A while back, I began working on an article about the evolution of Episode IX's story, from the 1970s all the way up to the release of The Rise of Skywalker. Recently, I was able to augment it with information from a new source: a complete shooting schedule from near the beginning of principal photography. That schedule reveals, for the first time, the story from the shooting script of the film. The first two acts are pretty similar, but there are departures in the third. Kylo Ren's talk with the memory of his father doesn't take place on the Death Star ruins but in the Millennium Falcon at the Resistance Base. He even leaves behind a gift for the good guys. Kijimi doesn't get destroyed. Finn and Jannah have a different objective in the final battle, likely installing the device that Ben Solo left (which seems to be a sabotage gadget), and this happens not on Kylo's Star Destroyer but on an under-construction ship from the Sith Fleet. Rose and Connix actually have their own objective, flipping a switch so the sabotage signal can go out. The type of character we all assume Matt Smith was supposed to play, some type of transformed Emperor, is present. There does not seem to be any scene with Rey's parents or Dark Rey. All this and more is in the article, which also covers every incarnation of Episode IX. It touches on George's ideas from the '70s to 2012, both versions of Duel of the Fates, the little we know about Jack Thorne's work, the ideas in the December 2017 pitch to Bob Iger that J.J. Abrams made, the spring 2018 version that might have included Rey's grandmother, the shooting script, changes to the shooting script in principal photography, and even how the film changed through reshoots, editing, and ADR. I went a little overboard lol https://talkingpicturesandgames.wordpress.com/2024/12/25/the-secret-history-of-star-wars-episode-ix/
Interesting stuff. I still think it would have been better to have done an Avengers/Harry Potter and split up the last episode into 2 parts. That way you get a chance to let Kylo really be a bad guy before his redemption. Episode 9 is a mess and I think a lot of it is too much stuff has to be covered in one film. They should have let it breathe and taken some more time, especially after Fisher died. I had no idea Jack Thorne was even approached. I really thought the story of Cursed Child was awful and a complete failure to understand Voldemort which undermines the whole story. However the actual play was a lot of fun to see live but I don't think it would work nearly as well if it were to be made into a film. Disappointed to hear he was even involved.
Fascinating write up. Thanks One line in particular: Finn, Poe, and BB-8 are attempting to infiltrate a snowy, walled city occupied by the First Order. Inside a back-alley speakeasy, after getting in “with a secret door knock,” the remaining members of the Resistance watch as Poe shows off an “enigma machine” that will allow them to communicate with each other securely. Enigma machine... Enigma. Machine. Mystery. Box. Oh JJ. You literally have no ideas ever lol. It really sounds like no one involved, at any point during any of this had any real idea about how this movie should go, or how the trilogy should end. None. There was nothing. And it looked like throwing random puzzles pieces on the floor and hoping it all fit together.
I get that. Codes have been used secretively in SW before. We saw this already in ROTJ. But I'm laughing that its almost literally JJ's mystery box by wording.
Rey was the ultmate mystery box in the ST. How many origins did they go through before they finally decided on Rey Palpatine. Three at least (Kenobi, Nobody, Solo's Housekeeper's Daughter). If they couldn't even finally nail down the main character's origin story until post-production of Episode IX, there was no chance this story had any sort of planned ending. They were winging it until the end. The real problem that bogged down Episode IX seems to be the sudden need to redeem Kylo and the lack of a main villain that resulted from it, which resulted in first Sollony Ren being introduced then Palpatine coming back. These were consequences from taking out Snoke as the main villain in TLJ and shows they should have thought things through in TLJ before pulling the trigger.
That's where I disagree the most with their conclusions. Redeeming Ben Solo didn't necessitate a greater villain at all. They had a golden opportunity to try out something different, to do something original that could potentially justify the addition of a third trilogy. Actually turning the Emperor equivalent to the good side and ultimately ending the war on a note of reconciliation would have been far more interesting and rewarding than just flat out repeating history - on top of the bold idea to have the "Darth Vader" kill the "Palpatine" and seize the throne in the middle act, which went nowhere thanks to the return of Sheev.
