Kisses are a complicated subject in the Star Wars fandom. There’s the awkward twin kiss in A New Hope, the gorgeous “I Love You” “I Know” farewell kiss in The Empire Strikes Back, and the polarizing and dubiously romantic kiss in The Rise of Skywalker. But there’s another kiss that is almost as critical to the franchise that many fans ignore, a kiss that has kept readers rapt for years: the kiss between Dr. Solo and Ph.D. candidate Rey in Head Over Feet, a Star Wars alternate universe (AU) fan fiction written by Ali Hazelwood under the name “Ever_So_Reylo.”
Later published and reworked as The Love Hypothesis — with new character names, “Olive Smith” and “Dr. Adam Carlsen” — which was then adapted into a Prime Video original movie, it can be difficult to see the Star Wars bones of this rom-com, but that’s just what makes it so wonderful and odd. Using Star Wars as a launching pad, like stock characters in the days of commedia dell’arte, this story managed to go from science fiction to science academia — and proved why fan fiction is such a crucial part of the literary landscape.
Fan fiction being turned into original works isn’t new by any means. “Filing the serial numbers off,” as it’s often referred to, is how Twilight fan fiction Master of the Universe turned into romance behemoth Fifty Shades of Grey. It’s how a Wattpad story about Harry Styles turned into the five After movies. It’s how a steamy Draco/Hermione fic became Alchemised, a bestselling romantasy tome.
But what makes The Love Hypothesis — or rather, Head Over Feet — so unique is how it evolved. It started as a stock-standard AU fan fiction, placing characters into different situations and settings, often a coffee shop, office, or college. In this case, it was a science academia AU.
Hazelwood was uniquely qualified to write this AU, in particular. While she was self-publishing this fanfic on Archive of Our Own, the go-to fan fiction site, she already had a few publishing credits in academic journals as a neurosurgeon. But don’t go looking for them: “Ali Hazelwood” is a pen name, and she keeps her real name hidden to separate her scientific career from her creative writing. This has become more common than you think. Frieda McFadden, for example, the author of The Housemaid, kept her real identity, Dr. Sara Cohen, M.D., a secret for over 20 years, even donning a wig for her author pics.
The Star Wars fanfic that started it all
“Head Over Feet” is an interesting fan fiction. To the uninitiated, reading about “Dr. Solo” and his dog “BeeBee” may seem a bit uncanny, but it follows a very established fan fiction structure, even occasionally getting a little meta. When Rey suggests fake-dating so she can help her best friend make a move on her ex and Dr. Solo can appear like he’s putting down roots, she even mentions how “fake dating” is a trope.
“A line appears between his eyebrows. ‘Why do you keep saying that?’
‘Saying what?’
‘Fake-dating’. Like it’s a thing.’
‘Because it is. Don’t you watch rom-coms? Or read Young Adult novels?’ Silence. ‘No fanfiction?’
Ben just stares at Rey with a puzzled expression, until she clears her throat and looks down at her knees. ‘Um. Right.’
Not an AO3 fan, clearly. God, they have nothing in common.”
One of the perks of fan fiction is how unique the language can get. These fanworks are not professionally edited; instead, they are often “beta-read” by other fan fiction writers. Because of this, the spelling and grammar are almost always impeccable, but there are some interesting style choices.
For example, Rey’s expletive of choice appears to inexplicably be “poop.” When she realizes she has feelings for Ben, she says “Poop. Poop, poop, poop—.” When she overhears some attendees gossiping about her at a conference, she escapes to her shared hotel room with Ben, thinking that “Ben witnessing all of this just enhances the poopyness of this poopy, poopy day.” Is it something that would be in a published novel? No, as evidenced by the fact that this doesn’t make the cut in The Love Hypothesis, but it does reflect the individuality of the author herself and, by extension, her version of Rey. Maybe she is a little naive, maybe she feels weird even thinking in explicit language; it may seem unrealistic, but it conversely actually comes across as more “lived in.”
The Love Hypothesis, The Novel
The original cover of The Love Hypothesis and the famous kiss between Kylo Ren and Rey in The Rise of Skywalker.
Lilith Saur/Penguin Random House/Lucasfilm
While The Love Hypothesis is almost a word-for-word adaptation of the original fan fiction, there are a number of key differences. Instead of following a standard fan fiction structure with a simplistic plot and plenty of cameos, The Love Hypothesis instead follows a romance novel structure. Gone are BeeBee and references to Dr. Holdo. “Rey” is now “Olive Smith,” and “Ben Solo” is now “Adam Carlsen.” And, alas, gone are all the “poops.”
There are some fan fiction elements that still shine through. While the reference to fan fiction itself was left on the cutting room floor, Olive still freaks out when she books a hotel room with Adam that there will only be one bed, a notorious fan fiction trope to force a will-they-won’t-they couple to do the deed.
But the biggest change is the conflict. In the fan fiction, Rey is thrown off by hearing some random scientists trash-talking her talk on pancreatic cancer research and calling her a diversity hire. In the novel, Olive reaches out to Adam’s longtime friend Tom about the possibility of continuing her research at his lab but is taken aback when he corners her and suggests that her work is merely mediocre.
The broad strokes of the fan fiction are there, but the action is beefed up just enough to keep readers interested in one setting instead of a number of shorter, serialized chapters, which perfectly leads the way for the final step in this story’s evolution: the movie.
The Love Hypothesis, The Movie
Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman in The Love Hypothesis; in real life, Bateman is married to Rey actress Daisy Ridley.
Prime Video
The Love Hypothesis movie, now streaming on Prime Video, stars Lili Reinhart as Olive Smith and Tom Bateman — the real-world husband of Rey actor Daisy Ridley — as Dr. Adam Carlsen. This irony is not lost on anyone involved with the production.
“It was completely bizarre,” Reinhart told People. “You can’t write that or plan that — that Tom is exactly the right person we were looking for to play Adam, and he just so happens to be married to Daisy. I would like to think that it was serendipitous and wonderful, but we’re just lucky to have found him because he’s perfect.”
The jump from fan fiction to novel is a lot more stark than the jump from novel to movie. All the same parts are there: a meet-cute involving expired contacts and a Stanford bathroom, the random kiss, the fake-dating pact, the villain, and the happily ever after. One of the only major changes is the simplicity of the subplot — Olive’s roommate Malcolm and Adam’s longtime friend Holden, the Finn and Poe analogs from the original fan fiction, end up together, and in the movie Malcolm just realizes that grad school isn’t for him. Tom is also made a bit more explicitly evil — he propositions Olive to sleep with him to advance her career — and the final conceit between him and Adam was cut.
Outside of its evolution, it’s a very serviceable rom-com, full of great chemistry, comfortably low stakes, and a steamy love scene. But with the added context of what came before, we can trace how stories grow and change from medium to medium and from different stages of mainstream acceptance. Without the confrontation, for example, it becomes painfully obvious that there’s nothing to this version of Adam’s past. What is his defining characteristic beyond being gruff and probably neurodivergent? It’s nice to get Easter eggs like how “Rey’s Theme” makes an appearance in the score, but in filing away the Star Wars elements, we lose some of the plot.
If it weren’t for fan fiction, Ali Hazelwood would still only be publishing papers on neuroscience, and those don’t really get adapted into crowd-pleasing movies. But because of this outlet, the literary world has a new science-romance maven, and Prime Video has another winning rom-com.
