Star Wars: Rian Johnson Details His Early Ideas for Rey's Parents

CBR

Rian Johnson Reveals His Early, Wild Ideas for Rey’s Parentage

By Liam Nolan

Published Jan 26, 2018

Director Rian Johnson details some of the early possibilities that he entertained regarding Rey's parentage, and they're pretty out there.

Director Rian Johnson has detailed some of the more interesting -- and crazy -- ideas for the reveal surrounding Rey's lineage in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Johnson started by mentioning that while writing the film he created a file called the "Big Ass Document," which detailed all of the possibilities for Rey's parentage, including the upsides and downsides of each potential choice. "I honestly listed everything I could think of," Johnson told the /Filmcast Podcast. "Even awful possibilities where I said, 'This is not what we're going to do.' I mean the less silly one was, 'Is she a clone?' Anything that's a theory on Reddit now I guarantee was listed on that document."

"The silliest one was, 'Is she a robot,'" he continued. "Okay, we've seen a biomechanical realistic flesh hand on Luke, could the technology have advanced significantly in the 30 years, and then I just started laughing. Look forward to the 'Rey was almost a robot' headlines."

Johnson went on to explain that he made his final choice about Rey's parentage based on figuring out what would be the "hardest thing she could hear" and a desire to open up the world more by allowing the possibility that powerful individuals in the Star Wars Universe don't necessarily have to be related. Despite many fan theories positing that Rey may be related to Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and a number of other characters, The Last Jedi revealed that Rey's parents were nobody special, a choice that has received some backlash.

"It's really similar to the 'I am your father' scene, but with the inverse answer," Johnson said, reflecting on his final choice. "'I am your father' takes what could have been a very simple bad guy and suddenly turns him into something much more complicated. To do that with Rey, to give the audience and Rey that feeling of 'Oh no,' it had to be the opposite of that."

Written and directed by Rian Johnson, Star Wars: The Last Jedi stars Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, Daisy Ridley as Rey, John Boyega as Finn, Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron, Andy Serkis as Supreme Leader Snoke, Domhnall Gleeson as General Hux, Gwendoline Christie as Captain Phasma, Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, Lupita Nyong'o as Maz Kanata, Benicio Del Toro as ‘DJ’, Kelly Marie Tran as Rose Tico, Laura Dern as Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, and the late Carrie Fisher as General Leia Organa. The film is in theaters worldwide.

(via io9)