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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

ST I Like This Ending Better

Discussion in 'Sequel Trilogy' started by DarthKnaves1995, Oct 26, 2022.

  1. Vympel

    Vympel Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 31, 2002
    Not really IMO. 'Belonging' is vague. Who Rey is waiting for (her family, which she explicitly says earlier in the movie) isn't. But even if it is, so what? The issue was whether TFA's story should change, not whether lawyering around the dialog is happening at any given time or not.

    Because its not at all a difficult thing for her to hear. Its her getting what she wants. It's totally inert.

    But I was, because again, movies are fictional things written by writers, not historical documentaries that came from nowhere, and insisting that they only be treated as such is weird and not how movies are made.

    There's always room for a retcon, because its fiction, and you can do whatever you want. But it'd still be a retcon, which - if you're changing the sequel trilogy - you can avoid by never creating the damn problem in the first place, no? Like why is there so much resistance to this lol?

    The whole reason, it seems to me anyway, that this is even such a controversial topic even though its chapter and verse 100% beyond dispute that Rey was never intended to be a Skywalker (as the intent of the dialog quite clearly indicates - attempts to lawyer around it with weird interpretations notwithstanding, and cos for the third time, Daisy herself said so) is out of some misguided belief that TFA's careless storytelling and weird choices needs to be defended or somehow indemnified.

    Like its this perfect movie that shouldn't be changed rather than a mess? Just change it!
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2022
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  2. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001
    Rey's father was named Dathan, her mother was named Miramir. Neither had a last name. The only name left is Palpatine and that name is beyond redeeming. The Skywalkers are known as the heroes of the Republic and the Alliance.
     
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  3. Vympel

    Vympel Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Oct 31, 2002
    None of this stuff is examined in the movie because the reason she chooses the 'Skywalker' name is just cynical pandering to the fandom. It shouldn't actually mean anything to her such that she'll take it as hers. Why even take a last name at all?
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2022
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  4. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

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    Mar 4, 2011
    Her not taking a last name would be better. Her taking the Skywalker name in that scene just comes across as trying to imitate the Titanic scene, and that makes me want to throw up. (The imitation; I don’t have a problem with Titanic).
     
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  5. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001
    What matters to Rey is a sense of belonging. A sense of family. She has developed a bond to the Skywalkers and she wants to keep their legacy alive.
     
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  6. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

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    Mar 4, 2011
    …which is why it probably would have been better to start the trilogy by giving her a reason to want to fight the First Order. A personal reason rooted deep in her history, well before the trilogy began.

    People whose primary goal is to “find a sense of belonging” are not only unprepared to survive on their own if needed, refuse to prepare themselves to survive on their own if necessary, but often enter toxic and/or codependent relationships, and it is unpleasant to witness. Which explains some aspects of TFA.

    Not that it isn’t OK to witness lonely characters finding “their” people, it is, and we saw that in the OT, but Luke, Han and Leia had larger scale galaxy impacting goals. Rey did not.
     
  7. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001
    Killing Palpatine still qualifies.
     
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  8. dagenspear

    dagenspear Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Sep 9, 2015
    Family can be vague. You brought up the lawyering dialogue thing, not me.

    My point is that TFA doesn't really have to be changed to have a strong continuation. I don't perceive TFA being the reason of TLJ's actual writing issues. I think TLJ is responsible for itself. Just like TFA is responsible for itself.
    I think that's a very limited creative viewpoint and not an honest emotional reading of Rey. Rey doesn't want special parents. What Rey really wants is to not have been abandoned. Finding out her dad is super special doesn't mean anything to never having had parents in her life. It doesn't heal the wounds, doesn't take away the pain, doesn't fix her life. It just exposes that nerve of abandonment. Leaving an interesting exploration of Rey's emotions. That's the hard thing for her to grapple with: That having special parents fixes nothing at all for her. If anything it makes it worse. It exposes her fears, exposes her flaws.
    I wasn't. It's not relevant to the information the movie actually provides.

    Depending on whether or not I think it's a real change.

    I think the legit dumb stuff began in TLJ, while TFA had more vague dumb stuff. I have, more than once, presented a redo for TFA, but that's not really relevant to my aggressive issues with TLJ, which I think are dumb in a more egregious way. Is there a problem with criticizing specifically and wanting to specifically change TLJ? Is that something that needs to be resisted? If so, why?
    I don't care about intent. I care about presentation. Intent is irrelevant if it's not portrayed on screen and that intent isn't. I, and some, may argue the opposite. What's presented is a vague structure of a character's past with the movie, and shows all sorts of Skywalker connections. That's all we have going into TLJ. If TLJ has no idea what to do with that, I think it's TLJ's responsibility. Just like it's TFA's responsibility for what it does.
     
