ST TLJ and Rey's vision in TFA

"Always in motion the future is..." The TFA vision does not accurately portray the duel with Ren on the Starkiller Base (it shows him wearing the mask in the woods). It's a Force vision, not necessarily reality. It can't be taken as literal truth. The accounts of the Jedi Academy in TLJ are similarly being told by Luke and Ren, both are unreliable narrators who recall events differently.

Rey didn't need a connection to the Jedi, she had a connection to the Force.

 

meaning she is Force sensitive and her powers were kickstarting at that moment
Force Awakens, Will of the Force seeking Balance

 

Then I'm afraid we can only agree that we disagree, because when I read that phrase I really thought there was no space for interpretations, and that it was as clear as it gets, and I also honestly think that your suggestion that he doesn't need because he doesn't care is the most contrived explanation one could possibly imagine. But I recognize it's probably just a matter of perception.

 

He doesn't care was exactly what I thought when I read that. It's like when I get a spam phone call from a telemarketer...I don't need to ask who's calling, or why they're calling. My hanging up on them says it all.

 

I completely disagree with you. The "trilogy" is about Luke and Kylo? Luke who wasn't (really) in the 1st movie? And who will only be a Force Ghost in the 3rd? That makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

This trilogy IS about Rey. And unfortunately, based on TLJ, she IS just a random girl. And (like you?) I have a huge problem with that.

 

Oh my god, let's read the phrase again:
"He doesn't need to ask her who she is, or what she is doing here"

We all agree that he perfectly knows why she's there.
Therefore, in your point of view the first "he doesn't need" is due to the fact that he doesn't care, whereas the second one is instead due to the fact that he already knows.

How can you honestly, truly insist on this interpretation?

 

But I'm talking about Maz's motivations, not Rey's.

Maz's motivation was clear. The reason she wanted Han to join back in the fight is the same reason why she wants Luke's to return.

She does not say "your belonging is with Luke". That literally never happens in TFA.

In fact, in the line where Maz talks to Rey about her belonging being ahead of her, she doesn't mention Luke at all. She starts teaching Rey her first lesson about the Force, and how to feel it.

It amazes me how differently people see these scenes from TFA.

To me, from the first viewing, I saw Rey being scared of this intense vision she just had. She touched the saber, saw some very terrifying images, including Kylo coming from her, AND she saw her parents leaving. It was intense, painful and terrifying.

I see no mystery whatsoever in why she didn't want to touch the saber again. That seemed, to me at least, obvious in the moment.

 

Pretty easily. If I already know why you're here and I'm not interested in what you're selling, then I don't care who you are. Neither question needs to be answered.

Are you accusing us of lying about our interpretation? That would be a really strange thing to do.

 

Maz asking Han "Who's the girl?" and then cutting away from the answer is the exact same thing as Finn asking Poe "Where's Rey?" and then cutting away. In both cases the information is not repeated since the audience already knows.

 

I am not accusing you of lying, I am accusing you of forcing yourself in a silly interpretation of a very straightforward phrase in order to adapt it to your contrived narrative. Therefore, even though I don't question your intellectual honesty, I'm really surprised that you see things that way.

It is really amazing indeed. So I guess you agree with the other two users for what concerns the phrase that Kasdan wrote at the end of the screenplay.

 

Why do you feel the need to be so patronizing?

"silly interpretation"
"contrived narrative"

Get over yourself.

 

I didn't mean to be offensive but I guess I was, therefore I apologize. You were just expressing your opinion and I've been a bit rude.

 

Stage directions and notes are irrelevant if they don’t make it to the screen.

TFA never tells us that Luke knows Rey. TLJ has to handle what was shown onscreen, not what is written in the notes section.

 

Ok, but we agree on what is shown onscreen. We only disagree on the interpretation of what we see. The point that I am trying to make is that Kasdan and Abrams intentionally suggested to the audience the idea that the relation between Rey and some other main characters was deeper than what we see in TLJ (even though, as you said, it is not shown explicitly). I am using, as a proof of my thesis, the fact that Kasdan left written in the screenplay in a pretty clear way that Luke knew who Rey was.

Moreover, Johnson himself said that he had total freedom in the choices he could make for his movie. Therefore, it seems to me reasonable to assume that part of the plot of TLJ was not what Abrams and Kasdan had in mind.

The other arguments have been explained in previous comments.
Anyway, I think I have not many other things to add, so if I didn't manage to convince you I think that we can only agree to disagree.

