Well. Let’s read Colin Trevorrow’s Episode IX script

so I have a complete PDF of Colin Trevorrow script of episode 9 allegedly I don't even know who originally leaked it and that's probably for the best I don't want to get them in trouble it's one of those inside sources and air quotes kind of things anyway this script is circulating online in a small group of people and those people assert that it is the real deal I've been aware of the Colin Trevorrow plot details leaking and a lot of them were featured in concept art in a now recalled Korean art book but I was just going to kind of leave all that alone because I talked about Star Wars so much as it is but readings readings are fun so I would love to just read through all of this with you guys today I have some improvised blue milk to make it feel like a party if I told you it was in this you'd be really grossed out and judge me but there is alcohol so that'll be fun no I've never read a screenplay on here before probably because it's really annoying to read a screenplay as a single person because unlike a book you don't have dialogue tags so you end up just having to monotonous Lee say who's speaking plus they have to read all the stage directions which is annoying I guess you could say I have to wear many hats which is why I decided to solve this problem by wearing many hats Rey kylo Ren Finn Poe won't we'll make it work now I have a troubled history with Colin Trevorrow in that I've never liked any of his movies I mean like on an emotional level I loved drastic world too but I didn't think it was like good it's so I'm kind of excited to see him do Star Wars and I've heard that his version of it is surprisingly good so I'm curious okay ready good me neither let's begin a long time ago in a galaxy far far away Episode nine 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 form a not occupied 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 and then the text flies away so far so good it is difficult to do an actively bad opening crawl kuat orbital rang docking bay day a first-order transport touches down a wide platform descends revealing a variety of droids a graphite BB unit carefully splits off from the group the graphite BB unit swerves to avoid a brutish labor droid scraping B be spherical side against the wall his head tilts down checking a scuff in his paint revealing orange beneath its bb-8 deep undercover he lets out a familiar uh-oh and rotates the orange stuff beneath his head this is a strong start I've only been saying for like a thousand years that I wanted to start where his adventure where bb-8 goes undercover and thus has to be painted a new exciting color so yeah I'm here for this this whole opening sequence is what you expect from Star Wars it's thin poe rose bb-8 in the middle of like a wacky hijinx filled resistance adventure and it's one where the stakes aren't super crucial it's just kind of setting up where everyone is and reminding us of their friendship I really like this as one of those scenes I think that the banter is pulled off really well there are genuinely funny lines and some good details like there's a joke where Poe's using a simile and it's something from a planet where Finn has never been and he doesn't get it he has small stuff like that I mean the banter II friendship parts were also the parts that I liked in the rise of Skywalker so I feel like kind of like an opening crawl this part is kind of easy to pull off and hard to screw up but still like some filmmakers don't even like try to include this stuff so there's some good humanity happening here I am gonna kind of fly through this scene because it's not plot heavy and I'm not going to read the entire thing but I do have to make note of this one awful lion Rose looks up through the broken roof at the orbital ring in the sky above Star Destroyers protrude from it like spikes on a punk bracelet so you know that's a bad sign anyway hijinks ensue and it's a fun time and then our heroes and the civilians that have been helping them are cornered by stormtroopers the hooded Tuscan steps forward there's been a hooded Tuscan throughout this whole sequence lades of blue light flashed from its gloved hands it holding a dual lightsaber the Tusken takes down everything in its path lithe and deadly with the blade Finn Rosen Poe duck and fire away until they are surrounded by bodies blaster smoking the Tuscans mask hits the ground it's ray I mean I figured not the girl we last saw a grown woman powerful strong her robes fall from her shoulders revealing a battle ready outfit of all black I see what he's going for here Luke had a black outfit in Return of the Jedi and it looked awesome Rey being in a black outfit would also be pretty awesome but it's not really the same thing Luke was a relatively coddled farm boy and never seemed that intimidating so seeing him confidently walking into fights was like oh he's all grown up but raised vulnerabilities are mostly her emotional baggage like on jakku she was jumping into fights all the time with her big stick I think Collin is projecting if he thinks we ever saw her as a vulnerable little girl she throws that double played like a boomerang ducks behind a power regulator as the spinning saber slices all in its path then rises in time to catch it this is a new weapon of her own design made from the pieces of Anakin's broken lightsaber and her own staff she wields it with grace I'm team double bladed lightsaber I've been pulling for it all along I don't know if I'm team throwing it like a boomerang but reforging it from the broken pieces of Anakin's lightsaber and her staff makes perfect sense and like why didn't we have that for all of episode 9 she's a scavenger it's a good character beat like symbolically it's done that it didn't happen in the real movie so good who says you shouldn't have come here you'd rather be killed if it means you're safe yeah there's something more behind those words Oh No is this where we're taking Poe in this movie now is not the time the migrant workers point to Rey in awe whispering Reverend the children cheer speaking a word they all know Jedi Jedi thoughts attributed to migrant children more storm troopers flood into the square but the migrants block their path to protect Rey some throw rocks others swing their hammers and tools it's inspiring a promise of revolution you mess with one of us you mess with all of us ray we gotta go ray hesitates wanting to fight alongside these people ray knows he's right but it kills her inside she reluctantly follows her friends through the blast door Finn moves to follow them at his ankle is grabbed by a fallen stormtrooper helmet blasted open they lock eyes recognition a memory from long ago Finn pulls free and continues on but he's shaken sorry I know it's a normal screenplay thing to like capitalize key words I just think it's funny and I can't help but shout it I believe that in this version of the script we're going to get a stormtrooper rebellion which again is a great idea and makes sense and I'm salty that we didn't get it in the real movie they need a ship and decide to commandeer a first-order vessel which is you know full of soldiers for the first-order oh and it keeps cutting to a character named Admiral von who is like watching everything they're doing and remarking on it to other officers from a distance like they can't be his madness he doesn't talk like that no anyway I'm just gonna name drop him here because he has a name and I don't know if he'll matter later ray loses her patience waves her palm toward the officer you will set a course for the narrowing system the crew men turn and take their positions at the console mine tricked on mass it's a good thing first order officers are just like an ant colony where you could mind-trick one and they're all on board just vicariously mind-controlled ho and Ray take the helm pressing buttons guessing Pollux to Ray as they flip switches a gleam in his eye don't you see it you and I ho we not the time I can't pretend I'm shocked that Trevorrow ships Poe and Ray because of the way he's characterizing them this is just a carbon copy of the romantic leads from Jurassic world you have this super serious lady who's like trying to get a job done and the fly by the seat of his pants lovable scamp action hero guy who keeps trying to bother her about the chemistry he thinks they have I mean in Jurassic world he's much more awful mr. masrani wanted me to consult with you you want to consult here honey Chris Pratt just spends the whole time like nagging her and I guess in that they have hooked up in the past and he just wants to hold it over her head until they're both dead I have no idea if in this screenplay ray and Poe are meant to have hooked up prior to the events of the movie I'm hoping this will be clarified later heroes hit Lightspeed I guess just taking all the first-order officers with them which is kind of fun and they escape we tilt up stars raining down boom a jagged sinister ship appears from hyperspace knife 9 the Knights of Ren appear from their ship hat Tasca red the leader armored and caped in black ah Trent and Laurel Ren seemed to work as a duo Jade Akron is the rogue his mask evoking an angry ghost I love the token effort to characterize the Knights of Ren the leader the twins the rogue side bar the leader I thought that was kylo Ren I guess he got a promotion but I would think he's still their leader in fact more so their leader I also like that the leader is described as armored and caped in black it really paints a great picture and helps me distinguish him from every other villain in Star Wars at Aska Ren is the scene in studied silence he turns his ominous masked gaze to Admiral von here to meet him Admiral Vaughn says we uploaded a veil cipher to the Droid you'll have her location the moment a probe is within range fat-ass corinne draws his dark saber and cuts Vaughn down dark saber is capitalized but not explained I don't know if this is the dark saber from the cartoons and if it is like is that supposed to excite us or why I can't imagine it's going to matter that much that hitaka Ren is wielding the dark saber maybe they all just have dark sabers I also appreciate the practice of decapitating your Admirals when they deliver not even really bad news to you just neutral news any cata news a few stormtroopers instinctively raised their weapons the other Knights raised their heavy blasters I guess they don't have dark sabers officers and stormtroopers back away tense afraid the Knights holster their weapons and return to their ship leaving Admiral Vaughn's body in their wake so I guess Admiral Vaughn didn't in that matter and his popcorn is so good because we want to shake my head like Remy and ratatouille we needs a fine cheese exterior chorus on Imperial Boulevard day the security craft lands on a broad avenue rife with despair immigrants from a thousand systems all seeking a better future for their children the cruiser unloads a squad of eight stormtroopers on hovering Nightsister speeder bikes okay now I think he is just naming things we've heard of one buzzes past a dirty propaganda billboard with the familiar first-order symbol and a message joined today someone has painted don't above the join it's the thought that counts but that is the lamest revolutionary graffiti I could ever imagine one tag showing up all over his penis man everything that you see highlighted in light green in the last month alone about 40 plus or minus tags that we responded to the moniker deemed explicit and provocative painted on abandoned buildings city dumpsters old couches traffic masked armed this one was on a bridge we've seen it on signs a street kid date 12 eyes a pair of petroleum stormtroopers as they rough up a limbless alien he picks up a piece of broken cement Eames throws it hits the trooper in the head both spin blasters up but the kid is long gone a bantha horn sounds on high okay he is just naming things we've heard of exterior Monument Square day a massive open plaza connected by a web of boulevards the first order Capitol towers over it a jagged structure balancing on the surface like a spinning table a veritable dervish thousands are gathered here all eyes are on a diet for capital guards hold a ragged hooded figure before the crowd the people look to the sky at a hologram of Chancellor Huck's four stories tall looks got a promotion in this one good for him not um not exactly how I would have expected it to go with kylo Ren in charge didn't know his new boss was a big fan of his but okay guards remove the conspirators hood revealing bisque OVA are alien on the ground from the kuat colony that was one of the civilians that was helping Rey that she had to leave behind the capital guards lead bisque OVA to a guillotine with a hissing light blade poised above he silently stares ahead this is that one from the concept art where there's someone kneeling over a lightsaber guillotine so that was legit Hux offers to spare him if he'll give the location of the resistance base but he just says Kofa verb iva tora familya and he says it a bunch of times i assume it's going to be some kind of revolutionary rallying cry like the hunger games' thing you know like the like this and then they cut off his head interior Capitol Corridor day Chancellor Huck's hair streaked with gray looks down at the streets with gray isn't he like 32 I'm gonna look up his age I have my typing Chancellor Huck's 24 no well this one also lists him as alive so I think I need a second opinion I didn't even think redheads like went gray I thought they just got paler okay wikipedia says he's 35 by the final movie that is still extremely weird he sits at a table of galactic warlords tribal wealthy coated in elaborate robes and stolen jewels let's look at our galactic warlords club Lord girly and alien with razor teeth sure knocked a nasty dreadlock tweaked way rake chené a species with curved spider fangs for teeth ugh not a shapeless noid with his tiny hands tied yourself I'm the one with spider fangs for teeth not to be confused with the one with razor teeth they all demand to know why Hux hasn't killed ray yet because she's a symbol of hope and they don't like having her around the Knights of rent have been dispatched to eliminate her Lord girlie the one with razor teeth says our fate in the hands of zealots I don't have a hat for him I'm sorry you asked for our confidence yet provide nothing to inspire it where is kylo Ren the supreme leader will return when he acquires the knowledge he seeks warlords I each other not satisfied with that jour Nolt says when huck seeds speaking through his teeth soon sorry i forgot to speak that through my teeth soon exterior moves too far de a cloaked figure in tattered robes rises into frame kylo ren bearded and weary big mood oh my god I forgot my Chi