ST Daisy Ridley (Rey) in the ST

I already have, many times. And now you're telling me what to post and what not to post.

Maybe if the tactic of obfuscating what it is that I'm saying, by telling me that I'm not allowed to dismiss everyone with different opinion (as if I could), and willfully speaking at crossed purposes wasn't employed....

 

I'm not telling you what to do, but since you referenced me, you're talking about me and my arguments, so I wanted to point out how I would actually engage in that conversation. I'm not here to talk to you about how I talk lol.

 

That's precisely what you've actually done though.

 

@Martoto77 What? Huh? I get so confused engaging with you. You vaguely assess me instead of just responding directly in a specific way to what I say. If you interpret what I said as doing that, it certainly wasn't my goal. I was trying to steer you back to something more substantive about the movie by pointing out that you're way off that topic while talking about my and others personal ways of talking and that doesn't interest me.

 

I've only ever described your posts. Not you personally.

It's ironic that your posts are taking a lot of interest in proscribing the ways that I post which don't interest you.

 

It's not ironic. I actually wouldn't mind talking about the movie with you, so this is an attempt to get back there.

Talking about my and others' posting methodology is talking about me and others. It's not talking about the movie.

 

Rey, like many people who dislike TLJ, entered the movie hopeful and expecting answers to questions that were personal. She'd instinctively used the Force when under attack in TFA and mimicked it. This lead her to further Force realizations from Ben Solo's mind and she mimicked those, too. But how she could do this remained a mystery to her. She'd finally accepted that the people she was waiting for on Jakku were not coming back but she hadn't worked through why, or why they'd left her, or how she is the way she is. With no purpose coming from waiting for others to come back her mind shifted to a new purpose and goal. Bring one back. Namely Luke Skywalker.

On Ahch-To, though, her patience and abandonment issues jockey for position and the abandonment issues betray her patience. A mind bridge setup by Snoke confuses her. She isn't sure what it is and knows that Ben Solo doesn't either. She's later shocked to realize it was Snoke who was responsible for it, indicating that she may have thought it to be the Force itself who'd brought them together. Luke's fear of her raw power, habit of looming over sleeping people, lack of interest in her goals, and changed behavior, opens the door to her doubting Luke Skywalker. Ben Solo's words are painful but seem to consistently contain some degree of truth. As this mind connection between her and Ben Solo increases both tire of verbally attacking each other and come to let their guards down, listen, and begin to connect more emotionally. A pivotal recounting of a temple night from multiple perspectives has her questioning her beliefs on who Luke Skywalker really is and why Ben Solo became who he did. Was her hero a villain that night? Is the person she saw as a villain really a victim who was abanonded by his parents and later Luke? Did Luke really try to kill him because he feared his raw power? That same raw power he likened to hers? Her abandonment issues come to a head as she pleads to see her parents in the dark side cave and is rejected there, too. Nothing is going as she expected. At her low point, and feeling alone, she hits rock bottom and leans on Ben Solo for comfort and he provides it. He's caught her at her most vulnerable and the two become curious about what might be possible between them physically through this bond. As the two become one they experience something incredible and special. For Rey it's so profound that it brings her to tears. It also provides her with a vision of the future that's solid and clear. This leads her to believe that the one who will come back is amazingly Ben Solo and was all along. She knows he's interested in her. She also knows that if she goes to him he will turn and believes that this will deliver a happy ending for many. She makes the point of no return by leaving Luke for Ben and ends up being wrong, giving Ben Solo the Dark Side goal he wanted of the throne in the process and giving the leader of the FO intimate knowledge of her that he can now use against her and therefore the Resistance.

