When Star Wars: The Last Jedi is released, it’s going to be a little like Rey Groundhog Day. We’ll either find out who her parents are – or we’ll find out that we have another two years of speculation on our hands.
Image: Disney
Daisy Ridley already knows. She has known for a while and is not shy about saying that. The story goes that J.J. Abrams let her in on the secret, even though the information wasn’t in The Force Awakens. However, because it isn’t in that movie, The Last Jedi writer-director Rian Johnson wasn’t beholden to anything and was given free reign over the story. And that included potentially deciding who Rey’s parents are or, surprisingly, if he needed to reveal that information at all.
“I wasn’t given any directive as to what that had to be,” he told Rolling Stone. “I was never given the information that she is this or she is that.” Ridley added, “I thought what I was told in the beginning is what it is.”
So, someone isn’t telling the truth, right? And, in the aforementioned Rolling Stone piece, the reporter surmises that it’s Johnson.
The idea that Johnson and Abrams somehow landed on the same answer does seem to suggest that Rey’s parents aren’t some random, never-before-seen characters. All that said, Abrams cryptically hints there may have been more coordination between him and Johnson than the latter director has let on, so who knows what’s going on here – they may be messing with us to preserve one of Abrams’ precious mystery boxes.
At this point, the only person who has something to lose by telling the truth is Johnson. Because, if he says he knows who Rey’s parents are, but was also given a blank slate with the film, he’d be subtly confirming that information is in the film. And he can’t do that. So that’s probably the most likely scenario. Abrams had some thoughts about it, Johnson concurred, Abrams told Ridley, and maybe we find out on December 14… or in 2019 when it absolutely needs to be wrapped up. And yet, in the world of Star Wars, Yoda put it best: “Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.”
If you haven’t yet, you have to read that full Rolling Stone feature, linked below. It’s great.