Full Breakdown of Colin Trevorrow’s Star Wars: Episode IX Story
Have you ever wondered what might have been? From George Lucas’ original Star Wars to Michael Arndt’s Episode VII, creating a Star Wars movie is an ever evolving process. Whilst Colin Trevorrow and his writing partner Derek Connolly received a story credit for The Rise of Skywalker, J.J Abrams and Chris Terrio have confirmed that they essentially started from scratch when they came aboard. So how different would Trevorrow’s version have been? Now, the details of Trevorrow’s Episode IX have been revealed, and we have a rare chance to see what might have been.
The revelations come courtesy of Robert Meyer Burnett, who received a copy of Trevorrow’s script and broke it down for fans on his YouTube channel over the last few days. All of the details below come from his two videos which you can watch here and here. Multiple sites have been able to confirm that this is the real deal, so this truly is it, Colin Trevorrow’s Episode IX.
So let’s get right into it.
The script is dated 12/16/2016 so this comes from before Carrie Fisher passed away.
STAR WARS
EPISODE IX
DUEL OF THE FATES
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….
Trevorrow’s take opens at the shipyards of Kuat where the First Order is building a fleet of Star Destroyers on the backs of an oppressed work force. It sounds like construction takes place, at least partially, on the moon and the completed Star Destroyers are then fuelled at on orbital ring connected to the moon via an elevator that transports raw ore up the fleet. We’re dropped straight into the action with Rose Tico and BB-8 infiltrating the moon. BB-8 is even painted like a First Order droid for the mission. Finn and Poe are infiltrating another section of the shipyard.
The plan is to use the elevator to the orbital ring to jam things up and blow up the shipyards and the First Order’s new fleet. Burnett calls the dialogue “incredible” and “very Star Wars“. There’s fan service, such as Poe saying “Okay, let’s blow this thing and go home”, but according to Burnett it works well. What doesn’t work well is the heroes’ plan. The First Order is on to them and the blast is contained. They are captured by (or captured and brought before) a new character called Admiral Vaughn who tells them their “outdated tactics are pitiful.”
It sounds like here is where Rey makes her entrance, casting off a Tusken Raider disguise and igniting a double bladed lightsaber staff forged from the remains of the Skywalker lightsaber and her staff. Children in the workforce are awed and recognise her as a Jedi. Burnett doesn’t say it, but the fact that there are children in the work force and Rey was able to disguise herself as a Tusken Raider suggests to me that the First Order is using slave labor, which certainly fits with Burnett’s description of the workers being oppressed and the opening giving a sense of how the galaxy is under the First Order.
Thinking on their feet, the Resistance heroes come up with a new plan – steal a Star Destroyer! Burnett says the sequence really feels like Star Wars, calling it reminiscent of Han Solo’s rescue at the start of Return of the Jedi as the team battle their way across the shipyards and take off with a new Eclipse-class Star Destroyer.
As the heroes make their escape, a new ship arrives. The Knife 9. The ship belongs to the Knights of Ren, and they are not happy with Vaughn’s failure to capture the Resistance infiltrators. After demanding answers from him, Ataska Ren kills him.
The story then cuts to Coruscant. The former capital of both the Republic and Empire, last seen celebrating after the battle of Endor, is no longer the vibrant city we knew. New structures, including a First Order citadel, have been built atop the old skyline whilst the people are crushed under the boot of First Order rule, scavenging to survive in the planet’s lower levels. General Hux, now Chancellor Hux, is addressing the people. They have caught a traitor, Bis Cova, guilty of aiding the Resistance in stealing the Star Destroyer from Kuat. Hux has Cova executed by a light bladed guillotine for his crimes.
Hux and Commander Selleck then proceed to meet with a group of warlords in a scene that Burnett describes as reminiscent of Imperials meeting on the Death Star in A New Hope). The warlords are allies of the First Order and they demand to know where the Supreme Leader is. Where is Kylo Ren? Hux cannot tell them. All he knows is that Ren is searching for something.
Ren’s search has led him to Mustafar and the temple of Darth Vader. He is sporting a beard of stubble and has clearly been searching for a long time, a Darth Maul inspired droid his only companion. At least the only one he wants.
“This is where the dark path leads. An empty tomb.”
Luke Skywalker is also with him. Haunting him, trying to convince him to return home to Leia. Kylo is quick to retort “And where did your path lead? You’re a ghost.” Luke tells his former student that he knows he still feels hollow despite the strength that Snoke promised him. In return, Kylo tells Luke he will become more powerful than any Jedi, even him. It’s a line strikingly similar to Anakin’s own declaration in Revenge of the Sith.
