Rey Speculation

I’m totally living for The Force Awakens right now, and I have been channeling a lot of that energy/excitement into speculation. I know a lot of us are invested in the question of Rey’s origins – who her parents are, why she is on Jakku, etc. – so I thought I would share some of what I have learned recently in my investigating around the internet. There’s information here from official twitters, cast interviews, well-respected fan resources, and quotes from the novelizaton and the official screenplay. Bear with me, this will be kinda long. And I will be sourcing some things but not everything (because I’m lazy), so it’s up to you whether you trust me.

I felt particularly compelled to write this all out after I learned a few tidbits that rendered some popular theories obsolete. Though it is of course important to note that nothing is really set in stone until we’re in the theater watching it happen on the screen in front of us in Episodes VIII and IX. (Episode VIII begins filming next month! So the screenplay for VIII has been done for a while, probably before a lot of the scenes in TFA were cut – a lot of them were said to have been cut within the last month before release. But that doesn’t mean that things can’t change during filming of VIII.)

Rey Solo?

Firstly: Kylo Ren and Rey are definitely not twins. Rey is 19, Kylo is 29-30. Rey’s age of 19 is revealed in both the novelization and the script. Kylo’s age comes from Pablo Hidalgo’s twitter. His twitter bio says not to cite his tweets as canon, however he is probably just watching his back. He is considered an authority – he has an official role with Lucasfilm as a “keeper of the canon” – he belongs to the “Story Group”, and wrote the Visual Dictionary for TFA. 

I think we can also eliminate the possibility that Rey is a Solo at all. There is a famous Star Wars spoiler/leak site makingstarwars.net, and I read an interview with the guy who runs it. He has sources from everywhere including people very close to production. (It was incredible – he started forming relationships with people at different companies just in case their company was the one that ended up being hired to work on the movie.) In the interview he stated someone in-the-know told him that Rey wasn’t a Solo:

Once, I was buying something at [a coffee shop], and I said, “Okay, I need to know if Rey is a Solo,” and they wouldn’t tell me. So I was like, “If she is, get me an espresso shot.” They’d laugh—but when they came back, I knew Rey wasn’t a Solo.

Of course, that information might purely be based on what happened in the movie – indeed, the movie does not reveal Rey to be a Solo, but the movie doesn’t actually reveal Rey’s parentage at all –  so anyone who had seen the movie or had access to the content of the movie would probably say, “I’m not sure”, so this informant probably had more information than we have, including, potentially, the definitive identity of Rey’s real father.

Also, casting for Rey advertised the character as being potentially bi-racial, which would rule out Han and Leia as the parents. Of course, that was a long time ago, and a lot could have changed since then, even Rey’s parentage.

This is just an opinion post from another fan speculating, but I think she makes some really good points here about Rey not being a Solo, mainly that if Rey were a Solo, that should have been revealed before Kylo killed Han, because that would have had more emotional/dramatic impact. (Rey having random parentage should have been established in the first film as well, in this case not to upset fans by holding off on a meaningless secret that is haunting everyone.)

Rey Kenobi?

One of the big points behind the Rey Kenobi theory is that you can hear Obi-Wan saying, “Rey, these are your first steps” at the end of her “Forceback” – the vision she has when she touches Luke’s lightsaber. For a long time I suspected that Obi-Wan’s voice was a flashback, and she had heard these words while she was training with Luke as a new Jedi initiate, before Jakku. However, as you’ll see below, I have moved away from the idea of Rey ever having been a part of that. I think Obi-Wan’s ghost is there in the present speaking to her. But what I learned (maybe what I kept forgetting?), is that you can also hear Yoda during the Forceback. JJ Abrams brought Frank Oz in to record new lines (though they ended up using old lines instead) – so Yoda’s presence in this was important. So I think it’s just a case of the old Jedi masters helping out Rey and the new Jedi.

And it is very subtle, Obi-Wan’s voice. I wouldn’t have even known about it if I hadn’t seen it on the internet. If it’s an actual hint, why not make it more obvious?

That’s not conclusive evidence against the Rey Kenobi theory, but it knocked the theory down a few pegs for me.

As for the question of Rey’s accent being British, like Obi-Wan, whereas Finn, played by a British actor, had an American accent in the film, in my opinion this is about Finn, and not Rey. The First Order seem by-and-large to have British accents – Hux, Phasma, other bit parts. I think Finn having an American accent is to distinguish him as not being like them in sort of a subtle way. I also read on reddit that John Boyega said he tried his own accent and there was a consensus that it didn’t work. 

Rey + Kylo’s Turn/

Kylo Sparing Rey /Kylo Leaving Rey on Jakku:

According to Hidalgo, Rey was left on Jakku before Kylo turned on Luke and destroyed the new Jedi. Rey was left on Jakku when she was about 5, which would be 14 years before TFA begins. Hidalgo states clearly that Kylo’s turn was more recent than 14 years ago. It’s up to interpretation, but my impression from Hidalgo’s tweets were that Kylo’s turn was more like 5-10 years ago.

I, like many others, had assumed that Rey being left on Jakku was a result of what Kylo did to the new Jedi. It looks like this is most likely not the case. Most likely Kylo was not the one who left her on Jakku – even if he decided to save her before he started destroying everything, it’s unlikely he would have planned that 4+ years in advance, right? However, it is possible that Luke had a vision of the future (or a possible future) and sent her away well in advance of that future happening. I can’t think of who else might have had a role in doing this aside from Kylo or Luke (presuming we can take at face value that Han and Leia don’t know who Rey is). But the warning could have come from someone dead – Yoda or Obi-Wan, etc.

REY’S FORCEBACK:

Rey’s Forceback is a huge source of speculation, and I have been forced to conclude that JJ and others failed a little, because it ended up being more confusing than revelatory. I think what they were trying to show ended up being misleading, or wasn’t meant to be particularly important and ended up raising a thousand questions and theories. 

Originally, a large thread of the Forceback showed the journey of Luke’s lightsaber, but many pieces of that were cut. Leaving the narrative of the Forceback very jumbled.

But it does begin with Luke getting his hand cut off by Vader, the moment when he loses the lightsaber. We don’t see Vader and Luke, as was originally intended, but we hear Luke’s screams, Vader’s breathing, not to mention the hallway matches. There is a rough transition as the walls become the ground and Rey is watching a new moment. I feel like it’s pretty safe the assume that the scene of Luke and R2 next to the fire is the burning of a Jedi temple where Luke had been training the new generation of Jedi (the script says as much).