Thing is people tend to forget that they could have brought back Snoke very easy in TROS. Who says Snoke didn't have clones? Who says Snoke isn't more than what seemed and he just turned up again, laughs at Kylos face and says you really think you could kill me that easy? Maybe even suggesting Kylo passed the test and whatever. Heck many different ways it could have gone. It would be so easy to bring back Snoke. Why didn't they bring him back? Because Snoke just wasn't the ultimate villain they wanted. Palpatine was the ultimate villain. He has been for a very long time now.
Not only that, Snoke DID have clones. We literally got a more explicit confirmation of his clones than we did of Palpatine’s. But from what we know about the making of the movie, that shot of Snoke’s clones was a last-minute addition made during the editing process. Whereas Palpatine’s return was part of the movie from near the beginning of Abrams’s tenure as director. This was in November 2017, still a month before TLJ’s release, so it was a decision not influenced by that movie’s reception. I do think it’s likely that neither Trevorrow nor Abrams knew how to follow Johnson’s killing of the main villain. Bringing back Snoke himself would’ve probably been too direct a reversal of TLJ and Johnson’s intent. So they considered other new villains (Sollony Ren) or variations on an old villain (a younger Palpatine clone), but settled on the legacy villain in his more recognizable form (Ian McDiarmid). I really don’t know why Lucasfilm didn’t stop Johnson from killing off the main villain if they were concerned about redeeming Kylo Ren. Perhaps they had faith the directors would be able to come up with something satisfying and then realized they couldn’t. Or perhaps they did want Kylo Ren to take over as main villain but then decided against it.
There is nothing wrong with a reversal. If you want Snoke to be the big bad, then him coming back suggests he might actually not be easy to defeat. You could have used that to expand on Snoke and his background. Would maybe even make him more intimidating if they followed through with it. But again, he ain't palpatine. He is a new Villian created for whats expected to feel like a conclusion to 9 movies.
I don’t disagree. But I can imagine LFL or Disney not wanting to give the appearance of disagreement among creatives or a lack of an overall plan. I mean, they even kept saying in interviews that they had always planned on bringing Palpatine back, which was simply untrue.
Could have done a major switcharoo and had some evil guy (maybe the 'real' Supreme Leader played by Andy Serkis be revealed on Exogol. He's just a regular looking old guy. 5 feet 8 inches. He's there all mad scientist like with his failed giant Snoke clones around him.
^But you run into the same problem Abrams and Trevorrow ran into. You basically have have a new villain without any real prior setup whose honest to God the final villain of the sequels and leader of the bad guys. Terrio was right. They needed another film to do setup and they didn't get it. The only other solution was to make Kylo Ren the final villain and tptb rejected that. I think it's clear they didn't know they wanted to redeem him until midway into Episode IX. There was no real Bendemption until the second draft of Trevorrow's script. So it seems like they only wanted the redemption after Trevorrow finished his first draft that didn't really have the redemption (unless they were purposely wasting his time for no reason). But with the redemption, it created the problem of who was to be the main villain. Trevorrow's response was Sollony Ren. Abrams was to bring back Palpatine.
