'Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker' Leak Suggests A Different Origin For Rey

The secret to Rey's origins are ever a topic for debate, despite the issue being seemingly put to bed in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. But a new leaked Star Wars guide for the upcoming Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker opens the doors for new theories regarding Rey's origins.

According to a leaked image from a Star Wars guide posted on Reddit (via Esquire), Rey might not have been from Jakku originally at all. In an image of Rey's timeline, the text describes: "A tiny Rey watches helplessly as a starship pulls away, marooning her on the unfamiliar world of Jakku."

Why does this open the doors for a new Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker theory about Rey's origins? Because logically, if Rey's parents were, as Kylo Ren tells Rey, "filthy junk traders who sold you off for drinking money ... dead in a pauper's grave in the Jakku desert," why would they return to a planet they were not from? It's shaky logic to be sure — there's no indication that Rey's parents flew off to another planet. Perhaps they drank away their money from selling Rey and died in Jakku soon after. But of course, Star Wars fans love talking about this stuff, and this has opened the possibilities that Rey's parents weren't who Kylo said they were and are in fact still alive.

But this piece of information does gel with the memory that Rey recalls when she touches Luke Skywalker's lightsaber in The Force Awakens: a vision in which she, as a child, is watching her parents flying away from her.

So what's the biggest fan theory to come out of this revelation? Esquire points out that Jakku is the location of a secret research facility set up by Emperor Palpatine to help search out old Sith relics. With the confirmation that Palpatine will be appearing in some capacity in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, fans eager to connect Rey with the longtime Star Wars villain will be happy to draw this connection. What does it mean? I have no idea! But we'll see how it pans out when The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters on December 20, 2019.