Star Wars : Into Spoilers - The Spoiler awakens.

[Soln]

Yup Rey is Luke's daughter as Kylo is Han and Leia's.  Next episode will parallel their training with missing canon exposition on the Force and events after ANH.

[Khaldun]

Rey will be Obiwan's granddaughter? I don't think there will be any other decedents of the originals. It would get to hokey.

That's why we thought of it as we were musing afterwards--to keep making everybody a descendent of just the Skywalkers seems a mistake. So we thought: who is a) prominent enough that everyone knows his/her name? b) not a Skywalker c) Could have progeny that we know nothing about? d) human?

I think Padme and Leia had no other opportunities to have children. Anakin in his Darth Vader phase I assume no longer has the equipment for reproducing. There's a bunch of other named and semi-known characters who aren't human like Yoda, Darth Maul or Ahsoka.

I assume folks like Wedge Antilles and Mon Mothma fail the "everyone knows"--there's nothing exciting in revealing they had a grandchild or child.

I come up with only:

a) Han Solo, getting some on the side or getting some pre-Leia (I suppose if they keep "Sana Solo" around from the comics, that could be Finn's parentage)
This seems unlikely: a) it's not exactly family-friendly; b) comic-book/EU continuity is probably not a great place to be launching major plotlines

b) Mace Windu
His only bending of the Jedi regs seems to have been in his combat style.

c) Lando Calrissian
Don't think he has any chance of being Rey's father.

d) Count Dooku.
Like, no. I cannot see how they would think that was a cool reveal.

e) Palpatine, presumably pre "ULTIMATE POWAH!" disfiguring, but I suppose he could still have had the gear to make kids afterwards.
Ick.

f) Obi-Wan!
See, this would have all sorts of interesting mythic resonance. Not the least because then Rey's grandfather would have been responsible for Ben's grandfather getting all burned up and stuff but also they would once have been great friends--it adds a layering to their enmity/rivalry. It gives them a strong connection but not a kinship connection. Maybe this will even be what Obi-Wan meant by "more powerful than you can possibly imagine"--it's not his Force-ghosting around Luke he meant, it was augmenting the power of a descendent at the right time.

[Abagadro]

Maybe she was a virgin birth because the Force impregnated someone with a fetus having a massive midichlorian count.

<ducks>

[Khaldun]

It had occurred to me. Since that is "canon". I suppose that could be another thing JJ could decide to undo, is say, "Ok, midichlorians it turns out was Qui-Gon's weird dumb religious heresy and it was all nonsense, Anakin had an actual father and he was ...."   

I think Qui-Gon fails the "memorable enough to care about test" as a potential ancestor himself. Though who knows, maybe that's another reason he was on the outs with the Jedi.

[Teleku]

c) Lando Calrissian
Don't think he has any chance of being Rey's father.

Since it's well known that Lando is the only black dude in the entire Galaxy, he is obviously Finn's father. 

 

[Merusk]

Just saw it again and caught even more going on. I missed Carrie Fischer's daughter in the Resistance meetings before but caught her all over this time.

The X-wing helmet Rey puts on is damn close to Luke's but is missing the three red stripes on the crest and has the numbers 733 on the side where his has a circle with a bunch of lines through it.  The "V V" stickers and red tabs at the earpieces were there, though. The X-wing pilot doll she created was also meant as a hint, but lords know to what.

The Vision sequence has Ewen McGregor yelling "Rey" right as the snow scene starts and right afterwards the whispered "the first steps" happen. No idea what this could mean yet. Some are using this to promote her as Obi-Wan's graddaughter but I think it's more the Force Ghost yelling the same way we had Qui-Gon yelling for Anakin in his nightmares.

My brother is convinced Han knows who Rey is. That's why we get Maz asking, "Who's the girl" then they cut away as he goes to explain. It explains some of Maz's insistence that she take the saber, because she just found out. Also the line Maz has of, "You know the truth, the person who left you is not coming back. But there is another... Luke!" It would also explain why Leia actually comforts her instead of Chewie, because there's no reason for Leia to assume any sort of connection between the two.

Also to confirm, General Hux details out in the first lines of his speech that the Republic is knowingly backing the Resistance, "...while lying to the Galaxy." Implying that there's a good number of systems who belong to neither the First Order or the Republic. More like the Prequels where you had "The Banking Sector," "Huttspace," and the like.

And Kylo Ren showed everyone what Anakin could have been.

This was reinforced even more on my second viewing. I'd the "Traitor" line and the emotional outbursts were miles beyond what Christensen brought to Anakin. Whether it's because of his acting ability or Lucas' piss-poor direction that didn't allow emoting, this sort of performance would have sold Anakin's fall a lot better.

