This is essentially the drum I've been banging in the OT(s) for a bit now:
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Star Wars Episode VIII Production Thread (Principal Photography Complete)
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Bobby Roberts
Banned
I like all of that. I like that a lot.
DiipuSurotu
Banned
This kind of unnatural manipulation of life wouldn't fit a Jedi.
BrokenFiction
Member
Only a Sith speaks in absolutes.
Affeinvasion
Member
To be fair the only thing Luke has in common with the Jedi is force sensitivity and an apparent talent for getting children killed. It's not like obi-wan ever said "don't create life out of the force; that's how your father was born...also you have no grandfather."
I think there's a YA book out there that explains what happened to the Falcon. Rey's line about it changing hands between a bunch of different people holds up.
At any rate, I don't think we'll have to wait long to find out whether or not she's a Skywalker. I find it hard to imagine some kind of scenario where she spends any length of time with Luke and him not telling her that she's his daughter. (unless it's like an Obi Wan situation, where he withholds that information "protect her" or some stupid shit) All we know for certain is that Luke is one of very few people who knows exactly who she is.
At any rate, I don't think we'll have to wait long to find out whether or not she's a Skywalker. I find it hard to imagine some kind of scenario where she spends any length of time with Luke and him not telling her that she's his daughter. (unless it's like an Obi Wan situation, where he withholds that information "protect her" or some stupid shit) All we know for certain is that Luke is one of very few people who knows exactly who she is.
WadiumArcadium
Member
It's just a bit of a weird thing to do really.
DiipuSurotu
Banned
Yoda taught Luke about the relation between life and the Force, and the natural order, etc.
I'm guessing that they won't do that since it would be too predictable. I hope she ends up being his daughter, though. Is it predictable? Yeah. Is it fucking awesome? FUCK YEAH
BFIB
Member
Nah. I'd be happy with Rey carrying her own lineage. Kylo is carrying the Skywaker legacy.
prag16
Banned
The ONLY reason to think that may not be the outcome is because it's too obvious imo.
Rey just being a random isn't happening. She may not be Luke's daughter, but there's a 100% chance there's serious history there with somebody is some fashion.
I'm not necessarily hell bent against ending the Skywalker line with this trilogy. But doing it just for the sake of doing it won't automatically be an inherent benefit I don't think, as some seem to.
#TeamReySkywalker
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Who is arguing that
WhiteRabbitEXE
Member
IIRC their canonical ages match up with their real-life ages. So unless Kylo was procreating when he was literally 8-9... No haha.
And her being a second child of Han and Leia is plausible, but it seems pretty unlikely to me. I feel their reactions to her should be stronger than they are. Particularly with Han and Leia's reunion: "I saw our son" and not "Holy shit our son found our daughter and kidnapped her!"
No matter who she is though, I'm fairly certain Han, Leia, and Kylo were at the very least previously aware of her. Han tells Leia who she is off screen, Han tells Maz who she is off-screen, and Kylo is told who she is off-screen, which is without a doubt deliberate.
It seems the strongest argument against her being Luke's daughter is that it's too obvious, but honestly that's not a particularly strong reason to dismiss it, particularly since that theory lines up far more cleanly than any of the others. Pretty much every other popular theory requires a lot of jumping through hoops to explain, and leaves a lot of odd inconsistencies.
I think that, no matter what, she's at least somehow connected to Luke. There's a couple more "out there" theories like her being engineered from Luke's hand, and even those seem more likely than grandpa/uncle Obi-Wan or the Kylo/Rey brother/sister theory, with a more clean match to possible directions the trilogy will take.
t-storm
Member
I honestly can't see this NOT happening. There was so much emotion in that last scene of TFA staring at each other... it wouldn't make sense to have that build up and then have her be somebody else's daughter.
ryutaro's mama
Member
So the laziest, most easily telegraphed outcome is the one you want.
🙄🙄🙄
Welp.
WhiteRabbitEXE
Member
Being predictable doesn't inherently make it lazy or bad. It's entirely down to how it's written and what they do with it.
