ST Rey Skywalker/Daisy Ridley Discussion Thread

Many ideas can work with the right build up.

Rey Palpatine could have worked, if they also built up Palpatine in EP 7. Or if they made Rey with characteristics that resemble Palpatine. Like if she was cunning, ruthless, and manipulative. Or if she was always somehow desiring to be in charge. lol. Ya know. Like maybe you'd think, oh...she's a lot like him, I can begin to see how she might become just like him, or be tempted to become him if she's not careful. If she has a lot of his traits. But throwing in Rey Palpatine at the 11th hour, meant nothing to her. Or the audience. She is nothing like him at all. It's really shorthand. It's using the audiences feelings about the OT, and just planting them on Rey without doing any real work for it.

Rey Nobody could have worked. And it's probably the most-worked concept in the ST. But it comes up short because they dumped Rey Palpatine on us instead. A Rey Nobody, who is then passed the baton from Luke because he needs to pass on what he's learned, and clearly that's not Ben Solo, could have worked. There's also something nice in a concept where Luke wants to give up his power over the Jedi Order, and doesn't think the Skywalkers should own it any longer, which is in direct contrast with a Ben Solo who thinks it's his forever.

Rey Adopted Skywalker could have worked. But only if those bonds are established in positive ways, earlier on in Rey's life so she truly feels as she's grown up in this adopted family. In the story we got, Rey actually connects more with the Solos than the Skywalkers, first with Han, who she sees as a father figure, and even gets his ship, and then with Leia, who's like her mom, even though she's a mom to all the rebels, and then with Ben, who's - Jesus, I don't even know what. Toxic and abusive and mostly destructive.

Rey Actual Skywalker could have worked too. I think there are parts of TFA that could have hinted towards this, since Rey shares most of her personality traits and story with Luke. However, this concept was never developed or hinted at after the first movie. Rey could have just as easily been a long lost child of Luke, as she was with Palpatine. If they're going to dump Rey Palpatine on us, thus destroying the Rey Nobody concept, it could have worked better with Luke, seeing as there's actual drama there already. They already had a rough start to their relationship, and then throwing on this, would have added to that, and forced them to resolve it.

Rey Palpatine is devoid of any drama and actually ruins both the Rey Nobody and Rey Adopted Skywalker concepts in the process.

 

The main issue with "Nobody" is that this is the Skywalker Saga so why the hell would she be nobody.... If they wanted to do Rey nobody they should have ditched the OT characters jumped a head a few hundred years and told the exact same story and no one would be complaining about her being a nobody and the OT3 getting tossed under the bus.

 

That's true. Rey Nobody also takes away from the saga ending with the Skywalkers in a good place. But...there's some ways to solve it. Namely, you'd still have to have Luke and Rey bond in better ways. You'd have to have a better message that all of Luke's students were just nobodies. You'd have to have that Order not completely destroyed again and still existing in some small form. That he was truly passing on what he learned, and that the Skywalker didn't own the light. So that way in the end, it makes sense that the Jedi Order is now being run by nobodies, created by Luke, and up against an entitled privileged Ben Solo who thinks it's all his. Not the best Skywalker ending by far, but it could have worked.

 

I liked the speech Luke gives Rey in The Last Jedi about 'the Force doesn't belong to Jedi' etc. It doesn't, and it doesn't belong to the Skywalkers either. The idea of it being the end of the Skywalker saga and the beginning of something completely new appealed to me. Remember the line from The Last Jedi trailer that never made it into the final cut? "It's so much bigger!" That is the theme they should have gone with for the entire trilogy. That it isn't just this one family doing this Jedi stuff, loads of people can do it. I think Rian gave a glimpse of where he thought it should go with the broom kid, but it was yet another idea that was teased, then discarded.

 

I think if they had went with Rey Nobody upfront, in EP 7, and didn't tease that Rey might - just might - be a daughter of Luke, that was in some form in TFA, cuz the whole mystery box thing, I wouldn't have gotten my hopes up like I had, and would have been okay with Rey Nobody. The mystery box was unnecessary and just led fans down roads of disappointment.

But again, they really need to build these concepts and stick with them. You can't just have the Skywalker Saga ending with a Bad Skywalker, and the hero being a Just A Nobody, without doing some other work involved to make that ending still a win for the good Skywalkers (Luke and Leia).

 

Rey Nobody ‘could’ have worked if that had been the thematic angle the ST wanted to take... but of course it wasn’t. The ST made it all about family, but the problem is that making her a Palpatine created a family dynamic that had little/no emotional connection, which in turn, limited and stifled the drama that could be mined from the situation...

Exactly that. It’s easy to forgot that absolutely nothing was set in stone prior to the ST. It was Disney/Lucasfilm whom decided they wanted to use the OT3, kill off the OT3, replicate the Empire/Rebels dynamic, bring back Palpatine, make Rey a Palpatine etc. It was their call from top to bottom...

