One of the most discussed aspects of the three new Skywalker Saga Star Wars movies has been the interesting and often weird relationship between Kylo and Rey. Even after watching The Rise Of Skywalker, I’m confused and still kind of fascinated about what the hell is going on there. I imagine a lot of others feel the same way, which is why when director J.J. Abrams allegedly referred to their dynamic as a brother-sister thing, it podraced around the internet almost immediately. Well, pump the breaks on whatever feelings you had about that because it turns out that’s not really a fair representation of his quote.
The original question, asked by a journalist from Disney Insider and She 3PO, was reportedly about a Rey and Kylo romance and J.J. Abrams’ answer was talking through his feelings and perspectives while making The Force Awakens. In short, he was saying he intentionally left things a bit open-ended in the same way Luke and Leia’s relationship was originally open-ended.
Here’s a portion of the quote…
There’s as much of a brother-sister thing between Kylo and Rey as there is a romantic thing. It’s not like literally a sexually romantic kind of thing. They’re more bound together… in a crazy spiritual way that again felt romantic to me. If you listen to John Williams when he first wrote the Luke theme, it was a romantic theme for Luke and Leia. That’s kind of what he was thinking because he didn’t know where it was going.
This is the obvious downside to so many the quotes we read today being without video or proper context of the situation. The brother-sister thing quote is here, but the actual words don’t seem to be what he was trying to say. To me, what he seems more to be getting at here is how he tried to set the Star Wars franchise up to be carried forward by the next director. All of the decisions about people’s relationships or how the puzzle pieces fit were not figured out.
Fortunately for J.J. Abrams, he wound up in a position in which he returned to the franchise and was able to close some of those loops he left open in Episode VII. Kylo and Ren and what the hell they are to each other is probably the most obvious example of that, but a careful watch could easily produce dozens of other questions that were at least casually put out there during his first movie and answered during The Rise Of Skywalker.
The rest of the article contains spoilers. So, be advised...
At some point after we all have seen The Rise Of Skywalker another time or two and start processing what happened, we’ll be left to answer the question of what Rey and Kylo ultimately were. Obviously they shared the kiss in this most recent movie and not a kiss in a brother-sister kind of way and were revealed to be a force dyad, but I still think it’s a fair question to ask what the hell would have happened if their fates had been different. Just because two people kiss doesn’t mean they would have worked or actually been meant for each other. Or maybe the ending was meant to prove she and Kylo would have been together but now she’s alone and trying to figure things out through his family’s legacy.
We’ll probably never know, and as long as we don’t, I’ll remain interested.
