Rey: Hi, I’m Rey, Finn’s g– other best friend! It’s so good to meet you! Glad you’re alive, Finn thought you were dead. Um I have to go real quick to find Luke but please tell me if Finn wakes up!
*later*
Poe: oh hey that girl is here I should tell her Finn’s alive
Rey: Hi! I’m Rey.
Poe: Um… I know, we met like yesterday. I’m Poe.
Rey: I’m so sorry! I think some of my memories got overwritten by the image of shirtless Kylo Ren burned in my brain. I remember you now!
Poe: Wait you saw Kylo Ren shirtless?
Rey: It’s even worse than you can imagine.
Poe: [grimacing] I don’t know, I can imagine quite a bit. By the way, Finn’s alive.
I’d like to see Rey happy at the end of the Sequel Duology
And I don’t mean like her being happy about a relationship or her being happy because the war is over…..
I want to see Rey happy with herself and where her life is at. Back in TFA we saw that Rey really wasn’t happy with her life. There was a sense of longing and emptiness that seemed to always be around her when she was on Jakku.
Remember that shot in TFA of Rey looking lonely and lost?
It’d be nice near the end of IX, if JJ gave Rey a chance to silently reflect on her life and the changes it’s gone through.
Imagine Rey is on Coruscant in a rebuilt Jedi council room. The war is over, her loved ones are safe, and Rey, Jedi Master, dressed in clean, warm robes, takes a seat and looks out as the sun rises on the busy world. Her face is content and for the first time in many years, Rey feels at home and fulfilled.
I don’t just wanna see Rey happy for a moment. I wanna know that at the end of this, she’s happy with herself and her life, because she’s earned that.
If there’s one thing I want Rey to find above all else, it’s happiness.
I think what’s most important for Rey is to be happy with her choices and where they’ve taken her. In her life before she was stuck. She had shackled herself to Jakku waiting for someone to come back to her. And she pretended that it was okay, that she was happy there. That as long as they came back for her it would be worth it, but I think deep down she knew she was wasting her life away on a dream she had no control over.
In that shot of her she’s watching an old woman do the same thing she is. And I’m sure she’s wondering, will that be me? Will I be stuck here forever waiting on something that never comes.
But then BB-8 rolls into her life. And she makes a choice to help him. To not sell him for rations. And then she meets Finn. This boy she thinks is a Resistance fighter, living in a world she can only dream of beyong Jakku. And she makes the choice to help him. And make no mistakes these are choices. She could’ve sold BB-8, she could’ve returned to Jakku without helping them, but she didn’t because she knew she wanted more. And finally she makes a choice when she calls for Luke’s lightsaber. A choice to accept this destiny that is so much larger than herself, that she’s terrified of and doesn’t understand. But still she chooses it. And she chooses to go find Luke, to understand herself.
And in the end I want Rey to be glad she did. To look back on those choices and be grateful she made them because now she’s no longer waiting for life to find her. She’s found it herself and she’s sought out her own happiness. I want her to acknowledge that she brought herself to this point and be proud.
Agreed!
I always hated the argument that Rey wasn’t an active protagonist or she had no objective.
Rey’s objective was to find where she belonged. That’s why the shot of Rey’s face after Leia told hey may the force be with you, mattered so much.
In TFA and Rey’s survival guide we learn that Rey had always dreamed and learned about these heroes of the past and she use to pretend to be one. She even keeps an old Rebellion helmet and still wears it. Rey wanted to feel like she had a purpose, to feel like her life had meaning beyond just being a scavenger.
And by the end of TFA she’s found her purpose, and she’s become a hero in her own right.
That’s why whenever I think about Rey and her unanswered questions, I just think back to Daisy’s words on how she felt like Rey had already accepted her status as hero and who her parents were, even if we didn’t understand at the time.
So yeah VII and IX are all I know
That’s one of the reasons why I get so annoyed when people act like RJ was so ingenious with the arcs he chose for the characters. For Rey, it was for her to let go of the past and realize that she didn’t need to rely on these other characters (Luke and Kylo) to be the hero. She was somebody and could be the hero herself.
But like you said, this was already explored and basically resolved in TFA. So RJ essentially just ripped off the arcs JJ already did for the characters, but did it worse!
I said once that everyone from Luke, Finn, Rey, Poe and Kylo had their personalities reset for the sake of the First 3 acts then it was brought back to their TFA, or in Luke’s case, ROTJ self.
I finally spotted her upper body. Some are saying it might be Poe? I say Rey, though, due to size. Then again they’re not far apart in height…
For all we know it’s just a BTS shot out of costume and John could be talking to JJ. JJ wasn’t an attention whore like RJ who put his face on one of the discs of TLJ.
I’m just happy JJ made it JUST Finn/John. I love Rey and Daisy, but Finn is discredited like hell! JJ was subtly letting people know that John/Finn is a big deal in Star Wars.
What a giant middle finger to RJ, putting that VII IX engraving in front while centering Finn in the background.
By the way I saw coverage of this photo saying Chewie is on the far left flanked by Finn who writes like that asdk it’s clear FINN is in the middle flanked by chewie and maybe-Rey?
Poe: When you were a kid, what was your biggest fantasy?
Rey & Finn: To have parents.
Poe: yeah I just wanted my mom
Lando: Please, kids, it Christmas…lighten up.