Ooh, this looks fascinating! Throwing this in before posting the reply: I ended up more or less live-reacting to this. So I say **** from time to time that's like, "You probably already know this", and lo and behold, like two paragraphs later you mention it. I really hope I don't come across as obnoxious as a result! This was very fun to read and react to! This is VERY interesting to me. So I know Adam Driver was sold the role with the idea of "he has the opposite journey that Vader did in the OT", but I'm almost wondering if like.... remember the whole "Bendemption" thing that was going on back between TLJ and TROS? Seemed to have an unfortunate connection with Reylo shippers, but point being, it would have felt just wrong for him NOT to be redeemed by the end (well, in SW terms of "redemption") I can't help wondering, when the role was pitched to Driver, if Abrams was pitching him a concept HE HIMSELF had, or how he would have done it, or, more glass half empty, if they just straight up lied to him about plans for the character? I dunno. Cause everything does support the idea of redeeming him by the end, even if the general concept of "he gets more immersed in the dark side as the trilogy goes on" seemingly holds true, until it doesn't Hold on, hold on, where does this info come from about a second draft of Duel of the Fates? I know about the leaked first draft, but was the second one leaked too? Cause this is admittedly the first I'm hearing of it (I read on) Oh ****, when did this leak?! How am I this outta the loop??????? I have some homework to do sometime! Lmao. As someone who loves TROS: oh god why does it make SO MUCH SENSE that they were just like "Let's find a way to make Rey do a ******* backflip over a TIE fighter!" and that's how that ended up as it was Ok, again, speaking as someone who loves TROS - one, is that actually the reason they changed the idea for Poe to have been a former bounty hunter to being a former spice runner? Like.... that doesn't make him more different from Han, that makes him CLOSER in backstory to Han. Wut And JJ wtf are you on about. I'm sure you address this later in your blog, but you've talked extensively already about how rushed this script it, and it's a known fact they were STILL ADJUSTING IT DURING SHOOTING since Daisy Ridley has mentioned she wasn't sure if she was related to Obi-Wan or Palpatine since they kept flip flopping on that. The more I learn about the development of this movie, the more I realize just how much of a miracle it is that I was so happy with how it turned out Ooh, just about to get to where you talk about the shooting script. Ok, this is gonna be JUICY Many, they REALLY tried to keep this sabotage device subplot in all the way from the first Duel of the Fates draft, huh? This is.... really, really weird. Maybe if it had been done this way, it might have been ok? But this sounds really jarring. "Hey, guys, I'm good now. Here's this convenient plot device. I'm out." I'm guessing they weren't sure if they'd be able to get Harrison Ford to cameo for that? Or maybe they really did realize later "This works so much better" and did it in pickup shots? Who knows Oh my god, it was Matt Smith, wasn't it. I can't help wondering if he really did show up and film anything? Cause I remember the Matt Smith rumours were REALLY strong around that time So yeah, as I figured, you mentioned that, but let me throw out another theory just for the hell of it We KNOW that the shooting script for TESB said "No, Obi-Wan killed your father" instead of the actual line. I wonder if the shooting script for TROS (or "trIXie") might have deliberately omitted or obfuscated references to Rey's lineage? Especially because it seems Abrams/Terrio were uncertain which way they wanted to go I also recall (and you probably mention this later too) that Adam Driver mentioned some of the last pickup things he recorded were ADR for some of the helmeted Kylo scenes. And would ya look at that, he's wearing his helmet when he's revealing Rey's lineage! Curious Praise the SW gods for sparing Babu. HEY-HEYYYYYYY! Ok, now that I hear about this - that makes a LOT of sense, especially since ghost-Luke's only scene (other than as a voice and in the ending) concerns Rey being a Palpatine. And I just have to point at the elephant in the room again of what in ****'s name was that wig they had Hamill wearing? I always assumed he just cut his hair after finishing TLJ and didn't have time or didn't want to grow it back out for his ghost scenes, but dear god that wig is on par with the one Ewan McGregor wore for AOTC pickup shots Interesting that he was originally slated to tell her about the bringing back the balance to the Force thing. I'm guessing they removed that once they brought in Hayden Christensen to say it instead? Again, who knows I can tell you at least one for sure, because I know there's an interview out there with Daisy Ridley where she said that the LAST last thing she filmed was her reaction shot after Ben dies and his body disappears Honestly, I suspect that entire interaction was part of these last