'Rick and Morty' Creator Justin Roiland Doesn't Know Rick's Backstory, Contemplates a Movie During Reddit AMA

Justin Roiland, co-creator of Adult Swim's Rick and Morty, delved into the deep continuity of the series during a Tuesday Reddit AMA. In addition to the upcoming Season 4 of Rick and Morty, Roiland addressed questions about his newly released video game, Trover Saves the Universe and the possibility of a Rick and Morty movie.

When one questioner asked if we'll ever see a Rick and Morty movie, preferably "rated R" and "totally bananas," Roiland responded positively, though it seems a Rick and Morty movie isn't currently in the works. "I would love to do that, yeah," Roiland said. "Hmm. Hmmmmmm."

Roiland also addressed a handful of possibilities for the upcoming Rick and Morty Season 4, which will premiere in November. Specifically, he intimated fans will not likely see a return of Season 1 characters, like the family dog Snowball or Scary Terry, a Freddy Krueger parody.

"I would love to see Snowball again," Roiland said. "It's always just a matter of doing it for the right reason. Having the best story to tell, and not just fan service."

But more than looking forward, much of the Roiland AMA was about abstruse continuity questions, regarding events from Season 3. While Rick and Morty writers make up the storylines as they go along, fans expect consistency from the freewheeling sci-fi series. "Are you still trying to make a big interconnected and consistent in-universe?" one redditor asked, expressing concern about the "troubling implications" to be found in the Season 3 episode "Morty's Mind Blowers."

"Morty's Mind Blowers" reveals that Rick must often erase traumatic memories from his grandson's mind, which he keeps in a secret room off of his garage workshop. Similar to the "Interdimensional Cable" episodes from the previous two seasons, "Morty's Mind Blowers" was less about a coherent narrative and more an opportunity for Rick and Morty to riff on some of its weirdest and most outlandish ideas, which can be difficult to square with other narrative reveals from the series.

One sketch particularly troubled finicky fans, depicting Rick and Morty abandoning their dimension for a different one after Morty stumbles upon a secret conspiracy of ultra-intelligent squirrels. This would otherwise be a landmark event in the series, suggesting Rick and Morty have moved on from the dimension they settled after Rick unleashed a Cronenberg pandemic in their original Dimension C-137 (in the Season 1 episode "Rick Potion #9").

But Roiland had a convincing explanation for why fans shouldn't take any potential plot revelations from "Morty's Mind Blowers" too seriously. "Mindblowers was a sketch episode, and honestly... we don't know what Morty a lot of those memories were pulled from Ricks might even trade them with other Ricks. Like baseball cards."

Roiland offered a similar answer to a question about Rick's tragic backstory, which was shown in the Season 3 premiere, "The Rickshank Redemption," only to have Rick reveal it as a deception, meant to fool Galactic Federation interrogators. Did Ricks from other dimensions really kill his wife and daughter?

Ever since, viewers have wondered how much of Rick's origin story is actually true, even as Roiland and Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon have emphasized that there is no overarching plan for the series, or unrevealed backstory set in stone for Rick or Morty.

"No idea man," Roiland responded. "Seriously... it's Schrodinger's cat right now, in a closed box. We have not observed those particles yet."