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Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion (HERE THERE BE SPOILERS)

So....?


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Hey, sometimes you send the person who's shown they can hold their own in a major battle. She's also a skilled pilot.

She knows Rey just helped destroy Starkiller Base, Chewbacca seems very fond of her (and if he's that trusting of her then she must have something going for her) and if there's any familial connection she knows about that she didn't tell the audience then picking Rey to find Luke actually makes a lot more sense. If Rey is Luke's daughter and thus a Skywalker then the bond between the two (and between her and Leia) would be strong enough that she'd trust her with such an important mission.
I don't know if it would make sense.
In the entirely hypothetical scenario where Leia sends Luke his now grow daughter out of the blue; I'd call that a serious dick move on Leia's part. At least if it went down in the way it was presented to us.

If Rey were family then there's no way they don't directly address that as soon as she meets Leia. Hell, both Han and Chewie should probably have known full well too, or at least enough to put the pieces together. None of that happened and there's literally no direct connection between Rey and the Skywalkers. It's just misdirection to distract people from the revelation that Kylo is the Skywalker, not Rey.

It's kind of amusing since the same thing happened with Ezra in Rebels. People were *convinced* that there was something significant in his heritage. That he was Kenobi's son. Or Rex's son. That he was a youngling rescued from the temple as it burned. I think I even heard one theory that claimed his mother was Barris and a separate one that had him being a clone of Palpatine. And guess what: it turned out his parents were just ordinary people (just like the parents of most Jedi of the last 1000 years) and he was just an orphan. No big conspiracy. No big secret.

Now they may decide to pull a tooka out of the hat in Episode VIII or IX and reveal that she's Boba Fett's daughter or a clone of Nomi Sunrider or something, but as far as Episode VII is concerned, she's just an orphan and definitely not a Skywalker.
 
I don't think we really got enough information to totally rule anything out when it comes to Rey. If she is a Skywalker and had her memory wiped, then there could be something going on that prevents Leia and Han from being able or wanting to tell her who she is. Maybe he told them that he wanted to be the one to tell her when the time was right, and so part of the reason Leia sent her to Luke was specifically so he could tell her?
I don't see how her parentage was presented as some "big mystery". It really wasn't. Nobody even asked the question.
It only tangentially came up as her reason for wanting to stay on Jakku because "they'll come back for me...some day."
This is not the prophecy of some lost Jedi princess, it's the impossible wish of an orphan.

Now they may address it further on down the line, but so far we've no reason to think Rey's parents were anything but a pair of bums who just took off and left her.
I guess it wasn't really a big part of the movie, but it still seems to me they would have just out right shown us who they were, or at least talked openly about them after the release, if there wasn't something going on there.
The main thing that keeps the idea the Rey is Luke's child is that the Episode films are suppose to be the tales of the Skywalkers, and having Kylo Ren be the main Skywalker doesn't seem right for some reason.
This is a big part of it for me too. I find a little hard to believe that the new trilogy's only new Skywalker character will be one of the bad guys, it's possible but I find it doubtful.
 
Is Rey the child of Luke and Leia?

Because prior to ROTJ Luke had no idea about their relationship..

Then Rey would be a lot older. Unless they do that Peacekeeper thing where they put a "hold" on the pregnancy.

I'm leaning towards her being Luke's daughter, or possibly Ben's younger sister (but you think Han & Leia would have mentioned this).
 
I don't think we really got enough information to totally rule anything out when it comes to Rey. If she is a Skywalker and had her memory wiped, then there could be something going on that prevents Leia and Han from being able or wanting to tell her who she is. Maybe he told them that he wanted to be the one to tell her when the time was right, and so part of the reason Leia sent her to Luke was specifically so he could tell her?

That's an *awfully* long way to go--figuratively speaking--just to get a re-tread of the "I AM YOUR FATHER!" scene. Particularly when they literally just did an inversion of that scenario with Han & Kylo. It's thrice redundant.

Adding mind-wiping into the mix just proves that there's no basis for this whatsoever if the only way it works is if people are walking around with chunks of their memory missing. It's just an attempt to force the facts to fit a theory while ignoring or hand-waving the small mountain of inconsistencies it brings up.
Seriously, amnesia is the last recourse of a desperate storyteller and there's simply no need for it here and no indication that's where they're going.

I guess it wasn't really a big part of the movie, but it still seems to me they would have just out right shown us who they were, or at least talked openly about them after the release, if there wasn't something going on there.