Realizing that neither of the ones she believed would come back will, she accepts that with great power comes great responsibility and scraps every bit of Force info she's ever seen, downloaded, stolen, overheard or learned to use her power to save others. She becomes the hero she was waiting for. Only this hero has been changed. Her previously unrelenting optimism seems shattered. She's coming to terms with the extent of her abandonment and learned why her parents rid themselves of her and why she'll never see them again. They're dead and whatever she knows of them now may be all she'll ever know. They won't explain how she got these powers. They won't provide her with direction. It will have to be her. She's also realized that the new Supreme Leader is someone she doesn't want to have to kill. She's developed some degree of feelings for him that only she knows about. And the answers to who she is and why continue to allude her. She’s seemingly done waiting for anyone to come back. She’s the only Force-using hero left that she knows of. Even if she has no idea what to do next or how she will defeat someone she doesn’t want to kill. She may not realize it just yet either but on a certain level she alo played a part in Luke Skywalker no longer being with us mortally and it will be interesting to see if she comes to realize that in IX, talks to it to a Force ghost (Yoda or Luke) and where that might go. ROTJ's force ghost moment between Luke and Obi-Wan was huge. Will there be something similar in IX with Rey and someone else?

 

Yes I'll take that, would've been much more interesting to me for her character. After TFA I was really excited to get more character development from Rey, Finn and Kylo but I was especially interested in Rey. This is the main protagonist who's had a tougher childhood than Luke or Anakin, she had nobody but herself. Think of all the horrible things she's probably witnessed on Jakku, living that life should leave a large imprint on her. But all we get is she can scavenge and she longs for her parents, what about the other things she wants? Shouldn't she care about people not going hungry as she likely had many times on Jakku? Maybe they could've used that as a temptation for the dark side, have her think for a moment the First Order can do some good and prevent people having to live like she did. Kind of like the way George incorporated Anakin's past with being a slave as a part of his turn to the dark side.

 

I have to say that I like the sounds of all of that as well. I do wish his offer to her had gone into some more specifics so that even the audience is on some level curious by what he's saying. That's partially what works so well with the Vader offer. It's the curiosity we had wondering, "What if Luke did join Vader? What would ruling the galaxy as father and son be like?" That offer was similarly vague, to be sure, but it benefits from us all imagining what it would be like to rule the galaxy with our own dads so we can project our own history onto that offer. This offer lacks that so it would have been cool to hear him get into the cold hard truth of the situation.

"The Resistance is dying. You can't possibly expect them to win. You don't owe them anything. What did the New Republic ever do for you or the people of Jakku? Look at those shuttles. That's all that's left. Who else can give you what I can? You can have anything, Rey. You can build anything. Do anything. That's what ruling the galaxy allows. Do you want to provide food to the people of Jakku? We can do that. Together, you and I, Rey, we can accomplish anything."

That's an offer.

But Kylo Ren's so focused on talking about borderline anarchy and ruling (likely just imagining in his head what he wants to do) and assuming that going from rags to riches would be enough for her that he forgets to actually pitch her on what all of that power could do.

Put simply, you want the audience to feel uneasy about it and pondering it at least a little.

 

Would have been cooler if that was the offer and it was accepted. The Lady of Jakku.

She has turned to the dark side. That girl was our last hope.
No...there is another.

 

With a Kenobi stand-alone looking more and more likely and written by a romantic dramatic writer I say let the Obi-Wan is Rey’s grandfather rumors begin again!

The ST will then be about the main characters of the PT’s grandchildren coming together and none of it will take away from Rey’s abandonment issues which stem from legitimate abandonment.

As a classic fairy tale I now expect the last name reveal will be saved for the end of IX almost as a bit of wish fulfillment after Rey’s efforts in IX. One of Yoda or Luke will introduce her to her grandfather via Force ghost and then in the Kenobi film we will see Obi-Wan fall in love with the woman who will be Rey’s biological grandmother.

VIII has the dice to lead into Solo. IX May have the tie-in to lead into Kenobi and more backstory.

 

There is still no evidence that Obi-Wan ever had children, though. And just because it's written by a romantic drama writer, it doesn't mean that it'll be a romantic drama.

 

I know but I can hope!