  9. dagenspear

    dagenspear Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Sep 9, 2015
    She hasn't. She developed a bond to Organa's and Solo's. Her and Luke practically were fighting by the last time they physically and conversationally interacted in TLJ. Even her interaction with Luke in TROS is minimal in comparison to her bonding with the Organa and Solo.
     
  10. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001
    1. Han and Leia were bickering in ANH, yet were bonding at the same time, before the film's end. Luke did like Rey and she did like Luke.

    2. Leia is still a Skywalker.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2022
  11. Vympel

    Vympel Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Oct 31, 2002
    Yes and the context in which I brought it up has nothing to do with not changing TFA.

    Anyway, 'family' is not vague. Family obviously and unambiguously meant her parents and that's what everyone and their mother understood from watching the film, and we all know it, too. Like, what, TFA kicked off 2 years of speculation about her parents by accident, did it?

    Like who else was she was looking at as her ship flew off? Her father's brother's cousin's former roomate? The only reason this "family can be vague" dialog lawyering is even happening is to argue that TFA didn't do any dumb stuff that needed to be changed. It's baffling to me, you can just change it and delete the obvious, glaring problem. What's the point of arguing with this? Well, I mean I know the reason because I just said it, but yeah:

    So yeah, it's to indemnify TFA for the dumb bombs it laid for the rest of the trilogy, which ultimately led to TROS. Just because someone didn't notice the obvious contradiction to the 'Rey is Luke's daughter' stuff doesn't mean the contradiction isn't there. So you can just delete the contradiction if you're talking about changing the sequels.

    An honest reading of her at the time of TFA before TLJ tells us that Rey's parents - that's who she's waiting for and we both know it and please let us not pretend otherwise - are never coming back. Except surprise! actually her parents (well, Luke in this formulation) are back. So yeah, she's getting what she wants even though in the previous movie she was told she wouldn't. This is pure concentrated anti-drama, especially when the father is literal Luke Skywalker. Like wow, I wonder if it'll turn out ok for them?

    Because it presupposes that the ST's myriad issues didn't start with TFA. They absolutely did, though, starting with the carelessly dumb narrative bomb it laid with Rey's parentage nonsense, which ended up consuming the character entirely.

    It is absolutely not TLJ's responsibility for 'what to do with' something that we know for a fact was never intended in TFA. Like you do realise that Rian Johnson didn't walk out of the cinema in December 2015 knowing absolutely nothing about anything and start writing his movie, right? He made that movie knowing what was and wasn't intended in TFA over years of pre-production and discussions with the producers and writers of the previous film. He was writing his movie while TFA was in production. He knows what they intended and what they didn't intend. It's an absurd proposition -

    "As an audience member looking from outside the tent and not at all privy to the production process by which these movies were conceived I saw all these vague 'Skywalker connections' in TFA that actually weren't ever explicitly intended by anyone, so its not that movie's fault it did this and led me to a dead end that they never wanted, but the sequel movie's fault for not paying that off"

    Which is why I bang on and on about why the intent matters. You're evaluating responsibility for films in a way they are not made and could not possibly ever be made.

    If TFA had actually been made with the intent that Rey was going to be a Skywalker - it would've been in TLJ as well. It isn't in TLJ because it wasn't ever intended to be in TFA, no matter what anyone thinks they saw there.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2022
  12. dagenspear

    dagenspear Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 9, 2015
    I think, for me, it does.

    It is. Family can be any other members of genetic relationships. Or it can mean a single parent. If we're keeping to that term of family. The perception of others doesn't confirm what a line can mean.

    Changing and deleting the previous movie's supposed problem isn't particularly relevant to changing TLJ, to me. I say "supposed", because while I argue it's a structure issue in how the story of these movies have been told, whether Rey is or isn't a Skywalker doesn't actually make the movie as is particularly poorly written, to me. In theory, I think starting with TLJ, Rey can be a "nobody" and a variation of the story that I think works in really personally exploring Rey's emotional trauma and pain about her abandonment can be done. One of the reasons TLJ is dumb as dirt, to me, is that it wastes time on nothing to get to a nothing reveal.

