Also, after hearing the podcast and thinking about her Dark

I doubt Rian said that because he felt Kylo Ren deserved credit. He's simply explaining that in Kylo Ren's mind these feel like baby steps to him. In his mind he probably can't believe why she wouldn't want to rule given her upbringing and lack of connections to anyone else. It's more to get into his head because her rejection of his offer is likely to be a big part of IX.

You'll note that when Luke learns at the end of TESB that Vader is his father he never tells him after that anything like, "I hate you and I'll never love you!" He jumps to his death, gets lucky, and ultimately comes to ponder what it means that Vader is his father. Meanwhile, the audience is left wondering "Will they somehow be able to work this out or will he have to kill his father?" And all of the debate around that which likely followed at that time like, "There's no way for them to work it out given what Vader has done." and "The relationship is toxic and about an abusive, genocidal father who wants to make his son like him. Vader doesn't deserve his sympathy or love." They clearly wanted to save an aspect of that in this for Rey and Kylo Ren but this time it's (For the Reylo fans) "Can he change enough for her that he can be redeemed and they can be together? And for the non-Reylo fans who see the gaslighting and manipulation it's "Will she get her FU moment and end his mind games?" And honestly... even more questions than that.

They have to save some of that for IX.

 

They're not baby steps. They're weapons of an abuser. They're tools used to control someone else.

You'll note that ESB didn't involve an arc of Luke supposedly reconciling Vader as his father. Luke learned the truth in the last moments of the movie. He reacts to it in RotJ.

 

How about a compromise: Rey learns more about Kylo’s past and gets more context. Kylo starts making the choices of a decent, sane human being. They end up with a mutual understanding of sorts - heck, even a meaningful relationship of sorts. But there’s nothing romantic about it.

Kylo is broken. Emotionally and behaviorally, he is a child (as Snoke rightly points out). Personally, I think Kylo has a lot of work to do on himself before he can function in a stable romantic relationship.

I guess there are two ways of looking at the romance spec: What could happen given the status quo as a baseline and one more movie, or - and this is how I view it - Is this how a filmmaker would set up and portray these characters if a romance were planned?

 

I think Rey could still be a Skywalker if Kennedy and JJ want it, just slip Mara Jade in 9 and have emotional scenes explaining why she abandoned her child and the reason Luke didn't know of his daughter. (If they had time for the awful Canto Bight side story in TLJ then they have time for this)

I think this would please most fans and be a way to actually keep the film in the "Skywalker Saga".