In Colin Trevorrow's version of Star Wars: Episode IX, the plan was for the movie's final battle to take place on Coruscant. Finn was to lead an army of former Stormtroopers and the planet's citizens, while a battle in the skies above would have finally brought the First Order to its knees.
None of that happened, of course, though replacement director J.J. Abrams did consider returning to the planet in The Rise of Skywalker. As Phil Szostak explains in The Art of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (via Screen Rant), this was an idea from an early draft of the script, and it was here Emperor Palpatine had decided to spend years in hiding as he rebuilt his strength.
"Instead of finding his way to Exegol, in the early November 2017 version of The Rise of Skywalker story, Kylo Ren instead takes his shuttle to a desolate, ash-covered Coruscant, the once bustling city streets now overrun by giant wolves. Inside the abandoned Jedi Temple, Kylo takes a central elevator down to the temple's deepest level."
We were clearly meant to assume that some sort of battle took place on Coruscant which left it in ruins, but it's never made clear when that was supposed to have happened. It could explain why we never went there during the original Star Wars trilogy, though, and why Palpatine had a throne room in the Death Star II.
This may also have acted as a clever way to reference the franchise's history, and concept art of Kylo Ren confronting those wolves first showed up online late last year.
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