1. The “Warrior”/Kylo Saving Rey:

 The scene after this is a battlefield, and there’s no transition plus it’s raining in both parts, so I posit that it’s the same night.

This moment has become infamous: Rey is lying on the ground, a man known as “Warrior” in the script (and Hidalgo implies the identity of this man/warrior is of no real importance, killing one theory that he was the former Master of the Knights of Ren) moves towards Rey and raises a staff of some kind as if to swipe, and then is cut down by Kylo.

After this, Rey stands up and is facing Kylo, and he is flanked by the six other Knights of Ren. What’s interesting about this part is that it almost seems as if Kylo can see her, and he begins moving towards her, but I’m guessing he’s reacting to something else. It seems like maybe he hears or senses something and then starts moving towards it. This may not be significant (a running theme of this Forceback analysis.)

In the novelization, this scene precedes the part where Luke is with R2, in the movie the part with Luke and R2 comes first. I’m not sure the significance of the switch.

Here is the moment from the novelization:

Onto the wall, which had become the ground. Not the adamantine ceramic she had just seen, but dry grass. Nearby, a lightsaber slammed into the ground. A missed thrust, a statement of power—she didn’t know, couldn’t tell. A hand appeared to pull it upward.

Day became night, sky ominous and filled with rain, cold and chilling to the bone. She was standing, she was sitting, she was looking up—to see someone, a warrior, take the full force of the lightsaber. He screamed and fell.

Battlefield then, all around her. Putting a hand to her mouth, she rose and turned. As she turned, she found herself confronted by seven tall, cloaked figures, dark and foreboding, all armed. Soaked and shivering, she stumbled backward, turning as she half fell. Firelight illuminated her, firelight from a distant, burning temple.

The seven vanished. A sound made her turn, and she blinked in surprise at the sight of a small blue-and-silver R2 unit. A new figure appeared. Falling to his knees, he reached out to the droid with an artifice of an arm—metal and plastics and other materials with which she was not familiar. She blinked and both were gone.

Here is the moment from the screenplay:

We follow Rey and she runs down the corridor, but it all TILTS – TURNS – and she lands on the 

WALL – which is now the GROUND – dried GRASS.

She turns to look – we PIVOT – and see a BURNING TEMPLE AT NIGHT. We PAN to:

R2-D2 – who watches the flames – and a MAN appears (LUKE, whose face we do not see). He falls to his knees, reaches out to the droid – with a MECHANICAL RIGHT HAND.

We PUSH IN ON REY as RAIN BEGINS – and DAY TURNS TO NIGHT –
and she LOOKS UP – we TILT UP –

To see we’re LOOKING UP AT A WARRIOR as he is STABBED BY A FIERY LIGHTSABER! He screams and falls to the ground – we FOLLOW HIM, revealing Rey again, now in a nighttime battlefield. She gets to her feet, frightened by what she sees. We PIVOT AROUND HER to REVEAL KYLO REN, and the six other KNIGHTS OF REN, who flank him!

Neither source gives away any enlightening details. But notice that neither one mentions the Warrior being about to attack Rey. Much has been made out of Kylo Ren potentially saving her in that moment by killing the “Warrior” and preventing his attack, but I am forced to conclude that whatever the Warrior was doing, it doesn’t really matter. This is simply a vision of Kylo and the KOR killing, and that’s the takeaway.

2. Rey Being Left Behind on Jakku:

It’s hard to give up the idea entirely, since it seems so very much like the Warrior is attacking someone on the ground.

After Rey sees the KOR, she turns, and suddenly it’s day, and she’s looking upon her younger self. Unkar Plutt, the junk dealer, is holding her arm. Rey is yelling at an unfamiliar ship as it flies into the sky, “Come back!”. She yells again, and it looks to me as if she’s saying, “Mom” (or “Mum?”), but it could also just be, “Noooooo”.

There’s something extremely important here that I didn’t realize until it was pointed out to me – during this part, Rey is looking at a younger version of herself. The present!Rey and young!Rey are both there. So Rey could not have been present during the part with the KOR because we would have seen young!Rey.

(There’s a theory that the KOR part takes place in the future. It’s an interesting thought but I think the evidence is against it. As I mentioned earlier, it seems like it’s a continuous night with the Luke/R2 scene, also I believe Hidalgo implied it was the past. The term “forceback” – used by JJ Abrams and others – also implies it was in the past.)

Which brings me back to the Warrior attacking the ground. Whoever he was attacking, we should have been able to see them, whether it was young!Rey or Luke or whoever. So that’s why I feel like I must conclude that the Warrior’s gesture is meaningless. And it was just badly done.

If Rey wasn’t present at the slaughter of the new Jedi, and was in fact left behind on Jakku years before, then there’s really no reason to suspect she was ever training with Luke as a Jedi.

The novelization again has everything ordered differently. In the novelization, Rey goes from seeing Luke and R2 to being in the snowy woods, then she has the flashback of being left behind on Jakku. (The movie’s order doesn’t make much more sense – if Rey being left behind on Jakku happened before the burning of the temple, why didn’t that scene come first in the Forceback? I can only assume it was for dramatic effect. Technically it was in a sort of order – first the Forceback narrative of Vader/Luke/Kylo, then Rey’s own personal narrative with her being left behind and then the vision of the future in the forest.)

The novelization has some very interesting details about the scene of Rey’s abandonment, though:

Then behind her, another voice.

That voice.

“Stay here. I’ll come back for you.”

She whirled, glazed eyes desperately scanning the dark gaps between the slender trees, trying to penetrate the darkness.

“Where are you?” She started running toward the voice.

“I’ll come back, sweetheart. I promise.”

“I’m here! Right here! Where are you?”

This indicates that whoever left her behind on Jakku 1) promised to come back, and 2) loved her (“sweetheart”). Why were these lines cut from the movie? Probably because they would have to give too much away with the voice???

It’s potentially important to note that the audio book of the novelization has those lines voiced by a woman. 

One of my theories had been that Rey’s family gave her up in a different place or a different way, and then it was a third party who left her with Plutt on Jakku. But the novelization nips that theory in the bud.

