A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker closed out the Skywalker Saga to middling reviews and an unexpected amount of outrage from longtime fans and fans who had gotten on board with the franchise when Star Wars: The Force Awakens premiered in 2015. In the midst of the critiques about how Chris Terrio and J. J. Abrams had handled the end of over forty years of beloved storytelling, with most concerns focused on the complete reduction of Rose Tico’s (Kelly Marie Tran) role in the film, in addition to the way that Finn’s (John Boyega) arc was handled, a leaked script for the original Episode IX appeared online, giving fans a glimpse into an alternate universe where Colin Trevorrow‘s script closed out the trilogy.
Star Wars: Duel of the Fates was the original draft of the final film in the Skywalker Saga, which was penned by Trevorrow and Derek Connolly. While Trevorrow retained a story credit on The Rise of Skywalker, the film only uses a few key aspects from his original script. Duel of the Fates, which borrows its title from John Williams‘ iconic track from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, was set several years after the close of Rian Johnson‘s middle-act Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and builds on many of the themes that Johnson introduced in the film. While Trevorrow’s script, like The Rise of Skywalker, didn’t deliver a happy ending for fans of Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), it did deliver some really compelling plotlines for Rose, Finn, and Poe (Oscar Isaac) that built on ideas introduced earlier in the trilogy.
In a recent interview with Collider for Jurassic World Dominion, Steve Weintraub spoke with Trevorrow about what it was like when to be involved with a Star Wars project, even though it wasn’t ultimately the movie that was made. The writer-director shared, “All I’ll say is that I am so grateful for the opportunity to have told a story in that universe. And I am so proud of the story that we told.”
Trevorrow went on to discuss what it was like as a fan of the franchise to get to meet Mark Hamill and George Lucas, “I think that all of us as fans grow up having Star Wars stories in our heads and things that we want to see on screen. And everyone who’s gotten the chance to work on a Star Wars film for however long is given that gift. I was given some other gifts. Like, I got to hang out with Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker. I got to meet George Lucas. I mean, these things I will carry with me for the rest of my life. And all of the work that we did on that movie came from a very deep place within me as someone who considers it a bit of a belief system, if we’re going to be honest. And so it’s laid out for all to see, what’s within.”
When asked about what it was like to know that people loved his script, Trevorrow had a unique answer, “You know what, I feel like talking too much about all of it makes it seem not real.” Perhaps he’s right about it. Despite how fun it is to see how series like The Mandalorian or The Book of Boba Fett are made, thanks to the Disney Gallery series on Disney+, it strips away some of the mysticism about how this lore-rich franchise is made. He closed out the discussion with a sage piece of wisdom, “I feel like we learn so much about what’s going on behind the scenes and how these things are made. That what I don’t want to do is take away that magic that kids have of actually believing this stuff happened a long time ago, very far away.”
For more from Steve’s interview with Trevorrow, here are the scrapped titles for the Jurassic World trilogy and his thoughts on the future of the franchise.
