ARCHIVE: Rey and Kylo - Beauty and the Beast, Scavenger and the Monstah, Their Bond, His Love, Her Confused Feelings - 7

Maria Antonietta wrote:

spacebaby45678 wrote:

BastilaBey wrote:

spacebaby45678 wrote:@BastilaBey

GL, always meant for the protagonist of the ST to be a female, Kira, ( per Pablo) the pre JJ & Kasdan days, concept art always had "Kira" read Kenobi.

Rey/Kira was never random, from the earliest conception before GL's ideas where thrown out, and Arndt was replaced by Kasdan. GL is meticulous, his attention to detail is extraordinary. As much as I love Kasdan's writing, which he does wonderfully, it is within the framework that GL has set up.

@spacebaby45678

Maybe I didn't make it clear in my post, but I agree that the female character was always intended to be the protagonist. I just think they switched the legacy child role from hero to villain, so the villain is now the Skywalker. It was a pretty bold move and some people still aren't ok with it. It's why they're still so desperate for Rey to be a Skywalker too.

@BastilaBey

If you go back and do historical research, on the published articles, the female protagonist was never going to be a Skywalker. The "Finn" Character was going to be the Skywalker. Kira was going to be a Kenobi descendent with colorblind casting, they where actually looking for either an Asian or African American/Afro British actress for the role. This predates JJ & Kasdan.

@spacebaby45678

So basically finn was the Jedi killer?

@Maria Antonietta

No

spacebaby45678 wrote:

Maria Antonietta wrote:

spacebaby45678 wrote:

BastilaBey wrote:

spacebaby45678 wrote:@BastilaBey

GL, always meant for the protagonist of the ST to be a female, Kira, ( per Pablo) the pre JJ & Kasdan days, concept art always had "Kira" read Kenobi.

Rey/Kira was never random, from the earliest conception before GL's ideas where thrown out, and Arndt was replaced by Kasdan. GL is meticulous, his attention to detail is extraordinary. As much as I love Kasdan's writing, which he does wonderfully, it is within the framework that GL has set up.

@spacebaby45678

Maybe I didn't make it clear in my post, but I agree that the female character was always intended to be the protagonist. I just think they switched the legacy child role from hero to villain, so the villain is now the Skywalker. It was a pretty bold move and some people still aren't ok with it. It's why they're still so desperate for Rey to be a Skywalker too.

@BastilaBey

If you go back and do historical research, on the published articles, the female protagonist was never going to be a Skywalker. The "Finn" Character was going to be the Skywalker. Kira was going to be a Kenobi descendent with colorblind casting, they where actually looking for either an Asian or African American/Afro British actress for the role. This predates JJ & Kasdan.

@spacebaby45678

So basically finn was the Jedi killer?

@Maria Antonietta

No

@spacebaby45678

omg

spacebaby45678 wrote:

BastilaBey wrote:

spacebaby45678 wrote:@BastilaBey

GL, always meant for the protagonist of the ST to be a female,  Kira, ( per Pablo) the pre JJ & Kasdan days, concept art always had "Kira" read Kenobi.

Rey/Kira was never random, from the earliest conception before GL's ideas where thrown out, and Arndt was replaced by Kasdan. GL is meticulous, his attention to detail is extraordinary. As much as I love Kasdan's writing, which he does wonderfully, it  is within the framework that GL has set up.

@spacebaby45678

Maybe I didn't make it clear in my post, but I agree that the female character was always intended to be the protagonist. I just think they switched the legacy child role from hero to villain, so the villain is now the Skywalker. It was a pretty bold move and some people still aren't ok with it. It's why they're still so desperate for Rey to be a Skywalker too.

@BastilaBey

If you go back and do historical research, on the published articles, the female protagonist was never going to be a Skywalker.  The "Finn" Character was going to be the Skywalker. Kira was going to be a Kenobi descendent with colorblind casting, they where actually looking for either an Asian or African American/Afro British actress for the role. This predates JJ & Kasdan.

@spacebaby45678

Finn or Sam character (they aren't the same...Sam was scrapped and Finn replaced him) was never going to be a Skywalker. I don't know where you found that one, but it's well documented that the toss for Skywalker was between Kira and Jedi Killer only. Early version (Arndt) script had Kira as Han and Leia daughter so Skywalker by blood only. But script was overhauled when Arndt left, because JJ didn't want focus on Han and Leia but on Luke. So Jedi Killer became a Skywalker and killed Han. Luke was never meant to have a kid. It was always Skywalker Solo child.

Maria Antonietta wrote:

spacebaby45678 wrote:

Maria Antonietta wrote:

spacebaby45678 wrote:

BastilaBey wrote:

spacebaby45678 wrote:@BastilaBey

GL, always meant for the protagonist of the ST to be a female,  Kira, ( per Pablo) the pre JJ & Kasdan days, concept art always had "Kira" read Kenobi.

Rey/Kira was never random, from the earliest conception before GL's ideas where thrown out, and Arndt was replaced by Kasdan. GL is meticulous, his attention to detail is extraordinary. As much as I love Kasdan's writing, which he does wonderfully, it  is within the framework that GL has set up.

@spacebaby45678

Maybe I didn't make it clear in my post, but I agree that the female character was always intended to be the protagonist. I just think they switched the legacy child role from hero to villain, so the villain is now the Skywalker. It was a pretty bold move and some people still aren't ok with it. It's why they're still so desperate for Rey to be a Skywalker too.

@BastilaBey

If you go back and do historical research, on the published articles, the female protagonist was never going to be a Skywalker.  The "Finn" Character was going to be the Skywalker. Kira was going to be a Kenobi descendent with colorblind casting, they where actually looking for either an Asian or African American/Afro British actress for the role. This predates JJ & Kasdan.

@spacebaby45678

So basically finn was the Jedi killer?

@Maria Antonietta

No

@spacebaby45678

 omg

@Maria Antonietta

I have been corrected

What is clear is that the core theme is this love story which is so difficult because one of the lovers is Dark and the other is Light. They switched the legacy child status from one to another, probably to make the redemption arch easier to accept. Perhaps the problems come from the so called mystery box, which the writers considered necessary because the love story is not supposed to be predictable, it's supposed to come as a surprise and, as many have commented here,the Reywalker goggles prevent many people from seeing the truth.

It was a clever move in the beginning, but perhaps they are elongating the incognita causing trouble. Reylo is impossible if they are related, so the Reywalker red herring is fantastic to cover what is meant to come, but Reywalker affects people's perception of Kylo's and Rey's chracters and their dynamic. Nobody should have felt offended by the interrogation scene because it wasn't intended as creepy, but the Reywalker googles made some see Kylo as a creep when he was just a young man who felt attracted to a girl and didn't act on it, but he couldn't help feeling the attraction and so did she,thus her embarrasment and confusion. Beautifully played by Daisy, by the way, I have already said enough about AD's performance, he is fantastic in every sense, but there, she held her own. Bravo for Daisy.

I think the movie itself solved the Reywalker incognita but did so in a beautifully subtle way, and many viewes aren't keen on subtlety or are too stubborn to see what's in fron of their eyes. Others need everything spelt out for them.

