Did Star Wars: The Last Jedi Reveal Rey's Parents?

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Did we finally learn the truth about Rey's (Daisy Ridley) parents? Star Wars: The Last Jedi included a moment between Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Rey apparently revealing her lineage, with Kylo telling Rey that her parents are nobodies, "filthy junk traders" who sold her for drinking money and are now dead in pauper's graves in the Jakku desert.

Some fans weren't buying the reveal, and while writer/director Rian Johnson couldn't say if it would stand come Episode IX, he did say that, as far as he's concerned, we know the truth. "For me, in that moment, Kylo believes it's the truth," Johnson told Entertainment Weekly. "I don't think he's purely playing chess. I think that's what he saw when they touched fingers and that's what he believes. And when he tells her that in that moment, she believes it."

Johnson said he thought long and hard about what could be the most "powerful answer" to the question of Rey's parents. "Powerful meaning: what's the hardest thing that Rey could hear?" he explained. "That's what you're after with challenging your characters." He said that he was inspired by the 'I am your father' moment with Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) and Luke (Mark Hamill).

"The reason I think that lands is not because it's a surprise or a twist but because it's the hardest thing Luke and thus the audience could hear at that moment," he explained. "It turns someone into a bad guy that you just hate and want to kill into suddenly, Oh my God, this is a part of our protagonist. We have to start thinking of this person in more complex terms. We need to start thinking in terms of a redemption arc."

For Rey, he said, the reveal had the opposite effect. "The easiest thing for Rey and the audience to hear is, 'Oh yeah, you're so-and-so's daughter,'" he said. "That would be wish fulfillment and instantly hand her a place in this story on a silver platter. The hardest thing for her is to hear she's not going to get that easy answer. Not only that, but Kylo is going to use the fact that you don't get that answer to try and weaken you so you have to lean on him. You're going to have to find the strength to stand on your own two feet and define yourself in this story."

The reveal was met with a mixed reception from fans, some of whom are hoping that it will be flipped by the time the new trilogy concludes. Johnson said he couldn't speak to what J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio would decide to do in Episode IX, which they are currently writing. "And there's always, in these movies, a question of 'a certain point of view,'" he added, bringing back Obi-Wai's Return of the Jedi advice to Luke (Mark Hamill) about his father.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is in theaters now.