After a solid 115 minutes of purely galactic awesome, we had five solid minutes of Rey silently walking up a bunch of stone steps on what looked like a Lord of the Rings set. Finally, when she reaches the top she meets a hooded figure who, surprise-surprise, turns out to be Luke Skywalker. Finally, she presents him with the blue lightsaber. Filled with overt metaphors and what may actually be clues, here’s our breakdown of what it all means.
Somehow, Rey has inherited both Chewie and the Millennium Falcon from the late Han Solo. While pre-release fan theories regarding The Force Awakens would have taken this as a sign from the Jedi Gods that she is the daughter of Han and Leia, we’re pretty sure that she’s definitely not their child. Why does she take off in the Millennium Falcon with Chewie then, and not in a ship of her own? Fans probably wouldn’t have been able to deal with the loss of Han Solo as well as Chewbacca and the Millennium Falcon, the latter two are major characters in their own right. Director J.J. Abrams had to find a way to keep them in the trilogy, and this way allows for future directors to revive the fan theory that Rey is the daughter of Han and Leia should the franchise’s masterminds choose to journey down that path.
For a solid two minutes Rey is climbing the longest stone staircase ever. This metaphor is seems to be screaming at us that Rey must earn her Jedi training. It’s almost reminiscent of the physical labor Yoda puts Luke through during his training in Empire Strikes Back, though we know this is just the beginning. Luke is the last Jedi, he holds all the remaining knowledge of the Force. Of course Rey has to climb a giant mountain to get to him.
In the final moment of Abrams’ film, Rey presents Luke Skywalker with his blue-bladed lightsaber, the one from the original Star Wars film. This seems to be both a sign of respect and a symbolic passing of the torch—from the dreaded prequel trilogy back to the guy who started it all, and the significance of his role. Moreover, the look on Luke’s face when he sees Rey clinches our theory that she’s actually…Luke’s daughter. She is the Jedi that rises out of the battle. She is the one who uses the original lightsaber to overcome Kylo Ren. And since this scene shows that Rey will be the one who goes through Jedi training in this trilogy, by Star Wars logic, that would also seem to make her of Skywalker descent. Is the end of The Force Awakens a reunion between father and daughter, teacher and pupil, or both? Our math comes up both…but we won’t really know until Episodes VIII and IX.