ST Rey's Lineage / Parentage / Name

All this talk of why even keep Rey's origins a secret if she's random is ultimately asking, "How can it be any good if it's not someone we already know?". Or in a broader sense it is like asking, "How can it be any good if it's not what we think it should be?"

In which case I have to ask, have you never seen a movie that delivered on the goods precisely because it gave you something you didn't expect? A movie called The Empire Strikes Back comes to mind, along with The Others, Psycho, or Rashomon. And I'm not just talking about a twist, simply movies that gave you something totally new and fresh in form and/or substance -- movies like STAR WARS, Avatar, Unforgiven, The Road Warrior, or the Godfather saga. You are asking for a contradiction: you want a twist that you expect.

The TESB reveal was meaningful not so much because it was a character you already knew, but because it deepened the conflict for Luke's -- he learned that he now needed to kill his own flesh and blood to win the struggle. We didn't see that coming.

What does a Rey Skywalker do to advance the story (and we have two movies to go!)? Rey realizes he has to kill her cousin. What does a Rey Solo do to advance the story? Rey realizes he has to kill her brother. But because Kylo will learn that (or already knows it) Rey now has a fighting chance to bring him back to the light. Haven't we all seen this before? Do you really want to play the Star Wars saga like a favorite first-person shooter level you play over and over? Or do you want a new level that gets your heart pounding because you've only got a pistol, no BFG, and the environment is so dark you can't see what's coming until it's right in front of you?

Someone pointed this out before but perhaps the secret is not so much who, but why -- in which case why might even prove to be a much more interesting story and an advancing of the plot than the who. Or maybe on top of how the why advances the story, we also have what it ultimately means to Rey -- and how it will affect her future.

 

I would like to see a Skywalker father/daughter dynamic since we have never seen that at all across 7 films. Adopted Rey does not suffice. The 'why she is left' does not push interest for me without the who part being answered. Even then I may not buy it at all. They created expectations now, if folks did not already have them.

As far as what we have seen or havent seen... what else is new? Three death stars, 2 evil Skywalkers, and a partridge in a pear tree... There is very little that does not repeat across all 7 so far. You get different variations of the same thing. It still works because we like the characters or story anyways (well some do). So random surely can work out fine... I think had they not written the Skywalkers into such a crummy post ROTJ life, folks would not care as much where she came from.

 

“A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. He betrayed and murdered your father.”

"I am your father" was so great because both Luke and the audience had long believed that Vader this this evil guy who had killed his father. Obi-Wan had told Luke a lie. And there was this horrifying idea of his father being inside the Vader suit.

That just can't be repeated. But whoever Rey's family is, it can't just come out of nowhere suddenly. All the pieces should be introduced by now. The closest I can think of to an "I am your father" moment is Rey being horrified at the revelation that her cousin left her on Jakku.

 

I think the reveal will be to Luke "I am your daughter" from Rey. Maybe Luke believed his wife and daughter to be dead. He's shocked she is alive. (Mirrors Vader being shocked his son is alive). Rey's journey may be to avenge her mother's death and that will tempt her to the dark side. Since first movie was Ren being tempted to light side. Second will be darker with Rey's struggle to not be tempted by dark side.
The whole saga is the Skywalker family and their journeys. Prequels were Anakin's hero's journey but choosing the dark side. OT was Luke's journey but choosing the light side. This trilogy will have a hero's journey and anti-hero's journey in Rey and Ren. Star Wars is also all about symmetry, symbolism, family soap opera.
Anakin Skywalker had a daughter and a son.
Anakin's daughter has a son and his son has a daughter.
No way there is only one Skywalker to carry on this trilogy and 3 more movies. No way she is Rey Random in my opinion.

 

A good "why" does not depend on any of the possible "who"s. I know you really want her to be random, but that just puts you in the same boat as the Skywalker or Solo camps if your own theory is wrong - the film will be ripe for criticism.

I think many of us are hanging TESB over this - if the reveal is not that good, or that unexpected, then it won't satisfy. Skywalker is now expected, so it is, in some peoples' eyes, not the best reveal.

