Well Rey was 19 in TFA (visual dictionary gives us her age). Ben was 16 when the massacre happened (again, visual dictionary). That's it for confirmation I can find.
The NuEU puts the massacre anywhere between 12-14 years before TFA.
"Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium
Maybe, although point one could be to connect her with Luke as a future student, points two through four could be coincidence, and point five could be Rey having visions of her future of going to find Luke, not because of a pre-existing connection.
Huh?
As pointed out prior, Kylo Ren is a good decade older than Rey. Rey also spent almost all her life on Jakku (in the vision, she was seven at most when left).
Rey was abandoned on Jakku fourteen to twelve years before Force Awakens. Kylo didn't defect to the First Order until six years before the movie. There's no way she could've been a survivor of Kylo's sacking of the Jedi, much less been taken to Jakku by Kylo. The timeline doesn't work out. We do know that the people who left her were either her immediate family or other guardians, per the novelizations.
Star Wars is very Eastern in its philosophy and telling of the main stories in a circle. It's always been full of parallels.
More evidence:
- Desolate, desert planet (Luke, Anakin, Rey)
- Little knowledge of family (Luke, Anakin, Rey)
- Poor (Luke, Anakin, Rey)
- Hover vehicle becomes iconic shot (landspeeder, pod-racer, salvaged speeder)
- Same look when desolate, desert planet tragedy occurs
- Rey believed Luke Skywalker, the Jedi, and the Force was "just a myth”. Dramatic irony, a literary device by which the audience’s or reader’s understanding of events or individuals in a work surpasses that of its characters. Dramatic irony is a form of irony that is expressed through a work’s structure: an audience’s awareness of the situation in which a work’s characters exist differs substantially from that of the characters’, and the words and actions of the characters therefore take on a different—often contradictory—meaning for the audience than they have for the work’s characters.
- "A sense of belonging lies not in your past, but in your future.” Maz is telling Rey who her father is indirectly. Luke isn’t coming to your past in Jakku, but in your future, when you go to Ahch-To. Poetic parallel.
- Rey look's an awful lot like Grandma Padme ... why would you cast someone so close?
- The Sword of Skywalker has only called to Skywalkers. “That lightsaber was Luke's, and his father's before him, and now it calls to you!”
- Luke and Rey have the same nose. Why cast that close? Come on ...
- Here's the Force (Luke's) Theme and Rey's played together ... HARMONY! That's a lot of work to waste it. Also, I think these means Rey will balance the Force.
- Han figured it out and told Maz. If Uncle Han surveyed the damage of Luke's Academy and could not find Rey’s body, he knows that she’s out there. When he sees her piloting skills, he studies her face. Han knows he sees another Skywalker. His wife is a Skywalker. His son is the grandson of a Skywalker. His second best friend is a Skywalker. When Rey gets up from the table to go find Finn, Maz asks Han, “So ... who’s the girl?” Then the scene cuts away. A movie trick to add weight to a mystery is to ask a question, cut, and imply something very important said off camera. Han tells Maz he think she's Luke's daughter and that what happens? Rey is being called to action by the Sword of Skywalker.
- Plus all that other stuff I mentioned earlier.
"Jealousy, the shadow of greed it is." You know ... Dark Side stuff. Snoke can creep in when the Child of the Chosen One is seeking more favor than Ben. Because she's Luke's daughter and a savant at 5, 6, or 7.Huh?
He's 29 or 30 in TFA as Ben was born 5 ABY ... putting his birth 0-1 years after Endor, Rey is 19 in TFA (stated in the Visual Dictionary).As pointed out prior, Kylo Ren is a good decade older than Rey. Rey also spent almost all her life on Jakku (in the vision, she was seven at most when left).
So if Rey's 5, 6, or 7 when Kylo drops her off on Jakku ... Ben would've been 16, 17, 18, or even better 19 ... the same age Rey begins her Quest is the same age Ben begins his Quest as Kylo Ren. Star Wars is full of mirrors, circles, and parallels.
The timeline works out just fine. Plus, where does the 6 year deal about Kylo show up? That stuff is largely loose for the time being, correct? That's why I agree with this theory:Rey was abandoned on Jakku fourteen to twelve years before Force Awakens. Kylo didn't defect to the First Order until six years before the movie. There's no way she could've been a survivor of Kylo's sacking of the Jedi, much less been taken to Jakku by Kylo. The timeline doesn't work out. We do know that the people who left her were either her immediate family or other guardians, per the novelizations.
