The double bluff, or phantom twist, seems to have become a thing in 21st-century big-budget film-making. First there was Benedict Cumberbatch in Star Trek Into Darkness, who, everyone involved in the film insisted, couldn’t possibly be Khan Noonien Singh from 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – until it turned out he was. And more recently we had Christoph Waltz as Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Spectre, a secret so poorly kept that it was cheerfully revealed by the BBC1’s The One Show a week before any members of the public had seen the movie.  Given that JJ Abrams himself was responsible for the whole Khan fandango, we should probably take the cryptic clues presented in trailers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens about the familial links between characters new and old pretty seriously. They might well be sleight-of-hand, mere marketing curveballs to help save us from spoiler hell. But on the face of it … probably not.  Related: Star Wars: The Force Awakens – six things learned from the Japanese trailer  The movie’s new US TV spot presents the most credible evidence yet that Daisy Ridley’s Rey is the offspring of Han Solo and Princess Leia Organa. “I have lived long enough to see the same eyes in different people,” says Lupita Nyong’o’s piratey alien Maz Kanata in voiceover, as the camera flits from Ridley to Harrison Ford’s Solo. “I see your eyes. I know your eyes,” she says as the camera shoots back to Ridley. Finally, up pops the line: “Every generation … needs a story” – just in case anyone anywhere missed the point being made.  According to Entertainment Weekly, who got it first-hand from Abrams and his team, Kanata knows what she’s on about when it comes to eyes. Her own peepers apparently hold some secret power – which explains why they’re covered by goggles in the only image of the character seen so far.  Let us not forget the other clues we’ve previously been given that The Force Awakens will continue the story of Anakin Skywalker’s descendants. “The Force is strong in my family,” we heard Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker telling an unknown figure in April’s second teaser. “My father has it. I have it. My sister has it. You have that power too.”  Then there are Ridley’s comments in last week’s Japanese trailer for Abrams’ movie: “I know all about waiting … for my family,” she reveals. Given that all the evidence so far points to Rey having grown up as a scavenger on the far-flung desert planet of Jakku (just as Luke and Anakin also spent their youths in dusty backwaters), we can assume she’s not just complaining about Han and Leia’s famously poor timekeeping. The young woman has clearly been hidden away for her own safekeeping, just as Luke and Leia once were.  Might the family connection go even further? Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has hinted that the Skywalker line continues to have a propensity for twins, and we still don’t know Kylo Ren’s real name – Abrams has said the moniker was given to him by the Ren order of knights. There’s a lot of internet buzz right now about the theory that Adam Driver’s Vader-worshipping fanboy and Rey are siblings, separated at birth, with one choosing the dark side, the other the light. Suddenly Ren telling Darth Vader’s ruined helmet: “I will fulfil our destiny” in the Japanese trailer makes a whole lot more sense.  Related: Is Jar Jar Binks the ultimate Star Wars bad guy? Yes, says the internet  This would also explain the positioning of the pair on the main poster for The Force Awakens, as the main figures presented with Rey’s staff and Ren’s lightsaber in alignment. And who’s to say that staff is everything it appears to be? Perhaps the two ends come away to reveal a Darth Maul-style double-ended lazer sword!  OK, I’m not sure I believe that later suggestion, if only because the marketing people at Disney would surely already have a natty toy version in stores to meet festive demand. But I’m just telling you what’s out there on the internet, people.  Speaking of which, Entertainment Weekly seems to think Rey might be a descendant of old Obi-Wan Kenobi, rather than a Solo-Organa sprog. No reason is given, and Jedi Knights aren’t supposed to father children, but it would at least be a decent last-minute plot twist. Not that we’re likely to get one, on recent evidence.  Still want more Star Wars gossip? ScreenCrush has compiled this excellent guide to some of the supporting space weirdos who will soon be seen in The Force Awakens, including that strange camel-like creature from Abrams’ Force for Change video last year.
The internet has worked out the entire plot of JJ Abrams’ movie based on piecing together elements of the various trailers so far. Or has it?