ARCHIVE: Rey's Lineage Discussion II - 2

FrolickingFizzgig wrote:

BastilaBey wrote:I strongly disagree that Rey is a bland character and am kind of tired of seeing that thrown around, tbh.

She is a heroine and initially has to be positioned as good and just. But this is not the face of a bland, one-dimensional character.

@BastilaBey
And to use it as proof for Rey Kenobi/Rey being created entirely by Lucas...

It's impossible to debate when the rules keep changing. Kathleen Kennedy DID NOT say there no major changes (she said there were changes, but they were the result of natural story progression). She said ideas that started with Lucas developed over time because he wasn't involved in the secondary process. She said they didn't change everything. Somehow over the course of two pages her words have been spun into "there were no major changes to her [Rey's] story". Kathleen wasn't even talking about Kira/Rey! She was talking about TFA as a whole.

@FrolickingFizzgig

And still, even if Rey's background has remained exactly the same all along, I don't really understand how we can tell at this point that she's supposed to be some specific thing when she could just as easily be e.g.

Thea/Kira/Rey Random-who-marries-a-Skywalker-Solo (new Padmé, so to speak)
Thea/Kira/Rey Palpatine (hey, that's legacy, too)
Thea/Kira/Rey Ancient Lineage
Thea/Kira/Rey Random Royalty Like Tenel-Ka
Thea/Kira/Rey Imperial/First Order/Sith Parents

Or something else that has remained unchanged.

BastilaBey wrote:I strongly disagree that Rey is a bland character and am kind of tired of seeing that thrown around, tbh.

She is a heroine and initially has to be positioned as good and just. But this is not the face of a bland, one-dimensional character.

@BastilaBey

If I'm entirely honest, were TFA a one-off movie, I would have found Rey bland and disappointing as a main character. But the fact is that TFA is entirely a set-up for the trilogy (which I suppose one could criticize, if you believe even movies within a trilogy should be strong enough to stand alone). And that set-up seems to be taking Rey in an interesting direction, and I believe she'll get much more complicated and flawed in the next two movies. Her potential is enormous.

Gemini wrote:People are entitled to have an opinion of a character. I constantly see people saying she is not as interesting as kylo there's even a poll for it?

Majority prefer kylo, no bother to me. I prefer Rey and chose her btw

@Gemini
The post that encouraged @BastilaBey's response was not written as an opinion on a character, it was an attempt to use Rey's "blandness" for proof that she was created by George Lucas rather than JJ/Kasdan. I think it was perfectly fair that a rebuttal was posted because it was an argument against evidence, not an argument against anybody's right to have an opinion.

If you read Kathleen's interview you'll quickly realize that she says "legacy characters" with regards to characters that appeared in the OT, not their potential offspring. Mark Hamill has explained that those at LucasFilm describe Luke, Leia and Han as the "legacy characters". So yeah, it was a response to a question addressing the assumption that Lucas' script focused more on Luke, Leia and Han, and Kathleen responded that the assumption wasn't really true...

Gemini wrote:People are entitled to have an opinion of a character. I constantly see people saying she is not as interesting as kylo there's even a poll for it?

Majority prefer kylo, no bother to me. I prefer Rey and chose her btw

@Gemini

Yup, I still prefer Rey also

Also I can't believe it's being claimed that it was ignored that some changes were made creatively etc when Spacebaby even bolded that statement in her original post to draw attention to it? (The kk interview)

That's not particularly fair to claim this as what happened when it was not.

@Gemini We're getting OT, but honestly, even the existence of that poll bothers me. You can't compare them, they are apples and oranges. One is at the beginning of a hero's arc, the other we see in a downward spiral as a villain in the tragic, anti sphere. They're characters - tools being used by artists to tell a story - and that necessitates Rey being pictured as unrealistically optimistic and under the illusion of a 'perfect world' (waiting for her family to come back) before that delusion is shattered and she accepts the call.

