Bungling Genealogy is Just Part of Making 'Star Wars' Movies
2020 is basically a carnival spook house full of escalating awfulness, so sometimes what seemed annoying even just last year, has become oddly comforting today. Like, remember how people used to complain about Star Wars all the time? Yes, the movies were often frustrating, and the discourse became tiresome and occasionally toxic, but at least it wasn't... this. Recently, though, we got a fresh hit of 2019 nostalgia when everyone suddenly got pissed off at Star Wars again, which, frankly, was like a soothing balm of normalcy at this point.
In an interview with Josh Gad, Daisy Ridley confided that no one really knew what the hell was going on with Rey's heritage. Not only was she not always a Palpatine, but she also wasn't always a Palpatine during the making of The Rise of Skywalker. Before that, apparently, the writers toyed with the idea of having her be related to Obi-Wan Kenobi -- presumably because after years of devotion to the Jedi code led to a life as a fugitive desert hermit, he gave up on all that celibacy nonsense.
Sure it's frustrating to hear that a key mystery of the recent trilogy (one that was arguably resolved in the second movie) was managed about as well as Trump University, or Trump Steaks, or America. But perhaps we should accept that half-assed familial connections are as fundamental to Star Wars as monsters and space battles. Famously, George Lucas was always re-jigging genetic connections between characters while making the original trilogy. In early drafts of The Empire Strikes Back, the ghost of Luke's dad pops by at one point, and Luke's sister wasn't Leia, but some rando named "Nellith."
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Lucas seemingly even dropped a twist also involving Obi-Wan Kenobi. Either because it was in the original screenplay or because they were putting cocaine in the drinking water in 1980s Hollywood, the author of the Return of the Jedi novelization included a scene where Obi-Wan reveals that Luke's Uncle Owen was his brother.
Plus, Boba Fett and Darth Vader, too, were almost brothers, because the Star Wars universe is somehow more inbred than the dreary German village from Dark. So really, any example of behind-the-scenes sloppiness can be chalked up as a loving homage.
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Top Image: Lucasfilm
