The Most Mysterious Shot in The Force Awakens Has Been Explained

By  · Published on January 4th, 2016

Warning: Spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens

There’s been a lot of picking apart of Star Wars: The Force Awakens over the past few weeks. As it turns out, people can’t get enough of this movie. Whether you liked it or not, the film has generated plenty of talking points. Whether that’s through omission or just your run-of-the-mill plotholes, there’s plenty that we don’t know. Thankful, there are sleuths sleuthing and plenty of supplemental materials to aid them.

One of the more mysterious moments in the film was Rey’s vision inside Maz Kanata’s castle, brought on by contact with Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber. In the vision, we see a number of scenes. Luke Skywalker reaching out to touch R2-D2; The Knights of Ren; Tiny Rey being abandoned on Jakku; as well as some death by fiery lightsaber.

Our friends at /Film have been digging through the script, which was sent out by Disney to members of the Writers Guild of America for awards consideration. Among their findings are some answers to the big questions within Rey’s vision:

The script gives a name for the planet that we find Luke Skywalker on at the end of the film. The planet is referred to as “AHCH-TO” in this official script. The planet is described as having a “pristine and mighty OCEAN” with “endless BLUE, dotted with random, beautiful, mountainous BLACK ROCK ISLANDS, dotted with countless GREEN TREES.”

It’s worth noting that “ahch” is a Hebrow word meaning “brother.” There are plenty of ways to read into the use of this word (OMG, what if someone is Rey’s brother?!), but for the most part, it appears as if the filmmakers wanted some fun wordplay to begin “Act 2” of their new saga.

The screenplay also confirms that the shot of Luke reaching out to R2-D2 occurs as a Jedi Temple burns, likely destroyed by a young Kylo Ren who has just broken bad:

Some people have argued that the image of Luke Skywalker and R2-D2 was not from the attack on Skywalker’s new Jedi Training Academy, but the script confirms that we “see a BURNING TEMPLE AT NIGHT” in the background.

It seems likely that more of the backstory of Kylo Ren, his relationship with Luke Skywalker, and his seduction to the Dark Side will be explained as the new trilogy moves forward. Perhaps we’ll even get to see him murder some little Jedi kids. Maybe then George Lucas will be happy.

Next: 15 Questions Left Unanswered by Star Wars: The Force Awakens

For more information from the script – including a little bit about that final scene – head over to /Film. They’ve been doing an excellent job picking apart every milli-kessel of The Force Awakens while the rest of us have become exhausted.

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Neil Miller is the persistently-bearded Publisher of Film School Rejects, Nonfics, and One Perfect Shot. He's also the Executive Producer of the One Perfect Shot TV show (currently streaming on HBO Max) and the co-host of Trial By Content on The Ringer Podcast Network. He can be found on Twitter here: @rejects (He/Him)