low hat yeah this is close enough this is noisy I can hear it crinkling right in my ears he checks the stars for navigation climbs over a rock precipice to reveal Vader's abandoned castle in the distance a drone droid the x20 floats just behind him stay here cool ya glad you told me a droid was with him Luke voiceover this is where the dark path leads an empty tomb Luke Skywalker's voice haunting his nephew like a spirit and where did your path lead you're a ghost I'm sorry what even is this exchange I get that they're both just kind of lashing out but like both of the things they're trying to shame each other with are so outside my frame of reference either Luke's point is hollow or kylo ren's comeback is stupid but probably it's both soon I will be more powerful than any Jedi even you Luke voiceover are you sure kylo snaps spins and swings his lightsaber at empty space with a billow of cold wind Luke's spirit is gone Luke voiceover go home Ben go home to Leia kylo is shaken but on the altar beyond the artifact he came here to find I love that Luke's best shot at shaking kylo ren's convictions was just to say are you sure and yet that was completely effective and shook him to his core fully Hana tried that back on Starkiller base a Sith holocron it projects a hologram Emperor Palpatine recorded decades ago Emperor Palpatine hologram lord Vader do I get to I don't need a hat for Palpatine I just need to put my hands like this young Skywalker will soon be ours I have foreseen it but we must prepare for the unforeseen should he strike me down you will take him to the Remnick or system there you will find Tove Adam master of the Sith Lord who instructed me this hurts my throat but it's worth it holocrons blue light swirls red it emits a laser that scans kylos body here the son of Skywalker will acquire a great ability beyond what you could hope to command in your damaged State with it here harness the untapped power of mortis at last we will realize the holocron alarms kylo Ren is not Darth Vader Palpatine's image stutters this is a great holocron alarm system when which divulges most of the important information and then scans the recipient then divulges slightly more information and then processes that it was an intruder the whole time and then stops Emperor Palpatine hologram breaking up the destiny potential a blast of red lightning shoots from the pyramidal device into kylos eyes the invasive pulse of energy spreads over his face like a cancer horrible raw purple veins straight through his streak straight horrible raw purple veins streaked through his skin he screams in deep unbearable pain interior resistance base Korolev day a pair of blue eyes snap open yeah bet you're probably thinking it's going to go into that scene from the rights of Skywalker but it's not that was just a transition to Leia she's just kind of sensing what's happening in a neutral way so Leia reprimands Poe for doing the crazy thing and stealing a fully manned first-order ship and flying it to their secret resistance base and tells him that they're gonna have to move now Bowie's unapologetic and laughs it off and it's like hey remember that civilian we just saw get decapitated because he refused to give up the location of the resistance base oh well who cares pack your bags everybody our buddy Poe didn't retain the lesson he learned in the previous movie we just can't stay mad at him that lovable scamp interior Eclipse destroy our corridor Finn approaches Rey tentative yes this is my Finn hunt he doesn't wear a hat I'm sorry I know he's not a stormtrooper anymore I failed don't say that they know our tactics we've been fighting this war for too long those people the children I saw hope in their eyes they believed in you we all do those words add more weight to raise heavy shoulders I can't be who they need me to be I'm not strong enough that's not true every night I wake up screaming every night another bad dream is it him there's something between us I can't explain it you have to shut him out he can't change it's too late it's never too late to change you taught me that maybe it's the fact that he set this conversation in a hallway instead of like a natural setting to have a serious reflective conversation but this whole thing just feels so passionless Ray's just stating all of her internal struggles in a rote list like Trevorrow knew that he had to catch us up on Ray's inner world right now but he couldn't think of any connective tissue to make it not seem really weird so now it's like hey how are you doing ray I feel like a failure I can't be what they want me to be I'm having nightmares I'm connected to kylo Ren you Tommy people can change and see and imagining you're Finn what do you even do after that conversation like okay buddy good talk Chewbacca Bray's excited he's looking at a small rectangular porthole into the hole of a ship sorry isn't a rectangular porthole just a window what is it buddy Finn says with all the excitement of a man who had no idea what to say to every they just dumped on him so the ship that they stole is carrying like a million guns they have so many guns now we have ships weapons all we need is an army how nobody can hear us we're in the dark we push in on ray those words resonating with her we don't have to be ray opens the ancient Jedi text from octo laid out on the hollow chess table Finn poke ropes Chewie gathered around the Jedi had a communication system before the old republic it was powered by a Nexus beneath the temple sketches of a tower in the old Jedi Temple on Coruscant light flowing from the spire into space a force beacon engineered to call the outlying systems to war okay so this is special technology that the first order can't disrupt or block or whatever because it's made of magic so that's they got to get to the beacon that's our new mission it doesn't make sense but it also like who cares interior resistance space Jedi dojo day the scene isn't really of any consequence but I couldn't skip over the revelation that Rey has a specially designed Jedi dojo as if the mysticism and personalization of Jedi training isn't diminished by having like a rec room with punching bag Luke's force ghost shows up a minute then she forced connects to kylo who still has what's only been described to us as Sith face cancer interior medical Bay Knight kylo screams on an operating table surrounded by medical droids layers of Mandalorian iron are smelted to his face I wouldn't have expected the medical droids to have seen a lot of cases of this particular ailment but apparently they know just what to do and it's to melt metal onto your face do you think they talked this through with him first like what was the vibe did they have him sign a bunch of really intense waivers and they talked through his medical history or is this more like going to the dermatologist in LA where like you go in the lobby and their glamour headshots of all the nurses on the walls and then the medical droid comes in and it's like hi I'm Hannah I will be welding metal onto your face I also do CoolSculpting kylo screams as a jolt of electricity flows into the iron on his face finishing the job he is suddenly wracked by a vision Mountain snow on the jagged peaks a temple older than all known time an ancient chamber two massive Thrones built into the rock a well of light pulsing from deep below a dark figure hooded masked kylo Ren he activates his red lightsaber facing off with Rey before the two Thrones they fight vicious intense with a sharp swing kylo strikes her down back to Rey she tears off the blindfold breathless she was training with a blindfold on Luke's voice the voiceover I know you said it was his voice did you did you proofread this what did you see I saw a mountain two Thrones in the rock kylo Ren was changed Luke Skywalker steps into the light a more tangible form of force ghost similar to his projected self on crate you saw the future yeah I gathered that Luke Thanks I didn't know you have this much dialogue I've got a have a Luke at somewhere what do you know of mortis it's an ancient place from a time before the Jedi before the Sith two Thrones two powerful beams one of darkness the other of light together they brought balance beneath the temple of mortis lies a power beyond anything the Jedi have ever known if kylo reaches the temple all we fought for will be lost you have to confront him you want me to kill Leia's son the force guides us toward balance it doesn't always show us what we want to see he felt we were just saying yeah so he gave a long answer but the short answer is just yeah Rey scoffs petulant angry balance dark suffocates the light light extinguishes the dark over and over how is that balance I know that anger I had it my father had it too so says my master and his master before him a thousand master so eager to tell us how to live I like the direction this is going the anti Jedi order stuff this feels like what Episode eight was setting up and then Episode nine just forgot about it it didn't even reverse it it just totally failed to address it at all I do think it's weird that ghost Luke is so present and that he basically gets into an argument with Rey about how she has to listen to the will of the force and decapitate kylo Ren that's definitely not the conclusion I thought he reached in the last Jedi interior medical night kylos medical slab Rises vertical he looks into a mirror at his altered face half covered with smelted iron a monster this is conceptually pretty funny but also tells me that Trevorrow is killing Kyla because he's not trying to make him handsome anymore finish it a new mask lowers onto his head and locks into place spitting steam we don't see the front of it not yet a strip of glowing buttons light up the underside of his forearm the med droid presses a code the helmet beeps I have to question the necessity of this mask I feel like between the metal skin grafts and the mask it should really just be one or the other and this moment can't feel too monumental or transformative considering he's had a mask every movie including the very first time we saw him med droid breathe he does a new sound different than Vader's guttural deep guttural is spelled wrong I don't want to dwell on this too long because like typos are a natural thing typos shaming I think is stupid everyone makes typos it doesn't mean that they're done but there are just a lot of little typos in this draft and they're all like simple things like we're instead of were and and just stuff like that and they're so simple they're like things that I feel like you would catch if you read your work through a second time or like watch to see if Microsoft Word underlined it in red I assume this PDF is not a final draft but I don't know it's just kind of weird to imagine emailing out your script for a real Star Wars movie and not reading it a second time interior Chancellor Huck's his chamber knight ornate drapes and an indoor fountain a huge a huge throne-like chair faces the city through a massive circular window Allen Dean foster treatment hunt throne like chairs that is extremely weird Lux removes his trench coat pointed hat catches himself in the mirror touches the streak of gray hair he peers into a glass case at an object of his affection a lightsaber resting on a pedestal a collector's item he gazes at it with envy Hux removes a few coins from his pocket places one on the table extends his hand and tries to use the force to move of it it doesn't budge his face grows red from trying so Trevorrow re characterizes Hux as being a Jedi fanboy who hates kylo Ren because he's jealous and wants to have the force it's kind of cute rivalry for babies but it feels so unnecessary in the specific case of huxton kylo Ren we even had an evil mentor figure who deliberately pitted them against each other for his approval and then kylo took over and torments and humiliates Hawks he's injured in multiple times there are so many emotional and practical reasons for Hux to hate kylo Ren already and I feel like adding a new simpler one is just a step backward if anything I'm also so tickled by moments like this in movies that have to very literally show you what's going on like it's not enough to just have a roomful of Jedi artifacts and let us draw conclusions from that we have to see him literally try to use the force and the fact that we're seeing him try it now on just some random day the moment he walks into his office implies that he does this every single day the next scene is a military meeting led by Poe Leia stands back watching him Leia smiles he's great they decide to go and activate this ancient Jedi magical army summoning beacon we are also told that it's powered by Kyber crystal cuz why not the gang's all going on this mission except for Rey who thinks that she has to go to mortis to face down kylo Ren interior resistance based corridor Poe catches up with Rey hey what was that about I have to bring an end to all this I have to confront him is that in your book too where is this confrontation going to happen mortis in the Unknown Regions they're having this whole conversation as though the audience already understands the relationship between them but all we've seen is him at the end of episode 8 be like I'm Poe it's like watching a romantic comedy where they just forgot to do the meet-cute and they're like Hello ho tries to demand to go with her and it's just like but where's Finn Finn just doesn't care she walks away Poe follows determined hey look I know you think I'm wasted err on any mission master Jedi please stop calling me that they're trying to do the Han laya thing I don't understand the idea that you need direct analogs to every single thing in the original trilogy with the new characters down to using knockoffs of their dialogue this is just awkward to watch like Poe seems to think that they have some kind of romantic dynamic where they can just playfully banter back and forth and Ray's sitting there like who are you he's just essentially a co-worker who keeps harassing her while she's trying to get work done it's not funny anyway he tells her he knows someone force-sensitive who can help her find mortis I wanted to just be Maz Kanata like he doesn't realize that Rey has already met her because it wasn't there Rey softens Poe is standing closer than he's ever been hey I get it no attachments Jedi path I've read that story too but catches himself I'm just saying you don't have to do this alone through layers of pilots leia notices Rand Poe in the corridor recognizes the romantic tension her knowing look quickly turns to concern wait what then it says on Poe and Rose but it's not Poe isn't in this scene it's Finn and Rose these are the typos I'm talking about interior kylo ren's chamber Knight kylo gazes down at darth vader's burned masks speaking once more to the grandfather he