    If TLJ approached it's narrative with the idea that Rey is a "nobody" and that was the intention that TFA presented, I think an interesting story can be developed. But I think it doesn't. It approaches the narrative with hinty nonsense of her being a nobody building to a pointless reveal, and essentially wasting the entire movie of the character with a notion that means nothing to the character, because it doesn't actually change anything in a natural capacity, for the character of Rey, in a particularly dramatic way, as far as the movie develops. Rey being a nobody whose parents sold her for drinking money has no change of anything, for Rey, even in the movie's own narrative. It's a pointless interlude. The story keeps on going from where it was before that moment. Rey has no reason to value Kylo before or after the reveal. And she's emotional chipper after it as well.

    In conclusion, Rey being a nobody isn't the real writing issue, to me. It's that, to me, TLJ doesn't actually care to tell a real story about a character whose a nobody. I think the movie cares about trying to get you with her being a nobody.

    Rey being a Skywalker, in the pitch I present, I think is a way to tell a more interesting version of this story, in regards to the overall family and legacy and what it means for the character of Rey, that I think can be a natural continuation of what is presented in TFA. But it doesn't make a movie badly written overall, to tell a story where the character's a nobody and that's the point.
    I think you assume that Rey being a nobody is the real writing issue with the overall trilogy. As I suggested above, I think it can work. I think TLJ doesn't do that. I think TLJ also has room to have Rey be a Skywalker and tell that story in an interesting way that I think can be consistent with the story of the character of Rey and of the movies.
    Story information provided isn't the same as what I was referring to in regards to the emotional honesty of Rey's character, which is in regards to her feelings of abandonment and pain and scars. Those exist no matter if her family is special or not and her family being special doesn't fix them. That's the emotionally honest view of Rey as a character. I think giving Rey a face to a fantasy of her parents actually being important is a stronger way to tell that story, and works to show how empty that actually is for her, how it doesn't change anything for her, doesn't fix her, doesn't take away her pain or her past. That's something that has to be worked out itself.

    But, in keeping with the story information provided, not the character's emotional honesty, Rey was never told she wouldn't get parents who were special in TFA. Maz said that Rey knows that whoever left her is never coming back. You conclude that this must mean that Rey finding her parent is the same as them coming back for her, which was (though without the mention of her parents) the meaning of that line: "Whoever you're waiting for on jakku, they're never coming back."

    Nothing presented in TFA at all has Rey state that she actually wants special parents. And even if it did, that has little to do with my overall point: What someone wants doesn't change their pain or their trauma or their scars. Rey finding her parents and that

    What you described at the end is not much of anything, to me. "I wonder if it'll turn out ok for them" Turning out ok is the inevitability of every heroic character, in one form or another. Otherwise, you're not really watching a heroic story. Whether or not they'll turn out ok isn't the point. How they turn out ok is. Typically this is in how a heroic character beats the villain. In this case, it'd be how does Rey come to terms with her pain and feelings of abandonment. How a heroic character wins is the point.

    There's no anti drama there, to me. What I think is anti drama is wasting an entire movie to get to the reveal, "they were nobody" and then that having no actual meaning to what happens in the movie's story itself.
    TFA's own are the responsibity of TFA, not TLJ's. TLJ issues are it's own. To me.

    I don't presuppose there'd still wouldn't be issues with the writing quality of the overall trilogy. But it doesn't change what I think legit doesn't work in TLJ.

    I think it very is it's responsibility to take what it has and do with it. Whatever was intended by those involved in TFA doesn't change anything for what the movie presents.

    The Skywalker connections were there. What they were intended for and the reason why they existed is the debatable part.

    I disagree. I think a movie following presentation is how movie's are made. If a movie has a scene that's cut, it's sequel can't follow from that scene, unless it reinserts that scene within it's own canon story, and even then it only is consistent if it doesn't contradict anything else from the previous movie. The dice is a solid example of this. In TFA, as far as I know, the gold dice was meant to be placed back on the falcon by Han, suggesting some personal connection to it. That scene was cut and the dice is never relevant in that movie again. TLJ decides to follow up on a cut scene from TFA, in theory, and try to make the dice meaningful. But the dice are irrelevant, because as far as the overall canon is concerned, the dice have no real meaning to anything and is something a bunch of characters are focusing on for no reason, with no personal connection to any of the movies before it, other than vague notions of it being on the falcon and the falcon being Han's ship, so it's a tangential connection, at best, to me.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2022
  13. ladygrey45

    ladygrey45 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 30, 2015
    I agree expect I think her being a nobody just doesn’t work it’s not as cohesive to the rest of the movies and is a far less interesting route to go down for me personally also the legacy and future films it’s a much more compelling narrative to have her be a skywalker and to have been kidnapped than be a nobody.
     
