Poll: Should Rey have *just* been a “real” Skywalker?

[SuperiorIronman]

Luke didn't have to have any kids and neither did Ben. There is no gun to anybodies head to procreate and if there is, seek help. But in this franchise it's not like the force can't procreate and Luke simply had a kid that just sat out the sequel trilogy.

If it's a power thing, well power had nothing to do with either continuities initial death of Palpatine. Vader happened to be standing next to him and a pit. The chosen one prophecy just required Palpatine be killed, it didn't require Anakin to be Superman. And then it's not like most people could tell you who the Legends descendants are aside from having a cursory knowledge of Mara Jade. Most people will only ever know about the movies and maybe a couple of games and comics. And that being said it's still not like we can't get adaptations of them. Rey being descended from Palpatine impacts next to nothing with Cade Skywalker aside from an asterisk on the wiki page.

[Sacred Knight]

Suggesting Rey should have been Luke's daughter has nothing to do with some statement that everyone needs to have children. Don't know what made you go there. No one's even remotely alluded to such. In my case its born from the fact that I believe it would have been the superior narrative choice, for reasons already explained. And from a point of view of the lore, its a shame that the bloodline of Skywalker is concretely gone. Nothing more.

[WebLurker]

I think TROS had some problems Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter wasn't one of them.

Heck, I liked the idea presented that she was her own person and so didn't have to follow the legacy her bloodline forebears wanted her to and all that.

[godisawesome]

I liked her as a nobody, being a mysterious heir to an established character just feels like bad fan-fiction to me.

Would you mind giving an opinion on Kylo, then?
Because to me, that’s always the big problem that the ST wound up with; at various times, it tried to do something new with Kylo, wanted Rey to stand on her own, but also wanted the Skywalkers to have a happy ending... and the way TLJ introduced the former two ideas made them liabilities to the last one, *and to each other,* and when TROS tried modifying the situation and goals, it wound up still having conflict between goals, because what it did honor from TLJ simply made Kylo, Rey, and the Skywalkers all part of one sinking ship of contradictions.

If the idea of a legacy hero is fan fiction-y, than Kylo is the first and biggest culprit even over Rey; at least she had two films operating as something different, while he was just always “pouty Skywalker grandkid/angsty anti-hero/mass murderer” and *nothing* more.

As long as Kylo was being treated as a special “Skywalker Protagonist,” than Rey would end up in his shadow to some extent.

I think TROS had some problems Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter wasn't one of them.

Heck, I liked the idea presented that she was her own person and so didn't have to follow the legacy her bloodline forebears wanted her to and all that.

I can see why it might work... but that's literally just the Skywalker story swapping out a redemption for the Nazi grandpa with killing the Nazi grandpa.

Which for me, just means that it’s an inferior version of the Skywalker story, with one major fatal flaw that arguably makes it bad.

You could tell pretty much the exact same story with a TROS retcon of Rey being a Skywalker as TROS did with the retcon of Rey being a Palpatine for her; the only real change you’d need to make for her story would be to keep Kylo as the villain, give him some dialogue dogging on Luke and his failure to restart the Jedi or act as billions died, and simply have him insist that Vader and he are the real legacy of the family she must accept. The redundancy that is Kylo Ren makes any differentiation with the Palpatine family moot.

And a huge part of the problem is TLJ reconfiguring Rey to be reliant on Kylo for some of her purpose in the story, which is something TROS kept, even if it didn’t do so the way people thought it would - he still gets elevated to her co-lead and she has to share the spotlight of the final confrontation with him.

She can’t “be her own person” in a story where Ben Solo gets special treatment and is her co-lead, because people are just going to focus on the character who brings to a close a 9-film storyline featuring a single family... especially when the middle film made her a spectator and supporting cast member to their story and then banished her from the finale confrontation when her lack of connection to them.

But the big thing not involving Rey, or the way that Kylo became a cancer on her story and just flat out poison to Finn and Kylo’s parents’ story, is this:

My big complaint, the Skywalker line is dead. That for me is what killed the ending for me.