Reywalker has become a problem and it affects Rey's character and also her dynamic with Kylo. I hope Reywalker is absolutely debunked in the next movie, as soon as possible, so that the story can move forward without that dead weight. People will see Reylo immediately then, there's no other direction the story can go. Every other possibility would be weaker and less exciting than this star-crossed lovers' story and his heart-wrenching redemption.

I'd also like Rey as a heritage child because this would move the limelight to her if only for some time, and for reasons that I've explained in other posts I think Rey Kenobi would work beautifully and would explain why this girl fits so well among Skywalkers, LOL. But there are other threads for this kind of speculations. What I think is that at this point it would feel anticlimatic for her to be random as they have built up expectations suggesting the contrary, especially on the media but also in the movie. It won't make her either more or less glamurous but it will be about her, people will focus on her and only her as regards that and it links with her original goal, which was finding her family. She needs to discover what became of them and then move forward, into Kylo's arms hopefully.

I love heroes that come from the people and turn up to be special, but I think this wouldn't work at this point after the way the basis for her character have been established.

vaderito wrote:

spacebaby45678 wrote:

BastilaBey wrote:

spacebaby45678 wrote:@BastilaBey

GL, always meant for the protagonist of the ST to be a female,  Kira, ( per Pablo) the pre JJ & Kasdan days, concept art always had "Kira" read Kenobi.

Rey/Kira was never random, from the earliest conception before GL's ideas where thrown out, and Arndt was replaced by Kasdan. GL is meticulous, his attention to detail is extraordinary. As much as I love Kasdan's writing, which he does wonderfully, it  is within the framework that GL has set up.

@spacebaby45678

Maybe I didn't make it clear in my post, but I agree that the female character was always intended to be the protagonist. I just think they switched the legacy child role from hero to villain, so the villain is now the Skywalker. It was a pretty bold move and some people still aren't ok with it. It's why they're still so desperate for Rey to be a Skywalker too.

@BastilaBey

If you go back and do historical research, on the published articles, the female protagonist was never going to be a Skywalker.  The "Finn" Character was going to be the Skywalker. Kira was going to be a Kenobi descendent with colorblind casting, they where actually looking for either an Asian or African American/Afro British actress for the role. This predates JJ & Kasdan.

@spacebaby45678

Finn or Sam character (they aren't the same...Sam was scrapped and Finn replaced him) was never going to be a Skywalker. I don't know where you found that one, but it's well documented that the toss for Skywalker was between Kira and Jedi Killer only. Early version (Arndt) script had Kira as Han and Leia daughter so Skywalker by blood only. But script was overhauled when Arndt left, because JJ didn't want focus on Han and Leia but on Luke. So Jedi Killer became a Skywalker and killed Han. Luke was never meant to have a kid. It was always Skywalker Solo child.

@vaderito

I am always willing to learn something new. I will go check that out.

@spacebaby4567 I don't know where you are getting your facts but they are wrong. Sam/Finn/whatever was never going to be a Skywalker. Ever. I trust sources who claim this and there's a very detailed development report in our Spoiler archive about the process. The toss was between Kira and Jedi Killer. never sam. Even less Finn who is NOT Sam, I repeat he is not Sam.

Also, Kenobi (grand) daughter casting was only a rumor just like minimizing KMT role is a rumor. There were many rumors, not all of them true.

Then there’s the fact that Pixar screenwriter Michael Arndt originally worked on the screenplay for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and eventually left the project, supposedly because he had other commitments. According to a THR piece from January 2014, Arndt was perhaps leaning on the generational aspects of Lucas’ trilogy pretty hard. Arndt was apparently focusing on the offspring of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), with the parents being more of supporting characters. Instead, Abrams brought Solo, and, to a lesser extent, Leia and Luke back into the foreground in a bigger way (the article also reminds us that Tye Sheridan was once being tested for an offspring, and given the actor's age, would have been a teenager or an adolescent nearing his 20s, but this character was wiped from the script).


http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/michael-arndt-reveals-rejected-plots-from-star-wars-the-force-awakens-a-much-larger-role-for-redacted-20151220

spacebaby45678 wrote:Then there’s the fact that Pixar screenwriter Michael Arndt originally worked on the screenplay for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and eventually left the project, supposedly because he had other commitments. According to a THR piece from January 2014, Arndt was perhaps leaning on the generational aspects of Lucas’ trilogy pretty hard. Arndt was apparently focusing on the offspring of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), with the parents being more of supporting characters. Instead, Abrams brought Solo, and, to a lesser extent, Leia and Luke back into the foreground in a bigger way (the article also reminds us that Tye Sheridan was once being tested for an offspring, and given the actor's age, would have been a teenager or an adolescent nearing his 20s, but this character was wiped from the script).


http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/michael-arndt-reveals-rejected-plots-from-star-wars-the-force-awakens-a-much-larger-role-for-redacted-20151220

@spacebaby45678

That's even earlier version. By the time they got Kira and Sam overhaul already happened. Arndt script is from the time where there were 2 guys and 2 girls as main characters. They changed that so actors tested for characters code named Rachel and Thomas. They became Kira and Sam. Sam was supposed to be a smuggler. Than they scrapped Sam and created Finn.

But, OK, I see where you are coming from.

There was NO way that Kira was ever going to be a Solo or a Skywalker, and the rumors of a Kenobi descendent casting predate all of these shipper wars and predates JJ & Kasdan. So it is not an attempt to "DERAIL" anything

Rey Was a Hothead Loner Named Kira

Rey’s original name was Kira and while its not specifically stated, her early concept designs looked like they were modeled after Kristen Stewart. Screenwriter Michael Arndt described Kira as a “loner, hothead, gear-head, bad***,” and the early story focused on Kira’s journey of self-discovery, from fearful Force-sensitive to master.



So all of our arguments against Rey being abandoned on a planet by herself precludes her from being a Solo or Skywalker should still stand, by logic alone.

They where considering making Sam a Solo or Skywalker

Finn Was Originally a Han Solo Type

The character that became Finn was originally named Sam. Screenwriter Michael Arndt described Sam as “pure charisma” and the early concept art showed him as a young white man. You might describe his look as a smuggler type, a cross between a younger Han Solo and Anakin Skywalker from the prequels.

They quickly came to the idea of Sam being a former Stormtrooper who witnesses either a firing squad or an airlock ejection of a captured Rebel crew member. Its that event which was the turning point where he decides to run and helps Poe escape. But before Poe was a resistance pilot, he was something else…



http://www.slashfilm.com/force-awakens-changes/


However, if you look close at the changes, Finn (Sam)  is now a Stormtrooper who deserts, ( Calarissian) and Jedi Killer is a Solo....Kylo

Darth Dingbat wrote:

Saracene wrote:The big difference is that Rey has no equivalent of Luke's "I want to be a Jedi like my father" - a clear goal and ambition. What she wants to do for most of the movie is go back to Jakku and wait for her family until the cows come home. She basically wants to stay passive, whereas Luke wants to get out there and do things.

@Saracene

On the other hand, the girl who has stubbornly waited for her family for years upon years is a great starting point for a unique journey of her own. I hope they go somewhere with it.