[jakonovski]

Finn is Lando's and Leia's child.

Rey is Luke's and Leia's child.

Ewoks on the other hand...

[NowhereMan]

I genuinely like Ren's fall partly because it was a nice subversion of previous fall/temptations. He seems totally brainwashed and set on becoming Vader 2.0 but keeps feeling these questioning voices and this easy to succumb to desire to turn his back on all of it. To give in and just return to his family that love him and offer him forgiveness. I don't think the moment with Solo was fake out on the character's part so much as he needed to kill his father to silence those doubts, to make a choice that would irrevocably put him on the path to the Dark Side. I think the reaction showed that this didn't quite work as he hoped either, he still got tenderness and forgiveness even after Han knew his son had killed him so I'm guessing we're going to continue seeing an unstable and tortured Renn as the trilogy unfolds who is constantly fighting to be more evil and pushing away from his hatred of his own actions. It was infinitely better than Anakin.

[Selby]

It was infinitely better than Anakin.

Just this today and that's my exact feeling. I didn't feel disappointed in the hologram or really anything although I can sympathize with some people's thoughts and gripes. It was so much better than Phantom Menace & whatever one came after that. I left the theatre not feeling like I wanted to punch one of the characters in the face or get my money back.

And I dislike Star Wars so I'm definitely not a giant fan who will swallow anything ;-)

[HaemishM]

c) Lando Calrissian
Don't think he has any chance of being Rey's father.

He's not. He's Finn's father.

I mean, there's only one black guy of note in the original trilogy, so he must be the main black character's father, amirite?  

EDIT: And apparently I'm 3rd or 4th to that joke so fuck it. He's Boba Fett reincarnated.

[MournelitheCalix]

Something I didn't see mentioned here specifically was that JJ really hit hard the idea of history repeating.   In A New Hope, Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin are co leaders under the Emperor.   In fact Moff Tarkin seemed to be a bit higher than vader as he orders Vader around and Vader obeys.  The same happened here, General Hux played Grand Moff Tarkins role.  Parts I didn't like about the otherwise awesome flick:


1.)  How did that guy get the data on Luke?   How did he end up on Jakku?  I think both questions needed to be answered better.   What is his connection to the Emp..First Order?   Clearly there is one since he ended up with a piece of the map that came from the Empire's archives?   I think that plot needed to be answered a whole lot better.

2.)  How exactly does a girl without training beat a guy who is training in the darkness who has also been trained by Luke skywalker?  In one scene he is strong enough to paralyze her and wrench the blaster carrying arm back.   Then in the next, even though he is hurt, he is beaten by her.  I thought this was just plain weak.   He should have mopped the floor with her and it shouldn't have been a contest.  That whole part from him offering to complete her training to being defeated by her was horrid execution IMHO.

3.)  The last problem I had with the movie was  a JJ filming problem.  Sorry but the end panoramic shot looked like it was a story board.  Terrible picture quality to it and it seemed puzzling to me because the rest of the movie was brilliantly shot IMHO.  That last pan out sequence, just horrible.  IMHO it was a terrible way to end a really great film.

[Khaldun]

My guess is that Ren's strength has something to do with the "Force awakening"--that someone is more or less "downloading" Jedi skills into her. We've seen that sort of happen with Luke, too, in ESB. It's another reason I wouldn't mind seeing Ewan McGregor briefly pop up in the next film as a pre-Guinness Kenobi and say something of the sort--that he was with Ren for a bit in the forest, guiding her.

[pants]

Either that, or my thought is that Kylo Ren is just a crap Jedi/Sith/whatever.  And he knows it - thus his tantrums and dummyspits.  Yes, he's still a Sith, so can pwn norms, but put him up against someone who has a lot of raw talent, and his crapness comes through.  Especially if she turns out to be his cousin or something, then we get that whole "My shithead cousin who is always so smart and good and strong, how I hate her."

Of course, which may end up making him a better Sith, since it will feed his anger and all that.

[Threash]

2.)  How exactly does a girl without training beat a guy who is training in the darkness who has also been trained by Luke skywalker?  In one scene he is strong enough to paralyze her and wrench the blaster carrying arm back.   Then in the next, even though he is hurt, he is beaten by her.  I thought this was just plain weak.   He should have mopped the floor with her and it shouldn't have been a contest.  That whole part from him offering to complete her training to being defeated by her was horrid execution IMHO.

