JJ Abrams to write and direct Episode IX

"Nobody" isn't an answer to "Who are your parents?" It's a non-answer. Parents have names, faces and personalities. She never says, "I'm an orphan." She basically just calls them her "family." She doesn't ever answer the question in any detail. Why not say, "I don't really remember them." We've seen her memory of being left on the planet, the implication that her parents left her behind, LEAVING THE PLANET, and have never returned. But Kylo says they're buried on Jakku.

Until the very end of Empire everyone thought Vader had killed Luke's father.

It's a stretch to say it's settled. If anything, it's been left vague for the a big "twist" in the third installment.

 

It is when the world has put insane value on last names and lineage. They were nobodies in a world where being a Skywalker is super duper important. You make a great point that she never says she doesn't remember them. She obviously would. She's like 10. She would remember if LUKE Maclunkey SKYWALKER was her dad. So when she says they were nobodies....wouldn't that hold MORE weight not less?

So by this logic, once you leave the planet you can never return? Couldn't they have just flown to a different part of Jakku?

It's a stretch to say that Kylo told her. (He didn't)
It's a stretch to resort to saying "Nobody" isn't an answer when ignoring the context around Rey as a character in dire need of belonging and a greater purpose and her being nobody but ultimately finding a new family who wants and loves her as opposed to one left her behind and finds her greater purpose despite not being a Skywalker....

 

Near the end of the movie...

Force ghost Anakin smiles at Rey (while fading away): "You say you come from nothing? I had no Father and my Mother was a slave. You're as much of a Skywalker as I am."

 

Yes, exactly, like Anakin was any different. Anakin was the lucky one of the two because at least he had a caring mother when we met him. Rey on the other hand didn't seem to have as much luck, or at least after being left alone. It seems both had more or less the same age when they were separated from their family.

They were both slaves, with a very hard upbringing environment. However, the force was strong in them. Very strong. We see Rey taking care of herself alone. All she required was a staff because she was witty and resourceful. She could take care of herself.

So, Rey's "family" were probably Jakku natives that had her and took care of her, for as while, but due to the hardships of living in that desert they left her or were killed. We do not know.

So, her biological parents may have been "nobodies" and Kylo could be telling the truth. However, Rey discovered she was special, but their parents had nothing special about them. It's a search for meaning and belonging. Rey will probably discover in IX that she, like Anakin, was influenced by the force and probably were "programmed by birth" to obey their father, Darth Sidious. As @r70 said in another thread, she, like Anakin, will probably face a test, but this time she will not give in to Palpatine even if she loses something dear to her, including her life.

So, if this is to be the case, and Rey is a Skywalker like Anakin because she, like him, were both offspring of the Force with Darth Sidius influence, this would make Rey family to all the Skywalkers (Anakin, Luke, Leia, Ben), in the loose sense of the word.

"We will always be with you" - Luke (tRoS teaser)

 

Ok. She doesn't know who her parents are??? I'm NOT saying she doesn't remember or know. I'm saying she DOES. And she refuses to say. I don't think she's Luke or Leia's kid. I don't think she's a Skywalker. But that doesn't mean there isn't a twist. KYLO told her that her parents were dead and buried on Jakku. She never says "I know." Or, "yes, I've been lying to myself, my mom was a Schutta and my dad beat our pet." She doesn't SAY ANYTHING about them.

IF there's this huge need to "belong" why was she so ready to leave this "new family" in the first movie? In the second she just wanted to be trained, and she was worried about Finn. Everyone else is telling her to let go of her past, to jump in with them. And she's been fighting it the whole way, she doesn't even meet Poe until the end of TLJ. Han, Finn, Kylo are all like "come with me..." and she says NO every time.

Now, could she be just in HUGE denial and lying to herself and refusing to accept that her shitty drunken parents sold her off and they're dead somewhere? Sure. But does that make sense to anyone?

All of her behaviour has been this longing for HER FAMILY, to just be back with them, not willing to fully let go of it, it's the yin and yang with Kylo, who has/had a family that cared about him and he was willing to "let the past die" and kill it if necessary.

