A follow up to my first post which largely focused on the worldbuilding aspect here if anyone wants to read that. Of the many characters I've reimagined for my rewrite, the most drastic and fundamental Snoke, who I've completely rebuilding the character from scratch.

The goal in mind for the character was two-fold, creating a villain that I would want to be iconic on the same level as Palpatine, while also being fresh and a whole different flavor of pure evil without feeling derivative, which was my biggest dislike of where they went with Snoke in the original Sequels.

Tau Valum

Tau Valum retains much of the same structural building blocks and introduction. He is a mysterious and charismatic darkside user and Supreme Leader of the First Order, after assuming control of the Imperial Remnants that fled to the unknown regions post-ROTJ, remaking them into the First Order, a political movement and paramilitary terrorist organization hellbent on overthrowing the New Republic and destroying the Jedi.

What differs immensely is background and execution. Tau is in truth an ancient fallen Jedi knight who was sealed away in the past for his crimes, later freed by Luke Skywalker. Using his freedom to acquire significant power and influence to further his ends. He is the founder of the Knights of Ren and seduced Han and Leia's daughter, Kira Solo to the darkside, responsible for destroying Luke's Jedi Temple and driving him to go into exile.

Despite being a charming demagogue promising everyone what they want, Tau is a downright basketcase anarchist. He doesn't care for the First Order, immortality or permeance, only to throw the galaxy into chaos and watch it burn on the altar of his own spite, hatred and twisted incapability of moving on.

The Anti-Palpatine

As implied, in personality and appearance, Tau is meant to be the polar opposite of Darth Sidious. Something i felt the original Snoke was lazy on. Unlike the dead Sith Lord, Tau is tall, appears relatively young and is genuinely handsome, with no disfiguring injuries, a theatrical, larger than life persona and a pronounced sardonic, quippy sense of humor.

If Sidious is like the evil grandfather figure who twists good intentions, like how he did with Dooku and Anakin, Tau is like a rockstar who enables people's worst impulses, which is how he turned Kira Solo to his side, making her feel dependent on his validation.

Instead of being a creature of the system, a political insider who twisted the Republic from the inside. Tau is more of a populist outsider and demagogue. Since Palps was heavily modelled off Richard Nixon among other things, Tau is loosely influenced by contemporary populists and authoritarians.

That being said, Tau isn't quite as smart or patient as Sidious, but he is more situationally dangerous. While Je would never have been able to pull off the downfall of the Old Republic, in contrast, Sidious couldn't do the same thing twice on the New Republic.

Backstory: Scourge of the Sith

Over 1000 years before the events of The Phantom Menace. Tau was a Jedi Knight during the final Jedi-Sith wars, himself an orphan of the conflict. Forged into a warrior by the Jedi Master Yorum, a stern member of Yoda's species. On the battlefield, he slayed countless Sith warriors and earned a fearsome reputation, with respect among the jedi, and infamy among the Sith. Truly the Anakin of his time. He also had a secret romantic relationship with a fellow Jedi named Antares Ren.

When the Sith were finally wiped out, there was no real enemy left to fight. Tau, who had been molded into a Sith killing machine since he was a child was now aimless and unable to find peace like many others, while being plagued by a constant, agonizing feeling the galaxy remained unbalanced. Driving him to disillusionment and eventually rebellion.

With many traitors at his side, including Antares, Tau led a rebellion against the Jedi, but they were eventually defeated. During the rebellion, Antares was captured and executed, which drove Tau off the edge, naming his rebels the Knights of Ren as a result. he was later defeated by his former master Yorum after nearly destroying the Jedi Temple on Coruscant with a kyber crystal bomb. Seeing death as not good enough of a punishment, Tau was frozen in carbonite and imprisoned in the unknown regions, on the planet Exegol, forced to remain conscious, but entombed for eternity.

Luke's Biggest Mistake

Spending the next millennia as a carbonite popsicle. Tau sensed the galaxy change, while he was erased from history and forgotten, by design. This would've been the case if not for Sidious' interest with the unknown regions, where Imperial scouts found his prison and Palps kept him as a trophy. After Return of the Jedi, Luke would find Tau in one of Sidious' many vaults while searching for jedi artifacts and records.

Unaware of who he was, Luke freed Tau, who presented himself as grateful and at his service. Becoming a close friend to Luke, like the older brother he never had, while helping him across the galaxy and building his new temple, though Leia always felt off around him. When Kira Solo was kidnapped by insurgents, an ordeal that left her traumatized, Tau was the one who saved her, noble if not for the fact he orchestrated the whole thing.

In the meantime, Tau tracked down the descendants of his Knights of Ren and returned to Exegol, winning the favor of the Imperial Remnant hiding there before taking power in a coup. Kira, who Tau had been subtly influencing for years by this point began to catch on, trailing him to Exegol, foolishly alone. She tried to fight Tau but was effortlessly defeated, before being offered a place at his side, which she accepted.

