The Rise of Skywalker Colin Trevorrow No Longer Directing Star Wars Episode IX

[Roose Bolton]

But he doesn't. In the end of Trevorrow's script, Luke fails and Kylo is "extinguished" unredeemed, ending the Skywalker line in darkness and defeat. I think Luke would never forgive himself for that and might simply allow himself to dissolve into the Force to escape the crushing guilt.

Well that’s not exactly true, he does end up giving his life to heal Rey after prompting from Leia and realising that his goal had no real point. It’s not at all a compelling or well done redemption, but that does seem to be the intent.

 

[sueb1863]

But doesn't he stay evil? I thought that was why he got extinguished.

 

[Roose Bolton]

No, he kind of just gives up. Tor-Vallum taught him a technique where he could vampirise others by draining their life to strengthen his own, which he uses on Rey after having maimed her during their final duel and at the end when he realises his quest was pointless he reversed the process and gives his own life to heal and empower Rey. He was “extinguished” because his essence was used up and before he dies he tells Rey her full name. (Rey Solana)

 

[spiderman2]

It's hilarious. A few years ago everyone hated Trevorrow and trashed his work. Now fans want to see his version of Star Wars.

Fandom can truly be the worst sometimes. Fans are fickle and don't even know what they want half the time.

Disney and Kathleen Kennedy have made mistakes, but in their defense, dealing with the fickle attitude and nature of fandom is one of the most difficult tasks in creating TV/film entertainment on the planet.

Star war fans complain no matter what i have learned. When it comes to Trevorrow i was not agest him. I liked both jurassic world and fallen kindom movies a lot. Unlike a lot of people i enjoyed TLJ even though i found TFA to be much much better. So know matter what i thought i would like episode 9 and i did. Its just interesting to think about what could have been the results of this no matter if good or bad.

Its why i think there was never a win/win situation for star wars.
For that the fandom is just too big and all.
I dont believe for a second that the sequels ever had the chance of really pleasing people no matter what.
Look at the PT, people for so long wanted to see how it started and all...lucas did that and people were ripping the movies apart.
No matter what the books, comics, shows, games do...people rip it apart.

I dont envy anybody who works on such big franchises because no matter what you do, people will hate you with the passion of 10 burning suns.
Sure they could have done a bit "better", no doubt about it...but i dont believe there would have been a "so much better".

The star wars fandom is just way too big and wide spread for that.

Yeah when it comes to most things you tend to be able to find a over all consisence when it comes to how fans fell about something. When it comes to star wars i have said before out side of loving john williams music i dont think fans agree on any thing and i see more different opinions when it comes to star wars then i see about like any thing else out there.

 

[Marvolo]

It's hilarious. A few years ago everyone hated Trevorrow and trashed his work. Now fans want to see his version of Star Wars.

Fandom can truly be the worst sometimes. Fans are fickle and don't even know what they want half the time.

Disney and Kathleen Kennedy have made mistakes, but in their defense, dealing with the fickle attitude and nature of fandom is one of the most difficult tasks in creating TV/film entertainment on the planet.

We have a clear understanding now of what Trevorrow intended to do and we have watched JJ's garbage fire ROS. That inevitably changed some people's opinions.

For the record I defended Trevorrow from the beginning. I only temporarily turned against his involvement when that fake plot synopsis leaked that was a rip off of Life Debt.

 

[Mjolnir Reborn]

"Buying a little time" is a massive reduction of the event. It saved the last remaining Resistance members, and involved an impossible feat. He basically went full-on-Jesus.
Someone needed to help them because they were trapped and helpless. The film clearly depicts this, and even has them crying out for help to the whole galaxy.

Yes, and intentionally so. People get hung up on what big of a Force feat it was to project like that, which is a nice thing but it's so diminished since what he achieves with it is so minor. Especially after TLJ made him the worst Jedi we've seen he needed some redemption, which this doesn't even come close to. I reduce it to what it is because that makes it so clear what it is in comparison to the feat of the Resistance in TFA, which says everything needed on the aspect of inspiring the galaxy.

That scene could easily have been written to have Rey and the Falcon narrowly rescue everyone while the First Order searches for the survivors in the caves, even without making any dramatic change to it (apart from not having Luke there of course). They would just have had the people inside act more normally and instantly move deeper in when the enemy is looking to blow up the door. They would also have had more time to hold out if Finn wasn't interrupted by Rose and her teleporting speeder. On top of that there are all the other ways they could have written that scene, as the writers can write whatever they want.

Luke punked him. Kylo took the bait and engaged in combat with a ghost. By the time he realized Luke wasn't there, the Resistance escaped and he failed his mission to wipe them out. The FO might chalk that up as a win, but they're still talking about it. The story got out.

He only did so to the knowledge of him, Kylo and the audience. No one else had any clue what was going on. I see no argument for how the story gets out in a credible way here. Not even the Resistance people saw what went down, they just know Luke died because of Rey feeling it. To the FO people watching Luke just vanished after Kylo put his lightsaber into him.

And Luke trying to punk Ben was yet another blow to his character. Not even at that point could he be bothered to try to get through to his nephew and old student and try to help him, like he should have done in the past. He truly was made to be the worst Jedi.

I know Elvis conspiracies are just that, because we live in the real world where celebrities die.

In the Star Wars universe however, Luke Skywalker is a legendary Jedi master. He is the face of space wizardry, in a world where space wizardry is a real thing.

It should be clear that one of the above is much more likely to be discussed at large than the other. I mean, surely, right? People speculate about ordinary celebrity stories, how much would they talk about actual superheroes?

Space wizards die as well. That's why the Jedi Order is gone. The only ones that have seen anything of some Force users living on in some form are other Force users.

That's not really the point though. The point is about why this story would be better believed than any other speculation and rumor about Luke. The notion that he suddenly shows up to help the Resistance after all this time, in a place where no one else could notice it, and then conveniently vanishes again, sounds like the typical story that's made to be unverifiable so people can't just prove it wrong.

That such a story, from a tiny group that have all the reason to lie to get someone on their side, is inspiring the entire galaxy, but no one cares about them blowing up Starkiller Base, is laughable.

The entire ST has massive problems with establishing the scope and scale of the First Order. Won't argue that. It appears that even without Starkiller Base they had enough resources to seize control of the galaxy. With no Republic fleet, there was no organized force to oppose them.

Consider the context too. Destroying that weapon wasn't as positive as the Death Star, where the plucky heroes managed to black the eye of the oppressive government. Starkiller was destroyed, but not before it was used to wipe out an entire system and a whole governing body with it. The First Order were a crazy fringe group with a horrible weapon. They were terrorists. Taking out the base was a good thing, but it was like stopping the shooter after the shooting. It still sucks, and there was still chaos and despair.

There were organized forces in every system as canon has established that the Republic didn't have a centralized military, everyone just had their own, so they were organized and controlled by local leadership. That means that the First Order has to deal with systems individually, which would take a very long time since a galaxy is extremely large, to say the least.

Their initial plan of showing incredible force and then have everyone bow down in fear of suffering the same consequences was a very logical one. Nothing even remotely close can be done when you lose that power though. It's absurd that they control the galaxy within a day, when they likely couldn't even communicate with each system in a day's time. The one realistic achievement they got from blowing up the Hosnian system, and losing Starkiller Base afterwards, was just that the Republic couldn't launch a coordinated assault on them within any reasonable time.

Destroying the Death Star wasn't even near as big, seeing how the Empire was already more than strong enough to have had an iron grip on the galaxy for decades. Systems couldn't just rise up when inspired by that because the Empire were already present there with their forces and infrastructure to keep them down. The First Order never showed any capability of controlling an entire galaxy, so they were absolutely dependent on Starkiller Base.

I find it to be on the level of if ROS had opened with saying that since the Resistance escaped Crait they now have amassed a fleet to match the First Order in the next day. Unfortunately that pretty much happened as well, just later in the film.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Even though I liked TROS a lot more 2nd time, I still think Trevorrows version would have have been better. I was one of the few who was excited for him on this and was disappointed when he was gone, so no u-turn from me.

 

[Mani-Man]

Thing is that Now of course its easy to say Trevorrows script is better and all.
But if you look at how people still talk about TLJ it was a tough choice to make.

They tried to go back to a simpler storytelling with ROS instead of continue a more "brave" approach...after TLJ reactions understandable.

People were jumping at them to get rid of Johnson, erase TLJ and so on...so to continue going the direction TLJ did, would have been risky.
Just like not going that way was risky.

Either way i think they were too arrogant and not very open when they approached the Sequels.
The heart wasnt clearly in it, otherwise they would have done a lot different.

 

[Marvolo]

There is nothing simple about ROS. It's a convoluted overstuffed mess that makes a mess of the whole damn saga.

TLJ is the simplest and most straightforward film in the trilogy.

 

[moviedoors]

We have a clear understanding now of what Trevorrow intended to do and we have watched JJ's garbage fire ROS. That inevitably changed some people's opinions.

This is me. I don't like Trevorrow's previous work. Jurassic World was terrible, but I think it was conceptually terrible, a bad idea from the foundation up. I fundamentally don't like his take on it. Book of Henry, same thing, a fundamentally bad idea.

His take on Star Wars, conceptually at least, is really great. He was actually running with some ideas. Rise of Skywalker, based on how self referential and reverent of the orginal Jurassic World was, is the kind of movie I was afraid Trevorrow would deliver.

Looks like I was wrong.

 

[sueb1863]

No, he kind of just gives up. Tor-Vallum taught him a technique where he could vampirise others by draining their life to strengthen his own, which he uses on Rey after having maimed her during their final duel and at the end when he realises his quest was pointless he reversed the process and gives his own life to heal and empower Rey. He was “extinguished” because his essence was used up and before he dies he tells Rey her full name. (Rey Solana)

Oh, OK, thanks! Is there a more detailed synopsis somewhere? The only one I've seen is pretty brief and just says "Ultimately, unlike Rise, Rey’s attempts to coax Ben Solo out of his Kylo Ren angst helmet fail, and he is “extinguished” " which is why I thought he died unredeemed.

 

[Roose Bolton]

Oh, OK, thanks! Is there a more detailed synopsis somewhere? The only one I've seen is pretty brief and just says "Ultimately, unlike Rise, Rey’s attempts to coax Ben Solo out of his Kylo Ren angst helmet fail, and he is “extinguished” " which is why I thought he died unredeemed.

************** had synopsis for both the first draft (the main one we’re talking about) and the last draft Trevorrow turned in. It’s popped up in a few other places too.

 

[henzINNIT]

Yes, and intentionally so. People get hung up on what big of a Force feat it was to project like that, which is a nice thing but it's so diminished since what he achieves with it is so minor. Especially after TLJ made him the worst Jedi we've seen he needed some redemption, which this doesn't even come close to. I reduce it to what it is because that makes it so clear what it is in comparison to the feat of the Resistance in TFA, which says everything needed on the aspect of inspiring the galaxy.

He saved the Resistance when they were on the brink, in a subtle, non-aggressive way, and did so in a feat of magic that has never been seen before. Big enough for me. And about as Jedi as you can get.

That scene could easily have been written to have Rey and the Falcon narrowly rescue everyone while the First Order searches for the survivors in the caves, even without making any dramatic change to it (apart from not having Luke there of course). They would just have had the people inside act more normally and instantly move deeper in when the enemy is looking to blow up the door. They would also have had more time to hold out if Finn wasn't interrupted by Rose and her teleporting speeder. On top of that there are all the other ways they could have written that scene, as the writers can write whatever they want.

Any scene can be rewritten. I don't see what you're getting at here. What happened in the film is what happened. I don't tend to debate using "something different could have happened" as evidence.

He only did so to the knowledge of him, Kylo and the audience. No one else had any clue what was going on. I see no argument for how the story gets out in a credible way here. Not even the Resistance people saw what went down, they just know Luke died because of Rey feeling it. To the FO people watching Luke just vanished after Kylo put his lightsaber into him.

Anyone watching or recording would have seen:

-The pair briefly sparring, Kylo not being able to land a hit on him.
-Kylo charging at an unarmed Luke with a swing that should Luke clean in two, except it doesn't.
-Kylo sinking his blade into Luke's chest, and he doesn't flinch.
-Luke disappearing after some parting words, and Kylo screaming in rage and defeat.

It would have gotten out. I simply don't share this gripe with the film.

And Luke trying to punk Ben was yet another blow to his character. Not even at that point could he be bothered to try to get through to his nephew and old student and try to help him, like he should have done in the past. He truly was made to be the worst Jedi.

Don't equate my sassy language with Luke's intentions though. It wasn't a petty prank, it was a diversion. Luke told Leia he wasn't there to save Kylo, but he went out there and spoke to him, admitted he failed etc. Luke also assured Leia that "no-one is ever really gone" so it appears he saw hope, just not in him saving Kylo, which is understandable and almost certainly true considering the circumstances.

Space wizards die as well. That's why the Jedi Order is gone. The only ones that have seen anything of some Force users living on in some form are other Force users.

That's not really the point though. The point is about why this story would be better believed than any other speculation and rumor about Luke. The notion that he suddenly shows up to help the Resistance after all this time, in a place where no one else could notice it, and then conveniently vanishes again, sounds like the typical story that's made to be unverifiable so people can't just prove it wrong,

That such a story, from a tiny group that have all the reason to lie to get someone on their side, is inspiring the entire galaxy, but no one cares about them blowing up Starkiller Base, is laughable.

I think I adequately demonstrated how word would likely spread within the First Order itself. In that case you could call it pretty verified if the enemy is leaking it. If you don't agree then I'm not too inclined to drone on about it.

It's not that no-one cares about SKB, it's that its destruction happened after the Republic was wiped out and during a galactic hostile take-over, so the victory isn't quite a savored. Still a victory though. It's not an either/or situation.

There were organized forces in every system as canon has established that the Republic didn't have a centralized military, everyone just had their own, so they were organized and controlled by local leadership. That means that the First Order has to deal with systems individually, which would take a very long time since a galaxy is extremely large, to say the least.

I'm not knowledgeable of the EU so I'm just going by the movies here, but what I saw in TFA was a Republic Fleet being destroyed along with the planets. I don't know of the size of each planet's local troops, but apparently not many organized and armed enough to assist with SKB or come to the Resistance's aid in TLJ.

Their initial plan of showing incredible force and then have everyone bow down in fear of suffering the same consequences was a very logical one. Nothing even remotely close can be done when you lose that power though. It's absurd that they control the galaxy within a day, when they likely couldn't even communicate with each system in a day's time. The one realistic achievement they got from blowing up the Hosnian system, and losing Starkiller Base afterwards, was just that the Republic couldn't launch a coordinated assault on them within any reasonable time.

Destroying the Death Star wasn't even near as big, seeing how the Empire was already more than strong enough to have had an iron grip on the galaxy for decades. Systems couldn't just rise up when inspired by that because the Empire were already present there with their forces and infrastructure to keep them down. The First Order never showed any capability of controlling an entire galaxy, so they were absolutely dependent on Starkiller Base.

I find it to be on the level of if ROS had opened with saying that since the Resistance escaped Crait they now have amassed a fleet to match the First Order in the next day. Unfortunately that pretty much happened as well, just later in the film

Again I am not inclined to disagree that the First Order were vague and badly drawn. Wasn't being of unknown quantity part of their threat though? The impression I got was that they were massively under-estimated as a force by all but Leia. I certainly never thought SKB was the full extent of their operation, not even in TFA.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I agree with you about that statement. Any movie could have been written differently in the history of ever, so I don't see that as a valid argument for or against the way The Last Jedi was written.

 

[TheVileOne]

He saved the Resistance after Poe, Rose, and Finn got most of the survivors annihilated.

As for the Trevorrow stuff, some of it sounds interesting and at least an improvement over what was depicted in Rise of Skywalker.

But the Tor Vallum stuff just doesn't work IMO. Having Kylo Ren go to another planet to train with evil Yoda for an hour...I just don't see it. We should be rooting for Kylo's defeat.

 

[Mani-Man]

I think the Trevorrow Script shows that they were in over their head.
Even that script is imo way too huge and tries on many places way too much for one movie.

Yeah, at no point does that Tor Vallum stuff work for me...i mean my thing with Plagueis isnt all that much different, but still.
Suddenly having this lovecraft like being around to teach Kylo for a bit, seems kind of random.
I mean what happens with Tor Vallum, does anybody mention it further in the script?
Whats the purpose?

 

[jolldan]

This has probably already been talked about to death but one thing I was thinking about at the weekend was how I never liked the sound of Driver's character from the very first movie, Kylo Ren just never had any pop for me as a name.

Think of all the Sith we've had in previous movies Darth Sidious, Plagues, Tyrannus, Maul, Vader the list goes on and on of guys who sound they basically looked up evil or villain in a Thesaurus. Never got why they didn't go with something similar for him.

 

[DarkKnight88]

Because he named himself. That never goes well. The others were named by their master.

 

[Brother Jack]

Think of all the Sith we've had in previous movies Darth Sidious, Plagues, Tyrannus, Maul, Vader the list goes on and on of guys who sound they basically looked up evil or villain in a Thesaurus. Never got why they didn't go with something similar for him.

Kylo wasn't a Sith.

 

[henzINNIT]

Tor Vallum is a major weak spot in that pitch. I'm all for a creepy old creature, but tacking him on as Palpatine's master is lame. Bringing Palps back is a better idea than that. I'd prefer neither, but yeah.

 

[Marvolo]

Because he named himself. That never goes well. The others were named by their master.

Kylo Ren is probably the only new name in this trilogy that I like.

In universe, the new Kylo comics probably explain his name. The original leader of the KOR was called Ren. It seems to also be a philosophy and is symbolized by a lightsaber.

More about Ren here:

Ren

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

There was Trevorrow's pre-Fisher death and post-Fisher death drafts, and then there was also the alleged Jack Thorne version of IX as well. And they are all different in various ways. And then the various versions of the Abrams version of IX as well that haven't been solidly detailed yet except for the final version put into theaters. Like what happened to Matt Smith and who precisely was he playing?

 

[Mjolnir Reborn]

He saved the Resistance when they were on the brink, in a subtle, non-aggressive way, and did so in a feat of magic that has never been seen before. Big enough for me. And about as Jedi as you can get.



Any scene can be rewritten. I don't see what you're getting at here. What happened in the film is what happened. I don't tend to debate using "something different could have happened" as evidence.

I'm too lazy to fix the formatting issue so I'll just write answers in order.

Part of why they are on the brink is his fault. Especially since the film tries to say that he alone is enough to inspire the galaxy. Doing the least possible at the end isn't even close to making up for every extremely non-Jedi thing he was written to do.

I already stated why the scene doesn't make sense and I gave an example of how the scene, as written, can easily lead to the escape without including Luke. The final part is just to say that if you notice that what you're writing isn't logical, then rewrite it. Then again I'm often surprised at how bad Hollywood is at logic, as so many logical errors pass through the big machines.

As for what the First Order guys can see, you're severely underestimating the distance between them if you think they can see whether Luke flinches or not. You're also putting way too much weight on that they will actually understand what they are watching. They just see their leader willingly go down to face a legendary Jedi who just survived a huge barrage from the walkers, which alone is extremely impressive.

Luke didn't do anything for Ben, just as he never did in the past either. That fits well with the worst Jedi moniker they created for him.

I don't think you did since your analysis of what they saw and what they understand is flawed to me. That's on top of just assuming that the indoctrinated soldiers spread rumors, of which we've never seen any indication.

Yes, apparently no one does care about SKB since it's far more important in terms of showing that you can stand up to the First Order than what Luke did. Especially since the former is not a far larger feat, it's also something done by ordinary men. And again, the FO didn't destroy the Republic, they just killed the senate and surroundings in one single system. The Republic is likely thousands of systems and each system of course has a fully developed political system since you can't run a country, let alone a complete system of planets, without a highly functional political machine.

What I was referring to isn't the EU but current canon. I don't bother with much outside the films and shows either, but I've been told that a novel established that the Republic didn't have a centralized military. Lucasfilm says that all they do is canon so there's contradiction here. Not that it made any sense at all that the fleet of nearly an entire galaxy would be located in one system to begin with. Even if we ignore that it would be way too large to station in one place it would also be utterly stupid and pointless to have it all in one place instead of spread out where it can actually be useful.

SKB wasn't the full extent of the military might of the FO, but it was the only way they could take over the galaxy without very long, drawn-out war. I also find it weird that no one seems to care about Leia, especially in light of the whole "Luke inspired the galaxy". Leia should be nearly as legendary and important as he is, and should be a way more important person than Luke in terms of political and military decision making. Did she turn out to be a terrible politician after the war? I guess it's just part of the whole thing with the ST that doesn't want to show the old characters in particularly good light, so it's just what it is because reasons.

But as grumpy as I am regarding TLJ I am glad for the people that do like it, I really am. I wish I did but for me the ST is pretty much now the example of how not to make sequels. It's extra frustrating since Blade Runner, which is a much more complex thing to follow up on, got such an amazing sequel on all levels.

 

[Mani-Man]

Kylo Ren is probably the only new name in this trilogy that I like.

In universe, the new Kylo comics probably explain his name. The original leader of the KOR was called Ren. It seems to also be a philosophy and is symbolized by a lightsaber.

More about Ren here:

Ren

The whole Ren thing is such a cool idea...i dread what the EU will make out of the sequel trilogy because i know for sure it will piss me off that they wasted so much potential with half assing the ST in the movies while comics etc will make the best out of it.

Kylo Ren is a damn cool name.
I like the idea of it and the potential.
Him not just wanting to be a sith or so, him wanting to destroy everything who is against him, the jedi...and rule as supreme leader.
Not being "held back" by the "darth" name and being "just" a Sith, instead him being above that.
Leading the Knights of Ren and all...such a cool concept.
Of course the whole sith "darth" name never stops being cool, but in this case i love Kylo Ren as a name.

****ing wasted so much potential god damn it.

 

[Marvolo]

There was Trevorrow's pre-Fisher death and post-Fisher death drafts, and then there was also the alleged Jack Thorne version of IX as well. And they are all different in various ways. And then the various versions of the Abrams version of IX as well that haven't been solidly detailed yet except for the final version put into theaters. Like what happened to Matt Smith and who precisely was he playing?

It's never been confirmed, but there's been more than one rumor about Smith's role.

He was playing a fully rejuvenated Sidious or a young Sidious clone in the final fight, but Abrams or Disney decided that Sidious played by Ian Mcdiarmid in the final fight would have more impact so Smith was cut.

He was playing a Knight of Ren or First Order officer or Sith acolyte that would be possessed by Sidious in the third act.

He was playing a young Palpatine in a flashback.