Daisy Ridley addresses Rey’s lineage in The Rise of Skywalker

❘ Published: 2023-01-23T16:47:48

Disney/Lucasfilm

Daisy Ridley has been discussing the controversial decision made regarding Rey’s parentage in The Rise of Skywalker, stating that she likes where the story went.

Spoilers for The Rise of Skywalker to follow…

The final film in the so-called Skywalker saga, aka Episode IX, aka The Rise of Skywalker, divided fans through multiple narrative decisions. The most controversial of which was to make Rey a Palpatine.

We’d previously been led to believe that Rey was a nobody, whose parents were “filthy junk traders” that sold her off for drink money. Suggesting that anyone could be as powerful as Rey. Rather than the Palpatine revelation in the final film, that instead suggested that her bloodline is what made the character so extraordinary.

It made for a somewhat muddled end to the nine-film series, and four years on, Ridley is still being asked about this decision.

Daisy Ridley addresses Rise of Skywalker controversy

Rolling Stone posed the question while speaking to Ridley at the Sundance Film Festival, where she was promoting new film Sometimes I Think About Dying. The outlet asked if she felt that Rise of Skywalker effectively erased what had come before.

“Well JJ [Abrams] was the one who was like, she is of no one, so it wasn’t just The Last Jedi where that was the message,” came Ridley’s measured response.

“What was interesting about the last one, for me, was that you can be a hero and not come from anywhere or you can be a hero and come from literally the worst person in the world.

“You’re not your parents, you’re not your grandparents, you’re not your bloodline, and you’re not the generations before you. So I was always like, sure.

“But it’s beyond my pay grade. I say the words, do the thing. I do love the version of, you can be anyone you want to be, but I also love the version where you can rectify wrongs and can’t help what you are born into.”

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