Star Wars Is Officially Fixing Rey Skywalker

Published Sep 10, 2026, 3:55 PM EDT

El is a Junior TV Features Editor for ScreenRant, with previous experience as The Mary Sue's UK and Weekend Editor. She holds a Bachelor's in International Media and Entertainment Management, as well as an MA and Ph.D. in Creative Writing. There is little she loves more than discussing her favorite TV shows with fellow fans. One day, she hopes to publish an original fantasy novel.

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Starting next year, Star Wars will officially be able to fix Rey Skywalker's character. Despite its financial success, the Star Wars sequel trilogy was undeniably divisive, forcing Lucasfilm into a creative and narrative corner. The decisions made during production on the Star Wars sequels still affect the galaxy far, far away today, as the franchise struggles to regain its theatrical footing and reunite its fanbase. This is even more apparent now after the poor box office performance of The Mandalorian and Grogu, which holds the unfortunate accomplishment of being the lowest-grossing Star Wars movie of all time by a substantial $50 million margin.

That's not to say everything about the sequel trilogy was bad, of course, or that the characters, storylines, and new lore introduced in the Disney-era films lack potential. One of the sequel trilogy's bright spots was undoubtedly Daisy Ridley's Rey, especially in her connection with Kylo Ren and the burden on her shoulders as the galaxy's sole remaining Jedi following the events of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Sadly, though, even she fell victim to the sequels' unplanned storyline and narrative reshuffling. In the end, she was largely used as a plot device, forced into a frankly baffling role as Palpatine's "granddaughter" when she really should have been forging her own path. Even her adoption of the Skywalker name in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker felt somewhat meaningless. It was a nice gesture, of course, a way to recognize everything her mentors had done for her, but what did it really add to her character, other than forever placing her in Luke Skywalker's shadow?

In the end, Rey's arc was nothing more than a classic hero's journey, derivative of thousands of stories that have come before, including Star Wars' own. Luckily, Star Wars has the perfect opportunity to give Rey the kind of storyline she deserved from the start, as Lucasfilm prepares to celebrate the franchise's landmark 50th anniversary next year and launch a brand-new era of the galaxy's timeline.

Star Wars' New Era Will Change Rey's Role In The Galaxy

Credit: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures via MovieStillsDB

The next confirmed movie on Star Wars' ever-shifting slate is Ryan Gosling and Shawn Levy's standalone adventure, Star Wars: Starfighter. Due for release in 2027, Starfighter will be the first Star Wars story set beyond The Rise of Skywalker, five years after Rey's and the Resistance's (hopefully) final defeat of Palpatine on Exegol. That means Starfighter, and any other movies set during this period of the Star Wars timeline, will have the freedom to pursue their own stories without having to work towards or be mindful of specific events and character histories.

While it's unclear whether Rey will have a cameo appearance in Star Wars: Starfighter — it's certainly possible, as Gosling's pilot character, Kade Auberon, is rumored to be protecting a Force-sensitive youngling from dark forces — the movie's position as the starting point for an entirely new era will, in any case, open up the possibility for Rey to return and finally forge her own path.

A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know Star Wars? “The Force will be with you. Always.”

🗡️Jedi OrderLight-side guardians

⚡The SithRule of two

⚙️The RebellionA new hope

🪓Bounty HuntersThis is the way

👑The EmpireOrder 66

PUNCH IT! →

01

The original Star Wars film — later retitled Episode IV: A New Hope — opened in just 32 American theatres and proceeded to become the highest-grossing film of its era, redefining what summer blockbusters could be. In which year did it premiere?

A1975 B1977 C1979 D1980

✓ Correct! 1977 — specifically May 25. 20th Century Fox had so little faith in the project they only opened it in 32 theatres at first; queues quickly stretched around the block, and the film expanded to over 1,000 screens within months. It earned $307 million in its initial domestic run, won six Academy Awards (with another four nominations) and inverted Hollywood’s economics for the next 50 years.

✗ Wrong. The answer is 1977. 1975 is when the script was being shopped around. 1979 is when Star Trek: The Motion Picture released as a Star Wars-shaped countermove. 1980 is The Empire Strikes Back. The original Star Wars is May 25, 1977.

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02

A New Hope’s writer-director was a then-32-year-old American Graffiti veteran who’d struggled to get the project greenlit and famously took back-end profit and merchandising rights in lieu of a higher salary — the deal that would build a billion-dollar company. He returned to direct the prequels but stepped away from the original-trilogy sequels. Name him.

