This is the real truth. Rian Johnson wasn’t so much interested in narrative cohesion or logic, as he was just creating ‘twists’ and ‘surprises’ for the sake of it. You see it over and over again in The Last Jedi. He’s admitted as much in comments he’s made after the film came out.
Which is fine, but I think means the impact of the film will be short lived, and won’t be seen as an essential, timeless entry of the saga going forward.
Also, let’s not forget that Rey’s backstory is being made up on the fly by each director, for each film. Kennedy, Abrams and Johnson have all repeatedly said there is no overall arc to the trilogy or bigger narrative at play. These are three standalone films featuring the same characters, and each writer-director starts with a blank piece of paper and writes what they want.
For example, Abrams’ Rey is very different to Johnson’s.
In Force Awakens we pointedly do not get a surname for Rey, and a lot of the film is taken up with her situation on Jakku, which she is reluctant to leave as she is waiting for her parents to return. When she meets BB8 her line of dialogue is:
“Classified? Me too. Big secret.”
Later she has a Force-vision where her abandonment on Jakku is mixed in with scenes of Luke Skywalker and the destruction of the Jedi temple.
People are saying the identity of her parents is not mysterious because Johnson changed her backstory, not because it isn’t presented that way in Abrams movie.
And it’s a fairly obvious ‘twist’ to play off Empire Strikes Back, where Luke finds out his father is the most important guy in the universe. It’s only a hop-step-and-a-jump to imagine Johnson would want to invert that – and my prediction was absolutely correct. However, 2 issues still remain:
1) The person you hate and distrust the most in the galaxy says your parents are nobodies. Why would you believe him? Further more, even if he’s right that they weren’t important to the galactic struggle, wouldn’t you get a bit defensive? Imagine that was said to you. Would that statement make you want to find out who they were any less.
It’s almost like Johnson has fallen into saying only important parents are worth knowing. Yuck.
2) Johnson has already stated that nothing is decided yet about Rey and Abrams is free to throw his ideas away and create another new backstory for the main character of the final Star Wars trilogy.
What a mess.
