Of the many, many fan theories concerning Star Wars: The Force Awakens (opens in new tab), one that continues to persist involves Kylo Ren and Rey. The two adversaries meet toward the end of the movie. You may remember it as being one of the best lightsaber fights in the entire franchise. For many die-hard Force fans, this quarrel was a mere sibling spat. That’s right; some folks believe that Ren and Rey are either brother and sister or, potentially, cousins.
It’s time to update those galactic family trees, because the film’s director has punched a massive hole right through that theory.
The recent release of The Force Awakens Collector’s Edition 3-D Blu-ray features a commentary from JJ Abrams (opens in new tab), in which he basically says they were strangers before that iconic tussle: “One of the new relationships that we were focusing on was between Kylo Ren and Rey. They’ve never met but he’s heard of this girl.”
Does this mean for certain that they’re not related? Who knows? They could have met as kids and forgotten about one another – especially if they’re cousins – or Han might have had a daughter that he didn’t know about. In any case, we’ve got a little over one year until Star Wars 8, when we’ll discover the truth about Rey’s parentage (opens in new tab).
Directed by Rian Johnson and starring Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Laura Dern, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Gwendoline Christie, and Benicio del Toro, Star Wars: Episode 8 will open on December 15, 2017.
Images: Lucasfilm