Simon Pegg Says J.J. Abrams May Have Had Something Else in Mind for Reys Parentage

Pegg stirring the pot again...

First of all, sure, there certainly were many ideas for Rey's parentage. If J.J. intended some kind of notable lineage for Rey, he should have put it in his movie instead of creating the ultimate mystery box. At least hint at it so that the next filmmaker had no other option to choose.

Secondly, I don't get why J.J's "intention" is something we care about. J.J. wasn't meant to be doing VIII and IX. It wasn't part of his deal, so whatever Rian came up with is fair game. Rey Nobody doesn't contradict TFA, it only contradicts expectations. Continuity is intact.

All in all, I think J.J. will have no problems rolling with the current state of things, he's a professional. He should understand the position he's in. He's not coming back to his thing. He's basically coming to somebody else's franchise now. Regardless of whether or not you think it's a good move not to have one filmmaker outline the whole thing, that's what LFL decided on, so we have to look at it from that perspective.

 

2 things.


1st i thought pegg hated GL with all his anti PT talk, but it seems like he still loves him to death.

2nd daisy ridley already said that jj had plans for 8 & 9, but rian wrote his own story.

 

Good lord, do none of these people understand how writing works?

I'm sure at one point Rey did have parents.

Heck, at one point she was named Kira.

Things change. This is hardly Pegg confirming that Rian Johnson took JJ's script and burned it gleefully while chanting in some long forgotten language, vowing to ruin Star Wars forever.

It means that TLJ went through a pretty standard creative process.

Let's not sensationalize things, please.

 

Exactly.

And I think it's important to point out that of course that outline is subject to change, and likely has already changed pretty significantly.

But there are two strange assumptions a lot of fans are making regarding this topic that I simply do not understand or agree with.



1) The idea that no outline ever existed and that the trilogy is basically being ad libbed. This is absolute nonsense. I'm amazed that people honestly think that Disney greenlit a Star Wars pitch that had absolutely no plan to it.

Consider, for instance, The Walking Dead. Reportedly, the only reason the show was ever thrown into the already saturated world of Zombie Media is because apparently the series would end on a twist in which the virus had been sent to earth by aliens to prepare for a potential invasion. Obviously that wasn't the case and was simply added to the pitch to help ensure that it did get past that wall of already acknowledged Zombie Media, but the point is that even for a show like The Walking Dead, an initial outline existed, regardless of the fact that it's obviously been changed now.


2) The idea that Disney is purposefully and maliciously making sub-opimal decisions. Why would any company do this? There's no conspiracy theory for Disney to ruin your Star Wars, and implying that there is simply because you didn't like an episode is absolutely ludicrous and childish. No company wants to fail... this is just a really stupid theory.


Anyway, rant over.

 

Oh my guuursh, you guys. Anyone who would believe this quote from Pegg, is a dum dum. Amiright?
They're not nearly as smart as us. Amiright?
They just don't understand. Amiright?
Everything at Lucasfilm is 100% under control. No problems. No disagreements. No bad decisions. All their movies are the best movies of all time....am...i...right?

 

cawatrooper, et al.
Yes, it is insane and nonsensical, but that's what's happening by all the empirical evidence.
When we ask why such and such would happen in TLJ, the director says.... You just don't understand, and by the way, you are "such and such....."
It's like when Poe ask Holdo, "What is the plan?" Holdo says, "There is a plan, trust me. and if you don't, go sit in the brig."
If you think Holdo was right, then I guess those who really really understand TLJ should hyperspace into the minority that is the backlash.

 

Uh, actually, yeah. After everything, the guy who played Unkar Plutt knew one of the most burning questions in all of Star Wars, something even many more important actors in the franchise didn't know?

The hate bandwagon has entered the realm of adorable at this point.

Nope, no one is saying that. Just that we don't need a new conspiracy theory every week when someone tries to throw some fuel in the fire based on nothing more than speculation.

TLJ wasn't perfect. I'll admit that easily. But clawing at shadows like this just makes the critics of it who embrace these stories out to be pathetic.

You're right, it's just like that.

As a fan, you're much like a demoted Poe- you're not owed to know what the plan is. LFL will take care of it, you can be along for the ride.

Oh, and by the way, Poe was wrong. There was a plan. So that's actually a great analogy, friend.

 

Of course, I was just being obnoxious (and hilarious (and also adorable)), but why assume that Pegg is lying or has no idea what he's talking about, or he's just stirring the pot for kicks? It all comes across as, "the all knowing Lucasfilm would never let a mistake happen." Why not? This isn't about hating the movie...even though I'm not a fan of most of the movie. There just seems to be this attitude that Lucasfilm can do no wrong, and when some fans say "hey, that's dumb!", or "whoa, Lucasfilm has some issues", they get treated like idiots, because there's no way Lucasfilm has problems. That's how it comes across, anyway. Not putting words in anybody's mouth, just saying how it comes across to me, in general.

 

Even then, I don't think we need to assume Pegg is stirring the pot. As I explained above, he could've made some comment about early drafts of the trilogy that got taken out of context.

Now, as for the media perpetuating these out of context quotes... let's not pretend they wouldn't jump at the chance to sensationalize this.

Really, what I want is the context. I'm not saying it's totally out of the realm of possibility, but I'd take it about as seriously now as if Daniel Craig was quoted by Breitbart as saying that Oscar Isaacs and Laura Dern had a brief fling on set. It's simply too sensationalized to be taken at face value.

 

I believed for a long time that Rey was a Skywalker, especially after TFA, but I don't have a problem with her being a nobody. Also, I find it hard to believe that JJ and Rian weren't on the same page with this, considering Rey's the main character of 3 tentpole blockbusters. However, if JJ did have different plans...he should've ditched the stupid "mystery box" and put it in his film, bottom line.

