ST Rey Skywalker/Daisy Ridley Discussion Thread

Yep, Rey finds herself caught in a bit of crossfire history between her enemy (who won't turn) and her would-be-mentor (who won't train her) So she gives the swivel-finger to them both and takes off at the end with both her friends and the Jedi texts, having discovered the potential for her powers herself.

 

So, would Rey be considered a princess even though the Empire no longer exists and she renounced her heritage?

 

Princess Imperial Rey Palpatine, of the former United Galactic Empire.

I don't think she officially denounced her title. The old woman on Tatooine doesn't count.

 

Looks like Daisy Ridley says "I literally was told that she was no one, so yeah, I totally understand that. I do understand that." back in TFA in a new interview. And she loved that Rey was a nobody for the first two films.

Rey Nobody

I wonder at what point in TROS production they decided to make her a Palpatine. I don't think that was part of Trevorrow's script cuz he hadn't even thought of Palpatine and that was a JJ idea. I seriously doubt that was the plan all along, and just a last minute 'solution' to the problem.

 

That makes sense. Trevorrow’s script definitely didn’t have it and didn’t look like a more refined drafts would either. Not without major reshoots.

I think one of two things happened. Rey Palpatine was a late change from JJ’s to wrap up the saga. Or LucasFilm was toying with the option of another Trilogy hit on the heals of Ep9 that they would save Palpatine for.

 

It sounds like they realized they had no choice. Otherwise, what is Rey doing in this super focused Palpatine-Skywalker conflict. Rey Nobody could still have worked in theory, if it was planned better from the start. But by TROS that question still needed answering.

 

I had no problem with Rey Nobody. I mean Anakin in a way was Anakin Nobody. I half expected we’d find out that Rey was also born of the Force like Anakin.

I hope eventually we learn there is more to Rey than just being Palpatine’s granddaughter. I’d rather she was somehow manipulated into existence by Palpatine. Either through science or Force manipulation. I wouldn’t even mind if Palpatine created a test tube biological son. But the experiment was a dud. The guy was ordinary. No Force powers.

And then Rey is born and has the powers intended for the son.

 

I think this was two fix two of the big problems after TLJ. One, they did not have a credible intimidating big bad for the final movie. Two, they had failed to tie "Rey Nobody" into the Skywalker saga. Palpatine returning and being related was a quick fix with a character the audience was already familiar with. One think that JJ was consistently intent on was honoring Rey as protagonist, and taking time to build up a new big bad in her final movie would take away from her story. So Palpatine.

That's what is annoying with TROS in particular. It seems pretty clear that they recognized all the problems after TLJ. The two listed above, plus the whole toxic/sexist way that Rey was written and the lack of development as to why Kylo fell. They were pretty apparently trying to repair those issues, which is why we have "force dyad" (fix the romance) and Palpatine back (fix the big bad) and Rey Palpatine (fix the Skywalker Saga tie in) and Kylo's "voices in his head" (fix why he fell). But if you are going to go to such a convoluted story to fix the issues that you clearly see, why not just have Rey discover that she is a Skywalker? I fully grant that this would still be sloppy and last minute and would retcon some of what we have seen. But so did Rey Palpatine, and Rey Skywalker is a whole lot closer to solving most of those issues, so why not just go for it? We were past the point of truly fixing the ST at that point, so why not throw a hail mary?

 

Honestly, Rey being a Skywalker would have been a lot less convoluted than her apparent connection with Palpatine. It would have also been a great way to explain why Luke cut himself off from the force and seemingly abandoned everyone and everything he ever cared about. If Luke had used to the force to manipulate both Ben and Rey's memories in order to keep Rey hidden from both Kylo Ren and Palpatine (or Snoke at the time) it would have done a lot to explain why Luke had developed into the older disenfranchised hermit we meet in the ST. Rey Palpatine seems so utterly random. There is nothing that lead up to this reveal and it felt incredibly forced. The whole idea seemed more about shocking the audience than actually conveying a cohesive story.

 

I have always had this belief that JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson wanted Rey to be a nobody. and that the higher ups were not sure it was a good idea. which is why it was never committed too. and Daisy herself has said some time ago that there was a thought she could be a kenobi early on so i do believe they intentionally kept their option open.

But i will still say it would have been DUMB to make her a nobody. the anyone can be a force user message is a one this franchise did not need. let alone doing it in the saga movies.

I can see merit in making her a skywalker. i can see merit in making her a Kenobi. and hey i can even see Merit in making her a Palpatine. i don't think the idea is bad. but the way they did it fell flat and felt tacked on.

 

I think what could have worked is if...

Luke didn't have any kids of his own. His students who were all just nobodies from across the galaxy, and he considered each of them as if they were his own adopted children. And then you could have Ben, a privileged prince, turn to the dark side, maybe because he feels the knowledge should stay in the family, that he's entitled to this power, and it doesn't belong nobodies. He then gives up his Skywalker name, his own family, to pursue his own agenda and then destroys everything Luke had built. Luke feels devastated and goes into exile.

But Rey finally shows up and gets through to him. She reminds him of the other nobodies he's taken on. They bond. And then he takes her on as a new student, a new adopted child. And then when Rey goes to confront Kylo, we have set up of Rey, being part of the Skywalker family through choice, to take on someone who willingly gave it up, yet thinks it belongs to him still. The Rise of Skywalker // The Order of Skywalker.

Something like that. Where you're enforcing this notion of family legacy vs those without it.

 

I don't agree with that at all. The concept that the Force is universal and that anyone can use it if they would only just believe is one of the franchise's most beautifully simple concepts, and captured the imagination of moviegoers back in the seventies. People still wave their hands and jokingly "Use the Force", so ingrained is the idea in pop culture. Restricting it to just a few users of a particular blood type rather than a mystical, magical thing for everybody to believe in and get behind is what is a mistake in my opinion.

One of the neatest marketing tricks this sequel trilogy did was to re-use Luke’s dialogue from Return of the Jedi in a voiceover for The Force Awakens trailer. “The Force is strong in my family. My father has it. I have it. My sister has it” and then, in what feels like Luke talking directly to the audience, he brings them in by saying the magical line to them “You have that power too!”

 

The ST did not establish that anyone can use the force if they just magically believe in it. Nor did any previous movie. Just because the force flows through everyone doesn't mean they can all use it to perform neat tricks.

Nor do I believe the franchise will ever go there because it makes the force users less special and narratively less useful.

 

Disagree. The original Star Wars (A New Hope) especially presented the Force as a mystical energy field that anybody could learn about and tap into. The idea that belief was required as well was mentioned when Luke notes that Han doesn’t believe in it, and reinforced in The Empire Strikes Back. It was a far more accessible concept in the original trilogy. I think that George over-complicated it and brought a beautifully simple, mystical concept needlessly into the realms of a biological / scientific idea in his prequels.

 

I ... don't believe this is true. Yes, the Force is a part of everything. But there's more to it than that.

I think in the OT, there's a notion that some can do it better than others, even if those who believe with all their might. And to use the force takes a huge commitment and a lifetime of training. That's more than just believing in yourself, although that is a part of it.

The PT then introduces what the secret element is, that allows certain people to use the force. Midichlorians. They're the thing inside our cells that speak to the Whills/the Force. They're the conduit. They're in everything too, but those with higher Midi-counts can learn and train to control the Force.

And then RO tells us there are those, like the Guardians of the Whills, (and I would assume Maz) who can only hear the force ... sometimes ... but have no control over what to do with it.

People like Han, who have no faith or no belief in it, will never be able to use the force. But even if he did, if he didn't have high enough Midis in his body, he wouldn't be able to control it, or speak to it, or become a Jedi.

 

I think that George Lucas ruined his own concept with the way the prequels explain the Force. It was so much more accessible, simple, vague and mystical in the original trilogy.

 

I don't think Rey should be "a nobody" in TFA ...

Didn't Rian Johnson say in an interview in 2017 that he decided on his own that Rey was a nobody? That that would have been the best decision for HIS film?

Or am I wrong?

 

That might be true. But that's what it means to Lucas. And I think even in the OT, using the Force was not something everyone could do. That even those with belief in it, had to spend a life time learning how to use it, if they could at all. And there is the notion that it runs stronger in some families. So there is a genetic disposition to being able to use it or master it. The PT probably went too specific. It wasn't really needed. But here we are.

 

That's all I was saying. It did kind of feel as if using the Force was a thing everybody could do, but they had to believe in it, and learn about it. I liked the vague explanation too that the Force was simply "strong in my family", in the way that some families have generations of good actors in them. The Skarsgaads for example. Is it a genetic thing? In their blood? Who knows?

 

I found Rian Johnson's old interview statement:

Rian Johnson: “I went through all the possibilities of who her parents could be,” Johnson said. “I made a list, with the upsides and downsides” (a list that was probably promptly destroyed by a harried Lucasfilm intern). He landed where he did because he was fond of “breaking out from the notion that the Force is this genetic thing that you have to be tied to somebody to have. It’s the ‘anybody can be president’ idea, which I liked introducing. The foremost thing, though, was just dramatically, storytelling-wise.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/01/the-last-jedi-rey-parents-rian-johnson

 

I think it’s in the Star Wars radio series - maybe Return of the Jedi. Han says something about not believing in the Force and Luke says the Force seems to believe in Han Solo. I like that. Some characters may never become Jedi, but I’d like to think in the right moment the Force can work through anyone.

I rationalized it as the Force is still this vague and mystical energy field. It’s just that it’s a real thing and like the unseen forces of physics can be detected. It’s not just faith based like religion. And even if there are these detectable midichlorians there is a lot more to the Force. Tings you and I can never understand since we aren’t Jedi or Force users.

 

I hear ya. But I can't just wave away 3-4 movies just because I don't like the added lore. Just like I can't wave off the ST as part of cannon. What I especially hate is the recent addition (and I think complete misunderstanding even worse than Lucas' Midichlorian addition) is the idea that people have a predilection for going to the dark side because they have dark siders in their family, or Vader's blood, or Palpatine's blood or whatever. Luke was in danger of going to the dark side because he shared personality traits that his father had, traits that allow one to be susceptible to the dark side. Not that he had literally Vader's dark side blood running in him. lol Kylo is nothing like Vader. And Rey is nothing like Palpatine.