An idea for the Kenobi movie to tie things in:

Spoiler

I like the idea of the whole “There are alternatives to fighting” being explored in a film with the idealism of a Frank Capra film but one where he is secretly a hero who’s making a difference and helping to balance out injustice on Tatooine for the people who can’t defend themselves but he does so subtlely and secretly with no one the wiser. He sees a group of hit men try to assault a family and uses the force to impact the punch of the father fighting back and makes that guy look like a hero in front of his kids. He sees a drunk who’s gambling away his family’ money and uses a Jedi mind trick on him to again rethink his life. He overhears a story of a kid dying of a disease who only has maybe a week to live. Learns this kid loves Jedi and dreamed of being one some day. Kenobi ends up making this kid feel better before the end of his life by bringing him some happiness and revealing that he, himself, is a Jedi and giving him wisdom about life and how much his family loves him.

Eventually, his good deeds don’t go unnoticed. A female Force User that would share some startling similarities to that of Mara Jade but would basically be inspired by the idea of her but turned toward Kenobi instead and given a different name, would realize who he is and seek to get to know him and seduce him like a spy posing as a local. He’d sense the power within her but she’d downplay it and act naive and like something inside her drew her to him that she can’t explain. There would be a brief will they or won’t they. Eventually some local dance thing in the town that she invites him to. He shows up and tells her he isn’t much of a dancer. You can imagine some really sweet classy old school romance here. He asks her to dance and they get closer. Cuts to her at his place with a sex scene implied but handled with class for the PG13 audience.

She gets up from his bed and reclothes and thinks he’s asleep and starts snooping around his home. He asks her a question he’s pieced together about her past that doesn’t add up. Things escalate into a small Force battle. She’d ask him what’s so special about the Lars homestead, revealing she’d spied on him a while.

Hutt bodyguards would then break into the home with the little kid who’s dying. Screams heard from within. This woman and Obi-Wan wouid both spring to action and work together again and stop that. The kid would think he has the Force because he’s trying to do Force pushes he’d heard about and they’re working but it’s just Obi-Wan and this woman doing it. The body guards are freaked. “That kids some kind of Jedi!” They run off and the kid smiles and collapses from all the stimulation.

Things escalate with her needing to report back to inquisitors about her findings and the Hutts pushing more people around including the Lars family.

Eventually she has a change of heart and at the end and doesn’t rat him out and there’s a nice ending about how that boy better be special to be worth all this protection and they go their separate ways.

9 months pass:

She’s back on an Empire ship later and with a medical officer who tells her, “It’s a boy. He’ll make a fine soldier.”

Jump cut the future. That boy has grown up and is in love with a FO officer and they have a young baby girl now. They’re on the run for defecting from the FO. The FO closes in and shoots them down over Jakku. The father tells her the Force will find a way and uses Force sleep on the baby girl. The ship crashes into a sand dune. The parents die. Troopers check the ship. See the parents dead. Leave.

Junkers appear over a dune. One is wearing a Rebel helmet that we later know is Rey’s. They find Rey. They look up at the sun over Jakku. Wipe to credits.

 

I can assure you that this will betray the Rey Random message in a way that makes TLJ meaningless. And all of those people cheering that Rey Random was confirmed and that the Skywalker bloodline is no longer the focus... Well I can definitely see the egg on their face if Rey is a Kenobi.

 

Why?

In the lineage threads many of us advocated for Reynobi largely because we felt it could deliver the best storytelling perks of Rey Random and lineage at the grandparental level if she learned it late. We also felt it would be easiest tie in to pull off in IX and explain later in the Kenobi anthology film. Even Breznican has been stating these things for years.

Her abandonment issues would still be legitimate. She still wouldn’t know her family or the best of it. It wouldn’t be the Skywalker bloodline. It would be Kenobi’s and a character as integral to the saga having a bloodline would be cool and could start a new family line in the future through Rey down the line. If Ben survives too then both lines exist.

 

What was the big reasoning for anti-Rey Skywalker? Something about the perks of being related to nobody special or no famous bloodline. Isn't that why Rian Johnson had Kylo Ren say that Rey's parents are a bunch of nobody junkers that are unimportant? And that anyone can be a Jedi?

The moment you make her related to one of the most famous Jedi Master in the history of Star Wars...BLAM!

That message is broken and all those who were pro-Rey Random will feel betrayed.

