Wait. Rey’s Grandpa Is Also Her Dad? What IS This, Star Wars!?
Make it stop.
(Lucasfilm)
Sigh. I guess we’re all, technically, part of our own fathers, but Rey’s father has a little bit too much of a connection to his own father … In our ongoing series of “Lucsafilm, please stop,” it seems as if the novelization of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is just serving to frustrate us further. When the movies’ sequel trilogy started, it erased all the Expanded Universe of Star Wars that already existed, meaning my sweet Solo twins were now just a distant memory and now, instead, we get … whatever this is.
According to ScreenRant, it’s been confirmed that Rey’s father is a failed clone of Emperor Palpatine. So … when Palpatine said he was her grandfather … he was also technically her father? What’s the deal with clone mating? The entire idea of Palpatine either getting down and nasty with someone after his lightning accident with Mace Windu … or, I guess, cloning himself and then failing at it to the point where he just has a “son” out in the world who then goes to marry and mate with Jodie Comer is nonsense.
To me, Lucasfilm was worried that the EU would make it so that all the mystery of Star Wars was taken away (or maybe Disney was just afraid of paying those writers to adapt their work). Here’s the problem, though: Truly no one cared about the EU outside of the most hardcore Star Wars fans. I say this as someone who has explained Mara Jade and Jaina and Jacen Solo to people frequently.
Clearly, director J.J. Abrams and company were not afraid to pull from the EU when crafting the sequel trilogy, because Ben Skywalker is a very real character who is Luke Skywalker’s son—whose name makes more sense in the EU, since Luke Skywalker actually cared about Obi-Wan, unlike Leia, who only knew that he was meant to help her. ANYWAY, the entire thing is truly laughable.
If Spotify existed in the Star Wars universe, I just assume that this is what Rey listens to while trying to process all the information she got in The Rise of Skywalker. Especially the chorus which says “I’m my own grandpa” multiple times. That’s Rey.
Why not just let her be Rey from nowhere? Why not actually let her be Leia’s daughter? Instead, you had to make her powerful because she’s the daughter of a clone of Palpatine? WHY? It, in a lot of ways, feels like an excuse to get to play with Palpatine for no reason and to give Rey an unnecessary backstory connected to a man.
You know, instead of her just being a very powerful Jedi all on her lonesome.
Also, let’s talk about this thrusting that goes on. In the novelization, it states that Palpatine “thrusts” his consciousness into a clone body …
(Lucasfilm)
So while Palpatine was out here thrusting, one clone didn’t take too well to a thrust, and thus we have Rey? Dear lord, how can we stop them from talking about Star Wars? I take it all back. I’ll let Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus endless explain the decisions they made in Avengers: Endgame in exchange for never getting any more Star Wars explanation ever again. This explanation of Rey’s backstory that no one wanted? Bad make it stop.
Will we ever be free from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker? No.
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