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  14. Darth PJ

    Darth PJ Force Ghost star 6

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    Jul 31, 2013
    Absolutely agree with those points...
     
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  15. Samuel Vimes

    Samuel Vimes Force Ghost star 4

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    Sep 4, 2012
    Vader being Luke's father is even more contractionary to ANH than Rey being Luke's daughter would be to what is in TFA.
    And yet Lucas did not go back and change ANH.
    Well he did go back and makes changes to ANH, the whole OT, but nothing that involved that.

    TFA sets up a mystery. You can debate if that was good or bad but there is no doubt that it asks a question. "Who is Rey?" her last name is never said, making people wonder.
    If RJ did not like being saddled with that question, ok fair enough but a mystery is only as good as the answer. If a mystery has a good set up and establishment but the answers is really bad. Then that ruins the mystery and ruins any re-watch.
    So even if RJ did not like having to deal with answering mysteries, try and give a better answer than no answer.

    Simple enough to work around, Rey thinks those are her parents, they were her adoptive parents or her real mother was there but not her real father.

    Lucas would disagree with you, since to him, Star Wars is "The Tragedy of Darth Vader" so it was very much part of the Saga.

    Why inert? It has loads of dramatic potential.
    If Luke did not know about her, then you can have him dealing with suddenly having a child and dealing with that. If he did know about her but thought she was dead, again stuff to use. If he knew of her and knew she was alive then Rey can question why he was never in her life.
    To Rey, if she had let go of her parents and were no longer chained to them, now she has a father again and has to deal with that. Kylo is now her cousin, not very close family but close enough to maybe make her hesitate in killing him.
    You can show how did she come to be, why was she left on Jakku? What were her dreams of an island about?

    TLJ have her be no one and her parents sold her for drinking money. So they had a ship and yet sold their daughter for drinking money? Ok. And they left in that ship and yet somehow came back and died on Jakku? Why?

    When ANH was made, Vader was not intended to be Luke's father, Leia was not intended to Luke's sister.
    When RotJ was made, Luke and Leia's mother was not intended to die in childbirth.
    Retcons are not new to SW.

    And making Rey Luke's daughters would not cause that much of a problem and would solve many others and could be made to work quite well.

    Bye.
    The Guarding Dark
     
  16. Watcherwithin

    Watcherwithin Jedi Master star 4

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    Nov 9, 2017
    The question isn’t whether there’s a mystery in TFA. It’s why people thought the answer to that mystery could be Luke Skywalker. They thought so because they believed that was the trope, and they theorized in terms of tropes and not logic.

    Making Rey Luke’s daughter would not work because The Force Awakens doesn’t present a situation where Luke would conceivably have a child in the first place. And The Last Jedi predictably confirms that it was never the intention for him to have kids

    It’s possible to retcon Luke and introduce a bunch of history in the sequel, but being possible and working are two different things.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2022
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  17. dagenspear

    dagenspear Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Sep 9, 2015
    That's never developed.

    Leia has never once went by that name in the movies, so it's pointless to use a name that Leia herself never held regard for in her familial naming structure.
     
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  18. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001
    Every person is the sum total of different parts. Leia is a Skywalker, a Naberrie and a Organa. Luke is a Skywalker, a Lars and a Naberrie. Ben is a Skywalker, a Organa, a Naberrie and a Solo. Rey is a Palpatine and whatever Miramir was, if she had a last name. She chooses Skywalker because of the legacy.

    There are two types of families. One you are born into and one you create. She created a new family with the Skywalkers.
     
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  19. dagenspear

    dagenspear Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Sep 9, 2015
    None of the people she actually liked personally went by that name, nor had a lot of meaning for her emotionally.
     
  20. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001
    What makes you think she doesn't like Luke? Or Ben? The amount of time spent doesn't matter.
     