I feel like we've been there and back again multiple times on the subject of whether Rey was ever meant to be related to a legacy character and we are still no closer to knowing the truth. It's six of one and half a dozen of the other in relation to various ideas, treatments, draft scripts etc etc. Like Pablo said, we simply don't know enough about it to know for sure. I guess if you're invested in a particular theory regarding Rey's lineage then this stuff matters. Personally, I'm happy to leave it at her not being a Skywalker or Solo and wait for the rest to be revealed in the rest of the trilogy. I'm not convinced by the Palpatine/Kenobi etc theories at present because I don't think the audience should have to excavate for clues the way that fans do. Whatever Rey's lineage, it should be there for all to see so that the target audience (i.e children) can join the dots. Maybe that will be possible in retrospect and the proponents of the main parentage theories will have them borne out.

Gemini wrote:Also I can't believe it's being claimed that it was ignored that some changes were made creatively etc when Spacebaby even bolded that statement in her original post to draw attention to it? (The kk interview)

That's not particularly fair to claim this as what happened when it was not.

@Gemini
I think some of the confusion here is rooted in a misunderstanding of Kathleen's use of the term "legacy characters."

Peter: Yeah, like was George’s story more focused on the original trilogy characters?

Kathleen Kennedy: No, because the legacy characters play a significant role in this, and I would say and inside the balance that George was talking about to begin with. It was really much more to do with the specifics of the history of the saga. We changed the order of a few things, let’s put it that way. We didn’t make some wholesale change.

As you can clearly see, Kathleen is using the term "legacy characters" to describe the Original Trilogy characters (i.e. Han, Luke and Leia). She is not using the term to describe their children/the next generation. This is not even open to interpretation. Just read the question and response.

With that in mind, you can now see that the response was actually about the role of the OT characters in the ST. I'm not really sure what Kathleen means by "specifics of the history of the saga" (probably what happened to the Skywalkers in the 30-year timeline before the ST's beginning). That was changed (the order of a few things), but they didn't make some wholesale change. So yeah, this question was not about Rey/Thea/Kira, it was about Han, Luke and Leia.

I see your point of view

They are like peas and carrots to me (go together like clockwork )

Sorry if I've upset you @BastilaBey (ot comment)

Not my intent.

@gemini You haven't upset me at all. It's the general idea that Rey is less interesting just because we meet her and Kylo on different stages of their journey. Sure, his is still a coming of age - but the whole thing about anti-villains is that a lot of their big crimes, motives etc are shrouded in mystery and already occurred before we even encounter them. It's the heroine coming into his world that disrupts that villainy, even as it's clear he's been miserable and 'torn apart' for quite some time already.

Fizz everything that's been posted today (timeline/interviews) gives a lot of explanation to what has and hasn't changed and what original plans were. I'm not focusing completely  on one interview as evidence. I feel it's very strong because it's the producer. But ultimately I'm looking at whole picture here and what original plans seem to have been with the legacy characters and Rey.

I have to drive home but I will compile everything and explain why I think she means Rey there m.

I think where the rubber hit y he road between GL and Disney is where to place emphasis or on whom. GL wanted the emphasis on the younger new characters, in
y that case Rey would have been more fleshed out. Disney wanted a guaranteed hit and with Harrison being who he,is they wanted the focus on the OT. JJ did the job he was asked to do by making Kylo the focus point the OT had a story where they would be pivotal.

That question was raised after she was speaking about George's original plans with the trilogy and legacy characters. Another "scoop" says that the original plan was to give the legacy characters offspring.

From everything

2 skywalker descendants and Kira  a legacy character.

You end up with one skywalker and Kira

Lucas not happy saying it was supposed to be about grandfather, fathers and sons. 2 sons

"What happened to anakins grandchildren?" - George Lucas to jj

That to me highly indicates that the 2 skywalkers were merged into one man.

