The dominant fan theory right now is that Rey is Luke’s daughter, possibly illegitimate since Jedi are forbidden to marry but there’s nothing in the Jedi Code that says they can’t take lovers.
Also, there’s a huge age gap between Kylo and Ren. Ren is roughly 20 while Kylo is roughly 30. Would’ve been awfully weird of Han and Leia to just dump Ren off on Jakku, see her again after like 13-16 years, and not suspect anything at all.
So the current theory is that Ren is Luke’s daughter, she was a padawan in the new Jedi Temple (her flashback of being abandoned, things blowing up), her memories were suppressed by Luke (but when she sees her grandfather’s lightsaber again, suddenly she starts seeing more vivid details like Kylo with the Knights of Ren, Luke with R2D2, etc), and Luke left her on Jakku to ensure her protection.
Movies 1-3 were … not great. However, after rewatching them recently, the best part is probably the overarching plot of Anakin (perhaps understandably) heading for the dark side, and Palpatine arranging the fall of the republic. Movies 4-6 are then about the Empire being brought down, Luke finding out who he and his family is, and Vader/Anakin finding some peace at the end. Viewed like that it would be almost weird if the Skywalker family just dropped out of the plot entirely now after being in the middle of everything since the beginning.
Taking up the theme concerning all the references to the original films, I suspect we might see some more of Han.
Stay with me here.
Han has previously been nearly killed, frozen in carbonite and come back. I wouldn’t put it past JJ to have decided to make this a very central nod.
Luke fell down a giant techno tunnel in Empire and was sucked into a trash chute, so may have Han, who fell down a very similar tunnel.
Where is Phasma whilst this is happening? In a trash compactor? Who suggested this? Han.
I have a sneaking suspicion that JJ wanted to get away with the now-accepted-in-the-mainstream-method of keeping you on your toes, Game of Thrones style, of killing off a main character and get in a nod to the originals by taking Han out of the picture only for him to return.
I imagine Phasma is set to return in the coming films and as far as we know she was sent to the trash compactor that Han was falling towards. She for sure escapes… right?
I admit this is a bit of a stretch but the two plot points seem to line up. At the very least, the placement of the camera when Han got stabbed didn’t show you if the sabre was turned off or pulled out to the side then turned off. Why turn off the sabre right afterwards? I’m thinking minimally damaged and cauterised wound to abdomen and falling into a trash compactor (where another main character might be waiting) are not exactly death sentences in the Star Wars universe.
Or I might just be hoping against hope that they didn’t just kill off by far the best character in the series just so the spotlight could shine ever so slightly brighter on the newcomers.
I love The Force Awakens EXCEPT for Chewbacca walking right past Leia after Han’s death. It just makes no sense in any possible way. I really thought Chewie and Leia should have had a silent scene together there and then Leia finds Rey a short time later.
Edited to add: I bet he doesn’t get a medal for his part in this mission either!
Liked it a lot, in part because 1) my favorite line (I may be paraphrasing) “I know how to run, you don’t need to hold my hand” took what Leia represented and cemented it even further; 2) Chewbacca is more than a sidekick but much more a full partner to Han, evidenced by Han agreeing to Chewbacca’s change of plan as to where to place the explosive charges. There are holes in the plot and coincidences that were beyond belief, but my wonderment overcame any sense of “intellectual propriety”.
I want to believe you for the same reasons — I love Han Solo — but… he had a lightsaber stuck through his chest and then the planet exploded. Then again, someone was ejected from a TIE fighter and showed up to save the day too and I didn’t flinch too hard at that bit of coincidence.
I desperately hope that’s not the case. Han’s death was exactly as it should’ve been and a huge emotional climax to the film; if it ends up being a cheap cheat, I’ll be really disappointed.
(and, frankly, Harrison Ford has been begging them to kill off Han for decades.)
Definitely agree 100% on this post. I cut my own list short but you picked up on several of the same things that bugged me.
When I was crunching the numbers (TFA is 30 years after ROTJ and I am going to assume that Kylo would had to have been at least 16 before he killed everyone - thus if they got busy at the Battle of Endor and had a baby the very next year: 29-16 = 13) Kylo should have easily had 13 years of training under two masters. One could argue it was less than 13 years but then you have to take into account that Luke has vanished as a result. If you are gone for only a couple of years that is vanishing its a long holiday.
So a trained knight of the force is bested by an ex-sanitation military member and an untrained 16 year old? That’s like saying that Luke was able to easily defeat Vader in Empire. He got in some good licks but you always knew he was out of his league - Vader just toyed with him.
What would have been better for this scene would have been to introduce Luke in this scene. Creating the persona of someone that didn’t run away from his problems but moved into the shadows so he could better see how things played out and who was controlling Kylo and the dark side. It would also be a spectacular way to show Luke’s new power and calm as Jedi master. He could have just waved his hand to bring destruction down on Kylo and shoo him away to save Finn and Rey. Even with the other flaws I would have given it 5 stars and watched it over and over.