First off they had established that she was a good melee fighter at the start of the movie, second you are completely glossing over the hurt part.  He wasn't just slightly injured, he was gut shot by Chewie's bowcaster, they even made a point of showing that thing was extremely strong by having Han borrow it from him after watching it toss stormtroopers around like a grenade launcher, and not only that but Finn had gotten several hits on him with the lightsaber already.  To even be on his feet probably took most of his strength.  I think they did a great job of setting up the fight so it would not be unrealistic for either Finn (showing a stormtrooper taking on a lightsaber user earlier)  or Rey to hold their own and win.

[Kail]

I'm not crazy about the whole "Luke is Rey's father" theory, it just seems like lazy writing to me.  We've already got a Skywalker doing the whole light side / dark side torment thing, I hope they do something more interesting with her.  The whole "everyone knows everyone" thing was overdone in the prequels, I thought, I don't really want more of it.  Plus, I can't see them pulling a wife for Luke out of nowhere given how few women there are that anyone knows about.  Leia is the only eligible woman in the universe and that's not going to fly in a family flick.  And it makes Luke out to be even more of an asshole for leaving his daughter alone squatting in a shithole in the desert while he's lazing around his private ocean planet staring moodily over the ocean for twenty years.  The flashback scene where she's a kid and someone is holding her back makes me think forced separation, which implies they're soldiers or criminals or prisoners or slaves or something.  Obi-Wan seems too old, unless he was getting some local color on Tatooine she'd be older than Luke.  Palpatine might work, and I like that idea, since we don't know much about him.  But I also wouldn't be surprised it it was just some random they introduce in the next movie.

Finn was probably my favorite character in the movie.  I thought the idea was stupid at first, but he really quickly turned in to the "comic relief character done CORRECTLY LUCAS YOU ASSHOLE" for this movie, I thought.  It was refreshing after the prequels to see the emphasis on regular people instead of nothing but thirty different flavors of Jedi and space politicians.  Ren, I thought, was great.  There's no way you're going to out-badass Darth freaking Vader, so they go the other direction, and have the villain just be an asshole you want to see get kicked in the nads over and over again.

Given how much this movie takes from Ep 4-6, I was kind of surprised to see how much it apparently ignored Ep 1-3.  I was half expecting a "Jar Jar is violently killed by mind bees" scene somewhere.

I agree with the idea that the pacing was a bit off.  There was a lot of coincidence that could have been explained better if the timing was different.  They take off in the Falcon and are immediately picked up by Han, it seems like.  Drifting aimlessly for a few days / weeks would make it seem more like Han tracked them down rather than they just coincidentally flew in to his lap.  The StarKiller Deluxe WonderSwan or whatever it was called just straight up nukes the capital of the universe, that could have used a bit of build up or explanation or something (and the physics nerd in my head kept rolling their eyes at that whole scene, but meh, Star Wars).

The idea of a "map to Luke Skywalker" seemed really stupid to me.  No more "spiritual quest to find your mentor," now it's just "you need the red keycard".

Overall, I thought it was really good, the kind of movie the prequels should have been.

[MahrinSkel]

Ren is sort of on a reprise of Anakin's journey. But where Lucas and Christenson fucked it up by having Anakin emote so little they had to CGI the eyes in the 'I'm going to do something evil now' scowl, Driver and Abrams are making it much more subtle because it's against the background of the normal emotional range.

If it makes you feel better, when Ridley gets that steely-jawed calm look, imagine Obi-Wan saying 'Use the Force' or Yoda saying 'Do, or do not, there is no try.' And when she gets *pissed* and starts just whaling the fuck out of Driver in that forest fight, imagine the Emperor cackling 'Good, good!'

Kylo Ren/Driver is a punk, second rate, and knows it. He's tormented by his own sense of inadequacy, and self-loathing at what he has done for the Dark Side in order to make the most of what talent he has. The 'time-stop' trick is a good one, freezing opponents or even blaster fire, but in the end it's like the Mind Trick: It only works against those that are weak and blind to the Force.

--Dave

[MournelitheCalix]

Kylo Ren/Driver is a punk, second rate, and knows it. He's tormented by his own sense of inadequacy, and self-loathing at what he has done for the Dark Side in order to make the most of what talent he has. The 'time-stop' trick is a good one, freezing opponents or even blaster fire, but in the end it's like the Mind Trick: It only works against those that are weak and blind to the Force.

Interesting analysis and seems to fit.  I didn't catch that one and looking back on it I should have.   Anakin ultimately gives into fear in the prequels.  Rey when on the torture wrack also told him your afraid.  Fear about not having the strength to step into his grandfather's shoes I guess.  I will be interested to see if this is how it plays out.