never knew I understand you now your weakness your pain you allowed love to cloud your judgment I will succeed where you failed he grips Vader's mask and exits onto his balcony a thousand feet up a layer of clouds below stars above kylo holds Theater's mask out over the edge whoop okay it doesn't specify he makes that sound but I want to believe it plunges below the clouds and shatters interior ty silencer Knight kylo Ren lowers into the cockpit his drone vx twenty settles into the data dock over his right shoulder kylo amplified distorted set a course for REM nicole bx twenty beeps in affirmation Huck's watches kylos ty silenced her fly into the star field above Commander Selleck approaches sir one of our probes picked up the Droid signal we've found them ready my ship I to witness their extinction myself shall I inform the supreme leader no let kylo and the girl fill the empty promises of their ancient religion in the end they'll destroy each other as Jedi and Sith always have then we will arise strong decisive ready to bring true order to the galaxy commander Selleck eyes Hux unnerved by him commander Selleck makes $12 an hour he's like sir it is 1:00 in the morning you could have stopped it no exterior resistance base spacecraft hangar day buzzing energy as the resistance evacuates the base poe and Chewbacca load up the Millennium Falcon Finn looks turay loading up the Falcon with Poe and Chewie he approaches her guess this is goodbye don't say that sorry is this not how their remoting you've come a long way since jakku so of you Finn and Rey hug they say nothing but it means everything what we're seeing here is that Trevorrow decided to hook up Poe with Rey and having decided that he just had no idea what to do with Finn in relation to Rey liked the idea of a man and a woman just being platonic friends did not compute I kind of feel like that's the treatment that Finn and Rey got from Abrams it's like as soon as he decided that kylo gets rey finn just becomes an on character but in that one it was a little worse because he was stuck in this wretched limbo of still liking Rey so he's following her around calling her name the whole time pining after and it's just never resolved in this 1 Trevorrow does keep their friendship platonic but seems totally intimidated by the idea of writing a platonic male and female friendship so he just keeps them apart whenever possible this script is at least an improvement and that it gives Finn stuff to do other than what he's doing with Ray but episode 7 sets thin up is such an important person in Ray's life and whether you decide to pair them romantically or not it seems very weird to not explore that in any way and also bizarre that there are apparently versions of the script sparing Rey with every lead man except for big was that option just never on the table and if not hmm I wonder why not what's different about Finn anyway the nice thing about being the person who writes this screenplay you don't have to explore the Finn Rey relationship at all because you could just write they say nothing but it means everything oh okay guys good it means everything if that's a rat Rey watches Finn board the ship nothing beloved for her friend beyond the Phantom Hawk Leia approaches Leia I you don't have to say it I don't have a hat for Leia Rey I can save your son Leia I believed that once like you Rey there's good in him Leia there's good in all of us but the boy I knew is gone I like how I raised like I can save your son and Leia's like oh no that's okay in Episode eight when Leia expressed fear that he was gone and Luke said no one is ever really gone Luke was actually just referring to himself he actually hadn't been listening to the thing Leia it said before that he was totally in his own head ray says master Luke trained me well Leia some things you can't train for Rey follows Leia's eyes to Poe caught staring at her just as Chewbacca tosses him a wrench Leia come on I know how complicated this is Rey I can't there are rules Jedi rules Leia scoffs written by who some old man a thousand years before you were born wait so what is this I was just giving the script kudos for pursuing this great Jedi concept and now it kind of seems like they're literally only doing that because they feel like they need to justify why it's okay for Rey to date Poe it's so absurd that the reason Ray's been turning Poe down all this time isn't because she has more important things to worry about or genuine disinterest it's because she thinks the Jedi rules say she isn't allowed to date terror literally no Jedi left to enforce the Jedi rules and why would she even know about the celibacy component was that a huge part of the legends when we see broom boy and his friends playing with their little stick dolls are they going and Luke Skywalker can't have any sex as Luke's force goes been popping by the Jedi dojo to lecture Rey about abstinence lux puts us out of our Moon by showing up to blow up the base Rose reverses their ship out of the hangar another blast from the Star Destroyer pulses the shield c-3po I'm afraid our shields cut off with sudden a super laser of this magnitude Rose tell me the odds 3p oh I like numbers Rey Po and Chewie are taking off in the Falcon but the Knights of Ren show up in their six spaceship knife nine to attack jeddak ren at the helm OTT and Laurel flank him an elevated gun chairs in the deep background hitaka floats in an electro oxygen chamber tubes weaving around his body I like that he Tosca is doing that weird thing that's a good vibe but I want more I want it to be a crazy early 2000s teen hangout pad with like a pinball machine and one of those garish inflatable chairs I want them mad maxing it up one of them's whaling on a guitar interior Remnick or fortress courtyard Knight the door opens toward us revealing kylo hand extended he enters a circular chamber stacked with broken spacecraft parts ancient military technology and piles of silver or a glowing white fire crackles in a stone pit a voice whispers as he draws closer to the flame horror Vallum reveal yourself actually the fun thing about tor Vallum is I can make him sound like anything I want reveal yourself is this the one from the concept art with the tentacle kylos lightsaber ignites a reflex action I seek the Sith master tor Vallum I am Ouma star the mountain of junk moves from it as if disguised within comes tor Vallum 7000 years old an alien of unknown origin spindly intense sinew and muscle pulled tight but I was once called tor volumn I wonder if tor vellum is a common name in this universe like how possible is it that kylo actually just has their own guy you trained Darth Plagueis that name means nothing to me kylos lightsaber flashes and anger settling inches from tour volumes taut leathery skin does your life tour Vallum regards kylo smiles with sharp teeth you threaten me with death how music flyer sit like this like did you train Darth Plagueis or not why would you deny it if you did I'm really starting to think this is the wrong guy and like he is a weirdo but just not the one that kylo Ren seeks kylo removes his mask his face is veined corrupted worse than we remember just in full auto mode horror Vallum appears oddly entertained you wish to obtain the power of those who came before take your place among the gods of mortis I do yet you fear the frailty of your vessel you need this power pylos jaw tenses he nods oh my god knew before me miraculously kylo Neal's Bolivian force is nourishment the more one consumes the stronger one becomes to take life is to cheat death the creature lifts his body and his arms and walks on them I assume he has like a bunch of creepy limbs as you can see from my acting there's probably some sort of crab walk going on here but now I'm just picturing some kind of slim muscular circus dude you know he's in one of those circus stripey strongman leotards and he's just walking on his hands to show off and it's like dude he's making sounds of effort like huh huh kylo I is his strange new master teach me exterior Bona Dan docking array sunset rey exits the falcon post stops her whoa whoa you can't go out like that you look like a Jedi does she look like a Jedi we've never seen her in traditional I rose and I think the last time her outfit was described in this screenplay she was wearing all black just tone it down a little po leads raid toward a toothless merchant selling jewelry and sari like robes how much for this one okay he just had to neg her into a romantic outfit so he can appreciate her beauty anew if this is what we're about I want a full makeover montage I want her to try on weird disco bell-bottoms and a frilly prom dress and like a cowboy outfit and then it cuts back to PO and he's doing thumbs up or laughing or shaking his head and disgust ray and post step off a junk boat ferry into a sensory overload of Lights smells and tastes aliens and humans haggle over prices of artisan crafts and live animals packs of teenagers eat bizarre street food from market stalls kids laugh at buskers and street performers you freak show Hawker beckons them to a Curtin's booth will that took a turn I want her to go in and see kylo Ren and his new master walking on his hands we realized this is the apprenticeship he was taking on they walk among the oddities and wonders undercover Ray's colourful sari gives her an exotic elegance we've never seen wow what a low-key burn against Ray also I kind of thought the freakshow was going to sag into some kind of new plot development but it turned out to just be them earnestly enjoying a freak show you've been here before with my grandfather I used to sail right out there you've never seen so many lights he eyes her what do you remember ray digs for a memory before her abandonment my father and I would build starships out of wood they could fit in your hands that's a cute detail anything else I remember love that's why I waited so long doubt creeps in but I must have imagined it they were no one wait right he really stumbled across the finish line in that scene he reminds me of Chris Terios bizarre remarks and interviews when he was acting like the reason ray was upset about the revelation about her parents in the last Jedi was because they were no-one and not because they were drunks and didn't love her and sold her but just because they weren't famous in this back story she apparently has fond memories of whittling tiny boats with her father but since he's not a character who appeared in the prequels or the expanded universe books I guess it doesn't count Oh looks at her in the Setting Sun light wishing he could change the past for her but unable no one is no one ray takes that in then she spots a trio of mech troopers scanning the crowd ahead poe follows her eyes puts his hand on his blaster ray no she pulls poe into a market stall eyeing them through the hanging cloth the mech Trooper moves in their direction raid grabs poe by the shirt and pulls him into a kiss hiding his face behind her headscarf the mech Trooper sees the two lovers from afar while the Atty women applaud in the background he moves on ok I cannot believe in the year of our Lord 2020 well actually no I guess ok the cover page said this was written in 2016 I cannot believe in the year of our Lord 2016 that we are using this trope where two people kiss because they don't want to be noticed I feel like the kissing to escape notice thing is so old it can really only happen in cases of self parody actually I wish Trevorrow had just used this in the Jurassic world franchise instead like Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are running from a velociraptor and that they hide in a closet and then it's like moving through the halls looking for them it's sniffing around and then it rounds the corner and it sees them in a passionate kiss and it like makes a gesture of embarrassment and backs away like oh I didn't realize ray and Poe pull apart he takes a moment to recover he's never kissed a Jedi ray did it work Poe I mean I think so rail experiment the mech troopers walking away Poe oh so that wasn't ray lying no I like Howard I said alright tell us that she's lying instead of having nuance also how is she lying like whether or not she actually likes him the storm furs were definitely the catalyst for that they I each other wishing the force could stop time oh my god they go to the force-sensitive lady whose name is know me to find out about how to get to mortis it's all kind of tedious so I'm going to skip it but we get a prophecy so I guess I'd better read that part out loud there the two will meet drawn together by the force two Thrones in the rock the dark side and the light there she will make the sacrifice I feel like this is the prophecy version of a horoscope it's so vague that not only is it not particularly helpful but it's also not impressive if it comes true I think this force-sensitive just did a cold read on Rey and is familiar with mortis and then it has Thrones she's like the ego I'm getting paid today wait what what do you mean sacrifice no me the Jedi must go alone no hold on a second we're not leaving what did she see turay what did you see no me the Jedi will make the journey the journey will answer the question the journey will answer the question this isn't even a horoscope anymore this is like fortune cookie tear Rey is there another path Nomi looks at rate with wide unreadable eyes there is always another path oh good so the prophecy which is so vague it could come true from any number of different outcomes is also not guaranteed to come true we forgive me if I really skim over the beat plot about the Jedi transmitter I'm only like halfway through this screenplay exterior Remnick or Knight a3 tusked Grunk for squeals struggling to run in place while my memoir starts the same way the animal's eyes roll back as the Libyan force is drained into kylos open hand reducing it to a husk kylo opens his eyes his face has more life his eyes brighter scars receded empowered grateful tore volumn smiles like a parent who just taught his child to ride a bicycle in actuality the bicycle riding lessons are much later on the agenda it's a little more advanced more there is no more you have no that remains what on the whole planet Kyle oh just killed their only boar where is mortis the will of the Living force the source of the galaxy's birth I want to be stronger than those who came before where is it you are not worthy of its power not yet kylo reaches out his arm and force halts tor Vallum delving deep into his mind where is mortis release me I see it betrayer I gave you no choked or Vallum have foreseen this an evil wizard thousands of years old who taught a supervillain the key to immortality a large part of which is draining life from other people for no apparent reason the mountain in winter no father everything I know you've given me so much the light of the Living force drains from tor volumn into kylos open hands thank you the ancient bean falls dead reduced to a withered shell Wow he died the way he lived wasting my time Finn and Rose get the Jedi transmitter working and they use it to project a message from leia and she's in white robes she's speaking into our to see what he's doing here in some ways this screenplay is restrained in its fanservice but like when he goes for it he goes for it so hard that it's honestly just kind of embarrassing anyway it's cutting all over the galaxy to different people hearing this message and being inspired by it including to busk so here are some words I had to read Bossk sitting like a sultan in his den of pleasures I don't even know where to start as he approaches his ship kylo Ren feels the light in the sky it's visible in the stars above he moves to a rocky overlook closes his eyes concentrates holds out his hand the rocks around him vibrate deep the light in the sky halts stopped by an immovable force immovable force unstoppable force immovable force ohh think kylo is catching the transmission like the way he can with laser bolts but he just reaches out his hand and stops the projection I guess it's light so okay also by the time he did it it seems like Leia got the important part of the message out already she already told everyone that they need help and to be inspired so he didn't it didn't help okay let's unpack this next action sequence at the transmitter Finn and Rose get cornered by stormtroopers and must zipline away and it doesn't go well they both appear to die and I assume neither of them is actually dead the Knights of Ren show up to kill ray and Poe who escaped on a steep boat like their James Bond and then Ray cuts the sail free and they perish sail away on it then there's a lightsaber fight with the night ray pulls one of them onto her lightsaber and skewers them which is cool that's a trademark of one of the old expanded universe lightsaber forms called mimin the thing it did was it made use of force pulls and force pushes and that's cool to see that back even though it wasn't distinguished as such I always saw Niemann is kind of like a dark side thing because doesn't that feel like cheating to just grab someone and pulled him onto your knife and impale them I will put you back no okay don't tilt ah okay Pat tasca strikes at ray he grazes her she drops her lightsaber and falls back unarmed - Tosca stands over her raises his dark saber for the kill when he does ray gets a good look at his mask forced back to dark figures in the rain voices screaming lightning flashes revealing hat Aska ren this vision stirs a deep vengeful anger in ray one she can't yet explained but knows to be true hih tasca brings his saber down but she extends her good hand teeth clenched eyes burning purple force lightning flows from her fingertips fat-ass corinne skull flashes within his element as the electricity destroys him the body Falls smoking very glad that every version of episode 9 has ray shooting force lightning out of her hands and also that in this version apparently when you force lightning somebody their skeleton lights up like they're in a Looney tune ray says I've seen that mask before all of them Poe and Chewie head for the Falcon but Ray does not follow ray let's go no you can't go where I'm going what are you talking about this was the plan the resistance needs you Finn and Rose need you I'm not leaving you ray knows what she has to do hates it you will leave this place and go back to the resistance I'm not don't do this she approaches Poe delicately brushes her fingertips over his bleeding forehead you will leave this place and go back to help the resistance no you can't poles his mind slipping away from him isn't it canon that this mind trick stuff only works on idiots you will leave this place and go back to help the resistance ray takes post face in her hands and kisses him when she pulls away Poe looks distraught saddened I have to leave this place I have to help the resistance Poe turns and walks up the ramp Chewbacca follows Chewbacca didn't get mine tricked he's just like okay bye bb-8 looks up at Rey ever-faithful she's purposefully cold go she should have just done the tried-and-true method of hurling rocks at Poe and yelling go on get out of here in his reveal to still be alive surprised and he stuns a petroleum stormtrooper instead of killing him Finn disarms him and gives him a pep talk about remembering who he is and finding something worth fighting for it's the kind of culmination of Finn's story that like makes sense it's good I don't know why we didn't get this in the real trilogy because they just forgot to do an interior first order capital inquisition chamber day chancellor huck stands over a prisoner strapped to a vertical torture rack ROS I guess ROS can just be like just goggles yeah that's okay goggles on my goggles you've changed the stool and destroy our signature code so we couldn't trace it give me the new codes you know they told me to pick something easy to remember like life day by saying things we've heard of before we love that I guess that doesn't even make sense cuz life days they're Christmas right and like when talk about cliche passwords it's usually like your birthday I feel like maybe he wrote it and she was just going to say birthday because that's a thing and then tomorrow was like do they have birthdays and stars what do they call them birthdays and then he was like oh they have life day so he just made it that because it's a thing we've heard of even though no one makes their password like the date of Christmas you think this is funny very well Huck's holds out his hand shuts his eyes concentrating deep are you are you trying to use the Force on me oh my god they're doing that bit again if they really wanted to give a hug some moment like this they could have had it be like during an altercation like maybe he drops his blaster and it's out of reach and then he in a moment of desperation throws out his hand like he thinks he can summon it to him through sheer force of will and then you the audience are suddenly like oh I guess all along Hux did kind of wish he had this ability okay not just him at his job going about his day trying the force a bunch of times in front of people especially when he has other methods of interrogation we're really meant to believe that he just tries this on the daily more than once it's just very sad ray drops out of Lightspeed to find herself in swirling clouds half red half blue an ominous and violent atmosphere surrounding a black circle the galactic void suddenly the navigational equipment blinks out the ship rattles alarm sound ray braces herself recalculates for Lightspeed and makes the jump into the void nearly subliminal flashbacks Finn taking her hand on jakku han Solo handing her a blaster on takodana kylo reaching into her mine on Starkiller base Leia smiling fondly Luke taking lightsaber Snoke snarling at her poe yelling out her name hat Aska Ren's force electrified mask I like how her flashbacks are exclusively two moments within the film's just no glimpses of any other part of her life I guess you don't have to go back and get more footage exterior mortis Western woods de knife 9 skims over treetops and crash lands in a riverbed tiny fish leap out of the water and read away reprise herself out of the wreckage and sloshes to land she looks back at the smoking ship turning back Finn runs into deep that adolescent kid from earlier who leads him to an abandoned underground prison where civilians are taking shelter from the first order troops Finn gives a speech he's like the leader of the revolution again it's like a good culmination of his art exterior mortis western cliffs day race scales the IC peak blasted by wind and sleet a storm of snow dust obscures her vision voices echo suddenly she's back in the bright warm sands at the jaku desert wind sweeps over the dunes a child's voice screams out through the storm of sand the little girl is dragged away by her mother and father young ray come back wait ray steps toward them feet digging in the sand the mother breaks from the father's grasp and runs toward young ray but the father holds her back father no we can't it's too dangerous the mother relents calls to her daughter heartbroken stay here wait for us we'll come back understand I promise we'll come back but as this is all played out they're carrying like massive shopping bags full of booze and in the other hand a huge novelty frozen margarita like one of the ones where they just shove a whole corona in it upside down they were afraid why were they afraid no response only wind exterior mortis eastern forest day Kyllo hikes through winter oh I forgot to say mortis is like that one level from banjo-kazooie where they visit the for sea oh my god I just realized I have this jiggy that I just got behind me from banjo kazooie it's just somebody that's because I just got it this was not intentional anyway mortis is like the banjo kazooie level where you have to go through it in all four seasons suddenly the wind dies there's something ahead a house in the woods smoke from the chimney his younger self Ben solo approaches the house he wears all black robes a hood han Solo stands in the doorway he looks at his son with sadness and fear that's a han Solo hat do I have a Han Solo I'm just gonna assume he returns to the Hoth it through multiple points in his life what are you doing Ben that's not my name anymore your mother can't see you here not like that Ben pulls his hood down he's maybe 17 she sent me away your mother loves you she's afraid of me han eyes the lightsaber in kylos hand give me the lightsaber son han reaches for the lightsaber you know I can't oh my god this is very warm on the bright side I located my real Luke bucket hat in case he returns on the Starkiller based catwalk kylo is back in the moments just before he killed his father he watches us he plunges the blade through Han Solo his father's eyes full of love even as the life drains from him I'm sorry this whole scene is just making me think how nothing kylo ren's motivations are in this whole movie like in the other two he wanted glory power purpose something along that Avenue in this one he's entirely seeking a well of life force energy powerful enough to heal him because Palpatine's holocron messed up his face in the first scene I think he was looking at Palpatine's holocron for his initial motivations but then that just renders this entire movie basically a side quest for him nothing he's doing in this movie is a culmination of his goals from the other two movies it's just a new errand that he has to run now it's like : drew Varro looked at this extremely conflicted villain who's just gone through a major life change and become the evil leader of the entire galaxy and has all these complex and overwrought relationships with the good guys and he's just stepping back and looking at it like ah I know what to do with this guy so he had to get his face all messed up so now he can go look for a cure for that matter why does he have to go to a magical well of force energy like surely healing his face isn't going to take the entire life force of the whole galaxy it's like he drained the life energy of one large pig and it healed him roughly halfway and then he's like I need more but there are no more pigs so instead of just flying to a planet where there are pigs in abundance he decided he needs to go on a dangerous pilgrimage to a secret hidden planet where he can steal the life force of every Jedi who's ever lived interior capital interrogation chamber de Rosas eyes are sunken clothes ripped blood peeking through the torn fabric she hears commotion The Barking of orders two officers enter in a hurry transfer to cellblock six they want her in maximum security one officer releases her from the rack she slumps forward dead weight they drag her toward the door as they move rose opens her eyes I in the electric taser on the officers hilt when they reached the door she hits the light weight hits the lights I thought she was going to have some kind of clever plan up her sleeve she just had her hands-free to hit the lights and this torture chamber just had a plain wall activated light switch she grabs the Taser shocks them both clamps both their wrists to the iron shackles alright great the perfect crime having both your hands-free and being carried very close to a light switch kylo Ren ascends the steps to a sealed stone door the temple is cut into the mountaintop he reaches out the door bends to his will and opens a millennium of dust spills from its cracks a millennium of dust is the title of my upcoming why a novel but he does not enter he knows he's not alone kylo turns to face Rey his mask surprises her she's only seen the projection of his ideal self in their connections not this wait what the projection of his ideal self what does that even mean they both looked like themselves in the other movies when they force connected is this to just tell us that kylo Ren is not jacked in real life in the shirtless force connection scene he was actually just sitting on his couch extremely unturned and in a baggy pair of flannel pajamas he was just projecting his ideal self as a shirtless guy with ABS and why is she even taken aback by his new mask he wears masks all the time and this one looks the same as the old one they had a thing where they said it was like the same but meaner-looking a low Rumble she's digging into his mind you're in pain beneath that mask get out of my head you won't like what you find I'm stronger than Anakin Skywalker stronger than his son but you're still afraid of what you of what you've become the dark side has left you empty alone I don't have to be alone with the power of this place we could rule as the ancients did the dark side and the light do you still think I'd 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 she circles him like a lion the screenplay might as well just say she circles around him and the camera is spinning like that one shot in the lion king when Simba confronts scar because we all know that's what he's thinking my parents didn't sell me for drinking money they were hiding me from you then why did you agree with him when he said that's what happened as though it was the thing you had known all along you'd think that if your parents definitely didn't sell you for drinking money and then someone asserted it you would be like what no flash to the Knights of Ren in the rain the image from Ray's forced vision when she first touched the lightsaber a distant child scream Snoke made his orders clear find anyone who could destroy him it didn't take us long to find you you killed my parents I mean like a handful of points to travaux I guess for at least reincorporating the things that she saw when she touched the lightsaber because like JJ Abrams wrote that part and he didn't bring it back he just totally forgot about it but then like the points that I just gave him I'm going to take away again because this twist is stupid and I don't like it like what does it add to kylo Ren that he killed Rey's parents it doesn't seem to have been a pivotal moment for him it was just one of many murders he committed and what does it add to Rey it's not like now it's personal because she already had plenty of very personal reasons to hate kylo Ren and what is it add to her arc nothing it's just a regression if anything you have three main characters rey finn kylo ren all three were shaped by their upbringing z' and all three went radically different directions with it and also posed around he doesn't matter kylo ren does all this bad stuff and he can't stop blaming his family luke betrayed him but even before that his mom send him away his dad didn't understand him vena was raised a stormtrooper and presumably had a very bad childhood but he turned good in spite of that and Rey is the protagonist she's our central character and she could still go either way she had a bad childhood we don't know what's gonna happen with her I mean we do because it's a kid series but still that's like the dramatic tension right it just kind of felt like we were setting up a general story through the trilogy of like everybody has baggage and it's a matter of what you do with it so reversing Ray's backstory undoes this completely it turns out her parents did love her and they were trying to keep her safe and they weren't drunks in fact she has like twee little memories of carving boats with her dad her parents were just murdered by a bad man the one she can blame for everything it makes it childishly simple that tragic childhood that she thought she had of being abandoned and that being her baggage it didn't actually happen good news ray now the dilemma again it's much simpler it's not about what's ray going to do with her baggage about the sad story of her parents not loving her it's ray has to kill the bad man that killed her parents get him ray and what is she going to do and she's basically going to do one of two things forgive him or cut his head off I guess in a story about Jedi having a conflict concerning whether or not you should take revenge is like an okay concept but in this specific case it has nothing to do somatically with anything else that's going on or that's been going on for the other two movies so anyway let's read this stupid scene you blame me for your life on jakku you should thank me for it you were safe I'm not about to pretend that kylo Ren ever says the right thing when he's talking to Ray but even for him you should thank me is a bold choice say it did you kill them I think he already he already said that he did I did you murdered Han Solo I'm not here for you Ray millions of people all I want is behind that door Ray ignites her duel lightsaber then you'll have to kill me kylo lights his own saber I know kylo attacks they clash on the steps of the temple both far more powerful than the last time they met one of these two will not survive exterior chorus on Imperial Boulevard a womp viii EMT Walker's foot stomps down the Boulevard toward the first-order Capitol the new resistance army moves with it thousands now some with blasters others with nothing but clubs and passion clubs and passion is the name of my new EDM album lightsabers clash kylo fight mercilessly on the steps of the temple ancient statues crumble Rey stops them in midair pushing them back I could have been your teacher Rey loses ground doubts herself stumbles I could have ended your pain Rey slices kylos mask shearing the bottom right half clean off revealing the flesh beneath he removes it I - I know she parries an attack so despite having the Vader s respirator noise the mask is functionless he could just take it off in a fight kylo strikes a wicked blow across her face that instantly caught her eyes as a scar from her left cheek to her forehead Rey's lightsaber drops to the stone she falls to her knees and screams clutching her eyes when she opens them the world is an abstract blur of light she's blinded kylo stands over her lightsaber pointed to her heart rate looks up crying blood Rey falls backwards down the stone steps motionless goodbye scavenger kylo enters the temple of mortis leaving rape blind and bleeding on the steps if only the prophecy could have cleverly alluded to this in some way instead of just saying like on mortis some things will happen meanwhile the resistance is still fighting their fight the normal fight stuff that you expect happens Rose needs a memory card to stop a bad thing from happening so the heroes need to get a thing to a place typical action-adventure stuff bb-8 dashes into the battle we stay right with him tracking past a barrage of explosions and laser blasts moving through eight EMT legs narrowly missing craters and fallen brute troopers this is the best scene in the film it's like that scene in War Horse when Joey the war horse is running across no-man's land and he's running he's just busting through things of razor wire he's dragging the fences with him there are mortars going off behind him he faces down against a tank and you're like run horse run and it's beautiful it's oscar-worthy interior temple of mortis Knight kylo Ren's long shadow precedes him into the cavern of stone statues of the Ancients looked down into a deep void in the center sealed with a slab of unpolished marble kylo reaches out the stone slab slides off and falls to the ground with a thud he looks down into well beneath the temple deep into the heart of mortis eager for his reward it's empty nothing a hole in the ground no no you've lost Ben Luke Skywalker steps into the light a thin blue glow traces his form you're dead the Jedi are ghosts I continue to not understand kylo ren's come back the dark side has failed you like it failed my father your father was weak his love for his family saved him I wish it could save you wait so Luke's ghost isn't even here because he thinks he can redeem kylo Ren it's like Leia he just gave up so why exactly is he still hanging around him I thought forest ghosts were meant to come back and offer guidance not like pop by and dunk on their enemies about bad choices they've made I did what I had to do you chose hate I chose power kylo fires his saber and attacks but Luke catches the blade with his gloved hand stopping it in midair stronger than kylo could possibly imagine what I don't understand what's going on I would be stronger than any Skywalker has ever been their faces are inches away separated by the red blade you are no Skywalker oh my god it found a way to get worse somehow Luke's benevolent ghost giving up on his nephew coming back to brag about how he's failed and formally disowning him from the family is not a sight I ever thought I'd live to see exterior Temple Mount Rey lies motionless on the stone steps blind and bleeding in the rain then her hand moves her eyes flutter open Luke let go kylo I think this is the second time in the script that characters have called him kylo like it's a first name and I don't like it let go kylo you can't defeat us us I am NOT alone obi-wan was right we're connected all living things interior Eclipse destroyer bridge space Leia looks beyond the battle feeling Ray's pain Rey Luke voiceover the force surrounds us Rose winces from spark as she rewires the hyperdrive on the capital fingertips bleeding she looks up a feeling Luke voiceover it penetrates us ho lies through a barrage of laser fire Luke voiceover it binds the Galaxy together ray Oh Finn Finn is crouched low behind cover lasers flying overhead Luke voiceover we are one bound by the force Finn feels the connection a surge of hope fight Rey fight ray hears him he's there with her they all are with all her strength the last Jedi Rises okay there's a lot to unpack here in many ways this is great it's very reminiscent of the I am all the Jedi moment we saw on the rise of Skywalker with the major difference being that she's drawing strength from people that she actually knows and loved so it means something and I love this whole drawing strength from the power of love and friendship thing it's amazing it's very my little pony but I also need to point out that this whole Luke moment including the fact that it is a Luke moment is just a big rehash of the ending of the last Jedi that was the end of a second movie in a trilogy so it doesn't feel weird to have the mentor character be the one that gives the big inspiring speech especially since he's about to die but this is the final film and so it's very weird not to give Rey this moment Ray was just fully lying dead on the ground ready to give up and she had to call out to Luke for help and he showed up and not only saved the day by inspiring her and everybody else but he also physically intervened which is something he did not do in the last chat I wouldn't this revelation about the power of friendship have come from inside of Rey couldn't she be the one making the speech even that part about you are no Skywalker I mean honestly I think that should just be gone altogether I think it's very bad I know these movies have a lot of dark concepts for kids but I just think the idea of a heroic character who's meant to be a parental figure casting somebody out of their family who's in a younger child role for doing a bad thing and the narrative framing them as being right in doing that is just kind of an irresponsible and scary concept for kids I don't like it and if he really wanted to have it there I think Rey saying it to kylo Ren would seem a lot less callous because she's one of his peers and again not a parental figure she unwraps a strip of cloth from the bandage on her hand uses it to blindfold her eyes that's cool interior temple of mortis night Luke vanishes God finally beyond him race stands tall in the arched doorway blind bruised determined our masters were wrong I will not deny my anger and I will not reject my love her fallen lightsaber flies into her hands I am the darkness and I am the light I'm fully team grey Jedi reformed Jedi Order Bravo etc but if the final battle is going to be about that I would have appreciated if the whole concept had been like grappled with more in the rest of the movie it just kind of feels out of nowhere at this point she has a brief conversation with Luke about the Jedi way when they're kicking it in the dojo back then it was more for her to voice her disgust about how he wanted her to kill kylo Ren which no it seems like she's just all for you are nothing you are no one she ignites the blades they crackle no one is no one kylo charges their blades meat and sizzle ray fights him blindfolded guided by the force this exact moment happened in the rebels cartoon but Trevorrow gets a pass because I'm pretty sure he didn't watch it actually it's possible that it hadn't even aired yet ok no it came out nine months before he wrote this but like yeah you know he didn't he didn't watch it interior Millennium Falcon space post steers the Falcon into a steep descent straight down the ship dives into the canyon of buildings leveling out on a trajectory toward the Legion of 80 mts on the boulevard the Falcon crashes through the legs of the walkers cutting the mechanical beasts off at the knees toppling them all as it sparks out into Monument Square the ship grinds to a stop at the base of the capital the accumulated pile of falling walkers and crashed ships creates a barricade on the front steps finally the revolution has a barricade I'm hoping they start singing soon and I've been waiting this whole trilogy interior first order Capitol Day alarms blare commanding officers frantically prepare for departure Huck's eyes the crashed Falcon in the square below bomb the city decimate every lost beam commander Selleck says our forces are outnumbered sir Huck's realizes the tragic truth he lost the Star Wars yeah hey hey Colin Trevorrow I could kiss you interior Chancellor Hoxha's chamber day Huck storms into his lush chamber goes to the collectors case removes one of his prized vintage lightsabers huh if you need me I'll be in my lush chamber with my vintage lightsaber he activates it and impales himself with the purple blade Huck's meals the glowing saber protruding from his chest as first order ships descend in smoke and fire out the window interior temple of mortis night Kyllo counters Ray's every move they are evenly matched two sides of a coin flame and shadow fighting to the death a vicious swing and Kyllo saber shatters at the hilt destroyed along with several fingers on his left hand cut across the palm waits for the turning point of this battle is just a random streak of bad luck it's not overconfidence or strategy or whatever it's just a cautionary tale about keeping your lightsaber up to code he looks at it with disbelief stumbles back toward the empty well of mortis falls to one me race stands over him anger flowy she separates her dual lightsaber holds one blade pointed to kylos chest kylo is stunned by powerful being before him she's almost glowing unfathomable living force within oh no living force he reaches out the open palm of his good hand and extracts the living force from Rey as Torv alum taught him wait so why now like I just remembered the living force thing but you'd think it would have been on his mind why didn't he just suck all the energy out of her the moment he decided she was his enemy like he came here straight from Torah Vallum who taught him to suck life out of things any living thing he sucked it out of everything on that planet and then had nothing more to suck from and he's like what do I suck life from now and then he flew here in sare and he's like it just didn't occur to him she rises energy flowing from her body into kylos hand as the life drains from her she pulls her blindfold off and screams to the sky kylo stands tall energized his face has returned to normal healed he pulls the iron plates off his skin they fall away help you flash underneath okay it is interesting that both versions of episode 9 have had this life-sucking component ray gives life to the snake Palpatine sucks life out of her and kylo Ren kylo Ren gives life to her I say that's interesting because it's weird I mean I have no problem with force healing within reason but force sucking just kind of brings all its own complications because if that's a thing that force users can do why would they ever fight any other way like why would the lightsaber have even been invented even if you're a good Jedi and you don't want to kill your opponent you could just suck a little bit of life from them until they're like disarmed I feel like if you're going to introduce this component you need to also introduce some kind of stupid arbitrary limitation to it like you must be holding this talisman and then the talisman gets destroyed so you don't have to worry about it after the movie kylo looks beyond Rey to the empty well of mortis we were wrong all of them the power of this place can't be taken well yeah that's another thing what was the well of mortis in the end like I understand right now it's empty but what was it ever why is it empty it's just kind of funny that for all of Star Wars characters will hear legends and be like but that's just a myth and then like the point of them saying that is that they're narrow-minded and it's not a myth and all the legends are true and then now this is just one legend that actually wasn't true and kylo is an idiot for thinking that it was or maybe there will be a clever twist regarding why the well didn't work for kylo there's still time high/low takes more from her Rey is almost gone drained of life she summons all her strength reaches out with the last of herself she offers him her hand Ben please interior Eclipse destroy her Bridge space Leia feels the disturbance it pains her into the vastness of space she says her son's name Ben oh no so are they doing the Leia force connection thing from the rise of Skywalker I hope not interior temple of mortis night then kylo hears his mother's voice carried by the force Leia then he stops hearing her feeling her clothes come back come home something happens to kylo when he hears his mother's voice okay yeah they're doing the scene Leia speaks to her son through the help us kylo feels the very thing that destroyed Anakin but doesn't make him feel wheat so here's my beef with this the writers interviews after the release of the rise of Skywalker confirmed that when Leia was connecting to her son through the force she was somehow using an incredible amount of force power to magically awaken the good in him this is terrible because it doesn't make any sense and also it suggests that Leia could have done this at any time and why didn't she but the bigger reason it's terrible is it removes kylo ren's agency from his own Redemption arc rendering it dumb and boring kylo Ren Redemption arc ought to happen across a greater span of time so you the audience can kind of follow him and understand his thoughts and feelings as they're changing like see the actor portraying in this Trevorrow script I don't think that Leia is using magic powers to turn him good I think a different stupid thing is happening in this she's just talking to him through the force at a key moment she's telling him to come home you know that thing Han Solo did it didn't work out so well for him so why is it this easy like 30 seconds ago he was apparently fully ready and willing to murder Rey via magic life force sucking but Leia talks to him and then he feels love at least I assume he's feeling love because like he thinks that love is what destroyed Anakin right I mean technically I think it was respiratory failure when his suit stopped working maybe kylo is feeling that he looks at Rey's outstretched hand and takes it the living force flows back into her both light and dark swirl within Reyes kylo is reduced to an empty shell a man without power a frightened boy high/low and Rey collapse into one another each propping the other up on their knees raised close to him now their foreheads touching he is weakened spent in the last moments of his life so Lana Rey is stunned to hear her name distant like a memory your name last breath Rey Solana those words are Ben solos last well that's just awful I don't know how this is meant to offer any closure for either of them also Solana is a bad name it sounds like someone took solo and we're gonna and just combine them to feel like kylo Ren just made it up he's doing that thing where you just look at two things in the room and he's like um myself my mom's disembodied voice ray watches the light dim in his eyes but it is the light goodbye Ben with a look that could be perceived as love Ben solo dies allow me to look at this whole screenplay with a look that could be perceived as disappointment ray releases her Holt collapses barely alive herself they've fought to the death in what sense okay there's a lot of life force sucking in both versions of episode 9 but at least in the rise of Skywalker you can kind of hand wave it it definitely feels in that one like kylo Ren didn't have to go all the way dead to bring ray back because we saw when she healed the snake that you can just give a little bit of your life energy without giving all of it and presumably afterward it like replenishes itself over time like when you donate blood or something but it's like okay I'll just presume that since she was all the way dead bringing her back from the dead is a much larger effort and might require the exchange of a life for a life in this one though I'm just at a loss kylo wanted to suck life out of things because he got v face cancer which I assume eventually would have killed him but he already sucked the life out of that big old pig and tore Vallum I'm pretty sure here I've done mortis with over a half a tank I kind of thought he was just draining ray out of like a lust for power and so that he could kill her and not because he still needed all of that life energy just for his face so ok thus far we are operating on a surplus of life meanwhile Ray's on the ground weakened and near death but not all the way dead so surely you could have given like some of her life back without killing himself completely but then he gives the life back to Rey and he dies but then Rey also is still weak and near death as though it did nothing so where is all this life going or they just extremely sloppy about transferring it and it's just spilling everywhere like me pouring my blue milk from my saucepan into my glass anyway back on course at the Capitol which is itself a big ship lifts off what rose earlier already hacked their navigation system so as soon as it takes off it crashes it crashes into a star and explodes so they won the Star Wars then Poe Rose Chewie and the droids all look up odd inspired but they can't celebrate not yet Poe looks at Finn speaking volumes you feel it too Poe nods affirming their connection Rey is gone yes that even after all that sucking Ray's just dead this is stupid at interior temple of mortis night ray lies flat on the stone silence light fills the space around her particles of energy floating up she Rises with them the light engulfs the frame until we reach a place beyond what we know the astral plane ray opens her eyes clear again unburdened three of the distant glimmers crow larger than the others she moves toward them Yoda Luke Skywalker and obi-wan Kenobi that's a bit random why not just Luke I mean for the fans obviously but the other two mean nothing to her is this death obi-wan in this place there is no such thing as death I can see your true self is free of suffering free of pain ah ah just much I'm sorry I should have promised never to do that again I've taught you you chose to embrace the dark side and the light to find balance within huh core existence Yoda is very bad Yoda says coexist they must as such feelings do in all of us look I'm not gonna do the voice so okay trve are always doing the great Jedi thing which is the thing that I like I mean he's also doing the Harry and Dumbledore in the final Harry Potter thing but okay but if I'm here with you Yoda says a choice you must make to return or to remain here there is serenity knowledge peace those lost but not forgotten she looks beyond them at the shimmering flecks of energy and there though you will face a galaxy in turmoil pain suffering the loss of those you love so it's literally the Harry and Dumbledore at Kings Cross scene he's just you just do the same thing the protagonist has to decide between going and being happy in heaven or staying and leading a difficult life of helping others it's the same thing it's weird here though in the Harry Potter series the burden of being the chosen one and always having to save everybody else at the cost of having a normal life was the central angst of the entire story Harry never chose it it was a thing that was placed on his shoulders since he was a baby it kind of ruled his entire childhood by the Kings Cross scene Harry is extremely exhausted by all this he just recently found out Dumbledore spent his entire life raising him to die he had to process all of that emotionally and then he had to willingly go and sacrifice his life to save all his friends so in the Kings Cross scene it feels like an important character beat to finally have Harry willingly accept the hero role as something that like he has a choice in the character who appears to him as Dumbledore who not only is a surrogate parent to Harry but also sort of embodies the burden that he struggled under because he was always the one putting stuff on him and he basically tells Harry look you've given a lot to this cause and you've helped a lot it's possible that your friends can take it from here without you so Harry at this point if you want you could just opt out you can be done or you can stay and keep fighting it's up to you in this story it's just kind of like why is this happening what does this choice have to do with Rey as a character the answer is nothing recently been grappling with the responsibility of being the last Jedi and the hope of the resistance for like I don't know a year you don't even learn that it's weighing heavily on her until like halfway through this movie and when she does angst about it she's not like I didn't choose to be a symbol I don't want this responsibility this will impede my ability to have a normal life her angst is just I'm worried that I'll let them down other than that she seems pretty willing to give it a shot so now at the end of this movie we see Rey fight Luz give up get told by Luke not to give up then she fights some more then loses again anyway then almost dies and kylo Ren sacrifices his life for her and then she's alive but then she continues dying anyway then a weird puppet she's never seen before appears to her in a dream and says hey if you want you can be dead now it's up to you unlike Harry she didn't graciously sacrifice her life for her friend she came here for a one-on-one grudge match against kylo Ren and then lost she actually lost two different times and in fact she did all that instead of helping her friends who are doing their own thing and actually kind of need her so offering to let her stay dead isn't like you've already given so much to the cause you've given your life if you don't want to give anymore that's okay it's just like some old weirdos standing around and being like hey um you can um be dead if you want why is this happening why is any of this happening we hold on Ray's face as she considers the life she's yet to live and makes her decision thank you the spirits fade into the cosmic force as the light overwhelms us obi-wan Kenobi's voice echoes you are a Jedi race Ilona but you will not be the last exterior Khorasan day a resistance flag rises from the rubble at the site of the Old Capitol thousands of citizens fill the square free interior ceremonial Hall day heroes at attention Leia Skywalker Organa in elegant white Lando Calrissian and her top generals around her Finn Rose Poe and Chewie stand before Leia she places medals of Honor around each of their necks bb-8 beeps excitedly at their feet after 40 years of service Chewie gets a medal oh my god no no why do they all do this I hate this the scene is embarrassing more specifically I have a bone to pick with this idea that every screenwriter seems to have that Chewbacca needs a medal at this point it is actively bad to give Chewie a medal I agree it is weird that he didn't get one in the original trilogy poor Chewie but he didn't and as such we can charitably make it our headcanon that he just didn't want a medal maybe it's against wookie culture to accept a medal when you're in a life-debt and doing a favor for your friends or maybe since he's not human he used the whole custom kind of silly and unnecessary you know he's like a thousand years old I'm sure he's over this kind of thing anyway my point is in the moment he certainly didn't seem bitter he was standing next to his friends I think he was happy for them giving Chewie an apology medal now 40 years later implies that when he didn't get a medal the first time he was genuinely being slighted and he really did want a medal and for 40 years he's been bitter that he didn't get a medal it's unnecessary and also dumb and also sad exterior landing platforms sunset Leia looks down at the blue beacon bracelet once used to guide ray back to safety clenched tight in her hand Finn and Rose stand at her side Leia I can't feel her presence Finn boughs his head neither can he Leia but there's a calm I've never felt balanced that's her Leia places the beacon bracelet in Poe's hand okay sorry ven I'll never stop looking finn approaches poe holding something under his arm let me know what you find okay so finn is not even gonna try to look cool i will thin hands poe is old leather jacket for good luck I like how Finn after being so single-mindedly devoted to Rey is now just like okay cool tell me how that goes I mean Finn has earned the right not to care at this point by the way this whole thing is more or less how the rebels cartoon series ended I'm still assuming Trevorrow hasn't watched it but now I'm a little less sure interior Millenium Falcon space PO flips switches in the cockpit ready Chewie he takes Rey's beacon and hangs it replacing Hans dice okay that's nice this is the kind of fan service not all except oh so I forgot to say that during the battle earlier r2d2 takes a massive hit to the head like it just kind of explodes his whole head c-3po gets really upset and it's like a sad moment obviously he'll be okay and just callously scrolled past this whole sequence without reading it because I didn't think it was important anyway now Leia is fixing him Leia picks up r2d2 is intact memory drive rescued by bb-8 she inserts it into r2d2 reminiscent of the first time we saw the princess with a droid yeah I know artoo beeps to life as his files catalog into chronological order he projects the contents of his memory banks and we witnessed their adventures over six years all from the droids perspective Luke buying c-3po from the Jawas obi-wan giving Luke his father's lightsaber artoo flying through the Death Star trench han getting his metal on Yavin Yoda lifting the x-wing from the swamp Luke's looting from the plank on Jabba's barge Leia and Han outside the bunker on Endor Leia is taken aback by the flood of memories it is a catharsis for her and for us she takes a deep breath so yeah this movie is now actually showing us a clip show of the original trilogy and I love that it's just the original trilogy by the way in case there was any doubt in your mind that this wasn't just fanservice they omitted everything from the prequels I like that I was lulled into a false sense of security though I was just saying that that other fanservice was like good and subtle and well handled and now he hits me with this you know what this makes me realized though is how funny it would be to see all of Star Wars but in a found-footage format just this weirdly ambitious high budget lor heavy sci-fi movie presented in a format that renders it totally incomprehensible modesta de fin sits with a circle of young kids 6 to 11 in a sun-drenched cabin a fire crackles as he finishes a story and the light could be seen all over the galaxy this is my telling a story to children voice ray gave us all hope little girl but how do you know she's really gone I don't think she's gone I believe Finn eyes Rose seated at a wood table parts of a droids motivator spread out in front of her she smiles I believe someday she'll come back and when she does we'll be here waiting all of us wait so ray really did just choose to stay dead was she that fed up with how the movie was going to and she's just like I'm out or worse yet she lived and she just didn't bother to contact any of her friends maybe she was agonizing over how she was going to friendzone Poe and she decided it would be easier to just fake her own death that's kind of relatable the kids smile relieved they liked that ending must be nice the kids leap up and run out into daylight Finn Rises with them and follows the last one out exterior modesta day the children race about the pasture date is among them so is the broom boy from Kanto bite yay unnecessarily on-the-nose broom boy cameo they race around a nerf full trying to hook a ring around its tiny horns yay space horse he's just ticking all the boxes now a little girl hooks it the ring flies back through the air into her hand these children are force sensitive Finn and Rose have built a refuge for force-sensitive youth to live the life they never had Finn steps onto the porch leans against a post the twin sunset I guess they all have that washes his face something in that sunset changes his list full expression unclear at first but it soon becomes a realization a tremor in the force interior millennium falcon deep space po and chewy in the Falcon at light speed the beacon hanging from the dash suddenly begins to glow Chewie roars post-season eyes wide okay I guess I didn't realize that when the ghosts were offering to let ray stay dead it was like a reversible kind of thing like she could just vacation in the astral plane until she was less tired and then come back exterior modesta day Finn notices a glimmer of light in the distance he steps forward to get a closer look Rose joins him shielding her eyes from the Sun a figure blurs on the horizon a familiar silhouette dirty ragged walking for a long time okay she walked here from mortis on the horizon rays Solana her eyes are restored only a faint scar runs across her forehead the kids run toward her joined by bb-8 who is faster Rey walks on toward the homestead he or she will train a new generation of Jedi and pass down what she has learned that only an understanding of the balance within can lead to peace and justice in the galaxy the end what what was the point of all that sorry that's probably mean for that to be the very first thing I say when I finished reading your whole screenplay but seriously though like why did Ray die at all it's just bizarre because it didn't feel like a sacrifice like her death didn't in any way benefit her friends and I don't think they were even aware of what was going on like they weren't there they weren't clear on what she was doing they couldn't even begin to speculate on what killed her they're just like I felt her die somewhere from their perspective she just flew away to settle her beef with kylo Ren despite all their protestations and then vanished for years I'm not a fan of this either way but at least it would have made a little more sense if it was tacked on to the end of the JJ Abrams screenplay like Rey becomes one with the force after her defeat of Palpatine and then vanishes ambiguously dead and then returns later but if you're gonna do this you can't have a scene where the ghosts appear and do that whole thing where they're like you can choose to either be dead or not be dead they didn't even say the process of becoming alive again will be grueling and taken in conveniently long time so now she just looks like a jerk who stayed away just long enough to let her friends handle all the messy post-war rebuilding efforts and then she gets to roll up like hey guys what did I miss or maybe this is what the ghosts were trying to say when they said like living is hard they didn't mean living is hard but it's worth it as like an uplifting thing they meant being alive is inconvenient it takes a while so give us a couple years and like I said I'm not a fan of the death thing at all it creates distance between the audience and Rey because she's presented with a choice we don't get to see what she chooses and then it cuts away from her to focus on all the other characters then she reappears with some transformation apparently having taken place that we just weren't privy to it plays out like some final evolution of her character happened off screen and we just don't really know who she is now it reduces her to a more mythical figure and takes away some of her humanity for us we were supposed to be on this journey with her and now there's a seemingly crucial chunk that happened off screen and she'll never catches up to it because the story is over and honestly if you're going to do a time-skip epilogue why not just skip farther and show us the Jedi school that Rey will eventually build instead of telling us in stage direction that she's going to do that like does the audience know she's going to do that because there's no dialogue around it it doesn't show it why not just have Rey live and then fly back to Khorasan and celebrate with all her friends then build the Jedi School with them and then when it skips ahead we're seeing a thing that she has done all in all I'm a little torn on this screenplay there are some aspects to this which make more sense than what we got in rise of Skywalker so that's good and it kind of makes me question why JJ who presumably had access to this script and read it didn't like go with some of the better options from it when they were right in front of him things like the double bladed lightsaber stuff for rows to do Luke appearing and talking to kylo Ren again even one time a thing that he explicitly promised to do an episode a a stronger emphasis on fixing the Jedi Order and the question of balance and weirdly we do have some incidental things from this script that we're in the rise of skywalker like rise of Skywalker had Blio that alien who got his head cut off this one had a civilian that was helping them and then got their head cut off but whereas in this script that death is used to kind of rally the crowds and help the civilians want to revolt in the rise of Skywalker it just happened and like the bad guys knew about it and we never saw the heroes react it wasn't clear if they even knew what happened we had the life-sucking that was important in both of these oh and we got the lightsaber thrown like a boomerang anyway I feel like I should end this with choosing which screenplay is better between the rise of Skywalker and duel of the fates and that's difficult I feel like if I had to pick one in its entirety I would go with the rise of Skywalker and I hated that movie that version had serious issues with pacing not delivering on things that were set up in the previous movies and it did like all of the characters dirty if I was given the option of choosing one as a starting point and then changing stuff about it I would definitely pick duel of the fates and I feel like I wouldn't have to change like that much it was more cohesive and I felt like Trevorrow was at least making a token effort to try to wrap up things that were established in other movies he didn't seem to have a grasp of like theme but in a very literal sense he was trying to conclude elements of it he gave every supporting characters something to do all of race friends contributed in the final showdown we got our stormtrooper rebellion and you the civilians were like present as a character and we're doing things that's kind of exciting for Star Wars I also thought a lot of the buddy scenes and the jokes and some of the fanservice was well done some of it that said there were some parts that I absolutely hated and thought were so stupid kylo ren's whole arc was so muddled what happened there whose characterization was a huge backslide from anything he learned in Episode eight he felt like this weird author insert character where everybody just liked him and he was good at everything he didn't even really act like he did in the other two movies and any scene with him and Rey was just awful and forced and as I said for all of the fanservice that was well executed there was even more fanservice that was extremely bad and cringy and just in general some truly embarrassing dialogue that cannot be saved but here's the big thing and it's what makes me mad and it's what makes me hate this screenplay Rey the main character had no real journey in this story she was just getting buffeted around by the tide you didn't have a sense that she reached any great resolve or had an evolution of any kind she shows up dressed in black but there's no character beat to earn it or explain it I was talking a little before about character agency and that's why this story really falls apart for me because Rey just doesn't have any she fights kylo Ren and is defeated and totally gives up she lies there on the ground and then is rallied to try again not because of any internal strength or Epiphany she's had but because Luke Skywalker's ghost shows up and gives her a pep talk kylo Ren is redeemed but that's not due to anything that Rey's done either she's just there when it happened for all their back-and-forth over the course of the trilogy he's ultimately down to kill her until his mom shows up and makes him feel bad it's kind of like the Alan Dean foster treatment in that I'm not really convinced Rey actually needed to be there for anything to happen at all if she hadn't gone to mortice kylo Ren still would have found an empty well Luke still would have appeared to him and Leia could too if she wanted so not only would he probably still have been redeemed he also would probably we'll be alive because he wouldn't have tried to kill and then had to save ray sacrificing himself so good job ray you killed Ben solo it's now your fault and you probably could have done a lot more good if you would just stay with your friends like they asked and help the resistance in their fight or maybe you couldn't have because you didn't actually do anything for the resistance in this whole movie think about it in the first scene her friends are on a resistance mission without her and she shows up and saves them from the stormtroopers but then they have to leave and leave behind all the civilians some of whom are executed in this her entire value to the people is just as a symbol she's a symbol of hope and even then they have the whole revolution without her around so I guess they didn't need her that much in the masterpiece film Space Jam there is a scene in which Bugs Bunny gives all of the toons a bottle of plain water but he labels it special stuff and he tells them that this is the secret formula that grants Michael Jordan his basketball powers after the toons consume this water they believe they're better at basketball and with it they start to win the basketball tournament against the Monstars but in the end it's just water it's not special and they don't need it and in this film that's ray she's a boring water bottle with a label on it and the label says ray Solana this movie's bizarre because in a lot of Star Wars movies you have the a plot and the B plot and then they're connected in some way like the protagonist faces off against a certain super villain and their friends are fighting the ground troops elsewhere but ultimately they are fighting the same force to stop the same thing from happening in this movie to a plot and B plot are totally divorced from each other kylo Ren is on a personal mission to heal his own face he's not even on a conference call with the first-order I don't think he even knows they're under attack ray doesn't have any compelling motivation because she just wants to go to mortis and she only wants to go to mortis because she believes she's supposed to go to mortis she doesn't know what she's going there for she's not trying to stop a particular thing she just thinks it's the place to be the whole screenplay puts way too much emphasis on this idea that something big and epic and destiny affirming is going to happen on mortis and then actually nothing happens there it doesn't even provide a very interesting setting for the final showdown it might as well be that one level in Smash Brothers that's just like a plain featureless platformer over a blank void and that would actually be totally fine if you were doing it on purpose to make mortis boring and unimportant to prove some kind of thematic point you know about prophecy being stupid or something like that but we don't even get that it's just a lame finale I just wish there was some perfect world where I could sit in a massive throne like seat in a Coliseum as Trevorrow reads his screenplay to me and I can alternately thumbs-up or thumbs-down each element of the story as it happens to decide what stays and every time ray or kylo Ren or power on the screen my thumb is way down the Lions are out and they're circling with that I actually think this is a pretty workable script and I liked a lot more of it than I expected to and for all I know it did see major changes I think the date on this draft was like a full year before tomorrow is fired so I'm sure something happened to it but as it stands the parts that are bad about this movie are so bad I would not be willing to take the bad parts of this movie in order to get the good parts I'd rather go at the devil we know which is also very bad I guess it gives me comfort to know that in every possible timeline Episode nine would have horribly disappointed me no matter what why does that comfort me it's actually really depressing well you you imagine me sitting down with Colin Trevorrow and he's showing me his new screenplay and I read in silence for two hours then throw it down on the table and just go what was the point

