The Rise of Skywalker was a major disappointment and a movie that tried too hard to course correct the Star Wars franchise after Lucasfilm gave Rian Johnson perhaps too much creative freedom with The Last Jedi. Trying to please everybody ultimately meant that no one was particularly happy, and J.J. Abrams ultimately delivered a mess.
Much has been said about what Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow had planned for his version of Episode IX, a movie that was set to be titled Duel of the Fates.
The prevailing opinion online is that it would have been vastly better than what Abrams delivered, a sentiment we'd agree with based on plot details we recently outlined. Now, though, we've retrieved some concept art from the movie that shows just how different it could have been.
That includes brand new Force powers, a completely different look for Kylo Ren, and a Force Ghost moment fans have argued should have been included in The Rise of Skywalker (instead of a series of disembodied voices). Duel of the Fates would have been a much different movie, and you can check that out for yourselves by hitting the "Next" button below!
10. Star Destroyer Escape
Rey, Finn, and Poe Dameron are seen fighting their way through the Eclipse, a new kind of Star Destroyer, in this exciting piece of artwork. They intended to take down a power shaft that supplied raw ore to a First Order factory below during this opening battle, but things swiftly go awry for our heroes, which is why they're now on the run.
Rey was set to combine Luke Skywalker's lightsaber with her signature staff to build her own Jedi weapon, hence why she's now using a double-bladed lightsaber in this scene. That makes way more sense than her trying to mend a lightsaber that was split in half during the events of The Last Jedi, anyway!
Rey, Finn, and Poe were planning to seize this Star Destroyer, providing their fellow Rebels with a powerful new weapon and dealing a huge blow to the First Order in the process. Regardless, the Resistance's plot would have ultimately failed.
9. Kylo Ren's Redemption?
While that was happening, Kylo Ren was searching for an ancient weapon on the opposite side of the Galaxy that he could use to defeat Rey and his mother's army. He'd have discovered a Sith Holocron and a message from Palpatine instructing him to find Tor Valum, a Sith Master and Palpatine's tutor, during an encounter with Luke's Force Ghost on Mustafar.
However, the Holocron would have released a flash of red Force lightning leaving Kylo severely hurt and hideously scarred. Why? Because it could sense that, inside, he was still torn between his Light and Dar sides.
In this piece, we see the villain being cared for and nursed back to health by some of the planet's citizens. Shocked by their selflessness and what happened with that Holocron, Kylo was going to start to realise that redemption might be possible and that there was still good within him.
8. A General And A Princess
Trevorrow's Episode IX script called for Carrie Fisher's General Leia Organa to spend a significant portion of the film amassing an army and trying to mobilise people around the Galaxy to Rebel against The First Order once and for all.
After Fisher passed away, it was decided to kill off her character early and give Poe Dameron and Chewbacca her character's story arc (for example, they would have been the ones to track down Lando Calrissian in a bid to convince him to join their cause rather than Leia).
The Princess and General is seen in this piece of concept art on the brand-new planet Korilev. That would have been the Resistance's base, and in both versions of the plot, Leia was going to be deeply affected by Kylo Ren's deeds. With that in mind, it is easy to understand why she appears to be so dejected in this picture.
7. Fighting The Knights Of Ren
The Knights of Ren in Duel of the Fates would have each had unique names and personalities despite being glorified Stormtroopers in The Rise of Skywalker. One of them was even supposed to be revealed as Kylo Ren's rival who also accessed that Sith Holocron and later tried to assassinate both Rey and Kylo in order to usher in a new age of the Sith.
However, many of them would still have perished, and in this image, Chewbacca is seen seizing one of the Knights by the throat. The leaked script states that he would then have flung the villain into the air before shooting him out of the sky. What a way to go!
There was a draft of the script with the aforementioned female Knight emerging as a deadly new threat and the movie's main villain, but for the most part, they were cannon fodder. We can blame J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson for treating them as unimportant background characters in their movies for that, of course.
6. Kylo Ren's New Helmet
In this movie, Kylo Ren didn't track down the fragments of his previous mask and put them back together. Instead, he'd have created a new helmet for himself after the Force lightning that erupted from the Sith Holocron left him with terrible scars (he did, after all, destroy his previous one in The Last Jedi).
This concept art depicts him sitting in a chamber that isn't all that dissimilar from the one Darth Vader was shown in during The Empire Strikes Back.
It's a sinister and terrifying mask that's obviously modelled after what Vader once wore, though it also seems to draw inspiration from Stormtroopers, the Knights of Ren, and the helmets used by warriors on Mandalore. It's difficult to determine why Abrams and Terrio chose to bring back the original version as a new version would have been fun to see.
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