Kira not changed, not a son, never was. She's the main character. Pablo says she's not really changed since the start. Her story is largely the same.

BastilaBey wrote:@gemini You haven't upset me at all. It's the general idea that Rey is less interesting just because we meet her and Kylo on different stages of their journey. Sure, his is still a coming of age - but the whole thing about anti-villains is that a lot of their big crimes, motives etc are shrouded in mystery and already occurred before we even encounter them. It's the heroine coming into his world that disrupts that villainy, even as it's clear he's been miserable and 'torn apart' for quite some time already.

@BastilaBey

Still, it's the writers' job to ensure that the hero isn't upstaged by the villain... not the audience's.

I'm sure there would still have been people in the audience who would have found Rey a boring Mary Sue, no matter what. There's no point in pandering to people who are against female heroes in principle. But there's nothing automatically less engaging about an optimistic or even a totally innocent and sheltered heroine, IMO... there are so many ways to convey personality in a character. When all else fails, a sense of humour is a great spice.

Gemini wrote:Fizz everything that's been posted today (timeline/interviews) gives a lot of explanation to what has and hasn't changed and what original plans were. I'm not focusing completely  on one interview as evidence. I feel it's very strong because it's the producer. But ultimately I'm looking at whole picture here and what original plans seem to have been with the legacy characters and Rey.

I have to drive home but I will compile everything and explain why I think she means Rey there m.

@Gemini
A lot of this has been about that particular interview, and I think you misunderstood parts of it (not deliberately, but I can't say I don't see this consistently in this thread). You thought Kathleen was talking about Rey when she was actually talking about Han, Luke and Leia and their ST backstories. You also said that Kathleen said no major changes were made when she didn't say that at all. In the first bit she said changes were made but that they were the result of natural progression over the 2 years Lucas wasn't involved in the writing team. The second response that included "no wholesale changes" was in direct reference to a question about Han, Luke and Leia, and the response was in reference to them as well. No wholesale changes were made to their TFA backstories, but certain things were switched around. None of this has anything to do with Kira/Rey.

And as Dingbat pointed out, even if Rey's background never changed ever, where's the evidence she's a Kenobi by default? I don't see it. I see different possibilities, so really we're no closer to any answer.

Darth Dingbat wrote:

BastilaBey wrote:@gemini You haven't upset me at all. It's the general idea that Rey is less interesting just because we meet her and Kylo on different stages of their journey. Sure, his is still a coming of age - but the whole thing about anti-villains is that a lot of their big crimes, motives etc are shrouded in mystery and already occurred before we even encounter them. It's the heroine coming into his world that disrupts that villainy, even as it's clear he's been miserable and 'torn apart' for quite some time already.

@BastilaBey

Still, it's the writers' job to ensure that the hero isn't upstaged by the villain... not the audience's.

I'm sure there would still have been people in the audience who would have found Rey a boring Mary Sue, no matter what. There's no point in pandering to people who are against female heroes in principle. But there's nothing automatically less engaging about an optimistic or even a totally innocent and sheltered heroine, IMO... there are so many ways to convey personality in a character. When all else fails, a sense of humour is a great spice.

@Darth Dingbat

Was she upstaged, though? I don't think this forum is particularly representative of the general audience. Kylo's been largely mocked as a whiny emo, while everyone seems to love Rey and can't wait to see her 'find her father' in the next movie...

Also, that quote is "We didn't make some wholesale change", not "no wholesale changes" in the plural. To me, "some wholesale change" implies "out with GL's ideas, in with something completely different". So they didn't just get throw GL's treatment in the rubbish bin, they tried to build something from its elements.

No matter which way I look at those quotes, I see Kathleen Kennedy trying to be very respectful and saying that their ideas evolved from GL's ideas. Not that there were no major changes in the story.

