The case against Rey Solo

CienaRee wrote:
@IoJovi
They Skywalkers are the space version of the Dollangagers from the Flowers in the Attic series.
In this case Kylo and Rey are the Chris and Cathy of the SW universe.

@CienaRee

It's funny how some circles have tried to use the tension only as proof that he's a horrible, unredeemable bad guy who's got a perverted interest in his pure, innocent little cousin. They can't write off the tension so they try to use it to bolster their interpretation.

@CienaRee I read all of the VC Andrews books as a kid.  I loved them.  That said, if anybody thinks the sequel trilogy is anywhere close to the same story as either the Heaven series or Flowers in the Attic, they are out of their mind.  They've gone completely off the reservation...

@Snufkin if that's true, Rey is just as culpable. She is also engaged in the same type of eye f****ry that Kylo portrays. Everyone in this trilogy is the epitome of evil!!!

Wow there is a thread about this?

Bottles_Toil wrote:Wow there is a thread about this?

@Bottles_Toil

"Off their trolly" is also a great way to describe anyone who buys into this...

IoJovi wrote:

Bottles_Toil wrote:Wow there is a thread about this?

@Bottles_Toil

"Off their trolly" is also a great way to describe anyone who buys into this...

@IoJovi

Exactly exactly! Absolute muppets !

IoJovi wrote:@CienaRee I read all of the VC Andrews books as a kid.  I loved them.  That said, if anybody thinks the sequel trilogy is anywhere close to the same story as either the Heaven series or Flowers in the Attic, they are out of their mind.  They've gone completely off the reservation...

@Snufkin if that's true, Rey is just as culpable. She is also engaged in the same type of eye f****ry that Kylo portrays. Everyone in this trilogy is the epitome of evil!!!

@IoJovi

The "Finn will be a Jedi/Luke's secret son" is really some people's last hope. Especially given the "how are people going to react to Rey doing that?" comment

snufkin wrote:

IoJovi wrote:@CienaRee I read all of the VC Andrews books as a kid.  I loved them.  That said, if anybody thinks the sequel trilogy is anywhere close to the same story as either the Heaven series or Flowers in the Attic, they are out of their mind.  They've gone completely off the reservation...

@Snufkin if that's true, Rey is just as culpable. She is also engaged in the same type of eye f****ry that Kylo portrays. Everyone in this trilogy is the epitome of evil!!!

@IoJovi

The "Finn will be a Jedi/Luke's secret son" is really some people's last hope. Especially given the "how are people going to react to Rey doing that?" comment

@snufkin

I'm hoping Finn tuns out to be Mandalorian....we need a Mandalorian in the ST since Maz's castle had Boba Fett's flag on it......

Luke has always been one of my favourite characters but I just cannot imagine him as having a wife and kids (or letting the FO just kidnap his child as an infant while he traipses around the galaxy collecting lore)...similarly, no matter how dysfunctional Leia and Han might be, I cannot imagine them abandoning their child in some desert and focusing on racing and politics. People are just grasping at straws now....

panki wrote:
@snufkin

I'm hoping Finn tuns out to be Mandalorian....we need a Mandalorian in the ST since Maz's castle had Boba Fett's flag on it......

Luke has always been one of my favourite characters but I just cannot imagine him as having a wife and kids (or letting the FO just kidnap his child as an infant while he traipses around the galaxy collecting lore)...similarly, no matter how dysfunctional Leia and Han might be, I cannot imagine them abandoning their child in some desert and focusing on racing and politics. People are just grasping at straws now....

@panki

It overlooks the point the screenwriters and Claudia Grey were subtly trying to make, that Han and Leia were already too busy neglecting the kid they sent off too Luke (who likely was also more preoccupied traipsing around the galaxy collecting lore than with providing some solid guidance/parenting to the same kid).

I'll be curious how far they go with Finn's backstory other than being culled for Hux's creepy child soldier program.