 

Given that the Force vision had some pretty abstract elements to it, I think it's safe to say that that explains any discrepancies between TFA and TLJ. It's also worth noting that JJ Abrams apparently didn't have a set answer for the the mysteries of TFA when it was being made and that Rian Johnson has said that Episode 9 could retcon his explanation of Rey's past if the filmmakers chose to do so (I suppose by either establishing that Kylo was mistaken or lying).

 

I think the vision was dropped in place for a fresh story or something. I don't see it personally.

 

Maybe someone’s already mentioned this, but the part with young Rey was a late addition. As I understood it, it was included at the request of RJ...

The part with Kylo and the Knights in rain () might be a vision of the future...

 

Both things are disturbing to me: Abrams should not set up misteries without knowing their explanation and they should all stop bragging about the fact that every director does whatever he wants. It was supposed to be a trilogy from the beginning so I really don't get why they didn't plan properly where to go.

If this is the case, I'm even more confused. Why should he place that scene precisely in that moment if he wanted Rey not to be related with the Jedi?

Ok I'll give you this, that would be very cool.

 

I am not sure we have seen everything contained within the vision yet. The way it was cut made it seem like the Knights of Ren were attacking the new temple, but as we've seen Ben was not yet Kylo Ren. This scene is still to come I think. The Ren were conspicuously absent from TLJ and were too cool to be left untouched in the next installment.I think the lightsaber called to her because she was going to be present at a key moment in the struggle between the darkside and the light. The kyber crystals so far are being presented as having an almost living relationship to the force and thus the Jedi. She was able to glimpse the struggle and an "always in motion" piece of the future, mixed with the past (her past, Luke's past, Anakin, Obi Wan and Yoda). So far we saw the destruction of the new temple. We learned of her past as an orphaned child to terrible parents (she is better off not knowing them). We know what happened at Cloud City. The last piece is this stormy landscape with the assembled Knights of Ren. I think this piece is forthcoming and I am actually excited about that.

But to answer your question: SW seems to focus on being separated from your parents. Anakin left his mother, only to see her again before she died in his arms. Luke never knew his mother. Leia thought she was sad. Both were shocked to learn that their father was a monster in a mask. Anakin's character was forged from his grief at losing his mother. He wanted to learn to keep people from dying. Luke wanted to know more about his father, to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like his father. That drove him. Rey has always waited for her parents to come back. She had to face that they were gone, not coming back, and to move on from that. It is a play on the recurrent theme.

 

On the other hand, I personally don't think that the two movies are that disjointed. Also, with Abrams returning to do Episode 9, it does keep the directorial pool small, so fewer cooks and all that. Also, for what it's worth, Abrams did produce TLJ and went on record that he liked the script (it sounded like he would've like to have shot the movie himself had that been in the cards), so I suspect that Episode 9 will follow the previous two. At any rate, it doesn't sound like the Powers That Be are going to want to ignore or retcon stuff from the previous movies because they don't like them, a la the X-Men movie series.

 

Did Kylo Ren know Rey's parents? How did he know who they were? Mere clairvoyance? Or had they crossed paths at some point?

 

I guess he used the Force. It seems that TLJ has been very precise: her parents are nobody. I don't think there's space for another twist on that point of view.

 

The Knights of Ren scene was likely the past because Kylo Ren was wearing his helmet. Granted, he also wore the helmet in the part about Starkiller Base so it wasn't literal there...but I'm guessing it was the attack on the academy.

 

When I saw the movie, I thought he'd got that information from the Force. He and Rey had that mental connect that was allowing them to Force Skype and at least once it seemed to allow them to get some kind of information exchange (when they "touched" hands. Rey had gone into the dark side pit after that connection was made in a failed effort to see if it would reveal her parents to her and I thought that the conversation implied that Kylo had been the one to get the information somehow when Rey went to the cave if I'm remembering it correctly (although I will concede that the mechanics of the connection didn't seem to extend to mind reading).

Of course, they could retcon it to him being mistaken or lying if they want to go a different route (while I think Kylo was sincere in his offer that they should join together and take control of things, I also think he was also manipulating her in that scene and we only have his word so far about who her parents were).

 

I agree that they were definitely nobodies, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Kylo Ren never met them. What if the destruction in the vision was the destruction of their home? That's pure speculation of course. In any case, I do think there's space for Kylo to have known Rey's parents.