Even as the days slip past and we inch closer to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, we still don’t know much about it. For every piece of information we get, we find ourselves with even more questions. But we may now know the answer to one of the biggest questions we’ve had so far, who is flying the Millennium Falcon?
Just a warning, we’re going to take a trip to SPOILER town beyond this point. You’ve been warned.
One of the pieces of footage in the first trailer that sent fan hearts soaring was seeing the old girl zipping around over the desert planet we now know is Jakku, engaged in a dogfight with TIE Fighters—just like old times. What we didn’t know, however, was who was at the controls, but thanks to an image on a Topps trading card that's making the rounds, we know that the pilot is Rey, played by Daisy Ridley. Click HERE to check it out.
One of the latest additions to the Star War: Card Trader mobile game, this image is a kind of collage of images showing off Chewbacca, but on the bottom left corner, we get a glimpse of Rey sitting next to Chewbacca at the controls of the Millennium Falcon.
To be fair, this doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s the one flying the Falcon in the footage from the trailer, or that she’s the only one who takes the bucket of bolts out for a spin. But she does join a rather exclusive club that includes Lando Calrissian and Nien Nunb as others who have taken control of Han Solo’s baby.
And also, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen Rey sitting in the big chair. In the behind the scenes video that J.J. Abrams and company unveiled back at San Diego Comic-Con in July, there is a brief snippet that shows Daisy Ridley seated precisely where she is in this new image. She’s not in much of a costume, and though Chewie is next to her, it’s only partial Chewie, as actor Peter Mayhew isn’t wearing his costume’s head — so basically instead of Rey and Chewbacca, it’s Daisy Ridley and Peter Mayhew in a fuzzy suit. In this new image, however, it is much more obvious that she is actually the one at the controls. Check it out for yourself at around the 1:48 mark.
There’s a new rumor going around about the true nature of Rey’s character, but it’s pretty suspect and without much solid corroboration, so make of it what you will. Since the beginning, people have speculated that she is somehow a blood relative of Luke Skywalker, perhaps even the daughter of Han and Leia. Another card that came out indicated that she has aptitude with the Force, which would make sense with such familial connections. The new rumor, however, says that, instead of a relative, Rey is in fact Luke’s chosen apprentice, an orphan selected for training at a young age.
Like most things related to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, we won’t know for sure about any of this until the film opens on December 18, but we can’t wait to find out. Though we're supposedly getting a new trailer on October 19.