@Darth Dingbat

It's just a weird motivation for your protagonist, I think. Usually, characters who start out in miserable circumstances dream of getting out of them, so then it's like a springboard for their later adventures. But Rey's motivation is a dead end, and once she gives it up it's not clear at all what her motivation is now (which is why people struggle to think of where her storyline will go).

Also, for a supposed protagonist she just doesn't seem to have much influence on the big picture. Like, blowing up the Death Star in ANH was the only one amazing thing Luke did, but it was the one that saved the good guys. Rey defeats the main bad guy in TFA, but that has no impact on the larger outcome - it's Poe and the other pilots who blow up the Starkiller. She does get BB-8 to the Resistance, but then that achievement gets kinda muted because things don't budge until R2-D2 comes back (for some reason). It's never properly explained why exactly she's the one going to meet Luke, so the whole of Resistance cheering her on her way is kinda unearned. And another thing is, a protagonist is usually at the centre of the film's peak emotional scenes. Whereas Rey is just an onlooker in what many people would probably consider the big emotional moment of TFA, i.e. Han's death.

Interesting thing is, I actually haven't seen many complaints about the Rey narrative issues we discuss here. Many people just seem to be happy that Star Wars now has this kick-a** female hero who has all those mad skills and won't let anybody hold her hand.

So basically, they were much more interesting in the concept than sanitized versions we ended up with. Figures.

So how does Jedi Killer/Kira art based on Adam/Daria shoot figure in all that?

I also think that nobody knows the whole story, that all sites that try to put bits and pieces together never actually got confirmation from anyone. Nor they will cause old concept are may still be in use for later episodes.

Saracene wrote:

Darth Dingbat wrote:

Saracene wrote:The big difference is that Rey has no equivalent of Luke's "I want to be a Jedi like my father" - a clear goal and ambition. What she wants to do for most of the movie is go back to Jakku and wait for her family until the cows come home. She basically wants to stay passive, whereas Luke wants to get out there and do things.

@Saracene

On the other hand, the girl who has stubbornly waited for her family for years upon years is a great starting point for a unique journey of her own. I hope they go somewhere with it.

@Darth Dingbat

It's just a weird motivation for your protagonist, I think. Usually, characters who start out in miserable circumstances dream of getting out of them, so then it's like a springboard for their later adventures. But Rey's motivation is a dead end, and once she gives it up it's not clear at all what her motivation is now (which is why people struggle to think of where her storyline will go).

Also, for a supposed protagonist she just doesn't seem to have much influence on the big picture. Like, blowing up the Death Star in ANH was the only one amazing thing Luke did, but it was the one that saved the good guys. Rey defeats the main bad guy in TFA, but that has no impact on the larger outcome - it's Poe and the other pilots who blow up the Starkiller. She does get BB-8 to the Resistance, but then that achievement gets kinda muted because things don't budge until R2-D2 comes back (for some reason). It's never properly explained why exactly she's the one going to meet Luke, so the whole of Resistance cheering her on her way is kinda unearned. And another thing is, a protagonist is usually at the centre of the film's peak emotional scenes. Whereas Rey is just an onlooker in what many people would probably consider the big emotional moment of TFA, i.e. Han's death.

Interesting thing is, I actually haven't seen many complaints about the Rey narrative issues we discuss here. Many people just seem to be happy that Star Wars now has this kick-a** female hero who has all those mad skills and won't let anybody hold her hand.

@Saracene

I agree, especially on the bolded. But my point was really that I hope the mystery of her parentage turns out to be connected to the main plot of the trilogy in some major way because that was established as her most powerful motivation early on. I hope the issue of her parentage crops up again as a source of conflict for her, because otherwise, what was the point?

Now it kind of seems like she threw aside her defining characteristic, her strongest motivation - something that had been sustaining her for over ten years - for the sake of a bunch of people she'd only just met, and now she's floating in a curiously motivation-less and position-less state, as a carrier of a legacy lightsaber (that isn't her legacy) until somebody else picks it up.

vaderito wrote:So basically, they were much more interesting in the concept than sanitized versions we ended up with. Figures.

So how does Jedi Killer/Kira art based on Adam/Daria shoot figure in all that?

I also think that nobody knows the whole story, that all sites that try to put bits and pieces together never actually got confirmation from anyone. Nor they will cause old concept are may still be in use for later episodes.

@vaderito

Hard to say, as that concept art has never been officially released. All we know is that Leibovitz took those photos in June 2013 and they were officially published in the autumn. As we don't know when the team got hold of those photos, it's impossible to say at which stage of the development they came along. But my guess would be that it was around JJ & Kasdan's overhaul of the script? At least it must have been before Daisy was cast in February 2014.

Though I'm even more interested in the fact that those photos were taken in Co. Kerry...

BastilaBey wrote:@Mana Exactly. And this sounds super cynical so I hope it's not actually how it all went down, but it makes me feel similarly to how it seemed when Finn holding the lightsaber was revealed to be something of a marketing red herring. Rey not being the Skywalker makes her less of a protagonist in some people's eyes. Is our hero a red herring for the true main character, the Skywalker/Solo legacy boy? I think that's honestly why some people seem to dislike him so strongly. Would there be a backlash when the audience realizes that as progressive as TFA seems, the underlying story is about our white male villain and not our female heroine or our black hero? They are still the protagonists, but I'm not sure it's the same thing. They are unrelated characters thrust into the trilogies that are always about this one family.

It's a vocal minority that has a strong issue with Kylo, perhaps, but it's based on the confusion that the saga needs to always be about the Skywalkers, according to its creators, and yet it's become increasingly clear that our heroine is not a Skywalker. So where does that leave us? The story isn't really about her? If you see Reylo and acknowledge it, it makes sense to you how Rey is still the main character. But if you don't, it has to be a little strange.

@BastilaBey

Boom. This is something I've been wondering about, as well.

Finn as a Jedi was already a red herring. FinnRey was a red herring. (And while I saw long before the end of TFA that FinnRey wasn't happening, I can understand why others fell for it.) If it turns out that the Mystery Box has yet another surprise in store, and Rey and Finn as the main characters were, if not exactly a red herring, but something uncomfortably close to one - well...

I mean, there are central characters who are fascinating in their own right, and central characters who are clearly the main heroes despite not being the most fascinating characters in the story; and on the other end of the spectrum, there are central characters who are little more than observers. Rey and Finn are clearly not going to be mere observers, and Finn is getting his own plot, so that's good. But I really, really hope Rey gets something that's entirely her own, and this is where the mystery of her parentage is important. That is the one thing that's entirely her own. And I don't mean that she necessarily needs important parents in order to be important, but that's the character TFA gave us - someone who wanted nothing more in this world than to get her family back. That's got to play a big role in her character development.

Darth Dingbat wrote:

Saracene wrote:

Darth Dingbat wrote:

Saracene wrote:The big difference is that Rey has no equivalent of Luke's "I want to be a Jedi like my father" - a clear goal and ambition. What she wants to do for most of the movie is go back to Jakku and wait for her family until the cows come home. She basically wants to stay passive, whereas Luke wants to get out there and do things.

@Saracene

On the other hand, the girl who has stubbornly waited for her family for years upon years is a great starting point for a unique journey of her own. I hope they go somewhere with it.

