There is a misconception I keep hearing from people on podcasts about what exactly we learned about Rey's parents in the last two Star Wars movies. Many people seem to think we were shown that Rey's parents were "nobody". What we ACTUALLY were shown is that Rey thinks they are nobody, (I would argue she fears they are nobody) and she thinks this means she is a nobody.
Her whole life she avoided leaving Jakku because she was in denial that they were really dead. She hoped that they were actually hero's of the rebellion or x-wing pilots, instead of just junk traders. That for her to be anything special her parents had to be heroes who - any day now! - would come rescue her from her difficult life on Jakku.
However the truth seems obvious to other Force-sensitives as Maz and Kylo both immediately see that she was trying to run from the truth of her parents failure and death. Even when she found Luke and convinced him to teach her about the Force she couldn't resist going into the cave on Ahch-To to ask the mirror to show her parents to her, alive and well and presumably trying their best to find their way back to her! Or not. The mirror actually showed her the truth - they were dead, only existing as shadows haunting her memories.
It wasn't until Kylo and then he tried to manipulate her using her fears about what her parent's failures meant about herself that she was finally able to see the truth: it doesn't matter who her parents are, she is who she is regardless. It doesn't matter who they were, she is a powerful focused Jedi.
However.
This does NOT mean she is not related
to someone from the original trilogy.
While it is important for Rey's development to face her deepest fears about her
parent's, it is also important that there be a reason for Rey to be so powerful
with the Force. Rey could be related to a Jedi AND her parents still be
"nobodies".
It is NOT important for Rey to be related to a Jedi for her to be important. Plenty of Star Wars heroes are not related to Jedi and that is fine. However, it IS important that there be a good explanation for why she is so powerful. We know why Kylo is so powerful: he is the grandson of Anakin. There should be a reason for Rey as well. If she has Jedi (or Sith) genes that would explain things.
It seems reasonable that Jedi are admonished to not have romantic relationships because children born to Jedi parents can become very powerful Force-users - like Luke, Kylo, and Rey. (I guess you could also call Anakin the son of a Force-user as his "father" WAS the Force.) These Force users could bring imbalance (or balance) to the Force.
I would argue that having at least one of Rey's grandparents be a Jedi is the most consistent, satisfying, and poetic way to resolve her origins. How great would it be to have either Obi-Wan or Palpatine be Rey's grandparent? If J.J. Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy are determined to not please fans then they should at least just have some random Jedi who we have never met before be Rey's grandparent. Either that or ret-con the whole "junk trader" thing and make her father Ezra. SOMETHING interesting. A "shock" reveal or "twist" ending does not make a good story if it doesn't make any sense.
My favorite idea is to have her grandfather be Obi-Wan. The whole Star Wars saga has been about Anakin and Obi-Wan. I believe it would be best to continue to use these two, and their families, as our eyes into this universe. Much like how the Cesars are often used as the focus in stories about Roman history (a lot of which has inspired the Star Wars universe).
So how could Obi-Wan be Rey's grandparent with all we have seen and know from the Star Wars movies so far? I'd thought you'd never ask!
Example: An Interesting Origin Story for Rey
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Obi-Wan Kenobi fell in love with A'Dina, a Tusken woman he met on Tatooine. The couple soon had a son, Qui-Gen, but A'Dina was killed by a rival Tusken gang when the boy was very young. Obi-Wan tried to raise him on his own, but his grief led Obi-Wan to neglect his son who quickly grew to hate his father. Qui-Gen finally ran away from ome the day he learned Obi-Wan could have killed Darth Vader (and saved so many lives!), but instead choose to leave Vader burning in agony on Mustafar. Qui-Gen had learned just enough about the Force to hide himself from Obi-Wan and left Tatooine; never to return.
Qui-Gen eventually fell into drugs and crime and ended up as a junk trader on Jakku, where he married a fellow junk trader, Seltena, and they eventually also had a child together. Qui-Gen taught her the ways of the Force, and was frightened with her skills and abilities. She was able to channel the Force so intensely that it caused her pain and injury. To protect her, Gen helped her create a block in her mind to suppress her powers until she was stronger.
