The Last Jedi Rey's parentage poll

[Flemm]

Who is Rey? She's a scavenger from Jakku, abandoned by parents who sold her for drinking money. Nevertheless, she survived on her own through her wits, and with help by her growing strength with the Force. She helped defeat the First Order in several battles, defeated Kylo Ren in a lightsaber battle, and is at the start of a new Jedi order and the beginning of the new Rebellion.

On this point, a character doing stuff (even very important stuff) is not the same thing as character development.

If a character can be reduced to plot points and abilities (such as using the force), then the character hasn't been properly developed.

Among the things you mentioned, the scrappy, survivalist aspect is probably the closest thing to an actual character trait. I think, in Rey's case, the two things that really leap to mind are the powers and the non-mystery of her parents.

It's true that she is set up to be a leader of the new rebellion as a Jedi, but again, that is a plot role, not character development.

The character development so far has mostly been what she is not, i.e. not somebody with important parents, not tempted to join Kylo.

Compare with Luke or Kylo. In their case, it's extremely easy to talk about their identity without resorting to powers or plot points.

So it's not that family drama is necessary, strictly speaking, it's that something other than powers and plot points is necessary.

I think the best one can say in Rey's case is that her story is set up to finally begin in the 3rd movie.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Fans complained for a long time about the SW world being to conveniently small with connections between characters.


Now... They complain that this story did the opposite.


Those fans can again, complain about how that is not the case but it is essentially what the criticism in this case is coming down to.

 

[TheVileOne]

People have told me that Rey has to be related to someone important to explain all her powers. And to that I say, why? Why does she need to be a Skywalker to explain how strong she is in the Force? Why does she have to be some reincarnation of the chosen one? It's silly.

 

[godisawesome]

Hey, for the record, some of those fans didn't mind the earlier connections. I personally liked the "Anakin builds C-3PO" thing, though that was partially because of that one short story in Star Wars Tales where Vader keeps being shown C-3PO's parts and ends up allowing Chewie to repair them.

I alos personally feel Rey seems underdeveloped for this movie, but that's probably mostly just put of an annoyance at Rey having God mode powers without being a Skywalker (feels like a lose-lose situation if she isn't shown earning her status yet is Kylo's equal) and only 18 hours of training thanks to the really dumb military plot focused on in the podcast in my signature.

 

[Flemm]

Those fans can again, complain about how that is not the case but it is essentially what the criticism in this case is coming down to.

Neither "parents being special," nor "parents not being special" is the root of the issue.

It's that there has to be some actual substance, one way or another.

Star Wars has normally done that through family drama, but it is still doing that.

To the extent that there is an alternative, we don't see it in this movie, other than with supporting characters, which has always been the case.

The movie needs telepathy partially for that reason (big universe/intimate connections between characters).

People have told me that Rey has to be related to someone important to explain all her powers. And to that I say, why? Why does she need to be a Skywalker to explain how strong she is in the Force? Why does she have to be some reincarnation of the chosen one? It's silly.

Is the Force granting her powers to balance Kylo (who is a Skywalker) any less silly?

It's distinction without difference.

 

[VTGuy]

People have told me that Rey has to be related to someone important to explain all her powers. And to that I say, why? Why does she need to be a Skywalker to explain how strong she is in the Force? Why does she have to be some reincarnation of the chosen one? It's silly.

Exactly.
Who was Yoda related to in order to get his powers?
Obi-Wan?
Qui-Gon?
Emperor Palpatine?

There is a long list of strong force users. Did they all come from a long blood line of people strong in the force?

Anakin was the direct offspring of the force brought into ultimately balance the force through the destruction of the Emperor.

Luke remained but Snoke coming into existence (wherever he came from...) provided the balance.

With Kylo becoming powerful his force balancing counterpart had to come from somewhere. Even though she isn't of a "royal" bloodline, she is a product of the force balance.

You would think the force would have figured out how to balance itself by this point without so much drama.

 

[TheVileOne]

]
Is the Force granting her powers to balance Kylo (who is a Skywalker) any less silly?

It's distinction without difference.

It's a lot less silly then her being some Force created reincarnation of the original Light Side Force user. OR her being Han Solo and Leia's daughter and Luke mind-wiped her existence from their memories.

It's less silly than Anakin being a virgin birth, midichlorians, the Jedi using the clone army, and many bad ideas that emerged in the prequels.

So my answer to your question is unequivocally yes.

Who are Ezra and Kanan Jarrus? Why are they so strong in the Force and such natural Jedi? Able to contact Master Yoda across space. Unlock secret Holocrons and activate a Sith battle station. They discovered Malachor. Ezra was the son of Empire dissidents on Lothal. His parents weren't Jedi or Force users. His parents were brave and tried to help people and stood against the Empire, but they weren't Force users or ultra badass Jedi.

