Star Wars Discussion Thread contains spoilers (and may contain nuts)

[celedhring]

Learning one's origin has been a staple of the hero's journey that has been used already to great effect in the saga ("I am your father"), so I expect they are going to play that card in a significant way on Rey's regard.

[jimmy olsen]

I don't see it as a reboot of ANH, like some of you do.

It is what it is. 

Rey never met Lars and Han didn't help her to escape from Jakku! 

[Razgovory]

You guys are doing a lot of nitpicking.  I thought it was a great movie.

[Syt]

Crazy theory: Luke had a passionate love affair (with a student?), but it fell apart and she left him. Luke is devastated, which causes him to mess up Kylo Ren's training  (or just abandoning it, so that his students seek a new master - it would also explain Kylo's Vader obsession, he sees Luke as weak and Vader as strong). Luke's lover was pregnant and for some reason she dumped her kid on Jakku. Now that Rey found Luke he has to overcome his demons all the while reminded of his failure by Rey's existence. The whole Jedi celibacy thing will then be an issue again between Rey and ... Finn, maybe?

[Barrister]

You guys are doing a lot of nitpicking.  I thought it was a great movie.

It's what fans do. 

It doesn't mean I didn't like the movie.

[Malthus]

your questions will be answered in the next two movies, but the reasons could be multiple.
Anyway, who could be her parents? The only family in the galaxy in which the Force is this strong is the descendants of Anakin; Luke is a jedi, and jedis are chaste as monks; eiher he broke the jedi code with a yet unknown woman to father Rey, or Rey's mother is Leia.
The script, then, strongly suggests some kind of link between Han and Rey: they finish each other's sentences, they have the same knack for mechanics, Chewie likes her from the beginning;
IMO, it's very plausible she's Han's daughter.

L.

And indeed - I was kind of expecting Rey to be revealed as Rylo Ken's sister as I was watching the movie.

But since all of the people who might have identified her as such (Han, Leia, Rylo Ken) failed to do so, for her to subsequently be identified as Ken's sister would seem like a cheap head fake.  Plus while I have no problem with the story of Star Wars generally being that of the Skywalker clan, not every single major character needs to be related.

My favourite bit of internet speculation is that Rey was a one-time youngling student of Luke's, but after whatever happened to drive Ken bad and Luke to go into exile, Rey was abandoned on Jakku.  So that gives her a connection, gives her some explanation on how she implicitly understands the force without being trained in it, but not being a blood relation.

Heh, they spend half the movie inserting clues that she's Han and Leia's daughter, and the other half inserting clues that she's Luke's daughter.

Why not split the difference? Rey is Luke and Leia's daughter. 

Theory: that what really caused Luke to flee in shame to the other end of the galaxy was that one drunken night they gave in to incestuous passion ...



That explains why Han left, why Leia abandoned the child, why Luke fled, why Leia didn't follow him, and why Leia pretends not to know who Rey is. 

Only problem: it's a Disney franchise. Oh well, I expect this theory to figure in the darker corners of fan-fictiondom. 

My actual theory: that she's somehow related to this new evil leader Snoke. That would be typical for this franchise - the new hero discovers to their horror that they are the offspring of the existing big bad. 

[Berkut]

Nah, Snoke I suspect is a throw away villain.

[celedhring]

Nah, Snoke I suspect is a throw away villain.

Too much buildup and mystery for that, I believe.

[lustindarkness]

Jar Jar = Snoke = Rey's father.

[Malthus]

Jar Jar = Snoke = Rey's father.

Dammit, great minds think alike (see other thread). 

[viper37]

Lots of things are silly, but nonetheless, it works admirably well.

[Malthus]

My overall take: people in the Star Wars universe would be better off lynching all users/believers in the Force on sight.  The Force always seems to seek "balance", meaning a continually war (involving the destruction of whole planets no less) between the "light" and the dark", and people keep switching sides - moreover, ability to use the Force is evidently partly genetic, or at least, runs in families. The whole fight is very much a family business among a few families that the rest of the universe gets caught up in - if they just killed off Force-users, good or bad doesn't matter - then there could be some sort of peace. 

[celedhring]

My overall take: people in the Star Wars universe would be better off lynching all users/believers in the Force on sight.  The Force always seems to seek "balance", meaning a continually war (involving the destruction of whole planets no less) between the "light" and the dark", and people keep switching sides - moreover, ability to use the Force is evidently partly genetic, or at least, runs in families. The whole fight is very much a family business among a few families that the rest of the universe gets caught up in - if they just killed off Force-users, good or bad doesn't matter - then there could be some sort of peace. 

And that's why Kreia was right in Kotor 2 

[Berkut]

My overall take: people in the Star Wars universe would be better off lynching all users/believers in the Force on sight.  The Force always seems to seek "balance", meaning a continually war (involving the destruction of whole planets no less) between the "light" and the dark", and people keep switching sides - moreover, ability to use the Force is evidently partly genetic, or at least, runs in families. The whole fight is very much a family business among a few families that the rest of the universe gets caught up in - if they just killed off Force-users, good or bad doesn't matter - then there could be some sort of peace. 

I think you are right - this is something that Lucas created in his mish-mash of mythology that has no real sane consistency.

Even the "bad" guys would be better off without these fucking Sith getting in the way of everything all the time.

The Jedi consistently are shown to fail at almost everything they do in the long run. They go somewhere, kick ass, and then inevitably things are no better off than before they came along, and often vastly worse.

"The Force" in the SW universe is not at all a net positive.

[Barrister]

My overall take: people in the Star Wars universe would be better off lynching all users/believers in the Force on sight.  The Force always seems to seek "balance", meaning a continually war (involving the destruction of whole planets no less) between the "light" and the dark", and people keep switching sides - moreover, ability to use the Force is evidently partly genetic, or at least, runs in families. The whole fight is very much a family business among a few families that the rest of the universe gets caught up in - if they just killed off Force-users, good or bad doesn't matter - then there could be some sort of peace. 

I dunno - the prequels start out with the universe being at peace under the benevolent guidance of the Jedi.  It is only once the Jedi are killed off that the evil galactic empire forms.