Let me be clear; I don’t think the complaint is really about the line as in bloodline. It’s the line as in “the family story:” we’ve followed the family of Han, Luke, Leia, Anakin, and Padme across six films before the ST, and we had a finale to that story that people liked or even loved in ROTJ- they can bitch and moan about Ewoks, but Anakin’s redemption and Luke ending the story with a sister and future brother-in-law was certainly a “sweet” element to the “bittersweet” ending ROTJ kind of had that made the OT have extra resonance.

And now the ST says, “Wait! That’s not how the story ends! Han and Leia’s kid grows up to be a mass murdering tool for Palpatine like Anakin, except he’s boring and pretty, so the girl who he mentally assaulted in a metaphor for rape needs him to show up for... some bullshit reason, or something, and then he died. Oh, and the the way he became a hero at the end was we sacrificed all three of the OT leads to justify a five minute monosyllabic turn.”

Understand: the second TFA had Han and Leia’s baby boy walk on screen and order a mass murder, their was an inequity in Disney’s Star Wars regarding the OT’s happy ending. And once Kylo murdered Han, he was no longer a character who could be used to fix it. They needed some other Skywalker to patch up the hole and return a happy ending to the story so that the family drama had resonance and not just shallow blockbuster appeal.

But without making Rey a Skywalker, the Skywalkers were kind of “damned” and condemned, and TLJ and then TROS basically burned the bridges for a lot of possible developments and with little to show for it afterwards. There *are* people who want to see the adventures of Luke Skywalker between trilogies... but nowhere near as many as their could be, because his post-ROTJ career and life are one big abject failure where his greatest triumph goes largely undone. And the same thing happened with Han and Leia.

Once Carrie Fisher died, there was no real way to use a Rey who wasn’t a Solo or Skywalker by birth to fix the story - you couldn’t use screentime to build a familial relationship in the story.

There’s not a single thing that the ST did that couldn’t have been done infinitely better with Rey as a Skywalker or Solo, even with a last minute reveal.

[thwhtGuardian]

Would you mind giving an opinion on Kylo, then?
Because to me, that’s always the big problem that the ST wound up with; at various times, it tried to do something new with Kylo, wanted Rey to stand on her own, but also wanted the Skywalkers to have a happy ending... and the way TLJ introduced the former two ideas made them liabilities to the last one, *and to each other,* and when TROS tried modifying the situation and goals, it wound up still having conflict between goals, because what it did honor from TLJ simply made Kylo, Rey, and the Skywalkers all part of one sinking ship of contradictions.

If the idea of a legacy hero is fan fiction-y, than Kylo is the first and biggest culprit even over Rey; at least she had two films operating as something different, while he was just always “pouty Skywalker grandkid/angsty anti-hero/mass murderer” and *nothing* more.

As long as Kylo was being treated as a special “Skywalker Protagonist,” than Rey would end up in his shadow to some extent.


I can see why it might work... but that's literally just the Skywalker story swapping out a redemption for the Nazi grandpa with killing the Nazi grandpa.

Which for me, just means that it’s an inferior version of the Skywalker story, with one major fatal flaw that arguably makes it bad.

You could tell pretty much the exact same story with a TROS retcon of Rey being a Skywalker as TROS did with the retcon of Rey being a Palpatine for her; the only real change you’d need to make for her story would be to keep Kylo as the villain, give him some dialogue dogging on Luke and his failure to restart the Jedi or act as billions died, and simply have him insist that Vader and he are the real legacy of the family she must accept. The redundancy that is Kylo Ren makes any differentiation with the Palpatine family moot.

And a huge part of the problem is TLJ reconfiguring Rey to be reliant on Kylo for some of her purpose in the story, which is something TROS kept, even if it didn’t do so the way people thought it would - he still gets elevated to her co-lead and she has to share the spotlight of the final confrontation with him.

She can’t “be her own person” in a story where Ben Solo gets special treatment and is her co-lead, because people are just going to focus on the character who brings to a close a 9-film storyline featuring a single family... especially when the middle film made her a spectator and supporting cast member to their story and then banished her from the finale confrontation when her lack of connection to them.

But the big thing not involving Rey, or the way that Kylo became a cancer on her story and just flat out poison to Finn and Kylo’s parents’ story, is this:


Let me be clear; I don’t think the complaint is really about the line as in bloodline. It’s the line as in “the family story:” we’ve followed the family of Han, Luke, Leia, Anakin, and Padme across six films before the ST, and we had a finale to that story that people liked or even loved in ROTJ- they can bitch and moan about Ewoks, but Anakin’s redemption and Luke ending the story with a sister and future brother-in-law was certainly a “sweet” element to the “bittersweet” ending ROTJ kind of had that made the OT have extra resonance.