Inside the temple, Ren finds a Sith holocron and a message from Emperor Palpatine to Vader. It’s a message instructing Vader to take Luke to the Remincore system should he succeed in striking Palpatine down. There they will find Tor Valum, the “Master of the Sith” who instructed Palpatine. It’s an interesting choice of words, but Burnett does clarify in his second video that Valum is not an actual Sith Lord. At this point, the holocron scans Kylo and realises he is not Vader. It blasts him with red lightning, causing him to scream in agony as the dark energy spreads over him.
Here we cut to the Resistance base on Koralev where Leia can feel her son’s pain. Chewie and Lieutenant Connix are with her and tell her that the team has returned. They’re all shocked when the Star Destroyer lands at the base. Rey has mind tricked the First Order troops on the bridge and Leia has them led away, leading to what Burnett describes as a funny scene between Leia, Poe, and Rose as they try and explain how they stole a Star Destroyer.
As Poe and Rose debrief with Leia, Rey confides in Finn that she doesn’t think she can live up to people’s expectations now that she’s being recognized as a Jedi. When Finn asks if she can still sense Kylo, she confides that she is having nightmares and tells him, “Every night I wake up screaming … there’s something between us and I can’t explain it.” Finn encourages her to shut him out, saying he’s too far gone to change. But Rey believes there is still hope for Ben, telling Finn that he showed her it’s never too late to change.
At this point, the Resistance realizes that the Star Destroyer is full of weaponry and vehicles. All they need now is an army to use them.
Studying the Jedi texts she recovered from Ahch-To, Rey discovers that there is a communications system from the Old Republic located under the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Connected to fifty other worlds, she believes they could use it to send a signal asking for aid – a Force beacon. Finn doesn’t believe a system that old could still work, but Poe tells him that Old Republic technology is way better than the junk we have today, and best of all, the First Order won’t be able to block it as it predates their technology. It’s a long shot, but as Rey observes, “Hope is all that we have left.”
Ahead of the mission, Rey continues her Jedi training. Luke appears to her, pushing her to become stronger in the Force.
Meanwhile, Kylo Ren has arrived back on Coruscant. He’s badly injured following the blast from the holocron, his face deformed like Palpatine’s. He’s having Mandalorian armor smelted to his face. Once this is done, he dismissively confronts Hux, telling him “I don’t need titles.”
Back on Koralev, Rey is arguing with Luke. “Balance? The dark suffocates the light, light extinguishes the dark. Over and over and over. How is that balance in the Force?” When Luke says he knows that anger, both he and his father had it, Rey retorts with “So says my Master. And his Master before him. A thousand masters so eager to tell us how to live.”
The next exchange is interesting and looks to build off some of the themes and dialogue from The Last Jedi and carry them through to set up the finale here.
Rey: I’ve spent my whole life wanting a family. I’ve got one now. I won’t abandon them.
Luke: The Force is speaking to you.
Rey: Maybe I’m not who the Force thinks I am.
Luke: Who are you?
Rey: I am no one.
Luke: If you really believe these things then maybe the last Jedi is dead.
Rey: Maybe he is.
On Coruscant, Kylo tells Hux that he has to leave. He again shows his disdain for Hux, telling him that he has no need for grand displays or titles. When Hux asks if Kylo found the power from the Sith texts he replies that it is within his reach and that “the ability to destroy a planet will be insignificant.” His final instruction to Hux is “Find the Resistance. Wipe them out. And leave the girl to me.”
Before leaving, Ren has one last conversation with Vader’s mask. Telling his grandfather he understands him now, his weaknesses and his pain. “You allowed love to cloud your judgment,” he says, before throwing the helmet from the balcony to shatter on the streets below.
On Koralev, the heroes are ready to set off on their respective missions. Before she leaves, Rey has one last conversation with Leia. Rey is lost. She doesn’t know what her path is, she doesn’t truly know who she is, but she still tells Leia that she thinks she can save Ben. Leia sadly tells her “I believed that once, like you … There’s good in all of us, but the boy I knew is gone.” As Rey leaves, Leia offers her one more piece of wisdom:
“My whole life I’ve heard about balance. I don’t even know what that means. You’re not like my father or my brother, you’re new. Whatever happens Rey, remember the Force chose you. You’re story isn’t written by anyone else.”
