Five Points of Controversy in Star Wars: The Last Jedi That are Actually Beautiful - Part II (Spoilers)

PART 2 of 5 

Part 1 Here: http://hightowerdreamland.blogspot.com/2017/12/five-controversial-moments-in-star-wars.html

2. Rey is a Very Special Nobody

Acknowledgement:  The Force Awakens ended on an epic note, music swelling, Rey almost in tears as she extends “Excalibur” back to its rightful owner. And then he takes it and tosses it over his shoulder as if it is a meaningless piece of junk. It is symbolic of the message of the whole movie. Throw your expectations off the cliff. Luke’s first action of the film seems like it is only for a cheap laugh, and already he is rubbing some people the wrong way. I totally get it. But wait a minute. . . the lightsaber isn’t gone. It is saved by porgs. Sort of. I digress. 

 Rey recovers the saber and soon begins training with it when her trademark staff seems lackluster in comparison. After witnessing this self-training, Luke asks her, “Who are you?” She tries again to identify herself as a messenger for Leia and the Resistance, but Luke stops her and asks her again. “Who are you?” Again, Rey seems confused by the question, answering, “I am Rey. From Nowhere.” Luke presses her and she reveals that she came from Jakku. Luke agrees the dust ball of a planet is pretty much nowhere. And here is where the theme of Rey coming from nowhere really begins to set in. At this point some audience members are shifting uncomfortably in their seats about Rey’s parents, because we, like Rey, were hoping Luke Skywalker would have some answers for her. Instead, it is he who is asking the questions.

The question of Rey’s heritage started in Force Awakens and has been the subject of heated debate for two years. First, the question is twisted around by Master Skywalker. Next, it is given a WTF acid trip sequence from a hole in the ground filled with dark side power, and then it culminates in this film with Kylo Ren, who assures her he knows the truth about her parents. Like Vader in Empire, Kylo isn’t exactly trustworthy, but we sort of expect Kylo to be telling the truth since Vader was for Luke. Dark side dudes tend to be truthful when they tell you who your daddy is. 

The answer—her parents were nobody. Worse than nobody, they were drunks who sold her for money. Audience members who hate this revelation blame Disney for trying to make it seem like anyone can be a Jedi. The act of writing Rey as a nobody, Disney executives thought, would make Star Wars appeal to a wider audience. It must be about money. And so builds the image of the evil mouse sitting in his throne room cackling in glee like the emperor, except with a high-pitched cartoonish voice. Coorporate film making has infected a lot of big tent pole movies, so the fear of what Star Wars could become under Disney is understandable. Rey coming from nothing is now the prime symbol of that fear. And yet . . . is Rey really nobody?

Let us take a deeper look at her hero’s journey.

How Rey was Written:  Again I place myself in the shoes of Rian Johnson who has the honor of not only directing, but writing The Last Jedi. Rey is my central protagonist for my new trilogy. Everything that happens must in some way connect to her. It is interesting to note that her story arc in The Last Jedi is done by the second act. This almost defies expectation, but it follows a pattern for this trilogy. She is so sidelined in the third act she isn’t even flying the M. Falcon. She is only a gunner. The third act belongs to Luke Skywalker, and that should tell us something about Rey. This isn’t really Rey’s movie. It is Luke Skywalker’s film.

Don’t get me wrong, Rey has a fully realized arc, and it is done really well. However, her single largest motivating force is to find her place in the universe. Contrast this to Luke’s main motivation in his second movie, to become a Jedi like his father before him and later to protect his friends. At one point, Luke might even be thinking he is about to avenge his father. Luke was always chasing after his father. At first, he chased an ideal—where his father was the best star fighter pilot in the galaxy and a good friend. Later, his mission became to face his father and save him if he could. Rey, on the other hand, has nothing to chase after but a family she doesn’t remember. She is also seeking answers as to why this strange force is on the move inside her. However, Rey forms a bond with Kylo Ren, and her mission now parallels Luke’s in that she hopes to save Ben Solo.

Rey is an active protagonist for the first time in this movie. In The Force Awakens, she was a strong, but passive protagonist. Everything happens to Rey in the first film. Her only decision is to reject going to work for Han Solo, and to reject her “call to action”. I am using terms from A Hero of a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. It is a must read for any Star Wars fan or fan of epic stories in general. Rey’s call came when the lightsaber shows her a vision and Maz Kanada tries to explain that she needs to let go of the past and move forward. Until this moment, she has no reason to do anything but go back to Jakku.

(Incidentally, Finn also rejects his call to action in the prior scene. Finn completes his arc by the second act and is literally taken out of the story in the third. Does the pattern look familiar yet? The Force Awakens was Han Solo’s movie with Finn coming of age. As awesome as Rey is in the third act, she hasn’t really grown as much as Finn, the active protagonist.)

