This post contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Obi-Wan Kenobi's granddaughter. Considering Star Wars' classic familial tropes, it seemed to make sense Rey would be a descendant of someone audiences were familiar with.
Then, The Last Jedi happened. In Rian Johnson's film, it was revealed Rey is Palpatine's granddaughter, a frustrating retcon to the previous films.
Rey Palpatine Was Not Set Up By The Force Awakens
and even paid off the prequel trilogy). At the same time, there was a sense of randomness to the development, as neither The Force Awakens nor The Last Jedi even hinted Palpatine had somehow survived the Battle of Endor. The Rise of Skywalker reveals Palpatine was pulling the strings in the shadows all along (creating Snoke and the First Order), in an attempt to make things feel less sudden in regards to the sequels.
That's all fine and good, but it doesn't make up for the fact Palpatine's involvement in the sequels was omitted in the previous two films, illustrating the dangers of J.J. Abrams' mystery box approach to storytelling. If Rey Palpatine was what the trilogy was building towards, then there should have been clear set up for it in The Force Awakens. Instead, Abrams played up the secrecy, unveiling next to nothing about Rey's parentage in his first Star Wars film. Looking back, it feels like the director let intrigue get in the way of storytelling. As it stood, The Force Awakens left the question about Rey's heritage open-ended, smartly not boxing in Johnson as he took the baton for the trilogy's second installment.
Rey Palpatine Retcons The Last Jedi
Many people were angered by The Last Jedi's parentage twist, but in actuality, it doesn't contradict anything presented in The Force Awakens. As a matter of fact, Force Awakens s the belief Rey's parents are unimportant; Maz Kanata tells Rey that they're never coming back. In 2015, this felt like Abrams' way of telling the audience to not worry about where Rey came from or who her parents were. The Last Jedi built on that by outright saying Rey's parents were unimportant in the grander scheme of things. Kylo Ren told Rey that she had "no place in this story" because her origins were so unremarkable. But The Rise of Skywalker backtracks on all of this.
Rise of Skywalker tries to "from a certain point of view" its way around this issue by saying Rey's parents chose to live as nobodies in an effort to protect their daughter from the Emperor's clutches, but it doesn't really take. It's one thing to suggest the good man Anakin Skywalker was (symbolically) died when he became Darth Vader, but it's quite a leap to go from "You come from nothing" to Rey discovering her father was Palpatine's son. That, in essence, is something. It makes Rey the descendant of arguably the most powerful Sith in the universe and transforms her parents from degenerate drunks who threw her away like garbage into kind-hearted people trying to keep their child safe. Johnson's point that a hero can come from anywhere still stands (Rey rejects her evil biological family to become a Skywalker in spirit), but The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker appear at odds with each other. The former goes head first into the "nobodies" angle, while the latter opts for the legacy bloodline connection.
Rey Palpatine Has No Bearing On Rise of Skywalker's Plot
The hallmark of any great plot twist is it helps elevate the narrative and smartly recontexualizes what came before. Prior to Vader's revelation in The Empire Strikes Back, Luke held his father up as an ideal to strive towards and wanted to defeat Vader as a means of avenging Anakin. Learning the terrible truth behind his heritage drastically changed his outlook and altered his goals. In Return of the Jedi, Luke's mission is to being Anakin back to the light. "Rey Palpatine" tries to equal "I am your father" in shock value, but it fundamentally misses what helps a plot twist land with the intended impact. For starters, since Rey and Palpatine had no apparent connection before The Rise of Skywalker, the granddaughter reveal lacks weight. , Luke believed Vader had betrayed and murdered his father in A New Hope.
The Empire twist helped take Return of the Jedi to the next level, adding a deeper meaning to Luke and Vader's final lightsaber duel. Sadly, "Rey Palpatine" doesn't have the same effect on The Rise of Skywalker's climactic showdown. Whether Rey is Palpatine's granddaughter or not, her objective there is to destroy him and save the galaxy. Making Palpatine responsible for the death of Rey's parents is a good touch to give Rey some personal motivation, but there's still no need for the two of them to be related to each other. Star Wars canon's previously established Palpatine kidnapped Force-sensitive youngsters to conduct experiments on them. Rey could have easily been one of those random children Palpatine and his followers were after, and the broad strokes of The Rise of Skywalker's narrative remain the same, while The Last Jedi's reveals are still intact. Having Rey be a Palpatine feels like a last-minute attempt to appease the viewers who wanted Rey to be connected to someone important. That she's the Emperor's granddaughter doesn't change the trajectory of Rise of Skywalker's plot.
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There is something powerful in a story about a strong, good-natured woman rising above her dark heritage and becoming the hero who saves the galaxy once and for all. If that's what the sequel trilogy really is about, then it should have been a running theme through all three episodes, building up to a fight between granddaughter and grandfather. Even though Palpatine was allegedly the plan dating back to pre-production on The Force Awakens, the first two movies in the trilogy seemingly went in a different direction while hiding the Emperor for no discernible reason. That decision ultimately hurt the newer movies and their collective, overall narrative, robbing The Rise of Skywalker of some much-needed emotional resonance.