From here, the story follows multiple threads, cutting between each as it builds towards the finale. Kylo Ren travels to Remnicore, seeking out Tor Valum. Rey, along with Poe, Chewie, and BB-8 goes in search a of seer who can help her discover her path. Finn, Rose, Artoo, and Threepio set off for Coruscant to light the Force beacon below the Jedi Temple. And Leia seeks out old allies of her own.
Kylo Ren arrives on Remnicore, a world Burnett describes as feeling similar to Exegol. As Kylo makes his way into a stone fortress, he is surrounded by death, the remains a of a great battle from centuries past. A reminder that whilst the Jedi pass into the Force, the Sith do not. Inside the fortress, in a chamber filled with the parts of broken starships, he meets Tor Valum. Described as “7000 years old, an ancient alien of unknown origin, spindly and tense, sinew and muscle pulled tight,” Valum is not a Sith Lord but some kind of teacher. An ancient being with arcane knowledge. When asked if he trained Darth Plagueis, Valum says that name means nothing to him. “You wish to obtain the power of those who came before. Take your place among the Gods of Mortis.” It’s more a statement than a question. When Kylo confirms that he does, Valum mocks him, saying “You call yourself a Sith but the Sith are unrepentant. Remorseless. You are haunted by the past, your very existence.”
Ren claims he has no regrets, but Valum sees through the lie, telling him that until he can sever himself from his past, his fate will be no different that the dead warriors who litter the battlefield beyond the fortress. But he does agree to teach him.
“The living Force is nourishment. The more one consumes, the stronger one becomes. To take life is to cheat death.”
The ability he teaches Kylo is vampire-esque, the power to consume life, literally draining the Living Force from his opponents.
Across the galaxy, the Resistance team has managed to bypass the First Order’s blockade of Coruscant. As we saw before, it is not the world we remember from the prequels or that last shot of Return of the Jedi. Now, we go deeper underground, truly seeing those downtrodden and oppressed by the First Order. As they enter the lower levels, Threepio remarks “I’m afraid all my knowledge of Coruscant is limited to the upper levels.” Artoo beeps an indignant response prompting Threepio to reply “Elitist? Where did you even learn that word?”
Burnett says the script is full of great dialogue and moments for the droid duo. And for Finn and Rose, with the Coruscant story using both of their histories as part of their journey in this film.
As they come to the Jedi Temple, it is a shell of it’s former glory. Fallen to ruin, those forced to live as scavengers sleeping rough around oil drum fires in the Temple grounds. “This doesn’t look like the Jedi Temple to me,” Threepio remarks. A sad reminder of how things used to be. As people look at them over the fires, Artoo bleeps at his old friend. “What do you mean I stand out?” Threepio asks. Another beep. “Gold is not ostentatious! Leave the vocabulary to me you glorified mechanic.”
On Remnicore, Kylo is using the beasts around the fortress to hone his new abilities, draining the life force from them. With each life taken he wants more. Then he sees the cave and senses something. Valum tells him it is a vergence in the Force. Putting on his mask, Kylo enters to cave. In a scene reminiscent of The Empire Strikes Back he is confronted by a vision of Darth Vader. A brutal duel ensues and Kylo loses. Angry and disoriented he emerges from the cave, what little patience he had is spent. He demands Tor Valum tell him the way to Mortis. Mortis, according to Valum, is “The well of the Living Force, the source of the galaxy’s birth.” And Kylo Ren is not worthy. Yet.
Refusing to be denied, Kylo turns on Valum, using his own techniques against him and draining the life from him.
At the same time that these two arcs have been playing out, Rey has traveled to Bonadan. Here she finds a seer who is able to pull a star chart from her mind. It is from one of her visions of Kylo Ren, and Rey believes it shows her where she must go. Back on Koralev, the First Order have been able to track the stolen Star Destroyer to the Resistance base. Leia and the others are able to evacuate in time, making the stolen vessel the new headquarters of the Resistance.
Under the Jedi Temple, the Resistance team succeed in finding and activating the Force beacon, igniting it via a giant kyber crystal underneath the beacon and allowing Artoo to project a message from Leia across the galaxy. Burnett describes the scene as being written like the beacons of Gondor from Lord of the Rings as we see Leia’s message go out across the galaxy. “Our voices will not be silenced,” she says, “We can no longer live in the shadow of the First Order. We must step into the light.”