I agree that the "why" is the hook that the next films will hang best on. I'm not even sure that the "who" was originally something that was supposed to be such a big deal after TFA, especially after JJ's comment about the film only being able to sustain one familial reveal.

I think she is a Skywalker, from the trailers to the hints in the film and what SW has been about for 40 years. I will however accept without question whatever is presented to us in the next films as what actually happened in a GFFA. I shall continue to read and enjoy the theories, bearing in mind that 95% of the theories after TPM were wrong, and the more complicated they were, the more likely they were to be wrong.

 

Looking at two quotes from two people who know who Rey's parents are lead me to believe there is no doubt that Rey is related to Anakin.


Kathleen Kennedy: The Saga films focus on the Skywalker family saga. The stories follow a linear narrative that connects to the previous six films. The Force Awakens follows Return of the Jedi and continues that generational story. The Anthology films offer opportunities to explore fresh characters, new storylines and a variety of genres inside the Star Wars universe.

Rey is the focus of The Force Awakens, not Kylo, Luke nor Leia. The linear narrative holds true if Rey is a Skywalker/Solo. Then we have a bloodline that goes back to The Phantom Menace, and the story arc of that dynasty is told through nine movies. Her being a random sends the story off on a tangent. We would have one whole film in the nine that is about some random Force wielding character? Seems out of step. And more fitting to a spinoff movie.


Colin Trevorrow: We’re going to make sure that that answer is deeply and profoundly satisfying. Rey is a character that is important in this universe, not just in the context of The Force Awakens, but in the entire galaxy. She deserves it. We’ll make sure that that answer is something that feels like it was something that happened a long time ago, far away, and we’re just telling you what happened.

The "deeply and profoundly satisfying" reveal that is to come, is going to fit her like a jigsaw piece into the pantheon of Star Wars characters we already have. Rey finding out she is related to Anakin adds way more to the story than her finding out she is not related to anyone. All of her abilities will be explained and the "creature in a mask" that is Kylo becomes a relative, that brings in a layer of drama that we won't have if Rey is random, will she fall to temptation like Ben has? Claiming that her being a random brings more to the story of the next films is simply false.

Plus her being random won't make her important to the entire galaxy, but being Vader's granddaughter does fulfill that criteria.

 

None of these quotes imply Rey is Luke's or some legacy daughter. They're all non-sequitor interpretations. KK essentially just said this trilogy continues where ROTJ left off with Skywalker family, which it did with TFA (Luke? check. Leia? check. Kylo? check). CT's answer is just a fancy-worded motherhood statement that can be interpreted as a weather report on Friday if you want it to be that.

I bet anyone wishing for a legacy ancestry can use any quote from anyone related to Star Wars production and interpret it the way he wants:

Press release: "Episode VIII has been moved to Dec 2017 release."​

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Interpretation: "OMG, that means Rey is Luke's/Leia's daughter! The backstory of how Rey was left on Jakku alone and uncared for by a Skywalker/Solo is so complicated that they need more time to shoot it. In fact they need the whole of episode VIII just for that story! We might even be getting an episode X too as a result!"​

Obviously exaggerating here, but I think you get my point.

 

Perhaps it is just me, but when I first read the Trevorrow quote, it seemed to convey that the Rey origin story was still a work in progress, or at minimum that they were wrestling with some of the more difficult issues on how they can insure that Luke or Han or Liea (or perhaps anyone else) would not be relegated to the characterization of deadbeat parent. Perhaps not, but to be "deeply and profoundly satisfying" and not disappoint the number of people who need for the Skywalker linage to continue through her without making the OT heros look bad, takes a rather complex backstory or the introduction of at least one new important character.

 

Except that TFA is all about NOT giving you anything you don't expect. That is not the story ethic they are using. It's all about using everything that has even been done in Star Wars and giving it to you again in one form or another. Even not revealing Rey's parentage itself is what happened with Luke. We didn't find out about his "parentage" until the second movie released or rather who his father turned into. We knew he was the son of (Anakin) Skywalker. We just didn't know that he had become Darth Vader.

With Rey you can't reveal she is a Master Jedi's daughter and then have it be Luke since Luke is the only Master Jedi or Jedi around at all.