To wrap up the new main characters, an alternate take on Rey! Horrible art aside, I tried to make her look like Maisie Richardson-Sellers (maybe Daisy Ridley could play Korr Sella, and the role will be better than “woman dies horribly”). I loved your idea of Rey planet-hopping in search of her family, so I had her outfit reflect that. Her jumpsuit is kind of like a B-Wing pilot’s. Her belt is a TIE fighter pilot’s. Her staff is modified from a Geonosian spear. Also, she has a huge backpack, which is where, if the movie needed a bunch of Easter eggs, we would get references. The old training remote, one of Grievous’s hands, etc. etc.
(Moth)
So I’m reading parts of the TLJ novelization near the end, with the hyperspace ramming, the Phasma duel, and Kylo Ren regaining consciousness, and a few things are jumping out at me:
The details of the Finn-Phasma duel in the novel are all out of whack with the final filmed product. The broad outline is similar but Finn uses a different weapon, he uses different melee moves, the nature of the terrain is different, Rose tried to support Finn during the duel with blaster fire, Rose’s angle relative to Phasma is different (she sees Phasma’s eye through the cracked helmet), Phasma’s armor is not bulletproof but rather Rose misses her repeatedly, etc. The novelization was by necessity written from the script before the final filming, and these noticeable disparities tell me that the duel underwent significant changes between script and final product. This is probably not unusual for a combat scene which has a lot of moving parts and what looks cool on paper might not work out in filming at all.
“Turbolift” is a thing in the SW universe? The mention of Hux taking a turbolift to the throne room brought everything to a screeching halt for me, so to speak. Talk about being thrown out of immersion, for a moment when Hux feared he was trapped and would die in there I caught myself thinking he should have taken the Jefferies tubes.
There’s a PoV shift in the middle of the “Supreme Leader is dead” scene, with the viewpoint going from Hux to (seemingly) Kylo without warning. This is why I don’t generally read tie-in novels except as occasional references, they are almost always rushed and cursory products that I rarely find enjoyable on their own. A Stitch in Time, a Garak novel by actor Andrew Robinson himself, was the last tie-in novel I actually enjoyed as its own product. Then again ASIT was in the best tradition of fanfic, it was just a little more official than most.
Rey’s recollection of sparing Kylo Ren despite waking up first in the throne room gives me STRONG feelings of a Frodo-and-Gollum style foreshadowing. Much like Frodo toward Gollum she does not like the guy, knows he is evil, and believes that much evil could be prevented by striking him down. Yet she recognizes that events could work through him in ways she cannot foresee with her limited vision, and chooses to leave his fate to the will of the Force and not end his life herself. That was it; that was her reasoning and consideration. No pain or regret at what had happened, no longing for the time they had briefly joined forces, not even the kind of heartfelt pity Frodo had for Gollum. I’ve commented before about the possible similarities in Kylo’s and Gollum’s fates (link, link) and this passage only strengthened the link for me.
OMG the two of them struggling over Anakin’s lightsaber was literally Frodo and Gollum fighting over the Ring 😂 Kylo will finally get the lightsaber on the third try, dance around screaming “Mine” and then go YEEEET over the edge.
So I’m reading parts of the TLJ novelization near the end, with the hyperspace ramming, the Phasma duel, and Kylo Ren regaining consciousness, and a few things are jumping out at me:
The details of the Finn-Phasma duel in the novel are all out of whack with the final filmed product. The broad outline is similar but Finn uses a different weapon, he uses different melee moves, the nature of the terrain is different, Rose tried to support Finn during the duel with blaster fire, Rose’s angle relative to Phasma is different (she sees Phasma’s eye through the cracked helmet), Phasma’s armor is not bulletproof but rather Rose misses her repeatedly, etc. The novelization was by necessity written from the script before the final filming, and these noticeable disparities tell me that the duel underwent significant changes between script and final product. This is probably not unusual for a combat scene which has a lot of moving parts and what looks cool on paper might not work out in filming at all.
“Turbolift” is a thing in the SW universe? The mention of Hux taking a turbolift to the throne room brought everything to a screeching halt for me, so to speak. Talk about being thrown out of immersion, for a moment when Hux feared he was trapped and would die in there I caught myself thinking he should have taken the Jefferies tubes.
There’s a PoV shift in the middle of the “Supreme Leader is dead” scene, with the viewpoint going from Hux to (seemingly) Kylo without warning. This is why I don’t generally read tie-in novels except as occasional references, they are almost always rushed and cursory products that I rarely find enjoyable on their own. A Stitch in Time, a Garak novel by actor Andrew Robinson himself, was the last tie-in novel I actually enjoyed as its own product. Then again ASIT was in the best tradition of fanfic, it was just a little more official than most.
Rey’s recollection of sparing Kylo Ren despite waking up first in the throne room gives me STRONG feelings of a Frodo-and-Gollum style foreshadowing. Much like Frodo toward Gollum she does not like the guy, knows he is evil, and believes that much evil could be prevented by striking him down. Yet she recognizes that events could work through him in ways she cannot foresee with her limited vision, and chooses to leave his fate to the will of the Force and not end his life herself. That was it; that was her reasoning and consideration. No pain or regret at what had happened, no longing for the time they had briefly joined forces, not even the kind of heartfelt pity Frodo had for Gollum. I’ve commented before about the possible similarities in Kylo’s and Gollum’s fates (link, link) and this passage only strengthened the link for me.
L.J.'s Obsessions 