I had vaguely heard about this before, but it's no wonder the OT fans are so hung up on the incest angle after stuff like this http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/star-wars/feature/a805216/star-wars-sequel-splinter-of-the-minds-eye/

Mrs Ben Solo wrote:I had vaguely heard about this before, but it's no wonder the OT fans are so hung up on the incest angle after stuff like this http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/star-wars/feature/a805216/star-wars-sequel-splinter-of-the-minds-eye/

@Mrs Ben Solo

I read that book, probably when I was 10-11! It hints as something between the two characters (and what it hints at was boring as Hell to this 10 year old). Man Booker Prize Marlon James recently gave a shout out to that title and the movie tie-in whole genre.

well, Jason&co can't believe that theory is still persistent. From 1 hr 35 min mark:

https://soundcloud.com/makingstarwars/episode-144-rogue-one-toy-leaks#t=0:00

If anyone wants to transcribe what they said, you are welcome.

Glad we got that all cleared up. Jason can't even hide his disdain for the Rey Solo 'theory'.

Yeah I have a hard time hiding my disdain too. I can't believe in some quarters it still lives. Someone needs to put the poor thing down - it's only humane.

Re: people being ok with Han and Leia (or Luke) being horrible parents who send off their kid to a sithy planet to be protected, I'm pretty sure they unconsciously justify it by, "well Rey turned out to be ok and is a pretty awesome person, so no harm done".

Nah, Rey only turned out ok cause she wasn't raised by Han and Leia..its poor Ben who suffered the most...

Editor Julian Smirke also confirms JJ's  known from the very beggining what Rey's backstory was and that it hasn't  really changed:

Steele Saunders: I'm interested that you bring up LOST and it's like an episode of LOST.
Julian Smirke: [laughs]
SS: I think the fandom...
JS: Yep.
SS: ...is looking for too much...
JS: Yep. I agree with that.
SS: Like Star Wars, there's six films... there's one twist!
JS: [laughs]
SS: There's only one big twist! It is not like - and I'm not sure if it's 'cause it's J. J. and it's in this internet age that people are looking for - all these... everything's a twist!
JS: They are. They're looking for certain big reveals and big moments and big changes that will throw you for a loop. Yeah, I mean I guess that that is true... I mean hopefully the film sort of stands up more than that and hopefully in years to come down the road after we've seen VIII and IX, you know, people will hopefully look back on it and enjoy it still. And hopefully there's some longevity with that. Especially kind of like very similiarly to how we experience Luke as a character, when we were kids, the discovery of his journey... this film is really the discovery of Rey's journey and there's parallels to that and very similar in some ways, but they have slightly different stories. And I'm curious to see myself as a fan to see where it goes - where does she come from? How does Kylo Ren fit in to all of this? Where's he gonna... how's that gonna play out? Where's Finn gonna play out from here? - all those new characters.
SS: Would it be out of the question -
JS: [pause] Yeah...
SS: - to propose that Rey's backstory - from day one to now - has changed?
JS: Uh... [pause] I don't know if it's out of the question, but I'm pretty sure that they know - from the - that J. J. has known from the beginning where that's gonna go.
SS: Mmmm.
JS: I'm pretty sure that they know where her backstory...
SS: Because I was beginning to get the feeling it has shifted...
JS: Yeah.
SS: But I'd much rather them know.
JS: Yeah. Yeah I'm pretty sure that J. J. knows.
SS: Ok.
JS: I haven't had that conversation with J. J. - I'm not about to walk up to him and go, "Hey, I just had this question for you about Rey". [laughs] That's your job! Not mine.
SS: Hahaha!
JS: I probably won't have the next job if I ask that question! No, I'm joking. But yeah, no I'm pretty sure that he - or I got that vibe at least that he knew from the beginning -
SS: Yeah.
JS: - of her, of the inception of the script and when they started writing it they worked out where'd she come from and who she is and where she's going.
SS: That is good to know.
JS: Yes.
http://steelewars.com/julian-smirke/

IoJovi wrote:Yeah I have a hard time hiding my disdain too.  I can't believe in some quarters it still lives.  Someone needs to put the poor thing down - it's only humane.  

@IoJovi

The poor thing was put down by TFA, Daisy, JJ, Pablo. But

All this has already been said, I know, but it bears repeating - even without the debunkings, Rey Solo wouldn't make any dramatic sense after TFA.

