Obi-Wan Kenobi . . . you are not the father!
According to actress Daisy Ridley, her mysterious “Star Wars” franchise character, Rey, was once going to be a descendant of Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi, and not (spoiler alert) the villainous Emperor Palpatine, as revealed in “The Rise of Skywalker.”
But then the screenwriters started jerking around with her heritage.
“At the beginning, there was toying with an Obi-Wan connection — there were different versions — then it really went to it was no one, and then it came to Episode IX and J.J. [Abrams] pitched me the film and was like, ‘Oh, yeah, Palpatine is Granddaddy,’ ” Ridley, 28, told guest host Josh Gad on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday.
And it only got more jumbled from there.
“Then two weeks later, he was like, ‘Oh, we’re not sure,’” Ridley said. “So, it kept changing. So, then even as we were filming, I wasn’t sure what the answer was going to be.”
While her parentage was kept under wraps during the first two films, “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi,” the Rey Kenobi reveal was ultimately scrapped.
Of course, notoriously protective “Star Wars” fanatics were quick to post their combined outrage at the filmmakers on Twitter.
“Daisy Ridley was supposed to be Rey Kenobi, then Rey Nobody and then Rey Palpatine in the worst planned and written trilogy in the history of cinema,” one disgruntled fan tweeted. “Kathleen Kennedy, @rianjohnson and @jjabrams, everyday more proof is surfacing on how you blew it.”
“I knew this garbage wasn’t planned,” griped another Twitter user. “How can you play so fast and loose with a billion-dollar franchise? It’s inconceivable.”
“A very basic lesson in how not to tell a story ladies and gentlemen,” another tweeter chimed in, earning the immediate response: “How can something be this badly planned out? F–king hell.”
Ridley is just the latest featured franchise star to sound off about the sloppy treatment of their “Star Wars” character. British-Nigerian actor John Boyega fired off some racially charged statements last week in an interview with British GQ.
“They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley,” said Boyega, 28, who portrayed Stormtrooper-turned-Jedi Finn in “The Force Awakens,” “The Last Jedi” and “The Rise of Skywalker.”
He added that his on-screen “sidelining” came despite the fact that Disney pre-hyped his character as crucial to the plot. “[But] what I would say to Disney is do not bring out a black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side,” Boyega fumed. “It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.”
