For the first time in a long time, we are more than 12 months out from the next entry in Lucasfilm’s Star Wars saga.
Since The Force Awakens got the ball rolling back in 2015, we’ve laid eyes on four – count ’em, four – new installments in the franchise, culminating in the damp squib that is Solo: A Star Wars Story.
It failed to light up the box office in the way Lucasfilm would have hoped, leaving the fate of all other Anthology films (see: Boba Fett and Obi-Wan) in serious doubt. But one thing’s immediately clear: we’re more than a year out from our next trip to that far-away galaxy, as production on Star Wars: Episode IX has only just begun.
That’s created a vacuum in which wild speculation and fan theories are beginning to thrive, and the latest comes to us by way of Film Threat (h/t /Film). Essentially, this tidbit claims Rey’s parents are actually Han Solo and Qi’Ra, Emilia Clarke’s anti-hero who was introduced by way of Solo.Â
It would certainly chime with the George Lucas model of adding callbacks to the Star Wars films of old, while Film Threat argues that revealing Rey’s parents to be Han and Qi’Ra “fixes everything,” as it means Rey and Kylo Ren are actually half-siblings – not unlike Luke and Leia’s own relationship.
Mind you, we have some concerns. First and foremost, adding “relevant lineage” to Rey’s character would only undo the message behind Star Wars: The Last Jedi, in which Daisy Ridley’s heroine is forced to dig deep and discover a sense of fortitude, rather than relying on her ancestry or the power of a celebrity name – like, say, the Skywalkers – to save her during her most desperate hour.
Moreover, it would also continue Disney’s odd fascination with limiting the focus of this most ambitious franchise to one family tree: the Skywalkers. Because after eight mainline installments, using Star Wars: Episode IX to reveal that Rey’s bloodline can actually be traced back to Luke and Leia would only read as lazy writing.