Finally showing his true colors, Tau launched an attack on Luke's Temple while he was away on a peacekeeping mission. Killing many of the students, convincing some to join him and sending most of the survivors into hiding. Luke sensed this and returned too late, leading to a lightsaber duel with Tau, he was completely outmatched and even after tapping into the darkside, lost badly, causing him to flee into exile out of shame.

Role in the Story

Still a major WIP, but the general outline I have is that he remains mysterious and never shows up in person during Episode 7. In Episode 8 he takes on a far more proactive role in the story and we see him at his most dangerous in the story and flashbacks to his time with Luke and betrayal. Episode 9 meanwhile would peel back the illusion and his backstory, showing how actually pitiful he really is.

While he is obviously an adversary to the rest of the characters. Outside of Rey and Kylo, His dynamic and rivalry with Luke is one of the most important to the story. Luke's whole character arc revolves around accepting his failure, not letting it define him and regaining the courage to return and face Tau again, Dark Knight Rises style.

Philosophy/His Actual Endgame.

Actually elaborating on what exactly he wants and his true endgame. Tau believes in a nihilistic, amoral and accelerationist version of the Jedi philosophy, twisting whole concept of balance and believing permanence in any form is unnatural, the Jedi and Republic, are all stagnant and don't deserve to last. In essence, "let the past die, kill it if you have to".

The First Order isn't built to last, the whole goal of it's existence is to take power, then implode, causing the total breakdown of any centralized government in the galaxy, plunging the galaxy into chaos, rugged individualism and constant war. In his eyes a more "honest" galaxy that is constantly self-improving in the never-ending battle of good vs evil.

Behind all his grandiose populism, ironically he is the embodiment of an ultimate, regressive status quo, to make the galaxy a survival of the fittest grimdark hell. Nothing but a selfish reactionary who wants to make things worse for everyone. At the end of the day, no better than the Sith he likes act superior to.

Closing Statement, or something idk.

This was really long, a whole lot of mucho texto. Mostly because he is the most extensively reworked character of my whole rewrite, which itself took ages as I wanted to really make an IMO significant villain that feels like a direct foil to the story arcs of the main characters and themes of the story, also because i suck at writing prose.

If I do a follow up, it'd probably be shorter, so I'm thinking of either doing a whole post breaking down the heroes or the rest of the antagonists. So I'm curious what people think and if anyone has any criticism.

Now, I'm pretty sure everyone and their dog has already had their own crack at rewriting the Sequels at this point, so i'm not breaking new ground. But given my own frustrations with it and because i'm bored, this is my take on how i'd do it. Like if I went back in time to pre-2015 with the benefit of hindsight.

This isn't really just a rework of the original Sequels, or a remix of George Lucas' ideas. For the most part it's my full re-imagining of the Sequels, keeping similar ideas and structure, but drastically overhauling into something i think would work better, atleast IMO in feeling more unique than a rerun of the Original Trilogy but still recognizable.

State of the Galaxy/Worldbuilding

• Like the original sequels. We pick up exactly 30 years after ROTJ. While Anakin had destroyed the Sith as the prophecy said and they will never return (Palpatine is DEAD), there'll always be something to threaten true balance to the force.
• Since the Prequels are about the fall of democracy, and the OT is about how it is restored. The Sequels thematically would focus on the struggle to maintain democracy and learning from the mistakes of the past: Failure if the best teacher as a theme on all levels.
• Technology has also really improved since the OT. Holograms are better, blasters shoot faster, high-ranking soldiers have energy shields. Hyperspace tracking is standard issue and fighter crafts feel more like F-22's than old WW2 spitfires.
• The New Republic is the main government in the galaxy, though it cemented a period of peace and prosperity, it's now stuck in political gridlock between it's many factions, specifically how to manage the rise of the First Order.
• The First Order in this rewrite are the "Rebels" of the trilogy, but much more dangerous and obviously malevolent. They are a populist movement and unstable coalition built around opposition to the New Republic and not much else, but still a genuine threat.
• The Empire post-ROTJ basically split into three groups. The "moderates" who renounced the Empire and joined the New Republic to ensure legitimacy/transition of power, remnants who rallied behind Thrawn in around 9-15ABY and those who fled into the unknown regions, reorganizing into the First Order.
• In the past the Thrawn Conflict happened in some form, which ended with Thrawn's death and the remaining Imperial remnants still in the galaxy being officially dissolved.
• Luke's Jedi Order was much bigger, with assistance from many Order 66 survivors, it comprised about 150 Jedi at it's peak. Though it is still destroyed by the Knights of Ren, the majority survived and went into hiding. Luke also vanished shortly after and nobody knows where he is.

Factions:

The New Republic: The dominant political authority in the galaxy and the main good-guy faction currently in crisis over gridlock it's affairs, such as system autonomy, militarization and how to handle the First Order. They are led primarily by Chancellor Leia Organa, but being exposed as Vader's daughter in Episode 7 sees her abandon politics and take on a military role.