BastilaBey wrote:

Darth Dingbat wrote:

BastilaBey wrote:@gemini You haven't upset me at all. It's the general idea that Rey is less interesting just because we meet her and Kylo on different stages of their journey. Sure, his is still a coming of age - but the whole thing about anti-villains is that a lot of their big crimes, motives etc are shrouded in mystery and already occurred before we even encounter them. It's the heroine coming into his world that disrupts that villainy, even as it's clear he's been miserable and 'torn apart' for quite some time already.

@BastilaBey

Still, it's the writers' job to ensure that the hero isn't upstaged by the villain... not the audience's.

I'm sure there would still have been people in the audience who would have found Rey a boring Mary Sue, no matter what. There's no point in pandering to people who are against female heroes in principle. But there's nothing automatically less engaging about an optimistic or even a totally innocent and sheltered heroine, IMO... there are so many ways to convey personality in a character. When all else fails, a sense of humour is a great spice.

@Darth Dingbat

Was she upstaged, though? I don't think this forum is particularly representative of the general audience. Kylo's been largely mocked as a whiny emo, while everyone seems to love Rey and can't wait to see her 'find her father' in the next movie...

@BastilaBey

I wouldn't go as far as too say that isn't representative of the general audience. Most GA people I've come across personally love Rey, but seem to be split on Kylo. They either think he's evil or they see him as a tragic figure. Most of them seem to find him interesting though. The only ones I've seen calling him a whiny emo is a group of hardcore fans.

Darth Dingbat wrote:Also, that quote is "We didn't make some wholesale change", not "no wholesale changes" in the plural. To me, "some wholesale change" implies "out with GL's ideas, in with something completely different". So they didn't just get throw GL's treatment in the rubbish bin, they tried to build something from its elements.

No matter which way I look at those quotes, I see Kathleen Kennedy trying to be very respectful and saying that their ideas evolved from GL's ideas. Not that there were no major changes in the story.

@Darth Dingbat
Exactly. It feels like a direct response to his outrage at not being directly involved in the production process this time around. She was being very respectful, pointing out that the ST began with ideas from Lucas but that those ideas evolved organically as writing tends to do in the hands of other people. She made it clear that Lucas wasn't around for the progression so naturally whatever he left went through an transformation as ideas were fine-tuned, but it wasn't because he was deliberately kicked to the curb or ignored. And no matter how many times I read it I don't see her saying there were no major changes made (come on, there clearly were). I just see a very respectful head of company acknowledging the involvement of the person who started it all.

The second question is obviously in direct relation to OT characters and how much their roles/backstories changed from Lucas' vision to TFA.

As for the timeline, I figured we'd all seen that many times before? I know I had. Maybe it's very accurate, maybe it isn't. I know it's partly based on the art book, so who knows...

Say what you want about anything else, Rey and Finn get this right.  With a moment’s exchange of dialogue, with a flash of facial expression, they express the longing, regret, loss, and restless hope of the abandoned.  And they recognize it in each other–the running, rage, resolve, and acceptance.  One truth I’m discovering: adoptees find each other.

What redeems Finn from his lie, his posturing as a member of the Resistance?  His admission that he doesn’t know his parents.  That he was abducted by the First Order, a reincarnation of Empire.  What forces Rey’s hand, sending her on the run?  The moment when Maz acknowledges, dislodges really, that deep-set anxiety, that she can wait in the junkyards of Jakku forever.  Whoever left her there is not coming back.  The past is obscured in shadow and mystery.  It’s an enigma.  It’s an iteration of the “Ghost Kingdom,” as Betty Jean Lifton terms it.

And I get it.  There’s Art for you.  Actors conveying in a glance the feelings of the foundling.  Rey’s grudging acceptance that the road ahead is all there is.  Our realization of how much the past propels us through the present and into the future.

