SPECULATION Do Rey's Parents Matter?

The force doesn't care about lineage. The lightsaber "thought" Rey is worthy. It's a reference to Excalibur => Everyone can be a hero.

I agree with that. JJ and Rian are hurting some of their decisions with unnecessary mystery boxes.

It's more devasting for Rey to have dead parents. She waited all life long for her parents and then they are dead. Furthermore it rhymes nicely with Kylo trying to kill his parents.

Kylo Ren is the inofficial main character of this trilogy. The ST is mainly about his redemption. And yes, you could easily remove Poe, Finn and Rose. But the same goes for Han, Leia and Lando in the OT. Just saying. But you can't remove Rey (even though Rian almost did xD). She is essential for Kylo's fate.

The movie actually says the past is important.

I agree with that. Luke and Rey should have developed a bond for each other. Father and daughter like.

As @DailyPlunge already mentioned that's no plot hole. Rey is experienced with her staff and can handle herself quite well with that weapon in TFA.

 

"The greatest teacher, failure is."

 

There are tons of plot holes in that movie, as with most movies.

It is literally explained that Rey learned to do all those fancy Jedi moves in the novelization that she downloaded it from the Skype connection with Kylo Ren. I am not joking.

--- Double Post Merged, May 13, 2018, Original Post Date: May 13, 2018 ---

Don’t have a lightsaber that was lost randomly call to her. Have a different lightsaber. Those are the things, little things, that help you do your own thing in a new trilogy.

Being able to whack people with a staff doesn’t explain how she can do all those athletic Jedi moves. Lebron James didn’t just suddenly have his skills, he trained for it. Me being able to swing a hammer doesn’t suddenly make me a expert swordsman.


Having Kylo Ren explain Rey who her parents are is just an attempt to try copy the Vader twist only it’s less inspired. Having Luke help Rey through her trauma with her parents, that’s much more dramatically satisfying.

I don’t care about who her parents are . I am saying the execution is very weak. Since when do drunk Junk dealers leave on a a spaceship? That shot in those force visions feels misleading and out of place.


The past isn’t important until it is. For all that talk about subverting expectations it doesn’t come to anything dramatically satisfying. by the end of the film, we have a copy of a Hoth climax and we’re now back to the Empire vs Rebels conflict.

 

why do people get hung up on this?
in real life junkies/alcoholics don't own cars and prize them over human capital?

is the news not full enough of horror stories of parents who neglect and abuse and traffic their children while carrying on with luxuries for themselves?

 

I see that nothing has changed over the last few months. At this point in the game, no matter where you stand on Rey’s parentage, there is no benefit to the story in IX to rehash or try to further explain her parentage. We are moving into the final chapter of the trilogy and JJ has to bring this thing to a conclusion. He has just over 2 hours to do so. Using precious minutes to delve back into this topic will only take important time away from advancing the story forward and giving us a good conclusion.

 

Ok, no every movie of this kind asks you to take a leap of logic. We only talk about plot holes when the major things in a movie are not working.

The Resistance can’t go to light speed so they are stuck in a slow motion space chase by the Empire. The Empire could have easily cut them off with one of their own destroyers.

Poe pulls a mutiny on Admiral Holdo but gets a slap on the wrist for it. Remember Holdo didn’t trust Poe but now she likes him all of the sudden? If someone undermines my authority by trying to pull a mutiny, I’m not gonna let them get away with that. That’s just common sense.

Finn and Rose feel that freeing those animals was the real victory, even though they’re going to catch those animals and hurt them even more for escaping. They inspired the kids at the end but to what end? THey’re still slaves and still in captivity.


Being able to use a staff doesn’t make you an expert swordsman. the best athletes require training and development before they become truly great. We’ve seen none of that in Rey. She’s just a catalyst for shirtless Ben Solo.


I am getting hung up on that lightsaber calling to Rey because what are those force visions related to Luke have to do with her? She doesn’t even bond or develop a mentor student relationship with Luke. If the intention was to make her unrelated to anyone, have her find a random and different Jedi lightsaber on the planet.

 

Alright, whatever, you don’t see them as plot holes, I see them as plot holes and we’ll just agree to disagree. Also please don’t insult me saying I don’t know what a plot hole is. I haven not once insulted you. I am not judging you for your opinion I am just offering my take on why people have issues with this “reveal” of Rey’s parents.

Rey spends the time asking Luke to train her and he keeps saying “no the jedi are bad” to the point she just says fine I’m going. He spends the entire time trying to scare her off the island. Now because he’s been re-enlightened, I am supposed to believe that he appoints Rey as his successor even though they never developed that bond? Imagine Obi-wan telling Luke bugger off throughout A New Hope but Luke suddenly starts grieving for him when he dies.

I never said force calling someone is only related to DNA. But from a storytelling perspective, when you have vague hints about Rey and her family, whom we know nothing about in Part VII of a 9 part saga, then conveniently a lightsaber that’s been lost for ages that once belonged to a mythic legend calls, there is plenty of reason to interpret it that way.

Maz telling Rey “you already know the truth” doesn’t mean Rey’s parents were nobody because we don’t know specifically who left her on Jakku. Waiting for family could mean anything, was it her Uncle, brother, sister that left her there? That’s why this whole Rey’s parents has been so controversial.

