(Photo: Getty Images)

J.J. Abrams seems to be getting a little giddy and loose-lipped, now that the weight of the world’s biggest movie franchise has been taken off his back. The Force Awakens director recently told reporters that he wasn’t going to share any of the details he knows about the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VIII, out of a courtesy to Rian Johnson, the next runner in the franchise’s grueling directorial relay race. But that assertion apparently didn’t factor in one Abrams’ one true weakness: a kid asking him point blank what’s going on with a major character.


Specifically, Daisy Ridley’s Rey, who the director was asked about yesterday during an appearance at the Tribeca Film Festival. When outright questioned by a young fan about who the character’s mysterious parents were, Abrams responded by saying, “Rey’s parents are not in Episode VII. So I can’t possibly say in this moment who they are. But I will say it is something that Rey thinks about, too.” And while he later clarified and / or backpedaled that statement by telling Entertainment Weekly that he was referring to the knowledge of Rey’s parentage not being in the film, and not necessarily the characters themselves, it still feels like he just blew up The Planet Of The Fan Theories with some sort of implausibly large, word-based superweapon. (Our personal belief, that Rey is the time-traveling space baby of Finn and Poe Dameron—thus continuing the franchise’s long-established tradition of retroactive and accidental incest—has now been utterly destroyed.)

In hindsight, we should have tried this whole “have a kid ask him” strategy on Abrams decades ago. We might have gotten a straight answer on Lost, or found out whether Felicity and Ben would ever find true love, way earlier than we otherwise did.


[via The Hollywood Reporter]