To me the ending of TFA could have easily have been changed and Leia would explain to Rey what she now through the Force believes to be her origins. One certainly could look at it that Leia now actually meeting Rey has figured out that she is Luke's daughter. In terms of the story arc of the movie it would actually complete phase one of Rey's story that she connects back to her father.

Whether Rey is directly related to Luke or Anakin by blood is irrelevant now. She is connected to them just as much as if she was of their family or not. She is part of the Force family. The last nameless Rey is certainly going to take on the Skywalker name at some point. Her parents might be totally irrelevant as now it's not about her past but her future. Which is the same as Anakin's story. As far as the movies go Anakin could be created by the Force or Darth Plagueis. As Lucas said it doesn't really matter about the origins of Anakin and how he came to be but what it is that he does.

 

You may see them as non sequitur because they don't support Rey Random. But it's clear to me that Rey is the granddaughter of Vader. Before Trevorrow's words I figured it was possible that Rey could be the start of a new powerful bloodline, but even then I should have looked at what Kennedy had already said.

For Rey to be a Random and for her to be the center of TFA and the next two movies, that means that the Skywalkers are the supporting cast in this tale of a new bloodline. These three movies wouldn't focus on the Skywalker saga, because it would be Rey's rise in power and influence ending in her coronation or death. I know you and others are very invested in Rey being a Random, I thoroughly enjoy reading points that are brought up to support that outcome. However some exaggerated claim about a release date doesn't discredit what people who know exactly who Rey is have said. So I don't really see your point there at all. It's not a counter argument. If you have a different interpretation of both their quotes I would like to hear it. However I find it tough to believe that the "focus on the Skywalker family saga" can become the stuff that goes on in the background of Rey's story.

There is a movie coming out that has a female hero who I believe is like that. As far as I know, and I haven't seen any spoilers, just a cast photo. But I think the character Felicity Jones plays is not related to any other known Star Wars character that we are familiar with. Now this here is me using some non sequitur logic, but bear with me please. To have two Star Wars films in a row that have a random character as the lead just doesn't seem possible to me. Star Wars becomes a new film franchise where random people do heroic stuff, but that's never what Star Wars has been about. It's a space opera about Anakin and his children and I believe his children's children.

Also just to dismiss the words of Trevorrow because no matter which way you look at it, there is no profundity to be found in Rey being a random, seems the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and saying I'm not listening. She already says she is "no one," so this "deeply and profoundly satisfying" reveal becomes no reveal at all. And Kennedy is talking about more than just some tenuous link regarding recurring characters from Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, she is telling us, the fans, that this trilogy will be about the Skywalkers, they will be the center of it.

 

I agree with this. If they wanted new, they should have gone new. What does a random character that emulates the Skywalkers in every last bit of characterization she was given provide the audience? Why not just start fresh if that's the goal? An unrelated apprentice with a sage Jedi master that the apprentice is close to has been done. That's not new. Father/daughter duo of Jedi is new. Cousins Rey and Kylo facing off isn't the relevant comparison to Luke/Vader. Luke/Rey is the relevant comparison to Luke/Vader, and no that hasn't been done before.

My biggest fear is that Rey's origin story is a work in progress. That should have been mapped out from the beginning. Making it up as you go creates plot holes, and there's no excuse when you knew from jump you were getting a trilogy (unlike, for example, Lucas and the OT).

I don't think we should assume tptb care about not making the OT3 look bad. They look bad already. TFA gave us failure Luke hiding away like a coward. As far as we know, the OT3 have one legacy, and it's Kylo Ren. They weren't afraid to give Han Solo the most tragic end to his life imaginable. The happy ending of RotJ was demolished with little fanfare from tptb. If the OT3 look slightly deadbeatish, I'm sure there will be some explanation we can buy or not, and that will be that.

No matter who Rey's parents are, they look bad. Even if Rey isn't legacy, I feel like the "profoundly satisfying" quote at least tells us that her backstory is important to the trilogy. Unless they're giving Rey dark side parents, which I doubt, Rey's getting parents that royally screwed up somehow and she suffered the consequences of that.

 

Leia: "I regret I am unable to present my father's request to you in person..."

