Star Wars: The Force Awakens (SPOILERS)

[Qui-Gon Jim]

You echo many of my thoughts.  My theory is that Ben took Rey from Han and Leia AND the Falcon and left them on Jakku with Plutt which is part of why Plutt is in contact with the FO to know they are looking for BB-8.  I think this is what caused the wedge between Han and Leia.  Han set out to find Rey and fell back onto smuggling to earn a living in that area of the galaxy.

[Phrubruh]

How could Ben Solo take Rey in the Falcon and drop them on Jakku? Why would he do that? Besides, Ben is about the same age as Rey. She wasn't dropped off by the  Falcon. Rey wasn't even part Luke's school because she left long before Ben Solo went nuts and his buddies destroyed the school.  Besides the Falcon was stolen from Han by Duquesne. It was in turn stolen by the Erwin boys and then finally by Plutt.

[Dave]

Does anyone know the timeline of Ben Solo's betrayal?  I couldn't find anything online after a few searches. 

According to Wookieepedia Ben Solo is 10 years older than Rey.  Assuming Rey was around 4 when she was left on Jakku, that would make Ben Solo 14 at the time of her abandonment. 

In theory Ben Solo could have taken his little sister Rey and left her on Jakku.  Perhaps to hide her from Snoke since he couldn't bring himself to kill her at the time.  He could have left the Falcon and then left in the ship shown in the flashback of TFA.  Or Han could have left her there too, but that seems like a strange move to make.

Its plausible, but you would think there would have been something more made of it if Leia or Han realized she was their daughter.  I'm guessing they assumed she was dead, but you would think a force sensitive person like Leia would have been able to put it all together. 

Kylo Ren should have had a strong suspicion of who she was if he was the one that left her on Jakku.  Plus you would think that there would have been some different interaction between Kylo Ren and Rey when they were probing each other's minds. 

[EdSolo]

Rey was dropped off prior to Ben's betrayal.  Ben's betrayal has not had a date set yet.  Rey is 10 years younger.  Ben was born 5 ABY and Rey was born 15 ABY.  With TFA at around 33 ABY and the events of the novel Bloodlines six years prior to TFA, it doesn't seem like the theory (that Ben took Rey to Jakku) could hold up.  The Falcon is gone by Bloodlines, and Han is out and about running a racer team, but Han and Leia are very much in contact.  Han isn't at the point of going back to smuggling yet and Rey would have been on Jakku for around seven years by this time.

[Darby]

I've mentioned I've gone back to the Rey = Solo camp in the TLJ thread. A couple things, all circumstantial:

From the SW Databank entry on Han Solo: 'Han and Chewie lost their beloved Falcon amid more personal turmoil, and hunted endlessly for the lost freighter.' If the tragedy is Kylo's fall, that makes no sense as the fall appears to happen in the very brief time between Bloodline and TFA. The Falcon is long gone by Bloodline.

And then from Rey's Survival Guide: 'Great plan until the TIE pilots blew the quad up, forcing us to run for this junky freighter that the Blobfish has kept under a tarp for longer than I can remember.' Rey has been on Jakku from at least 4 years of age.

From the TFA Visual Dictionary, also on Han: 'But the peace of his life was not to last, and after a profound tragedy upended what had become normal for the Corellian, Solo returned to his old life...'

From Bloodline: Leia and Han had “been apart too often in their marriage.”  They live mostly apart. Solo had largely returned to his old life well before Bloodline, when things were somewhat stable for his family.

The Falcon is key. The ship being in the same place as Rey is either the biggest coincidence of all time, or as we've discovered in this series, there are no coincidences. Han and Chewie went their separate ways in Aftermath: Life Debt. Chewbacca is living on Kashyyk in Bloodline. Han and Chewie lost the Falcon together during a period of turmoil previous to the fall of Ben Solo and at least synonymous with Rey's memory of the Falcon on Jakku. Han and Chewie reunited at some point in the past, lost the ship and then disbanded again for reasons that are very, very (purposefully) vague.

So... why doesn't she remember her parents, or they remember her?