Gen's addition to drugs led him to take a job protecting a drug lord, and Seltena insisted on coming with him. They paid Unkar to watch her while they were away, intending to return soon. Tragically, they were both killed when Seltena's covert operations for the Rebels was uncovered by an Empire operative, and they never saw their daughter again. Unkar heard about their death, yet didn't inform Rey; instead keeping her with him to slave away in his shop. Eventually he told her the truth, but she couldn't accept it and still believed her parents would be coming for her someday.
Luke had learned of Qui-Gen when he recovered Obi-Wan's journal on Tatooine. After the victory over the Empire, Luke searched for Obi-Wan's son and learned that Qui-Gen had been living on Jakku. He asked Lor San Tekka for help to find him, but their searching came up empty. Some years later, Lor discovered that Qui-Gen was dead and possibly had a child who was powerful in the Force. He told Luke, but after Kylo's betrayal Luke was done training Jedi and went into exile rather continuing the searching for the child. However, Lor continued looking for the child and eventually found Rey. He then watched over her, much like how Obi-Wan watched over Luke: from afar. Unfortunately, unlike Obi-Wan, Lor was killed before he had the chance to tell Rey about her father and grand-father when Kylo arrived on Jakku looking for information about where Luke was hiding.
The Next Star Wars Movie
This would leave a few people who still know the truth. Either Kylo could have found information about Rey in Lor's belongings, BB-8 could have this information from the chip Poe got from Lor, or Luke could have realized who Rey was before he died (and confirmed it through his connection to the Force, talking to Yoda, or speaking with Obi-Wan's Force-ghost).
Hopefully Abrams and Kennedy will allow something like this to be the "true" story in the Star Wars universe. While telling a good story doesn't mean always mean pleasing the reader, there are so many stories in the Star Wars universe that having the attitude of "NO! Star Wars is OURS, we bought it and we will only tell the stories WE want!" is really boring. If you want to tell an "original" story, don't set it in an established universe that someone else (Lucas) thought up. If you are going to tell a Star Wars story it has to make sense in context of other stories in the universe. Otherwise there is no point in calling it "Star Wars."
I don't have any faith in Abrams or
Kennedy to give us a satisfying ending to Rey's story. The last two Star Wars
movies have relied so much on teasing and then "subverting" (i.e.
disappointing) fan's expectations that I don't have any faith that they know
how to tell a solid and satisfying story that makes sense in the context of
Star Wars' own universe. Too bad Disney doesn't own another company *cough*
MARVEL *cough* who knows how to do this very effectively they could get some
tips from!
Somehow It was Worse than I Imagined
Post-Rise of Skywalker Update - March 2025
We now know Rey is the
daughter of Palpatine's (unknown) son who left her on Jakku to protect her from
Palpatine tracking her down. (Surely they didn't intend to abandon her, so
something else must have happened to make them leave her there.) Great summary
here:
https://screenrant.com/star-wars-9-rey-backstory-parents-palpatine-future/
Rise of Skywalker mundanely did not address the fact that in the previous film Kylo purposefully preyed on Rey's fears that her parents were not important and that she was "nobody." A better choice would have been to lean into the "nobodies revelation" rather than a transparent back-peddling from The Last Jedi. Better to use those events to lead to uncovering Rey's heritage, rather than running away from them.
Abrams and Kennedy have
severely damaged Star Wars. Who would have thought J.J. would screw up Star
Wars worse than Lucas?!? Galactic incompetence. It seems that most people don't
even like the decent Star Wars shows, like The Mandalorian and Asoka.
I have no interest in seeing Andor, but people do seem to think that is
a good one. The fact that there is no consequences for Kennedy losing billions
of dollars for Disney reflects the Oligarchical Mindset of "No One in
Power Can Ever Suffer Consequences" we are living in. However, I don't
know that J.J. Abrams has recovered from the disaster.
Where do you go from here, Star Wars? Many people want to explore other sides of the Star Wars galaxy, others want to do a Rey movie. I think Star Wars stories not adjacent to Luke or Vader are pointless (if Rey had been better connected to the Skywalkers she would be included in this). I feel shows like Andor are simply relegating good sci-fi stories to "established IP" to avoid movie studios taking any risks. This has lead to a serious lack of artistic creativity in cinema blockbusters (e.g. the recent spat of MCU Multi-vers failures). The rise of A.I. (specifically the threat to artists and actors who are the live-blood of innovative movie making) threatens to keep us going down this dark path.
We all seem to be living the ending of a middle-movie of a trilogy. Hopefully the next one will have a happily ever after.
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