It sorta feels like reopening an old wound to post anything about the most recent Star Wars trilogy now. Less than a year out from The Rise of Skywalker and nobody really wants to talk about them anymore because conversation always goes the same way. You either loved what Rian Johnson and hated JJ Abrams’ stuff, or vice-versa. Characters you loved were probably caught up in their creative crossfire, and we’ve already heard what John Boyega has to say about what happened to Finn. Well, now it’s Daisy Ridley’s turn to talk about the shitty treatment Rey got.
Josh Gad is one of the hosts filling in for Jimmy Kimmel while he’s away, and he scored an interview with Ridley. He asked her about the reveal that Rey is actually the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine, a revelation some saw coming, but made no fucking sense whatsoever because of the sloppy storytelling across three movies.
Ridley makes it clear that the reason it came across as messy is because…well, it WAS messy, and they had no idea what was going on with Rey from one movie to the next.
“At the beginning, there was toying with an Obi-Wan connection,” Ridley said. “There were different versions, and then it really went to she was ‘no one.’”
“Then it came to ‘Episode IX’ and J.J. [Abrams] pitched me the film and was like, ‘Oh yeah, Palpatine’s granddaddy.’ And I was like, ‘Awesome.’ And then two weeks later he was like, ‘Oh, we’re not sure.’ So, it kept changing. So, then I was filming and I wasn’t sure what the answer was gonna be.”i
Look, I’m not going to dwell on this. Lucasfilm fucked up by letting two very different filmmakers, along with different writing teams, work on what should’ve been a cohesive story. Hopefully, lessons have been learned.