@Darth Dingbat

It's just a weird motivation for your protagonist, I think. Usually, characters who start out in miserable circumstances dream of getting out of them, so then it's like a springboard for their later adventures. But Rey's motivation is a dead end, and once she gives it up it's not clear at all what her motivation is now (which is why people struggle to think of where her storyline will go).

Also, for a supposed protagonist she just doesn't seem to have much influence on the big picture. Like, blowing up the Death Star in ANH was the only one amazing thing Luke did, but it was the one that saved the good guys. Rey defeats the main bad guy in TFA, but that has no impact on the larger outcome - it's Poe and the other pilots who blow up the Starkiller. She does get BB-8 to the Resistance, but then that achievement gets kinda muted because things don't budge until R2-D2 comes back (for some reason). It's never properly explained why exactly she's the one going to meet Luke, so the whole of Resistance cheering her on her way is kinda unearned. And another thing is, a protagonist is usually at the centre of the film's peak emotional scenes. Whereas Rey is just an onlooker in what many people would probably consider the big emotional moment of TFA, i.e. Han's death.

Interesting thing is, I actually haven't seen many complaints about the Rey narrative issues we discuss here. Many people just seem to be happy that Star Wars now has this kick-a** female hero who has all those mad skills and won't let anybody hold her hand.

@Saracene

I agree, especially on the bolded. But my point was really that I hope the mystery of her parentage turns out to be connected to the main plot of the trilogy in some major way because that was established as her most powerful motivation early on. I hope the issue of her parentage crops up again as a conflict for her, because otherwise, what was the point?

Now it kind of seems like she threw aside her defining characteristic, her strongest motivation - something that had been sustaining her for over ten years - for the sake of a bunch of people she'd only just met, and now she's floating in a curiously motivation-less and position-less state, as a carrier of a legacy lightsaber (that isn't her legacy) until somebody else picks it up.

@Darth Dingbat

I agree.Reywalker can be very annoying and single minded but some of them do have a point when they say that if Rey's not connected to the Skywalkers somehow then what's her purpose?Don't missunderstand me I'm not syaing that if Rey's a Skywalker than her character is useless far from it.But being a non legacy character with non legacy parnets in a saga that's mainly about the Skywalker family is difficult and I'm genuinely interested in what their plans are about a non Skywalker heroine.
Since Rey's biggest defining characteristis is her family the GA would wnat a satisfactory storyline and I'm not sure her parentage just being a red herring and her serving as the last hope of the Skywalkers would be satisfying for the GA or Rey as a character.Yes,we have Maz telling her that she should let go of them but it's very telling that despite that the GA still wants to know who these people are and while a large group believe she's a Skywlaker I think some of them are interested because that's the oen thing they know Rey actually wants.
Ofcourse at the end of the day who's more important is Rey herself but it feels like she'll keep getting swallowed by the characters like Luke and Kylo and the Skywalker family drama and unless she falls in love with Kylo people will be wondeirng why is this girl involved in this family's problems?
The writers have the difficult taks of not making it look like Rey is less important than the rest of the Skywalkers eventhough she's not a Skywalker herself.

Darth Dingbat wrote:

vaderito wrote:So basically, they were much more interesting in the concept than sanitized versions we ended up with. Figures.

So how does Jedi Killer/Kira art based on Adam/Daria shoot figure in all that?

I also think that nobody knows the whole story, that all sites that try to put bits and pieces together never actually got confirmation from anyone. Nor they will cause old concept are may still be in use for later episodes.

@vaderito

Hard to say, as that concept art has never been officially released. All we know is that Leibovitz took those photos in June 2013 and they were officially published in the autumn. As we don't know when the team got hold of those photos, it's impossible to say at which stage of the development they came along. But my guess would be that it was around JJ & Kasdan's overhaul of the script? At least it must have been before Daisy was cast in February 2014.

Though I'm even more interested in the fact that those photos were taken in Co. Kerry...

BastilaBey wrote:@Mana Exactly. And this sounds super cynical so I hope it's not actually how it all went down, but it makes me feel similarly to how it seemed when Finn holding the lightsaber was revealed to be something of a marketing red herring. Rey not being the Skywalker makes her less of a protagonist in some people's eyes. Is our hero a red herring for the true main character, the Skywalker/Solo legacy boy? I think that's honestly why some people seem to dislike him so strongly. Would there be a backlash when the audience realizes that as progressive as TFA seems, the underlying story is about our white male villain and not our female heroine or our black hero? They are still the protagonists, but I'm not sure it's the same thing. They are unrelated characters thrust into the trilogies that are always about this one family.

It's a vocal minority that has a strong issue with Kylo, perhaps, but it's based on the confusion that the saga needs to always be about the Skywalkers, according to its creators, and yet it's become increasingly clear that our heroine is not a Skywalker. So where does that leave us? The story isn't really about her? If you see Reylo and acknowledge it, it makes sense to you how Rey is still the main character. But if you don't, it has to be a little strange.

@BastilaBey

Boom. This is something I've been wondering about, as well.

Finn as a Jedi was already a red herring. FinnRey was a red herring. (And while I saw long before the end of TFA that FinnRey wasn't happening, I can understand why others fell for it.) If it turns out that the Mystery Box has yet another surprise in store, and Rey and Finn as the main characters were, if not exactly a red herring, but something uncomfortably close to one - well...

I mean, there are central characters who are fascinating in their own right, and central characters who are clearly the main heroes despite not being the most fascinating characters in the story; and on the other end of the spectrum, there are central characters who are little more than observers. Rey and Finn are clearly not going to be mere observers, and Finn is getting his own plot, so that's good. But I really, really hope Rey gets something that's entirely her own, and this is where the mystery of her parentage is important. That is the one thing that's entirely her own. And I don't mean that she necessarily needs important parents in order to be important, but that's the character TFA gave us - someone who wanted nothing more in this world than to get her family back. That's got to play a big role in her character development.

@Darth Dingbat

The cuorious thing is that DS said in a Japanese interview I think that the truth about who Rey is will be revealed in TFA but that didn't end up happening.
I really wish they ahd revealed who she was then like they originally wanted maybe then the direction of ehr character wouldn't be so unclear and this entire Reywalker mess would have been avoided.

CienaRee wrote:

Darth Dingbat wrote:

Saracene wrote:

Darth Dingbat wrote:

Saracene wrote:The big difference is that Rey has no equivalent of Luke's "I want to be a Jedi like my father" - a clear goal and ambition. What she wants to do for most of the movie is go back to Jakku and wait for her family until the cows come home. She basically wants to stay passive, whereas Luke wants to get out there and do things.

@Saracene

On the other hand, the girl who has stubbornly waited for her family for years upon years is a great starting point for a unique journey of her own. I hope they go somewhere with it.

@Darth Dingbat

It's just a weird motivation for your protagonist, I think. Usually, characters who start out in miserable circumstances dream of getting out of them, so then it's like a springboard for their later adventures. But Rey's motivation is a dead end, and once she gives it up it's not clear at all what her motivation is now (which is why people struggle to think of where her storyline will go).