Perhaps these are universal questions manifested differently for all of us, adopted or not.  Perhaps I happened to be in the theater on just the right day.  But yesterday, as the smiles and happiness and plastic and holiday of strangers unfolded around me, I wanted to slide into the quietness of the forest. I missed my mom, and others.  I sought, in mind if not in body, the hermitage of the anchorite or Jedi Knight, a snow-bound glade or sea-bound promontory.  A mountain, or desert, or island.  I wanted a bivouac on a high, rocky ridge. Somewhere to stand and wait.  For what, I’m not sure.  Luke Skywalker was an adoptee too.

In movies, in Art, in the so-called Real Life, the voices of the Ghost Kingdom whisper (alongside the happy chatter that I also fully embrace, alongside family, alongside gifts and toys, alongside friendship, alongside holiday festivity).  The voices disquiet, disturbing Empires, assumptions, and hegemonies.  They spur reflection,  storyhearing, and storytelling, an abseil off into the unknown.

https://bonnersbonn.wordpress.com/2015/12/25/abandonment-anchorites-and-the-awakening-force/

I found a random really nice blog post about Rey and Finn and how they both don't know their parents.

No @FrolickingFizzgig I  still think she was talking about Rey because it is reys story. She is the main character not kylo ren. The story of the main character is about her finding her way in the force and Pablo states that the story of her finding her place is largely the same. The true debate here imo between us really is the question if Reys legacy background (menhioned in the timeline) was changed when kk took over. When kk answers a question about the legacy character stories having changed she answers no wholesale change. Things have changed I agree but almost all evidence points to Kira not changing. Only Sam and Jedi killer. Still a skywalker and still a girl finding way in the force .

This is from everything today, and what was originally in store for the legacy characters in TFA.

The  legacy characters were supposed to have offspring, the children of Han, leia and Luke.

2 skywalkers

Kira was a legacy character, who would be revealed later in the film. She has always seemingly suposed to have been a mystery even in Lucas treatments. She has always been female.

Change of hands

One of the skywalkers (Luke's son) is gone and possibly merged into the heir through the female line. kylo ren. Sam was probably a solo or a skywalker.

Lucas says he's upset with the changes and that it was supposed to be about "grandfathers, fathers and sons." He also asks jj "what happened to anakins grandchildren (plural) Which gives credibility to the scoop about the original testaments being about 2 skywalker descendants and the offspring of Luke, Han and leia. It also seems like it was supposed to be a son of Luke not a daughter based off of his other complaint. Rey never was a skywalker.

It's just  one son now, one father. Han Solo. Luke has nothing.

Kira from the start is pegged as a legacy character who is revealed later in TFA . Always been female, always a secret mystery it seems.

Now we can either believe that she has remained a legacy character even to this day when Pablo says the story of her finding her place has been what was continued. Or we can believe that her story stayed the same but they removed the awful and "character degrading" secret legacy aspect of her.

The future will show us if this made the final version or not. I'm betting yes.

BastilaBey wrote:

Darth Dingbat wrote:

BastilaBey wrote:@gemini You haven't upset me at all. It's the general idea that Rey is less interesting just because we meet her and Kylo on different stages of their journey. Sure, his is still a coming of age - but the whole thing about anti-villains is that a lot of their big crimes, motives etc are shrouded in mystery and already occurred before we even encounter them. It's the heroine coming into his world that disrupts that villainy, even as it's clear he's been miserable and 'torn apart' for quite some time already.

@BastilaBey

Still, it's the writers' job to ensure that the hero isn't upstaged by the villain... not the audience's.

I'm sure there would still have been people in the audience who would have found Rey a boring Mary Sue, no matter what. There's no point in pandering to people who are against female heroes in principle. But there's nothing automatically less engaging about an optimistic or even a totally innocent and sheltered heroine, IMO... there are so many ways to convey personality in a character. When all else fails, a sense of humour is a great spice.

@Darth Dingbat

Was she upstaged, though? I don't think this forum is particularly representative of the general audience. Kylo's been largely mocked as a whiny emo, while everyone seems to love Rey and can't wait to see her 'find her father' in the next movie...

