With “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” in theaters for two full weekends, co-writer Chris Terrio has opened up about some of the more controversial choices that his film makes, especially in regards to Rian Johnson’s ‘The Last Jedi.’ And for those that think Terrio and director JJ Abrams’ mission was to retcon the previous Episode, then you’re mistaken.
Speaking to THR, Terrio goes deep into dispelling the myth that ‘Rise of Skywalker’ retcons ‘The Last Jedi’ and is somehow a commentary on Rian Johnson’s film. In fact, as Terrio discussed, ‘Rise’ completely honors the choices made in the previous film and expands on some of them. Those who think otherwise are “missing the point.”
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**Spoilers ahead for ‘Rise of Skywalker’**
“Those people who see it as a meta-argument between J.J. and Rian are missing the point, I think,” said Terrio. “At the end of ‘The Last Jedi,’ Luke has changed. I think it would be a bad misreading to think that that was somehow me and J.J. having an argument with Rian. It was more like we were in dialogue with Rian by using what Luke did at the beginning of ‘The Last Jedi’ to now say that history will not repeat itself and all these characters have grown.”
One of the other major elements of Johnson’s ‘The Last Jedi’ that seems to be retconned in ‘Rise’ is the true nature of Rey’s ancestry. But according to Terrio, both he and Abrams felt that Rey’s story wasn’t done in ‘The Last Jedi’ and there should be more to the story.
“Rian’s answer to, ‘What’s the worst news that Rey could receive?’ was that she comes from junk traders, and that’s true,” the writer said. “She does come from junk traders; we didn’t contradict that. But when J.J. and I spoke, he said, ‘Well, what’s an even worse answer or elaboration of that news?’ And we thought the worst answer was that she descended from the family who are the enemies of her new family, her adoptive family.”
He added, “Therefore, at the end of the movie, when Rey declares herself a Skywalker, that felt like the end of that conversation, which is to say that you get to choose your family, and really, you get to choose your ancestry.”
Of course, the further explanation of Rey’s origins also cut into the whole democratization of the Force, which seemed to be a theme of ‘The Last Jedi.’ However, Terrio thinks that thematic element is still alive and well.
“Rey descending from a Palpatine doesn’t negate the idea that kids with brooms, Finn and any other number of people in the galaxy can be strong with the Force,” he explained. “It just so happens that this young girl that we found in ‘Episode VII’ — which really has the structure of a fairytale — is royalty of the Dark Side.”
Terrio added, “We couldn’t agree more with the debate about the democratization of the Force, but for purposes of this story, we thought that it was a more interesting and mythic answer if it turned out that Rey descended from one of the families that has been at the center of this whole saga the entire time.”
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A final issue that many people had with ‘Rise’ that seems to have its origins in ‘The Last Jedi’ is how the finale treats the character of Rose Tico. And while we’ve heard other explanations for why Rose has such limited screen time, Terrio said there were scenes that were cut, but it wasn’t intended to sideline Rose.
“There were a couple of scenes that we shot with Rose that I wish had made it to the final cut,” Terrio explained. “But it’s the nature of the process that certain scenes fall out of the film, and I very much respect the difficulty of the decisions J.J. had to make — especially given that I know for a fact that J.J. adores and respects Kelly and would have loved to keep every second he shot with her in the film.”
Obviously, even with these explanations (and the further details in the full interview), there will be plenty of “Star Wars” fans that won’t believe what Terrio said. However, it does appear that he and Abrams did want to honor as much of ‘The Last Jedi’ as possible even if it meant seemingly contradicting it.