Ob-Wan didn’t tell Luke because he wasn’t ready to hear it. Luke also calls Obi-Wan out on it. People will point out that the Vader twist wasn’t a done deal but the difference between the OT is that while not everything was planned out, each film built off of what came before. Vader’s revelation the he is Luke’s dad leads into Luke stepping out of his father’s shadow while also redeeming and making peace with his father.

I am not critiquing the “ what” but “how” it’s achieved. Many people like myself found the execution to be weak.

 

Plot holes have a clear definition. I already told you what I found were plot holes. I am not the only person who has these issues with the movie. Plot holes illustrate inconsistency in a movie’s narrative ora logic gap. You can find plot holes in any movie. LOTR has plot holes but its a great trilogy because the major things work such as the characterization that you ignore the logic of why the eagles came last minute.

https://medium.com/@donnamdickens/star-wars-the-last-jedi-fails-rey-on-every-level-ad67be95b18f

https://nerdist.com/star-wars-the-last-jedi-failed-poe-dameron-holdo/

https://www.themarysue.com/the-inclusive-illusion-of-star-wars-the-last-jedi/

Luke gives two lessons. The second lesson is essentially a reiteration of the fist lesson. He just keeps telling her how bad the Jedi are and then she keeps insisting that she won’t fail him as a student. Their relationship doesn’t go any further and then she leaves him to save Kylo Ren, because for some reason he is the only hope.

It takes them a novel to explain that Rey learned to use the saber through force download. It had nothing to do with using a staff. To me that’s just lazy writing.

 

I think it is clear at this stage why Rey is so much more talented than Luke with the lightsaber: she is stronger than Luke. Luke is a wimpy farmboy boy, an “antie’s” boy who just wanted to hang out in “Tosh’s”. He did not have to fight every day of his life for survival, or climb precipices to earn a dehydrated piece of bread... I think it’s painfully obvious that Rey is miles ahead physically... Luke is a good small aircraft pilot, which usually means higher fat to muscle ratio... makes sense
TLJ actually showed us how Rey transitions from a weapon to another. Surely the skill required for the staff is not too different from that needed for the saber... and Rey is supposed to be a good fighter and a good learner... Sorry, but all this “Rey should not be so skilled in light saber fighting” argument is very weak. The girl is a survivor.

Also her parentage does not seem to be force-important... but hey, that does not mean her parents will not be important for different reasons... JJ may surprise us with something wholly unexpected, who knows.

 

Her parents should matter because of how important she is to the over all story. IXX is apparently supposed wrap everything up and all as well. While her ultimate concern should be her journey in her life as her character, Star Wars ultimately feels like more of a family oriented saga in terms of the character and to say her parents were some drunk idiots on some backwater planet is not fair to her.

 

This has been said again and again in these threads, so sorry for repeating myself: ancestry is not the same as family.

 

it's not necessarily but her importance, in my opinion, should dictate that her family should be related to the skywalkers in both family and ancestry

 

Alright this is my last post in this thread and then I am out.


There was a good time gap between A New Hope and Empire. If there was a large time gap between the stories of TFA and TLJ then you’d have an argument. This is supposed to take place a day after Force Awakens.

It was made clear that Luke had been in contact with Ghost Kenobi before. Besides, there was was enough time between the two films to imply that Luke had been learning to use the force even more.

We see Luke sword training in a new hope on the Falcon. Even though it is a brief moment, it’s safe to assume that he’s spent some time practicing in the couple of years between the events of Yavin and Hoth.

He’s navigating a computer because he’s a pilot and tech savvy which was established through his time on the farm before he left Tatooine.

Luke learns even more about the force and the jedi in Dagobah.

He went one on one with Vader at cloud city and got his butt handed to him.

Having a tough life on Jakku doesn’t mean you become an olympic athlete with the snap of your fingers. Being a survivor is one thing but being able to do all those advanced lightsaber moves without any training? Randy Johnson didn’t just become a great pitcher instantly. He worked at it, developed his mechanics. A good athlete needs coaching.

Now we have to read a book that gives weak flimsy exposition about why she can do these things. She downloaded someone else’s training and just became good at it?

Plagueis out.

 

Do you mean that, because she is an important character, she should be a Skywalker in the way Luke was?

Maybe she’s a Skywalker, but I don’t think she needs to be one to legitimise her as a bona fide SW force user protagonist. Kylo, the antagonist, is the Skywalker of this trilogy and he’s the one bearing the weight and angst of this family connection. This approach is much more interesting IMO than having Rey discovering she’s Luke’s or Leia’s daughter. The attraction between Kylo and Rey as young people is much more engaging than all those contrived family ties.

 

I don’t see what’s so special about fighting with a lightsaber... isn’t it just a kind of sizzling sword really? Finn was able to hold his own quite well using it, and he didn’t have those amazing reflexes force user seem to have... why is it so hard to accept Rey is just good at saber fighting? I think the novel was just unnecessarily trying to please all those fans that think Jedi fighting is such a super complex thing... for me, sorry, Rey is just pure agression. Any fighting skill would be second nature to her... and much more with her “row strength”, Luke had “only seen once before, in Ben Solo.” It just adds up.