Why does there have to be a reason for a character to be strong in the Force? Why can't they just be strong in the Force?

 

[Flemm]

So my answer to your question is unequivocally yes.

I wasn't comparing it to any of that stuff, though, but more simply:

1) Rey getting her powers due to her parents.

2) Rey getting her powers to balance out Kylo, whose powers are due to his parents.

If anything, #2 is the sillier one.

The simpler and perhaps better thing, would simply be that Rey happens to have powers.

It wouldn't surprise me if the 3rd movie retcons away from this movie in that area. (Snoke could simply be wrong.)

Why does there have to be a reason for a character to be strong in the Force? Why can't they just be strong in the Force?

You'd have to ask Johnson. I guess he wanted to emphasize the connection between Kylo and Rey for the purpose of this movie, but I don't think it's a good choice moving forward.

 

[TheVileOne]

I wasn't comparing it to any of that stuff, though, but more simply:

1) Rey getting her powers due to her parents.

2) Rey getting her powers to balance out Kylo, whose powers are due to his parents.

If anything, #2 is the sillier one.

How is it sillier? If she got her parents because she's Han Solo and Leia's daughter, how do you rectify her being their daughter? They had a daughter on Jakku that they never knew about? That's silly and makes no sense. If she was Luke's daughter, why was she left on Jakku?

All the answers to Rey being a Skywalker were infinitely sillier.

I'm not sure why No. 2 is silly at all. The Force is a mystical energy field is it not? There's a light and dark side. We know there were many Force users who were very powerful who probably had parents who weren't Force users.

 

[The Big G]

I'm fine with nobody Rey. It gives her own legacy, not a footnote in the Skywalker legacy...

though by the end of it she has made herself apart of their legacy...possibly in more ways than one..

Spoiler

I lowkey ship reylo...i'm sorry

 

[Flemm]

All the answers to Rey being a Skywalker were infinitely sillier.

I didn't say anything about her being a Skywalker. That may have been a popular fan theory, but that is beside the point.

The point is that the movie doesn't move Rey away from the Skywalkers. It presents Rey as the natural result of there being a darkside Skywalker around.

So it's not separate at all from the usual family drama. It's just another way of linking Rey to that story.

Distinction without difference.

A real distinction would have been either Rey simply having powers, or something else entirely that had nothing to do with the Skywalkers.

 

[hopeless]

I now want a non-force sensitive Solo sibling turn up to kick Ben's backside to demonstrate how badly he sucks!

I run her the Ania Solo theory!

Watching TFA I suspected she was Rey Kenobi then after reading the Phasma novel hoped she's Phasma's niece Frey.

Sadly we have different ideas about what constitutes Rey Random but I still want Kylo's backside kicked!!!

 

[TheVileOne]

I didn't say anything about her being a Skywalker. That may have been a popular fan theory, but that is beside the point.

The point is that the movie doesn't move Rey away from the Skywalkers. It presents Rey as the natural result of there being a darkside Skywalker around.

So it's not separate at all from the usual family drama. It's just another way of linking Rey to that story.

Distinction without difference.

A real distinction would have been either Rey simply having powers, or something else entirely that had nothing to do with the Skywalkers.

Then my answer is still yes, it's still less silly than the other alternative.

 

[Flemm]

Then my answer is still yes, it's still less silly than the other alternative.

Fair enough. But if the idea was to break away from the Skywalker family drama, then this movie doesn't do that.

It may be a lot simpler than what fans came up with, I haven't really followed that at all.

But Force users don't normally have powers because of someone else. Obi Wan doesn't have force powers to balance out some other force user. That would start to get absurd very quickly.

Rey would have to be a special case, because the Skywalkers are special.

So... meh. In terms of developing the character, I think it was a mistake, and it wouldn't surprise me if the next movie did something else.

 

[BatmanVSuperman]

I don't believe we have the final answer on this folks.

 

[Grommers]

Yeah. I get the feeling she's a leia clone. Broken out of captive. Left on jakku by her saviors. Who were good nobodies that were alcoholics. If storm troopers can be a legion of boba fetts why not this.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

 

[godisawesome]

I don't believe we have the final answer on this folks.

It's weird; my brother, sister, uncle, and dad all have the same opinion. But even as a Rey Skywalker fanboy, I'm kind of against it: pulling a late reveal in movie #3, especially in this trilogy and after this movie, would be a bad artistic choice for th trilogy and would negatively impact either TLJ or IX.

Rey's story in TLJ comes largely in two halves: investigating what happened between Ben and Luke, and her fixation on her parents, which is explicitly presented and marked as a flaw. That's part of the reason there's still some criticism of her training time and her interactions with Kylo Ren; the former is underdeveloped in comparison to her power while the latter may be ignoring a more natural approach to him from last film.