ASteven Spielberg BGeorge Lucas CFrancis Ford Coppola DIrvin Kershner

✓ Correct! George Lucas. The merchandising rights he kept (because Fox didn’t value them) became the financial bedrock of Lucasfilm and the basis of the modern toys-and-licensing megabusiness. After A New Hope, Lucas produced but didn’t direct Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner) or Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand), then directed all three prequels (1999–2005). He sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 and stepped away from creative control of the sequels.

✗ Wrong. The answer is George Lucas. Steven Spielberg was Lucas’s close friend (and the godfather of his post-A-New-Hope career) but never directed a Star Wars film. Coppola was Lucas’s mentor at USC and at American Zoetrope. Irvin Kershner directed Empire Strikes Back. The original is Lucas’s.

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03

In 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader delivers cinema’s most-misquoted line at the climax of his Cloud City duel with Luke Skywalker. Vader severs Luke’s hand and reveals their relationship. The exact line is — for the record — “No, I am your father.” What relationship does it confirm?

AVader is Luke’s uncle BVader is Luke’s father (Anakin Skywalker) CVader is Obi-Wan’s brother DVader is Han’s father

✓ Correct! Vader is Anakin Skywalker, Luke’s father. The reveal was so jealously guarded that Mark Hamill was only told the real line on set the day they shot it (the script said “Obi-Wan killed your father”), and even James Earl Jones recorded the dub without knowing the full plot context. The line — commonly misquoted as “Luke, I am your father” — rewrote what trilogies could pull off and is broadly considered cinema’s most famous twist.

✗ Wrong. The answer is that Vader is Luke’s father, Anakin Skywalker. The whole foundation of the Skywalker saga collapses to this single twist: Anakin (the Jedi prodigy of the prequels) becomes Vader after his fall. Luke and Leia are revealed in Return of the Jedi to be his twin children, separated at birth.

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04

Yoda — the green, ear-twitching Jedi Master — was puppeted and voiced from his Empire Strikes Back debut through the prequels and the sequels by a single Muppet-show-veteran performer who also voices Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear. Name him.

AJim Henson BFrank Oz CSteve Whitmire DBrian Henson

✓ Correct! Frank Oz — longtime Jim Henson collaborator and voice/puppet work on Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Sam Eagle and Grover. Oz puppeted Yoda directly through The Phantom Menace before CGI took over for Attack of the Clones onward, but he’s continued to voice the character through the sequels and animated series. Yoda’s syntax was developed jointly by Lucas and Oz to feel old, foreign and hard-won.

✗ Wrong. The answer is Frank Oz. Jim Henson was Oz’s mentor and collaborator (he created the Muppets) but didn’t voice Yoda. Steve Whitmire took over Kermit after Henson’s 1990 death. Brian Henson is Jim’s son and runs the Henson company today. Yoda is Frank Oz’s.

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05

In a deal that reshaped Hollywood, Disney acquired Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion in cash and stock — bringing Star Wars, Indiana Jones, ILM and Skywalker Sound under the Disney umbrella. The deal also kicked off the sequel trilogy production. In what year did Disney close the acquisition?

A2009 B2010 C2012 D2014

✓ Correct! 2012 — specifically October 30. The deal was announced with simultaneous reveal that a Star Wars Episode VII was being developed for a 2015 release. Lucas had been quietly preparing his exit from Lucasfilm for years; Kathleen Kennedy had been brought in as co-chair months earlier specifically to take over. The Force Awakens came out three years later, in December 2015, kicking off the modern era.

✗ Wrong. The answer is 2012. 2009 is when Disney acquired Marvel ($4 billion). 2010 is the year before Lucas began signalling exit plans. 2014 is when production proper began on The Force Awakens. Lucasfilm joined Disney on October 30, 2012.

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06

The Mandalorian launched as Disney+’s flagship original on November 12, 2019 — the day the streaming service itself launched. Created by Jon Favreau and run by Dave Filoni, the show centres on a helmeted bounty hunter who reluctantly becomes a foster father to “The Child” (Grogu). What is the Mandalorian’s real name?

ABoba Fett BCobb Vanth CDin Djarin DBo-Katan Kryze

✓ Correct! Din Djarin — played by Pedro Pascal under the helmet (with body double Brendan Wayne handling much of the physical work). The Mandalorian is widely credited with reviving Star Wars on TV, popularising the StageCraft LED-volume virtual production technology now used across Hollywood, and turning baby Yoda — Grogu — into the meme-economy phenomenon of late 2019. Three seasons have aired with a feature film, The Mandalorian & Grogu, set for May 2026.