The novel is based on the principal shooting script, not the final reshoots script. And here's where I think the biggest piece of evidence comes. "I'll come for you sweetheart, I promise." That is uttered when? A snowy visage of Kylo appears. They reshot the vision scene AFTER the book went to print. The novel does not have any mention of Unkar Plutt taking Rey's hand. It does not mention her being left on Jakku at all. The scene where young Rey is left on Jakku was shot in June 2015. This is not in the novelization at all.
Kylo Ren knows exactly who Rey is. When he finds out there is a girl on Jakku that left on the Millenium Falcon with the map, he doesn’t worry about if it's Han, Leia, Chewie, the map, or anything like that. What does he do?
“WHAT girl?!” It would be truly terrifying for Kylo if Snoke found out that Kylo didn’t kill everyone at Luke's Academy. Especially if he left the Daughter of Skywalker alive. That's why I suspect he tried to turn her to the Dark Side on Starkiller. I have a separate hunch that Rey is the Chosen One to bring balance to the Force base on the Last Jedi teaser and the music cues. It wasn't Anakin or Luke, but Rey will balance the Force. Anyway, I digress ...
Ben, now almost fully Kylo Ren after the massacre, leaves Rey on Jakku instead of it Luke or Leia or Han. It makes more sense that way, especially leaving Rey with Unkar Plutt. I think they changed the scene and made Kylo drop her off because if you hear the sweetheart line with Han or Leia, it's obvious she's a Solo. If it's Luke ... game over. If it's Kylo, more mystery to the line but still means she's a Skywalker. Change the scene entirely and more mystery is back.
Rey’s true natural prowess in the Force is shown when she Force pull's the Sword of Skywalker out of the snow when fighting Kylo. He has way more experience moving objects with the Force but Rey out does him. The lightsaber is hers. When Rey is shown holding the saber, Kylo's face screams, “It is you!” The cousin he left on Jakku.
At the end of TFA, Luke is slowly realizing that his only daughter is still alive and standing in front of him. Saves him from the deadbeat dad trope, too. Vader didn't know he had one or two kids, why would Luke? I also think Kylo put some kind of mental block in Rey when he banished her. I mean, if he dropped her off there’s a good chance he put a block in her mind with the Force. He’s the First Order’s top interrogator, remember? Cover the trail from Snoke ...
Search your feelings, WebLurker. You know it to be true.
Luke is Rey's Father.
Last edited by BeastieRunner; 05-25-2017 at 02:25 PM.
"Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium
Some interesting points and ideas there.
There's also a Western aspect, too, for what it's worth.
Some of those parallels could've been made on purpose just because Rey is filling the role of the heroine of the trilogy (much like how Luke and Anakin where the heroes of their's), not because she's Luke's daughter. Until the new movies come out, it's hard to say for sure, but, in regards to a few points:
This's the one line that I feel really argues against Luke and Rey being father and daughter. Before telling Rey that the belonging she seeks is not behind her but ahead, Maz also says: "Whomever you're waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back. But, there's someone who still could." I read that as her saying that Rey's family was gone for good and that she needed to let go of that need, of the past, and find her future. (Interestingly enough, the Rey's Story novelization indicated that Finn coming back for her after being captured by the First Order went along way to resolving Rey's need to wait.)- "A sense of belonging lies not in your past, but in your future.” Maz is telling Rey who her father is indirectly. Luke isn’t coming to your past in Jakku, but in your future, when you go to Ahch-To. Poetic parallel.
Maybe I'm reading Maz's comment wrong, but there's also the question of, if Rey was indeed Luke's daughter, why does Maz, who's trying to encourage her to find Luke and take the Jedi path, seem to say that it has nothing to do with Rey's family? The movie has shown us that the need for family (biological or otherwise) is one of the main things that drives her. If finding Luke would reunite Rey with her family, wouldn't Maz tell her that (or at least tell her that going to Luke would set her on the path to finding her family, if we assume that Maz thought Rey wasn't ready to hear everything)?
If they were trying to match, they did a decent job, but it's possible that they were just casting the best possible and Daisy Ridley looking a lot like Natalie Portman and Carrie Fisher was happenstance (same as any resemblance to Mark Hamill).- Rey look's an awful lot like Grandma Padme ... why would you cast someone so close?
