Might have been a bit better if Solo and Rea [sic] were related in some way, and that may still be the case.
I'm convinced that Rey must be a descendant of Anakin Skywalker. After all, Anakin was the kid whose
“midi-chlorian count was off the scale”, and whose known descendants all turn out to be exceptionally powerful in The Force. How could Rey, without any previous training or experience, have suddenly been able to defeat Anakin's grandson when he tried to get into her head, getting herself instead into his head, if she didn't have the same heritage? How else could she have so soon afterward, again with no experience or training, mastered the
“Jedi Mind Trick”—against James Bond no less—to get him to release her and drop his weapon?
I didn't believe Luke Skywalker at all (he's been aptly compared to an old bitter liberal raging in defeat, vs. when he was younger and an idealistic liberal who believed a single person can save the universe)
I believed it. In fact, I went into the movie expecting him to be in a much worse state than he turned out to be. We know, from
The Force Awakens, that he was devastated when his nephew turned evil. He walked away and vanished. When Rey found him, at the end of that movie, he was standing in front of what appeared to be a grave. I was convinced, at the end of
The Force Awakens, that the next movie would reveal that Rey was his daughter, that in the bad emotional state he was in, that he abandoned her on Jakku, and took his wife (Rey's mother) to go find the Jedi Temple; that his wife died there, and that was her grave. I fully expected the next movie to show him in a very dark state, not having yet fallen to The Dark Side, but struggling to avoid doing so, and on the verge of failing.
I expected that it would be Rey's role to redeem him, the way he had redeemed his father before him.
The way Luke did play out wasn't along the narrative of which I had convinced myself, but still, it was no surprise to me to find him so dark and bitter. It was a surprise to learn about what had happened between him and Ben Solo. Not at all what I would have expected.
but I did believe the Ben Solo bad guy reaching out to Rey and appealing to her to join him.
For a bit, I though that Rey had drawn him back to the Light Side. But no, still dark; just didn't want to keep working for Gollum. Still, he's an interesting character. I normally cannot relate well to a villain that chooses evil for its own sake. I perceive myself as one who is basically good, who prefers good over evil, but is subject to such forces as greed, lust, anger, and other motives that can tempt me toward evil. I find it difficult to imagine anyone being otherwise. I see this as the normal human condition As depicted in
The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren is a mirror image of this—one who wants to be evil, but is troubled by temptations toward good.