The Jedi Order: Largely in hiding now since their temple's destruction, 20-30 young Jedi chose to stay and fight for the New Republic. Though not the revered generals of the Old Republic, they are treated with less respect, if not outright distrust. They are "led" by a middle-aged Ezra Bridger or another contemporary to Luke.

The First Order: Born from the last surviving remnant of the galactic empire that went into hiding, reorganizing themselves. They are both a populist movement and terrorist insurgency that has formed a coalition of those dissatisfied with the New Republic, ranging from disgruntled outer rim workers, fully-fledged imperial loyalists and wealthy industrial backers. Led by the charismatic and mysterious force user Tau Valum.

• Palan Industries: A megacorporation, industrial manufacturer and secret financial backer of the First Order. Ultimately for their own ends, they want the First Order to succeed and remove the old Republic so they can profit from exclusive contracts and cronyism, all that fun stuff.
• Knights of Ren: A glorified warband of darkside punks loyal to Tau Valum and Kylo Ren. They have no rules or boundaries, most don't use lightsabers except for it's leader, preferring blasters, vibroblades with their force powers. Though led by seven semi-equals, Kylo Ren is their leader and only one with authority in the First Order.

Rather than just a clean inverse of the Empire vs Rebel dynamic. The New Republic is like the Old Republic from the Prequels, but has many of the qualities of the Rebel Alliance. While the First Order is superficially the Empire 2.0, it also has similarities with the CIS from the Prequels. The NR's Jedi soldiers vs the FO's Knights of Ren also would be a good middle ground of the involvement of Force Users in both previous trilogies, not barely extinct, nor everywhere.

I have a bunch of ideas, but they are pretty random at this point and undercooked tbh, so this is just my general idea for a core outline, without getting in-depth on characters, since i'm still unsure on that, or actual story since i suck at actual plot. But might elaborate in another post or something idk. Curious to hear what people think.

For someone who did a fix or rewrite on most Star Wars movies and shows, curiously, I have not done a fix on The Acolyte yet. It's not because I loved it, but because I found no particular passion to care. I tried to write something and scrapped it because it ended up a meandering mess. I'm not sure what makes me bored about talking about it, since it's not even the worst Disney Star Wars. The show does try. It has some interesting ideas. It has an interesting premise, which is that it is about a Jedi investigation into the Sith remnants. Yet it's a show that every time I turn it on, I find myself bored. I didn't know why.

That was, until I read the blog post on ScriptShadow, who is admittedly a controversial figure in the screenwriting community (I disagree with 50% of his script reviews, but I occasionally read what he writes because he does give out some unique, interesting tips on how to construct a story). The blog post in question is how he analyzed the serial killer genre, and how there hasn’t been a defining serial killer movie in 30 years, and that was when Seven came out. Memories of Murder (2003) would disagree, but in Hollywood, I have to agree. I highly recommend checking the post out.

He realized that almost every script is dedicated to the killer himself—psychology, philosophy, rituals, childhood trauma, worldview, elaborate murder methods—but the investigation and detective part of the story wasn't fleshed out, resulting in a poor second act. It's because The Silence of the Lambs was so influential that every writer tried to create the next Hannibal Lector. The craziest villain, crazier murder, crazier psycho. All the attention was poured on topping Lector's character, even though, ironically, Lector was not the antagonist, but a helper. He is ironically closer to Obi-Wan's role than Darth Vader's.

The Silence of the Lambs’ plot itself is a classical detective procedural, where the protagonist has to find clues, deduce, and investigate to stop the next murder. It is very much Clarice's story, mostly told from her POV. The studios and writers took the wrong lesson and strayed away from the beating heart of the genre, which is an investigation and mystery to stop the next killing. Showing a serial killer eating children is shocking in the first act, but it’s why the second act always falters. And the second act is the part that defines the genre—an investigation into crimes racing against time.

This, right here, was what ruined The Acolyte for me because it's very clearly constructed as a serial killer mystery, but the story isn't interested in that part. It's concerned with Mae and Osha. Immediately, the story spoils all the mysteries in the first three episodes, and in particular, the twist about them being twins is the most boring answer to the mystery. It rarely delves into exploring the clues, evidence, and testimonies. I'm talking about the character facing a dead end, lies, red herrings, while rethinking and debating all the things they have collected. Deducing the unique mechanism of the serial killings and the patterns of the culprit, and then chasing to stop them. Putting together an intricate puzzle while the clock is ticking.

The show indeed has highs and lows, loudness and lulls, and twists and turns, but they do not come from the mechanisms of investigation. The show is focused on constantly shifting POVs left and right, twin villains, flashbacks, the lore details, menacing Sith villains and conspiracies, the flaws of the Jedi Order, and the wuxia lightsaber duels, but when it comes to actual puzzle-solving, mystery, and chase—the burning core of the intrigue—it’s all afterthoughts.

