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Star Wars: The Force Awakens Monopoly adds Rey to the board after outrage

Toy company Hasbro insists the female lead character was only left off to avoid spoiling the movie

Jess Denham
Wednesday 06 January 2016 04:29 EST
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Rey is a major character in Star Wars: The Force Awakens but has been left out of many toy sets
Rey is a major character in Star Wars: The Force Awakens but has been left out of many toy sets (Lucasfilm 2015)

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Rey will be added to the new Star Wars Monopoly board after angry fans protested the female character’s absence from the game.

US toy company Hasbro insisted that the only reason Rey was left out in favour of smaller male characters was to avoid spoiling latest movie The Force Awakens, which sees her take a lead role alongside John Boyega.

Hasbro tweeted fans early this morning and promised that a Rey token will be included soon.

The current Star Wars Monopoly features Finn, Luke Skywalker, new baddie Kylo Ren and Darth Vader, who died in 1983’s Return of the Jedi. The game was released in September and the baffling lack of Rey was noticed by a Christmas shopper.

Soon, the Twitter hashtag #WheresRey was born as fans began voicing their complaints.

Hasbro previously said that Rey was ignored to prevent fans from finding out that she “takes on Kylo Ren and joins the Rebel Alliance” in The Force Awakens.

Other Star Wars toys also failed to include Rey, such as a model of the Millennium Falcon spaceship she pilots and maintains with Chewbacca. Finn and new droid BB-8 feature in that set despite not having any control of the ship.

Figure sets from the likes of Target and Toys R Us did not feature Rey either, prompting an 8-year-old girl to write a fuming letter making it clear to toy companies that “without Rey, there is no The Force Awakens” because “it awakens in her”.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens passed the $1.5 billion milestone at the worldwide box office last weekend.

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