The message is cut short by the First Order, who are somehow able to stop the transmission, but it is heard. From the Bendu Monks to Tatooine, Leia’s message reaches across the stars. Even Bossk, the former bounty hunter now seen living like a king, and Temiri Blagg (broom boy from The Last Jedi) in the stables of Canto Bight hear the call.
With the beacon down, Finn, Rose, and the droids flee into the under city.
On Bonadan, the Knights of Ren have found Rey and Poe. There is a chase across the sea, with Rey, Chewie and Poe sailing a Razor Sail as the Knights attack from the Knife 9 above. The chase culminates in an epic duel between Rey and the Knights of Ren. Rey has visions as she fights and kills the Knights. She has seen them before in her visions. Even though they have never met, she knew who they were. After the conflict, she is upset, shaken by what she has done. “I had no choice,” she tells Poe who does his best to reassure her it’s okay.
According to Burnett, the script so far has teased a potential romance between Rey and Poe, with her gently turning down his advances as it’s not the right time. Now, in the aftermath of the battle, she knows she must continue alone. Poe refuses to let her go alone, even at her insistance that the Resistance needs him. So Rey tries to use a mind trick on him. Poe resists. “You’ll leave this place and go back to the Resistance,” Rey keeps repeating, getting closer and closer until she can touch his face. Until she can kiss him. At this, Poe’s will relents and Rey’s mind trick works. Poe takes the Millennium Falcon and returns to the Resistance with Chewie and BB-8 whilst Rey takes the Knife 9 to follow the star chart pulled from her mind.
As Kylo Ren leaves Remnicore, Hux contacts him to inform him that the Resistance slipped passed the blockade and tried to send a message out to the galaxy. “Do you really not know who stopped them?” Ren asks him, implying that he was the one who someone stopped the beacon. Hux believes they must respond with a show of strength and wants Ren to show the galaxy the new power he has acquired, saying his absence has emboldened their enemies, but Ren cuts the transmission and heads for Mortis.
In the lower levels of Coruscant, Finn and Rose get to know the underclass who have been oppressed by the First Order. To Finn’s surprise, this also includes more former Stormtroopers, like himself, including some he knew from his training who now feel lost and no longer support what the First Order is doing. Together, they begin to stoke the flames of an uprising.
In a cabaret club on the planet Alaforn, there are no customers left. The droids and serving staff are cleaning up for the night, and at a table, the club’s owner sits counting the credits. “A man in his element,” Leia says as her shadow falls over the table of credits. Lando Calrissian jumps up and tries to kiss her hand as Leia brushes him off. He tells her she shouldn’t be there, that most of his clientele is First Order these days. It’s not what he’d prefer but what can he do? Leia tells him they need help. She wants him to bring the smugglers together to help the Resistance. Lando reveals that he promised Han he’d take care of her if anything happened, prompting Leia to joke “What, you take care of me?” and Lando’s response of “I know, you deserve better”, but he can’t protect her from the First Order.
Leia: Come with me. Fight with us.
Lando: No. We won a war once already, and what good did that do?
As he takes Leia back to her ship, he kisses her forehead and tells her that he’d do anything for her, but apologizes and says he can’t help in this fight.
In an unknown part of the galaxy, Rey arrives at Mortis. Space is black with no stars to be seen. In a call back to The Clone Wars, the Knife 9 loses power as she approaches and she crashes to the surface. At the same time, Kylo Ren arrives at a different part of the monolith.
On Coruscant, Finn and Rose lead a citizens uprising in the square around the First Order citadel. As the battle begins on the ground, Leia and the Resistance arrive in space with the stolen Star Destroyer. Poe and Chewie are with them, and Chewie even pilots an X-wing in the space battle above the city planet. Back on the surface, Rose is captured and tortured, but she remains defiant and manages to escape. In both of his videos, Burnett has said that Duel of the Fates is a great script for Rose, so much so that he hopes Kelly Marie Tran never reads it.
Back on Mortis, Rey is climbing an icy peak with wind and sleet buffeting her as she attempts to reach the summit. At the peak, she finds ancient statues of robed figures that are not Jedi. As the wind and snow whip around her, she is assaulted by a vision of Jakku, of herself screaming as a child as her parents are dragged away from her. She sees her mother try to run for her but her father holds her back, telling her it is too dangerous. Her mother’s words reach her, “Wait here, we’ll come back. You’ll understand. We’ll come back.” Back atop the Mortis peak, Rey is screaming, igniting her lightsaber and shouting into the void, demanding to know why they didn’t come back for her.