[angry.bob]

I'm not crazy about the whole "Luke is Rey's father" theory, it just seems like lazy writing to me.  

Yup, and that's why Luke is Rey's father. Because the entire fucking thing is lazy writing. Sort of like everything else I said that turned out to be true after it was almost universally decried as being too lazy and stupid to be true.

And anyone being Obi-Wan's child would be shit, not some awesome mythical anything. Except maybe mythical shit. Shit so bad it would have to be imbued with magic to be so shitty that knowledge of it would pass into legend. The franchise is the story of the Skywalker family journey. Other "descendants" popping up is a shitty, stupid, boring idea. It is pretty much the entire plot of the next Naruto anime series, so maybe that will be awesome and mythical for you.

Seriously people, it's a fun franchise but its plot or execution aren't even on par with Fast and Furious. It could have been a lot more, but they shit away their last chance at greatness by hiring JJ Abrams, foul avatar of mediocrity. Oh, I forgot, we're pretending it's homage. BRILLIANT THEN!

My guess is that Ren's strength has something to do with the "Force awakening"--that someone is more or less "downloading" Jedi skills into her. We've seen that sort of happen with Luke, too, in ESB.

Yeah, that never happened. Not in any of the movies, and not to anybody. The closest thing to that happened to Lobot and those were accounting spreadsheets, not knowledge of force use.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I believe the importance of the map was that is showed the location of the first jedi temple and that was where luke went.  This more so than luke was the reason the first order wanted it and the reason there would be a map at all.

[Merusk]

"Leia is the only eligible woman in the universe" is a trope that's dead almost 15 years now. Yes the prequels sucked, but they showed more women than just Padme and Shmee.

Also there were not only female Resistance fighters shown, but multiple female First Order outside of Phasma. Hell, the Stormtrooper who tells Ren that Rey activated a motion sensor in the hangar was female.

 

[angry.bob]

Speaking of stormtroopers, did any of you catch Daniel Craig?

[Merusk]

Listened for it today and it only sounded like his voice on the "I will tighten these binders" line. Still, fun.

[MahrinSkel]

For all that AB might be right, it would be kind of cool if it turned out that this had all been some sort of long game by Darth Plagueis, playing for stakes that make the Galactic Empire seem like small potatoes. Remember, the goal of the prophecy for Anakin was "Bring balance to the Force", against a background where the Galactic Republic and Jedi Order have held control so long that the Sith are only legends even to the Jedi. If Plagueis became so powerful that he could control death itself, is it such a stretch that he might have been able to create life, a very special life, from nothing?

--Dave

[Kail]

"Leia is the only eligible woman in the universe" is a trope that's dead almost 15 years now. Yes the prequels sucked, but they showed more women than just Padme and Shmee.

Also there were not only female Resistance fighters shown, but multiple female First Order outside of Phasma. Hell, the Stormtrooper who tells Ren that Rey activated a motion sensor in the hangar was female.

 

"Eligible" in the sense that she's a viable partner for Luke, which nobody from the prequels is (too old) and nobody from Ep 7 is (too young) and nobody from the original trilogy is (too obscure for anyone outside the Mon Mothma slashfic community).  Other women exist, sure, but for the original trilogy it's Leia or nothing, which is why the EU had to invent Mara Jade instead of bringing in medic number five from that one scene on Hoth or whatever.

[HaemishM]

Why would Luke's baby mamma have to be in the original movies anyway? It's not like he couldn't have met someone and got lucky after ROTJ.

[Khaldun]

Obi-Wan's granddaughter is what I'm thinking. But it appears it is once again time to stop just having fun geek conversations because that is somehow offensive.

[Riggswolfe]

The most bizarre Rey theory I've seen so far is that she is Anakin reincarnated in a female body to "get it right this time." Still, being Obi-Wan's grand daughter is pretty high up on that list. The most reasonable I've seen is that she was either Luke's or Han's/Leah's and after Kylo Ren turned on him he hid her and then mind wiped everyone else. Kylo Ren definitely shows an interest when they mention a girl is helping Finn.

[Evildrider]

Why would Luke's baby mamma have to be in the original movies anyway? It's not like he couldn't have met someone and got lucky after ROTJ.

Luke has romance with one of his Jedi students. Baby Mama gets killed by Kylo Ren.  Luke leaves baby Rey on Jakku for her safety.

*iffy since we don't know character ages.

[Kail]

Why would Luke's baby mamma have to be in the original movies anyway? It's not like he couldn't have met someone and got lucky after ROTJ.