Why wouldn't her story mirror Anakin's in some way as well? She only knew her mother, has no idea who her father is... but she finds out in IX?
We may even finally get her telling of what she remembers about her family... and then even she is surprised by the twist in the end.

None of this is a stretch. If you look to what REY has said, or how little she's said, then you have to look at why so little is known by the viewer. Only REY can tell us, and she hasn't told the story.

 

So am I. So when she says they were nobodies, she means it.

Because she was in denial about her family. And it took Kylo Ren spelling it out for her to realize it. That's what makes it so powerful. All three of our good guys learn their place in the story. Rey learns she doesn't need to be a Skywalker and she has to be the new hope regardless. Finn learns he can't keep running from the First Order and he has to fight them. Poe learns he can't be a cocky flyboy anymore, he has to grow up and be a leader.

Does it make sense that a girl, who is only 19 or so in the movie IIRC, is in deep denial about her abusive situation on Jakku and that it was essentially created by her parents? How does that NOT make sense? It literally happens in the real world. People do it all the time. She panics and runs away whenever confronted with the chance to move on because they HAVE to be coming back. What kind of parents would just abandon their child...

Her story DOES mirror Anakin. He was born to lowbrow status but had a loving mother who did everything she could for him and he was then given every chance to be special and lauded for it. Rey was born to lowbrow status but had no loving parents and is forced to deal with that fact every day. By the time Anakn was Rey's age, he had been called a chosen one for how many years? Rey still gets treated like blast by everyone until she meets Finn. Yet one becomes an entitled brat and the other is selfless.

She literally said they were nobodies. Sure the mystery box king Abrams could make it a twist, though it would be a fairly LAME twist since it's the one everyone has been wanting since day friggin one. Just because she doesn't whip out a family tree doesn't mean she doesn't tell us who they are.
Maz even says they are never coming back in TFA.

 

Nobody. Who is asking her? Kylo. She doesn't say anything more. Everything else is assumed or taken from other people pushing their narrative onto her. She hasn't told her story. It hasn't been told. All we have is the force vision and a few very carefully chosen and vague references from her. There is a lot of wiggle room. She could very well have a scene where she pours her heart out to Leia or Luke or Finn... just letting it all flow out, a great purge of emotions and acceptance, it could be powerful. She could tell us. It would be satisfying if she ends up being a "nobody"... but it is by no means "settled". Until she tells it.

 

J. J. Abrams: "We've gotten a lot of flack for people saying, 'Oh Force Awakens was just a remake of [A] New Hope', and while that was something that obviously was never the intention it was about introducing new characters, using the old and there's a natural sense in any hero's journey of certain tenants that will come to play. We very much wanted to make sure that we were not somehow inadvertently being so influenced by one thing, however the job of [Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker] is to be the end of nine films. So we can't ignore the fact that we come from Episodes I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, and VIII. So it wasn't about saying, 'Let's choose that one and let's do a riff on that,' it was more how do these stories culminate and that was our job."

 

What does she gain from lying to Kylo about her parents? What narrative push is there from this being the case? Where is the necessity in lying to Kylo?

It's settled as much as anything in a fictional story can be. Everything we have, to date, says she is Rey Nobody.
I just don't know what else she has to do, because she literally tells us they are nobody, to tell it.

 

GL has always pointed out how the films rhyme like poetry... I look forward to tROS...

 

She didn't tell US. She told Kylo, and she could lie to him because she still wants to protect whoever they are. So you're making my point for me... she hasn't told the story of what happened to her parents. You want to accept it on face value, which if you know the SW history, that's a bad idea.

Seriously, what if the last thing her parents ever told her was, you can't tell anyone who you're parents are... that she had to promise.

If she told Finn or Chewie, I'd be more inclined to believe the nobody scenario. But she told the guy, that tried to kill her and Finn, they were nobody.

I don't care if she is "somebody" or not. I'm just debating how I see it playing out. You see different motives, you have a "certain point of view", as do I. I won't be mad either way. But I can SEE the vagueness, the misdirects and I know we haven't been told the whole story... and JJ doesn't think we have either.

