Lit A/V Star Wars Episode IX: Duel of the Fates

I've always found it fascinating how in Aftermath Palpatine had a whole contingency plan for his death and yet Duel of the Fates had no real idea of Palpatine's return. It honestly wasn't until JJ came in did the idea of brining back Palpatine become a actual thing.

Sorta funny how that thread on Palpatine having a contingency plan worked out.

 

Glad to see someone agrees with me here!

I'll never get why people think Duel of Fates is a better story...its not

 

exactly TROS gets the ethos and thematically of Star Wars far more thrn DOTF does

 

Agreed. Although TROS was very flawed, it was its execution and pace that were the bigger issues, not the ideas. Some ideas were questionable, or at least hastily introduced. But they do have logic to them.

 

And honestly (Minus stuff like Rey Palpatine) I think the execution side of things could have been done better with more time given to it. Remember TROS was a rushed production in many many ways.

 

Yup, it had an entire year less than the other films. The earliest concept art comes from October 2017, as confirmed by Phil Szostak, so that's two years and two months, whereas the rest had at least three years. TLJ had three years and five months. It's a shame. A few more passes on the script at the very least could've ironed some issues out.

 

Indeed, while I don't think stuff like Rey Palpatine changes (If Abrams was going in from the get go with that idea) i do think a few more pass arounds helps with pacing and giving maybe secondary characters like Finn, Poe and ESPECIALLY Rose a bit more to do in the film and just helps to make it a bit more roundabout of a film.

 

I don't know how much was to some rumors but rumors had it that the movie was getting way too long and needed either be cut into two movies or loose a lot of material entirely. While it was from same sources that leaked DotF stuff early on, I think there is something to those rumors. Imagine they had DotF and TROS still as one with more from both together originally?

I agree that SW does not need to turn a trilogy into a quadrilogy by splitting the final movie like Potter or Hunger Games did. But I am not opposed to 4 hour long movies either, if it is the exception and not the rule. I mean, it works for Indian Bollywood pieces. So why not?

The transition from DotF to TROS was way more fluid than people thought I think. If even the Art of TROS leaked early in south asia had lots more DotF concept art in it than the final version did ultimately, it speaks to a lot of DotF having been in TROS still at the point of making of the book few months before the leak. We know reshoots changed TROS quite some, but how much DotF was in the previous version? And given how fluid the transition was from the DotF version to TROS, at what point did they decide to give DotF the hard axe and remove most traces of it from the movie? Looks like LFL worked with all they had and some external force like Disney or such axed elements late in the process due to rights or payment issues if too much Trevorow influence remains in the movie, which JJ and LFL seemed to not have a problem with given how they build it off of that tangent and how seemless both versions would have fit together with focussing on two sides of the same story as I showed in other topics already trying to re-merge them. Few hard deviations aside that is (like Rey/Poe), it would have fit.

 

The Eye of the Dark Side aka Web/bish (of) Bog(an) actually was originally Tor Valum. Wayfinders originally were Holocrons merely. Given we have only early versions of DotF and late final of TROS to compare I can still see the transition, even if the first and final versions seem different.

Even if Palpatine and Mustafar were slapped on late, and Tor Valum/Oracle transported to Mustafar instead of that new planet or Mortis it can work.

I'd even go so far as to make hellish Mustafar the physical representation of what the spiritual Mortis became. With green Mustafar as per ILMxLab having been the previous Mortis the Monolith like a giant Holocron kept a visonary world of for TCW to visit. Heck if Mustafar is the destroyed turned hellish real Mortis... then Vader's castle sits in the place of The Father's former castle.. with the excavations below bringing to light interesting earlier incarnations. One might even tie Lord Corvax to the Father of Mortis somehow.

While previously I had Exegol be a Mortis analogue... Mustafar fits even better now, given TCW Mortis had lava rivers belowground and a cave for the Mortis Dagger! No wonder Anakin/the Chosen One/Vader is drawn to this hellish place that showed him his future once and transformed him soon after into his present state.

=headcanoned=

 

The beginning sequence of the DOTF script seems exciting and "Star Warsy." Maybe it was the mood I was in when I was reading it, but I could hear the themes and cues in my head. What was to come thereafter, however, not so much.

 

expanded version of by above post can be found in the headcanon topic, can't edit it here anymore due to time restraint.