As Rey is confronted by her past on the mountain, Kylo is confronted by his in a wood. He sees a house with a smoking chimney and a young boy dressed in black robes approaches the door. It’s himself as a child. As he opens the door, his father appears in the doorway and asks Ben what he’s doing.
Young Kylo: That’s not my name anymore.
Han: Your mother can’t see you here, not like this.
Young Kylo: I’m not coming back. There’s a greater destiny for me.
Han: They’re lies son. Empty promises. You have everything you need right here, right now.
Young Kylo: What, you? Her? My master says I have unequaled power neither of you understands.
Han: Your mother understands more than anyone.
Young Kylo: She sent me away.
Han: To learn. To grow.
Young Kylo: I have grown.
Han: Your mother loves you.
Young Kylo: She’s afraid of me.
Han: Give me the lightsaber, son.
Young Kylo: You know I can’t.
As Han reaches for the lightsaber the vision changes to show Han’s death in The Force Awakens. Then Kylo begins to climb the same mountain that Rey has just scaled.
After cutting back to the battle of Coruscant, which Burnett describes as crazy, Rey and Kylo Ren finally meet at the Mortis Temple at the top of the mountain. As they confront each other, Kylo tells Rey to get out of his head, saying she won’t like what she finds there. He proclaims that he is stronger than Anakin, stronger than Luke, but Rey counters that he is still afraid, not of her but of what he’s become. “The dark side has left an empty husk,” she says.
Kylo tells her he doesn’t have to be alone. “With the power of Mortis, we could rule the galaxy as the ancients did. The dark side and the light.”
“You think I’d still join you after what you did to my family? Were you going to tell me here? Weaken me with the truth? I know what you did. Deep down, I’ve always known. My parents didn’t sell me for drinking money. They were hiding from you.”
It’s the first time Kylo appears stunned in their verbal duel. “So you remember,” he says as we flash to the vision from The Force Awakens with Kylo and the Knights of Ren stood in the rain. “Snoke made his orders clear,” he tells her. “Find anyone who could destroy him. It didn’t take us long to find you. You blame me for your life on Jakku. You should thank me for it. You were safe.”
He confirms to Rey that he did kill her parents. He did murder Han Solo and millions of others. But he’s not here for her. “All I want is behind that door,” he tells her. Rey refuses to move. “You’ll have to kill me.” “I know.”
Their duel begins, an epic confrontation of both lightsabers and Force powers as they both try to take the Living Force from the other. The duel on the mountain top of Mortis is intercut with the sky and ground battles of Coruscant. Like Han returning to help Luke in A New Hope, Lando arrives with a fleet of smugglers, including Bossk, to help turn the tide in the skies. Even C-3PO joins the fight, stopping a First Order astromech from sending a distress call, despite his protestations that “I’m not programmed for violence.”
On Mortis, Kylo screams at Rey that he could have been her teacher, recalling his offer on Starkiller Base. Lashing out, he strikes a blow across her face, cutting her from cheek to forehead. Rey drops her lightsaber and screams, crying tears of blood as she falls back down the stairs of the temple, blinded by his attack.
Back on Coruscant, RD-D2 is blown up, his head scorched. There’s “emotion like we’ve never seen” from Threepio as Chewie (who must have landed his X-wing and joined the land battle at some point) scoops up the torched remains and straps them to his back as he once did with Threepio on Cloud City.
Kylo Ren has entered the Temple of Mortis. The statues of the ancients look down on him as he seeks for his prize. There is an empty stone slab, nothing more. Kylo rages as he searches desperately for the power he sought, slashing at the statues.
“You’ve lost Ben.” Kylo turns to see his uncle. Luke tells him that Anakin’s love for his family saved him and that he wishes it could have done the same for his nephew. When Kylo spits back that he did what he had to, Luke replies:
“You are no Skywalker.”
As Luke speaks, we see glimpses of the battle of Coruscant raging, of all our heroes as they fight to free the galaxy. we see Rey sensing Luke and tearing fabric from her robes, creating a blindfold for herself. “You can’t defeat us all. I’m not alone. Obi-Wan is right. The Force surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together. We are bound by the Force. We are one. And we will not be broken.”
As Luke vanishes, Rey enters the Temple behind him. “Our Masters were wrong,” she tells him. “I will not deny my anger, and I will not reject my love. I am the darkness, and I am the light.” In reply Kylo again tells her that she is nothing, she is no one. “No one is no one.” Rey tells him. It’s a line Poe says to Rey earlier in the film and she draws strength from it now. They ignite their lightsabers and begin one final duel.