Unless the identities of her parents is utterly irrelevant. It's stated in the most explicit terms possible:-
"Whomever you are waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back"
"The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead"


This is a big part of it for me too. I find a little hard to believe that the new trilogy's only new Skywalker character will be one of the bad guys, it's possible but I find it doubtful.
Why not? People are complaining enough that it hewed too close to ANH, surely having the plucky desert native Jedi wannabe also turn out to be secretly a Skywalker would just make that even worse, no?
 
You can imagine him being the sort to torture small animals as a child.

It's not necessary. That's the mistake some made with Vader upon TPM's release. It was insisted that he had to be some demon child type. But that works counter to the significance of the turn.
 
I liked that Anakin Skywalker started out as a kind-hearted slave boy who wanted to help the people he liked. He loved his mother and yearned for something more than just living out his life on a desert planet as somebody else's property. His gradual turn to the Dark Side over the next two films was made all the better and more believable because nine-year-old Anakin wasn't the kid who liked tormenting other children his age or getting in trouble with the local authorities whenever he had the chance.

There was little point in watching Anakin Skywalker become Darth Vader unless something truly good and decent was lost in the process of that transformation.
 
Which is probably why they went a different direction with Kylo, rather than just repeat the same exact character arc. He was a messed up kid that chose the quick and easy path. It's also why they didn't bother detailing his fall since it's patently obvious.

Some monsters start out good and innocent, others start out with one foot already in the dark side.
 
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I find it a little hard to believe that Han and Leia would have raised a kid who was always that bad. My thought was that he was a good kid who was corrupted by Snoke. It is closer to Anakin, but I think he was already going down a dark path even before he started hanging around with Palpatine.
 
I find it a little hard to believe that Han and Leia would have raised a kid who was always that bad. My thought was that he was a good kid who was corrupted by Snoke. It is closer to Anakin, but I think he was already going down a dark path even before he started hanging around with Palpatine.
Han specifically says "there was just too much Vader in him", to which Leia responds "that's why I wanted him to train with Luke."
This to me says they knew full well there was something very off about him from very early on. That while he had a chance of being brought round given the right guidance, Snoke ensured that didn't happen. The point being, he was predisposed towards the dark side and they knew it.

I'm not saying he was irredeemable from day one, but it's seems that the direction they're going with is that while Anakin was a good hearted kid that turned sower and selfish with age, Ben was troubled at the best of times and it just got worse.
Still, both of them ultimately chose their own path.
 
I hope that Episode VIII: The First Order Strikes Back takes a dark turn, and that Rey is seduced by the dark side of "The Force" and becomes Kylo's student... and then his lover. And that they are never redeemed back to the light.

Would Disney dare to go in that direction? :vulcan:

Kor
 
I hope that Episode VIII: The First Order Strikes Back takes a dark turn, and that Rey is seduced by the dark side of "The Force" and becomes Kylo's student... and then his lover. And that they are never redeemed back to the light.

Would Disney dare to go in that direction?
No. Certainly not as far as Rey being unredeemable, even if she were to fall to the dark side. The rest, being Kylo Ren's dark side student and lover, I can see all that as at least theoretically possible, but with being Kylo Ren's lover easily the least likely.

Rey's pretty clearly the next generation Force-wielding hero of SW in a (welcome) age of strong female protagonists. Disney is willing to have nuanced female protagonists, such as Queen Elsa, who was in danger of becoming evil but who in the end (of the first Frozen film) avoided that fate entirely with the help of her sister.

I can see Rey's falling being a risk. We know, by Yoda, that someone will be forever dominated by the dark side if they choose the dark path, but we also know that someone can come back to the good side in the end, by the example of Anakin.

I expect that the future drama will come from trying to bring Ben Solo back to the good side and will come from how far Rey must go to accomplish that while staying on the good side. We haven't seen Rey be anything but good, and we've seen her make sacrifices of herself, simply for the greater good, for example in not selling out BB-8 even while she was practically starving. She wasn't even resentful of that, and I don't recall her whining about it*. I don't see Rey compromising her own integrity, and I don't see her getting seduced. If she loves Ben, it will be because she in fact loves him, not because she is corrupted. I could be wrong, but I really doubt that romantic love between Ben and Rey is in the cards.

* - "like a Skywalker" ;).
 
Han specifically says "there was just too much Vader in him", to which Leia responds "that's why I wanted him to train with Luke."
This to me says they knew full well there was something very off about him from very early on. That while he had a chance of being brought round given the right guidance, Snoke ensured that didn't happen. The point being, he was predisposed towards the dark side and they knew it.

