SPECULATION The Official Rey's Parents in Ep. IX Thread

I do agree with this. TFA was explicit enough for me.

So I don't understand we spent 2 hours on this subject.

I would have rather know more about Kylo, Han and Leia problems and why Kylo hated so much his father.

 

Kylo didn't hate his father...
Rey: Why did you hate your father? Give me a honest answer. You had a father who loved you; he gave a damn about you!
Ren: I didn't hate him.

Kylo just felt abandoned by everyone.

 

So I would like to see what he was able to do if he hated him !

 

That's a bingo.
The information is just withheld from the viewers because MYSTERY! And so Rian worked it into Rey's actual arc, whether or not it works for you is up to you....

Which is largely, IMO, the fault of The Force Awakens lack of structured narrative and essentially all loose ends with only Han having a clear defined story in TFA and everyone else just leaving mystery box after mystery box. Now I know these were designed as a trilogy so the stories don't need clear concise answers for all of them but there had to be some direction or narrative flow to where the story should go or follow. It's why people don't always see what the ST is "about" because TFA makes no declaration of this. It just is. TLJ offers a narrative through line of importance isn't about your last name but the choices you make. It's about the autonomy in Star Wars. Are people only destined because of an inherited name or are they destined because of their choices...I have a lot more to say on this but that's a whole different thread lol. Every character turn in TLJ is about an independent choice. Rey CHOOSES to follow the light when given every chance to go dark. Finn is given every chance to run or betray...but he CHOOSES to be a rebel. Poe finally CHOOSES to not fight in the third act, which is a bit of brilliance by Rian to actually make Poe a character not a Top Gun extra.
The narrative of TFA is "mystery!"
You could have easily made TLJ about a million different things which is the point of TFA in the first place. It was designed to invigorate a fanbase that was bitter and salty from the PT. It wasn't trying to set up great arcs or narratives. It was trying to make everyone feel warm and fuzzy inside and love Star Wars again. It doesn't hurt that if you shove 10000000 mystery boxes in it, people won't stop talking about it for 2 years and essentially build a small countries economy in YouTube videos lol.

 

There is an interesting dichotomy between Rey ad Kylo. Rey was actually was abandoned by her parents. Kylo perceives that he was abandoned by his. Rey has every reason to be bitter and mad but isn’t. Kylo has less reason but is.

 

It's like Captain America. Do we really have any backstory about his parents? (without getting too sweaty into comic book history, I'm really not sure if we ever see the Rogers family, ever). And we don't need to have any. (And no, we don't need a superpower-justification either, Steve gets lucky and runs into Erskine. Rey fights to survive for a decade as a young woman on a desolate planet, also....Force).

 

Force = Super Solider Serum
Erskine = the will of the force

 

2 hours is a bit of an exaggeration though, yeah? Rey’s little familial interludes don’t take up all that much of the overall runtime. She goes spelunking, has a fireside chat, and then an awkward face-to-face. “Your parents were a**holes.” “Nuh uh.” “Yeah huh.” “ . . . OK.”

It ultimately amounts to what Maz already told her in TFA, but it’s turned on its head by coming from Kylo. “The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead” isn’t far and away different than “Let the past die.” He’s offering her that belonging she was after in TFA. That only works as a dilemma for Rey if that angle gets played up beforehand. A bit of a retread, but it was supposed to be a pivotal moment for the character.

I would have liked more detail on how Snoke had turned kid Ben’s heart. Maybe EPIX, maybe not.

I imagine that was by design. They’re set up as foils for one another. The nobody girl with nothing from nowhere who chooses light when all she’s known is dark and the somebody boy with everything from somewhere who chooses dark when all he’s known is light.

 

Exactly which is why the possibility of retconning Rey’s lineage to make her related to somebody important is a bad idea in my opinion.

 

I think that's being saved for a novel. IMO it is a better format for this story since it's a prequel of sorts and doesn't inherently involve anyone but Snoke and Ren.

 

I actually agree with this very much. In fact, when I saw TLJ for the first time, Rey saying “nobodies” felt quite odd. I was like: “did Rey actually think her parents were “somebody”? Where did she get that from?” There was nothing in the films that would give her a reason to think so... It was another of those subliminal messages to the fans I so much disliked in TLJ (and I like the film quite a lot).

--- Double Post Merged, Oct 2, 2018, Original Post Date: Oct 2, 2018 ---

My explanation for that “WHAT GIRL??” was so much simpler... I actually thought that Kylo Ren, youngish, arrogant and petulant, who feels superior (not only in rank and strength but also in maleness), cannot handle the idea of a young female fooling his men. I thought he just got angry at them for being “so stupid” making the poor officer pay for it. Sexist Kylo

 

Well, we know she was fostering a fantasy version of her parents anyway - one where they weren’t selfish cretins and actually cared. So, the premise is there for her imagining they were also somehow important people (or at least marginally better than Plutt), but that was never established. Like it was something in an earlier version of the script that got scrapped but the reference to it stayed in. Not a big deal, just another head scratchy moment for me.

From an overall perspective, my interpretation of that scene wasn’t to take it completely literal. The way I saw it, Kylo only knew what Rey knew. But Rey wouldn’t necessarily know all the specifics. She’d certainly know she was sold to Plutt. But I imagine she only suspected the rest. It was her deepest darkest fear and so Kylo was using that against her. It was the thought in the back of her mind that she would never give voice to, would never entertain, but Kylo hit her in the face with it in a bid to break her down. From that point of view, there could be more to the story . . . but I hope not. I like her parents being creeps that she has to grow beyond. Fits pretty well.

I like that. I mean, not the sexism, but the viewpoint Adds a bit more weight to “Bested by a girl who had never held a lightsaber!” - Ew, I’m gonna beat up so many elevators now!!

 

What? She's definitely not a nobody. That would kill the story and all loyal star wars fan. The fanbase would walk away and never watch another star wars. We love the family not the movie. That would be like replacing the royal family with just anyone off the street and thinking people would care who they were. She has to have skywalker blood.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 2, 2019, Original Post Date: Jan 2, 2019 ---

Yes kylo said she was a nobody bc obviously shes a pretty big someone. Duh. Evil men do this trick to woman all the time. How dumb can people be? Hes afraid of her thats why he wants to make her think she's noone. And when that woman asked han who she was did you see hans face... She has skywalker blood. She went to the dark side in the slime like her grandfather. But she will overcome.

 

This is why I have lost so much good-will in Star Wars debate. People are either intentionally lying about how this scene plays out to try and make their point (trolling) or just saw it once and don't actually know what they are talking about.

 

Everybody seems to ignore this simple fact.

 

it's truly bizarre

 

I agree 100%, simply because she wasn't speaking 'truth' when she said her parents were nobody. She was speaking her biggest fear at that moment.

Kylo just played on that vulnerability at that point in order to coerce her into joining him for a dark galactic rule.

From Rian Johnson:

''What's the next thing they can be challenged with?...
Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Luke (Mark Hamill) have a big journey, and you could argue make the argument that hers is the through-line of the film''

Also, I realized that for 2 whole movies, they make the audience question who this anonymous character is.

Never been done in any other SW Skywalker saga films before.

 

This whole 9 part trilogy has always been about Skywalker's fight over good vs evil, and it always involved the Skywalkers.

PT: Anakin Skywalker's fight of good vs evil was he against himself.

OT: Luke vs Anakin/Vader, Skywalker vs Skywalker

ST: Ben Solo/Kylo Ren, Skywalker blood vs Rey Sky..lol -nobody

 

Maz may have meant Kylo and not Luke. That is first time I considered Kylo as her brother or cousin.