To the best of my knowledge, that saber has never called to anyone before, much less only to Skywalkers. It is possible that the Force was the one calling to Rey and just using the saber as a conduit. That would whether Rey was related to Luke or not; if she was Force-sensitive, that would be enough of a reason to be called.- The Sword of Skywalker has only called to Skywalkers. “That lightsaber was Luke's, and his father's before him, and now it calls to you!”
There's also the point that kyber crystals "call" through the Force to the person who's supposed to receive them. We saw this in the Clone Wars show "The Gathering." The novel Ahsoka also shows that crystals already installed in a lightsaber belonging to a stranger could also "call" to someone else. So, it is possible that the crystals in Anakin/Luke's old saber were calling to Rey. Once again, however, Rey could be no blood relation to the Skywalker line and still be called.
Cool.- Here's the Force (Luke's) Theme and Rey's played together ... HARMONY! That's a lot of work to waste it. Also, I think these means Rey will balance the Force.
It would still work, though, if it was foreshadowing Rey "just" being Luke's new student.
Maybe. However, there are a few points worth noting. All the stuff that Maz uses when talking to Rey was stuff that Han heard from Rey herself. There's no indication that he knew more than we do. Han also doesn't seem to take much personal interest in Rey until she shows she good with mechanics (he's pretty consistent that he's planning to send her on her way up till they escape the gangs). Also, the timeline sets up that Rey had been on Jakku for years prior to Kylo Ren destroying Luke's academy, so if Rey was Han's niece, from his perspective, by the time his son defected, Rey had been missing for years with no trace.- Han figured it out and told Maz. If Uncle Han surveyed the damage of Luke's Academy and could not find Rey’s body, he knows that she’s out there. When he sees her piloting skills, he studies her face. Han knows he sees another Skywalker. His wife is a Skywalker. His son is the grandson of a Skywalker. His second best friend is a Skywalker. When Rey gets up from the table to go find Finn, Maz asks Han, “So ... who’s the girl?” Then the scene cuts away. A movie trick to add weight to a mystery is to ask a question, cut, and imply something very important said off camera. Han tells Maz he think she's Luke's daughter and that what happens? Rey is being called to action by the Sword of Skywalker.
The actual trigger for the Force's call seems to be Finn's leaving. They have the discussion, Rey begs him to stay and is brokenhearted when he doesn't. While processing it, the first cue of the Force call happening is her hearing her younger self begging the people who left her on Jakku to come back.
Oh. Not sure if I agree with the scenario, but that does make sense within the context of the theory. Thanks for clarifying.
Well, the math would work out if you're right. There is the novelization, but we'll get to that later. The only problem I see the theory has, novelization aside, is how Kylo Ren would've been able to live a double life while at the Jedi academy, much less kidnap Rey from the grounds, dump her on Jakku, and come back with no one suspecting that he's been involved in his niece's disappearance. We do know that Snoke was working to turn Kylo to the dark side in the timeframe you're mentioning, but there's no indication of how far down the path Kylo was then.
Yeah, I see what you mean. I think I was mixing it up with the similar theory that Rey was a survivor of Kylo's defection and then left on Jakku (by Luke, Kylo, or whoever), since the idea that Kylo was the one who left her is often paired with that model.
The novel Bloodline time stamps it. While Kylo is "off-screen" the whole time, Leia does think about him a lot. We learn that he's currently in Luke's academy and that she's been out of contact with the academy for some time (which is very normal). Bloodline takes place six years before Force Awakens, therefore Kylo's defection had to have happened within that six-year gap (assuming that he hadn't rebelled during the events of the book and the Republic hadn't learned yet, but even then it would still be within half a decade of the movie and long after Rey was left on Jakku).
I refuse to believe that Kylo would've told Rey: "I'll come for you sweetheart, I promise." That makes no sense if he left her, since he didn't leave her there for any good reason, nor was he planning to come back. Also, the way the book is written really does make it seem like two separate events (Rey being left and her future confrontation with Kylo) are overlapping.
Maybe. I honestly want more information before theorizing why he went off the handle like that (assuming that it was more than just frustration at another party interfering with his dream of fining his uncle). However, there are a lot of suggestions that Kylo might know something about Rey. The novelization shows the whole scene were he mind reads her on Takodana (the movie only shows the last part of that). One of his first observations is something to the effect of: "So you really are just a scavenger?" as if he was expecting something else and was disappointed at what he learned.
Remember, if Kylo did leave Rey on Jakku, it was years before he formally turned on the academy.
Um, he was also under orders from his master to turn Rey over to him. There could've been more to it than that, sure, but it would make sense for him to try and get her to surrender as easily as possible.