I'm not saying he was irredeemable from day one, but it's seems that the direction they're going with is that while Anakin was a good hearted kid that turned sower and selfish with age, Ben was troubled at the best of times and it just got worse.
Still, both of them ultimately chose their own path.
I didn't remember that line about Ben. That does make me wonder if some people are just naturally at a bigger risk of falling to the dark side, like some people in the real world being at a bigger risk of mental illness or alcoholism.
 
It seems Ben Solo inherited whatever genes helped turn his grandfather into the monster he became. If we still believe that Darth Plagueis and/or Palpatine helped create Anakin in the first place to become the ultimate Sith apprentice and help usher in the rule of their dark order over the galaxy, then it's conceivable that somewhere deep within Anakin's DNA or midichlorians (yeah, I went there) there was some kind of dark energy that helped drive him to anger and frustration and then, finally, evil and then two generations later his grandson followed in his tragic footsteps.

Luke and Leia just happened to be strong enough with noble and loving character traits that both of the twins escaped the fate of their father even if Luke came perilously close to surrendering to the Dark Side aboard the second Death Star. Ben wasn't so lucky, and from an early age displayed a very troubled personality that played into the hands of Snoke once he learned of his existence.
 
such as Queen Elsa, who was in danger of becoming evil but who in the end (of the first Frozen film) avoided that fate entirely with the help of her sister.


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He's not the only one.

BERU: Luke's just not a farmer, Owen. He has too much of his father in him.
OWEN: That's what I'm afraid of.
To be fair, Beru was referring to his restlessness, not his temperament. I sometime wonder exactly how much they knew. They only met Anakin once, do they know he became a Sith or even know what that means? Did one of them perhaps overhear Anakin's confession to Padme?

But still, yeah, Luke was indeed always in danger of falling. Hell, Yoda was practically frantic with warnings when he wanted to rush off to Bespin. "Told you I did. Reckless is he. Now, matters are worse."

The difference is that Luke came through his crucible stronger, while Ben cracked under pressure. Some things you can't really quantify, so it ultimately comes down to choice. Some people simply choose "the quick and easy path".

I didn't remember that line about Ben. That does make me wonder if some people are just naturally at a bigger risk of falling to the dark side, like some people in the real world being at a bigger risk of mental illness or alcoholism.
Well everyone's born with pre-dispositions one way or the other. Different temperaments, different psychological make-ups. There's a reason why the Jedi trained their members young, had them pass through several trials to become padawans and again to become knights and paired them up to a master for long-term one-to-one training. They needed to weed out or pay extra attention to those with greater dark side tendencies. It's also why they forbid personal attachments.

Remember that the order didn't just produce Darth Vader, but also the likes of Krell, Dooku and even Ventress to a point. All of them turned by choice, except perhaps Ventress, given her youth and circumstances. That was more of a nurture over nature scenario. But the other rose to become masters. I suppose you could include Barris and the Grand Inquisitor there too, but that's more a sigh of how far the Order itself had fallen to the dark side by the end.
 
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One theory put forth about the midichlorians and Anakin was that he is the response from the Force to Darth Plagueis trying to create life. Anakin isn't the result of the Sith's experiments directly, but the counter from the Force to those experiments.
 
One theory put forth about the midichlorians and Anakin was that he is the response from the Force to Darth Plagueis trying to create life. Anakin isn't the result of the Sith's experiments directly, but the counter from the Force to those experiments.


And yet that backfired.

The Force wasn't that smart.
 
it's conceivable that somewhere deep within Anakin's DNA or midichlorians (yeah, I went there) there was some kind of dark energy that helped drive him to anger and frustration and then, finally, evil

A midichlorian count is just a midichlorian count. It's not aligned in one direction or the other. It just turns up the volume, so to speak. By implication of TPM Yoda has the next highest midichlorian count on record.

Reverend said:
I suppose you could include Barris and the Grand Inquisitor there too, but that's more a sigh of how far the Order itself had fallen to the dark side by the end.

I'm skeptical on the issue of the order having supposedly "fallen to the dark side", but to some extent I think it's an issue of semantics. At any rate, I don't think Barriss should be taken as symptomatic of the whole order, any more than, say, Sora Bulq.

Ithekro said:
One theory put forth about the midichlorians and Anakin was that he is the response from the Force to Darth Plagueis trying to create life.

That was suggested by the book Darth Plagueis.
 
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