If you make her sequences dealing with her parents in TLJ a red herring, in terms of plot, not characterization, mind you, then it's going to feel like a lot of wasted time that could have been spent elsewhere. Particularly if it is something like Rey Solo or Rey Skywalker, since both of those were heavy favorites and kind of predictable, and would suffer from diminishing returns from being postponed so often. It also risks putting too much pressure in IX to try and justify the wait and investment of the moment.

 

[BatLobster]

I will say this...Lucasfilm definitely trolled the fans with that 2nd TFA teaser. Luke's "The Force runs strong in my family..." VO.

I mean you can hardly blame fans for expecting her to be related to SOMEONE. Maybe the point all along has been to subvert that expectation, but Lucasfilm certainly has leaned into it a bit. Even just the fact that Rey grew up on a desert planet. I mean, they're begging you to draw parallels.

That may be my one main criticism if she truly turns out to be no one. It shouldn't have been another desert planet. Making it "not-Tatooine" is cute, but it would've robbed us of a chance for a new, unique planet for the purpose of setting up a red herring Skywalker/Kenobi parallel.

 

[Lobo]

Fans complained for a long time about the SW world being to conveniently small with connections between characters.


Now... They complain that this story did the opposite.


Those fans can again, complain about how that is not the case but it is essentially what the criticism in this case is coming down to.

Nailed it.

I was a Rey Skywalker fanboy, but I like that she is Rey Random. Though, I still think we will learn a bit more about her parents in the next movie whoever they were.

 

[Flemm]

Well, there could have been a parallel with Luke without Rey being related to Luke.

I would prefer simply that Rey have her own story, that maybe echoes Luke's story in certain ways, but not because she is Luke's daughter (or whatever).

My issue is more that the two movies haven't really done either. It has just been a false mystery, with really nothing of substance outside of that. As someone mentioned earlier, even Rey's reaction to the non-revelation is barely given any attention.

She looks a little upset, then nothing. After that, everything is back to being a function in the plot, and the movie even needs to create the false problem of rocks blocking the resistance's escape in order to give her something to do at the end of the movie.

That's not effective character development.

 

[X Knight]

I will say this...Lucasfilm definitely trolled the fans with that 2nd TFA teaser. Luke's "The Force runs strong in my family..." VO.

I mean you can hardly blame fans for expecting her to be related to SOMEONE. Maybe the point all along has been to subvert that expectation, but Lucasfilm certainly has leaned into it a bit. Even just the fact that Rey grew up on a desert planet. I mean, they're begging you to draw parallels.

That may be my one main criticism if she truly turns out to be no one. It shouldn't have been another desert planet. Making it "not-Tatooine" is cute, but it would've robbed us of a chance for a new, unique planet for the purpose of setting up a red herring Skywalker/Kenobi parallel.

exactly.

I have no problem with Rey being some random nobody. but if that's the case, that's how she should have been introduced. no need for the mystery and teases.

and no need for the obvious parallels and similarities.

Why couldn't Rey be some street-wise orphan, who grew up and survived in the slums of some new city location using her wits and perhaps something else ( Force ).

Why did she have to grow up on a desert planet ( like Anakin and Luke ) and also happen to be a gifted pilot and mechanic ( like Anakin and Luke ).

Why not give her different talents?

if she's some nobody outsider who's drawn into this conflict by the Force ( to balance out Kylo ), then fine. present the character that way.

but don't drop hints and clues and teases and parallels that can lead the audience to conclude she's related to key SW figures.

 

[Flemm]

It's partially that the movie is very focused on the "meta," rather than on the character.

The idea that Rey's parents might be well-known Star Wars figures is a meta question, and this movie decides to dissipate that by revealing (apparently) that her parents are nobody special.

But that is the "meta" aspect, which I don't really care about.

Imagine that you are someone who has really had to struggle in life, mostly on your own, and you are wondering why that is, and what brought you to that place.

If someone tells you, essentially, that your parents are not famous people, does that matter to you? Does that dissipate all the questions in your mind?

Of course not. Because you are not expecting your parents to be famous or important, necessarily. People are not interested in their parents or their origins, or any of that, because they expect to find out that they have famous parents.

So, the problem is that the meta has been too much of a focus. The movie cares more about under-cutting fan expectations than actually developing the character.

That is another way of looking at it.

 

[egg]

i wouldn't be surprised if they plan on a reveal through luke in spirit form towards who her parents are. assuming mark doesn't force them to change his character name to jake!

 

[Bruce Malone]

If it was just Kylo telling her who were parents were it could come off as him telling a lie but the way it came out was more him forcing it out of her and it was more her acknowledging she knew her parents weren't really anybody.

To undo that would totally undo that whole scenes purpose.