Star Wars 8 Explains Rey's Force Awakens Vision

Spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi finally gives us the information needed to fully make sense of Rey's vision from The Force Awakens. Rian Johnson's film picks up right where J.J. Abrams' left off, continuing the story and answering many of the unresolved questions. Many of these are pretty overtly stated, but more subtly it expands on Rey's vision.

In the middle of The Force Awakens, Han Solo, Finn and Rey visit Maz's castle in the hope of contacting the Resistance. While their, Rey is called by Luke Skywalker's long-lost lightsaber and touches it, sparking off what can best be described as a Forceback, showing various pieces of her own, Luke's and Kylo Ren's past. Some of the meaning was implicit in the film itself, but it otherwise left a lot of lingering threads that have been debated heavily over the past two years.

Now, with The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson helps explain what happened, while still keeping up some of J.J. Abrams air of mystery. With the film finally in theaters, we're going to dig a little deeper and look at how it actually foreshadowed the events of Episode VIII.

The Force Awakens Vision Finally Explained (This Page)

The Force Awakens Vision Finally Explained (This Page)

First, let's start with a recap of the vision. You can watch it in the video embedded above, but for the sake of ease and clarity, we'll also summarize here.

It starts with Rey hearing screams of her childhood self, which draws her to the saber. When she first touches it, she's taken to the bowels of Cloud City where you can clearly hear Vader's breathing. Then the environment collapses around her and we're taken to Luke kneeling down and putting his hand on R2-D2. Then we rain-transition to Kylo Ren attacking an unknown figure, flanked by the Knights of Ren. He seems to notice Rey and moves towards her before she jumps again to her childhood and being left on Jakku with Unkarr Plutt by her parents. This transitions to Starkiller Base, with the sun becoming a thin line and her running up against Kylo in the forest as Obi-Wan says, "Rey, these are your first steps."

At the time we were able to deduce the vision's start was the lightsaber's past - originally there was going to even be a shot where Rey saw Vader remove Luke's hand and his weapon with it - and that Luke was collapsing in shock at the destruction of his Jedi Temple (confirmed by The Last Jedi), and the Starkiller sequence spoke for itself. Maz's discussion afterwards also summed up the primary message: Rey needed to stop her obsession with the past and take her "first steps". Everything else, however, left questions. Why was Rey left behind? What was Kylo doing with the Knights of Ren? And, nebulously, why was this what Rey saw?

The first two are fairly easily answered by The Last Jedi. Rey's parents were nobodies who sold her off for drinking money (per Kylo), setting her up with the false hope of them returning. The Knights of Ren were some of Luke's students who Ben Solo spared in his massacre (caused by Luke's contemplation of killing his nephew when sensing his raw power), and while the film doesn't feature them or tell us where/when we are, this is clearly an essential part in Kylo's fall.

The biggest thing, however, is that Episode VIII links the disparate elements. Putting aside the introduction, what we're really seeing is two parallel narratives: Rey and Kylo both being put on a path where they become lost (by the false belief in her parents and the manipulations of Snoke respectively). It, of course, only goes up to their fight in the forest due to storytelling logistics (The Last Jedi wasn't fully mapped out when this was shot), but the subsequent structure chimes; in Episode VIII, their arcs likewise intersect and run alongside. Both are lost in their current setting and find hope in each other before they finally fulfill that desire, only to discover the belongings they seek are at opposite sides of the spectrum. This leads to them literally tearing the saber in two.

And that's the key - both their destinies are tied into the saber because they together destroy it in respective moments of clarity; we see their similarities because of their ultimate differences. Yes, Snoke psychically connects them, presumably sometime after the fight, but the vision isn't concerned with that. Essentially, Rey is being shown her past to power the future. Or, fitting with the themes at play, being told to move on from what made her and focus on the moment: advice she eventually heeds with the help of Luke's return at the end of the film.

While that's fascinating storytelling as is, it's made all the more powerful by the other visions Rey receives.

Rey Kylo Ren Interrogation The Force Awakens

Rey’s Recurring Dream of Ahch-to

There are two other visions Rey has in the first two movies of the sequel trilogy, although they're not quite as showy as the Forceback.

The first is told to us by Kylo after he reads her mind during The Force Awakens' interrogation scene: "You're so lonely. So afraid to leave. At night, desperate to sleep. Imagine an ocean. I see it. I see the island." Essentially, she's been dreaming of - and Kylo sees - Ahch-to long before she's even aware that's where Luke is. This is referred to again and thus confirmed in The Last Jedi, when Luke asks the newly arrived Rey "You've seen this place. You've seen this island", to which she replies "Only in dreams."

While the film doesn't explain the exact nature of the dreams or how exactly they were planted, what this does is provide another example of Rey's psychic connection to her own future, one that is akin to Luke's similar, more active daydreaming with the twin suns: the desire to get out of the desert. For Rey they're repressed, coming only at night when her guard is down and she can admit that she doesn't - nay, shouldn't - be simply waiting on Jakku. It's an early sign of the fact she needs to move on.

Beyond that, though, it also serves as groundwork for the biggie: her experience in the cave.

Rey’s The Last Jedi Vision Compounds This

Rey's final "lesson" in The Last Jedi is going into Ahch-to's underground cave, an area of the microcosm island from which the dark side emanates. In there, she finds herself in an eternal mirror, a chain of infinite Reys who repeat themselves one after the other. An unstoppable track. Or, to put it another way, a representation of destiny. Rey doesn't have any choice in these actions; she's set to do them before and will do them long after. It's predetermined. She then works her way to the front of the line - the predestined point - where she hopes to find her parents, but the two shadowy figures merge to form only... herself.

There are multiple ways to interpret this, but they all hinge on Rey discovering she must come into ownership of her own destiny; she has to get beyond the obsession with her parents to truly define herself, or simply discovering that who she is is what really matters. Either way, it's a powerful summary of her arc, foretelling of the decision she will have to make when faced with the truth and her eventual freedom to lead the Jedi. When put against the lightsaber visions, you can see it's teaching her roundabout the same thing, just this time on a more personal level (perhaps even alluding to how Kylo isn't going to be alongside her for long).

Dreams and visions can so often be a hackneyed storytelling tool used only to provide some "what if?" moments in an otherwise static narrative or overtly pre-tell what should be surprising plot turns. What Star Wars has done with Rey's across Episode's VII and VIII is quite the opposite, using it to propel the character forward in a story about the nature of the very destiny visions so often take for granted.

Next: Star Wars: The Last Jedi’s Biggest Spoilers and Reveals