Why doesn't Rey know who her parents are in TLJ?

Exactly 100% and done on purpose

He says worked on this with the story group. I thought there purpose was to make sure all this fit into the current cannon. Hence turning the EU to legends.

No they showed the ship leaving so there would be all this built up about her parents. This was done on purpose.

Now we can have two years speculation of Kylo Ren was lying.

Her parents were nobodies. Fine that is great no problem.

I'm sure they will be a comic or book "Rey's parent on Death sticks"

When did Star Wars become Punked?

 

THIS. Child trauma should not be underestimated at all. It takes a lot of leaps to get past all the hurdles and make peace with it even as an adult. All of us here must have had some childhood memory we all wanted to repress right?? Now imagine if you had a serialized form of that event stretching for a big part of your young life. You would WANT to convince your brain that thing never happened because you would not be emotionally ready to cope with something like that yet.

 

right after i saw TLJ i had a feeling that maybe Ben was lying to Rey and that her parents are yet to be revealed.

the more i digest, however, i have to say: i think he was telling the truth.

the whole story of Luke thinking the Jedi and himself vain, that the light will always be there regardless; the little broom boy at the end full of hope; these support the idea that Rey, despite being a nobody, will be the one to inherit the Jedi mantle.

the whole idea of a nobody becoming a somebody is the very foundation of Star Wars.

 

Okay, I say it is not terrible writing at all. See my response to the Kekstarter below

I will respond with the following. First I will say that from your perspective I can understand where you are coming from. However, let's look at this again...

You feel that the writing in the cave and between Kylo and Rey results in a plothole. I will explain why I do not believe this is true.

- You make a few assumptions in your statements. You assume Rey knows WHO her parents were in the flashback scene. For one I think she is totally too young -- I'll explain why with the following few things to consider.

1. there are no memorabilia for Rey to look at to remember them, so relying on memories (at that age) over that span of time without any reinforcement pictures, video, etc... is a very tall order to even recognize them at this point in her life now.

2. It is easy to wait on parents that left because unlike having vivid memories of WHO they are, it is still clear that they exist to her.

3. Rey problably didn't think they were nobodies because they left Jakku in her vision, but honestly regardless, I think throughout this movies, her biggest concern was that they probable left for some important reason, or left her there for some important reason.

The movie or the books just won't spell everything out for you. You will have to fill in some things with speculation, but there is no plot hole here. Also, it is clear that the mystery of her lineage was for us as well as Rey. She could only have been all of 8/9 at the time they left her. That is a very young age to be left alone, especially WITHOUT any answers.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 18, 2017, Original Post Date: Dec 18, 2017 ---

Just because it doesn't "feel" right, doesn't mean its a plothole. In all truth, that is a great way to set up the audience. kneejerk reaction is to say plothole, but I say think it through a bit more and place yourself in her shoes. The wonderful thing about writing is that it can also involve misdirection and redirection. I think that is happening in this scenario, but we'll find out in ep 9

 

I think the dialogue between Kylo and Rey is incredibly important, and for me it was one of the most emotionally charged scenes. It was a little self aware in that it was addressing the audience and Rey at the same time.

When Kylo tells her she is nobody. She already knows that. But it is like having someone point out your flaws to you, it hurts. He goes further to tell her that she has no place in this story. She doesn't belong, because she is nothing, without him. And to a degree he is correct, if Ren where not so powerful, the force wouldn't have chosen her to be his equal.

Right there is where Rey makes her choice to side with the light. To make herself valuable in the story. She has found her place despite "being a nobody."

She found real purpose in that scene. Not dependent on Luke or her parents. It is about her journey now.

 

I disagree with this. At that age, unless the child had free time to sit, write and jot these things down, which she didn't as far as we know (just tallying up the days since left). How do you know she remembers names, etc.. With every bit of information we have, there is no indication that she knows anything. She was a child... She was sold into slavery, yet I am sure she might not have even known that. So to her, all that happened was NORMAL.

Without injecting our own aggressive preconceived notions into it and just taking what information we were given, and deducing her situation and the possible psychological effects that has on a child anywhere in the spectrum of age 5 - 10.

Think about that for a second and it is completely plausible that she is as clueless about her parents as we are.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 18, 2017, Original Post Date: Dec 18, 2017 ---

Right! this on so many levels. the writing here is designed to give you insight into the motivations of both Rey and Kylo and his growth into the darkness. The writing is indeed being directed at the audience as it is to Rey. She is being put directly into a position to make a choice. Kylo is trying to manipulate her to the dark side.

I said this before and I will say it again, the overall theme of that scene was to show that both Rey and Kylo were making their decisions on their destiny. Kylo just happened to make his earlier, this was Rey's moment in that throne room... and what a great choice it was

 

well you and Rey are different people.
she's a character with this specific trauma and challenge in her life.
Ben understands her, so they are talking to each other as two people who understand each other on that level.

just because she's not written "like you" doesn't mean it's bad writing.
and it's okay not to be able to relate to her. not everyone will.
lots of people can't relate to Ben either and think his behavior makes no sense.
and yet plenty others do completely "get" him.

to me a good story asks us to bring ourselves to it, it doesn't just spoonfeed what we already understand or know.
and a great story challenges what we think about the world and the interactions/behavior of other people.
it's maybe just a matter of perspective, but personally, i like working out these puzzles.

 

The purpose of the ship scene in TFA is to tell us that Rey was dumped on Jakku by her parents who then left the planet. There is no way around this. So RJ made another emotional JJ-scene look stupid or pointless.

 

sure. if it's important.
i think we've seen that the two are traumatized.
not sure we need to expound on it.

 

She couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 years old. I know I don't remember anything from that age. We/She never sees them because they are irrelevant. Rey is the protagonist and the hero of the story not her parents. No one ever cared that we know nothing about the parents of Han Solo, Darth Maul, Mace Windu, Ahsoka, Obi Wan Kenobi, James Bond, Wolverine, or the majority of film heroes and villains.

Ever since the release of FA we have been told there was no big revelation and that it was irrelevant by people like Riain Johnson and JJ Abrams who were not expecting it to be a big deal at all. The importance of Rey's heritage was purely a fan construct, she was alone and afraid to move on in life that is important, who they were it was never part of the story so it is ridiculous that people are having a hissy fit over the issue.

 

If it wasnt a big deal, why didnt they say so?

 

A child left at that same age, sold to the highest bitter, most likely enduring all kinds of tramatic events ... but still remembering "names and other details" is common sense for YOU? But then that begs the question as to if you had any experience remotely close to that to even draw from and form your "opinion"? (because your thoughts are exactly that--opinion, and not enough to launch baseless accusations from... I might add)

It is funny that you can say you use "common sense", when I can say the same thing. So much for it being common. Common sense to me says there are a lot of variables for a kid that age to which you are not privy to in order to come to such a conclusion and then base your following logic off of it.

Your argument falls short of valid because you have taken out the idea that there are variables (that you are clueless to) about Rey's experience as a child that could leave her in the state that she is in. That sounds like you have an agenda to me.

The first lesson in understanding someone else's plight is to first have an open mind... open enough to see something that is not withing the small walls of your world.

 

There is a lot of reaching going on in here... lol
OP you have injected your experience as Godlike into a world that you really (possibly?) know nothing about. Were you an orphan, rejected by your parents at a young age. Add to that being sold into slavery to which no one around you knows or cares about those parents of yours or how well you remember them.

Yet, it is common sense for the girl to remember so much about her parents after having gone through all of that.

It is completely plausible that she has seen other kids that look like her with adults (parent's) putting two and two together remembering that day she was left.

What we know is that she knows she has parent's OR a guardian who left her where she is. We have absolutely no backstory about how close they were before that time or any other details to draw upon, but somehow because you didn't get the answers you might have wanted in this movie, the writer is guilty of plot holes...

I am a very logical guy, and this really doesn't make sense to come to such a conclusion with such limited information on our end as fans... Yet so quick to cast stones.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 18, 2017, Original Post Date: Dec 18, 2017 ---

But you specifically said "names". So for starters, there is no bs-ing going on here other than the bs you are sending my way. I just picked it up (with papers) and threw it back at you... You said that it is common sense for her to remember "X" (let's put that in place of names). I disagree, because that is pure conjecture on your part, but your argument of plot holes depends 100% on it. Your argument rest solely on your subjective deductions from what you added to what you saw in the movies

 

They did, they stated that they were surprised at the strength of reaction to the mystery of her parent's identity and that their identity was irrelevant, Rey was the important one.

The fact that Luke is missing and she was abandoned does not automatically imply that the two are connected, that many viewers have read something into it does not mean that it is suggested in the film.
Her parents are not seen or heard in the vision, we see her being held by Unkar and a ship that they may or may not be on. It shows her abandonement not her parents.
"The Saber was Anakin's, Luke's, and now....it's calling to her." So? That just implies that she is worthy or destined to have it, she didn't say "now it calls to their descendent".
In the novelisation of FA it seems that Kylo suspects who she is but it does not expand on it. In the film he merely asks "what girl?", anything beyond that is what the viewer has read into his question.
In the FA she repeatedly states she is waiting on them but it is always clear (I thought) they were not coming back and there was no "your father was the greatest pilot in the galaxy" or "we have to find out who they were" type of talk. Beyond the fact she was waiting for them there was never a big deal made out of their identity other than the normal level of curiosity you would expect to find in an abandoned child.
The impression I got through out the FA is that Rey was important not who she came from.