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  21. DarkGingerJedi

    DarkGingerJedi Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2012
    The Skywalkers abused her, tortured her, tried to murder her multiple times, blamed her, ignored her, yelled at her, gaslit her, gave her incredibly bad advice, trolled her, implored her to fix their own mistakes because they refused, handed her a lightsaber, 'trained' her, and finally gave her a pep talk or two to make her feel better because obviously they've put her through considerable mental and physical trauma.

    Makes total sense to want to take their name. Totally part of their family.
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2022
  22. Samuel Vimes

    Samuel Vimes Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 4, 2012
    Rey was not given a last name and usually, SW characters have a last name. Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Cliegg Lars. So obvious question why? Logical answer, her last name is known and would tell us who she is.
    If she was called, Rey Skywalker then obvious conclusion, she is Luke's daughter. If she is Rey Solo, then she is the child of Han and Leia. If she is Rey Kenob then she is related to Obi-Wan somehow.

    So the absence of the name sets up the mystery. Sort of like in a murder mystery with a limited number of characters that we have seen the face of. But when we see the murderer do stuff it is only with the face hidden, obscured or something.
    Then that sets up the mystery that the murderer is one of the characters that we have seen and the question is then who?
    A bad answer to this kind of mystery is to have the murderer be a character that we have never seen before. Because that raises the question of why the face was hidden.
    And RJ gives us a bad answer with, "Rey is no one, she is not important, this story is about Kylo and Luke."
    That ruins any repeat viewing of this mystery because we know the answer is bad.

    Same with the mystery, "Who is Snoke?" "Does not matter, he is dead!"
    "Where did Maz get Luke's lightsaber?" "Don't care!"
    And so on.

    Why?
    How does TFA set up a situation that makes it impossible for Luke to have a child?
    Did TFA say that Luke was sterile? That he never was intimate with a woman?
    Nope.
    Some 30 years passed between RotJ and TFA and we know not that much of what Luke did in those years. He set up and started to train new Jedi and then some time later, that school was destroyed when ben Solo turned evil. Luke felt responsible and left to find the Jedi temple.
    We don't know exactly when that happened but Rey is what, around 20? And I doubt she was born after Luke's Jedi academy was destroyed.

    So possible scenarios are, Rey's mother came to Luke's academy to train but she and Luke got too close and Luke was like the PT Jedi, "No, I can not be a Jedi and be with you." And she left, not knowing she was pregnant. Or they got close and she left because she decided that being a Jedi was not for her, again not knowing she was pregnant. Or Luke came across her when he was travelling around and looking for potential Jedi. They spent some time together, got close and Luke asked her to come with him and she was tempted but said no, her home was more important. And Luke left, not knowing she was pregnant.

    This would be far less of a retcon than Vader being Luke's father, Leia being Luke's sister, Padme dying in childbirth.
    TFA never establishes that the people Rey waited for were her birth parents. They could be people she thought were her parents, her adopted parents or it was just her birth mother but not her birth father.

    And lots could be done with this, Luke has to deal with a daughter he never knew he had, thought was dead or had decided to stay away from. Rey now has a parent that she can ask, "Why did you not come for me, why was I left on Jakku?" It creates a family bond between Kylo and Rey. Cousins so not super close but still. It would answer why she is this strong in the Force, it could answer why the lightsaber called to her, her visions would be of family, Vader is her grand father, Luke her father and Kylo her cousin.
    Yes it is the obvious answer but obvious answer =/= bad answer.

    Bye for now.
    Old Stoneface
     
  23. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    This seems harsh, she had a good relationship with Leia.
    Leia also saved her from Kylo’s death strike just before Leia passed away. Luke and Rey’s relationship seemed redeemed in TROS, and fwiw Ben Solo sacrificed his life to return hers.
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2022
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  24. DarkGingerJedi

    DarkGingerJedi Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2012
    Then maybe she should have taken the name Organa. But...the brief and confusing scenes they share together in TROS, and the one hug they have in TFA, isn't enough to warrant Rey feeling like she's her daughter. Or a member of her actual family.
     
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  25. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001
    They've been together for a year. Enough time for them to bond and reach the point where they are practically family. She trained Rey. So yes, they are close. And since Leia was born as Leia Skywalker before being adopted by Bail, it makes sense. The family you make includes finding a partner and having kids, but also being adopted by a family. Taking a formal name of your two Masters, falls in line with that. Just like naming Ben after Obi-Wan, rather than Anakin or Bail makes sense.

    Rey is honoring the Skywalker legacy, not the Palpatine name. The people she knows more than her parents.
     
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