second pickup shots. I know she also mentioned that they filmed a version without the kiss. I'm guessing Abrams/Terrio/whoever was aware of how (unfortunately) popular the Reylo ship was and were weighing whether they wanted to give them a shoutout or not. I personally like the novelization's establishing that it was explicitly not a romantic kiss, but eh. The whole scene is a bit weird too - if you slow it down, you can see that Ben falling over dead appears to be reversed footage (I think people figured that out based on the way gravity seems to stop working on his hair for a second) but I'm starting to ramble. Back to your blog! Yeah, I did say I'd be surprised if you didn't already know, and you did! Like I said, my suspicion is that it was his dialogue on the Steadfast (possibly also during the Force duel?) Again, I fully expect you already know this and probably mention it in a few paragraphs, but I seem to recall someone (maybe even Kathleen Kennedy? Or maybe it was just Abrams) mentioning that they did film (or perhaps at least ADR record) the full explanation for Palpatine's return, even though that obviously didn't end up in the movie. Unfortunate, but guessing it's for pacing reasons? Even though watching TROS is like going 80 miles an hour in a 30 zone lmao I suspect it is, for two reasons (which, again, you probably already know, and probably with better recollection than I do) I remember that Ewan McGregor mentioned that he recorded his cameo line for TFA something like, two weeks before the film released? It's not like you need a lot of time for a voice cameo that's like one or two sentences. But I also recall one of the TCW actors (might have been James Arnold Taylor?) mentioning that they recorded the same lines just in case they couldn't get the movie actors to do them, so my guess is they probably had the TCW voices record their lines and contacted the movie actors to record it really soon before release (I'm also not sure if I'm remembering this right, but there was SOMEONE, I think Samuel L Jackson? Who said that that process was kind of weird, because apparently everyone was given almost the same lines to read. Probably not specific ones like "Bring back the balance as I did", or Yoda's lines being backwards-grammar, but I think they did just come up with a bunch of basic "You can do it, Rey!" type lines and had everyone record a bunch of those at once, and then decide later what to go with from whom. But that's speculation based on a very foggy memory) So.... oh god, objectively I feel like this was the right move. The atmosphere is way scarier the way it turned out in the final product. But CUT BACK ON THE FLASHING A TINY BIT, PLEASE FOR FRIG'S SAKE. I'm not even saying that because I'm epileptic, I'm saying that because I think ANYONE would watch half the Exegol scenes and be overwhelmed by the constant FLASHFLASHFLASHFLASHFLASH (Cool ass lightning screech noises, though. Good job, Matt Wood) Now that is VERY interesting, because yeah, pretty much the very first teaser sold the movie on "Palpatine is back, baby!" If marketing wasn't a thing, I wonder if they'd have tried to keep that a surprise? As much as I LOVE the "The dead speak!" in the opening crawl. I just don't know why the **** his broadcast is relegated to ******' Fortnite But in this day and age, it's impossible to keep a secret that big for more than like.... an hour after the movie releases? Assuming it doesn't leak beforehand! I WOULD give them credit for managing to keep the Rey/Palpatine connection secret, but it seems they were almost as in the dark as the audience was Oh lmao and yeah, Fortnite. Ugh There's ONE other thing you didn't mention that I feel is worth noting. Shortly before the film's release, there was a little interview with John Williams's brother (or more of a statement?) in which he mentions that "every" theme we've ever heard would be in IX. That's obviously hyperbolic, cause I don't think anyone was going in expecting like, Across the Stars or whatever, but the only thing that stands out is that he explicitly mentions "the phantom". As the IGN article notes, it's inferred that he might have been referring to Duel of the Fates, since it has such a strong association with The Phantom Menace. I've even heard some speculate that like the first second or so of the Sith crowd chanting during Palpatine's failed ritual might have been all that remained of a new orchestration of Duel of the Fates, but that's purely speculative. Still, it's interesting that his brother appeared to make a reference to that music (which WAS featured in one of the teasers, as I recall!) and it's nowhere to be seen in the movie itself An excellent writeup that I thoroughly enjoyed reading! I hope you don't mind me kinda just live-reacting and throwing in some of my own speculation and observations here and there, even if a lot of it ended up redundant lol. That was great!
I finally read this. This is just further proof that no one — absolutely no one — knew what to do with Leia in the sequel trilogy. From Abrams to Trevorrow to Kennedy herself.
