Star Wars: Monopoly to include Rey after 8-year-old’s note

She has been embraced by fans as this generation’s new film hero, but instead of using Rey as a token, the game released by Disney and Hasbro features the above listed characters.

Hasbro, which makes the game, told American magazine Entertainment Weekly: ‘The Star Wars: Monopoly game was released in September, months before the movie’s release, and Rey was not included to avoid revealing a key plot line.

And indeed it is since it has tokens for John Boyega’s Finn, Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren, and even Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker (vintage 1983).

One mother, Carrie Goldman, tweeted an image of a letter to Hasbro written in felt tip by her eight-year-old daughter, Annie Rose, that said: “How could you leave out Rey!?”. Would a Rey player piece in a Monoply game really spoiler her role in “The Force Awakens”?

Hasbro also points out that Rey is featured in Star Wars-branded games of Hands Down, Guess Who and Chess, and that two new Rey action figures will be arriving in stores this month.

In a statement responding to the furore, Hasbro claimed including Rey, who is portrayed by British actor Daisy Ridley, would have revealed the extent of the Jakku-based scavenger’s involvement in the new instalment of the long-running space saga. It went viral with the hashtag #WheresRey (started by blogger Jenna Busch on Legion of Leia), garnering more than 2,000 retweets and starting over 26,000 conversations on Facebook. The toy company says that they are elated that Rey is so popular and plan to find other ways to highlight her character in their products.

Of course the original – and RIDICULOUS – reason the company gave for not including the character was they didn’t want to add her because they felt it would spoil a key plot line. He expects Rey’s popularity to continue as items come on the market and are restocked – Star Wars’ fervor is not going away, especially in advance of a DVD release this spring. Similarly fans had trouble finding Guardians of the Galaxy merchandise featuring Zoe Saldana’s Gamora. Ahead of the March 25 release of “Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice”, Wonder Woman toys have already been announced, including official releases from Mattel, including statuettes and Die Cast figurines from toymaker Metals.