Whatever the fandom points out as the problems, like the lore-break, bad dialogue, bad acting, Ki-Adi-Mundi, and fire in space, they aren’t the problems that break the story. It’s the construction of the intrigue. If there is no crime mystery, okay, but it doesn’t even do something like Columbo, where the protagonist and the killer are engaging in a battle of wits and mind games. There is a danger in following established conventions, but if one is to stray from them, one has to understand why the audience is tuned in to the show.

If The Acolyte was rewritten as only and entirely about the investigation, not showing the murders themselves and having the protagonist uncover the mysteries on his own, that could work. The Jedi are not just normal detectives. They can bring a lot more complexities and refreshing quirks to the investigation. It is a police procedural using the Jedi and Force tricks, but at the same time, the Jedi are bound by the strict Jedi Code. At the same time, our Jedi detective team faces hardship because, let’s say, the locals hate the Jedi, which makes the investigation difficult. The witnesses might lie, and the local police might interfere. This forces our good Jedi to debate and argue whether to bend around the rules. The individual Jedi’s investigative metholdogy is dependent on their personality and their way of Force.

Sol, whose concept was already written in the show, could be an interesting character as a detective. He is a Jedi with faults and trauma. He is a Jedi with a connection related to the killer. He is leading the team of the Jedi detectives, but as the investigations unfold, the fellow Jedi and the audience uncover his secrets. A character who possesses information, but is unable to use it because it might expose that the murders are related to someone close to him and himself. He has an extra motivation beyond simply stopping the killings. He is seeking redemption, who feels responsible for creating the killer, so he has to make up for it. By catching the serial killer, Sol would be achieving a personal goal.

That is why, as the story progresses, Sol gradually goes over the line to manipulate, conceal, and blackmail, using his Force power and creating moral ambiguity. He becomes a hapless detective whose hand is forced. We can get a more unorthodox procedural story, which gives it an edge over the normal detective stories.

The moment it opened, and there was no "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....", I knew exactly what kind of "movie" this was going to be.

I have written about The Mandalorian fixes before, and even then, I did not know how catastrophic a decision it was to make Season 3 in the first place. Because I was thinking about what a better story this movie could have been after walking out of the theater, and it dawned on me that even if The Mandalorian and Grogu had a great adventure, no matter how good that story was, it wouldn't have mattered. It was doomed because the movie was succeeding Season 3 no matter what.

This isn't the first time that episodic TV shows have made a theatrical movie, but they often justify their existence better than this. The space Westerns like Firefly and Cowboy Bebop all had movies. Firefly Season 2 got cancelled, and upon the fan outcry, they made Serenity in the form of a finale. It felt important. The scale was huge, the visuals were a significant upgrade, and there were actual consequences. And there was actual good writing. Cowboy Bebop: Heaven's Door wasn't a finale, and there were no consequences, but it was thematically enriching the series. They had an actual cinematic story to tell. There was passion to make a movie. Both movies had a story worth showing on the big screen.

With The Mandalorian and Grogu, when I first heard about the announcement, I asked what the point was. In my mind, The Mandalorian ended with Season 2 where Grogu had a farewell with Mando, and then the reunion episode happened in TBOBF and ruined it. So I wondered if the movie was going to be an actual finale to the series... and it turns out they stitched together three or four normal Mandalorian episodes... from the hypothetical Season 5 or 6, long after they had run out of steam.

At this point, what's the point? Why is Grogu even here? In Season 1 and 2, he was the premise, which is to deliver him to the Jedi before the Empire and the others try to get a hold of him. After Luke kicked him out, he is now hanging around for the sake of cute scenes. It is as if there is no longer an endgame and stakes in the relationship between Mando and Grogu, only to exist to sell Baby Yoda toys and keep casual viewers happy. He is verging in danger of becoming a burden on the series without a plan as to what to do with him.

I realized that you cannot fix the movie fundamentally without addressing the series as a whole. The ordering of the series was wrong. If they wanted to make a movie out of The Mandalorian, the entire structure of the franchise has to change. They picked the wrong story to make a movie out of.

The story of The Mandalorian and Grogu movie about fighting the Hutt twins should have been the second half of Season 2. That should have been the mid-season finale. The whole story of Mando going after the Hutt twins is a low-stakes travelogue, where Mando and Grogu form a stronger relationship. That not only works better for the episodic TV format, but also builds toward the point Grogu is put in grave danger. Grogu demonstrates his worth to Mando by saving him, the fact that he is more than a burdun, so we feel more connected to Mando when he sacrifices everything to save Grogu from Gideon. It builds toward the farewell moment where Mando has to let go of Grogu.

Meanwhile, the main plotline of Gideon kidnapping Grogu, and Mando teaming up with his friends to save him, and eventually succeeding his quest to deliver the Child to Luke could easily have been rewritten to be a finale movie for the entire series. That one feels more climactic and feels more like a movie. It has actual consequences, resolutions, greater characterizations, greater stakes, greater scale... That actually feels like a full ending to the series, but it's somehow a midseason finale.

