Leaked Star Wars: Episode IX Script Shows That Lucasfilm Barely Had Any Proper Plans

Star Wars fans might think that Lucasfilm had an outline for what the story they wanted to tell in the studio's Star Wars sequel trilogy, however, the leaked Colin Trevorrow script for Star Wars: Episode IX reveal how very little the studio actually had planned.

Last week, Colin Trevorrow's script for the third and final episode in Lucasfilm's sequel trilogy leaked online, giving fans an idea of what Episode IX could have been had the studio kept the Jurassic World director on the project. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker might have been one of the most highly anticipated films of 2019, however, the film ended up becoming one of the most divisive entries in the Star Wars franchise.

The leaked script for Trevorrow's version of Episode IX showed fans how different the film could have been, and according to Screen Rant, this proves that Lucasfilm didn't have a straight plan for the sequel trilogy.

The leaked script for what Trevorrow called Star Wars: Duel of Fates revealed that Palpatine's return hadn't been planned by Lucasfilm all along. In fact, the director did reveal back in December that Palpatine had all been J.J. Abrams' idea. In the leaked Duel of the Fates script, Palpatine had been nothing but a hologram, a ghost of the past.

The script also revealed that Rey wasn't always going to be a Palpatine. Trevorrow wanted to follow The Last Jedi's origin for Rey, and so Duel of Fates left the Jakku Orphan as the daughter of two drunken nobodies. Characters like Finn (John Boyega) and Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) also had very different arcs.

All of these differences show that Lucasfilm didn't have an outline for the sequel trilogy. While it can be reasoned that George Lucas never really did have an outline for his Star Wars movies, we can only wonder whether the sequel trilogy had been better had the studio planned the narrative more carefully. We can only imagine.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is currently screening in cinemas.

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