I'm not so sure about that, either, but we'll see.
Remember, Rey was left on Jakku long before the massacre. As far as Plutt went, I still have no idea why Rey was left in his charge (although the literature establishes that he was basically the one on charge of Niima Outpost).
Never thought of that. (Unless the filmmakers used a voice scrambler or the scene was made up only for the book...)
He was also more injured. In fact, the junior novelization explains that he was struggling with moving the saber because of the pain his wounds were causing him.
While it remains to be confirmed if he and Rey are indeed cousins or not, pretty much all the novelizations and retellings published did literally have Kylo say "It is you," when Rey pulls the saber away from him (suggesting that it was a late decision to not have that line in the final movie).
Maybe. I honestly had a hard time reading what he was thinking. The script's description did note that Luke knew who Rey was and why she was there. Now, it doesn't give any exacts and it remains to be seen whether the future installments use that idea or not, but it could be. On the other hand, the movie would work if she wasn't his daughter but he still knew or worked out that she had come to learn from him.
Two possibilities I can see. One, if Rey was his daughter and kidnapped to be left on Jakku (by Kylo or whoever), he could've come to the conclusion somehow that she had been killed or was dead. The second possibility was that Rey's mother broke off connections with Luke before he realized she was expecting their kid (whether that looks like a relationship that fell apart or Rey being the product of a one-night stand is up for debate). I personally find that the latter has fewer complications.
Funny you should mention that. The Rey's Survival Guide (basically a replica of a journal Rey kept while on Jakku) establishes that Rey doesn't know how or why she was left on Jakku. It would be consistent with the idea of her being mind-wiped.
I like the idea and would actually prefer it to the alternatives.
However, I think the problems are:
- Maz's explanation to Rey about where her belonging lies seems to suggest that finding Luke and finding her family are two different things.
- The novelizations' information about how Rey was left really seem to make the case that it was her family that left her.
Everything else could be worked around, but, without a good way as of yet to answer those questions, I think the only way Rey could be Luke's daughter is if it was a one-night stand thing.
I don't have much to add (and I'm not dismissing your two mega-replies, thanks for that) but I'd like to say I appreciate being to have a Star Wars debate about something worthwhile!
It's not a perfect theory and I haven't read all the NuEU stuff yet, so I guess I better get around to that. I still think if the film wants to do something, they're going to ignore the books, comics, and shows. The film's explanation will be final. I do think that Maz is versed in double-speak. She could've easily meant something else.
"Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium
Rey being Luke's daughter would make their universe so incredibly small.
The original 'Vader is his father and Leia is his sister' retcons were bad enough.
No prob. Glad you're enjoying the discussion.
There's some pretty good stuff. A lot of the things I referenced are stuff I think is worth reading and there's other stuff beyond that as well.
That does make sense. I'm under the impression that they're trying to coordinate stuff to keep retcons and mistakes to a minimum (and would prefer it if they do), but it will be inevitable that something will happen eventually. I mean, there have already been a few screwups as is (although between different books, not a movie and a book so far).
I have been leaning on the novelizations a lot, however, since they are written before the movie is finished and tend to make changes to scenes to fit the prose format better, I do think they're a little squishy when it comes to continuity and so I hold that extra information in them is less "authoritative" than stuff in other media (basically only canon if not in contradiction of information elsewhere). So, yeah, if the Last Jedi movie gives us different info about Rey's past, then I'll be the first to hold the novelization to be wrong on that point.
I was under the impression that Rey's backstory was at least outlined (I think Daisy Ridley has said that she was told the full story). Now, the future movies will have changed over production (for example, they did announce that Last Jedi was being modified to keep the focus on TFA's heroes after the feedback came that they were extremely popular with audiences and Carrie Fisher's passing means that Episode 9 will have to be re-jigged). But it sounds like there's a chance that Rey's story is already set and if the novelists were given accurate info when writing their books, then there's a possibility that what we have already will still hold up.
Good point. If the movies do use the idea that Rey is Luke's daughter, it would work with that scene as presented (either Maz didn't know who Rey was beyond being someone who the Force was calling to, or thought Rey was in too fragile a state of mind to hear everything, or whatever idea you can think up). I mean, personally, I think the movie's novelization is the trickiest part to overcome, and that is one of the things that's most likely to be ignored by the movies.
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Last edited by BeastieRunner; 05-26-2017 at 03:52 PM.
"Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium