At the climax of 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren famously tells Rey that her parents were nothing more than “filthy junk traders” who sold her off for drinking money.
The moment was a bold and deliberate subversion of the saga’s Skywalker-centric history that’s had the fans fighting ever since, but in a new TV spot for The Rise of Skywalker, we get the latest of many hints that director J.J. Abrams intends to walk back this divisive twist.
“I know who you are,” Kylo says through the speaker of his helmet. “I know the rest of your story.” We then cut to a shot of Rey against a desert backdrop, followed by the familiar sound of Palpatine’s laughter. And while filmgoers will presumably have to wait until next week’s release to find out what exactly the young Ben Solo is getting at here, any alteration to Rey’s previously humble origin story is sure to prove controversial.
Just a few weeks ago, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, actress Daisy Ridley suggested that not only are many fans “not satisfied” with the backstory offered by The Last Jedi, but neither is Rey herself, who’s apparently still trying to figure out where she comes from.
Indeed, by most accounts, Abrams had a very different vision in mind for Rey’s origins when he was working on The Force Awakens. And while plenty of viewers appreciated seeing a more democratic take on the Force that was less dependent on who everyone’s parents were, it looks the famously nostalgic filmmaker is hoping to extend an olive branch to the detractors.
Either way, you can expect the discourse to get pretty heated once Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters on December 20th.