Also, for a supposed protagonist she just doesn't seem to have much influence on the big picture. Like, blowing up the Death Star in ANH was the only one amazing thing Luke did, but it was the one that saved the good guys. Rey defeats the main bad guy in TFA, but that has no impact on the larger outcome - it's Poe and the other pilots who blow up the Starkiller. She does get BB-8 to the Resistance, but then that achievement gets kinda muted because things don't budge until R2-D2 comes back (for some reason). It's never properly explained why exactly she's the one going to meet Luke, so the whole of Resistance cheering her on her way is kinda unearned. And another thing is, a protagonist is usually at the centre of the film's peak emotional scenes. Whereas Rey is just an onlooker in what many people would probably consider the big emotional moment of TFA, i.e. Han's death.

Interesting thing is, I actually haven't seen many complaints about the Rey narrative issues we discuss here. Many people just seem to be happy that Star Wars now has this kick-a** female hero who has all those mad skills and won't let anybody hold her hand.

@Saracene

I agree, especially on the bolded. But my point was really that I hope the mystery of her parentage turns out to be connected to the main plot of the trilogy in some major way because that was established as her most powerful motivation early on. I hope the issue of her parentage crops up again as a conflict for her, because otherwise, what was the point?

Now it kind of seems like she threw aside her defining characteristic, her strongest motivation - something that had been sustaining her for over ten years - for the sake of a bunch of people she'd only just met, and now she's floating in a curiously motivation-less and position-less state, as a carrier of a legacy lightsaber (that isn't her legacy) until somebody else picks it up.

@Darth Dingbat

I agree.Reywalker can be very annoying and single minded but some of them do have a point when they say that if Rey's not connected to the Skywalkers somehow then what's her purpose?Don't missunderstand me I'm not syaing that if Rey's a Skywalker than her character is useless far from it.But being a non legacy character with non legacy parnets in a saga that's mainly about the Skywalker family is difficult and I'm genuinely interested in what their plans are about a non Skywalker heroine.
Since Rey's biggest defining characteristis is her family the GA would wnat a satisfactory storyline and I'm not sure her parentage just being a red herring and her serving as the last hope of the Skywalkers would be satisfying for the GA or Rey as a character.Yes,we have Maz telling her that she should let go of them but it's very telling that despite that the GA still wants to know who these people are and while a large group believe she's a Skywlaker I think some of them are interested because that's the oen thing they know Rey actually wants.
Ofcourse at the end of the day who's more important is Rey herself but it feels like she'll keep getting swallowed by the characters like Luke and Kylo and the Skywalker family drama and unless she falls in love with Kylo people will be wondeirng why is this girl involved in this family's problems?
The writers have the difficult taks of not making it look like Rey is less important than the rest of the Skywalkers eventhough she's not a Skywalker herself.

@CienaRee
In all fairness Qui-Gon and Padme were the main protagonists of The Phantom Menace, so it's not the first time we've had a non-Skywalker main character. The idea is still similar: a Skywalker story told through the eyes of a non-Skywalker. As long as the mysteries in Rey's past are her own (but still in some way connect her to the overarching narrative through the First Jedi or Snoke or something else) it won't be difficult for her story to be the most important. And even if that is not the case, I won't complain. It's interesting and new to have a non-Skywalker heroine sort of integrate herself into Skywalker drama, a girl who is seemingly an outsider who is essentially the only hope for the famous family. Her journey will give her a place to belong among them and will bring them back together. It's all about making things right.

FrolickingFizzgig wrote:

CienaRee wrote:

Darth Dingbat wrote:

Saracene wrote:

Darth Dingbat wrote:

Saracene wrote:The big difference is that Rey has no equivalent of Luke's "I want to be a Jedi like my father" - a clear goal and ambition. What she wants to do for most of the movie is go back to Jakku and wait for her family until the cows come home. She basically wants to stay passive, whereas Luke wants to get out there and do things.

@Saracene

On the other hand, the girl who has stubbornly waited for her family for years upon years is a great starting point for a unique journey of her own. I hope they go somewhere with it.

@Darth Dingbat

It's just a weird motivation for your protagonist, I think. Usually, characters who start out in miserable circumstances dream of getting out of them, so then it's like a springboard for their later adventures. But Rey's motivation is a dead end, and once she gives it up it's not clear at all what her motivation is now (which is why people struggle to think of where her storyline will go).

Also, for a supposed protagonist she just doesn't seem to have much influence on the big picture. Like, blowing up the Death Star in ANH was the only one amazing thing Luke did, but it was the one that saved the good guys. Rey defeats the main bad guy in TFA, but that has no impact on the larger outcome - it's Poe and the other pilots who blow up the Starkiller. She does get BB-8 to the Resistance, but then that achievement gets kinda muted because things don't budge until R2-D2 comes back (for some reason). It's never properly explained why exactly she's the one going to meet Luke, so the whole of Resistance cheering her on her way is kinda unearned. And another thing is, a protagonist is usually at the centre of the film's peak emotional scenes. Whereas Rey is just an onlooker in what many people would probably consider the big emotional moment of TFA, i.e. Han's death.

Interesting thing is, I actually haven't seen many complaints about the Rey narrative issues we discuss here. Many people just seem to be happy that Star Wars now has this kick-a** female hero who has all those mad skills and won't let anybody hold her hand.

@Saracene

I agree, especially on the bolded. But my point was really that I hope the mystery of her parentage turns out to be connected to the main plot of the trilogy in some major way because that was established as her most powerful motivation early on. I hope the issue of her parentage crops up again as a conflict for her, because otherwise, what was the point?

Now it kind of seems like she threw aside her defining characteristic, her strongest motivation - something that had been sustaining her for over ten years - for the sake of a bunch of people she'd only just met, and now she's floating in a curiously motivation-less and position-less state, as a carrier of a legacy lightsaber (that isn't her legacy) until somebody else picks it up.

@Darth Dingbat

I agree.Reywalker can be very annoying and single minded but some of them do have a point when they say that if Rey's not connected to the Skywalkers somehow then what's her purpose?Don't missunderstand me I'm not syaing that if Rey's a Skywalker than her character is useless far from it.But being a non legacy character with non legacy parnets in a saga that's mainly about the Skywalker family is difficult and I'm genuinely interested in what their plans are about a non Skywalker heroine.
Since Rey's biggest defining characteristis is her family the GA would wnat a satisfactory storyline and I'm not sure her parentage just being a red herring and her serving as the last hope of the Skywalkers would be satisfying for the GA or Rey as a character.Yes,we have Maz telling her that she should let go of them but it's very telling that despite that the GA still wants to know who these people are and while a large group believe she's a Skywlaker I think some of them are interested because that's the oen thing they know Rey actually wants.
Ofcourse at the end of the day who's more important is Rey herself but it feels like she'll keep getting swallowed by the characters like Luke and Kylo and the Skywalker family drama and unless she falls in love with Kylo people will be wondeirng why is this girl involved in this family's problems?
The writers have the difficult taks of not making it look like Rey is less important than the rest of the Skywalkers eventhough she's not a Skywalker herself.