From the TFA Visual Dictionary, regarding Rey: 'Her only escapes from the brutal conditions of Jakku are vivid flights of imagination, where she envisions lush, green worlds and fantasizes about a family she has never known.'

Something is up.

[Darby]

To follow up on the theory of Kylo abandoning Rey on Jakku - it's very compelling, but I don't think fits in with the narrative as we know it so far. What makes sense to me, from what I outlined above, is that Chewie leaves Rey on the planet with the Falcon. We simply have no context for why he would do this, but consider again: Han and Chewie were together at the time they lost the Falcon. They disband afterwards, it seems. Something terrible has happened around this time.

[Phrubruh]

I see no reason for Kylo to abandon Rey on Jakku. Based on the narrative they don't know each other at all. Chewie didn't drop the Falcon on Jakku either. It went through many hands before blobfish got it. The ship that dropped Rey off on Jakku was not the Falcon as seen in her Force vision.

[Darby]

All of the hands the ship changed through could have been located on Jakku - Han has reason to think it was in the neighborhood and knew some of the guys by name. The ship Rey saw in her vision doesn't have to be the one she was dropped off in, especially if Chewie (or anyone) left the Falcon there with her. Again, circumstantial but food for thought.

[EdSolo]

It was Han's idea for him and Chewie to split.  He essentially told Chewie to spend time with his family since he has spent so much time away from them.

[Darby]

Right, in Aftermath. They are apparently together again when the Falcon is lost, some time later. They subsequently spit again  between then and Bloodline, when Chewie is back on Kashyyk.

[Matt_Fury]

Watching TFA, Han looks at Rey like he knows her, but I don't think she's Han and Leia's long lost daughter...they would have talked about losing their children and not just their son.

I'm guessing that she's Luke's daughter, mainly because of her connection to Anakin's lightsaber.  There's a theory floating around the internet that Luke is standing over a grave on Ach-to.  I'm not convinced, but it would be interesting if true.

Honestly, I doubt JJ Abrams knows either...I have little confidence in him as a story teller and Lawrence Kasdan is our only hope the trilogy won't suck because of a JJ mystery box.

[EdSolo]

I think Luke makes the most sense from a story standpoint and the possibility of an episode X - XII trilogy.  While Disney has not announced that they plan any more numbered episodes, I would think it has to be a possibility.  If the numbered episodes are the story of the Skywalker family, then we would need a Skywalker to continue.  If Rey is a Solo, while a Skywalker descendant, she won't have the name.  If she is Rey Skywalker, or "Original Name" Skywalker, then she can carry the name forward.  If they continue the possible Rey/Finn romance, since he doesn't have a name, he can take the Skywalker name if they were to get married.

[Darby]

I think the mystery has lost a lot of its heft by being pushed so hard in the movie. Abrams is like you said a huge fan of mysteries but the shock of Vader being Luke's dad wasn't because we were wondering, it's because it overturned what we knew. This has been engineered in a way that any outcome will be disappointing because it's either rote (Luke) or needlessly convoluted (Rey Random). That's why I think Rey Solo makes the most sense; it overturns what we know, which is apparently she is not/cannot be.

[EdSolo]

I think the events of Bloodlines makes the Ben took Rey and the Falcon and dropped them off on Jakku impossible.  Han and Leia are apart, but not the way we see them in TFA.  Rey has already been left on Jakku at this time.  Ben has yet to learn the truth about Anakin, which I think we may see as a turning point for him in his fall.  I also don't see how a pre Kylo Ben Solo could abduct his sister and steal the Falcon and leave them both on Jakku at age 14 or 15 and get away with it without any sort of repercussions from his parents.

[Phrubruh]

I also don't see how a pre Kylo Ben Solo could abduct his sister and steal the Falcon and leave them both on Jakku at age 14 or 15 and get away with it without any sort of repercussions from his parents.

Come on 4 year old sister. Let's take dad's car and drive to a different state. Then I'll lose you and the car to criminals.

What would that conversation be like when he gets home without his sister and car?