Let’s face it - we wanted to see a strong Luke who could still kick butt and would be formidable and instead we just got a sense that the kids are running the show and no one is for certain what is going on.
But not for the First Order which we in turn really know nothing about
except that they are flush with cash but handcuffed by a do-nothing
Republic that gets destroyed. Why hasn’t the empire just easily ruled the
galaxy no questions asked in the last 30 years? The Resistance has like 10
X wings left and their operations look painfully broke. There is no
reasonable explanation offered or assumed as to why they even pose a
challenge or threat to the First Order. I call BS. And if you say look what
is happening in the Middle East today I say fine but they haven’t had 30
years and to be fair are not at all close to thwarting any major government
or stopping them from doing anything important.
There’s not much there, but here’s my armchair speculation/worldbuilding.
Victory at endor!
Illogical party on all worlds!
The Rebel Alliance becomes the New Republic.
The New Republic establishes power at those planets what get blowed up in TFA.
Everyone else in the galaxy says “Fuck you! We’re doing our own thing.”
Desperate not to be fascists, the Republic says “That’s cool…”
Several former Imperials form New Empires, continuing the Emperor’s plan of stealing babies for stormtroopers.
Supreme Leader Snoke appears with one of the fragments, turns Ben Solo, unifies several of the larger Imperial groups, takes over a significant area.
Leia starts a new “rebellion”, called “The Resistance” when the New Republic refuses to do anything, it’s less about rebelling/liberating and more just a “Fuck you, Snoke” army.
EDIT: I just want to say that I liked how much more competent the 1O guys were allowed to be most of the time. The pilots especially seemed much more cool and dangerous.
Yep. Han Solo is dead, dead, dead. And no Force Ghost for him in Episode VIII, to Ford’s great relief (unless they shot that scene already, which would be perfectly possible were it not totally inane).
Still, the youthful optimist in me really wishes @miasm’s theory could be true!
Yeah, that’s probably true; otherwise why would Max Von Sydow just coincidentally be there with the info on where to find Luke? He’s totally this movie’s Alec Guinness. Although I dunno if there was a problem with sound playback at the Chinese Theater during his scene or what, but it didn’t seem clear at all to me who the hell he was supposed to be and why Poe was talking to him. Oh yeah, the crawl mentioned it. Shit, I’m just getting old. I’ll pay better attention when I see it again on Monday.
Now, wait a minute!
At first blush, that doesn’t make sense. Most of the memories she sees in that vision are of events that take place long after the lightsaber is separated from Luke, so why would that lightsaber trigger memories that the lightsaber itself wouldn’t have been witness to? And why would it “call” to her and trigger any visions at all? I remember that selfsame lightsaber, after having been violently separated from its Force-powerful maker, had this world-altering psychic effect on Luke:
Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi Knight, powerful enough to defeat Darth Vader and to resist the Emperor’s lure to the Dark Side, had no idea what that shiny laser stick in the old man’s trunk could be, and used it for three years of Jedi training, never once guessing that it used to be Darth Vader’s, or that Vader was his father.
So okay, it makes no sense that way, if we assume that some random scavenger cleaning out the filters in the bowels of the Cloud City ventilation shaft found that lightsaber and eventually got it to Maz Tanaka without it ever getting to Luke first. The only way this theory makes a lick of sense is if that lightsaber eventually found its way to Luke, who programmed a memory burst into it keyed to his daughter’s mind, and then deliberately left it with Maz for Rey to find if she ever grew up in circumstances that would allow/require her to get there.
Which is rather silly parenting/mentoring on his part. Makes for an entertaining movie, I guess, but further demonstrates how cracked the Jedi’s viewpoints are on the training of second-generation legacy Jedi. One would think that Luke wouldn’t be too eager to adopt the exact same protective strategy for his own daughter that Yoda and Obi-Wan chose for him, considering how frustrating it was for him (and that it nearly got him killed with his aunt and uncle, if Artoo hadn’t convinced him to remove that restraining bolt).
I’m not a SW fan. I actually liked TPM there was a plot and fleshed out characters, but it’s probably the only SW I liked. The rest of the films are just live action cartoons. I was actually bored watching TFA, the only thing I liked about the film was Daisy Ridley (and I think if they had cast as lesser and less charismatic actress I would have hated her) and Adam Driver. The plot was thin and story un-substantive. The lazy use of the nazi’s/Soviets as one dimensional villains who just want to destroy stuff was just straight up lazy writing. I really expected more from JJ Abrams, he said that he did not make this film to ‘sell toys’. But in all the film just felt as it was aimed at sub literate 15 year old boys who play video games. I hope the sequel has more meat to it. Until then I will anxiously await the next Star Trek film.
