All the lingering questions that remain after watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens

By Stephanie Merry

Washington Post·

22 Dec, 2015 03:30 AM5 mins to read

Warning: This story contains major plot spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awaken.

First thing's first: This is for people who have seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which means spoilers. If you don't want to read spoilers, then you need to stop reading.

Now, on to business. Watching the latest Star Wars installment was supposed to answer all of our questions. We did get some answers, even if we didn't like them. (No! Not Han Solo!) But other mysteries still remain, such as: Who is this Rey person? Where did Finn come from? Is late-career Luke going to pull an Atticus Finch?

Well, those questions still remain, even after two hours and 15 minutes of action punctuated by plenty of exposition. What's a fan to do? Make some moderately educated guesses, of course. Here goes.

Question: Did Luke go to the dark side?

Best guess: It doesn't appear that way based on his monkish robes and far-flung location. Still, when Rey (Daisy Ridley) tracked down Luke (Mark Hamill), didn't it seem, if only for a moment, that he was going to rip that light saber out of her hand and show her who's boss? No?

We would have a more definitive answer if Luke had uttered a single word, but in the absence of that, we're going with: He's probably still a good egg.

Question: Who's Rey?

Best guess: There's all kinds of evidence that Rey is somehow related to Luke: The force is clearly strong with her; Luke's light saber was calling out to her like a toddler looking for its mama; Leia gave her a tender look upon their first introduction, then tasked the young woman with finding Luke; and a low-energy R2D2 suddenly got his groove back the second Rey showed up. Then again, Rey and Han have a lot in common, too, what with their piloting skills and handy way of fixing the Millennium Falcon's circuitry. It seems far-fetched that Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) wouldn't know he had a sister, though. That means Rey must be Luke's daughter. Which raises another ...

Question: How did Rey end up abandoned on Jakku?

Best guess: If Luke really sentenced himself to exile after his nephew pupil, Kylo Ren, went to the dark side, perhaps he felt that he wasn't capable of raising a child, either. That would make sense, and yet the scenario raises a host of other questions, including: Who is Rey's mother and where is she in all of this? And if she was dead or incapacitated, why didn't Aunt Leia raise Rey? What kind of monster dumps a little girl in the desert all by herself? It looks like we have to wait until 2017 - or maybe longer - to find out.

Question: Who knows Rey's real identity?

Best guess: Let's say Rey is Luke's daughter - which other characters figured it out? When Han offered Rey a job on the Millennium Falcon, did he do it because he figured out her identity? When Leia first saw her (maybe) niece, did General Organa know who she was hugging? When Luke first spotted Rey, could he tell she was family? This is a mystery that may never get cleared up, but if we were betting, we'd go with: Leia knew. Leia knows everything. And the others? Maybe not.

Question: Where did Finn come from?

Best guess: We know that he was kidnapped as a small child and programmed to be a killing machine, growing up in a prison of white Storm Trooper plastic. But is his parentage important to the story? There was speculation that he might be the offspring of Lando Calrissian, especially after a jigsaw puzzle identified Finn as such. But if that's the case, there was no indication in The Force Awakens that the two are related - certainly not to the extent that Rey and Luke (or potentially Han) have similarities. So maybe Finn's parents don't come into play at all.

Question: Is Kylo Ren dead or alive?

Best guess: At the end of The Force Awakens, our evil villain lies maimed on the edge of a giant fiery chasm. Then, moments after Supreme Leader Snoke (CGI-afied Andy Serkis) tells General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) to grab Kylo Ren and escape, the planet explodes. It seems improbable that Darth Vader-in-training survived such an event, and yet Kylo Ren is such an optimally constructed villain, there's no way we've seen the last of him.

Question: What is Supreme Leader Snoke's deal?

Best guess: Based on appearance alone, he appears to be Gollum all grown up. Get ready for Episode VIII when the ultimate cross-over has Rey and Finn teaming up with Frodo and Sam to toss the Supreme Leader into Mount Doom.