Leia was going to Tatooine to recruit Kenobi. They came out of hyperspace in the Tatooine system, Vader followed them.

 

This isn’t a world I want to live in… I agree that you’re right. I’m saying it’s not that cool but I should be use to this. Star Wars will never be the tidal wave of Sith against a Jedi order that some of the KOTOR era stuff hints at. I think that is kind of what a lot of us hardcores want and what the pre-Disney EU was building: the characters of the Skywalker era building into their own elaborate Jedi Order/Sith Order stuff the Old Old Republic era stuff hinted at. As cool as that old Republic era stuff was, it always suffered by not being centered on the Skywalkers and people that the original SW content told us were important families.

I guess we just have to accept this oxymoronical idea that the very presence of Skywalkers symbolize an era of dormancy, scarcity, thinness, weakness, and amateurism in the community of Force wielders. Attack of the Clones was the one moment out of all the Star Wars films and to a lesser extent ROTS where a Skywalker and a lot of Force-wielders are doing stuff onscreen.

Certainly you’re right about Plagueis but I guess I’m just saying we’re legit to look at stuff that was actually in the movies compared to the ocean of material that gets no focus in the movies at all that also bubbles up in these discussions. I mean to me, give me Plagueis and Sith and apprentices and Force users and training any day before you give me another damn X-Wing pilot. I gotta admit, I can give a damn about Poe and people like him and I put up with characters like him in the films under the assumption that I’m gonna get a bunch of cool Jedi stuff when his scene is over.

It’s weird, this thread has helped me come to terms with what I want Star Wars to be versus what it actually is. And more specifically it’s helped me realize what I really want in these next two movies: just give me Jedi stuff. Rey can be whoever, her parents can be whoever – just don’t gyp me on Jedi stuff. Just don’t give me a trilogy of characters with no training and heroes that don’t want to get involved and no masters and expertise. I want to see Rey wield a double blade. I want to see Luke do more than lift and X-Wing out of a swamp. I want to feel like the Skywalker saga makes some kind of sense within itself and the first Jedi temple mentioned pay off to something. I want to care about a development besides the reveal of things that happened between 6 and 7. Make me care about events moving FORWARD in the slightest. Out of all the wishlist I just named, I won’t get all of it but if I get a lot of it, the fine print can be whatever.
Oh and what did you mean about the novel overriding the prophecy?

I love TFA but getting back into SW Graphic Novels again since TFA's release has made me look more harshly at it: somehow, and this is also true with Marvel & DC, graphic novels manage to give us everything we want while still being so well written that it doesn't just come off as fan service. I have thought for many years that if directors weren't so obsessed with their identities as "auteurs" they could be giving us better genre content by adapting more graphic novels beat for beat, page for page, panel for panel the way DC's Frank Miller Batman cartoon adaptations did. I am similarly sad that Captain America: Civil War hardly resembles the comic book mainly in the sense that it will not include the whole Marvel Universe or even the whole Avengers team the way the comic series did. Like this week I'm gonna spend like 35 bucks on amazon to get a graphic novel that has one 22 page story about Vader fighting Darth Maul - one day I hope and suspect that cartoon studios will pump out adaptations of such obviously awesome content the way DC is starting to (I say starting because even most of their cartoon releases are loose adaptations and not the page for page transcription of the Frank Miller ones).

 

I don't agree with Luke being a failure because he is "hiding away". He went in search of the first Jedi temple for answers. He's been actively searching for something which we will find out about in Ep. VIII. If Rey is his daughter and he was protecting her, that doesn't make him look bad. If he thought Rey was dead, that doesn't make him a bad parent. Only way Rey has bad parents if they just dropped her off on Jakku to fend for herself for no reason.
I think they have known all along that Rey is Luke's daughter. Probably just trying to figure out the backstory of who her mother is and how she ended up on Jakku.

 

I have little doubt we will see a father-daughter Jedi dynamic -- just not between actual father and daughter. It goes back again to the original Star Wars (ANH) theme of what constitutes a family.

I seriously doubt this will be the case. If there was ONE thing I'd bet on they'd already mapped out from the start then it's who Rey's parents are and how she got to Jakku.

