At an SNL after party years before The Rise of Skywalker came out, then director of episode nine Colin Trevorrow and Daisy Ridley met for the first time. Eager to learn about her character’s fate, Daisy immediately asked Colin what happens to Rey? In order to preserve the secrecy of the film, Colin led Daisy away from the party and quietly told her what happens to her character in episode nine, which allegedly brought tears to her eyes. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, however, wasn’t as emotionally moved You're demoted. as not long after this she fired Trevorrow from the project over creative differences. And a lot of those creative differences were because Kennedy and the higher ups at Disney went into damage control mode following the release of the divisive The Last Jedi and wanted Trevorrow to heavily rewrite the script to try and appease fans left disappointed by Rian Johnson’s controversial creative decisions. In his place, she brought back JJ Abrams. I never thought I'd be back on this set. Who threw out the baby with the bathwater and started from scratch. And while the end result tried to make everyone happy, it ended up making nobody happy. Not helping matters was the fact that Trevorrow’s script and its many revisions leaked onto the internet around the same time. Titled “Duel of the Fates,” Trevorrow’s script would’ve been vastly different from the movie we got. But would it have been better? To answer that question let’s take a look back at what could’ve been episode nine Duel of the Fates. The film opens with a thrilling sequence as Finn, Poe and Rose try to sabotage a First Order orbital shipyard and mining facility that looks like it’s out of Halo. As things begin to go awry, Rey swoops in to save the day dressed in disguise as a Tusken Raider, throwing off her robes to reveal a dark outfit that closely resembles Luke’s in Return of the Jedi. Oh, and by the way she’s wielding a blue double bladed lightsaber. In Force Awakens as soon as I saw her wielding a staff I thought they were for sure setting her up to eventually rock a double bladed lightsaber and was disappointed that she didn’t in Rise of Skywalker. It just felt like such an obvious evolution of her weapon. In this script, however, she’s built a hybrid of her staff and what remains of Luke's old lightsaber. Anyway, the gang’s plan sort of fails, but they do manage to escape with a massive Star Destroyer and deliver it to Leia at a Resistance Base. Now a good chunk of the film takes place on Coruscant, which has become an oppressed planet in decay occupied by the First Order. Hux rules as Chancellor with an iron first and when we first meet him he’s executing a traitor via lightsaber guillotine. Cool. He also lives a life of luxury and in his spare time collects Force-sensitive objects for display, including a certain purple lightsaber belonging to a former BMF. This party's over. Hux answers to a group of wealthy warlords who are actually behind the First Order in a nice continuation of the theme of the military industrial complex started in The Last Jedi. Worried that Rey is a symbol of hope that could inspire the people to revolt, they put pressure on Hux to hunt her down and kill her. He reassures them that the Knights of Ren are on it, which was nice to read since after being briefly introduced in the Force Awakens they were never really explained or given anything of substance to do apart from being quickly dispatched in Rise of Skywalker. So seeing them here play a major role in the story is not only something I expected out of the third film, but happy to see was the original plan. We drop in on Kylo Ren on Mustafa in Vader’s Castle. He’s watching a Sith Holocron of Palpatine giving contingency orders to Vader, which he recorded in case of his death. He instructs Vader to take Luke to go see Tor Valum, a Sith Master and Darth Plagueis' teacher in the Remnicore system. After scanning Kylo’s face, however, the Holocron realizes Kylo is not Vader and hits him with lightning, burning his face. Kylo then undergoes an operation similar to Vader’s as smelted Mandalorian armor is applied to his face before he receives a new helmet. He also chucks Vader’s old melted helmet away after finally realizing the reason Vader failed was he allowed love to cloud his judgement, vowing not to make the same mistake. When we first met Kylo he was a bratty Vader wannabee, so to finally see him stop idolizing Vader, yet basically become his own version of him was a nice, ironic arc for his character to go through versus him merely