Fired Star Wars Episode 9 Director’s Script Leaks & It’s Better Than “Rise of Skywalker”

If you were left feeling unsatisfied with the conclusion of the Skywalker saga, well you weren’t the only one. The sequel trilogy may not go down with as much disdain as the prequel trilogy but it won’t be praised like the original trilogy either.

Now the film’s original director, Colin Trevorrow’s script had leaked onto the internet and guess what, it’s way better than Rise of Skywalker. It even has a cooler name, “Duel of the Fates” after the iconic John Williams musical theme from Episode One, The Phantom Menace.

Writer-producer-director, Robert Meyer Burnett, reviews an early draft of Star Wars’ 9th episode entitled DUEL OF THE FATES … it’s the Star Wars finale that could have been. And much more! Plus reader letters, superchats and great conversation on ROBSERVATIONS (Episode #317). Check it out above.

Per Collider:

It had the opening crawl, the story arcs for Rey, Kylo, Finn, Poe, and even Rose Tico, and of course the ending. That video then made the rounds on reddit, and while fans were curious as to the veracity of the whole thing, sources familiar with Trevorrow’s script confirm to Collider that the plot details revealed in Burnett’s video line up with what was in that particular draft. TL;DR “It’s true. All of it.” The veracity of Burnett’s video was also independently confirmed by the folks over at The Playlist, if you need more convincing.

So was Colin Trevorrow’s Star Wars 9 very different from J.J. Abrams’ version of the film? Absolutely. Before we dig into specific plot points it’s important to keep in mind two things. 1. This draft is apparently dated December 2016, so there no doubt would have been further changes had Trevorrow remained onboard and 2. As we’ve seen time and time again, major changes can happen to a script once cameras roll. So there’s no guarantee that if Trevorrow had remained on Star Wars 9 that this is exactly what that movie would have been, but this does give us an idea of what Trevorrow was thinking for the direction of this particular story.

The opening crawl from the script—written by Trevorrow and Connolly—is as follows:

The iron grip of the FIRST ORDER has spread to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Only a few scattered planets remain unoccupied. Traitorous acts are punishable by death. Determined to suffocate a growing unrest, Supreme Leader KYLO REN has silenced all communication between neighboring systems. Led by GENERAL LEIA ORGANA, the Resistance has planned a secret mission to prevent their annihilation and forge a path to freedom…

The beginning of the film very much picks up from The Last Jedi in that the First Order has cut off all communication between planets in order to suppress a rebellion inspired by Luke Skywalker’s stand off at the Battle of Crait. So the spark of the rebellion did work in this version of the movie. In fact, the opening sequence of Duel of the Fates finds Finn (John Boyega), Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), and BB-8 stealing a Star Destroyer that’s chock full of Imperial weapons. During the heist, Finn sees a Stormtrooper with his helmet off that he recognizes, with his story arc in Duel of the Fates nicely concluding the one that began in The Force Awakens. Oh and Rose? Apparently front and center through the whole movie, which is a damn shame given that she’s completely sidelined in Rise of Skywalker.

In Trevorrow’s version, Rose and Finn are on a mission to Coruscant to ignite an ancient beacon in the old Jedi Temple, which will call the galaxy to war. They get imprisoned, Rose gets interrogated by General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson), and Finn leads an uprising of defecting Stormtroopers in a ground battle in the streets of Coruscant. At the very end of the movie, Finn and Rose lead a group of Force Sensitive youth to a remote planet where Rey is waiting to train the next generation of Jedi. And yes, “Broom Boy” is one of them.

As for Reylo, well, Kylo Ren still dies at the end of Duel of the Fates, but his arc in the film—as well as Rey’s—is completely different. For one, there’s no Emperor Palpatine. At the beginning of the movie, Kylo Ren has vanished off to Mustafar (Darth Vader’s lava planet) and is wallowing around in Vader’s old castle. There, he’s “haunted” by the Force Ghost of Luke Sykwalker (Mark Hamill’s return) and even fights a hallucinatory version of Darth Vader a la Luke’s fight in the cave. He comes into contact with the Sith teacher of Palpatine, Tor Valum, via an ancient Sith device as he’s trying to put an end to the Jedi and the Sith once and for all. But he’s bad, bad, bad in this version of the story—he’s gone full Heisenberg, so to speak.

Rey (Daisy Ridley), meanwhile, still believes there’s good in Kylo Ren and has teamed up with Poe (Oscar Isaac) to put an end to the Jedi/Sith in her own way—another story point this film picks up from the ending of The Last Jedi.

And Rey’s parents? Still nobodies (i.e. Rey is not a Palpatine), but Kylo Ren killed them at the behest of Snoke. Ouch. The finale of the movie finds Rey and Kylo Ren duking it out on the mystical planet Mortis, with Rey getting an assist from the Force Ghosts of Luke, Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor, presumably), and Yoda. The Jedi try unsuccessfully to bring Kylo Ren back to the light, but he’s too far gone and in the end he is “extinguished.”

This is honestly what many felt the crux of Episode IX should have been: the battle for Kylo Ren’s soul. Instead, Abrams and Co. decided to muddle everything up with this Palpatine nonsense, which is just unnecessary added external conflict that detracts from the emotional thrust of this trilogy.

This seems more in line with where the story was going instead of whatever Rise of Skywalker was. But at the time of Trevorrow being announced for Episode 9, his film, “The Book of Henry” not only fell flat with critics, but it also nearly crippled his creditability. Something Lucasfilm head honcho, Kathleen Kennedy, took notice of. After the divisive reaction to Last Jedi and the box office bomb of Solo, Kennedy showed she wanted to play it safe (maybe too safe) and just end the Skywalker saga as quickly as possible.

What could have been….