Rey’s parentage was a mystery throughout The Force Awakens and much of The Last Jedi, with the latter film eventually providing an unexpected answer. Per Kylo Ren, they were just “filthy junk traders, who sold you off for drinking money.” Case closed, with the reveal neatly underlining The Last Jedi‘s message that Jedi powers aren’t simply for those from special families.
And then came The Rise of Skywalker, which frantically backtracked on all that and informed a somewhat skeptical audience that Rey was actually from a huge Force-wielding family after all and was secretly *drum roll* Emperor Palpatine’s granddaughter. ]
Oh yeah, Palpatine is also back! He survived being thrown into a reactor core in a space station that promptly exploded. Don’t think about it too much!
Now fans on r/StarWars are wondering whether The Rise of Skywalker might have worked better if they’d ditched the Palpatine/Rey connection. A common thread throughout the replies is that prior to The Rise of Skywalker, they clearly had no intention of making Rey a Palpatine, with multiple posters saying it was obvious that Lucasfilm “pulled it out of their ass.”
Others say Rey being a Palpatine is simply recycling Luke’s original trilogy dilemma when he discovered Darth Vader was his father, though to much less successful dramatic effect.
Having Rey simply exist as her own person and prove that it doesn’t take magic blood to defeat evil would have been a better message, though it’s not like we can just pretend The Rise of Skywalker didn’t happen.
Let’s just hope the next time Disney and Lucasfilm set out to make a Star Wars trilogy, they plan out what’s going to happen ahead of time and stick to it.