On the flipside, the majority of the supporters of contrarian theories seem to support said theories almost entirely because they want something "different" without actually considering anything else. Like, as far as I can tell the only other reason people are behind Kenobi theory is because "oh man, Skywalker vs Kenobi would be so cool!"... even though that outcome is exactly as "lazy and predictable" and Skywalker vs Skywalker anyway, only this time the matchup really has no lead-in or foreshadowing besides accents and some really, really poorly drawn connections, so as far as the actually story goes it comes out of absolutely no where.
ryutaro's mama
Member
You know why Vader being Luke's father in 1980 was an awesome reveal? Because virtually no one expected it.
You know why Luke being Rey father wouldn't be awesome? Because no matter how they explain it, it is the obvious result people are expecting.
The journey to Disneyland, per se, isn't better if I take a different route to get there, if I already know that is where my parents are taking me. Make sense?
PHOENIXZERO
Member
Because in 1980 millions of people weren't on the internet discussing every tiny detail of the first movie and the news on the follow up?
They don't need a "no, I am your father" twist and it wouldn't work today anyway. Hell, if ESB came out in 2016 after Star Wars started a few years ago it wouldn't come close to having the same effect, people would've also saw that twist coming a mile away.
They don't need a "no, I am your father" twist and it wouldn't work today anyway. Hell, if ESB came out in 2016 after Star Wars started a few years ago it wouldn't come close to having the same effect, people would've also saw that twist coming a mile away.
The internet is why I don't have a problem with predictability, so much creativity that any plot twist will be credited back to atleast one reddit thread out there who guessed it right.
They just need to build up their characters so when they do have a showdown the emotion is there and people are invested. Kylo killing Luke and him being pushed as the main villain into a showdown with Rey is just something I don't see audiences responding well to.
ryutaro's mama
Member
The internet not being around in 1980 is irrelevant to my point. The point is, no one was expecting Vader to be his father, especially after Obi Wan went out of his way to say that Luke's father was betrayed and murdered by Darth Vader so stop pretending that loads of people would have figured it out under those circumstances.
My point is, if you just make the outcome what people thought is was gonna be, they'll say, "huh, that's exactly what I thought was gonna happen" and move on. There is zero narrative punch with that.
Yes all the other options are rubbish in comparison.
A Kenobi? No.
A Solo? Wouldn't make any sense.
A nobody? Nah.
ryutaro's mama
Member
Why does she have to be connected to a small family in the galaxy otherwise she's a "nobody"?
Because her story so far makes it seem like her family is a big mystery that will be revealed later. If it turns out that her family are a bunch of no-names, it would be really anticlimactic.
And her name is REY....Gli-funka!
George and Kathleen have said that Star Wars is the story of the skywalkers. So everything is connected to that small family, they're the most important people in the whole galaxy and mostly everyone else is a nobody.
TheKaeptain
Banned
Force Hadouken would probably be the drawn line for me
This would get me so hyped.
WhiteRabbitEXE
Member
Again though, everyone is exclusively focusing on the reveal, as if it's literally the only thing that matters, which is total nonsense. People want all these different things simply for the sake of a different and unexpected reveal, without taking any considerations to anything beyond that. What storytelling purpose does the Kenobi theory provide beyond the "shocking" reveal (that apparently everyone expects anyway)? What unique storylines does it provide beyond "guys, Skywalker vs. Kenobi!"? How do you explain/establish it with literally no prior threads to build off of, without filling in a shit-ton of story gaps with long-winded exposition (which was already verging on an issue with TFA, albeit a necessary one)? Especially without introducing even more plot issues to the OT like the PT did left and right? And her being another Solo (or Leia's daughter but no Han's, like another theory) has all the same issues and worse.
I'm not saying that there aren't possible alternatives to a relationship to Luke that can't be good. Nor am I saying that a relationship to Luke would necessarily be good. But I absolutely object to this nonsense that above all else we need some earthshattering reveal, especially when many theories that seem to be based in this idea inherently cause numerous storytelling issues that people just hand-wave away because they desperately want their theory to be true, because it's more "exciting and unexpected".
Also, your Disneyland analogy makes literally no sense anyway. A story is entirely about the journey, that's what storytelling is. And yes, how they handle Luke being her father (or something similar) absolutely has a massive impact. Right now without any details, I'd say why Rey was hidden away is just as big of a question as who she is. Luke being her father or something may be predictable, but you're acting like this is the end-all-be-all storytelling element of the trilogy, and yet I think exploring why she was dropped off in the middle of no where could be far more interesting to explore rather than fixating on another big "SHE RELATED TO WHO?!" shocker.