I don’t like to think it was Luke who left her on Jakku, because that means he didn’t go back for her even though he knew where she was. (Unless he’s trapped on Ahch-To, which is possible, but not the impression the movie gave.) It’s possible that Rey being “sent away” at all is going to be shown to have been a bad idea, but I do think her being left there for so long will turn out to have been the result of evil intervention or unfortunate accident – her loneliness, her sense of abandonment, it’s all just too sad to have been perpetrated against her by one of our heroes. Opinions vary on this, certainly there’s some leeway – but it’s my impression that no one who meets her in the movie has any idea who she is. Han, Kylo, Snoke, and presumably Leia as well all know that Rey came from Jakku, yet they give no indication of knowing or suspecting her of being anything other than exactly who she appears to be. So, presumably, none of them were the ones to leave her there. 

I know many people cite the “What girl?” from Kylo as evidence that he suspects who she might be. In my opinion, if that line (and the others like it) has meaning, it’s actually the opposite – Kylo is absolutely NOT expecting some scavenger from Jakku to be the “girl” he is concerned about. 

As far as Rey’s memory goes, if she was 4/5 when she she was left behind, it’s quite possible she remembers very little from before that.

This might not be relevant, but the helmet that Rey has in her home and so cutely puts on belongs to a X-Wing pilot whose name was Raeh. So possibly Rey named herself, based on the name on the helmet. In which case, she might remember almost nothing. OR someone gave her the helmet and named her after Raeh. 

Note the way she tells BB-8 that it’s her “family” that’s coming back for her – she doesn’t specify her parents or her mother. This tells me that her memories are vague. 

So my prevailing theory right now is that Luke is her father, and it was her mother who left her behind on Jakku. Perhaps Rey’s mother had some kind of understanding with Lor San Tekka that he would watch over her. The Jakku triple-incidence (Lor San Tekka, Rey, Millennium Falcon) is just too much – there has to be some connection. And I think then Rey’s mother was either killed or kidnapped or got amnesia or some such thing, and so that’s why she never went back for her. I’m basing a lot on the novelization, but the words there seem so sincere. I have to believe that whoever left Rey on Jakku really did intend to come back for her, and not 15 years later.

It’s interesting to note that it’s the sound of Rey crying as a child that she first hears, and which draws her down the hallway and towards Luke’s lightsaber. But Rey being left behind on Jakku was only a very small part of the Forceback. To me, this indicates that her being left behind on Jakku does have a connection to the rest of the vision. Also, her vision is all about Skywalkers – Anakin, Luke, Kylo, and then her. It certain fits the pattern better if she’s a Skywalker too.

We also have to ask why the Force shows her these things. The Forceback doesn’t give her any information that aids her in any way. Not in this film, at least. So why?

And then, of course, the final scene of the Forceback, which is actually a Forceforward of sorts, in which Rey is in the snowy forest (Starkiller Base, one assumes), and encounters Kylo. (Though with Kylo wearing his mask, it’s more like their forest encounter on Takodana. But I can understand why they chose to presage the Starkiller Base duel over something that was only 10 min. away from happening, and of course they couldn’t show Kylo without his mask yet.) Just another indication that the details in the Forceback just don’t matter that much, and it’s more about the vibes.

Daisy Ridley Interview:

Daisy Ridley gave an interview in November here, which I’ll quote for you:

Q: Everyone wants to know who Rey’s parents are. Do you know?

A (Daisy): Yeah.

Q: Will the viewer know after the first episode or not necessarily?

A: Questions will be answered, absolutely. The main question will be answered.

So Daisy says here, perhaps not unequivocally but pretty definitively, that by the end of the movie we would know who Rey’s parents were. Obviously, that didn’t happen. So something was cut. OR Daisy considers the hints that were in the movie to be enough to answer the question. The straightforward interpretation of the movie is that Rey’s parents are unknown, but that doesn’t count as answered question, in my opinion. 

If something was cut, it’s hard to imagine an entire plot thread that revealed Rey being a Kenobi or a Solo or a Force child or a clone being cut. Too much would have to go in to making that resonate emotionally, and I can’t imagine a quick shocker fitting into the flow either. Much more reasonable for a short scene where Luke is revealed to be her father – perhaps a scene between Leia and Rey at the end before Rey leaves. I’ve seen a photo of a deleted scene of Leia and Rey having an indoor conversation:

The other possibility is that Daisy was mistaken somehow, or lied. Or somehow something about this is misleading. All possible, but not likely. The questions are straightforward, Daisy’s answer is a little strangely-worded but not particularly ambiguous, not cagey. And I don’t think she would lie, especially when the reporter gave her the out of saying “not necessarily”. She could always say, “I’m not sure I can answer that.” She’s been a part of the project for a very long time already, she’s practiced at what she can and can’t say.

My interpretation is that Daisy is saying that the answer is obvious enough – she’s Luke’s daughter. Though that’s a bit of a leap.

But this from Daisy comes closer to convincing me than anything else has.

It Is You

A lot has been made out of a line in the novelization. When Kylo is using the Force to call Luke’s lightsaber to him, and it flies to Rey instead, Kylo says, “It is you.”  It seems incredibly significant – somehow, Kylo knows who Rey is. Combined with his weird flipout at hearing that a girl is with BB-8 and Finn, and his difficulty in believing that she really is just a scavenger from Jakku, there seems to be a good case building for the idea that Kylo knows Ren’s “real” identity.

Taken aback, he whirled—to see the weapon land in the hand of a girl standing by a tree. Rey appeared equally shocked that her reach for the device had exceeded his. She gazed down at the weapon now resting in her grip.

“It is you,” Ren murmured.

His words unsettled her: Not for the first time, he seemed to know more about her than she did about herself.

Well, Hidalgo addressed this on twitter, and said that Kylo saying, “It is you” refers back to the conversation he had with Snoke about an “awakening” they both felt. Rey using the Force/letting the Force in, etc., was that awakening, and this moment is Kylo acknowledging that, as he had already suspected, it was her. 

I don’t know what to think. That’s a bit of a letdown, but it does make sense. It’s hard to face that things might be a lot simpler than they seemed at first. But I can guess that maybe that line was cut because it was confusing. So once again something that seemed really important is apparently not significant at all.

Though the idea of the awakening simply referring to Rey is interesting in and of itself. But I find it a little strange, because this conversation between Snoke and Kylo happens after the Rathtar scene. Rey hasn’t really done anything that had to do with the Force in the movie yet. The awakening conversation would make so much more sense if it followed the Forceback.

Rey and Jakku:

A question I see rarely discussed but which haunts me more and more is whether Rey has been on Jakku ever since she was born. I had always assumed she was dropped off there when she was 5ish, for whatever reason. Rey says, “I’ve never been off-planet,” but I assumed she meant, “I haven’t been off-planet since I got to Jakku”. However, there’s a tweet from Hidalgo where he’s joking/ranting about all the plot hole comments that get thrown at him, he says, “It says Rey’s been on Jakku all her life. YET WE ONLY SEE HER THERE FOR A FEW MINUTES. PLOT HOLE.” The tweet seems to imply that Rey has been on Jakku her entire life, and that the movie states this. In which case, if Rey is related to the Skywalkers, is Luke’s daughter, then why were Rey and her mother living on Jakku (presumably, according to the theory I wrote about above), and why does Rey’s mother leave? Where does she go? Does something happen that makes her feel like she was must go and help someone? But she leaves Rey behind for whatever reason? Is she Force sensitive, and senses something and that’s why she leaves? Was Luke ever living on Jakku? Jakkuuuuuuuuuuu. Why?

SO MANY QUESTIONS.

My other thoughts on why Rey is most likely a Skywalker are here. 

On a Reylo note: Unlike many shippers I’m actually hoping that they are cousins, but I am as disappointed as anyone that there was no Kylo/Rey connection before he went darkside and she was left on Jakku. The idea of him sparing her, whether it was because she was his little cousin or whatever, was just too lovely. 

Have you realized that kylo was what made rey feel the force for the first time? His words gave her strength. And it’s just beautiful.

It’s so true! 

It may not have been under the best of circumstances, but Kylo was her awakening. 

As I mentioned here, I do think that Rey’s Force sensitivity has contributed to her success at certain endeavors, like piloting (like Qui-Gon says about Anakin in The Phantom Menace), languages, fighting, etc. And she had her “Forceback” when she touched Luke’s lightsaber for the first time. But in terms of feeling the Force, being able to call on it, etc., it really was Kylo that pushed her to it. 

He demonstrated the power of the Force to her in a way she had never seen before, and then challenged her in such a way that she had to use it. Han, Leia, and Maz mentioned the Force to her, Luke and Obi-Wan had small roles in introducing her to it during the Forceback, but Kylo was her only model, her only Force-interaction. (And unlike a typical Force battle like we saw with Yoda and Dooku or the Emperor and Luke), some of Kylo and Rey’s interactions in the Force were connections – Rey having a vision of him, their two-way mind reading during the interrogation, potentially their struggle to accio Luke’s lightsaber. 

And when Kylo says, “I can show you the ways of the Force,” Rey is reminded to use the Force. So he was her teacher, in a way. In a brief, accidental way. Like you said, his words gave her strength. And I think it was probably Kylo wanting to train Rey that made Rey want to train with Luke. 

That’s why this relationship is so infinitely fascinating. 

Star Wars VII . I think Ren and Rey might be inspired by the Solo twins from the expanded universe ( Jace and Jaina Solo). EU is no longer canon since Disney purchased the franchise but writers probably know the books. There are similarities: Jace and Jaina were trained by their uncle Luke but Jace was always tempted by the dark side because he admired his grandfather Vader, and finally becomes Darth Caedus. Jace and Jaina end up fighting to the death….

Although I haven’t read anything from the Expanded Universe, I have heard a little about Jacen and Jaina. Based on what little I know, I agree that the character of Kylo Ren was probably inspired by Jacen, and the relationship between him and Rey reflects/will reflect Jacen and Jaina’s relationship. There are just too many parallels, and as you said, the writers working on the trilogy are most likely familiar with the Expanded Universe. But maybe this was always going to be the story told about the third generation, because I can’t think of anything more dramatic or fitting. So maybe part of it was coincidence.

I know some people like the idea, but personally I don’t want Rey and Kylo Ren fighting to the death. My hope is that he’ll come back to the light – long before his death if we’re lucky. And that’s my expectation as well, because 1) when we meet Ren he’s already dark, but still feels “the pull of the light” – he’s ripe for overcoming the dark side and that’s the most dramatically satisfying conclusion, 2) this is Leia and Han’s son! He’s not going to turn evil and die evil too. The different with Jacen is that there was another brother, so Jacen was more expendable. Perhaps I’m overestimating this idea, but I really do think the writers of the new trilogy feel like they owe the fans of the original trilogy some shimmer of a happy ending for the main heroes. Leia’s only child going darkside and killing Han (after killing a bunch of other people), and then playing a part in a resurrection of the Empire, the taking down of which was her life’s work? That COULD LITERALLY NOT GET ANY WORSE.

I do think there’s a chance that if Snoke is Darth Plageuis, who could “influence midi-chlorians to create life” and “keep the ones he cared about from dying”, maybe Ren will bring Han back from the dead, but maybe has to go full dark to do it or I don’t even know what. Anyway, I’m definitely allowing for something like that which is both a “stays dark” and “is redeemed” at the same time.

The most interesting question to me is whether Rey and Kylo (I can’t decide whether to call him Kylo or Ren so I’m just going to alternate, lol)  will turn out to be twins. I think not, but the Jaina/Jacen parallels are interesting. While it doesn’t look very likely right now, in this universe anything is possible. Another set of surprise twins would be a nice echo of the original trilogy (and the tendency to have twins is passed hereditarily, so it’s not like it’s crazy). Cousins doesn’t seem like a tight enough relationship for the best kind of drama – I mean just think about how much more intense it would be if Rey and Kylo Ren were twins! And yeah, Adam Driver is 10 years older than Daisy Ridley, but he doesn’t look it. Wouldn’t be the first time an actor played a character 14 years younger than they actually are (Rey is canonically 19 according to the novelization).

When I think about scenes like Ren carrying Rey to the spaceship, or Rey staring at Ren after he took off his helmet, I can’t help but think that these instinctual reactions to each other make more sense if they’re siblings. The cousins thing really only pays off when I think of Luke’s child vs. Leia’s child, or the grandchildren of Anakin facing off against each other.

Who knows.

But I agree, Anon.

DAE see some phallic symbolism when Kylo holds his lightsaber inches from Rey’s face and she just kind of gasps at it in awe?

Have you seen this hilarious post by @kylotrash, Anon?:

I had never really thought that there was intentional phallic symbolism because I personally don’t think that Kylo/Rey will ever be canon, and so why would they do that? But that part, particularly looking at a picture or GIF of it, comes off so sexually. I really can’t help but wonder. It’s probably just a happy accident, but it is so happy.

It’s a striking image – she’s already terrified that he’s standing behind her, and then this unfamiliar but incredibly powerful weapon in a malevolent red is thrust into her face. The way they’re positioned, so that we can see the perfect distance between them (the length of his lightsaber), we can see both of their faces (sort of, lol), we can see the reflection of the red glow in Rey’s eyes – I mean, it’s gorgeous, it’s a gorgeous shot. And I’m not sure there was any way to avoid it looking phallic.

That being said, diegetically speaking, there was no reason for Kylo to use his lightsaber in that scene – it was totally unnecessary for him to whip it out (hee). He can use the Force on Rey, and he’s intimidating enough with his mask and his army of stormtroopers. Pulling out the lighstaber is redundant.

So clearly he’s showing off for her. I think that’s canon. Like the joke is, “Look at my thing, Rey, it’s long and intimidating.” But that’s literally what’s happening.

And if Kylo heavily associates his lightsaber with his own potency (which I imagine he does), then it seems pretty darn phallic to me. 

And even if it’s not intentional symbolism, it’s definitely unintentional imagery.

(I’ll leave you with this: Kylo Rey with his lightsaber in his mouth dancing around to The Final Countdown.)

The Force Awakens

Spoiler free review: OH MY GOD WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? GO SEE IT.

Spoilers/Speculation:

I don’t know what to do with all of my feelings!

Kylo Ren/Rey commentary is at the bottom, after brief Luke and Leia thoughts and speculation about Rey’s origins/parentage.

Luke/Leia:

Well, let it never be said that I wanted Han to die, because I certainly didn’t (do you cry a lot? im crying right now), but a certain hot twin sister is BACK ON THE MARKET! (*nudges Luke with my elbow*)

I love the idea of Leia and Han giving Ben/Kylo Ren over to Luke for training but the whole thing becomes a major bummer given what happened. I really hope the rest of the trilogy will make some kind of positive affirmation of the Luke/Kylo Ren relationship. Leia told Han that Han could get through to Kylo Ren because he was his father and Luke was “a Jedi”, but I hope Luke will be an uncle too. Especially with Han now dead and this Snoke fellow being  srsly bad news, I hope Luke will be an important father figure in Ren’s life. (I am such a sucker for that.) Ren’s determination to hunt down Luke could possibly indicate some of the relationship intensity like we saw with Anakin/Vader and Obi-Wan, I just hope it’s MORE because they’re family too.

It wasn’t really clear how long Luke had been gone. It made me sad that Luke would go off like that and leave Leia but they have a supernatural connection so I feel like absence isn’t quite the same thing for them. They’re still connected so it’s not quite the same “gone-ness” if you know what I mean.

This isn’t an attack on Han and Leia’s relationship at all (I wouldn’t even want to do that), but I will say that from the little bit we learn about what their life together has been like since the end of Return of the Jedi, it seems like there was definitely room for Luke in it as an important figure for both Leia and Ren. 

If Luke survives the trilogy I’ll be amazed, but how nice is the thought of silver siblings bittersweetly spending the rest of their days together? Because of all that they’ve been through and lost they’ll probably never get to be truly happy (and there can be no truly happy ending or else it’s the end of the story and then what is episode X going to be about?), but they could be happier with each other.

It would have been nice to see Leia talking more about how she missed Luke and wished she would come back, but we saw enough. I definitely sensed that she wished he was there. But what I really felt like I saw was that she understood, which was so important. 

And maybe part of the reason Luke ran off was because he was so ashamed of how he had failed Han and Leia. He couldn’t face them. 

ETA: see the Leia and Luke quotes from the novelization here.

Rey:

Well, episode VII didn’t clear up any of the speculation about who Rey is. Honestly, I walked out of the theater believing she really was, as they say nowadays, some rando. I didn’t want that, but I was worried JJ and whoever else might feel like it was too cliché to connect her to the family too – it already happened with Luke and Leia, and then we had the reveal of who Kylo Ren really was after some initial mystery. And if the Force is awakening, then it should probably be happening to more people than just Skywalkers, right? 

And a lot of the “evidence” pointing to her connection to the Skywalker family could very well just be parallels meant to call back to the original trilogy. Because it seems pretty obvious to me – or at least I imagine this happening and it seems like it did – that when they were hashing out this new trilogy they sat down and tried to figure out what went wrong with the prequels and what people love about the original trilogy, and what makes Star Wars Star Wars and so what they ended up doing is telling a story that is strikingly similar to A New Hope. I have no real complaints about this, it was different but the same in all the right ways. But that could mean that the similarities between Luke and Rey could just be parallels because they’re on similar journeys, and not father/daughter parallels. (Here’s a great list of parallels.)

However, I ultimately do now believe that Rey is either Leia’s daughter or Luke’s daughter. For several reasons. #1) All of the parallels. As I just said, they’re not necessarily evidence, but they make great evidence! #2) She is VERY strong in the Force – presumably without any training she is already a match for (a weakened) Kylo Ren. Anakin was stronger in the force than anyone had ever been and so even his grandchildren must still be the strongest out there. #3) She was left on Jakku, location of both the Millennium Falcon and the former Rebellion man who had a piece of the map to find Luke. #4) Everyone’s a Skywalker! #5) Our original heroes deserve to have an offspring who is an unqualified hero and success. Is Kylo Ren really going to be the only child those great three produced? #6) Rey appears to be the main character, so she really ought to be a Skywalker, n’est-ce pas?

Skywalker family drama has always been at the center of the series.

#7) It would seem she has no idea who her family is, she has no last name, this was all kept mysterious. It’s going to be a major letdown if all of that was just to mislead us. #8) Her connection to Luke’s lightsaber, R2 coming back to life when she came to the rebel base. #9) Her instant connection with both Han and Leia. #10, my person favorite) There’s a lot more invested in the Kylo Ren/Rey adversarial situation if they are family. #11) The Darth Vader/Luke adversarial relationship was such a rich and important part of the series because of their familial connection, so it stands to reason that the new trilogy, which is echoing the original one so closely, would strive for the same thing. #12) Luke needs to say “I am your father”. 