gluing his old helmet back together with red Elmers in Rise of Skywalker and being subordinate to yet another Emperor slash supreme leader. Also, Luke’s force ghost haunts him in his spare time, which I thought was pretty hilarious. Speaking of Luke, he’s pulling double duty and also still training Rey from beyond the grave. She continues to have nightmares about Kylo and wonders what her connection to him is. She even has the same vision that he has of them dueling on an ancient Force-sensitive planet called Mortis and goes with Poe to meet someone he knows on some other planet that can help her find out how to get there. But before she leaves with him she tells Finn and Rose of an old beacon located in what’s left of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant that can send a signal to the rest of the galaxy calling for help. So off go Finn and Rose to find and activate this old beacon, while Poe takes Rey and Chewie to a planet called Bonadan that is basked in perpetual sunset. This is at least more visually interesting than in Rise of Skywalker where they travel to yet another desert planet. By the way, when I say they leave, they really leave and fast because the planet they’re on comes under attack by First Order forces just like at the Battle of Hoth. And with that, we’re off on our adventure! Meanwhile, Kylo reaches the Remnicore system and locates Sith Master Tor Valum, who is a 7000 year old alien. Why he’s chilling on this planet alone is beyond me. At least Yoda was in hiding. Anyway, Valum teaches Kylo how to cheat death by draining the life force from other living things in a nice callback to Revenge of the Sith. Is it possible to learn this power? Not from a Jedi. After undergoing Sith training Kylo is sent into a cave similar to Luke during Empire and just like Luke faces a vision of Vader in a lightsaber duel. Honestly, any excuse no matter how stupid to see Vader duel Kylo would be worth the price of admission. It’s like seeing Tyson vs Ali or MJ vs Lebron. And I’m here for it. Anyway, after Kylo gets beat in a brutal duel he runs out of patience and goes and murders Tor Valum, sucking the life force out of him and learning the location of the planet Mortis that he and Rey saw in their shared vision. I like how this is a nice mirror of the Luke and Yoda training scenes on Dagobah except for once we’re seeing it from a Sith perspective. On Bonadan, Poe takes Rey to meet an alien named Seer who pulls information from Rey’s memories, revealing the location of Mortis before The Knights of Ren interrupt, having tracked her down. They begin to duel and a chase ensues across the water culminating with more dueling Anyway, Rey eventually fights them off, frying the last one with force lightening. Afterwards, she mentions to Poe that she recognizes all of them, but is not sure from where. As she goes to leave for Mortis, Poe insists that he come with. She uses a Jedi Mind trick on him though to make him leave for Coruscant arguing that Finn and Rose need his help. She kisses him and sends him on his way, while she takes the Knights of Ren ship to Mortis. I feel like this romance subplot between Rey and Poe is kind of underdeveloped and totally unnecessary, but moving on. On Coruscant Finn and Rose are able to activate the Republic era Jedi beacon, which sends a distress call across the galaxy pleading for help, but it’s only active for a short time as Kylo Ren uses the Force from wherever he is to turn it off. Finn rallies the citizens of Coruscant to rise up and overthrow the First Order. He also convinces a number of Stormtroopers to join them. This is a big deal and a character beat for him that was not only logical, but incredibly satisfying. It’s at this point that Leia shows up in the stolen Star Destroyer as well as Poe in the Falcon. Even Chewie gets his due and hops in an X-Wing and kicks some butt. A massive aerial battle ensues in the skies above Coruscant, while on the ground Finn leads the uprising using stolen AT-STs. Eventually a fleet of Star Destroyers show up and gain the upper hand. But when all seems lost, Lando shows up with a rag tag fleet of smugglers answering the distress call. This turns the tide as the Resistance finally defeats the First Order. Realizing all is lost, Hux takes Mace Windu’s purple lightsaber that he has displayed in his collection and impales himself on it. Rose has a lot to do here too. At one point she’s captured, but eventually escapes and reprograms the massive First Order ship that hovers above the city to collide into a planet when it jumps