@BastilaBey

Mocked, yes, and fiercely debated. But people do feel strongly about him; few people are neutral. I think we've often complained that the only thing people seem to care about in regards to Rey is who her parents are (or specifically, her father is). I would say that didn't really come out of nowhere - if the majority of the GA somehow got the wrong idea (Reywalker) and are more interested in something that isn't supposed to be the story (Rey finding her father Luke, the awesome Luke, who dominates the trilogy with his sheer awesomeness) than the actual story that was set up (Rey's very personal conflict with her dark prince... I mean villain) then something about the film must have got lost in translation along the way.

And one can either blame the audience for being stupid, or wonder what might have been done better.

How can anybody say she was talking about Rey when nobody in this interview is talking about the "heroine" at all!? What the heck? Redacted

Peter: Who and how is it decided that the treatments that George Lucas had submitted for the sequel trilogy were to be abandoned?

Kathleen Kennedy: Well, here’s the thing. There are certain things they retained and obviously everything George created, you can imagine, every single person involved in this process hugely respects and wanted to know as much as they possibly could about the universe that he was describing. He had specific plot ideas that evolved. He sat down with me in 2012, and now it’s almost 2016, and you know the development process, where you bring writers on and once the story starts to take shape, it evolves. George wasn’t a part of those development discussions, so it was a fairly natural process of evolution. It sounds like we ignored him but that’s not really what happened.

No reference to the heroine (or characters) whatsoever. No proof that "certain things" or "plot ideas that evolved" automatically = Rey. She's just talking about vague stuff here.

Peter: Yeah, like was George’s story more focused on the original trilogy characters?

Kathleen Kennedy: No, because the legacy characters play a significant role in this, and I would say and inside the balance that George was talking about to begin with. It was really much more to do with the specifics of the history of the saga. We changed the order of a few things, let’s put it that way. We didn’t make some wholesale change.

CLEARLY about Luke, Leia and Han (a.k.a. OT LEGACY CHARACTERS). Not Rey. Not Finn. Not Kylo. Luke, Leia and Han. You can't just declare that she's talking about Rey because you want her to be. She isn't. End of story. It doesn't matter if she's the heroine and it doesn't matter what other people have said. That doesn't change what Kathleen Kennedy is actually talking about here.

Gemini wrote:No @FrolickingFizzgig I  still think she was talking about Rey because it is reys story. She is the main character not kylo ren. The story of the main character is about her finding her way in the force and Pablo states that the story of her finding her place is largely the same. The true debate here imo between us really is the question if Reys legacy background (menhioned in the timeline) was changed when kk took over. When kk answers a question about the legacy character stories having changed she answers no wholesale change. Things have changed I agree but almost all evidence points to Kira not changing. Only Sam and Jedi killer. Still a skywalker and still a girl finding way in the force .

@Gemini

But the question she was answering was specifically about the original characters - Luke, Leia, Han.

Regarding the bolded: Sam and Jedi Killer weren't in the Lucas version, if you believe Pablo, and Kira wasn't called Kira. There was Thea (precursor to Kira/Rey), Skyler, and Darth Talon. Pablo didn't elucidate whether Skyler was a precursor to Sam or a Skywalker/Solo, and he didn't tell us whether Darth Talon eventually became Jedi Killer or Snoke or neither. All we can do is speculate.

I give up. This is impossible. The confirmation bias is reaching the level of a galaxy far, far away as we speak. First Darth Talon and Kylo being just a "gender and costume change" to back-up one thing, then completely twisting Kathleen Kennedy's words to prove another (saying she was talking about Rey when she was obviously talking about Han, Leia and Luke). And the funny thing is none of it has anything to do with Rey Kenobi. It's no wonder the Rey Kenobi Files is full of random Rogue One/Attack of the Clones gifs, cute pictures of Obi-Wan and is perpetually an off-topic echo chamber of crack theories involving teen pregnancies and evidence even a Reywalker would roll their eyes at.