Because it is hypocrisy for Lucasfilm to say Rey Random can send a powerful message of any great hero can come from anywhere with no special backgroun- psyche! Rey is really a Kenobi; the granddaughter of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master and Mentor of Luke and Anakin.

And Lucasfilm will be feeling backlash from people who will accuse them of backtracking and being hypocrites to their own messages.

I'll enjoy the fireworks if that happens.

 

I mean, anything is technically possible. Let's not forget that Leia was turned into Luke's sister at the last second.

 

That message was Johnson’s exclusively and it exists from a certain point of view regardless.

The single biggest reason for most people were against Rey Walker stuff was the amount of info dumping that would have had to be explained then and there on the island about who she was, what happened, who the mom was, why the Solos didn’t know or didn’t say anything, etc. It felt like too much heavy lifting logistically in the middle of the saga again.

It also would have given her the explanation she’s longed for regarding her destiny prior to forging her own path fully as a hero.

Rey’s story is more about being recruited to the Dark Side first and early and having a choice between both sides truly as a result of a hard life and lack of an instant agenda related to a Sith killing her family or her parents being famous Jedi. Because she doesn’t have that background she’s directionless and needs to choose.

TLJ shows her choosing so IX can deliver the happy ending explanation she wanted all along as a surprise.

There won’t be any fireworks. A ton of Rey Kenobi and Rey Random theorists joined forces and found the common ground appeal of both aspects long ago. She still had a hard life regardless and plenty of people would get behind the idea that we all might have greatness in our family lines if we go back far enough. She still wouldn’t have let that childhood difficulty break her fully or bring her to darkness fully and she still would have chose her own path for her own reasons. The fairy tale ends with a Fairy godfather in the form of her grandfather Obi-Wan Kenobi and the realization that the grandkids of Anakin and Obi-Wan came together and found balance their own unique way without even realizing the connection that existed between them and their grandfathers who connect to them and each other in the Force afterlife.

Breznican said this more than two years ago:

He claimed then that Kenobi was purposely being held back and felt it would happen because of a later lineage tie-in. Now that we know Kenobi is coming right after IX it seems even more likely. Especially with JJ back who purposely brought Ewan in for audio for Rey’s vision off the top. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

 

There are so many other characters with stories to tell. There has been so much of Obiwan, they dont need to make an entire movie about him. Take that time and tell the story of a character whose story hasnt been told inside and out. We know more about him than probably any character besides Anakin.

 

Reynobi always checked the most boxes for me:

Bookends the OT father and son story with some cool Kenobi and Skywalker grandfather and grandchildren stories.

No bloodline allows Rey and Ben to have feelings for each other without it being incestuous.

Easiest to present as a surprise at the end of IX and then elaborate on later in the Kenobi standalone which happens right after.

Plays on Ben’s name.

Ties into Obi-Wan’s voice in TFA.

Exile period parallels.

Kenobi was in possession of the saber longer than Luke or Anakin, helping the saber moments in TFA more.

Expands the Kenobi bloodline to live on into the future.

Still allows for some of people’s favorite aspects of Rey Random as far as not having to get too much into her actual parents and her having the difficult life but forging her own path without knowing how she got the power.

Slightly less expected so would feel like an actual surprise to some in the audience who didn’t spoil it and who’d assumed there was no surprise left.

Brings interesting saga-wide ideas on the Force and connections and changes how we see the whole saga.

 

But Rey Kenobi raises a lot of questions too. Who was Kenobi’s lover? What happened to her? How come we never heard about her in thirty plus years? How come we never heard about Kenobi’s kid? Where was the kid during the OT? Why didn’t Kenobi train his kid to be a Jedi? What happened to Kenobi’s kid? Where are they now? Who was Kenobi’s kid’s lover? What happened to them? Etc...

Seems like just as much heavy lifting if not more than a ReySky reveal would require.

