This Minor Star Wars Character Could Make (Or Break) Rey's New Jedi Order
At the 2023 "Star Wars" Celebration, Disney and Lucasfilm confirmed there will be a new "Star Wars" movie. All that's known so far is that movie will be set 15 years after "Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker," and that it will follow Rey (Daisy Ridley) as she attempts to rebuild the fallen Jedi Order to their former role as galactic peacekeepers.
Naturally, this leads to all kinds of speculation, namely: what will Rey's effort look like, and who will her students be? One candidate is Temiri Blagg (Temirlan Blaev), aka the Stable Boy who appears in "Star Wars: Episode XIII – The Last Jedi." He first helps Finn (John Boyega) and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) escape from the casino on Canto Bight by letting the racing animals, called "fathiers," loose. At the end of the movie, he's seen playing with a Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) doll and re-enacting his self-sacrifice at the Battle of Crait. Then, he used the Force to move a broom, indicating that he has some level of Force sensitivity.
There are definitely parallels between the story of Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd, Hayden Christensen), who grew up enslaved on Tatooine until Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) helped him win his freedom, and Temiri. The latter's parents sold him into servitude to pay off a gambling debt. According to StarWars.com, "Temiri Blagg leads a forlorn existence in the shadows of Canto Bight's wealth, caring for fathiers in stables ruled by the iron-fisted groom Bargwill Tomder. Temiri dreams of a better life somewhere among the stars."
Since he's Force-sensitive, and was introduced in the latest trilogy of films, Temiri is as good a candidate as any to study under Rey. That could play out several ways.
What Rey's rebuilt Jedi Order might look like
Following the Anakin Skywalker parallel, Temiri Blagg could become Rey's apprentice and become a powerful Jedi, assuming he doesn't fall to the dark side. That process often goes faster when a Sith is manipulating things along (Anakin Skywalker and Palpatine, Ben Solo and Snoke, and many other examples), but who that might be in this scenario is more speculation. If Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) can be effectively brought back from the dead, little is off the table.
The Rey movie could also pull from the "Star Wars" Legends timeline, previously known as the Expanded Universe, which is the series of books, comics, and other media Disney declared non-canon when it purchased Lucasfilm. One source might be "Star Wars: The New Jedi Order," a series of 19 novels written from 1999 to 2003. Story-wise, they involve a middle-aged Luke Skywalker re-discovering the Jedi temple and rebuilding the order, where he teaches students from across the galaxy, including Han and Leia's three children. Obviously, this is much different than how things played out for Luke during the sequel trilogy.
Rey's story parallels both Temiri's and Anakin's, to a degree. She grew up in similarly destitute circumstances, and at one point she believed that her parents sold her to a junk trader for alcohol money–until "The Rise of Skywalker" revealed that she was biologically related to Emperor Palpatine. Fifteen years after "The Rise of Skywalker," Rey would presumably be looking for any Force-sensitive candidates, and Temiri does fit that description.