In real life, sure, that could happen.  But it's not the EPIC STORY THAT WILL SHAPE A GENERATION^{©2015 Disney all rights reserved}.  You can't have Luke effing Skywalker, galactic savior, chat up the waitress who served his coffee every morning and eventually get together and split a mortgage on a nice little house in the outer rim.  It needs to be epic, or else it will harsh this "Jesus Christ meets Gandalf" vibe they're laying on his character.  And if you DO spin a random nobody out of nowhere to be the mom, why not do the same for the dad, and avoid this cliche "No... I am your father" shit we've been rolling our eyes at since the 80s?

[NowhereMan]

Kylo Ren/Driver is a punk, second rate, and knows it. He's tormented by his own sense of inadequacy, and self-loathing at what he has done for the Dark Side in order to make the most of what talent he has. The 'time-stop' trick is a good one, freezing opponents or even blaster fire, but in the end it's like the Mind Trick: It only works against those that are weak and blind to the Force.

--Dave

Yeah, Ren is second rate but obviously feels he should be wtfawesome like this grandfather. He can excuse his own inadequacy in comparison because Vader obviously got his power from the Dark Side (I'm going to guess Snoke told him that Anakin was just like him and relatively weak before embracing the Dark side). Thus his journey is war between his ambition and fear he can't live up to it against his compassion, guilt and horror at what he's done. I like it because he's not trying to break a habit or succumbing to the easy way out in going to the Dark side, it's clearly a hard choice for him but one he's made and is determined to stick with. My guess is that he was either one of the weaker students or just middle of the road having been told of his awesome Skywalker lineage and expecting to easily sail into first place as the most powerful. Snoke explains to him that Anakin only got his power through the Dark side and until he embraced it he'd never live up to his family name, his 'final test' was probably killing the other students while Luke was away and then he ran like hell.

I am kind of curious if we'll get some of the background on figures like Snoke. It's a change in the universe because after all the EU and prequels we're used to Star Wars having a Wookiepedia entry for every different model of blaster and the screwdriver that you see a Rebel technician using at 0:46 in scene 5 on Hoth in ESB. The prequels embraced that hard and went into huge overexposition on everything while cramming in as many background figures and aliens as possible. I think while he's clearly embraced Star Wars story tropes (by basically retelling ANH) Abrams has at least totally rejected this and, like the OT, there are things that happened but we don't need an info dump explaining. We've got a map fragment. Why/how? Who cares, maybe some Bothans died to get it, the important thing is what it does for the story.

[Khaldun]

I think even the Light Side Jedi conceded that the Dark Side at least *felt* like EZ Mode. I would guess that this is why they had such a control-freak approach to Jedi training and discipline in the first place, that they saw the temptation of the Dark Side as an overwhelming danger. That's probably why Luke has been hiding out--a sense of guilt at the hubris of trying to train more Jedi on his own without all that accumulated knowledge and experience, proven by Ben being so vulnerable to someone like Snoke.

I do hope the next movie is able to concede what virtually everybody watching the prequels concluded, though: that the old Jedi Order was kind of fucked-up. It would be nice to see Luke, Rey and whomever else (Finn, probably) find a new way to be Jedi.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Calling it now there will be a Ewin McGregor/Rebel girl romance in Rogue One

[angry.bob]

Why would Luke's baby mamma have to be in the original movies anyway? It's not like he couldn't have met someone and got lucky after ROTJ.

Luke has romance with one of his Jedi students. Baby Mama gets killed by Kylo Ren.  Luke leaves baby Rey on Jakku for her safety.

*iffy since we don't know character ages.

No. Kylo Wren is at most 22, an that's only if Leia got knocked up at the Ewok campfire.

[Draegan]

The most bizarre Rey theory I've seen so far is that she is Anakin reincarnated in a female body to "get it right this time." Still, being Obi-Wan's grand daughter is pretty high up on that list. The most reasonable I've seen is that she was either Luke's or Han's/Leah's and after Kylo Ren turned on him he hid her and then mind wiped everyone else. Kylo Ren definitely shows an interest when they mention a girl is helping Finn.

http://sendvid.com/i0q9ybuc

This is Rey's vision sequence when she touches Luke's Lightsaber. You can hear a lot of Darth Vadar breathing. Also when you see the little girl being pulled away at the end you can hear old Obi Wan (Alec) saying "rey.."

I totally missed that when I watched in in the theaters.

[Khaldun]

I'll have to listen when I see it again, but what I've read is that Ewan McGregor's voice says something about "first steps". Which could mean--first steps into the Force. Or it could mean a grandfather speaking to a toddler granddaughter...

Apparently Yoda says something as well.