Rian Johnson Says He's Fine If J.J. Abrams Retcons Rey's Parents Lineage In 'Star Wars: Episode IX'

“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” is the most hotly contested “Star Wars” film by a mile and perhaps one of the most controversial mainstream franchise tentpoles ever. Most of the drama around it, is fan-based, and has to do with some of the writing decisions and the big one seemingly about Rey’s parent’s lineage. J.J. Abrams set up something in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” about Rey’s parents and who they might be. This led to a lot of fan speculation and expectation: she had to be the daughter of someone famous within the saga, Luke, Obi-Wan, etc. etc.

But that seemed too obvious, especially given that “Star Wars” was already too conveniently closely-connected and insular, a strange six-degrees-of-separation writing that marred the prequel trilogy—Anakin created C3PO, Greedo and Anakin were friends as children, R2D2 was also Obi Wan’s droid as a young man, etc. Part of director Rian Johnson’s remit with the film seemed to be upending expectations, and the decision to go in a completely different direction and make Rey’s parents “nobodies” seemed like the absolute right narrative choice. A lot of fans disagreed, however, (though many loved the decision too), and even Simon Pegg once revealed—having heard a little bit of the original plan—that Abrams had larger, more-connected plans for the reveal of Rey’s parents’ lineage.

There’s been lots of rumors and speculation that J.J. Abrams will retcon or undo the decision made in ‘The Last Jedi,’ perhaps Kylo Ren, who revealed the information to Rey initially, was lying. Personally, I think that would vex a lot of fans, but there’s one person who seems fine with it: Rian Johnson.

“He can do… Like I said, man, I want to let go of all my expectation,” Johnson told MTV at CinemaCon this week when asked how he would feel if Abrams retconned or undid the story of who Rey’s parents are. “I want to sit back. I want to be entertained. I want to be surprised. I want to be thrilled. I want him to do stuff I wasn’t expecting him to do and just go along for the ride.”

So that’s that. Johnson is cool with it, so we may have to deal with it too should that be the case when all is revealed in December. As for Johnson’s own “Star Wars” trilogy, the filmmaker is currently working on “Knives Out,” a murder caper mystery that he promoted at CinemaCon starring Daniel Craig and an all-star cast, but his new Lucasfilm project is still in the works.

Johnson said he hasn’t submitted a script or story, but is just “working ahead on it,” while Lucasfilm works out where they want to place it on the release calendar. Johnson also briefly expressed his excitement for the “Star Wars” trilogy that’s about to come from the “Game Of Thrones” creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

“I’m also psyched about the things they are going to explore beyond what we’ve seen already,” Johnson said. “To me, that’s kind of the most exciting stuff is pushing the limits of seeing stuff we haven’t seen before in Star Wars.”

“Star Wars: Episode IX” is set for a December 20 release, and more will likely be revealed, including the official title, at Star Wars Celebration next week.

.@rianjohnson is just as excited for J.J. Abram’s #StarWars Episode IX as we are, and he tells us at #CinemaCon he hopes that the directors keep taking the universe to new heights: “I want him to do stuff that I wasn’t expecting him to do” pic.twitter.com/D7Jh5SqgeT

— MTV NEWS (@MTVNEWS) April 5, 2019