Another point I feel like mentioning is that the trailer had Luke saying the lines, “The force is strong in my family: my father has it, I have it, my sister has it. You have that power too.” It’s taken directly from ROTJ, though order of the sentences is changed. The implication of including that line in the trailer is that someone from the next generation is strong with the Force because they are a Skywalker. Obviously this is true of Ren, but it feels like it’s supposed to be about Rey.

And there’s probably more. (ETA: the novelization drops a couple more hints – Leia adjusts Rey’s clothing and thinks to herself that it feels natural/right, and when Rey gets Luke’s lightsaber even though Ren is reaching for it, he says, “It is you”, whatever that means. Also, thanks to @jameslawrences write-up, I know that Abrams and Kennedy, executives on the new trilogy, have both said that it’s “about the Skywalker family”.)

Now, it doesn’t really matter that much to me whether she’s Luke’s daughter or Leia’s daughter. I’ll be satisfied with either one, as long as it is one or the other. I really liked the Han/Rey relationship, the way they meshed. So that would make me happy. But I would also like for Luke to have a kickass daughter.

There are quite a few good points, about which Skywalker sibling might be her parent. For such an important character, it would make sense to know both her parents – which indicates Han and Leia. (But there are still two movies left to learn about her mother if she is Luke’s daughter, perhaps even to meet her. She doesn’t have to be an insignificant figure just because most likely she’s someone we don’t already know.) One child for each sibling makes sense, but if Luke remained celibate (like the Jedi in the prequel trilogy) then it makes sense for Leia to be the mother. All of Rey’s parallels and connections seem to be with Luke (and to Leia possibly through Luke), except for the Millennium Falcon bit and easy camaraderie with Han and Chewie (but that could have been thrown in there in part as a red herring).

Why would Leia or Luke’s daughter be growing up on a strange planet with no knowledge of her family? Theories abound about this as well. A common theory is some kind of Jedi mindwipe, which isn’t part of the current Jedi mythology but why not? We can assume, I think, that she wasn’t abandoned, she was sent away for her protection, or for her best interests. Perhaps someone else abandoned her on Jakku, and it was not the original intended situation. 

Some people think that Han seemed to know who Rey was once he learned a little more about her. I disagree. There are good points about it (especially Maz asking Han, “Who’s the girl?” and it cutting away before he answers, which isn’t in the novelization), but I’m not convinced. Finn was always the one leading the charge to rescue Rey, and there was that moment where Finn was telling Han that Rey had been captured by Ren, but Han was more preoccupied with Leia arriving and the fact that he had just seen their son. It seems to me he would not have been so dismissive if he knew who Rey really was. (Not that it seemed like he didn’t care about Rey – he obviously did.) Also, in the novelization, Leia tells Finn, “Han told me about the girl”, but then she asks Finn what the girl’s name is. Which means when Han was telling Leia about Rey, he didn’t even mention what her name was!

There is also the question of how Rey can understand Chewie. She is seen speaking/understanding several languages throughout the movie. But it makes sense than she can speak to that Teedo, who lives on Jakku and is part of an indigenous population there, and it makes a certain amount of sense that she can speak to BB8, since she’s so mechanical. But Chewie? There’s a page from the book Rey’s Survival Guide which attempts an explanation, but a far better explanation would be that se grew up around Chewie during the first few years of her lfe.

Right now, my theory is that after Luke’s training of Ren went awry, he decided that it would be better if he wasn’t anywhere near Rey, afraid he would be a bad influence. He totally lost confidence in his ability to train and thought she would do better on her own. I would imagine he could only make that decision about his own daughter. Unless Leia and Han agreed with the plan, and then Luke erased their memories so that they wouldn’t even know they had a daughter that they had given up. 

Also, we learn that Snoke seduced Ren to the dark side (and in the novelization, Leia tells Han that Snoke had been there influencing Ren his entire life.) So perhaps Rey was hidden right after her birth so that Snoke would never know she had existed and couldn’t get his claws in her.

But why Jakku? Why that horrible life on that horrible desert planet? I don’t know, builds character? Then again, Anakin grew up doing the exact same thing and look how he turned out. 

If Luke gave her up, I can only assume that something went wrong somewhere. 

It’s possible that Kylo Ren was the one who put her there. Perhaps he couldn’t bear to kill her but wanted her out of the way. In my opinion it’s a bit of a stretch.  

ETA: There’s that line from the novelization: “It is you” which Ren says after Luke’s lightsaber goes flying to Rey. I suspect it indicates that Rey knew about some baby/young girl who was strong with the Force, or likely to be – perhaps he knew Luke had a daughter – OR there was some kind of vision of the future about someone who would challenge Ren/Snoke, or someone who would succeed Luke. 

This sheds an interesting light on Ren’s attempts to figure out who Rey is. He finds it hard to believe that she really is just a scavenger from Jakku. Which tells me that Ren didn’t put her there. Perhaps even that he expected her to be somewhere else.

It does seem to be that it would be very awkward if Leia and Han had a daughter that they remembered that they didn’t mention in Episode VII. I mean, it’s possible. It’s not like anyone asked them directly if they did and they said no. But it would be weird for that huge thing to have been left out of all those discussions they had about Kylo Ren. The movie was well written and presumably the trilogy is planned out so I don’t think they would have pulled such a cheap trick. It could have been avoided in a much less clunky way if it was true. And Han never seemed to suspect or wonder if Rey was a member of the family. Neither did Kylo Ren.

There’s also a theory going around that Rey is related to Obi-Wan Kenobi. I have to say, when I read that I felt like maybe it was true. Leia and Han naming their son Ben almost feels like it’s forcing us to reimagine Obi-Wan as being more important to the family as he was. (I mean, Han didn’t even care when Obi-Wan died, Leia never even met him.) But if it was Luke who named him Ben, then maybe he is Ben’s biological father. (Or maybe when he was a baby they could tell he was strong with the Force so they named him after a great Jedi who did a lot for their family.)