 

At one point, she was a nobody.

OH HEY PAL.. THINGS CHANGE.

The problem here being that at some point, you can't really trust what you're told, as its constantly changing. At which point, no story is believed because the viewer has no trust at all in the makers. So I wouldn't be crowing too hard, the article is simply proposing that You're Next on the retcon train. And then whatever it changes to after that may be rolled over if it doesn't work. Its bs wrapped in a riddle stuffed inside an enigma.

In layman's terms, bad writing and bad movies. Eventually you piss everyone off. Al least Lucas only pissed off half the audience with the PT, with the kids and some people having apparently liked it.

TBH, even if they were to go to my pet theory for 9, I would likely piss all over it, because it would just be like repainting the canvas at this point. Nope... didn't like that picture... SCRUB... lets go!

 

I don't have any problem with Rey being a nobody. My problem with Rey is based on others. If you defenders of Rey as a character stopped for a sec and watched some videos of mindless entertainment on youtube, you would know where most of the backlash people are coming from. They are short videos.

I also agree that JJ should have ditched the "mystery box". But that's more evidence that the trilogy wasn't planned out. I am also wondering about the scene that Rian Johnson agreed to put in 8 at JJ's request. What scene was that?

Edit: Scum and Villainy
Exactly. Case in point. They told us they were not going to cgi Leia nor replace Leia with a new actress. But here we go people are approaching Meryl Streep. (I have no problem with Meryl Streep as an actress, nor with Meryl Streep replacing Fisher.). The problem is they lied, they lied to us.

Also KK was recorded on tape saying something like the important thing is that we will protect these characters when Disney bought Star Wars. So.... which characters exactly did you protect?

 

Don't you mean Trevorrow's request? That one is probably irrelevant now. We'll probably never know.

 

If Pegg knew exactly what JJ wanted exactly, he'd say as much he doesn't hold back. His answer sounds a lot like JJ's general take: a lot of questions had a lot of possible answers.
If JJ had his mind made up on something he should have put his ego in check and not made every single aspect of TFA a mystery box to complain about it later. He painted Rian into a corner with certain things and there are only so many ways.

I have no doubt JJ may have wanted her to be a Skywalker or Kenobi or Solo. But he left the door open in any direction.

I love what JJ was able to do with TFA and bring Star Wars back to the pop culture forefront, but I still tire of his damn mystery boxes

 

Think you have that backwards. JJ put a scene into 7 at RJ's request. IIRC, I think it was establishing R2 having gone to Ahch-to. That way he could do the scene with the original message from A New Hope.

And the mystery box setup was fine, it just doesn't work if you have unique snowflakes that go out of their way to be a sensitive arteest and do their Own Thing, all while being enabled by a woman I wouldn't trust to produce a 5 minute student film. If this bunch of films has proven anything, its that Kathleen Kennedy was the wrong person at the head of the ship. She makes the Captain of the Titanic look like a genius.

If anything, this has only reinforced the genius of Marvel and how if you're going to have a multi-movie overlapping IP, you'd better have a distinct clear vision with someone who can keep the trains on the tracks. People can hide their head in the sand all they want, this Kennedy tenure will be a case study in how *not* to do this type of thing. Its sad too, because 7 gave the set of films so much potential, but as we know... that was largely Iger and Abrams.

 

No doubt that outlines and story plans change over time. I was listening to a podcast with Kyle Newman as a guest and he seemed to hint that Rey's parentage was changed and/or removed from TFA in post production of that film. He pointed out the fact that the novelization of TFA (already being written during the film's post-production) includes Kylo saying something along the lines of "So, it is you!" and also a descriptive line saying that Leia gave Rey "a hug that only a mother could give her child." This also explains why in the film Leia is so fixated on Rey and (infamously) bypasses Chewie. Now, I fully admit that I have not read the novelization of TFA myself, so to me such comments could be just hearsay. Has anyone here read the novelization and can confirm?

It is highly possible that TFA had much more hints to her parentage going a certain way (or even revealed) that in post-production were changed per Rian's request to match the story that he wanted to tell. Whether that was a good or bad call, if true, is up for debate. I think most people acknowledge that story treatments and outlines change. I think that for a lot of people the difference is that it becomes upsetting when those changes start to be made once the ball has started rolling.

 

I suspect there was once a chance JJ could've had Rey in mind to be a Kenobi or Palpatine. The whole Skywalker/Solo ideas were off the table with TFA. They clearly would've discussed every possibility, but TFA rules out the Skywalker/Solo lineage - but let's not go there again. I think RJ did the right thing, whether planned or not - he wrote the most dramatic story he could based on where the story ended up at the end of TFA. But, if JJ finds a need to change part of it he could. It wouldn't be all that difficult to have her drunk parents be Kenobi's or Palpatine's - he or she being castaway themselves when Kenobi disappeared or the Empire fell. It might even explain why they were so horrible and reckless with their child?

Though there would need to be a strong reason for it other than: "Ah-ha! She's a Kenobi! That's nice."

Possible routes as far as I can see would be that:

• Rey Kenobi could enable a Kenobi spin off which then in turn develops Rey's origins. It may also develop further her link to Kylo Ren (the Kenobi/Vader bond).

• Rey Palpatine might offer a chance to add some tension to the story, with the audience wondering whether Rey will turn bad and follow in the evil footsteps of her father (if she was frozen in carbonite or created later as a test tube baby)/grandfather. It again would provide a link to Kylo Ren (Vader), further develop why she has such raw power (Dark Side midichlorian tampering anyone?) etc.

I actually would be for either one if done well. I love what RJ did and it certainly worked for Rey's character in VIII. But it might be that now she has conquered that demon (being alone, finding her own path etc), that it might make sense to throw another lineage based obstacle in her path...