This story contains enormous spoilers for the end of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. You have been warned.
The end of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was always going to be a hot topic. After all, it’s not just the conclusion of one movie, but of an entire era. Since the film hit theaters, fans have been debating how Rey’s story, in particular, ends. And one of The Rise of Skywalker’s screenwriters has now explained how he thinks her last moments help atone for sins committed in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.
When we last see Rey, she’s with BB-8 on Tatooine, paying homage to Luke and Leia by burying their lightsabers together in the desert. It’s a poignant moment, one that Chris Terrio was happy to discuss with IndieWire. The screenwriter addressed what that meant for the fate of the young heroine:
I don’t think we think of it as she’s going to live there. We thought of it as just paying her respects and sort of undoing the original sin at the end of the third movie, which is the separation of the twins. I mean, of course, they had to be separated to keep them safe, and the trilogy wouldn’t exist, the six movies wouldn’t exist if they hadn’t been separated! But that felt to us like it was almost like a wrong that need to be righted. We very deliberately in the script described the wrapping of the sabers, as ‘like you were wrapping infants.’ That’s the thing that you see at the of the third movie, where the two infants are wrapped, and one is sent to Tatooine to be a farmer, and one is sent to Alderaan to be a princess. Leia’s home doesn’t exist anymore, so we thought, ‘Well, Luke could take Leia to his home where he grew up, and where we first saw Star Wars.'
Chris Terrio also explained that he and J.J. Abrams were conscious of how Rey’s story, in particular, tied closely into the rest of the Star Wars canon -- and wanted to be sure that came through in The Rise of Skywalker:
On a meta level, it was our pilgrimage there to pay respects to George and to all the Original Trilogy had meant to us. But for Rey, it was also a pilgrimage, because she obviously had heard the story of the Skywalkers from Leia, if not from Luke. Her eyes light up in Episode 7 when she hears the name Luke Skywalker, and so we thought it was a fitting end, that now she, having become part of the Skywalker legacy, would lay the sabers to rest and lay them to rest together.
The debate rages on as to whether or not The Rise of Skywalker is a fitting end to the legendary saga. Fans are already clamoring for a director’s cut, with the hopes of a more satisfying end. Even if that comes to pass, it seems unlikely that Rey’s story will change significantly. She seems to have ended up right where she belonged.
