- I do like TestingOutTheTest’s interpretation of Rey’s arc, but I don’t think her giving the lightsaber to Leia (and then getting it back a few minutes later) actually does anything for it. It feels totally half-baked, like an idea JJ and Terrio had but then forgot to expand on and just left in anyway. I also prefer the implication that Rey has been struggling with her training and ‘making excuses’ about it for a while, whereas leaving it in sort of makes it seem like this is the first time.
Agreed! MR actually came up with a clever solution if anyone wants to check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=878FfeIm7D8&t=607s
- I don’t think the Bestoon Legacy is Rey’s parents ship. The TFA flashback (and its reuse in TROS) do seem to imply that she watched them leave in it, but the name ‘Bestoon Legacy’ (Ochi of Bestoon) and D-O being onboard and all suggest to me it was Ochi’s ship. Plus, he must’ve gotten to Jakku somehow. I think in ret(con)rospect, we have to assume the Jakku part of the TFA flashback is a mixture of vision and flashback, and that little Rey never actually, literally watched that ship fly off while Unkar took her away. I’d assume that at some unspecified point after her parents sold Rey, Ochi arrives in the Bestoon Legacy, locates Rey’s parents, takes them on board for interrogation, flies off, and then kills them. Maybe Rey saw the ship fly off and sensed her parents were on it, hence that being part of her TFA vision/flashback or whatever. But there’s no way they sold her to Unkar seconds before Ochi flies away like the flashback would imply if interpreted literally, because that’s just silly. Rey also appears to ‘remember’ her parents being killed by Ochi, which isn’t possible, unless that bit of flashback/vision is just for the audience’s benefit.
Again, agreed. If we can figure out a workaround for Ascendant, I think it’ll really help this movie to feel less contrived.
- I still believe editing TROS such that Rey’s parents were always bad people is feasible. Rey can still be mad that Palpatine killed them, even if they were terrible people. She does have reasons to hate him other than that too, such as him being Space-Hitler, his corrupting influence on Ben (to whatever extent she’s aware of that), and even surface-level stuff like Luke telling her she has to face him. I think the toughest question to answer with this change would be what was mentioned previously: why wouldn’t Rey’s parents give her up to save themselves? I think there’s a few ways you could come at that. Perhaps Rey’s Dad and his wife hated Palpatine so much they were willing to withhold that information just to spite him, even if it meant their own deaths, as someone (Jar Jar Bricks?) suggested earlier in the thread. It’s still essentially a sacrifice to save Rey, but it leaves them morally grey rather than having them be retconned into the loving parents that Rey wishes they were. Or maybe they did try to sell Rey out, but didn’t know exactly where she’d wound up - I’m sure there’s plenty of Jakku outside Niima Outpost - so Ochi killed them anyway. It does get a little contrived, I admit, but it’s not like this movie’s plot is rock solid as is, and I personally think it’s worth it to avoid undermining the TLJ reveal.
Once again, you’re right on the money, I’d say. The only thing is, I think this would work better in the Rey Nobody version; I don’t know how much it adds in Rey Palpatine, if we’re already ret-conning her parents into special people. They’re super important! But they were still assholes. Ehhhh…