 

JJ will honor RJ's vision for tROS:

Abrams will honor what happened in The Last Jedi while also pointing out that there's still more to that story:


https://thecantina.starwarsnewsnet....ts-without-contradicting-the-last-jedi.56082/

 

He completely dodges the question about "changing Rey being a nobody". I feel that it could EASILY be changed and it wouldn't contradict RJ's direction in TLJ. All Rey would have to say is... I didn't want Ben to know.

 

My take on this is that, if Rey has other parents apart from the drunk junk traders, she doesn’t know about them and may find out who they are in 9. Rey being a “nobody” suited the story of TLJ as a chapter of the trilogy: a force heroine finding her place in the world away from preconceptions of what a force hero is. However, this does not have to be the story of the ST as a whole, or of the 3 trilogies together. In 8 it is crucial for Rey to learn her own value as a “lineageless” individual and for the audience to consider that force powers can exist in everyone in the SW’s universe (broomkid is an acceptable example), but that doesn’t preclude the mystery of Rey’s origin being part of the grander story, regardless of the her parents lineage of lack of it.

 

I think she could easily come from a "normal" background, unremarkable, but I think there's definitely more to the story that will add to her legend.

 

Abrams has said as much.

 

That could, in theory work if they approach it very carefully. Rey being nobody didn't just fit TLJ it fit TFA as well when you peel back JJ's layered mystery boxes.

It's a good thing there is another character bound to the other trilogies and set to tie those all together through his own lineage while Rey's story seems to be about pushing Star Wars beyond this.....

By this logic, no one tells anyone in a movie anything unless they break the fourth wall. We are the audience. At no point in time in Star Wars are we addressed directly. This is how movie dialogue works. I don't get this point. If you know the SW history, you know things rhyme but are not copies of each other. It would make poetic sense for the "reveal" to be a parallel of the Luke/Vader reveal, not the same thing.

Then why are we shown Rey worry about her parents in the Force Back? Or why is she even remotely concerned about them at all if they told her that? She'd be confident about them. She wouldn't be scared of it. This doesn't work narratively at all. If this ends up being the case then MOST of the drama involving Rey has been useless and done for no reason other than to be a giant red herring. That's weak and lazy story telling if you just at 0 hour say "haha got you! none of it ever mattered! She knew all along! All the private moments that were for just the audience didn't actually mean anything"

She told the one guy who actually engaged her about them. Finn never asked. Maz told her they were never coming back. Luke never asked. Ren is literally the only other character besides Maz who raised them in conversation with her. Ren never tried to kill Rey. That's a huge part of the narrative often left out. He's tried to capture her and convince her to join him but he's never tried to kill her. He likes her. He wants to posses her.

I'm just pointing out the narrative flaws in many of these alternative ideas because people keep getting themselves wrapped in their own theories and ideas and get mad when they don't pan out despite the fact they never made sense for a good story from go.

 

Not necessarily. In TFA Rey being a nobody was never brought up. It was only said that her parents were not coming back and that she had to move forward... Abrams decided to make Rey's origin a mystery and I for the life of me cannot understand why people think he tricked them by doing so... Authors frequently retain information of this kind and then reveal it little by little as their stories progress. In TFA and probably throughout the trilogy, I imagine JJ wanted to leave the question about Rey's origin open in order to give her character the necessary drive to move the story forward. In TLJ RJ uncovered part of the mystery of Rey's origin to serve his own narrative, which was appropriate, but there are many questions about Rey that are indeed still not answered in the manner JJ planted them in TFA. In her memories shown by the force vision Rey is left with Unkar Plutt... There is something about that memory or vision that tells me we still don't know the whole story.

 

He tried to kill her at the end of TFA, there was a whole lightsaber battle. And when I say US I meant she hasn’t told anyone. She responds to Kylo. Nobody. A single word.

 

If we are getting technical Kylo did not try to kill as he had the opportunity as he was leaning her over the edge of the cliff. Instead he tried to convince her to let him train her.

As far as Rey’s parents are concerned, the only way to change who they are is for her to not really know who her real parents are. She would need to discover along with the viewers that who her real parents were