@CienaRee
In all fairness Qui-Gon and Padme were the main protagonists of The Phantom Menace, so it's not the first time we've had a non-Skywalker main character. The idea is still similar: a Skywalker story told through the eyes of a non-Skywalker. As long as the mysteries in Rey's past are her own (but still in some way connect her to the overarching narrative through the First Jedi or Snoke or something else) it won't be difficult for her story to be the most important. And even if that is not the case, I won't complain. It's interesting and new to have a non-Skywalker heroine sort of integrate herself into Skywalker drama, a girl who is seemingly an outsider who is essentially the only hope for the famous family. Her journey will give her a place to belong among them and will bring them back together. It's all about making things right.

@FrolickingFizzgig

The difference is though that Qui-Gohn died at the end of the first movie and Padme's parentage wasn't set as a mistery but there was some criticsm later on when GL started cutting important Padme scenes in ATC and RTS and that included scenes where Padme's family was intrdouced and we learned more about her childhood).
But I'm excited  about a non Skywalker heroine's journey and hope they can pull it off without her being overshadowed by the Skywalkers.

Saracene wrote:

Darth Dingbat wrote:

Saracene wrote:The big difference is that Rey has no equivalent of Luke's "I want to be a Jedi like my father" - a clear goal and ambition. What she wants to do for most of the movie is go back to Jakku and wait for her family until the cows come home. She basically wants to stay passive, whereas Luke wants to get out there and do things.

@Saracene

On the other hand, the girl who has stubbornly waited for her family for years upon years is a great starting point for a unique journey of her own. I hope they go somewhere with it.

@Darth Dingbat

It's just a weird motivation for your protagonist, I think. Usually, characters who start out in miserable circumstances dream of getting out of them, so then it's like a springboard for their later adventures. But Rey's motivation is a dead end, and once she gives it up it's not clear at all what her motivation is now (which is why people struggle to think of where her storyline will go).

Also, for a supposed protagonist she just doesn't seem to have much influence on the big picture. Like, blowing up the Death Star in ANH was the only one amazing thing Luke did, but it was the one that saved the good guys. Rey defeats the main bad guy in TFA, but that has no impact on the larger outcome - it's Poe and the other pilots who blow up the Starkiller. She does get BB-8 to the Resistance, but then that achievement gets kinda muted because things don't budge until R2-D2 comes back (for some reason). It's never properly explained why exactly she's the one going to meet Luke, so the whole of Resistance cheering her on her way is kinda unearned. And another thing is, a protagonist is usually at the centre of the film's peak emotional scenes. Whereas Rey is just an onlooker in what many people would probably consider the big emotional moment of TFA, i.e. Han's death.

Interesting thing is, I actually haven't seen many complaints about the Rey narrative issues we discuss here. Many people just seem to be happy that Star Wars now has this kick-a** female hero who has all those mad skills and won't let anybody hold her hand.

@Saracene

I agree with everything,especially the bolded parts, but I have heard people, especially guys who are supposed to like cinema and could be somewhat above average viewers as regards getting what's going on on screen, and they complain that she is a Mary Sue. There's something missing with her characterization and her importance in the plot, as you've said in your post. Perhaps there's too much mystery, predictability is bad but too many questions without an answer create confusion and that is frustrating.

Darth Dingbat wrote:

Saracene wrote:

Darth Dingbat wrote:

Saracene wrote:The big difference is that Rey has no equivalent of Luke's "I want to be a Jedi like my father" - a clear goal and ambition. What she wants to do for most of the movie is go back to Jakku and wait for her family until the cows come home. She basically wants to stay passive, whereas Luke wants to get out there and do things.

@Saracene

On the other hand, the girl who has stubbornly waited for her family for years upon years is a great starting point for a unique journey of her own. I hope they go somewhere with it.

@Darth Dingbat

It's just a weird motivation for your protagonist, I think. Usually, characters who start out in miserable circumstances dream of getting out of them, so then it's like a springboard for their later adventures. But Rey's motivation is a dead end, and once she gives it up it's not clear at all what her motivation is now (which is why people struggle to think of where her storyline will go).

Also, for a supposed protagonist she just doesn't seem to have much influence on the big picture. Like, blowing up the Death Star in ANH was the only one amazing thing Luke did, but it was the one that saved the good guys. Rey defeats the main bad guy in TFA, but that has no impact on the larger outcome - it's Poe and the other pilots who blow up the Starkiller. She does get BB-8 to the Resistance, but then that achievement gets kinda muted because things don't budge until R2-D2 comes back (for some reason). It's never properly explained why exactly she's the one going to meet Luke, so the whole of Resistance cheering her on her way is kinda unearned. And another thing is, a protagonist is usually at the centre of the film's peak emotional scenes. Whereas Rey is just an onlooker in what many people would probably consider the big emotional moment of TFA, i.e. Han's death.

Interesting thing is, I actually haven't seen many complaints about the Rey narrative issues we discuss here. Many people just seem to be happy that Star Wars now has this kick-a** female hero who has all those mad skills and won't let anybody hold her hand.

@Saracene

I agree, especially on the bolded. But my point was really that I hope the mystery of her parentage turns out to be connected to the main plot of the trilogy in some major way because that was established as her most powerful motivation early on. I hope the issue of her parentage crops up again as a conflict for her, because otherwise, what was the point?

Now it kind of seems like she threw aside her defining characteristic, her strongest motivation - something that had been sustaining her for over ten years - for the sake of a bunch of people she'd only just met, and now she's floating in a curiously motivation-less and position-less state, as a carrier of a legacy lightsaber (that isn't her legacy) until somebody else picks it up.

@Darth Dingbat

I have the impression that the reason for her mysterious past is more as a red herring to make Reylo a surprise when it happens. Everything is about Kylo, Kylo's redeption and Reylo. I still hope they have thought of a satisfying plotline for her origins and their impact on the the story. However, I think the original idea was centered on the Skywalker Solo child and not the other member of the pair or couple. Of corse, this is mere speculation on my part.

FrolickingFizzgig wrote:

CienaRee wrote:

Darth Dingbat wrote:

Saracene wrote:

Darth Dingbat wrote:

Saracene wrote:The big difference is that Rey has no equivalent of Luke's "I want to be a Jedi like my father" - a clear goal and ambition. What she wants to do for most of the movie is go back to Jakku and wait for her family until the cows come home. She basically wants to stay passive, whereas Luke wants to get out there and do things.

@Saracene

On the other hand, the girl who has stubbornly waited for her family for years upon years is a great starting point for a unique journey of her own. I hope they go somewhere with it.

@Darth Dingbat

It's just a weird motivation for your protagonist, I think. Usually, characters who start out in miserable circumstances dream of getting out of them, so then it's like a springboard for their later adventures. But Rey's motivation is a dead end, and once she gives it up it's not clear at all what her motivation is now (which is why people struggle to think of where her storyline will go).

Also, for a supposed protagonist she just doesn't seem to have much influence on the big picture. Like, blowing up the Death Star in ANH was the only one amazing thing Luke did, but it was the one that saved the good guys. Rey defeats the main bad guy in TFA, but that has no impact on the larger outcome - it's Poe and the other pilots who blow up the Starkiller. She does get BB-8 to the Resistance, but then that achievement gets kinda muted because things don't budge until R2-D2 comes back (for some reason). It's never properly explained why exactly she's the one going to meet Luke, so the whole of Resistance cheering her on her way is kinda unearned. And another thing is, a protagonist is usually at the centre of the film's peak emotional scenes. Whereas Rey is just an onlooker in what many people would probably consider the big emotional moment of TFA, i.e. Han's death.

