There were a few creative decisions in The Force Awakens that proved pretty controversial and one that almost all fans agreed was a mistake occurred near the end of the movie after Rey and co. return to the Resistance base following Han Solo’s death. If you’ll recall, Daisy Ridley’s heroine gets off the ship first and receives a hug from Leia. It’s widely agreed though that it would’ve been much more impactful if Han’s widow and his best friend Chewbacca shared a hug first instead.
Well, at long last, this moment has finally been corrected within the pages of a new Star Wars comic. As shared by writer Tom Taylor on Twitter, Star Wars: Age of Resistance: Rey #1, with art by Ramon Rosanas, is set shortly after these events and features a spread where Leia breaks away from a hug with Chewie. She then apologizes to Rey for keeping her waiting, explaining that “a hug with a Wookie lasts for as long as the Wookie wants it to last.”
So, the implication is that Leia hugged Rey first only because she was deliberately leaving a heart-to-heart with Chewie for later, knowing that the pair would be hugging for a long time. It’s a sweet moment that should go some way to pleasing fans who felt this should’ve been part of TFA and as Taylor says in his tweet, “the hug is now canon.”
Of course, even J.J. Abrams has admitted that he may’ve messed up this scene. “That was probably one of the mistakes I made in that,” he revealed to /Film in the past. Though he did clarify that the Leia/Rey hug was supposed to indicate a Force connection between the pair, with each of them sensing the other’s grief.
In any case, you can expect all three characters to return – with unused footage of TFA filling in for the late Carrie Fisher – in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, coming this December.