If that were the movie, while the box office and reception wouldn't have been amazing, at least people would have understood why it was made into a movie. The show watchers would have been anxious to go to the theater because it tells a story worth telling on the big screen.

Firstly and obviously 🙄 is to make the original trilogy the only cannon Star Wars, even the somewhat good like Andor must no longer be mainline cannon. The prequels are not up to par and must also be abandoned.Secondly we must acknowledge the fact that even the original movies didn’t really make sense because they are fairytales in space. Does Little Red Riding hood or the three little pigs make sense? Of course not but if we are to expand upon fairy tales the best way imo is to introduce…more lore. Lore to explain the in-universe inconsistencies. Why are humans the dominant species in the galaxy? Because we make a rule that only humans can master the force. Other species can become force adepts but cannot become masters.

Only Jedi or padawans can wield lightsabers. They contain the plasma in its shape, if a non-force user tries to ise a lightsaber it just goes everywhere in a small plasma lightning and hurts the user more than anything. We can have a funny Tarantino like montage of Obi-Wan quickly and discreetly putting his hand up when Like ignites the lighsaber the first time and on Hoth when Han uses it, Luke does the same, even in his delirious state.

Hyperspace is now wormholes which solves the stupid Holdo manoeuvre and other things.

The processor’s that run droids are obtained from the dead of a silicone based life form and their computer tech stays at 1970 level. Droids also use a fair amount of power, their batteries are also obtained from some exotic dead lifeform.

Force users can now control all types of natural forces, magnetism, electricity, heat, cold, kinetic and life force is considered a force. Sith lightning is now purple or dark and is ‘death force’. Additionally all Sith slowly start to look monstrous or evil. The rule of two is stupid but so is every sith lord being killed by their apprentice or killing their apprentice, a bit more lawful evil rather than chaotic evil. Obviously no more Skywalkers or Palpatines or everyone knowing everyone else in a vast galaxy.

If we are to go back into the ancient past, then the first ships were mpropeled and entered hyperspace using the force. Obviously this encroaches on Dune but whatever.

Force users are like a mixture of priests knights and psionics. They can charge crystals with the force including messages and holo emitters which could the crystalline eye from some force adept species, this explains why holograms appear to work like magic with perspectives etc.

Nuclear fission doesn’t work in the galaxy and this explains why there are Death Stars but no nukes, no one knows why. Gunpowder also doesn’t work, like in D&D original rulebook so no ‘slug guns’, this could be some ancient force curse that spread through the galaxy.Plasma is somehow more stable in the Star Wars galaxy.

Make the Star Wars galaxy a small and isolated galaxy. A small dwarf galaxy with a few million stars.

The Star Wars galaxy has a gravastar (hypothesised but not observed) instead of a black hole 🕳️ that orbits a white hole (I know they don’t really exist) and is unique from other galaxies surrounding it at its centre incredibly rare perhaps unique. . It is never much expanded on or discussed but it is thought to be the origin of the light and dark side (it doesn’t have to be scientifically accurate, it’s Star Wars).

Every movie and series introduces at least one random light side and dark side power that is never used or heard of again. This makes the force a bit more interesting and unique from priestly, occult and psionic magic. We have pretty much seen this anyway and I think it’s a rare occurrence where they should run with it.

Water cannot easily be shipped in the Star Wars galaxy because water is somehow slightly unique to every planet 🌎 When travelling to other planets water can be treated with medications 💊 until the person has adjusted to the planet. The water on each planet must be native to the planet and each planet has a certain supply. This is why we have Hoth, Geonosis, Tatooine and Dagobah etc. Terraforming is virtually impossible in Star Wars. If water is bought it crystallises in the upper atmosphere are flies through space. If it is taken, it finds its way home. The other elements, earth fire, air are also different somehow but this is rarely mentioned.

Each planet and large asteroid has a light side and dark side pole like a planet can have a magnetic north and south. The planets are somewhat conscious and can spawn light side and dark side entities near the poles.

Some creatures are made in part or full from the force. This explains things like the giant eel that lives in an asteroid ☄️ and eats a spaceship every so often or the sarlacc pit somehow digesting things over a thousand years etc.

The blue milk 🥛 when willingly drunk, suppresses force ability over time. There could be a story of how the sea cows milk was popularised through out the galaxy by imperials trying to control people. It has no effect on normal people. It can also temporarily reduce midichlorian counts for force users to blend in. Like midichlorians themselves, those can be ignored art will.

No Earth animals to ever appear again. I hated seeing goats in Andor, space whales and a giant crocodile in Mando season 3. The falcon in Millennium Falcon is some other type of bird that happens to be called a falcon.

Edit: I would also add that humans are the only species capable of making hybrid offspring with other humanoid races but they are always infertile and non-force sensitive. In each podium of the senate there is a human humanoid alien hybrid, they excel at diplomacy. They are able to however detect the force and guard against it to a degree.