Interesting thing is, I actually haven't seen many complaints about the Rey narrative issues we discuss here. Many people just seem to be happy that Star Wars now has this kick-a** female hero who has all those mad skills and won't let anybody hold her hand.

@Saracene

I agree, especially on the bolded. But my point was really that I hope the mystery of her parentage turns out to be connected to the main plot of the trilogy in some major way because that was established as her most powerful motivation early on. I hope the issue of her parentage crops up again as a conflict for her, because otherwise, what was the point?

Now it kind of seems like she threw aside her defining characteristic, her strongest motivation - something that had been sustaining her for over ten years - for the sake of a bunch of people she'd only just met, and now she's floating in a curiously motivation-less and position-less state, as a carrier of a legacy lightsaber (that isn't her legacy) until somebody else picks it up.

@Darth Dingbat

I agree.Reywalker can be very annoying and single minded but some of them do have a point when they say that if Rey's not connected to the Skywalkers somehow then what's her purpose?Don't missunderstand me I'm not syaing that if Rey's a Skywalker than her character is useless far from it.But being a non legacy character with non legacy parnets in a saga that's mainly about the Skywalker family is difficult and I'm genuinely interested in what their plans are about a non Skywalker heroine.
Since Rey's biggest defining characteristis is her family the GA would wnat a satisfactory storyline and I'm not sure her parentage just being a red herring and her serving as the last hope of the Skywalkers would be satisfying for the GA or Rey as a character.Yes,we have Maz telling her that she should let go of them but it's very telling that despite that the GA still wants to know who these people are and while a large group believe she's a Skywlaker I think some of them are interested because that's the oen thing they know Rey actually wants.
Ofcourse at the end of the day who's more important is Rey herself but it feels like she'll keep getting swallowed by the characters like Luke and Kylo and the Skywalker family drama and unless she falls in love with Kylo people will be wondeirng why is this girl involved in this family's problems?
The writers have the difficult taks of not making it look like Rey is less important than the rest of the Skywalkers eventhough she's not a Skywalker herself.

@CienaRee
In all fairness Qui-Gon and Padme were the main protagonists of The Phantom Menace, so it's not the first time we've had a non-Skywalker main character. The idea is still similar: a Skywalker story told through the eyes of a non-Skywalker. As long as the mysteries in Rey's past are her own (but still in some way connect her to the overarching narrative through the First Jedi or Snoke or something else) it won't be difficult for her story to be the most important. And even if that is not the case, I won't complain. It's interesting and new to have a non-Skywalker heroine sort of integrate herself into Skywalker drama, a girl who is seemingly an outsider who is essentially the only hope for the famous family. Her journey will give her a place to belong among them and will bring them back together. It's all about making things right.

@FrolickingFizzgig

That's a really good point about Padme.

Although, Padme wasn't a hero on her own hero's journey, so I guess my fear is that Rey does turn out to be something of a Padme, as far as her position in the story goes - albeit an improved, more central and more kick-a** Force-sensitive version.

Then again, I suppose it would be interesting in its own way if, say, the PT had been Padme's story, told from Padme's point of view. Heck, it would likely have been a lot more interesting than the PT we got.

I was just really excited about Rey possibly having the kind of epic hero's journey that are usually reserved for male characters, which is probably why I'm more apprehensive than I should be about the potential of her role as an outsider coming into the Skywalker saga.

Darth Dingbat wrote:

vaderito wrote:So basically, they were much more interesting in the concept than sanitized versions we ended up with. Figures.

So how does Jedi Killer/Kira art based on Adam/Daria shoot figure in all that?

I also think that nobody knows the whole story, that all sites that try to put bits and pieces together never actually got confirmation from anyone. Nor they will cause old concept are may still be in use for later episodes.

@vaderito

Hard to say, as that concept art has never been officially released. All we know is that Leibovitz took those photos in June 2013 and they were officially published in the autumn. As we don't know when the team got hold of those photos, it's impossible to say at which stage of the development they came along. But my guess would be that it was around JJ & Kasdan's overhaul of the script? At least it must have been before Daisy was cast in February 2014.

Though I'm even more interested in the fact that those photos were taken in Co. Kerry...

BastilaBey wrote:@Mana Exactly. And this sounds super cynical so I hope it's not actually how it all went down, but it makes me feel similarly to how it seemed when Finn holding the lightsaber was revealed to be something of a marketing red herring. Rey not being the Skywalker makes her less of a protagonist in some people's eyes. Is our hero a red herring for the true main character, the Skywalker/Solo legacy boy? I think that's honestly why some people seem to dislike him so strongly. Would there be a backlash when the audience realizes that as progressive as TFA seems, the underlying story is about our white male villain and not our female heroine or our black hero? They are still the protagonists, but I'm not sure it's the same thing. They are unrelated characters thrust into the trilogies that are always about this one family.

It's a vocal minority that has a strong issue with Kylo, perhaps, but it's based on the confusion that the saga needs to always be about the Skywalkers, according to its creators, and yet it's become increasingly clear that our heroine is not a Skywalker. So where does that leave us? The story isn't really about her? If you see Reylo and acknowledge it, it makes sense to you how Rey is still the main character. But if you don't, it has to be a little strange.

@BastilaBey

Boom. This is something I've been wondering about, as well.

Finn as a Jedi was already a red herring. FinnRey was a red herring. (And while I saw long before the end of TFA that FinnRey wasn't happening, I can understand why others fell for it.) If it turns out that the Mystery Box has yet another surprise in store, and Rey and Finn as the main characters were, if not exactly a red herring, but something uncomfortably close to one - well...

I mean, there are central characters who are fascinating in their own right, and central characters who are clearly the main heroes despite not being the most fascinating characters in the story; and on the other end of the spectrum, there are central characters who are little more than observers. Rey and Finn are clearly not going to be mere observers, and Finn is getting his own plot, so that's good. But I really, really hope Rey gets something that's entirely her own, and this is where the mystery of her parentage is important. That is the one thing that's entirely her own. And I don't mean that she necessarily needs important parents in order to be important, but that's the character TFA gave us - someone who wanted nothing more in this world than to get her family back. That's got to play a big role in her character development.

@Darth Dingbat

I agree, and they have to be important because if everything goes fine and nothing is wrong or shocking, having waited for two movies for something that will not affect the plot will seem stupid and anticlimatic. Who she is should create conflict, it can't leave people just meh or it will be disappointing. That's why DS parents or something like that seems a good idea. It has to be something with impact.

So I've been following this conversation for a while and I must say it's very VERY interesting, so I'm going to add in my own pinch of salt.

I don't mind cinnamon roll characters IF they're done well, and IF they're in the right context. For instance, Cosette from Les Misérables is one of my favorite characters of all time. With SW, it's a whole other level.

