Just don’t know to be honest, its been shown since star wars 77 and especially over the last two movies that its really being changed and evolving on the move. ie:It really didn’t have an arc. Each movie is being written on the fly. I really think that’s why that scene was thrown on the end of Solo.
But what do I know?I wouldn’t necessarily say that the sequel trilogy is being changed in between films. I believe that J.J. set up that Rey’s parents were nobody, and that is something that Rian Johnson carried over into The Last Jedi. I also think that J.J. intentionally also set up the romantic relationship being developed between Rey and Kylo Ren.
Let’s take a look at what Rian himself has had to say on the matter:
So what are the train tracks when you set out to write? Presumably, you can’t kill off half the cast, or have them all form a jazz ensemble and leave this life of adventuring behind.
RJ: Maybe not the jazz thing [laughs]. But you can kill off whoever you want. I don’t know. I’ll give the caveat that I was coming into it wanting to make something that felt like Star Wars. It’s not like I was approaching it like, “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if we painted the Millennium Falcon purple?” That having been said, we do go places in this movie that felt like we were taking some risks. We were following the characters in the way that seemed natural to me, but it led us to some surprising places.
Again, there was never a feeling of us being policed back into a lane. If anything, the danger was in me self-policing out of fear of, Am I allowed to do this? When I would check in with the story group at Lucasfilm, really what I found is that they would be the ones encouraging me to go for it. They would say, “Oh that’s really weird; oh my god, you have to try that.” If anything, they were protecting me against self-editing or holding back out of fear.
Is there an overarching plot for where the trilogy goes? You obviously have The Force Awakens as a jumping off point, but is there a place you need to get to, in order to set up J.J. Abrams’ Episode IX?
RJ: Not really. That’s what’s been really cool about the storytelling process. There is definitely the idea that we know it is a three-movie arc. We know the first film is an introduction, then the middle act is training, meaning challenging the characters. The third is where they all come together and you have to resolve everything.
But I was truly able to write this script without bases to tag, and without a big outline on the wall. That meant I could react to what I felt from The Force Awakens, and what I wanted to see. I could make this movie personal. I could also just take these characters where it felt right and most interesting to take them. I think part of the reason the movie feels like it goes to some unexpected places with the characters is that we had that freedom. If it had all just been planned out and written down beforehand, it might have felt a little more calculated, I suppose.
I went through all the possibilities of who her parents could be. I made a list, with the upsides and downsides. There were two things about this option that made it feel right to me. Firstly. I like the idea that we’re breaking out from the notion that the force is this genetic thing that you have to be tied to somebody to have. It’s the ‘anybody can be president’ idea.
I don’t think he’s lying in that moment — I think he is like telling what he saw and I think that Rey seems like she believes it in that moment. So for me, I wrote it as an honest revelation and as an honest kind of reaction to it, as opposed to a move in a game of chess. Now as we know in these movies, you know the whole idea of a certain point of view comes into play and as you know I’m not involved in writing the next movie. JJ [Abrams] and Chris [Terrio] are writing it so, I want to make it clear I’m not sure how it’s going to get resolved.
I highly recommend anyone interested to give the full Empire Podcast interview a listen. He really gets into the weeds about his decisions writing the film.