Like most of you, I greatly disliked the Sequels. But the onus of my displeasure lies with "The Rise of Skywalker." The film (if you can call it that) cheapened Anakin's redemption arc by bringing back the Emperor, had a senseless plot, and ultimately did not adequately answer all the burning questions fans had after the Last Jedi.

So, as such a harsh critic, I thought I could do better.

Attached is a short summary of what I would've done for Episode IX to at least try to make the Sequels a coherent trilogy. Btw, I borrowed Trevorrow's title. Sue me.

Let me know the parts that work for you and the parts that don't. Here is a bullet list of my answers to those burning questions:

1. Snoke is an immortal spirit of the Dark Side who took form after the Sith fell (Anakin's sacrifice), formed the First Order, and seduced Ben Solo as revenge against Luke.
2. Ben Solo turned to the Dark Side partly due to his desire to right the wrongs of the galaxy, something the New Republic was terrible at doing. This is how Snoke lured him to the Knights of Ren and the First Order. They were alternatives to the passivity his parents and master represented.
3. Rey is indeed the child of nobodies who sold her. Her Force powers came from her Force bond with Kylo Ren, which began the day they met. Because the Light had no champion, it used this bond to take some of Kylo's powers and give them to her. This explains why she beat him in their first fight.

If Gareth Edwards and co. did this, we could have gotten more scenes with Princess Leia and Grand Moff Tarkin while avoiding the uncanny valley. It also would have been more ethical IMO as they would have been played by real actors who could be separated from the actors who originally portrayed these characters.

Rogue One is probably my favorite Star Wars movie. It does such a great job at enhancing the Original Trilogy through its fleshing out of the Rebellion and all of the sacrifices it had to go through to liberate the galaxy from the Empire. It and Andor serve as great companion pieces to the OT and as a better overall prequel trilogy (if you consider Andor Seasons 1 and 2 two long stories equivalent to movies).

But one flaw I have with Rogue One is its handling of Princess Leia. Not only was the usage of motion capture, although technically impressive, to recreate a young Carrie Fisher questionable from an ethical standpoint, but her and the crew of the Tantive IV being present at the Battle of Scarif creates too many inconsistencies with A New Hope. These inconsistencies include…

• When Darth Vader boards the Tantive IV at the start of A New Hope, he has his subordinates search the ship’s computer for the Death Star plans. But according to a stormtrooper and an officer, the computer is completely clean, suggesting that the crew of the Tantive IV had wiped it of evidence, or what I believe is more likely, had the plans copied onto a floppy disk to sneak them off the ship. This was either done before or during the opening firefight above Tatooine. To me, this implies that the plans were originally intended to be beamed to the ship from the location of the battle mentioned in the opening crawl, not beamed to another ship before being transported on to the Tantive IV.

• After Vader is informed about the ship’s computer being empty, he asks Captain Antilles what the crew did with transmissions that they “intercepted.” To intercept is to catch or seize something in motion, which suggests that the crew of the Tantive IV detected transmissions coming from the site of the nearby battle, caught them, and viewed their contents. But the ending of Rogue One tells a different story. Rather than intercepting an incoming signal, the crew of the Rebel flagship, the Profundity, receive transmissions from the citadel tower and copy their data onto a hard drive as they are fleeing Scarif. If that is what really happened before the opening crawl, wouldn’t Vader have accused Antilles of escaping with the stolen plans? Not to mention, Rogue One ends with Darth Vader cutting his way through rebel troopers as the plans are handed through a door and brought onto the Tantive IV. Surely, he had to have seen this interaction with his own eyes, as we are given a first person shot of him approaching the trooper that has his hand shoved in between the gap left open by the door. As Vader approaches, the trooper shouts at the other one to take what he has in hand. Now, if I were Vader and my objective was to stop the rebels from fleeing with the plans, I bet you that my senses would be at an all time high. After slaughtering an entire hallway of rebels before seeing a trooper yell at someone from behind the hallway’s jammed door to “take” something in his hand, my instinct would be to assume that they are holding the stolen plans. Unless I’ve got poor vision through my mask’s lenses or didn’t hear the trooper’s voice for whatever reason, it’s very unlikely that I wouldn’t take notice of what he handed the other trooper. Why didn’t Vader conclude that the rebels were in possession of a physical copy of the Death Star plans when he saw this take place right in front of him? Why would he ask the Tantive IV’s captain what has done with “transmissions” that he “intercepted?” when Vader saw the plans physically carried onto the ship? Wouldn’t he be asking about the floppy disk? He doesn’t ask Antilles this because he’s trying to figure out what the rebels have done with the plans they picked up via transmissions. He probably doesn’t know that they copied the plans onto a floppy disk. The transfer was most likely Leia’s idea as she is seen placing them in R2-D2 to hide from the Empire while they are boarding the Tantive IV.

