ST Rey Skywalker/Daisy Ridley Discussion Thread

I believe she can be the best Star Wars character for me, thanks to Daisy's excellent portrayal, charismatic and has an incredible thrill in the scenes. And not like Hayden Christensen's lifeless performance in the Prequel trilogy.

 

I love how she didn’t become some boring, emotionless, uncaring, asexual, uncomplicated, always makes the right choice combat robot creation out of fear that as the first female Jedi any and all previous tropes associated with female protagonists must be avoided.

Her character will endure and continue to win over new generations because everyone has met or knows or dated a girl who saw the good in others most would not have. Everyone has met or knows or dated or married a girl who was better than them and inspired them. Even though her specific tale is extreme and unique onto itself due to its extremes. I think her combination of inner darkness, inner desires, and need to be a better person who makes the world a better place are some of the most powerful aspects of being human. She represents both our own selfish temptations that put us at risk in life as well as our most heroic ideals that we’d like to think we’d do if granted her power. That’s the heart of a powerful character and IX got her there.

 

Isn’t this the very point though? The crux of the story that they wanted to get to? For everything that has happened with this trilogy, I do believe that a redemption was always on the cards for Ben Solo. Thus the “brief, monosyllabic bit of five minute improv” was all it took to provide the illustration contrast between the two personas Driver was portraying. We never really saw Anakin in ROTJ but after three movies of Vader being Vader, everybody got who Anakin was supposed to be from that very brief performance at the end. It didn’t need any more.

 

Pretty much yeah. and honestly the biggest issue i think is that they tried to juggle Reys story and the skywalkers story. and while some get abit overprotective of Reys role and then complain about how it got taken away from her... it was pretty much her story in the end and not the skywalkers... even though it was meant to be the skywalker saga and they at least had to pretend it connected to the skywalkers by the end with Ben being the 3rd generation Sequel trilogy Skywalker and 2nd generation Solo.

 

After now knowing the conclusion, I think JJ always intended Rey to be the heir to the Skywalkers, even if it meant not by blood. I don't know if he always intended her to be a Palpatine (I'm thinking not), but I think he wanted Rey to end the trilogy as the heir to Luke and Leia, while their actual blood (Ben) had to live with his own choices that lead him down the dark side. Everything is foreshadowed in Rey getting the legacy saber over Kylo Ren in TFA.

 

But then what does she do? She buries the saber to signify some finality. Its like the hero of this trilogy laying them to rest.

I get the feeling they were in love with the idea of the idea of the hero not being a skywalker. Like it was some bold message about anyone can be a hero. And Luke really was more or less passing the torch on to her, with the saber being some excalibur thing because all the past jedi had her back. which meant the skywalkers needed to fade from the movie, while also carrying relevance somehow.

 

She buries them as a way to honor them. There's no bodies to bury, but she has those. But just because they are dead, that does not mean their legacies or what they believed in are gone. Her taking their name signifies that.

I still would have preferred the hero actually being a Skywalker by blood (either Luke or Leia's daughter, I don't care), as I think there'd be less hoops to jump through to make this about the Skywalkers even though the hero isn't a blood Skywalker. As it stands right now, it's a very mixed bag with audiences.

 

Rey is not an actual character that exists in-universe, that's not how she's ever been written or conceived. She is more like a transplanted fan-girl/boy who is endowed with special knowledge and abilities because she has literally watched all the Star Wars movies and knows how to be the perfect Star Wars hero.

Each film has a different variation of this premise, but the concept is the same. In TFA she is enjoying the nostalgia trip along with the audience, and knows exactly how to fly and fix the Millennium Falcon (better than Han!) as well as belt out Jedi mind tricks, beat a Sith Lord with a lightsaber. There is no inter-generational transfer of knowledge within the story, she just *knows* how it's done.

TLJ makes her an audience stand-in once again, this time to stare mouth-agape at at the parade of subversions. She then plays an attentive detective/therapist for Rian Johnson's ruminations on disappointment and guilt, occasionally speaking up for the crowd who knows how dumb it all is, before falling head over heals for the ST's hunk.

TROS completes her transformation into a full-blown video game character controlled by the player, complete with a tutorial-style opening, followed by a series of interchangeable fetch quests and finished off with a button mashing quick-time event to beat the final boss.

Like most of the ST, she is a concept that was never developed into a real character, but I still think the concept is enchanting when it's purely expressed. The opening scenes that introduce her in TFA (wisely narrated with only Williams' inimitable music rather than Abrams/Arndt's uninspired writing) are the best moments of the whole trilogy. It's the only part of the project that I think is entirely excellent. There was the basis of a real, intriguing character here, but unfortunately we never got to meet her.

 

If Rey wanted to honor the Skywalker legacy with the sabers, she should have used them to train new Jedi. Let Finn train with one. Pass them down as the students make their own. THAT would honor the legacy. Burying them in sand next to Jar Jar's metaphorical bones? How is that an honor?

 

Excellent point. A character who isn't turned on by torture doesn't have to be boring, emotionless, uncaring, asexual. A character who respects herself enough to not kiss the evil head fascist who violated her doesn't have to be boring, emotionless, uncaring, asexual. They had plenty of room to write a great character, they just didn't put the effort in because Kylo was the most important element of the story.
And I contend that it is the height of uncaring for Rey to heal Kylo and leave him with her friends so he can try to kill them again. It is the height of uncaring for Rey to kiss the monster who sliced open Finn and tortured Poe, her supposed friends, even if she has no respect for herself.

