New leaked images from an art book for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker suggests that the film was going to be much different. The Rise of Skywalker was the final film in the sequel trilogy and also closed out the Skywalker saga, a story that had been in the making for over 40 years. Despite the film recently surpassing $1 billion at the box office, The Rise of Skywalker was met with a lot of negative reviews upon its release, mainly because of the story.
While Disney's original plans for The Rise of Skywalker haven't been made public, it's safe to say that the film was originally very different from what fans actually got. Fans may forget, but Colin Trevorrow was originally helming Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, before Disney decided to bring back J.J. Abrams for a second movie. Trevorrow's original Star Wars story was reportedly revealed a few days ago, which was nothing like Abrams' film. Trevorrow's movie would have been called Star Wars: Duel of Fates. His story would have kept Kylo Ren as the main villain, who actually killed Rey's parents. The film would have ended with the several Force Ghosts helping Rey defeat Kylo, with Rey later training a new group of young Jedi. Even after Trevorrow left the project, it looks like Disney still had other plans for the film.
Leaked photos from The Art of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker from Twitter user 신데렐로(8일부터스워스포) suggest that the movie was almost completely different. One of the biggest differences is that Kylo Ren seems to still be the big bad, with Palpatine not even present in any of the concept art. It also looks like they were also going to include the Oracle creature, which was present in Trevorrow's script. Another piece of artwork teases Rey's staff turning into a double-sided lightsaber, something that fans had theorized on since Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Other pieces reveal scenes that were never shot, such as Kylo Ren confronting an imprisoned Chewbacca and Rey seeing the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Soon after Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was released, there came rumors that Disney interfered with Abrams' vision, resulting in the final cut that fans saw in theaters. It's possible that this holds some truth, especially now that the artwork above features several scenes that didn't make it into the movie. Fans have been so dead-set on blaming Disney that #ReleaseTheJJCut began trending, akin to what has been happening with Zack Snyder's Cut of Justice League. Unlike the Snyder Cut, however, there isn't a whole lot of evidence that a J.J. Cut of The Rise of Skywalker actually exists.
While including some of the scenes illustrated above could have filled in certain plot holes for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, it also seems to suggest that a very different movie was originally planned. That being said, there's no way of knowing if it would have been better than the actual movie that people saw in theaters. Some more light may be shed on these ideas once The Art of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is released, but for now, fans will simply have to dream of what could have been.
Source: 신데렐로(8일부터스워스포)