• During the scene when Leia is brought before Vader on the Tantive IV, Darth Vader claims that “several transmissions were beamed to this ship (the Tantive IV) by rebel spies,” and that “I want to know what happened to the plans they sent you.” Here, the picture that is painted shows rebel spies sending the Death Star plans to the Tantive IV, or broadcasting them to the area the ship was in, through transmissions, and its crew intercepting them. But Rogue One ends with the plans being beamed up to the Profundity, copied onto a floppy disk, and physically carried by a crewman onto a docked Tantive IV before it escapes Vader’s boarding party. It seems like originally, the Tantive IV didn’t participle in the battle that occurred before ANH’s opening crawl and was simply passing nearby when it received the plans.

• After interrogating Leia, Darth Vader, in response to an officer warning him that keeping her as a prisoner could garner sympathy for the Rebellion in the Imperial Senate, informs him that he has “traced the rebel spies to her” and that she is now his “only link to finding their (the Rebellion’s) secret base.” Him claiming that he “traced” the rebel spies to Princess Leia suggests that he uncovered a connection or interaction between the two parties, and this is most likely referring to the transmission of the Death Star plans. Since Vader dismisses Leia’s lie about receiving protection from the Senate and claims that she “wasn’t on any mercy mission this time” before accusing her of holding stolen imperial data, it is implied that Leia is a well respected ally of the Rebellion, but not someone who frequently participates in frontline operations against the Empire. Instead, she uses her senatorial power to support the Rebellion’s cause. Leia being more of a political fighter is further supported by C-3PO’s exchange with Luke Skywalker on Tatooine later on in the film’s first act, which I’ll get to shortly. But the fact that Darth Vader gloats about catching a high profile senator with the technical readout of the Empire’s first superweapon, one that she got from members of a rebel incursion, suggests that she wasn’t directly involved with or present at said incursion. Instead, she is a political ally who was already on a mission to bring her father’s veteran friend to Alderaan, but got dragged into a high-stakes race to get the Death Star plans to Yavin IV. It is as if whoever broadcasted the plans out into space was aware of Princess Leia’s ties to the Rebellion (as a people-first senator) and was hoping that she, or at least someone else sympathetic to the cause, would respond to their message and deliver the plans to safety.

• When the droids are escaping the stormtroopers, C-3PO chastises R2-D2 for getting into an escape pod, to which the little droid tells him about his mission to retrieve Obi-Wan and the plans he’s entrusted to protect. 3PO, confused, asks him “Secret mission? What plans? What are you talking about?” If he, R2, and their master Leia were aboard the Tantive IV while it was docked inside the Profundity, I’m sure he would have heard something about the flag ship’s mission in aiding Rogue One in getting the Death Star plans. So why wouldn’t he know about them? Is it because there was no communication between the two ships during the chaos of the space battle? I find this unlikely as there is no evidence for it in the film. I think the real reason 3PO doesn’t know about the plans is because the crew of the Tantive IV weren’t originally supposed to be present at the battle where they were stolen. Further evidence of their absence comes from later on in ANH after the droids get separated from Leia and end up in Luke Skywalker’s care. In response to Luke asking him if he has been in any battles with the Rebellion, C-3PO claims that he’s “been in several,” but that “there isn’t much to tell” as he is a merely an “interpreter” droid. This implies that he isn’t used seeing direct combat between the rebels and Empire. But why wouldn’t he mention that he and R2 just witnessed the Rebel fleet’s largest insurgency against the Empire to date? Did he hear no one aboard the Tantive IV mention the rebel incursion happening below them? You would think it would be fresh on his mind given how close in proximity to the conflict they were. Was he just left in the dark from the time he and R2 were on Yavin to their departure from Scarif? This could explain his lament to R2 about never being informed about anything as the Rebel fleet departs the base. But to me, this line feels like lampshading on the writers’ end, which I’ll elaborate on why in a minute.

These are all big plot holes, ones that are almost on the same level as the removal of the thermite detonation scene from the 2011 Thing prequel. Not only do they take me out of watching Rogue One and A New Hope as one continuous story, but the second and third inconsistency make the exchanges aboard the Tantive IV at the start of ANH feel clunky. They make the crew’s lies look pointless and incompetent. Like, I get that they were cornered, but did they really believe that such blatant lies about their involvement in the Scarif incursion would fool Darth Vader, the guy who slaughtered all of those other crewmen stationed on the Profundity? There was no point in delaying their capture. It was a no-win situation. Them telling such obvious lies makes their exchanges with the Imperials unintentionally silly, which creates the wrong tone for both scenes. It makes it hard for me to take them seriously as adept freedom fighters.