I agree that Luke's journey was pretty simplistic and classical. And I think there's a reason why Rey and Finn's characters weren't that complex and developed: LF and Disney had to get people used again to SW movies because the prequels messed it up pretty badly. So they had to play it safe, have a movie that had a very strong OT vibe to it to have people get back into SW again. Just to give you an idea, all critics said that overall, TFA was pretty fun and entertaining, but that it felt a lot like a ANH rehash.

TFA did very very well in cinemas, and the GA is hooked, now. They hired a guy like Rian Johnson to do Episode VIII, and with all the comments that it will be "darker and weirder", and the cast saying they feel like they're working on an indie film rather than a blockbuster (that's already pretty telling), I think we'll definitely get a more complex story. It's not going to be: "Jedi Goddess Cinnamon Roll Rey and her two Happy-Go-Happy sidekicks Finn and Poe kill all the bad guys except that emo dude because that's probs going to make Leia sad". We've got the Jurassic World dude for IX, but I think A LOT of questions will be answered in VIII, and that we'll have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen in IX, unlike TFA with VIII.

Character-wise...

All right, I'm going to make a few statements.

Rey, Finn and Poe are the heroic trio.
Kylo, Hux and Phasma are the villainous trio.
Rey, Kylo and Finn are the main trio of the ST.

Rey, Finn and Kylo are all (or are going to be) protagonists and have their own story that's going to unfurl in front of our eyes.

The difference here is that Kylo is in the middle of it: actually, TFA is when he reaches his lowest point as an antagonist by killing his own father. But when you have an antagonist who's going to go through a redemption arc, said antagonist has to reach that low point in order to jump back up. So of course he's more developed than Rey and Finn are: those two have just started their journey.

Rey is without the shadow of a doubt the heroine, because the ST is going to unfurl from her point of view. I think the audience reacts to the events a lot like she does: both the GA and her want to know/find her family, and find a belonging. I think that's why people insist on her lineage so much. Maz did tell Rey to let it go, but neither Rey nor the audience is entirely ready to do so yet.

I do however expect the ST to focus a lot on Kylo, because he's the Skywalker. And Rey, as the heroine, has her fate tightly entwined with the Skywalker's, like it or not. It's one of the reasons why it's so hard for people to gobble that she isn't a Skywalker, since they're afraid it might mean the focus won't be on her after all. But it's too early to say that because Rey is basically not as developed as she should because she's a huge mystery box. And I see that Daisy Ridley is disappointed people talk a lot about Rey's lineage rather than the character herself, and I can understand why, but the whole mystery box aspect has to tone down Rey's more interesting sides, and only people who know a thing or two about storytelling were able to pick that up. And they picked up on Reylo too

So yes, team "Cinnamon Roll Rey" might not like the direction VIII will be taking for Rey, but it's going to be for the better.

And of course, there's Finn. Again, they wanted to play it safe, so they didn't develop him as much as they should. Stormtrooper nonsense put apart, there are some things they hinted here and there. He's not a perfect cinnamon roll. He's scared, and he lies even if it means endangering a vital mission. For the latter, he more or less atones for it, and I have to say it does tick me. He does seem to get some sort of "payback" when he picks up the lightsaber and fights Kylo. I have to say this part of the movie is very important for Finn: he knows fully well he has no chance against a trained stand-in for a Sith like Kylo. Why does he do it anyway? He's giving a chance for Rey to run away to safety, even if he knows it might cost him his own life.

That's HUGE, because at the beginning of the film, Finn was all about "me me me" and "get me the heck out of here". So I think it's accurate to say Finn is very much a foil to Kylo: both of them have been changed by meeting Rey, albeit in different ways.

Of course, there's the whole "lying" issue that's still there. But again, character development is always possible. I'm quite glad to know Finn is going to get his own plot, separate from Rey and Kylo's. Because no matter what, he would have been shadowed by Rey. I really have high hopes for Finn's interactions with Tran's character. I could start listing what I'd like to see happening, but I'll leave that for another thread.

I think that's all I have to say. I'll add if people bring up other points.

On your points about Rey not having a goal, well, I think Rey is boring as hell. Sorry.

Cute and lovely and childish, yeah, but so are Ewoks. I know she has a kind of dark side, but so do Ewoks. No, I'm not comparing Rey to an Ewok, or I am? It's just that she's not that interesting. I know that the sequence when she's introduced is really good, gets that poor orphan girl feels and everyone is supposed to instantly like the hard working poor heroine that doesn't have enough to eat. Ok, cute. But... what does she want?

The only thing that makes her interesting is her interactions with Kylo, and that's a very sad thing to write about a female character, that she's interesting only because of what she brings to the white male character.

If her goal was to find her family, have her look for her family, or at least try to find them. Maybe she could have been trying to save money to buy a ship and go find her family...

Ok, I know that in real life people sometimes get paralyzed and used to a negative situation, just because it's familiar, and better than facing who knows... Her passivity could be interesting, but I think it doesn't go very well with an adventure movie. A character stuck in a negative situation is more for an indie drama movie. Anyways...

All Rey does is react, react, react, and react some more. Even her mind trick

@Darth Dingbat Padme is different cause she's a very active character. She's very idealistic. I think the PT should have been from her POV, and that's not feminism in me, but notion of storytelling.

Imagine if, in TPM, the first half of the movie was this effort to get to Coruscant to save Naboo, only to get there and see nothing being done. I know that in theory that's what the first half of TPM is... but they forget it when they get to Tatooine... The movie doesn't use a "counting clock", like characters reminding the viewer that there's a war they have to stop and they have to get to Coruscant. It could have worked if Qui-Gon had been more concerned about Naboo. I like Qui-Gon, but he didn't give a sith about Naboo.

vaderito wrote:

spacebaby45678 wrote:Then there’s the fact that Pixar screenwriter Michael Arndt originally worked on the screenplay for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and eventually left the project, supposedly because he had other commitments. According to a THR piece from January 2014, Arndt was perhaps leaning on the generational aspects of Lucas’ trilogy pretty hard. Arndt was apparently focusing on the offspring of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), with the parents being more of supporting characters. Instead, Abrams brought Solo, and, to a lesser extent, Leia and Luke back into the foreground in a bigger way (the article also reminds us that Tye Sheridan was once being tested for an offspring, and given the actor's age, would have been a teenager or an adolescent nearing his 20s, but this character was wiped from the script).


http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/michael-arndt-reveals-rejected-plots-from-star-wars-the-force-awakens-a-much-larger-role-for-redacted-20151220

@spacebaby45678

That's even earlier version. By the time they got Kira and Sam overhaul already happened. Arndt script is from the time where there were 2 guys and 2 girls as main characters. They changed that so actors tested for characters code named Rachel and Thomas. They became Kira and Sam. Sam was supposed to be a smuggler. Than they scrapped Sam and created Finn.

But, OK, I see where you are coming from.

@vaderito

Why the original names Kira & Sam, and how you can tell who was meant to be whom... Skywalker, Solo or Kenobi

Sam = Samson

The name Samson is a Hebrew baby name. In Hebrew the meaning of the name Samson is: Sun child; bright sun. In the Old Testament,

Because we all know how much LF loves it Sun/Son Mythology & Metaphors

Kira's name has an equally good or better explanation but I will put that in the Rey Kenobi files as not to throw this thread off of subject again.