 

The mystery box opens via the surprise in IX and then is explained in the immediate Kenobi film which is up next after it though. Something like this:

Spoiler

I personally like the idea of the whole “There are alternatives to fighting” being explored in a film with the idealism of a Frank Capra film but one where he is secretly a hero who’s making a difference and helping to balance out injustice on Tatooine for the people who can’t defend themselves but he does so subtlely and secretly with no one the wiser. He sees a group of hit men try to assault a family and uses the force to impact the punch of the father fighting back and makes that guy look like a hero in front of his kids. He sees a drunk who’s gambling away his family’ money and uses a Jedi mind trick on him to again rethink his life. He overhears a story of a kid dying of a disease who only has maybe a week to live. Learns this kid loves Jedi and dreamed of being one some day. Kenobi ends up making this kid feel better before the end of his life by bringing him some happiness and revealing that he, himself, is a Jedi and giving him wisdom about life and how much his family loves him.

Eventually, his good deeds don’t go unnoticed. A female Force User that would share some startling similarities to that of Mara Jade but would basically be inspired by the idea of her but turned toward Kenobi instead and given a different name, would realize who he is and seek to get to know him and seduce him like a spy posing as a local. He’d sense the power within her but she’d downplay it and act naive and like something inside her drew her to him that she can’t explain. There would be a brief will they or won’t they. Eventually some local dance thing in the town that she invites him to. He shows up and tells her he isn’t much of a dancer. You can imagine some really sweet classy old school romance here. He asks her to dance and they get closer. Cuts to her at his place with a sex scene implied but handled with class for the PG13 audience.

She gets up from his bed and reclothes and thinks he’s asleep and starts snooping around his home. He asks her a question he’s pieced together about her past that doesn’t add up. Things escalate into a small Force battle. She’d ask him what’s so special about the Lars homestead, revealing she’d spied on him a while.

Hutt bodyguards would then break into the home with the little kid who’s dying. Screams heard from within. This woman and Obi-Wan wouid both spring to action and work together again and stop that. The kid would think he has the Force because he’s trying to do Force pushes he’d heard about and they’re working but it’s just Obi-Wan and this woman doing it. The body guards are freaked. “That kids some kind of Jedi!” They run off and the kid smiles and collapses from all the stimulation.

Things escalate with her needing to report back to inquisitors about her findings and the Hutts pushing more people around including the Lars family.

Eventually she has a change of heart and at the end and doesn’t rat him out and there’s a nice ending about how that boy better be special to be worth all this protection and they go their separate ways.

9 months pass:

She’s back on an Empire ship later and with a medical officer who tells her, “It’s a boy. He’ll make a fine soldier.”

Jump cut the future. That boy has grown up and is in love with a FO officer and they have a young baby girl now. They’re on the run for defecting from the FO. The FO closes in and shoots them down over Jakku. The father tells her the Force will find a way and uses Force sleep on the baby girl. The ship crashes into a sand dune. The parents die. Troopers check the ship. See the parents dead. Leave.

Junkers appear over a dune. One is wearing a Rebel helmet that we later know is Rey’s. They find Rey. They look up at the sun over Jakku. Wipe to credits.

Whereas had she been a Skywalker you would have needed to deal with all of that in VIII and it would have forced her on a path rather than her choosing one and then getting the surprise at the end.

 

I don't see a Kenobi bloodline working with Rey Random. No offense, but she's either random or she isn't. It would also undermine the sad backstory of her parents being drunks who sold her to a junk dealer as if she were a piece of garbage. I think we're supposed to be rooting for Rey, not for her pathetic worthless relatives who do not even deserve to be named onscreen.

 

Rey's parentage, for me, has taken on less importance. It would be nice to improve Rey's arc by giving her actual challenges that help push her arc forward. Her having no problems or difficulties with the force to me frankly is not interesting.

 

When I say there’s some overlap I mean that we won’t spend much time getting to know her parents and that it wouldn’t change what she went through or who she becomes. It wouldn’t be something that alters her sense of direction because it would be saved for a surprise at the end after the war is won and she chose who she wants to be. That’s arguably the most beneficial aspect of Rey Random and you can get all of that and then have a nice surprise at the end at the Grandparental level and get into what happened in Kenobi. My guess is her real parents died and the junkers found her and claimed her as one of them for a time when she wasn’t.