Rogue One Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wji-BZ0oCwg Yesterday, as if you haven't watched it 1000 times already, a trailer for the first non-Skywalker centric Star Wars movie--Rogue One: A Star Wars Story--was released. Directed by Gareth Edwards (Godzilla) and starring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, and Forest Whitaker, Rogue One deals with the team that stole the plans to the first Death Star.  This, of course, eventually led to the combat operation at the end of Episode IV (A New Hope) where Luke and the other pilots destroy the first Death Star (seriously, there are so many Death Stars). The trailer is great. It's action packed and looks beautifully rendered.  It also seems to capture the same sense of adventure and fun that all the best Star Wars movies have (see: The Force Awakens). The fighting looks incredible, especially Donnie Yen's scene taking down a bunch of storm troopers with a staff. If they choreograph anything close to the amazing fighting Yen let loose in IP Man 1-3, then this is going to be some of the best hand to hand combat in the SW universe. Reaction has been universally positive to the trailer (woohoo, I guess?), but almost simultaneously with the trailer premiering articles were posted wondering if Felicity Jones' character, Jyn Erso, was the mother of Daisy Ridley's Rey from The Force Awakens. There are long-winded attempts to explain how this could be true in the given timeline. People may think they want this to be true, that they figured out a key plot twist before the audience was supposed to, but for the sake of storytelling and the audience, let's hope that it's not. It came up because the creators of the new Star Wars films are making a big deal out of Rey's parentage. Lineage is very important to the overarching world building that they're attempting. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Colin Treverrow (who is directing Episode IX) made a point to assuring fans that they'd answer the question in detail: “I’ve seen all of the theories… What I do know is that we’re going to make sure that that answer is deeply and profoundly satisfying, because Rey is a character that is important in this universe, not just in the context of The Force Awakens but in the entire galaxy, and she deserves it. So we’ll make sure that that answer is something that feels like it was–it’s something that happened a long time ago [in a galaxy] far, far away, we’re just telling you what happened.” If it's supposed to be "deeply and profoundly satisfying," then it's probably safe to say that it's not the first woman to be on the screen in the next Star Wars movie.  That wouldn't be satisfying, it would be lazy. Also, how insulting would it be if it were true? If the creators of Star Wars explicitly made Felicity Jones' character the mother of Rey it somewhat lessens the awesomeness of having a second female protagonist in the universe. It would be saying that yes, there are some really kickass, strong, good, force adept women in a galaxy far, far away, but they're all in the same family. Why can't there just be two (or a lot more) badass, unrelated women in the galaxy at the same time? December is a long time away, so everything is still speculation, but let's hope that the creators of this new Galactic empire of movies don't settle for storytelling this trite. Internet speculation (of which this is yet another offering to its gaping maw, I know) shouldn't be the arbiter of pop culture and the team at Disney shouldn't ingest any of it. Luckily, with people like Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy at the helm, there's reason to hope that the ship of state of Star Wars will be shipshape. Say that 10 times quick.