10 Biggest Star Wars Retcons
3. Rey's Parentage
The fact that the sequel trilogy didn't have a plan from the get-go meant that the movies didn't feel like a connected trilogy. Rather, it felt like each entry was made up on the fly - which is exactly what happened. Funny how that works, isn't it?
Along with those aforementioned Palpatine and Snoke retcons, this lack of planning was at its most evident with Rey's parentage, which was not only retconned between movies, but was also being changed while those movies were in the midst of production.
The identity of her parents was one of the big questions coming out of The Force Awakens, but all was revealed in The Last Jedi, where we learned that they were "filthy junk traders", who had sold her for drinking money. However, The Rise of Skywalker flipped the script by claiming that she was actually Palpatine's granddaughter, but according to Daisy Ridley, even that wasn't set in stone until deep into filming:
"It came to Episode IX and J.J. pitched me the film and was like, ‘Oh yeah, Palpatine is granddaddy.' I was like, ‘Awesome!’ And then two weeks later he was like, ‘Oh, we’re not sure.’ So it kept changing. Even as we were filming I wasn’t sure what the answer was going to be.”
The actress also claims that the filmmakers were toying with an Obi-Wan connection at one point too, before ultimately settling on The Last Jedi's "nobody" angle, and then changing their minds again while making The Rise of Skywalker.
The entire sequel trilogy is about Rey and her journey of discovery, so the fact that Lucasfilm didn't have a plan for that journey is frankly ridiculous.