 

I never got to the point of caring about Rey’s parentage. That plot strand hardly seemed relevant to me after she took out Kylo, endeared herself to Han and Leia, demonstrated abilities that placed her as among the best the rebellion has to offer. She’s a fully formed, ultra-competent adult. Who cares if her last name is Fett or Vader or Wampa or whatever, it doesn’t change anything.

 

Conceptually, I think Rey Palpatine is more of a challenge to her as a good character than Rey Skywalker, because unlike the Skywalkers, there’s no precedent yet for a Palpatine overcoming the temptation of the pull to the Dark Side. The temptation she overcame in TLJ was giving in to an emotional plea, not to the Dark Side. So there’s that question of “what path am I genetically pre-disposed to be drawn to?” So it’s a new challenge for her, in theory. Execution-wise, I think TROS fell short of utilizing that concept effectively. Likely for reasons already speculated upon. Everything was rushed, etc.

 

That would be like saying Darth Vader being a Skywalker doesn’t change anything. But that would be massively incorrect. It changes everything...

 

Because apparently Rey, Kylo, Palpatine, and the writers of the movie do care. Each movie ends with her parentage question being answered in some way.

 

The difference is that Luke was able to see the good in Vader once he found out. Rey only saw herself becoming evil when she found out. That vision changed very little about the basic story, like most of the twists and turns of TROS.

 

They put way too much emphasis on Rey's parents and what happened to them, and who she really was, in TFA.

It was a pointless mysetery box that forced them to constantly come up with answers that didn't help the story they were telling. All they needed was this in TFA

Rey: Hi, I'm Rey.
Han: Rey, who?
Rey: (pauses) Just Rey. Been on my own ever since I can remember.
Han: Okay, Just Rey.

And that's it. And then could have still done a Rey Nobody, or Rey Skywalker, or Rey Palpatine and no one would have built up where she was from.

 

I dunno, I like a good twist or a darker ending. A tragedy where they all died and Rey ended up on the dark side would have been my preferred conclusion tbh

 

Well exactly. Rey being a Palpatine doesn’t have any bearing on the story being told...

I think regardless of wether one is a Luke or Rey fan, at a story telling level, giving the new lead protagonist a strong and fundamental connection to the lead protagonist of the previous films, is an absolute must. Of course that doesn’t necessarily need to be father and daughter relationship (although undoubtedly I think that would have made the ST much more thematic and connected), but it has to be so much more than two characters (whom have no emotional connections), just meeting up because the story requires it.

I would have preferred that too rather than what we got. It would have made post ST stories much more attractive than what we currently have (IMO).

 

I would only prefer that if the prospect of X-XII wasn’t implicitly denied.


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You can't end the Skywalker saga with the bad guys winning.

But i do think Rey need to be challenged. we did need to think Rey could turn bad.

 

I actually found plausible her near participation in the ritual in order to save her new family. But the fact that the temptation occurred so late reduced the plausibility of it actually happening.


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I would have, but I love those kind of endings.

 

I feel this is a flaw on Rian Johnsons part because, by the time TFA ended with Rey going to meet with Luke, I had assumed that Rey was no longer worried about the past, but instead had her sights on the future. But then Rian Johnson stepped in and decided that Rey was still very worried about her parentage.

I expected it to come up again in a later episode, but did not expect it to be any sort of plot motivation for Rey. I sort of pictured a JOE DIRT type scenario where she realizes her parents were terrible people and she's really glad they abandoned her so she could find a her new family.

I would not have minded Rey being adopted into the Solo/Skywalker clans had it been handled well.

 

I disagree with this somewhat. Rey’s journey in TFA got her to the point where she accepted no longer waiting for her parents, but the mystery surrounding them still weighed on her heart. It would seem kind of jarring for her to suddenly not care about who they were/are anymore.

 

I feel like the question lingered more for the audience than it did with Rey as a character. Now, I could see it coming up again, but I didn't buy her parentage being such a plot driven draw for her in TLJ. It's of such importance that it comes to an emotional crescendo at the end of the throne room sequence. Honestly, I think Rey's reaction would have been better if she hadn't brought up her parents as much in TLJ. Maybe mention them once in relation to feeling rejected by them and now Luke as well and leave it at that.

Luke doesn't keep referring to his father in TESB and that reveal is better for it. Not that the two films have to be the same, just using it as comparison.

edit: in relation to "Maybe mention them once in relation to feeling rejected by them and now Luke as well and leave it at that." I feel like Rey's draw to the dark side would be more natural if that Goatse thing near the Jedi temple had promised her a way to defeat Kylo Ren as opposed to telling her who her parents are, but that wouldn't have worked with Rian Johnson trying to shoehorn in this budding relationship between her and Kylo, so he had to go back to her parents as a substitute.

 

But technically that is EXACTLY what they did. Palpatine's goal was to destroy the Skywalkers. And he did. While his own bloodline continues. In Rey.

 

But i don't think thats how the people involved see the outcome. to them the good guys won. Rey is the new jedi ect ect. all positive stuff ending the saga.