This is the first edition in a weekly small series I'm doing.
Recently, I've been going down a rabbit hole of cancelled projects, because it's intriguing but kinda sad to look at the progress or conceiving of a project for it to just get cancelled or completely changed. So, in this mini-series, I go through cancelled Star Wars project, every one I could find that was produced, pitched, hinted at, etc. And in the comments, we could debate if their existence would've been great, good, unnecessary or bad. And in the first edition, I wanna look at the most notorious one that most of you:
Star Wars Episode IX: Duel of the Fates:
This was the original draft of Episode IX that would become The Rise of Skywalker. This was named after the ballad from Episode I. The script that was written in 2016 was written by Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly with Trevorrow attached as director, announced in August of 2015.
The December 2016 draft had to changed due to Carrie Fisher's death in the same month. In 2017, Colin Trevorrow left the project and a new script with J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio was worked on and was completed into TROS.
As most of you might know, the script was leaked on January 2020 - while TROS was still in theatres.
Here it is if you want to fully read it. It's big:
There were many, many, MANY changes from TROS to this.
SPOILERS ARE BELOW:
IF YOU WANT TO READ THE SCRIPT YOURSELF, DON'T READ WHAT'S COMING
Rey was never supposed to be related to Palpatine, her name would be revealed as Rey Solana.
Kylo Ren would be trained by Sith Master Tor Valum, who is revealed to be Palpatine's master.
The final battle would take place at 2 places: The other gang would fight Stormtroopers on Coruscant, while Rey and Kylo would fight on Mortis.
Rey would have been blinded by a no-good Kylo Ren.
Luke's force ghost would have been more prominent.
R2-D2 would have suffered a lot of damage during the Coruscant battle.
There was also stuff from this draft that carried on to the finished movie:
Kylo finding a holocron in Vader's Mustafar castle.
The transference of Force energy.
Rey "using" Force lightning while fighting against someone.
A Star Destroyer similar to the Death Star (the draft only had one of them, not an entire fleet.)
An alien who helped the Resistance. He also gets beheaded before a meeting.
Rey having visions of Kylo while training at the Resistance base.
Rey finding out where she has to go next by looking into the Ahch-To Jedi texts.
Kylo Ren travelling to a planet where a Sith lives by following the holocron.
A main character sending a broadcast to the galaxy.
Chewbacca receiving a medal.
A reluctant Lando helping save the day by surprisingly arriving leading a fleet of spaceships. (In the draft though, Lando was more of a chill relaxer that owned a cabaret bar. Lavish.)
There was also a new TIE Fighter class included into the draft, the Echelon, which while not in the movie, was included as a statue in Galaxy's Edge.
And boy, we have a ton of concept art that was also leaked:
So, what did you think? Was the script good? Was the idea good? How does the concept art make you feel how the movie would've been? Comment your thoughts!
Honestly, while I like TROS, I think this plot could've been better on screen. Especially the Coruscant battle would've been cool to see.