 

Couple thoughts: If Ben becoming Kylo, taking down NJO happened less than 10 years before TFA and Rey is not a Skywalker, Solo or Kenobi…then have the main characters really had it that bad for most of the 32-34 years since ROTJ? Not necessarily. They also could have had a lot of adventure similar in shape to the Old EU during that time.

Also, Lucasfilm is smacking us over the head with the importance of Jakku. It’s the only TFA influenced content in the new Battlefront game right? and it’s called “Turning Point” right? I think they’re explicitly telling us there is more to be revealed about Jakku’s significance. I’ve played the Jakku DLC in the game but didn’t really glean any insight- did anyone?

If the “why” is more important than the “what” and “who, then Rey can be a SkySolo and why she ended up on Jakku is the reveal. I also think RobbyV , that there is a certain bias in your rephrasing of the question. We’re not saying “how can it be any good if…” we’re expressing skepticism of how satisfying it could be if the reveal itself is no one we know. I think the reveal will be more about the “why” anyway which leaves the actual reveal possibly anyone still, random, SkySolo or otherwise. If Episode 8 spends a lot of time introducing Benicio and other new aged 40-ish characters before we get anything on Rey then I’ll be expecting Rey to be revealed to be one of these new characters' kid near the end or in Episode 9.

What does Rey Skywalker do to advance the story? Destiny. She moves the Skywalkers another step towards their destiny, yo. What does Rey Skywalker do to advance the story? Sets up cool dynamics with her and Kylo Ren. What does Rey Skywalker do to advance the story? Depicts the legacy of Anakin Skywalker which is what all the “Episode”s are about.

@Colm has some of the best pro-Rey Legacy points I’ve seen in a minute. Same with Qui-Riv-Brid

I still think anything is possible though I still lean towards Legacy. Though now I am a broken enough man to know even if she is a Legacy we won’t get to see the Skywalkers do much but be slightly more impressive than all of the other non-Jedi around…sigh…. The only thing that can bring my sense of childlike wonder back would be if Luke had a whole cadre of trainees stashed in the Jedi Temple on Ach-To…

 

From what I noticed in the audience at my screenings, the lightsaber thing is what convinced a lot of them. When she touches it and it gives flashbacks to both Luke and Anakin's pasts, and you here the voices of Luke and Anakin's old mentors calling out to her, and then you have Maz Kanata say "that lightsaber belonged to Luke, and his father before him, and now it CALLS TO YOU!!"

(95% of the people in the audience): "Jee, I wonder why it would do that. Why their lightsaber would call to her specifically (sarcasm)."

And that, combined with all of the other pretty obvious callbacks/teases, are well obvious. You're never going to convince me that planting this seed in the audience's minds was anything other can completely intentional on their part. They know these films inside and out, so dropping so many of these, and so blatant ones as well, being purely coincidental/unintentional, is something that I don't buy for one second.

 

I was among that 95% of the audience, which is why I feel like any satisfying reveal needs to explain Rey's connection with the saber. It's not even just the force vision. It's also the part where Kylo couldn't force pull it 60 seconds after force pushing Rey 30 feet through the air into a tree but Rey, from further away, could force pull it. I feel like any explanation of Rey Random needs to address that lightsaber. That's one reason that the shaky explanation of Rey Random being connected to Luke's academy (and therefore possibly has had contact with the lightsaber in some form) seems better (imo) than Rey Random villager that never met Luke. There was a lot of emphasis on that lightsaber for it to be a total misdirection. And that's what makes a mystery box conclusion satisfying. It should tie the story together, not leave you rolling your eyes at the fake-outs.

I'm not sure what you are referring to from ANH. I don't recall the question of what constitutes family being a theme. That certainly wasn't a theme of the OT overall, unless you are saying that blood relationships constitute family even when people don't grow up as family… Which doesn't tie into Luke Skywalker and Rey Random forming a father/daughter bond.

 

If I hadn't seen TFA yet, I would have no bias as to what the result would be. My bias comes from the story that's been presented so far, not from any preset desire to see this over that. I can't emphasize enough that you needn't have any prior knowledge of Rey's parents in TFA to get a satisfying answer. In fact you could write a great story about the why without even revealing the who. If Rey's parents are who I suspect they are, I foresee a slow reveal in episode VIII. Not a scene, but a series of scenes building up to it -- emphasizing the how and why, rather than who.

