Star Wars: The Force Awakens is currently my third favorite Star Wars film. Of course Empire sits at number one, but the original film still barely beats out JJ’s crack at the franchise for me. That is the most I will say about how much I like the film, despite the flaws it has (most minor, some major) I will do my best to refrain writing a review of TFA until the Blu Ray is made available. So why are you here reading this? Well I wanted to explore some of the new cannon that we have from the film and what could come, or be answered in Episode VIII. I’ll be looking into three things that most intrigue me, but there are many more I won’t have time for. So let's head back to a galaxy far, far away, and speculate like a bunch of nerds! (Needless to Say, TFA Spoilers Follow)
Let’s start with the one that everyone most likely guessed correctly: Rey is most likely Luke’s daughter.
This is clearly the most popular and what would seem to be the most obvious for Rey’s background. And there are plenty of strong reasons she would be, but let’s look at all the possibilities first.
I - Rey is not related to anyone
Highly unlikely, Star Wars has been and will always be about family. Everyone has some relation to someone else, especially if they are the star of the film. Not too mention the magnitude of the force powers she displayed in TFA, your regular Joe shmo doesn’t just walk in off the desert and have crazy force powers along with the first force vision ever shown on screen by touching the most famous lightsaber in the whole franchise. So yeah I really don’t think this one has any grounds whatsoever.
II - Rey is Ben’s sister, Han and Leia’s daughter.
If this is true then we have a ton of other theories to dive into. But I don’t think it is. There is no way both Han or Leia would act the way they act around her and not pick up any clue that she would be their daughter. Though if it is true I would and will speculate that while Kylo was killing all the young Jedi in the new academy he couldn’t bring himself to kill his own sister so he had her abandoned on Jakku to spare her life.
III - Rey is the Granddaughter of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
This theory is not exclusive to Rey being Luke’s daughter, which I will get to later. Regardless, there is a ton of evidence presented to suggest that Rey has Kenobi blood in her.
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She lives in Isolation like Ben did.
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Out of 7 Films, the Jedi Mind trick has only been successful 3 times. Once by Rey, and twice by Obi-Wan.
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Her Accent. If Boyega who also has a British accent was made to portray a character with an american accent, why let Ridley use her natural accent unless there was a reason for it?
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She sneaks around the Base much like Obi-Wan did in ANH.
So if she is a Kenobi we could see some great parallels to the original trilogy, like Obi-Wan handing the lightsaber to Luke, and his Granddaughter doing it again now.
IV - Rey is Luke’s daughter.
I don’t even feel the need to list every number of parallels she has to Luke, but I feel four big ones are worth mentioning.
- Let’s take that handing the lightsaber to Luke scene in a different direction in terms of what could be a strong parallel. If Rey is in fact Luke’s daughter, this scene would be a great mirror of Kylo handing his lightsaber to his father earlier in the film. But where Han tried to take it and Kylo killed him, Luke did not take it, and will join the fight against the dark side.
- She is the star of the film, this to me is the biggest reason. Every Star Wars film has starred a Skywalker. The OT had Luke, and the prequels starred Anakin.
- Grew up on a planet like Luke and his father did.
- Good mechanic like Anakin was.
While this seems to be what the film is hinting towards, let's not forget that for three years after 1977 that it was well known that Darth Vader had killed Luke's father. It wasn't until Kasdan while writing Empire changed that fact, becoming arguably the most memorable twist of all time. I personally feel they shouldn't try to do a twist in Episode VII, simply because everyone would see a twist coming, even if we don't know what the twist is having any twist would not make it very impactful in this film. So i hope they stay the course and either have her be a Skywalker (most likely) or a Kenobi.
V - Rey is both Luke’s Daughter, and the granddaughter of Obi-wan.
This is what I want to happen the most. And it would be a very smart thing for Lucasfilm to combine the two biggest names of the Star Wars films into one strong character as the daughter of Luke, and her mother be Obi-Wan’s daughter. Granted the Obi-Wan relation requires Disney to create stories where Obi-Wan not only finds a lover, but has a kid. And to then have that kid fall for Luke would be yet another stretch. But if we get Ewan McGregor to star in one or two Obi-Wan spinoff films I think this arc would work well. We already say Kenobi tell a Duchess in the Clone Wars series that he would leave the Jedi Order for her. So maybe he did for someone else?
Regardless of what is true or false, I think one big piece of speculation is far more likely than anything else and it’s going to sound pretty obvious. Rey clearly had previous Jedi Training. I think this is the most obvious piece of unconfirmed speculation regarding everyone's favorite new heroine. With that though, I am going to have to end part one, and talk about something visionary..
You’re missing the theory that Rey, like Anakin, may have no father, and may in fact be a direct reincarnation of Vader himself. That one was them most interesting I’ve read so far, though I forget the source.