Rey (Star Wars)

• 1. Introduction

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  Rey is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. In her final on-screen scene, she stands near Luke Skywalker's childhood home on Tatooine, having just buried two lightsabers in the sand. A passerby asks for her name, and she answers, 'Rey Skywalker,' a name that belonged to no family she was born into. Only three films earlier, the character had been introduced as a scavenger, surviving by scavenging machine parts on the desert planet Jakku. Between those two moments sits a set of arguments Star Wars fans and critics have not stopped having. Who decided this character should exist, and what did the earliest drafts call her? Which actress turned an unknown quantity into the face of a trilogy? Why did a toy aisle nearly leave her out of her own movie's merchandise? And why did the question of her parents become one of the most argued-over plot points in the entire franchise?

• 2. Inventing a New Hero

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  In 2012, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy invited Michael Arndt to write three screenplays for the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Arndt found the project intimidating and initially turned the offer down. He reconsidered only after Kennedy told him the films would tell the origin story of a female Jedi. J. J. Abrams, set to direct the first film, was drawn to the same idea. Kennedy said the character, referred to internally as 'Kira' during early development, would be 'the new generation's Luke Skywalker.'

  The filmmakers gave her a scavenger's life on purpose, aiming to make her 'the ultimate outsider and the ultimate disenfranchised person.' They reasoned that someone with that background would face a longer, harder journey than most heroes. Arndt summed her up as a 'loner, hothead, gear-head, badass.' He also had to introduce her as the lead without letting Luke Skywalker overshadow her, so the film trimmed Luke's role. That trade-off over screen time would soon become someone else's problem: whoever got cast to carry her.

• 3. Casting an Unknown

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  J. J. Abrams wanted a relatively unknown actress so audiences would carry no preconceptions into the role. Daisy Ridley fit that requirement, having played only small television roles and appeared in a single other feature film. She auditioned for Rey four or five times across seven months, feeling insecure and doubtful the whole way through. Abrams still found her funny and thought she had 'a great spark.' He said she 'was born with this gift to be in a moment and make it her own.' Kennedy pointed to Ridley's physicality, self-confidence, and optimism as exactly what the role demanded. In one audition, Abrams asked her to play an emotional scene, and she nailed it on her first take.

  Once cast, Ridley kept the news secret for three months, until Lucasfilm announced her casting at the end of April 2014. Cailey Fleming would later play a young version of Rey. Ridley described her early days on set as bumpy, and Abrams called her first few takes 'wooden.' She slowed her own speech so audiences could follow her British-accented English more easily, which she felt made Rey a 'softer' character. Ahead of the film's release, Ridley called Rey a hoped-for 'girl power figure' who 'transcends gender.' In an interview with Elle, she added that young girls could learn from Rey that they 'don't have to show off their bodies.' That instinct for landing a difficult scene in a single take would be tested again once Rey started sharing scenes with her most dangerous adversary.

• 4. A Bond Called a Dyad

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  Rey is introduced as a 19-year-old woman in The Force Awakens, immediately marked by her strength in the Force. When she first holds the lightsaber once owned by Anakin Skywalker and then his son Luke, the weapon triggers a powerful vision. Without any formal training, she manages to use the Force to defeat Kylo Ren in a duel. Vox writer Matthew Yglesias called her 'less callow' than Luke Skywalker had been in the original film. The Atlantic's Megan Garber pointed to her marked skill as a fighter.

  In The Last Jedi, Rey experiences a vision in a mirror that director Rian Johnson said represents her learning to connect with herself. During the same film, she discovers a Force connection with Kylo Ren, which Johnson used to make the two characters talk instead of fight. Johnson has said a moment where Rey sees Kylo shirtless during one of these connections signals their growing intimacy. Both Johnson and Abrams have described the relationship between Rey and Ren as a romance. The Rise of Skywalker reveals that this bond makes them a 'dyad' in the Force. Co-writer Chris Terrio described it as being 'sort of soulmates in the Force' and 'twins of fate, twins of destiny.'

  Composer John Williams, who scored all three Star Wars trilogies, called writing Rey's theme an interesting challenge. He described the result as a 'mature and thoughtful' motif meant to convey a strong female adventurer infused with the Force. Williams said the theme's 'musical grammar' avoids heroism in favor of 'an adventurous tone that needs to illustrate empathy.' That same tension between strength and vulnerability would soon fuel one of the loudest online arguments in the franchise's history.

• 5. The Mary Sue Debate

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  Soon after The Force Awakens opened, screenwriter Max Landis posted a series of tweets calling Rey a Mary Sue, an unrealistically perfect, idealized female character. He pointed to her seemingly natural skill as a mechanic, fighter, pilot, and Force user. Vox's Caroline Framke described the resulting online argument as a 'Twitter war.' Tasha Robinson of The Verge and Emily Rome of HitFix both called Rey a 'wish-fulfillment' character because of her outsized, unearned skills. Robinson, though, noted that other Star Wars characters are similarly wish-fulfilling. Rome wrote that Rey is 'everything we wanted in a Star Wars female character.' But she said Rey's ability to master Jedi skills without training is 'the stuff of fan fiction.'

  Ridley and a number of writers have since argued that the term Mary Sue itself carries a gender bias. They note that male characters in the original trilogy were rarely judged this way. Robinson suggested fans would not question Rey's 'excessive coolness' if she were male, and Framke argued Rey's abilities are no more impressive than Luke Skywalker's. Abrams responded that 'the people who are getting freaked out are the people who are accustomed to male privilege.' He added that even Princess Leia in the original film was once criticized for being 'too outspoken' or 'too tough.' Screen Rant's Adrienne Tyler later argued Rey's abilities make more sense once her Force connection with Ren is taken into account.