After talking with Maz Kanada, Rey thinks moving forward means finding Luke Skywalker. She gets kidnapped by Kylo Ren while she is literally running away from her call. However, in this trilogy she makes a decision to leave Luke Skywalker behind and attempt to turn Kylo Ren back to the light. She becomes an active protagonist.  And yet, this revelation that she came from two drunks still hangs over her. I am driving toward the conclusion that we are not done learning about Rey’s origin. We still have not explained her visions, or why so many powerful characters seem to think she is so important. Luke recognizes her power and her potential for light or darkness, Yoda recognizes her importance and asks Luke to put his hopes in the girl, and Snoke fears that she is the light rising to meet the darkness so he wants Kylo to destroy her. Clearly, Rey is the most important nobody since Anakin Skywalker himself. So who is she?

Rey as a Point of View Character: Is Rey nobody? It seems to be her worst fear, and whether it is true or not, Kylo Ren tries to use it to manipulate her into joining him. This means that if it is true, then Rey must conquer her greatest fear. If it is false, then Rey might not get to find out who she is until she can be at peace with being a nobody and still finding her purpose.

Let us examine her vision in the dark side hole. Luke very much wants her to resist the call of this place, but from Rey’s point of view, Luke has shut himself off from the force. Therefore, he can hardly know what dangers she will find. She jumps in a dark pool, and a massive creature swims behind her. It is not a threat to her, but it is there . . . lurking.

Next she gets out into a fog, and walks forward to find mirror images of herself spread single file in both directions. She waves her hand, and her hands go up in succession. They do not move at the same time as if it were a reflection. She snaps, and her snaps echo down the line and back like dominoes. What are we being told visually?

Either time has slowed to show Ray she has infinite possibilities and limitless potential, or she is but one of an infinite version of herself. Next Rey asks to see her parents. She begs to see them. Two shadowy figures approach her through the glaze of what looks like an icy mirror. They merge into one figure. I feel this merge into a single figure is more significant than her fear of loneliness. I feel the entire vision sequence may be telling us Rey is a clone. We will save the crazy theories for another time. Rey wipes the mirror and finds her face.

Be honest. Does this seem like the kind of vision that sets up a person’s parents to be just nobody? Clearly there is some kind of meaning behind this vision and the sequence of visions in The Force Awakens. Where are the Knights of Ren? Why did Han Solo give Maz Kanada a troubled look when she asked, “Who’s the girl?”

People were really upset because part of Star Wars is that being a Jedi has always been something special. Becoming a magic space wizard was hard and rare. Now, of course the force would not play favorites with gender or race, but you still have to be special to be as powerful as Rey. Either you have the genetics like the Skywalkers, or you are a vergence in the force like Anakin himself.  The film suggests that the force itself manifests so powerfully in Rey so she can be the light to balance the rising darkness. Is the reveal of Rey’s parents being of no consequence the evil attempt by Disney to be overly progressive, or is it just the bold decision of Rian Johnson to surprise people? I feel the question can be answered by thinking about Rey’s point of view. This will not be the last time I will say how point of view is the central theme of The Last Jedi.

Let’s get the progressive concerns out of the way. In the case of Rey, her gender may be of some importance, but that goes hand in hand with building her relationship with Kylo Ren. So if the force CHOSE Rey, her gender may be one of the reasons. Still, her gender is not the overall driving factor of her existence. I think it all comes back to the dark side vision and how different characters interpret the moment. As I write this, I can hear Yoda admonishing Luke in Empire.

“The cave, the cave, remember your failure in the cave!”

Remember, dark side cave visions are not just visions. They are a test for the hero. A decent into facing their darkest fears. Rey has much more to fear than just being alone. Rian Johnson himself explained in a recent interview with Collider Media.

“I was thinking, what’s the most powerful answer to that question? Powerful meaning: what’s the hardest thing that Rey could hear? That’s what you’re after with challenging your characters.”

“The easiest thing for Rey and the audience to hear is, “Oh yeah, you’re so-and-so’s daughter. That would be wish fulfillment and instantly hand her a place in this story on a silver platter…The hardest thing for her is to hear she’s not going to get that easy answer. Not only that, but Kylo is going to use the fact that you don’t get that answer to try and weaken you so you have to lean on him.” (Collider, 2017)

The director himself is telling us that Rey can’t get the answer at this point in her journey. We are told something about her parents, but in actuality we are told nothing. So we are left with a choice. How much do we believe Kylo? How much does Rey believe Kylo? Rian Johnson commented on this as well.

“And there’s always, in these movies, a question of ‘a certain point of view,’ . . . but for me, in that moment, Kylo believes it’s the truth. I don’t think he’s purely playing chess. I think that’s what he saw when they touched fingers and that’s what he believes. And when he tells her that in that moment, she believes it to.”

 Since Rey believes it, she is free to discover herself. She is free to strive toward her destiny in a way Luke never had the chance. Luke’s family always defined him, and defined the choices he would make. Now we have a character in Rey, who even though is obviously special, can move forward without a destiny hanging over her. To me, that means she won’t find out who she really is until her journey is done, and it is going to be one hell of a journey that I can’t wait to see come to a conclusion in Episode Nine.


GO ON TO PART THREE: HERE