And now the ST says, “Wait! That’s not how the story ends! Han and Leia’s kid grows up to be a mass murdering tool for Palpatine like Anakin, except he’s boring and pretty, so the girl who he mentally assaulted in a metaphor for rape needs him to show up for... some bullshit reason, or something, and then he died. Oh, and the the way he became a hero at the end was we sacrificed all three of the OT leads to justify a five minute monosyllabic turn.”

Understand: the second TFA had Han and Leia’s baby boy walk on screen and order a mass murder, their was an inequity in Disney’s Star Wars regarding the OT’s happy ending. And once Kylo murdered Han, he was no longer a character who could be used to fix it. They needed some other Skywalker to patch up the hole and return a happy ending to the story so that the family drama had resonance and not just shallow blockbuster appeal.

But without making Rey a Skywalker, the Skywalkers were kind of “damned” and condemned, and TLJ and then TROS basically burned the bridges for a lot of possible developments and with little to show for it afterwards. There *are* people who want to see the adventures of Luke Skywalker between trilogies... but nowhere near as many as their could be, because his post-ROTJ career and life are one big abject failure where his greatest triumph goes largely undone. And the same thing happened with Han and Leia.

Once Carrie Fisher died, there was no real way to use a Rey who wasn’t a Solo or Skywalker by birth to fix the story - you couldn’t use screentime to build a familial relationship in the story.

There’s not a single thing that the ST did that couldn’t have been done infinitely better with Rey as a Skywalker or Solo, even with a last minute reveal.

I'm okay with a legacy but the whole mystery box thing just felt like something out of a bad bit of fan fiction, either do it or don't but it should be clear from the start not three quarters of the way through the final film.

[David Walton]

I'm agreed with pretty much everything you've said here, godisawesome. The ST's contradictory impulses end up leaving both kinds of fans largely unsatisfied, since they never fully embraced or moved on from the OT formula. Even TLJ--considered by many the most subversive of all the ST films--is pretty much a repurposed ESB but without anything comparable to the strong friendships the OT had.

If they had really wanted to move on from the formula, Finn was the answer. A force-sensitive normal guy without any attachment, emotional or otherwise, to the Jedi order. They kind of hint at the possibility in TROS but again, not in a complete or satisfying way. Just a tease.

Personally I love the Jedi and I wish the ST had kicked off with multiple Jedi running around in conflict. But I also like the Finn plot that was never developed. Would love to see his crew as a counterpoint to the Jedi. The democratic Force-users if you will.

[Celgress]

I prefer Rey to be a "nobody". They had a chance to emphasize that the Force is non-dynastic with Rey (anyone can be important/strong in the Force regardless of origins) and tragically blew it. Conversely, they could have made Finn be Force Sensitive and of equal importance to Rey. They bowed to short-sighted fan backlash and kept the Force as a birthright of established lineages when they could have expanded it.

[Exciter]

I guess they could always say that Rey became pregnant via the Force and its techincally Ben's child? Kinda silly but I mean, no more silly than Anakin's virgin birth.

They could have made her a Palpatine and a Skywalker if they wanted. Explain that Palpatine was responsible for impregnating Anakin's mother (perhaps through the Force), which has been widely theorized. Then the Palpatines ARE Skywalkers, she'd be Luke's niece, and she'd be justified in switching names.

[Sacred Knight]

We've already seen concretely that the Force is non-dyanastic. Obi-Wan was completely independent from the Skywalkers. Same with Yoda. Dooku and Maul. Mace Windu. And on and on. The Force being portrayed, or least seeming like due to limited material, a birthright of established lineages fell away with the Prequels and the abundance of talented Force users within. The Skywalker family just happened to be the main focus of the trilogies.

[Celgress]

We've already seen concretely that the Force is non-dyanastic. Obi-Wan was completely independent from the Skywalkers. Same with Yoda. Dooku and Maul. Mace Windu. And on and on. The Force being portrayed, or least seeming like due to limited material, a birthright of established lineages fell away with the Prequels and the abundance of talented Force users within. The Skywalker family just happened to be the main focus of the trilogies.