On Coruscant, Chancellor Hux realizes that the tide has turned. Though the battle still rages, the First Order has lost. Throughout the film, Hux has been trying to use the Force. He wants the power that Ren has. It’s revealed that he has been collecting lightsabers, and now – with the First Order crumbling around him – he picks up a purple-bladed saber and kills himself.
Rey and Kylo are evenly matched as they duel in the temple. Neither gaining an advantage until Rey is able to shatter his hilt, taking several of his fingers with it. As Kylo looks at his hand in disbelief, Rey separates the two halves of her staff, she glows with the energy of the Living Force. Kylo clenches his teeth, his eyes furious with rage. He extends his hand and begins to rip the Living Force from her. Rey screams as her life energy leaves her, the Force flowing from her to him, healing Ren as the metal falls away from his face. Looking at the temple, he tells her the power of Mortis can’t be taken, “but it’s nothing compared to you.”
As he continues to drain her life force, Rey calls him Ben, pleading as Luke did on the second Death Star. It’s not enough.
On the Star Destroyer over Coruscant, Leia feels the disturbance in the Force. She reaches out and asks her son to come home. It’s at that moment that Kylo feels love and realizes it was Anakin’s strength not Vader’s weakness. He takes Rey’s hand and reverses the flow of the Living Force. Light and dark energy swirls through them both as she begins to heal and he is reduced to a husk. With his dying breath he tells Rey her full name – Rey Solana.
Lying on the stone floor of the temple, healed but still wounded, particles of light begin to surround Rey. She floats up with the energy as light engulfs the frame and we are transported to an astral plane. Glimmers of energy flicker in the darkness and Rey is greeted by Luke, Yoda, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Rey asks if she is dead. “In this place there is no such thing as death,” Obi-Wan tells her. “Taught us much you have,” Yoda says, explaining that Rey has succeeded where they failed because their point of view was too narrow. “You chose to embrace the dark side and the light to find the balance within,” Luke tells her. But now she must make a choice. Remain here, in knowledge, serenity, and peace, or return to the living, to a galaxy in turmoil where she will know pain and suffering but also love. Rey thanks them, and as they fade into the Cosmic Force, Obi-Wan’s voice proclaims “You are a Jedi, Rey Solana. But you will not be the last.”
Back in the real world, the battle of Coruscant comes to an end when the First Order citadel takes off, attempting to flee the planet. But Rose, presumably when she escaped from being tortured, has messed with the coordinates in the nav computer. As the citadel attempts the jump to lightspeed it hurtles into a planet and is destroyed.
In the aftermath of the battle, Chewie is working on Artoo with a repair droid as Threepio watches on. “A quick cycle through his memory banks and he’ll be his old self again, I hope.” He tells Leia as she approaches. “I can’t imagine what I’d do without him. I know he’s stubborn, but I…” He trails off as if he wants to cry. Leia assures him that Artoo will be fine, kneeling down she picks up his memory drive, which was rescued by BB-8 during the battle. She inserts it as she did the Death Star plans so long ago.
As Artoo boots up and cycles through his memory we relive the saga through his eyes. Luke buying C-3PO, Obi-Wan passing on Anakin’s lightsaber to his son, the Death Star trench run, the Yavin medal ceremony, Yoda lifting the X-wing from the Dagobah swamp, Luke’s salute at the Pit of Carkoon, Han and Leia’s moment outside the Endor bunker. Burnett does say we relive the entire saga, but all the moments he calls out are from the Original Trilogy. Leia is taken aback by the memories, Artoo beeping affectionately as she thanks him.
The film ends on Modesta, on a serene ranch where Finn waits with a group of children. Rey arrives, ready to train the next generation of Jedi.
So there you have it. As you can see, it would have been a very different movie from The Rise of Skywalker. Obviously, this was just an early draft, even if Trevorrow had stayed on and Carrie was still with us, things would have been developed and refined as the movie was made. As it stands, there are some things in the breakdown that I really like and would have loved to see on the big screen, but also parts that I think just don’t work on a fundamental level so it’s a mixed bag for me.
Would you have liked to see this story on the big screen, or do you prefer The Rise of Skywalker that we have? Let us know what you think in the comments below and in the Cantina!
Chris is a lifelong fan of Star Wars, Disney, and super heroes who can’t quite believe this golden age of movies and TV we’re living in. Having written blogs dedicated to Disney’s Aladdin musical and Star Wars Celebration, Chris is excited to be part of the SWNN and MNN teams.