Because Star Wars is about the Skywalker family.
ryutaro's mama
Member
Because her story so far makes it seem like her family is a big mystery that will be revealed later. If it turns out that her family are a bunch of no-names, it would be really anticlimactic.
And her name is REY....Gli-funka!
George and Kathleen have said that Star Wars is the story of the skywalkers. So everything is connected to that small family, they're the most important people in the whole galaxy and mostly everyone else is a nobody.
Pretty sure that Luke, Leia and Kylo are Skywalkers.
POWERSPHERE
Member
Hard to believe they're already filming the next movie.
I think Rian Johnson is going to deliver, big time.
Hard to believe they've only just started!
They've also have said it's a generational story.
The only Skywalker being actually a Solo would be really disappointing.
And like I said in that post, it would make her family subplot reality disappointing if her parents are brand new characters. It has to be someone of importance otherwise who gives a shit?
PHOENIXZERO
Member
Yeah, nobody not even George! Just like Leia turning out to be his sister. That's the major difference between the OT and this trilogy, they already have a lot of this mapped out, those twists weren't because of some brilliant foresight they were one, a minor retcon that just so happened to work very well and in the case of Leia transferring an idea for a new character onto an existing one to make it work better. People would've disregarded Obi-Wan's line and still thrown out a "Vader is Luke's father" theory. It also only worked because because we knew nothing about Vader who was barely a character in the first movie.
If they gave a shit about that sort of "narrative punch" they wouldn't have revealed Kylo Ren's parentage less than an hour into episode VII. Besides that, instead of building up who Rey's father is they could do that with her mother which would also work better in giving them an avenue to explore in a spin off since Mark Hamill is too old to play Luke in his 20s to late 30s.
EDIT: If your enjoyment of a story relies on the "narrative punch" of a plot twist then you've set yourself up for a lot of disappointment. Not every story needs one and many, maybe most don't.
ryutaro's mama
Member
Why, because every main character needs to be of Skywalker lineage? That is incredibly limiting.
Luke can achieve redemption, Leia can have her arch completed and Kylo can do whatever he does without requiring Rey ALSO be a Skywalker.
And then, guess what? It's about the Skywalkers!
Bobby Roberts
Banned
The idea that she's a Kenobi relation isn't nothing. It's not a gotcha. It more or less reframes the entire thrust of the overall narrative. The Star Wars saga is the story of the Skywalkers, but the Prequels more or less made it the story of one Skywalker: Anakin. However, just as tightly intertwined in that story is Kenobi. Kenobi's failings led to Anakin, Kenobi's teachings led to Anakin's son being strong enough in the Force to make the right decision when it came to it. OT & PT is the story of A master, an apprentice, and their son: Surrogate in Ben's case, abandoned in Anakin's.
Making Rey a Kenobi doesn't just insert a dumb twist where there was none before. Hell, it's not even really a "twist" so much. It would add another layer of that rhyming/symphony we love so much, while upping the stakes a little. Once again, it's a Skywalker and a Kenobi teaming up to take out a bad Skywalker, but dynamically different in the execution, and with a potential endgame of our hero, at the end, taking the name of the Skywalker, but the bloodline of the Kenobi, forward into an uncertain future far removed from the Jedi/Sith bullshit that's ruined the galaxy once already and is damn close to doing it again.
Rey being a Kenobi plays pretty well, I think, and not because it's an "earthshattering reveal" or whatever. Any reveal would be "earthshattering" at this point because the mystery of it has been so played up via the absence of any real information. But I don't know that her parentage needs to be a twist, or that if it's Luke or some Kenobi relation, that it's really much of a "twist" either way.
TheKaeptain
Banned
Rey being the granddaughter of Obi-Wan could also mean we get movies explaining what Obi-wan was doing during the time in between 3 and 4.
UnforgivenTwin
Member
Bow chicka wow wow!