Still, without the Skywalkers and Palpatines the saga doesn't work. TLJ had an opportunity to move beyond the families, but its sequel walked that back. I think the next major movies should go beyond these families as the stars, perhaps starting with Finn.

[godisawesome]

Still, without the Skywalkers and Palpatines the saga doesn't work. TLJ had an opportunity to move beyond the families, but its sequel walked that back. I think the next major movies should go beyond these families as the stars, perhaps starting with Finn.

My thoughts on that are A) that it’s debatable whether or not the Skywalker Saga would have been served by moving beyond the Skywalkers instead of just having an ending established to it, and B) The Last Jedi sabotaged that message itself pretty spectacularly, because if moving past the Skywalkers is your goal than C) Kylo becomes a giant liability to that purpose.

I mean, the Star Wars franchise is already far bigger than the Skywalkers... but the family story that made up the OT and PT kind of, y’know requires them in order to be a family story. And to be frank, that family story is something special, and Rey would most gracefully, organically and most resonatingly fit into an entry in that family story by, y’know, being part of the family. And while there is something to be said for trying to “democratize” the Force... it both already was “democratized” in the overall franchise, and there’s something be said for giving another generation it’s own girl Skywalker hero.

Having any third generation Skywalker character in the ST basically guaranteed that family story became a part of the ST... which makes Kylo a mistake of a character if you intend to move past the Skywalker because of that, and arguably a greater mistake if you treat him as a sympathetic character and treat him with “Skywalker Exceptionalism.” Just not having Kylo present would automatically have made Rey standing on her own and moving past the Skywalkers a success. With Kylo present, the audience (and the creators) are made to choose between Rey and the Skywalker story...

...And to be blunt, we saw that Rian Johnson would choose the Skywalkers over Rey, because that’s what he did.

It’s weird; TLJ is the only film that 100% tries to separate her from the Skywalker legacy... and then also kind of punishes her for it while still trying to make her subordinate to their story. It’s the film where she has her least amount of screentime, where her character is used as an audience member for Luke’s story, and where basically her humanity and any ambition for her story is denied for the sake of pontificating on the idea of Kylo being sympathetic.

It’s also the film most apathetic and kind of disparaging towards Finn, who already communicates the idea of moving past the Skywalkers. It clearly features and focuses more on Luke than on him, and seeks to remove his relationship with Rey entirely in favor of Kylo... while also mocking him for his near death injuries in TFA and lavishing attention on Kylo’s (now moved so as to be less disfiguring) facial scar.

Johnson kind fo screwed over his own idea for Rey... as well the character Rey and the Skywalkers.

[Exciter]

We've already seen concretely that the Force is non-dyanastic. Obi-Wan was completely independent from the Skywalkers. Same with Yoda. Dooku and Maul. Mace Windu. And on and on. The Force being portrayed, or least seeming like due to limited material, a birthright of established lineages fell away with the Prequels and the abundance of talented Force users within. The Skywalker family just happened to be the main focus of the trilogies.

Wasn’t it the prequels that established Force abilities were genetic and corresponded to midichlorian count? That’s how they’d be passed down a line, I imagine. And Anakin had the highest count.

To my knowledge, we don’t know anything about the families of Obi-Wan, Windu or Doku. The other two members of Yoda’s species that I recall seeing both had Force abilities. I haven’t watched the cartoons, but to the extent they are cannon they established Maul had a brother with Force abilities.

[godisawesome]

Wasn’t it the prequels that established Force abilities were genetic and corresponded to midichlorian count? That’s how they’d be passed down a line, I imagine. And Anakin had the highest count.

To my knowledge, we don’t know anything about the families of Obi-Wan, Windu or Doku. The other two members of Yoda’s species that I recall seeing both had Force abilities. I haven’t watched the cartoons, but to the extent they are cannon they established Maul had a brother with Force abilities.

There was already an idea that Force powers could be inherited - see Obi-Wan’s comment that “The Emperor knew that any child born to Anakin could become a powerful Jedi” comment - but the PT did bring in the idea of genetic markers for Force sensitivity in midichlorians... but also featured hundreds of Jedi from all over the Galaxy who had to be searched out, and simultaneously made it clear that the Force played a part in Anakin spontaneously being born.