Channel: Jenny Nicholson

Views: 1,674,268

Keywords: star wars, the rise of skywalker, duel of the fates, colin trevorrow, if I had less sarcastic titles I wouldn't even have to use tags, I don't even think these help with seo

Id: 7AGvXqviRys

Length: 110min 1sec (6601 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 17 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Dingus-Doo]

For me, this has better ending for Rose and Finn, but a much much worse ending for Kylo, Rey, Leia, Luke, Poe, and Hux. That's not a high bar, but jesus this screenplay is a mess. Why would Leia reach out to Kylo if she doesn't believe in him anymore? Why does Rey offer him her hand at the very last moment? That seems like something a villain would do, try to kill someone until they get the upper hand, and then beg for mercy and pretend to care about them at the last moment. What does Tor Valum even do as a character? He doesn't have any connection to the characters, he doesn't have any reason to care at all about Kylo or any one. He just shows up to give Kylo a reason to do plot, then dies. At least Palp had connection to Rey and Ben, even if it was shoehorned. I'm also glad that Hux, who in the last film was just treated like a child, is now actually a child in this movie.

I disagree with Jenny that Rey's childhood would no longer be difficult if her parents actually loved her, she still faced starving on a dessert as a scavenger. Also grey Jedi is big dumb.

[u/pizmeyre]

I know I could very well be wrong, but I am about 90% certain that this screenplay is not really and truly Trevorrow's.

Especially after mentioning the Darksaber and "Mandalorian Steel" it just screams that someone wrote this after watching Mandalorian...

But, then, I am one of the apparently few people who actually enjoyed Rise Of Skywalker so what do I know? ;P

[u/AliceTheGamedev]

Jesus Christ the Poe/Rey romance thing is godawful. Like, holy shit how unnecessary and out of nowhere.

[u/DocJupiter]

awesome