✗ Wrong. The answer is Din Djarin. Boba Fett is the famous bounty hunter from the original trilogy, with his own Disney+ spinoff (The Book of Boba Fett, 2021). Cobb Vanth is the Tatooine marshal played by Timothy Olyphant. Bo-Katan Kryze is the Mandalorian princess played by Katee Sackhoff. The Mandalorian himself is Din Djarin.

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07

Order 66 — the secret directive that turns the Republic’s clone troopers against their Jedi commanders and effectively ends the Jedi Order — is dramatised in the climactic third act of which prequel film?

AEpisode I: The Phantom Menace BEpisode II: Attack of the Clones CEpisode III: Revenge of the Sith DRogue One

✓ Correct! Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). Palpatine’s “Execute Order 66” comm to the clone armies leads to the methodical, planet-by-planet liquidation of the Jedi Order — one of the saga’s most operatic sequences, scored to John Williams’ “Anakin’s Betrayal” cue. The same film features Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side, the Mustafar duel with Obi-Wan, and his rebirth as Darth Vader in the suit. Widely re-evaluated as the best of the prequels.

✗ Wrong. The answer is Revenge of the Sith. Phantom Menace ends with Qui-Gon’s death and the unveiling of Darth Maul. Attack of the Clones ends with the Clone Wars beginning. Rogue One is set just before A New Hope, after Order 66 has long since happened. The Order 66 sequence is the climax of Episode III.

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08

Andor (2022–25) is widely regarded as the most adult, politically literate Star Wars project ever made — a slow-burn prequel to Rogue One charting Cassian Andor’s radicalisation against the Empire. The series was created and showrun by a writer/director best known for the original Bourne trilogy and Michael Clayton. Name him.

ATony Gilroy BRian Johnson CJon Favreau DDave Filoni

✓ Correct! Tony Gilroy. He’d previously been brought in for extensive Rogue One reshoots in 2016, and Lucasfilm gave him near-total creative independence on Andor. Season 1 (12 episodes, 2022) is widely regarded as Star Wars’ finest dramatic writing ever; Season 2 (also 12 episodes, in four three-episode jumps across 2025) closes the gap to Rogue One’s opening scene. Gilroy’s prior credits: Bourne Identity / Supremacy / Ultimatum / Legacy, plus directing Michael Clayton (2007).

✗ Wrong. The answer is Tony Gilroy. Rian Johnson directed The Last Jedi (2017). Jon Favreau created The Mandalorian and is Lucasfilm’s Disney+-era animation/live-action lieutenant. Dave Filoni runs the Filoniverse (Clone Wars, Rebels, Ahsoka, the upcoming Heir to the Empire film). Andor is Tony Gilroy’s.

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The Force Has Spoken · Final Tally Your Galactic Standing

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/ 8

Jedi Master — or moisture farmer on Tatooine?

⤴ ANOTHER GO

Rather than being a mere puppet whose entire existence was arguably orchestrated by Palpatine or Luke Skywalker's protégé, Rey will have the opportunity to craft her own legacy. At Star Wars Celebration 2023, Lucasfilm announced that a tentatively titled Star Wars: New Jedi Order movie was in development. While this movie seems stuck in limbo, like so many other previously announced Star Wars movies, it's nevertheless an exciting prospect. Whichever way she appears in this new Star Wars era, she'll be the one in charge. Rather than following in the footsteps of other characters, she'll be shaping an entire generation of Jedi.

Star Wars has already offered exciting hints about how different Rey's experiences with the new Jedi will be. In the recently released novel Star Wars: Legacy by Madeleine Roux, Rey questions the Jedi's wisdom in abandoning and indeed forbidding all emotional attachments. This has long been a point of contention in Star Wars' storytelling. While the Jedi of the High Republic were more lenient, the prequel era's Jedi were overly strict, directly contributing to Anakin Skywalker's downfall.

Star Wars has officially dubbed the post-Rise of Skywalker era as the "New Jedi Order" era, following "The New Republic" and "Rise of the First Order" (via StarWars.com).

This is just one of many ways in which Rey's presence in Star Wars' new era can change the audience's understanding of the Jedi and their relationship with the Force. She can become whatever kind of Jedi she wants to be. There's something freeing about that, especially in the wake of the excellent Star Wars: Visions Presents — The Ninth Jedi, which, though not considered canon, explores what it truly means to be a Jedi and how emotions can alter a wielder's connection to the Force. Hopefully, the launch of this new Star Wars period will kickstart a bright new future for Rey Skywalker, too.

Star Wars: Starfighter arrives in cinemas on May 28, 2027.