Rey's Most Iconic Scenes In 'Star Wars'

Which Scene Is Your Favorite?

By Culture SlatePublished 3 years ago • 9 min read

"And I....am all the Jedi."
-Rey (The Rise of Skywalker)

The Star Wars sequel trilogy, starting with The Force Awakens, introduced us to several new characters, including Rey, who starts off as a scrappy scavenger on a remote desert world (that doesn't actually happen to be Tatooine for once) who, through various circumstances, rises to become a hero of the Resistance, a Jedi Knight, and savior of the galaxy from the resurrected Emperor Palpatine in its epic conclusion. Along the way, there is no shortage of iconic scenes for her character.

At the beginning of The Force Awakens, Rey is slowly introduced to us as a poor scavenger on the remote desert world of Jakku, first seen plundering the depths of a downed Imperial Star Destroyer before returning to her makeshift home in a downed AT-AT Imperial Walker. Her randomly meeting the tiny Resistance droid BB-8, as well as FN-2187 (aka "Finn"), a First Order Stormtrooper desperate to get away from the First Order, quickly draws Rey into the galactic conflict between the First Order and the New Republic. The sudden arrival of First Order troops forces them to flee the planet in, of all ships, the Millennium Falcon, which has fallen on hard times and is now sitting idle in a trading post. Rey, Finn, and BB-8 evade their First Order TIE Fighter pursuers in a dramatic flight through starship graveyards, with Rey piloting the craft and Finn manning the weapons. Fortunately, they manage to outmaneuver and destroy the TIE Fighters and leave the planet to try to return BB-8 to the Resistance.

Before they can get much further, they wind up getting captured by a freighter being operated by none other than Han Solo and Chewbacca, who are overjoyed to have finally found the Falcon. Rey, Finn, and BB-8 are brought aboard the freighter but have to flee again when rival gangs show up to confront Han about their shady business dealings with him. In an attempt to trap the gangs, Rey instead accidentally unleashes some vicious monsters called rathtars that are being transported on the freighter. Fortunately, Han and Chewbacca allow them to join them aboard the Falcon, and they take off for Takodana, where they meet the enigmatic alien, Maz Kanata, who seems to sense important things about Rey.

Rey discovers a treasure cache in Maz's castle that includes Luke Skywalker's lightsaber that he lost on Bespin in The Empire Strikes Back. Upon touching the lightsaber, Rey experiences visions of Kylo Ren and his Knights of Ren, a burning temple being watched over by Luke Skywalker and R2-D2, and herself as a young kid being left behind on Jakku. These dramatic visions prompted by the lightsaber, drive Rey to drop the lightsaber and flee the castle in fear. Her rush into the forest, unfortunately, drives her to her first encounter with dark side Force user, Kylo Ren, who easily incapacitates and captures her as the First Order and Resistance battle.

Rey later awakens strapped to an interrogation chair on the First Order's Starkiller Base, being questioned by Kylo Ren. It is here where Rey, whose mind is being probed by Kylo, through the awakening of her Force abilities, manages to turn the tables on Kylo and probes his mind and taunts him with his own insecurities. While Kylo is away, Rey uses her burgeoning Force powers to use the famous Jedi mind trick to get a stormtrooper to free her. She rejoins Han, Chewbacca, and Finn, who have come to Starkiller Base to save her. Rey is overjoyed to see her newfound friends. However, her elation at seeing her new friends turns to despair, as she helplessly watches Kylo Ren kill Han to try to cement his turn to the dark side. This scene reminded me a lot of a similar scene in A New Hope where Luke witnesses Vader killing Obi-Wan on the Death Star.

Rey and Finn escape into the forest, pursued by a wounded and enraged Kylo Ren. Finn draws Luke's lightsaber, which he took from Maz's castle, but is gravely injured by Kylo Ren. Rey's Force abilities are fully unleased in an iconic scene with maximum John Williams scoring, as she manages to bring Luke's lightsaber to her hand and launches into a duel with Kylo, defeating him but not killing him. Rey, Finn, and Chewbacca return to the Resistance Base after their victory over the First Order and the map to Luke Skywalker is finally completed. Rey, along with Chewbacca and R2-D2, leavs in the Falcon to travel to the planet Ach-To to attempt to persuade Luke to train her as a Jedi and return to fight against the First Order. The final scene of this film is perhaps the most iconic, as Rey, Chewbacca, and R2-D2 reach the planet Ach-To, where Rey climbs up a mountain and finds the old Jedi Master and offers him his lightsaber.

The Last Jedi continues Rey's story right where The Force Awakens leaves off, except that her initial attempts to get Luke to train her and get him to come back with her are unsuccessful. Rey, however, continues to hound Luke until he relents and agrees to give her some lessons about the Force, although tells her that he thinks that the Jedi need to end.

Rey grows dramatically in the film, both in terms of her character development and her use of her Force. In a scene that seems to mirror the Dagobah cave scene in The Empire Strikes Back, Rey visits a dark side cave on the island to try to find her parents and find out who she really is. The cave, unfortunately, offers her only a series reflections of her, leaving her no clues about her parents. I had developed somewhat of a theory that this scene might be hinting that she is a clone, although this, of course, did not quite turn out to be the case.

