With the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker creeping closer, excitement is continuing to build ahead of the final movie of the franchise. Despite The Last Jedi dividing critics, and Solo: A Star Wars story failing to hit the box office heights many expected, plenty will still tune in to the final chapter of the sequel trilogy. And the character of Rey, played by Daisy Ridley, is one of the reasons why.
Nearly four years after we were introduced to her in 2015’s The Force Awakens, there remains plenty of intrigue about the character. We now pitch 10 Rey predictions for the Rise of Skywalker and explain our thinking behind them.
Rey Won’t Pilot The Falcon
So far, it’s been established that Rey, like Star Wars protagonists Luke and Anakin Skywalker before her, is a rather accomplished pilot. So accomplished, in fact, we’ve already seen her conquer flying the Millenium Falcon, which happens to be the fastest ship in the galaxy. In The Force Awakens, she flew alongside Han Solo and, in The Last Jedi, she helped Chewbacca on Crait.
But for The Rise of Skywalker, we can’t see her being the pilot. A passenger, sure, but not a pilot. Instead, we reckon Lando Calrissian and Chewbacca will take care of that. Rey, instead, is likely to spend much of her time fighting on the frontline rather than up in the sky.
She Will Be Even More Powerful
Part of the reason Daisy Ridley’s character has generated so much intrigue and prompted so many fan theories is because she’s been powerful from the get-go. Whereas Luke and Anakin Skywalker took years to perfect their skills, Rey has hit the ground running already by beating Kylo Ren in a fight, slamming Luke to the floor, and taking out enemy forces with surreal precision.
And we expect her to be even more OP in The Rise of Skywalker. The teaser trailer showed her performing a backflip over a ship going at thousands of miles an hour. Director JJ Abrams has already teased bigger force abilities than we’ve ever seen before, too.
Rey Will Converse With Force Ghosts
There were initially doubts as to whether or not Mark Hamill would reprise his role of Luke Skywalker, what with the legendary Jedi sacrificing himself on the planet of Crait during The Last Jedi. But with Hamill back in the mix, we expect to see him conversing with Rey from beyond the grave and giving her crucial advice in her battle against Kylo Ren and the First Order.
And not just Luke, too. We’ve already seen Yoda back as a ghost. And with JJ Abrams wanting to tie all movies together, it would make perfect sense—and fan service—if we were to see Rey talk with Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi as well.
She Will Snub Love Interests
Some Star Wars fans like to ship characters with other characters, and Rey, as the female protagonist, has been backed to become romantically involved with characters such as Finn, Kylo Ren, and even Poe Dameron. We know Finn likes her (despite Rose liking him) while even Kylo, despite being the villain, seems to have a soft spot for her.
But we can’t see Disney going down this route. It appears likelier that Finn will end up with Rose Tico, while Kylo is likely to choose power over her regardless of his feelings. As for Poe, he seems too keen to be the poster boy of the Resistance to settle down with anybody. Love isn’t the Jedi way, and given how keen Rey is to become one, we just can’t see the Star Wars trilogy ending on a romantic note.
Rey Won’t Be a Nobody
One of the biggest revelations from The Last Jedi was Kylo Ren revealing to Rey that she was a ‘nobody’ who comes from nowhere and whose parents were drunks from Jakku who abandoned her for drinking money. This prompted a backlash from fans, many of whom had spent the time before the movie’s release speculating as to whether she’d be a Skywalker, a Solo, a Kenobi, or even a Palpatine.
But we can’t see this staying the same. Given the backlash from The Last Jedi and the box office failure of Solo, Disney is no doubt going to pull out all the stops in order to get audiences to buy a ticket. Given Rey’s powerful nature, it also makes little narrative sense for her to still be just an outlier.
Rey Will Be A Clone
And we think the reasoning behind her powers may have been hidden in The Last Jedi. There’s a sequence where, having failed to resist the pull of the dark side, she finds herself looking in a mirror. And that mirror then shows thousands of her acting not in perfect unison but slightly off. This may suggest that she’s not a Kenobi, Solo, Skywalker, or Palpatine. Not via bloodline, anyway.
Instead, we believe that Rey will end up being a clone. Clones were a big part of the Legends material with Palpatine creating many of himself in the event of his death. And the way she saw so many reflected back suggests she may be just one of many out there in the galaxy. It would explain why she’s so powerful—because the original was too!
Rey Will Fight Kylo Ren
The last time we saw Rey and Kylo Ren, their relationship appeared to be in tatters. They had spent the majority of The Last Jedi edging closer to an alliance, and that seemed to be the way things were going when Ben Solo murdered Supreme Leader Snoke and they took down the Praetorian guards. However, with Kylo reluctant to turn back to the light, they became rivals once again.
And we believe they will have a huge lightsaber showdown in the Rise of Skywalker. Images from Vanity Fair show them on a stormy planet with their lightsabers out, looking as if they’re going to face off. And given how they’re on opposite sides, this seems logical.
She Will Fight Alongside Kylo Ren
As mentioned above, an allegiance between Rey and Kylo Ren looked likely to happen during The Last Jedi after Snoke’s death. And although we foresee the protagonist and antagonist of the sequel trilogy facing off in The Rise of Skywalker, we also believe they’ll team up.
Face it. If Sheev Palpatine is back from the dead—and given how we heard his voice in the teaser trailer, that looks a distinct possibility—then Rey and Kylo Ren will have to team up. Ben Solo showed his disdain for the Sith in the previous movie, and chances are, he won’t want Palpatine around when he himself has so much power at this moment in time.
Rey Will Stop Palpatine
Although Rey and Kylo Ren will likely team up to stop Sheev, we believe it will be the Jakku scavenger who stops him. Disney has sworn blind that Palpatine’s return has been on the cards from the very beginning, and, if that’s true, then no doubt the plan has always been for Rey to be the one to well and truly bring balance to the Force.
Kylo Ren, we’re sorry to predict, is likely destined for death. Perhaps death after redemption to make it more emotionally-hitting and reflective of the fate of his grandfather, Darth Vader. This whole story has been about Rey and her mercurial rise, and we see that ending with her taking down the biggest threat the entire galaxy has ever known.
She Will Train A New Generation
While Star Wars looks set to retcon elements of The Last Jedi in Rise of Skywalker (the recreation of Kylo Ren’s mask and repairing of Anakin Skywalker’s old lightsaber certainly points to that), we can’t see them forgetting about the little broom boy at the end of Rian Johnson’s 2017 blockbuster.
That shot was included to show that a new generation of force-sensitive people was out there and ready to become Jedi. And with the title of the next movie being ‘The Rise of Skywalker,’ we reckon the movie may end with Rey training the youngsters, or pledging to train them at least. No Skywalker can rise in this movie—Anakin and Luke are dead, Leia’s shunned her Force powers, and Kylo Ren is already a fully-fledged Jedi—so we think the title may be what Rey names the group of the next generation.