And there are symbolic connections between Rey and Obi Wan (have to keep resisting the urge to type Ben). She safeguards a droid with a vital MacGuffin; she delivers Luke his father's lightsaber. We see her sneaking around Starkiller Base in a way that totally evokes Obi Wan's Death Star jiggy jog, and we have Obi Wan speaking to her through the ether. Someone in the first or second spoiler OT did a really good job of explaining it, so I know I'm missing stuff, but there is a plausible foundation there.
PHOENIXZERO
Member
Don't forget her accent, they're genetic or something...
Bobby Roberts
Banned
WhiteRabbitEXE
Member
Again those, these are all remarkably weak, and are conclusions drawn by people specifically looking for connections. Let's look at all of those:
Rey + BB: The problem with this connection is, Rey isn't the intended vector for BB, Leia is. Rey only happens to find BB in between Poe sending him off, and Leia finally receiving him. R2D2 on the other hand was intended to be sent directly to Obi-Wan. So the comparison is already quite weak. What really ruins it though, it that it's almost an exact 1:1 play on Luke's connection to R2D2. In both cases the young hero receives the droid from junkers and, by carrying out the droid's mission of delivering the message it carries, is thrust into their hero's journey.
Rey + Lightsaber: Her handing over the weapon at the end of the movie is already a very weak analog before even digging into it - other than Luke receiving the same light saber, the scene and its meaning are entirely different in every other way. On the flip side, there's a much stronger analog earlier in the movie with Maz handing the saber over to Rey. One that puts Maz in the Obi-Wan role (wise old mentor handing over the weapon she was destined to receive), and Rey in, again, the Luke role, only this time they twist the scenario by it becoming a rejection of the hero's journey rather than an acceptance.
Rey on Skarkiller: The problem here is, well, Han, Chewie, and Finn also sneak around Starkiller in a similar way. What's more, it's Han who plays the closest analog to Obi-Wan out of all of them, as he's the older mentor character who offered to take in the young hero, who split up from the heroes in order to disable the base, and who is struck down by the movie's main villain before our hero's eyes, pushing them forwards. Again, we have Rey playing the exact same part as Luke did.
Obi-Wan speaking to Rey: Well, so did Yoda. And Obi-Wan spoke to Luke throughout the OT as well. And Qui-Gon (at least attempted to) speak to Anakin in AotC. So this one is almost completely meaningless.
B-B-Bomba!
Member
The only thing I have to add to this discussion is that Rey has kept a Rebel Pilot teddy from her childhood, and I think it has some significance.
Could be wrong, though!
Could be wrong, though!
prag16
Banned
As you well know, plenty of people are very vehemently against the idea of Rey being Luke's daughter. I guess you could be pedantic and say that I can't assume at least some of them want her to be a random at all costs regardless of how it's handled, but it sure seemed that way.
Don't ask for citations. There have been numerous discussions on this across several threads. Nobody had time for that.
WhiteRabbitEXE
Member
At the very beginning of the Force vision you can hear a small bit of Yoda's speech to Luke, explaining what the Force is. I believe it's directly taken from Empire. They did record new material and had a larger cameo planned, but that was cut.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
I'm talking about this thread, specifically. The one we're in. The one that had just recently been discussing the possibility the Skywalker line could end with this movie when you directly addressed that line of discussion.
So far as I can tell, nobody in this thread, or at the point at which you jumped into the discussion, had been arguing for ending the Skywalker line "for the sake of doing it."
Man, my memory's fucked up today.
Ok, I'll say this. I don't think she's a Kenobi. As far as I'm concerned it's almost a forgone conclusion that she is Luke's kid. I don't know how else you explain Luke knowing who she is and then also standing there looking at her aghast and in tears... Unless there's she's a Kenobi, and Luke is now reliving some portentous moment of indecision. To me, as a dweeb who has lived and breathed this shit since I was a kid, it would be super cool, and a couple of those points you reject I think could be construed as deliberately subversive: Leia was the one who gave the thing to Kenobi, Kenobi was the one who gave the thing to Leia. You know.
There are more, better reasons that favor her being a Skywalker, and there are more, better reasons that favor her being an absolute nobody. But they could totally go the Kenobi route and I don't they'd have too much trouble doing that. A lot of the mundane, repetitive plot elements of TFA would retroactively take on new meaning.