ST Rey Skywalker/Daisy Ridley Discussion Thread

Why are last names even an important thing now in Star Wars? This is a galaxy with Greedo, Yoda, Lobot, Dengar, Bossk, Chewbacca, etc.

 

It's an important 'thing' because JJ made it an important 'thing'. It was part of his mystery box. He wanted us to think Rey was related to someone we knew. Otherwise there's no reason to withhold her last name from us, unless we already know that last name.

He teased it. So that we'd have automatic buy in for this new character, based on our love of an cherished OT character. He wanted us thinking she was the new Luke or perhaps a Solo...and that means he had to do less work to establish her as her own character. He stuffed her into a box, and went "I don't don't need to think about this because I'm only working on EP 7. The director of EP 9 has to figure it out and I'm glad that's not me"

And it's not that Rey doesn't have a last name, like in all of those examples you gave. She does. She's a Palpatine. A cherished character from the OT. And then after everything she's a Skywalker anyway. An even bigger cherished character from the OT. The story withholds this last name information from the audience to surprise us later on, when the character herself should either know this last name, or some other last name. But if JJ said here's Rey Weavile, because that was her mother's last name, and the name she was going by, (even to hide her true Palpatine identity) there would be no mystery box. No element of surprise. No audience second guessing or getting excited about just who she might really be.

JJ has done interviews where he said that he accepted the job to do EP 7, based on the question "Who is Luke Skywalker?", because apparently that mystery excited him. But in reality, that was Rey. "Who is Rey _________?".

 

Which is absolutely hilarious once you actually see TFA, because, yeah, JJ, that mystery wasn't your interest, was it?

 

He was interested in Luke as a mystery. So kept him as one. It seems like JJ took the job because he figured out as easy out and wouldn’t have to come up with any real explanations for events. Which he deplores.

 

Well, I tend to put less blame on JJ than I do on Disney/Lucasfilm and their leadership.

As I have said many times before - it is incomprehensible to me that they planned to have a trilogy of SW movies, the success of which was of HUGE importance to Disney, which was going to have a huge impact on revenues, which was tied to their SW theme park expansion and all the merch they intended to roll out...and ... THEY HAD NO PLAN. They literally had no idea where the trilogy was going. Their plan was "Let's just wing it". Seriously. That much at stake, that much money at stake, and their plan was to...have no plan.

Someday, I hope someone writes one heck of a tell all book about one of the weirdest, dumbest, most shocking, most foolhardy, most imbeclic non-plans in entertainment and business history. Because that IS one heck of a story.

 

Plus spend huge bucks to get their lead stars back (well, three of them at first) and never put them in ONE scene together! Not one!

What I really want to read in that book is how they managed to convince a whole noisy group of fans and all the online "critics" and fan sites that THIS WAS A GOOD THING. Along with proclaiming the new heroine's "romance" with the villain, deconstruction and destruction of three iconic characters, and destruction of one of cinema's most remembered romances.. also good things.

Someone's got the receipts.

 

Probably, "something something, the movie feels like Star Wars". Never mind whether or not it actually IS Star Wars,

 

I agree the plan was likely just to make something with a lot of OT imagery, frenetic action, snappy dialogue, and likeable characters. Something closer to a reboot while still bringing OT energy (or at least the corporate definition of OT energy). At the time there was probably no intention or desire to ever do something like the Mandoverse which really embraces its place in an overall fictional history, and brought back OT era Luke, emphasized elements from the prequels and EU, etc.

If Disney started with a Mando mentality and was somehow just getting to the ST right now there's probably no way we end up with Rey Nobody Palpatine Skywalker or a Lukeless Episode VII.

 

So Mando as the first SW thing and then the ST? Bold strategy

 

DOOKU

That one says it all.

 

That's not really the point. The story (as established in TFA) makes the absence of Rey's surname a plot point i.e. 'who is she?'. In comparison, in ANH, Lucas never tried to build a mystery as to who Chewbacca was, his origins etc. I'm sure you understand that.

 

I get that but then you have random strangers asking for her last name. It’s so obviously forced.

 

Because Dooku isn't a mystery box. Dooku doesn't spend his time scratching the thousands of days into the wall of hovel, hoping for his missing but unnamed family to return to him. Dooku isn't used a Skywalker/Solo proxy for a new trilogy, so that fans would spend years theorizing just who this new protagonist really is, especially in a saga that focuses on the Skywalker family.

Rey was conceived as a mystery box. They hid her last name from the audience, for no other reason than to surprise us with it later on.

 

I agree... it's incredibly forced, but that's primarily because Abrams sets up a mystery box in TFA that neither him, or Johnson, are invested in enough to develop and resolve in a satisfying manner. It becomes a major plot point that has probably the least satisfying outcome of any Star Wars film to data. Another comparable example would be the 'another' (the OT)... which was underdeveloped too... but that wasn't a major part of Luke's characterisation from the start, and was part of a larger thematic plot point re. Luke/Vader/Anakin, which was concluded in a more satisfying and sophisticated manner IMO.

 

Skywalker/Starkiller, Kenobi, Palpatine, Amidala, Organa, Solo, and more; last names matter in AGFFA.

I throughly enjoyed Rey’s last name being hidden and then revealed to be a Palpatine. There were so many hints Rey was a Palpatine:

• He lung with lightsaber is exactly like Palpatine’s.
• She was drawn to Kylo, the dark side.
  
• She was able to use Force Lightning.
  
• She was incredibly powerful, which meant she had to be a Palpatine or Skywalker.

 

• Her theme music is based on the Emperor’s

• In her introductory shot Rey’s face coverings are shocking similar in shape and number of pieces to the latex prosthetics used to creat the emperor in Return of the Jedi.

This includes an eye mask and false lenses

 

None of those are hints because Rey was not planned as a Palpatine.

Seriously. Lightsaber slashes? That's what you got here. Rey is headed to the dark side because she knows she swings a sword a special way. lol. Luke was like his father because he had the same personality and was following in his footsteps and making the same impatient choices. But Rey? She's swings her saber like a Palpatine? That's so incredibly lame. That is the bottom of the lame barrel. That's what you "write" (if we can even call it that) when you haven't done one speck of foreshadowing or character work to make this reveal actually make sense or resonate emotionally with those characters.

Drawn to Kylo? When were the Palpatine's drawn to the Skywalkers, as if they're some sorta soul mate? That's not why Palpatine seduced Anakin.

These after-the-fact 'retcons' are desperate. Enjoy it all you want. But please don't try to pass this off as evidence.

 

Intriguing! Nice catch!

 

I'm afraid it isn't. And I'm sure John Williams has never stated that or implied it. Rey's theme does have similarities to Vader's theme though (from a notation/key perspective)... but I suspect that was either unconscious on Williams' part or he was playing with the idea that she was a Skywalker?

I'm assuming you're being sarcastic?

 

It's amazing that JJ laid out these hints in a movie when he never knew Rey was going to be a Palpatine. That's pretty amazing of him.

What this really means is that JJ is just using purely generic SW aesthetics and symbolism for his hero, and fans are retroactively connecting it to Palpatine so that the movie makes some semblance of sense . Just as some fans did when TFA came out and used the same aesthetics and symbolism to connect Rey to Luke, or Han Solo.

Perhaps its too scary to realize that JJ never had a plan and that this trilogy was a almost completely random, and finding these non-hints is comforting.

 

I said hints.

And where is your evidence they didn’t plan for Rey to be a Palpatine and RJ didn’t almost muck it up? Hmmm?

KK said they always planned to bring Palyps back.

JJ clearly was showing Rey have memories and visions of her parents, because the big reveal was coming.

Rey was always gonna be somebody, they just kept us guessing, most fans thought a Skywalker or Kenobi. Its brilliant it was Palpatine, I never would have guessed it.

 

At this point, it doesn't matter much.

In the OT, Vader being Luke's dad was a midstream change that was NOT the plan all along. However, once the Vader as Dad retcon happened, A New Hope had scenes/lines/plot points that took on new/altered meaning and became hints of foreshadowing for things to come...

 

@jaimestarr

A new hope’s accidental foreshadowing is superior.

Darth Vader has a lightsaber hilt that looks like Luke’s dads hilt and is a star fighter pilot. If there wasn’t details like this it would have fallen flat like the sequels

the difference is that recontextualizing A New Hope was a genius decision that made everything fall into place, while retconning Rey Palpatine was a clumsy knock off of this twist that goes against everything set up previously

 

One piece of evidence is that Rian Johnson would have been told that Rey was a Palpatine rather than being allowed to write a story that conflicts with their plan. Another is the date of the first concept art of Palpatine. And yet more evidence is that we know about the Trevorrow draft of episode 9 which proves Palpatine was not always the plan

 

Colin Trevorrow: "Bringing back the Emperor was an idea JJ brought to the table when he came on board. [came on board Ep 9] It’s honestly something I never considered. I commend him for it. This was a tough story to unlock, and he found the key.

Why was it a tough story to unlock if they had the key all along?

KK can say whatever she wants after the fact, but why would KK and LFL allow CT to write his Palpatine-less EP 9 for a whole year without mentioning to him that their grand plan was for Palpatine to come back and for Rey to be revealed (because they purposefully planned it all along) as his granddaughter?

That's the evidence. No matter what JJ or KK or any fan thinks. One would think that kind of conversation would have happened with CT before he even stated writing, since it involves Rey and is the biggest plot point of the movie.

The answer is a very simple one. It wasn't planned.

You can go back all you want and head cannon TFA and TLJ so that Rey is 'hinted' at if you wish. You can love this reveal all you want. But it was not planned. Palpatine returning is a desperate solution to have a big bad, because Snoke was killed off, and JJ doesn't want Ben Solo to be the big bad because he's doing another evil Skywalker redemption story (because he doesn't have ANY creative ideas on his own). JJ never cared who Rey was. Her backstory wasn't planned all along. JJ only cared about the mystery Rey gave off so that fans would attach her to an established character on their own, accept her into the story automatically, and he wouldn't have to do any more work on it. Coming up with Rey's last name was always going to be someone's else's problem. And JJ has made that very clear when he said that he only focused on EP 7 when writing and directing EP 7.

And as far as Vader being revealed as Luke's dad, nothing about ANH hints at Anakin being Luke's dad. Because that wasn't part of that plan at that moment in time. Lucas didn't secretly put in hints that the reveal was coming because that's not how ANH was written. However, Lucas crafts the retcon reveal in such a way that it doesn't negate what happened in ANH, and builds on what was established. And the parts where it does conflict, he has OWK come back and POV his way out of his now apparent lies.