But anyway, Rey being related to Obi-Wan does not seem unlikely. It’s certainly the best alternative I’ve ever heard to the theories about her being a Skywalker, and much more likely than her being a random figure. Maybe Rey’s mother is related to Obi-Wan, and Luke is still her father? *hopes*

I think it’s possible that Luke is the father of both Ren and Rey. He kgave Ren to Han and Leia, perhaps because he was too busy training Jedi to be a father, or perhaps because they couldn’t have children? Then he hid Rey away. I don’t know, it’s not a great theory, but his name being Ben and all, plus the greater intensity of the Ren/Rey rivalry if they are siblings does make it an interesting idea. Rey and Ren as twins is obviously a delightful idea, for the parallels and the yin/yang, but if Rey being hid away was a result of Ren going darkside, then Ren has to be older than her, probably significantly older. (Han’s thoughts in the novelization about seeing Ren for the first time as a man indicate that Ren has been with the First Order for a long time.)

Kylo Ren/Rey:

Let me start off with a boring personal preamble.

Kylo Ren/Rey was always going to be my ship. Because I’m a trashy garbage-person. (Really more garbage than person at this point.)

Obviously there’s the whole “they’re probably related” thing, which, of course, is often a plus for crazy old me. (Not just a plus, but a defining attraction.) But there’s also the whole “they’re legitimately enemies and they hate and fear each other”, which is also a plus for crazy old me. (Again, more of a defining attraction really than a plus. More of a “I ship this kind of thing” deal than a “I like that about this ship” deal) What’s wrong with me, guys? Oh well, don’t care. 

Of course, even though I’m usually drawn to this sort of ship (and assumed, in advance, that I would be), that doesn’t mean I don’t love the ship for it’s lovely self, because I do.  

So Rey/Finn never stood a chance. Me not shipping Rey with her canon love interest was almost as inevitable as her having one. (I’m so contrary sometimes!) But things have turned out remarkably well. Finn is the complete and total opposite of Kylo Ren. Their relationships with Rey are complete and total opposites. This grants me the ability to see those relationships as not totally incompatible. The way I ship Kylo Ren and Rey could totally and believably co-exist with what Finn and Rey canonically have/will have.

But it’s even better than that, for me at least. I am hard to please canon ship-wise, but I really do like Finn/Rey. I could have hated their relationship, but I don’t. I adore Finn. He might even by my favorite new character (after BB8).  I’m so happy that it’s not a NOTP. I’m not sure how I would feel about it in a vacuum, without Kylo Ren, without the pressing feeling that something a little incestuous is the perfect fit. (The situation is just too ripe for dynastic drama and bloodlines to go any other way.)  It’s a relief to like it, even if I don’t really ship it.

/boring pesonal premable

I’m not sure what to say about Kylo Ren and Rey. There’s not much for me to add beyond what happened. There was so much that was interesting about their relationship and what happened with them. When Ren first hears that “a girl” escaped with Finn and BB8, he flips out for no apparent reason. He has no reason to think she’s anything special but she stays on his mind. 

Rey has a vision of Ren when she touches Luke’s lightsaber. (I was so hoping she would see him when she started having that vision…AND SHE DID. I can’t tell you how many times what I hoped would happen with them actually did happen.) That scenes calls back a lot to Luke’s vision in the cave where he kills Darth Vader and then sees himself in Vader’s helmet. Darth Vader was his enemy, but also his father. Kylo Ren is Rey’s destined enemy in the same way – they are counterparts. (And hopefully family as well.) Two sides of the same coin.

Anyway, I’m just giddy that she had a vision about him. If there’s any part of the movie I wish I could watch again, it’s that one. It went by so fast, I don’t remember half of what was in it. Apparently, and I missed this because I was probably busy just being excited that she was having a vision about Kylo Ren, but apparently there’s a part where he’s surrounded by dead Jedi. It’s said that Ren destroyed Luke’s hopes for a new generation of Jedi, but never stated explicitly that he killed all the “younglings”. Assuming he did, if Rey was there, maybe he spared her. How amazing would that be? Not that I’m stoked about him killing a bunch of kids but the dark side will do that to ya. There are some interesting theories that Rey has Jedi training that she has forgotten. There were definitely a couple times while I was watching the movie that I was a little annoyed/skeptical at how proficient she was at certain Jedi skills. So maybe the trauma made her forget, maybe she was too young to remember, maybe her memories were erased through Jedi mind trickery. 

Then he finds her in the forest. Weird how it became all about her for him all of the sudden? Eh? Even that ginger douche pointed out that Kylo took the girl when he should have pursued BB8. SUSPICIOUS. At that point he doesn’t even know she’s strong with the Force (assuming certain theories aren’t correct). It seemed like Kylo had already decided to take Rey even before he heard that the rebel alliance forces had arrived. Which means he made that decision before tracking down BB8 became more difficult.

And, I won’t lie to you, I got pretty giddy when he made her go unconscious and then carried her through the forest back to the ships. He could have thrown her over this shoulder but he carried her in his arms instead (and he could have handed her off to storm troopers when he got closer but he never did). During that part in the theater I was just smiling so big and saying to myself , “Oh my god he’s going to carry her. Carry her in your arms, carry her in your arms! Oh my god he is going to carry her in his arms! IT’S HAPPENING.” Because I’m  dork.

Then the first time he removes his helmet is with her. He had no reason to make the interrogation personal. He had no reason to interrogate her himself at all. Poe Dameron was interrogated by others before Ren got involved. And Poe was tortured (there was blood, wounds on his face) – Rey never was. (Though apparently if someone resists the mind-reading it’s very painful.)

And he was just sitting there watching her sleep! (Stop me if I start making stuff up. I’m pretty that actually happened, though.)

I feel like we definitely saw an interesting reaction from Rey when Ren took off the mask. I’m sure part of it was just the fact that she was surprised that he took it off, and surprised to find an ordinary-looking young man underneath it. But I do think there was a certain fascination.

That scene where he’s reading her mind is pretty intimate. It’s sort of what awakens her powers (though I insist her awesome piloting moves with the Millennium Falcon and some other things were largely due to her Jedi senses). Of course Ren did something similar with Poe Dameron, but because Rey is able to resist the exchange is totally different and Ren is taken off-guard. She senses a lot about him in that moment so there’s more of a tunnel of thoughts created between them, rather than just Ren extracting information. You can tell that Ren is not used to be challenged like that, which of course makes her fascinating to him and turns what was already not really an ordinary interrogation into an even more meaningful moment for him.

I feel like there’s a lot more that I should have to say about that part. One interesting thing I want to mention is that Kylo points out how lonely Rey was. Ren can almost definitely relate to that and it’s also interesting that he starts getting into such personal things. It’s not relevant to the interrogation at all. He also reads that she dreams about the sea and an island, so it’s significant that that’s where she finds Luke. We know Luke was going to find the original Jedi temple, but I also think that just like Rey, after growing up on a desert planet he was ready for a life by the ocean.

