What is Rey doing on . . .

She is most likely just paying respects. We really don't know anything about the state of the galaxy after the war or even Rey's state of mind.

But, for the sake of argument, why would she start a Jedi temple there? As far as I understand, these temples have to be built on places, strong with the force. If Rey was starting a new order, Ahch-to is the first likely place to come to mind.

 

She's most likely paying her respects to the family she chose.

 

Finding a home.

 

She mainly is there to pay respect which I think is really questionable. Luke and Anakin hated this place, all they wanted is to leave this sand planet. Furthermore Leia has no connection to this place at all.

JJ just wanted to have this moment of a character looking into the binary sunset. No matter what. IMO they should have went to Naboo.

 

Just paying respects. After that scene she's going to Canto Bite to celebrate and get DRUUUUUNK, YO!!! .... sorry, was that not the impression ya'll got?

 

To me is symbolic, only.

All the sequence is perfect.

 

I see this as that she went to her home to plant her Skywalker roots. The lightsabers are the seeds of her upbringing. She's been grafted on to the Skywalker family tree.

 

That is all fine and dandy, but why did she bury the two light-sabers there? It seems to me, if she wanted to save them she would put them in a new Jedi Temple? If she wanted to destroy them she would destroy them. But then again, maybe she was thinking they would be making a sequel in ten years and Finn would need to come find them

 

Oh I think that the burying in the sand is setting up for a movie set many, many years in the future when someone comes across these items buried.

 

Or Maz will just end up with them both and we'll never find out how she got them...

 

Hopefully just paying respects. I can't imagine that after being alone on a desert planet and wanting family/friends that she'd choose to live out the rest of her days alone on a desert planet.

 

I think she is paying her respects. She seems to decide upon her name in the moment, when asked.

For all we know, Force Ghost Luke may have asked her to do what she did, earlier in the film on Ahch-To.

“Hey Rey, by the way, if you get the chance, could you see if you can’t bury my lightsaber with Leia’s just outside my old homestead on Tatooine? After you’re done with them anyway. You should really build your own once you feel ready to. It’s kind of a nice tradition. Now, about fixing up my X-Wing... you see that door over there... ?”

I don’t think she’s there to build a Jedi Temple, but I think that’s a very cool idea. “Maybe”!

She is a Skywalker, and so though she has returned to a desert, very much dry land, I think her future lies amongst the stars. The stars she peered out to and heard back from at the most vital time. She is a Skywalker, and we see her walk off towards the setting suns, the stars in the sky. She is a Skywalker, a walker of the sky.

We may get more idea what the ‘official’ intent was in the novelisation in March I suppose.

 

Easy. Setting up another trilogy a not such a long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away...

 

Luke finished his green saber in Tatooine, Rey probably did the same. Just a nod to that. That I think is super cool.

 

I cannot support it but my impression was like she was taking over the Lars homestead at least for the time being.

She may well have left a few minutes later but I got a longer haul vibe like she needed to heal and get out of the mix for a while.

 

I took it as a symbolic gesture. Tying up all things. Plus it gives JJ a reason to end with the twin suns shot.

My bigger question was why only Luke & Leia appeared to her there. Why no Ben? The framing of the shot finds Luke & Leia offset to the left, as if someone had been "erased" in the final edit. Also, if we're mirroring the final triumphant scene in ROTJ, wouldn't the person Rey helped redeem be there to show her he's now one with the force and at peace with with his family?

 

I found this one. Not sure about the framing to the left. It was taken from a movie theatre probably.

 

A yellow light saber ?

I would have gone for white.

The last scene was a seed for another film.