  Other comparisons piled up around her image. Her hairstyle drew comparisons to Leia's from the original film. Critics also noted a resemblance to Nausicaä from the 1984 Hayao Miyazaki film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Others pointed to a likeness with Bastila Shan from the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Fan fiction author Ricca criticized Rey's trilogy-long arc as unresolved, wanting a moment of reflection at the end of The Rise of Skywalker. Rey nonetheless became the first fictional character to receive the Reel Women in Technology Award. None of that debate, though, matched the volume of a single unanswered question hanging over all three films: who were her parents?

• 6. The Search for Her Parents

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  J. J. Abrams intentionally withheld Rey's last name and background when The Force Awakens was released, turning her parentage into the trilogy's central mystery. Fans proposed that she was Luke's daughter, or Han's, or Obi-Wan Kenobi's granddaughter, with the Luke theory drawing the most attention. Supporters pointed to her attachment to Luke's lightsaber, the parallels between her arc and his, and her untrained strength in the Force. In The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren coaxes Rey into admitting that her parents were 'nobodies.'

  Vox's Emily VanDerWerff compared that scene to Luke discovering Darth Vader was his father, which she called his greatest nightmare. To VanDerWerff, 'Rey's greatest nightmare is being no one.' VanDerWerff argued that Ren 'has every reason to be lying.' Still, she saw value in Rey being 'the child of nobody of particular importance to the story so far.' The Hollywood Reporter's Josh Spiegel said the reveal 'fits in perfectly' with the film's theme. He noted one can be 'exceptionally gifted in the Force and also not a Skywalker.'

  The Rise of Skywalker overturned that answer, revealing Rey as Emperor Palpatine's granddaughter. The novelization adds that her father was a nonidentical clone of Palpatine. Vanity Fair's Joanna Robinson called the twist 'a blow to those fans.' She said they had embraced The Last Jedi's message that anyone could become a Force-wielding hero. Ryan Britt of Fatherly took the opposite view. He argued the reveal could resonate with people from a difficult family, since Rey ultimately rejects Palpatine's legacy rather than his power.

  Ridley later revealed that the identity of Rey's parents shifted constantly during the trilogy's production. She said Lucasfilm had been 'toying with an Obi-Wan connection' before settling on the 'nobody' idea. Abrams then pitched the Palpatine connection to her during pre-production on the ninth film. She said the idea 'kept changing' even into production. Screen Rant's James Hunt argued an Obi-Wan reveal would have been just as flawed. It would still make Rey powerful because of her bloodline rather than because 'the Force chose her.' Kennedy later confirmed that Obi-Wan having offspring was 'pretty much off the table,' even though 'there were a lot of ideas being thrown around.' That much uncertainty behind the scenes stood in sharp contrast to a debate happening in a much more ordinary place: the toy aisle.

• 7. Missing From the Shelves

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  When The Force Awakens reached theaters, fans noticed a striking lack of licensed toys featuring Rey despite her status as the film's main protagonist. Hasbro's Force Awakens-themed version of Monopoly, for example, did not include her at all. After the ensuing criticism, Hasbro said Rey had been withheld to avoid spoiling the plot and promised she would appear in future toy releases.

  Paul Southern, head of Lucasfilm Licensing, said the company wanted to protect the secret that 'the Force awakens in Rey.' He noted her character also carries a lightsaber, and that demand for Rey merchandise had been underestimated. Abrams called her absence from toy shelves 'preposterous and wrong.' CBBC's Christopher Johnson said he was baffled 'that some toy manufacturers don't think that girls want to play with superhero toys.' He added that the same thinking assumed boys 'aren't interested in female characters.' That gap between her prominence on screen and her absence on shelves became one small measure of a larger story. Her presence would travel through books, television, and games instead.

• 8. Beyond the Films

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  Star Wars: Before the Awakening, published in 2015, is an anthology for young readers. It covers the lives of Rey, Finn, and Poe before The Force Awakens. That same year, Rey's Survival Guide told her story in first person, centered on her life on Jakku. The 2019 novel Resistance Reborn follows Rey in the run-up to The Rise of Skywalker. The comic series Star Wars Adventures features her, Finn, and Poe fighting First Order remnants after Palpatine's defeat.

  Rey also appears in the web series Forces of Destiny, which ran from 2017 to 2018. She also makes a brief vocal-only cameo in the Star Wars Rebels episode 'A World Between Worlds.' That episode is set 16 years before Rey's birth and 35 years before The Force Awakens. There, the young Padawan Ezra Bridger hears her voice from a dimension outside time and space. In 2020's The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special, Rey finds a crystal that lets her time travel with BB-8. She meets Luke, Yoda, and Din Djarin along the way. Unwittingly, she also leads Palpatine and Darth Vader to follow her back.

  Ridley voiced Rey herself in the video games Disney Infinity 3.0, Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Star Wars: Battlefront II. She also voiced the character in the strategy game Star Wars: Force Arena. Helen Sadler took over the voice role for Lego Star Wars: The Resistance Rises and the alpha version of Battlefront II. She also voiced Rey in Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. Rey was even added as an outfit in the game Fortnite.

  At Star Wars Celebration 2023, Lucasfilm announced that Ridley will play Rey again in a new film directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. The film is rumored to be titled New Jedi Order. The story is set fifteen years after The Rise of Skywalker and will center on Rey rebuilding the Jedi Order. No release date has been announced, leaving open how a director new to the saga will shape her story next.