It would actually undercut the dramatic impact of the revelation, because it would be like: "You know that dude who felt like the father you never had? Yeah, he was actually your father. Sorry about that. And hey, the lady who hugged you without either of you or the audience knowing that the hug was an especially meaningful and dramatic moment? That's your mother! Isn't that cool? I mean, there's no story in this beyond you accidentally coming across your long-lost parents and then losing one of them... and there's a lot of explaining to do, as to why you ended up on Jakku and why it seems like your brother is more important to your parents than you are but... er. Just thought you'd like to know!"

The discovery of Rey's origins - the act of discovering I mean, the way it unfolds and climaxes - also needs to make some kind of dramatic sense. Luke's parentage reveal was obviously a huge dramatic moment, but it didn't come out of nowhere; Palpatine and Vader finding out about it was also possible because Luke lived with relatives and all it took was for them to find this out and put two and two together. But Rey's origins are a complete mystery and her situation far more obscure. We don't know if she'd recognise her parents (if she does have a memory of them, that obviously rules out Hanleia and Luke even more). Unkar Plutt is another potential candidate for knowing where Rey came from. But grilling Unkar Plutt and then tracking down the family would make the story all about tracking down said family, which is why I feel like there's probably going to be some kind of a dramatic moment of recognition. Perhaps Rey is the spitting image of her mother, and perhaps her distinctive hairstyle will prove crucial in some way. (One of my headcanons is that perhaps there's a portrait on the Dubrovnik planet of a lady who looks like Rey, complete with three buns... The audience finding out before Rey does can make sense dramatically; and it might have made sense with Reywalker or Rey Solo if that's what TFA had served us. But it didn't.)

Either way, it has to make a dramatic impact, which is why there can be no vague hunch "I wonder... might you be my daughter?", or a DNA test, or Force ghost Yoda popping up to say "By-the-by, your daughter, she is".

Nor does Rey Skywalker make dramatic sense: *tortured old man recognises long-lost daughter* (... everybody holds their breath for two years...) *new film begins* "MAH BABY GURL"

I mean, that's not drama. Drama is something you build up to, not delay artificially. That revelation would only amount to, "Okaaaay... right... so now that we got that out of the way, my baby girl, let's move on to matters that are more important plot-wise..."

More proof that her backstory had pretty much been set in stone from the start, it's good to hear that changes are not made due to fan pressure

Darth Dingbat wrote:All this has already been said, I know, but it bears repeating - even without the debunkings, Rey Solo wouldn't make any dramatic sense after TFA.

It would actually undercut the dramatic impact of the revelation, because it would be like: "You know that dude who felt like the father you never had? Yeah, he was actually your father. Sorry about that. And hey, the lady who hugged you without either of you or the audience knowing that the hug was an especially meaningful and dramatic moment? That's your mother! Isn't that cool? I mean, there's no story in this beyond you accidentally coming across your long-lost parents and then losing one of them... and there's a lot of explaining to do, as to why you ended up on Jakku and why it seems like your brother is more important to your parents than you are but... er. Just thought you'd like to know!"

The discovery of Rey's origins - the act of discovering I mean, the way it unfolds and climaxes - also needs to make some kind of dramatic sense. Luke's parentage reveal was obviously a huge dramatic moment, but it didn't come out of nowhere; Palpatine and Vader finding out about it was also possible because Luke lived with relatives and all it took was for them to find this out and put two and two together. But Rey's origins are a complete mystery and her situation far more obscure. We don't know if she'd recognise her parents (if she does have a memory of them, that obviously rules out Hanleia and Luke even more). Unkar Plutt is another potential candidate for knowing where Rey came from. But grilling Unkar Plutt and then tracking down the family would make the story all about tracking down said family, which is why I feel like there's probably going to be some kind of a dramatic moment of recognition. Perhaps Rey is the spitting image of her mother, and perhaps her distinctive hairstyle will prove crucial in some way. (One of my headcanons is that perhaps there's a portrait on the Dubrovnik planet of a lady who looks like Rey, complete with three buns... The audience finding out before Rey does can make sense dramatically; and it might have made sense with Reywalker or Rey Solo if that's what TFA had served us. But it didn't.)

Either way, it has to make a dramatic impact, which is why there can be no vague hunch "I wonder... might you be my daughter?", or a DNA test, or Force ghost Yoda popping up to say "By-the-by, your daughter, she is".