 

Rey is just an empty avatar. She has no real character arc. One of the worst lead protagonists in a franchise. It's such a shame because I really liked Rey in TFA. She had a ton of potential to be a great character.

 

I love Rey and still think she's a wonderful character, but I'm sad about where she ended up. The Last Jedi felt exciting and thrilling to me in large part because of how transgressive it was with its depiction of Rey - it made her powerful in her own right, and didn't make her subservient to Luke in what I considered a rather brilliant subversion of what you'd expect from the dynamic between a Jedi master and a would-be padawan. I especially appreciated that Rey was shown to connect with Kylo/Ben, and found the support and connection she craved through a peer who had experienced similar struggles and emotions rather than en elder imparting their wisdom. I felt it was very honest and effective in conveying Rey's heartbreak at realising Kylo wasn't yet capable of making the positive choices she'd hoped he would.

In TROS I feel like they were attempting to walk a lot of that back - there's lots of emphasis on Rey's feelings of unworthiness and she's positioned as quietly and unquestioningly soaking up the advice and support provided by Leia and Luke (I have much more of a problem with the scenes with Luke, since their relationship was so contentious in TLJ). She's a vessel used to convey Abrams' reverence for the original trilogy, rather than her own person.

I feel like the scenes with Rey and Kylo in TROS were the strongest and most consistent with the rest of the trilogy, and I liked how they evolved their antagonism while keeping it complex and emotionally fraught. I liked that they had Rey acknowledge her desires, especially in relation to Ben Solo (the best line in the movie, imo, was "I did want to take your hand. Ben's hand"), and thought it was beautiful that her faith and hope for him were finally rewarded when he came back to save her and she was able to joyfully and unashamedly express her love for him. It was just heartbreaking that he's then instantly taken from her, and she's left bewildered and alone again.

While she's reunited with Finn and Poe, the whole of TROS was spent building up the idea that Rey is separate from them (i.e. she's constantly wandering off and pointedly refuses Finn's help several times). As a result, it's difficult for me to buy into the idea that she can find wholeness and happiness with them. Her loneliness and isolation are further compounded by the choice to have the film close with her on Tattoine, which means she ends the film alone except for the company of a droid. There's zero acknowledgement of her feelings at being separated from Ben, and the overwhelming impression I was left with was that the filmmakers were unconcerned with Rey's personal feelings and desires - they're fulfilled when Ben Solo comes back for her, but her happiness only lasts for moments before it's snatched from her. Instead of showing Rey mature and grow into a woman, she ends the film infantalised and positioned as the adopted child of a pair of ghost twins. It's frankly bizarre

And don't get me started on Rey Palpatine...

 

My take on it was that she kissed him simply because her faith and hope for Ben Solo's return to the light side had been realised, not because she loved him. She didn't really know him in fairness. It isn't unrealistic to imagine that she felt joyful at this however and kissed him because of it. And why not?

That was what I got from it anyway.

 

I think it showed her transition into adulthood. She felt passion briefly and took a chance on a moment because it felt thrilling to her in what could have literally been her first kiss in life (Jakku didn’t seem like it had many options for love) and then he was gone due to his sacrifice of life so that she may live. Feeling the rush of first love and losing first love is part of the journey into adulthood for many. We see that she built her own saber. That’s a transitional sign also.

But last and most importantly perhaps is that she has overcome her biggest fear of loneliness finally and realized that the Jedi of the past, including Luke & Leia, will always be with her. She’s worked through her issues with her past finally and the loneliness that once impacted her so and had her crying herself to sleep is no more. She’s discovered the person she wishes to be at the end.

 

Well, it was a pretty passionate/enthusiastic kiss. People are free to interpret it however they like, but it was framed as a romantic moment.

 

Honestly I hadn't thought of it like that, that she's overcome her fear of being alone.

That's why JJ basically just redid her TFA opening expect now she finally "knows her place in all this". Still, it's such a tonal whiplash to see her acting the happiest she's been in trilogy kissing Ben to..."Everything's fine" after he dies, it's difficult to track her emotions, unlike Luke's ending in ROTJ.

 

Or having Teedo rooting through your bins.

 

Came out of this trilogy with Rey as my second favorite Star Wars character. If you would have told me that during the TFA era I would have told you that you were insane. Daisy Ridley did an absolutely fantastic job, and does not get enough credit. I still do not agree with the lineage change in TROS, but it’s whatever, life’s to short to hold a grudge or complain non stop.

 

Who was first favourite?

 

She’s my favorite of this trilogy, but Anakin Skywalker is still my favorite SW character overall.

 

It’s been highlighted in the saga as something she’s struggled with. Fighting off would be combatants? That’s the easy part that comes naturally to Rey. Reconciling her loneliness and longing for purpose and what to do with her power now that she’s had her awakening? That’s the part that the trilogy shows is more challenging for her.







She overcomes all of that by her end. Similarly, Ben realizes Vader wasn’t the strongest part of his grandfather. Anakin Skywalker was and he is strong enough to find that part of himself within.

 

Ah, okay.

 

Rey has become one of my favorite saga characters as well and similarly I thought she was quite vanilla after TFA and that most people were just projecting whatever they wanted to see on her like Rorshach painting. Her vulnerabilities, insecurities, anger, and hidden desires are what all made her come to life as a fascinating mythic character.