@Fin McCool I agree that the beginning of DotF felt very StarWarsy. So did Coruscant I think and some later parts. Minus may be Bonadan/Paasana. those kinda took me out of it a bit. Nothing against giving Poe more backstory, but it felt disconnected a bit in pacing and theme. Kijimi I prefer given it has that ancient monastery vibe befitting the Force themes of other places. Also Paasana was too Tatooiny for my taste.. but I enjoyed the new aliens and music.

Buuuut, regarding Bonadan in DotF... why did they pick that Legends EU world I wonder, given how much else Legends they lifted from Dark Empire and Jedi Prince, etc. and I think I found out why now:

Bonadan in the EU had several unique specialties that actually can be still found in TROS!

Fiolla of Lorrd as the most noteable Lorrdian character that happened to be on Bonadan.
Also Bonadan was in the Corporate Sector and tied to galactic commerce thus.

So what does that have to do with Poe Damerons past?

Well, Lorrdians specialise in nonverbal bodylanguage and movement and for that wore bodytight clothes sometimes. The same can be said about TROS Zorri Bliss agile movement and clothes.

Fiolla and Han shared an adventure on Bonadan, much like Zorri and Poe shared past adventures. Given how Han-esque Poe was, giving him such a shady past may stem from even more Han-ising him!

 

@Sinrebirth @ColeFardreamer

From what I've gathered from the making of DoTF to TROS is essentially a ...dwindling down of Colin's first draft.

You notice that Colin's first draft is quite massive...a lot of stuff happening, and from what I could gather from rumors and what not their is a lot streamlining and dwindling down of the scale a bit to make it a bit more manageable.

Tor Valum is cut from later drafts and Kylo goes straight for either Plagueis of Sidious Holocron.

But a new villain is added to help with Kylo's redemption.

JJ comes in removes the original new Villain and brings back Palpatine (Which i think is a smart move given Palpatine is a known entity meaning you don't have to do the leg work) and streamlined more of the various plots to make it more a Indiana Jones style search for the Mcguffin plot.

Granted sadly the arcs of the other characters are greatly reduced and Rey and Kylo get most of the development but you can still see the through lines.

JJ probably added the Rey Palpatine thing based off ideas from TFA as well.

So that's how I see the transition.

Essentially the script writing was a trimming of the fat so to speak and reading DoTF first script there is defiantly a lot of unnecessary story fat.

 

I wonder if the Duel of the Fates concepts and ideas will down the line be added to the ST expanded material some day or if they will be reworked for other eras and characters. They are too good to go to waste.

F.e. might the ancient Lightbeamnetwork of the Jedi Temple be used in the High Republic Era?

Will something Tor Valum or Eye of Webbish Bog appear in the past?

Will we see ancient Dyads at work that are not Chosen Ones but powerful nevertheless?

 

The Eye of Webbish Bog was in the TROS novelization and is also going to be in the comics in the OT era.

 

You know, if nothing else, I would love it if some of that concept art got reused in other star wars works. I love the lilypad tree esque landing pads, the new resistance ship, the rebel painted AT-STs etc.

Plus, set piece wise, a large scale walker battle would be really cool - something that feels really star wars, but I don't think has actually been done in star wars.

 

Pity Resistance is cancelled... that show could have taken on so many concepts and ideas of DotF and moved right into TROS and shown DotF happening paralell to it. How the people fleet came together, got the call, started to move...

A small band of Resistsance trapped on Coruscsant trying to reach the Lightbeam Network kickstarting a guerilla revolution as a sideeffect. The network activated reaching across the galaxy as people rush to their ships and entire fleets mobilize. Everyone helping where they can... some go with the fleet, others stay to fight at home and take on stormtroopers. Yet others prepare aid to those in need or have shamans seek holy grounds to use the Force on a galactic magnitude in unison to support those that do the free peoples work. everywhere, simultaneous battle meditation and other Force wielding for a unified purpose.

 

This 100%

 

I’ve seen this mentioned a few times, and especially by online news outlets back when the info about DOTF first came out, but is there any solid confirmation that the character of the Oracle/Eye was an evolution of Tor Valum?

I ask because the one art piece we have of him and his description from the script don’t really specify that he’s spider-like in form. He definitely does sound like he could’ve been portrayed by a puppet, though, hiding in a heap of debris and later walking on his arms.