to hyperspace during its escape. All in all, this is a much more satisfying and logical climax than Finn going horseback riding on the surface of a Star Destroyer above Exegol, which is a planet that means nothing to us. Welcome to Exegol. Here we get to see the people of Coruscant and make an emotional connection with them. And we root for them as they take back their planet and their freedoms against the oppressive First Order. While this is all happening, Rey pilots her craft through a black hole before coming to a planet shrouded by darkness. This is Mortis. After she lands she enters an ancient Jedi temple, where she finds Kylo waiting for her. He asks her again to join her, but she refuses before she finally realizes that she was hidden on Jakku to protect her from Kylo, who murdered her parents with the help of the Knights of Ren on Snoke’s orders as he didn’t want anyone alive who could potentially challenge him. They begin to duel on the steps of the temple under the pouring rain before Kylo strikes a wicked blow across her face, blinding her. Kylo returns to the inside of the temple but finds it empty apart from Luke’s force ghost, who tells him he can’t win and that Kylo’s no Skywalker. Outside Rey climbs to her feet, wraps a piece of cloth around her head, covering her eyes and attacks Kylo inside the temple, resuming the duel and using the force to guide her in a nice callback to A New Hope. Rey gains the upper hand and slices Kylo’s hand and hilt in half. But as Rey stands over him, Kylo becomes enraged and sucks the living force right out of her, nearly killing her and restoring his hand. Leia feels this disturbance from Coruscant and using the force, speaks to Kylo and pleads with him to stop short of killing Rey. As love fills his heart, he takes Rey's hand as the living force flows back into her. As Kylo dies he tells Rey her last name – Solana – before both combatants collapse, having fought to the death. My only problem with this is Kylo has been shown love before from both his parents so why he chose now to finally accept their love isn’t really explained or justified, making it a pretty abrupt face turn. I think the idea here is great, but the execution is kind of weak. Anyway, Rey then ascends to the astral plane and meets Obi-Wan, Luke and Yoda, who give her a choice: stay dead as a force ghost or return to the real world, and face the challenge of confronting all of the pain and destruction that the first order wreaked across the galaxy. She chooses the latter and returns to life, eyes restored. The film ends with a medal ceremony reminiscent of A New Hope as Chewie finally gets his, except Rey is notably absent as her friends wonder if she's still alive. As Poe takes off with Chewie to look for her, we fast forward to the not too distant future and find Finn and Rose have built a refuge for force sensitive youth ala Professor X. The broom kid from Last Jedi is here too. As they play in the fields a familiar silhouette appears on the horizon, ready to train a new generation of jedi about balancing the force. What nobody seems to talk about is that this film was the conclusion of a nine part series stretching over forty years and the finale we got to it couldn't have been more unsatisfying and underwhelming. Rey hearing the voices of former Jedi was the biggest letdown when plenty of fan edits on the internet of that scene have shown us how great it could’ve been. And Palpatine electrocuting himself in the face for the second time? Does this guy ever learn or is he just a masochist? Even Lando showing up with his fleet left me cold. By contrast, look at the climax to Avengers Endgame. I struggled to hold back tears in the theatre when all these portals opened up and I roared with applause when Cap finally uttered: Assemble. Having read Duel of the Fates I honestly have no idea what Kennedy and the higher ups at Disney were thinking. I understand Carrie Fisher died, but she could’ve easily have been written out of this or digitally inserted into a few scenes like she was in The Rise of Skywalker. Duel of the Fates felt like a continuation of the story told in the previous two films and gave us a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy and our characters’ arcs. It’s not perfect mind you and it may not be up there with something like Empire, but I don’t think it’s bad at all and I think most fans would’ve enjoyed this. I know I did. But let me know in the comments below which version of the film you prefer. And don't forget to like and subscribe. Thanks for watching everybody.