Agree that the greater importance of the why opens it up to any result, but we can't look at this why in a vacuum. There is the burden of the story that's been told so far. The why is inextricably linked to the how -- specifically how Rey ended up as an abandoned child on Jakku is the biggest unanswered question that's inseparable from who her real family is. This how will show the why and will also give us new insights about the who in case it's a legacy character. I've seen some interesting legacy-related whys -- the earliest and still most common and popular why I've read is Rey was put there for her own protection (from Snoke, or FO Jedi hunters). The only critique I have of it is that we've read this story before in Excalibur and people will see it coming a mile away. That plus Unkar Plutt doesn't exactly strike me as a benign Merlin equivalent. But more importantly, the variations of this why inevitably fall apart trying to explain how (with the Skywalker family's vast power, influence, talent, intelligence, resources, stature, and network of friends and allies, and knowledge of hospitable planets in the galaxy) did Rey end up where she was the way she was. This particular why has not been translated to a credible how. The fact that these whos (Luke, Leia, Han) seem to have been alive and doing well while his/their daughter suffered alone for 3/4ths of her young life diminishes these bunch of supposed-to-be bigger-than-life whos to monumental idiots on many levels. It would be the most poorly executed "witness protection" program ever -- not only in the suffering the person being protected was made to endure for 15+ years, but it ultimately failed -- in the end the FO did find her. As Yoda would've said, "Highly incompetent they are, whoever planned and executed this 'protection' scheme for Rey."

Exactly my point -- we've seen this story before, in six movies no less. Maybe time for something new?

I'm talking about the "excerpt" from the Journal of the Whills in the novel which appears before the first chapter which seems to be talking about a change in how the story treats "balance" in the Force. The first four stanzas appear to be talking vaguely about the (fulfilled) prophecy. Now it's beginning to appear (to me anyway) that they're setting us up to view "balance" not necessarily as a stalemate between light and dark side users, but a new philosophy for Force users to use the best of both worlds (as Rey apparently did in the movie). It's been quoted several times in a few threads but here it is in case you haven't seen it:

First comes the day​

Then comes the night.​

After the darkness​

Shines through the light.​

The difference, they say,​

Is only made right​

By the resolving of gray​

Through refined Jedi sight.​

—Journal of the Whills, 7:477​

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Rey seems too strong with the Force, from what I have seen,to be only the daughter of Luke or of Leia.
He could not be Darth Vader's daughter?
I do not think is anything official about how many years passed from the death of Darth Vader till we have the events in The Force Awakens.

 

If she isn't related to Luke by blood, then I still fully believe that she has some kind of connection to him. Either she was living at his temple and he met/interacted with her, or he knew/was friends with her parents (perhaps they were his students as well), or something.

I just don't see, given what they do here and what they've said, her being completely and utterly random with no connection to anyone.

 

Is it really a popular theory that Rey was put with Unkar intentionally for her protection by any of the OT3 and then just left there while they lived their lives? I can't imagine that accurately depicts that many people's view on Rey's background.

 

The why can't be "satisfying" if we are not familiar with the who.

Rey's parents - Random A and Random B - dropped her off in Jakku because... they are really evil. Ok...? Am I supposed to care?
Or maybe Random A and Random B were being chased by the First Order and got themselves killed after dropping her off. Ok, cool. And?

I'm sorry, I just don't buy it.

 

Well,maybe, Darth Sidious had some semen of Anakin,kept. Or some of Anakin DNA/cells.
For dark side purposes. And later,Snoke uses this semen to conceive a child with some woman.
Or Snoke use this cells to conceive a child somehow,he was master of such procedures.
This child is Rey . The fail to train her in the dark side,because somehow,she gets out of their reach.
So she is the daughter of Anakin and the sister of Luke.
EDIT:
This way,it mill make sense why she is so strong with the Force.

 

There's also the fact that the lightsaber is treated almost like a family heirloom in the film. Passed down from one generation of Skywalker Jedi to the next.