Star Wars Writer Chris Terrio Denies Rise of Skywalker Retconning The Last Jedi

Star Wars fans might see some of the choices that J.J. Abrams made in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker as a direct response to the backlash against Star Wars: The Last Jedi, however, Episode IX co-writer Chris Terrio insists that he and Abrams had no intention of retconning whatever Rian Johnson worked on in Episode VIII.

Speaking in an interview with The Wrap, Terrio denies the accusations that there's a rivalry between the Star Wars sequel trilogy's two directors, saying that critics who believe The Rise of Skywalker to be the response to The Last Jedi are pretty much "missing the point."

According to the screenwriter, Rise of Skywalker was about "taking the ideas that came from [The Last Jedi] and trying to complicate them and develop them and to have some new surprises."

One of the main issues fans had with Episode IX was that the movie decided to turn Rey (Daisy Ridley) into the granddaughter of Palpatine, a move away from the explanation of the character's origin in The Last Jedi.

Terrio defends Rey's new parentage, saying that it "doesn't detract at all from the democratization of the Force," at all.

"This idea that the royalty of the Dark Side was put in a basket and floated down the river, to then grow up in the most improbable of circumstances and then finally to be offered the throne, felt extremely strong to us," he said, adding later, "We thought that was a more dramatically interesting predicament...not only that everything is resolved and that Rey is at peace with her past, but that she has even worse information than [in The Last Jedi.] So I think it's a development of dramatic ideas, and it's not a rejection. And I think that when critics try to act as though our film is some sort of spat between two directors, they're not understanding how writers think."

While Terrio might defend The Rise of Skywalker's choices, we understand why fans would believe that The Rise of Skywalker made tweaks to the direction taken by The Last Jedi. The film's "dramatic" ideas still seem to retcon the choices made by The Last Jedi, though Abrams says that he had conversations with Johnson about Episode IX.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is screening in cinemas.

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