I will give a few interview excerpts, bear with me:
Q: Was Rey’s fate already planned by J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan as soon as the idea of Episode VII became official ?
Daisy Ridley: Here’s what I think I know. JJ wrote Episode VII, as well as drafts for VIII & IX. Then Rian Johnson arrived and wrote TLJ entirely. I believe there was some sort of general consensus on the main lines of the trilogy, but apart from that, every director writes and realizes his film in his own way. Rian Johnson and JJ Abrams met to discuss all of this, although Episode VIII is still his very own work. I believe Rian didn’t keep anything from the first draft of Episode VIII.
Rian: JJ was really gracious, in just stepping back and giving us a blank slate to work with. The starting point was
The Force Awakens script, which is quite a big, expansive, wonderful starting point. In that way, we are drawing directly from his work. But from that point forward it was a blank canvas.”
In Last Jedi, we get the revelation that Rey is the child of no one of significant value. Can you talk about how you came to that conclusion?
Rian: That was like everything else in the movie, something that I came to through a process of breaking the story and figuring it out. The nice thing was I didn’t… I was very thankful there was no slip of paper that was handed to me that said Rey’s parents are so and so. The fact that I had the freedom to figure it out meant that for this story I could figure out the most dramatically potent answer to that question.
But you talked to J.J. [Abrams] about it.
Rian: I did yeah, oh yeah. Yeah. He didn’t, no, he didn’t dictate anything to me.
He didn’t have any idea?
Rian: Well, I don’t know. He might have had thoughts in his head who it was going to be, but he didn’t dictate them to me. He left it open, you know. First of all, I think I enjoy the notion of disconnecting the idea of tapping into this power in yourself and having it. I like the idea of disconnecting that from lineage. I think that feels “anyone can be President.” I think that’s kind of nice.
Rian: I honestly listed everything I could think of[
for Rey's background], even awful possibilities where I said, ‘This is not what we’re going to do.’ I mean the less silly one was, ‘Is she a clone?’ Anything that’s a theory on Reddit now I guarantee was listed on that document. The silliest one was, ‘Is she a robot?
Simon Pegg: I know what J.J. kind of intended or at least was being chucked around[for Rey's parents]. I think that’s kind of been undone slightly by the last one. There was some talk of a relevant lineage for her.
Mark Hamill: JJ had a much different vision for what was going to happen in VIII. The first thing I said to Rian was, "How are we going to explain me being in my Jedi ceremonial robes when I first meet Rey?"
JJ: I had a bunch of ideas from the beginning, back on VII, of where the story would go. I just never in my wildest dreams thought I would have a chance to execute them.
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I think this paints a pretty clear picture.