Ren had good reason to want to track her down after she escapes at the base, but still, it’s kind of…lovely?… that there’s this huge chunk of the movie of him chasing her around. He has another rage fit when she slips through his fingers. (I wonder if he turned to the dark side because he was so angry, or if connecting with the dark side of the force makes him feel all that anger?)

Seeing Ren kill Han made her hate him more than ever, I’m sure, but I feel like it’s significant that she was a witness to that intense family moment. I know that the others were there too, Chewbacca and Finn, especially, but there was a lot of focus on Rey. (In fact I thought there should have been more focus on Chewbacca but that’s another discussion for another time.) She also saw the way that Ren killed Han, which was awful and ugly and horrible but it did speak to a more human side to him. He didn’t just cut Han down like he was any other rebel and Rey was a witness to that.

I knew very little going into this movie. (On purpose, it wasn’t lack of interest.) I only saw the trailer two or three times. I discussed it a little with a few of you on here (specifically the chance that Rey and Rey were related/shippable, funny that we still don’t know), but did no independent research of my own. I’m not even sure what there was to know that I didn’t know.  I didn’t know who Rey’s love interest would be, I didn’t know what Kylo Ren looked like under his mask (well, I had forgotten – I had deja vu when I looked up Adam Driver, I’m pretty sure I did it a few months ago), I knew almost nothing about the cast except that we would see a lot of the people from the original trilogy, and I especially didn’t know that Kylo Ren and Rey would be counterparts in the way that they were. I wasn’t expecting them to interact very much, and instead they had a ton of meaningful scenes alone together. I couldn’t believe my luck.

Probably the most meaningful Ren/Rey moment in the entire movie is when he offers to train her.

I don’t have too much to say about their fight prior to that. Ren was in bad shape – he was badly wounded from Chewbacca’s blast and I’m guessing he wasn’t in a great place mentally either given all that had just happened. I still think Rey besting him was a bit of a stretch, but if I chalk it up to him not really wanting to hurt her then it’s actually the best thing in the whole movie. And Rey took a moment to center herself and call on the Force, Ren was in no shape mentally/emotionally to do that. It was basically impossible for him to compose himself.

I really don’t think that theory of him not wanting to hurt her is all that far fetched. He should have been getting angrier and angrier while they were dueling, but he doesn’t. Instead he makes the offer to train her. If he had already made up his mind that he wanted to take her as an apprentice, then killing her wouldn’t be his goal. Also, when he tells her that she needs training, he probably could have forced her off the edge, but doesn’t. 

Ren has played a big role in eradicating the Jedi. So choosing to think of Rey as a potential apprentice instead of another Jedi to be eliminated is probably a big shift for him. And he’s still in training – he knows he’s conflicted, he knows he’s still relying on the wisdom of Snoke. He’s not really in any position to be taking on an apprentice is he? Furthermore, he has no particular reason to think Rey would be seduced by the dark side. So I find it all very interesting. 

Also, going back to the “It is you” line, Ren might have some foreboding that she’ll challenge him some day. AND Ren idolizes Vader, and sees Vader being seduced by the light in the end, which ruined everything and brought down the Empire. That all happened because they tried to turn Luke instead of killing him. Clearly Ren isn’t learning from Vader’s “mistakes”. 

After the crevasse forming separates them, Rey stares after him for a little bit before running to find Finn. They stare at each other. Fate put an end to their fight. 

I think she wants to finish him off. She was fighting to protect herself and Finn – Kylo had pursued them into the pretty romantic snowy forest, she was defending herself. But in that moment she had the upper hand and her first thought wasn’t to make her escape or to run to Finn but to kill him. That was my impression and it has some interesting implications. Her mind should have been on getting back to Finn as soon as she could but her focus in that moment was on Kylo Ren. Also, that hate is going spice up attempts to convert her to the dark side. Perhaps there will be a moment where she can understand how Ren became who he is.

(The end to their fight is a little different in the novelization, and there is an articulation of Rey’s struggle – she’s thinking how easy it would be to kill him, and she is tempted, but chooses to turn away from the dark. I don’t think the movie really shows that. In the movie, the choice is made for her by the planet falling apart. And we don’t know how weak Ren really was. He couldn’t win a lightsaber fight against her in his current condition, but that doesn’t mean she would be able to kill him.)

I assume that before the trilogy is through that Ren will turn to the light again. If JJ keeps with the spirit of the original trilogy (and the massive parallels), then he will. He might die, like Anakin did, but it will be as himself.

One last thing I want to discuss (though I’ve probably forgotten a bunch of other things): I think the casting of Kylo Ren is very interesting. Adam Driver certainly gave an awesome performance (and I particularly love his line-delivery while he’s got the mask on, it’s so perfect and right), but I can’t help but notice that he’s not exactly conventionally good-looking or scary-looking. (He’s not a CW villain, as they would say on Superstore.)

(I’m not saying he’s not attractive. I’m as much Kylo Ren trash as I am Reylo trash.)

And I only bring it up because I wonder, I even have to assume, that it was done on purpose.  And if so, why? Was it an attempt to minimize incidental sexual tension between Kylo Ren and Rey? To dampen shipping? If so, that’ could be further evidence that they will turn out to be related. And if so, MAJOR FAIL. Was Adam Driver picked because they felt like he looked like a cross between Han and Leia? Were they just really really impressed with his audition? (I can’t imagine changing the conception of the character just for him, no matter how great he was.) It was just definitely a little odd when this intimidating figure, our new villain, with his terrifying voice and mask removes his helmet and underneath that all is someone very normal-lookIng. But maybe that was the point? 

Well, if Kylo Ren and Rey don’t turn out to be related I’m going to feel really embarrassed about this post, but I do/I will ship it anyway so it wasn’t a waste of time to delve into my shippy thoughts. I do worry about what the future films will reveal and how that might overturn some of my assumptions and headcanons and whatnot, but based on the material available right now and adding the disclaimer that I have only seen the film once twice I feel pretty good about what I’ve said here.

Thoughts?

ETA: I have included all of the Kylo Ren/Rey quotes (relevant to their relationship) from the novelization in a post here.  Enjoy!