Perhaps one of the most engaging parts of Rey's journey throughout The Last Jedi was the development of a Force connection with Kylo Ren/Ben Solo that allows them communicate with each other across the galaxy. Rey uses this connection to try to understand Kylo and why he turned to the dark side and killed his own father. This connection leads to Rey angrily confronting Luke about his role in pushing Kylo towards the dark side and the destruction of his new Jedi Order. Rey, believing that she can possibly save Kylo and learn more about herself rushes to be by his side. Much to her disappointment, Kylo decides to bring her before Supreme Leader Snoke.

In his throne room, Snoke tortures Rey with his Force powers and orders Kylo to kill her, which seems like he is almost going to do, but he instead kills Snoke. In one of my favorite scenes in the entire Star Wars Saga, Rey teams up with Kylo to take down Snoke's guards in an epic duel. She is devastated afterward, though, to learn from Kylo that her parents were "nobodies" who sold her for drinking money and were buried in the Jakku desert. She also learns that Kylo wants to take Snoke's place and continue on with the destruction of the Resistance, which she, of course, can't abide. She ultimately escapes and, with Chewbacca's help, helps aid the Resistance on Crait by taking out First Order TIE Fighters sent to attack the Resistance ski speeders and, later, using her growing Force abilities to move rocks out of the way so that the surviving members of the Resistance can escape.

At the beginning of The Rise of Skywalker, we see Rey deep in meditation, trying in vain to summon the Jedi of the past, right before running a self-made obstacle course through the jungle, only for her concentration and calm to disappear as Kylo uses their Force connection to contact her, causing her to lose her focus and cool and accidentally damage BB-8, leading to some conflict with Poe.

Rey, Poe, Finn, Chewbacca, and C-3PO are dispatched to Pasanna to find clues to an artifact they believe will lead the Resistance to the Sith world of Exegol, which they need to reach in order to stop Emperor Palpatine from unleashing a new wave of terror and destruction upon the galaxy. Rey is forced to face off against Kylo again on Pasanna. Rey, standing alone in the middle of the desert with her back to Kylo's advancing TIE Fighter, manages to do an incredible back-flip move and cut off one of his TIE Fighter's wings with her lightsaber, causing it to crash. Immediately afterward, Rey is forced by Kylo to engage in a tug of war with him over a transport that she believes Chewbacca is being held captive aboard. After wrestling with Kylo for several minutes, Rey has a moment of anger where she draws on the dark side of the Force and sends some lightning bolts at the transport, causing it to explode, which devastates Rey, as she believes that she killed Chewbacca.

The heroes continue their quest on Kijimi, where Rey boards Kylo's Star Destroyer and has a lightsaber duel with Kylo through their Force connection. He later finds her on the Star Destroyer and reveals to her that she is none other than the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine, which horrifies Rey. However, she manages to escape again with her friends.

They make their way to the Endor moon of Kef Bir, where she braves the incredible waves and combs through wreckage from the second Death Star to find the second Wayfinder they need to locate Exegol. After finding the Wayfinder, she is briefly confronted by a twisted dark side phantom of herself with a red, double-bladed lightsaber. She then encounters Kylo again. Kylo crushes the Wayfinder she just found, causing her to lash out in a furious rage and they duel across the watery Death Star wreckage. She fatally wounds Kylo, but decides to use the Force heal him, tearfully telling Kylo that she wanted to take Ben's hand, before stealing his TIE Figher and leaving. Rey returns to Ach-To and, like Luke before, resigns to exile herself on the island for the rest of her life in order to prevent herself from falling to the dark side and causing more damage.

However, Luke, who appears to her as a Force ghost, encourages her to return to the fight. He raises his X-Wing Fighter from the ocean, and recovers a Wayfinder from Kylo's TIE Fighter. Seeing Rey piloting Luke's old X-Wing Fighter, while leading the Resistance to Exegol, is such a heartwarming moment for me in this movie. Rey ultimately makes it to Exegol and confronts Emperor Palpatine, who now wants Rey to strike him down, ensuring that his spirit can possess her. Rey, however, turns the tables on him by not only refusing to do his bidding but by using her Force connection, she is able to give Ben Leia's lightsaber so that he can fight off the Knights of Ren and join her in confronting Palpatine.

Unfortunately, Palpatine knocks Ben off a nearby chasm and steals much of their life energy to rejuvenate himself. In perhaps the most powerful and iconic scene of the movie, Rey, drawing on a connection with the Jedi of the past, rises to her feet again, triumphantly declaring that she is the embodiment of all of the Jedi and, crossing both lightsabers, forces Palpatine's lightning to be reflected back on him, destroying him once and for all. Rey seemingly dies after defeating Palpatine. However, Ben finds her and transfers his remaining life energy to her, bringing her back to life. They exchange a brief joyous kiss and embrace with each other before Ben dies in her arms and fades away into the Force.

In a poignant final moment of the film, Rey, who has travelled to Luke's former homestead on Tatooine, is pressed by a passerby for her family name. Although she was unable to answer the question on Pasanna earlier in the film, seeing the Force ghosts of Luke and Leia off in the distance, Rey responds by declaring herself to be a Skywalker, choosing to take up the mantle of the historic family whose name has echoed throughout the entire Star Wars saga.

Written By Mara Butler

Syndicated From Culture Slate

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