Which also brings up another thing here. The PT introduced the Chosen One prophecy and the idea that the Skywalker sprang from a pseudo-Messianic Force parentage... but that was part of George Lucas pulling a subversion well over a decade before Rian Johnson started typing out TLJ’s script - revealing to the audience that the Jedi’s “Jesus-figure” was actually more akin to the Anti-Christ, in a way.

...Whch makes Johnson’s writing it TLJ actually more bland and pedestrian for Rey rather than subversive; his story treats her as just a played straight Chosen One archetype, and he just didn’t do anything with her beyond shove her in an abusive relationship with Kylo While thinking the mass murdering neo-Nazi was sympathetic.

Basically, I’d argue that when you already have a Chosen One storyline in your Saga that was creatively implemented and subverted, and when it even already has a “democratized magic” else, given the Skywalkers’ humble origins... declaring a character who’s already nearly identical to a Skywalker to not be one, but blurring the differences even more, as Johnson did, basically adds nothing to the story or character.

Rey was going to look like a Skywalker, fly a Skywalker/Solo ship, carry a Skywalker saber, have a Skywalker background, occupy the same place in a story the Skywalkers did, and have Skywalker power in the Force... so not making her a Skywalker and not differentiating her just makes her the cheap imitation instead of the new entry.

You may find Dr. Pepper Cherry to be a predictable entry in an already successful product, but it’s still better than a Doctor Thunder.

[MASTER-OF-SUPRISE]

Honestly I thought the message of Rey random people make such a big deal about was rather pretentious. It was a lesson that was honestly unneeded. It could have worked if we saw Luke and Rey bond. However as it stands Luke is just some old jerk she knew. So her taking the name doesn't make much sense narratively. I mean taking the name Organa or Solo would work better since they were actual mentors to her.

[WebLurker]

I can see why it might work... but that's literally just the Skywalker story swapping out a redemption for the Nazi grandpa with killing the Nazi grandpa.

Which for me, just means that it’s an inferior version of the Skywalker story, with one major fatal flaw that arguably makes it bad.

Well, the OT never really dwelled much on the reveal in the same way; the next movie after learning, the main drive of the reveal is Luke deciding he needs to pull his father away from the dark side. For Rey, the reveal has her fearing that she's just going to turn out like her grandfather, creating a whole different conflict and lesson to be learned. So, I see it as a new story with the same props, if that makes any sense. (I'll admit I'm a sucker for characters who are "supposed" to be evil, but become the good guys.)

You could tell pretty much the exact same story with a TROS retcon of Rey being a Skywalker as TROS did with the retcon of Rey being a Palpatine for her; the only real change you’d need to make for her story would be to keep Kylo as the villain, give him some dialogue dogging on Luke and his failure to restart the Jedi or act as billions died, and simply have him insist that Vader and he are the real legacy of the family she must accept. The redundancy that is Kylo Ren makes any differentiation with the Palpatine family moot.

Maybe? On the other hand, learning she was Luke or Leia's kid doesn't really offer much conflict (unless you're going for the familial friction there would be over the separation). Her learning that she's Palpatine's grandkid does. Also, if she was a blood Skywalker, that kinda makes it seem like she's the heroine because of who she's related to. The end result of the final decision is that she's a heroine because of who she was and decided to be, not her family tree, which feels a lot more earned. (I also like the irony that Palatine was done in by his own chosen heir and that his ultimate legacy was the complete erasure of his dreams and goals and even his surname.)

And a huge part of the problem is TLJ reconfiguring Rey to be reliant on Kylo for some of her purpose in the story, which is something TROS kept, even if it didn’t do so the way people thought it would - he still gets elevated to her co-lead and she has to share the spotlight of the final confrontation with him.

She can’t “be her own person” in a story where Ben Solo gets special treatment and is her co-lead, because people are just going to focus on the character who brings to a close a 9-film storyline featuring a single family... especially when the middle film made her a spectator and supporting cast member to their story and then banished her from the finale confrontation when her lack of connection to them.

I'm not going to argue that elevating Kylo Ren was the series most damaging mistake (not the least of which being that the character was not designed to be that complex and it show badly). I think it stopped working the instant he turns in TROS, but I admit I might be in the minority there.