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Star Wars 9: Original title and opening crawl 'revealed' in 'scrapped script leak'

This is the direction the franchise would have gone in had JJ Abrams not made the Rise of Skywalker

Jacob Stolworthy
Wednesday 15 January 2020 09:02 EST
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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - trailer

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The script for Colin Trevorrow’s scrapped ninth Star Wars film has allegedly leaked online, revealing a wildly different adventure to The Rise of Skywalker.

Jurassic World director Trevorrow stepped down from the project in September 2017 after reportedly clashing with Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy.

Fans have been perusing the leaked script, which AV Club claims is legitimate, to see in which direction the Star Wars franchise would have gone, had Trevorrow stayed on as director.

If the script is real (Disney is yet to comment on the reports), Trevorrow’s ideas were wildly different to Abrams’.

According to the script, the film would have been called Star Wars: Duel of Fates.

It’s opening crawl would have read as follows:

The iron grip of the FIRST ORDER has spread to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Only a few scattered planets remain unoccupied. 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...

This is said to have been the opening crawl for Colin Trevorrow’s scrapped Star Wars film

The screenplay, which is said to have been co-written by Trevorrow and Derek Connolly, has numerous interesting aspects to it, including a darker arc for Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), a heightened role for Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) and absolutely no Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) – you can peruse the biggest takeaways here.

Since the release of Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker last month, it has divided critics and audiences, with some highlighting the movie’s sense of adventure and others criticising it for its moments of fan service.

Consequently, the film has a critical score of 54 per cent on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes – one of the lowest for any movie in the long-running Star Wars franchise. Its audience score sits at 86 per cent, though, which is 43 per cent higher than the score amassed by Rian Johnson’s previous Star Wars film, The Last Jedi.

A recent report claims that Abrams was left unsatisfied with several orders made by Disney in relation to his finished film.

A full breakdown of Trevorrow’s alleged leaked script can be found on Reddit.

Abrams recently revealed what he believes to be the answer to one of The Rise of Skywalker’​s biggest mysteries: what Finn was about to say to Rey before getting sucked into the quicksand in Pasaana.

Find a list of every unexpected cameo in the film here.

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