The Rise of Skywalker has been out a few weeks now and pretty much everybody has an opinion about it. One thing that has been a major talking point is the lack of appearance of the random Force users that are shown to exist in The Last Jedi, including the famous 'broom boy'. These Force-sensitive folks seemingly need no affiliation with a famous bloodline to gain their powers, and The Rise of Skywalker writer, Chris Terrio, has responded as to whether they still exist despite not appearing in the Skywalker saga finale.

"Of course. Hopefully, the film also suggests that Finn is discovering that he is a Force user and is Force strong. Finn feels the death of Rey, and in a crucial moment during the battle, Finn senses the command ship where the navigation signal was coming from. So, we wanted to begin to plant the idea that Finn is Force strong and that there are other people in the galaxy who are Force strong.

Yes, of course, the galaxy is full of Force users like Broom Boy, and you don't have to be a Skywalker or a Palpatine in order to be strong with the Force. But Luke does say very explicitly in Return of the Jedi, 'The Force is strong in my family,' and we know that there is an inherited element to Force power."

The Rise of Skywalker did indeed strongly suggest that Finn is one of these broom boys and girls that is able to use the Force, with that supposedly being what he was going to tell Rey. Though that could have also been that she had something in her teeth. Terrio goes on to explain why Rey had to be a Palpatine in order to best bring the nine movie story to a satisfying conclusion.

"So, considering that this was a story of the Palpatines and Skywalkers, at least these nine movies, we decided to focus on the family part. Rey descending from a Palpatine doesn't negate the idea that kids with brooms, Finn and any other number of people in the galaxy can be strong with the Force. It just so happens that this young girl that we found in Episode VII - which really has the structure of a fairytale - is royalty of the Dark Side.

What we discover in this movie, and hopefully in retrospect, is that she's essentially a princess who's being raised as an orphan. The idea that this royalty of the Dark Side would be found as a scavenger in the middle of nowhere, literally living off the ruins of the old war that was created by her ancestors, felt really strong to us."

Many fans have felt that these decisions taken by Terrio and his co-writer J.J. Abrams have in some way retconned or undone the work of director Rian Johnson in The Last Jedi, but Terrio rejects this idea, clearly stating that Rey's origins do not negate that there are random Force users out there in the galaxy.

"We couldn't agree more with the debate about the democratization of the Force, but for purposes of this story, we thought that it was a more interesting and mythic answer if it turned out that Rey descended from one of the families that has been at the center of this whole saga the entire time. In the end, the film asserts that there are things stronger than blood because she chooses a different family for herself."

Whatever you think about the way the story plays out, Terrio clearly wanted to do what he thought was best in order to wrap up the Skywalker saga, whilst honouring the movies that came before. This comes from The Hollywood Reporter.