Nor does Rey Skywalker make dramatic sense: *tortured old man recognises long-lost daughter* (... everybody holds their breath for two years...) *new film begins* "MAH BABY GURL"

I mean, that's not drama. Drama is something you build up to, not delay artificially. That revelation would only amount to, "Okaaaay... right... so now that we got that out of the way, my baby girl, let's move on to matters that are more important plot-wise..."

@Darth Dingbat

Yeah, TFA makes no sense from a dramatic standpoint if she's Rey Solo.  Instead of the "I am your father" twist, they're going to do an "I am your uncle" reveal?  Highly doubt it.

CienaRee wrote:Editor Julian Smirke also confirms JJ's  known from the very beggining what Rey's backstory was and that it hasn't  really changed:

Steele Saunders: I'm interested that you bring up LOST and it's like an episode of LOST.
Julian Smirke: [laughs]
SS: I think the fandom...
JS: Yep.
SS: ...is looking for too much...
JS: Yep. I agree with that.
SS: Like Star Wars, there's six films... there's one twist!
JS: [laughs]
SS: There's only one big twist! It is not like - and I'm not sure if it's 'cause it's J. J. and it's in this internet age that people are looking for - all these... everything's a twist!
JS: They are. They're looking for certain big reveals and big moments and big changes that will throw you for a loop. Yeah, I mean I guess that that is true... I mean hopefully the film sort of stands up more than that and hopefully in years to come down the road after we've seen VIII and IX, you know, people will hopefully look back on it and enjoy it still. And hopefully there's some longevity with that. Especially kind of like very similiarly to how we experience Luke as a character, when we were kids, the discovery of his journey... this film is really the discovery of Rey's journey and there's parallels to that and very similar in some ways, but they have slightly different stories. And I'm curious to see myself as a fan to see where it goes - where does she come from? How does Kylo Ren fit in to all of this? Where's he gonna... how's that gonna play out? Where's Finn gonna play out from here? - all those new characters.
SS: Would it be out of the question -
JS: [pause] Yeah...
SS: - to propose that Rey's backstory - from day one to now - has changed?
JS: Uh... [pause] I don't know if it's out of the question, but I'm pretty sure that they know - from the - that J. J. has known from the beginning where that's gonna go.
SS: Mmmm.
JS: I'm pretty sure that they know where her backstory...
SS: Because I was beginning to get the feeling it has shifted...
JS: Yeah.
SS: But I'd much rather them know.
JS: Yeah. Yeah I'm pretty sure that J. J. knows.
SS: Ok.
JS: I haven't had that conversation with J. J. - I'm not about to walk up to him and go, "Hey, I just had this question for you about Rey". [laughs] That's your job! Not mine.
SS: Hahaha!
JS: I probably won't have the next job if I ask that question! No, I'm joking. But yeah, no I'm pretty sure that he - or I got that vibe at least that he knew from the beginning -
SS: Yeah.
JS: - of her, of the inception of the script and when they started writing it they worked out where'd she come from and who she is and where she's going.
SS: That is good to know.
JS: Yes.
http://steelewars.com/julian-smirke/

@CienaRee

Very interesting!

Well, I do think that's a bit disingenuous in this case though, to put the blame on fans who are looking for twists where there are none... TFA deliberately created several mysteries, Rey's background being one of them. Not the central mystery IMO (if you ask me, the real central mystery of TFA is Luke's "vanishing" and how Han and Leia's son ended up where he is) but still one of the major ones. TFA itself self-referentially called it "classified".

I don't think it's stupid to expect that mysteries that have been deliberately set up will pay off.

It's just that fans are looking for the pay-off in wrong places, and twisting the story to get the "twist" they want, instead of following where the story may lead.

@Darth Dingbat problem is, people that are considered Internet "Truthsayers" don't care about dramatic sense/potential, narrative logic, etc. They want to enforce their headcanon just because. That's the same people who think that Finnrey is the endgame cause they are "easiest to do" which is automatic death knell to romance cause romance is never easy. You know 2 characters won't shack it up if they are easy to pair up. No obstacles, no differences, all smooth. Not romance. Cinematic and literally romance is not real life and therefore requires complications of various kinds including that characters are on opposite sides, even hate each other in the beginning, etc. There must be drama. No drama = no romance. Simple.