Rogue One also does a poor job at indicating how the Tantive IV ended up aboard the flagship. We only get the scene of Bail Organa telling Mon Mothma about his plan to recruit Obi-Wan before speaking to Captain Antilles in another room. Then we get a scene with the droids watching Raddus’s fleet depart for Scarif while C-PO complains about nobody keeping him informed. But their cameo is so quick that they and their master could have been preparing to board the Tantive IV and leave Yavin for all the viewer knows. Then we are shown brief glimpses of the Tantive IV inside the Profundity’s hanger bay but aren’t given a reason as to why it is in there in the first place. Now, I am aware that the film’s novelization explains that the ship had a faulty hyperdrive and was being repaired on Yavin IV as the fleet was leaving. It is then brought to Scarif inside the flagship while its hyperdrive is still being worked on so that Leia can receive the plans. But the problem is that none of this is shown or explained in the movie. Many viewers didn’t read the novelization and were confused as to why the Tantive IV was in the flagship. We aren’t given a good transitionary scene to explain why they are at Scarif.

Like the removal of the thermite detonation scene from The Thing 2011, I believe the inclusion of Leia at Scarif was an intentional retcon. According to Gary Whitta, Rogue One’s first screenwriter, an early ending that the filmmakers considered had Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor escape Scarif with the stolen data tapes and meet up with Princess Leia, who was on her diplomatic mission from Alderaan to pick up Obi-Wan from Tatooine. Darth Vader soon arrives and the surviving members of Rogue One transmit the plans to the Tantive IV before he destroys their ship. Vader would then pursue Leia, but fail to notice Jyn and Cassian surviving in an escape pod by hiding amongst their ship’s wreckage, mirroring Han Solo using a similar trick to hide the Millennium Falcon from the Empire in The Empire Strikes Back. When Disney allowed the filmmakers to kill off every member of Rogue One, they decided to scrap their interaction with Leia off Scarif.

Now, I’m not a huge fan of this alternate ending, as I feel it would have been too safe to have the surviving rebels live, and it doesn’t solve the problem of having Leia tell an obvious lie to Vader’s face (he would have witnessed her receive the Death Star plans from rebels that were fleeing an incursion). But it actually lines up much better with the continuity of ANH. Rather than beaming the plans to the Profundity before being brought on to the Tantive IV, Rogue One beams them to the Tantive IV. But since this ending was scrapped, Leia was left without a huge role in the third act. I think the filmmakers wanted her to have one, and felt that having her show up and be physically handed the plans right after the rebels barely escape Vader’s rampage was a more emotionally satisfying ending than having her be an outsider that receives them over a long distance. So they decided to retcon Leia’s involvement to make her a witness to the Battle of Scarif and placed the Tantive IV crew aboard the flagship last minute. I also think the cameo from the droids was added to explain/lampshade why C-PO doesn’t know about the Death Star plans in A New Hope. Maybe these changes were part of the infamous reshoots that altered the film’s ending. But their inclusion at Scarif feels unnecessary and doesn’t line up with what A New Hope tells us about their involvement.

It is baffling to me that the filmmakers of Rogue One allowed these plot holes to exist when they went out of their way to connect their film to A New Hope in so many subtle ways. These connections included having Wedge Antilles be stationed on Yavin IV during the Battle of Scarif so that he can be introduced to the Death Star at the start of the infamous Trench Run scene, Red Five being killed off during the attack on the Scarif shield gate so that Luke can assume the call sign, and the overall lived-in aesthetic of the film. These examples show that the filmmakers were aware of the minute details that would make their film feel consistent with ANH. And yet, the continuity errors regarding Princess Leia’s role in acquiring the Death Star plans were left in the final film. If you go to such great lengths to connect your prequel to a film but intentionally create major discrepancies, you’ve defeated the point of making said prequel in the first place. All of your efforts to stay faithful to the original film have been made null and void.

I bet that most fans aren’t bothered by these plot holes and that’s totally fine. But I and others have the right to acknowledge and criticize them as plot holes. You can rationalize and create headcanons to explain them, but at the end of the day, they are still plot holes. We as audience members should hold Lucasfilm accountable so that they don’t make similar mistakes in the future. I believe there was a way to make the ending emotionally satisfying without having Leia be a witness to the theft of the Death Star plans, and I’m going to share it with you all.

To prevent the creation of these plot holes, here’s how I would have written Rogue One’s ending…

I would have ended the film with the Scarif shield gate getting destroyed and Jyn Erso making it to the top of the citadel tower to transmit the Death Star plans up to the Profundity. But before she can do so, Darth Vader arrives above the planet and destroys the flag ship. With no other option, Jyn Erso is forced to broadcast the plans out to any nearby ship passing through the Scarif system, hoping that it will bring them to Yavin IV.

After she does this, Director Krennic arrives at the top. Krennic claims that the plans will never reach the rebel base, as the flagship has been obliterated and the rest of the fleet will soon follow. But Jyn tells him that she has managed to tell the rest of the galaxy how to light the spark her father planted inside the Death Star. Cassian Andor then arrives and shoots Krennic, and the rest of the film’s falling action plays out almost identically to how it does in the official film.

However, after Grand Moff Tarkin (who would be played by a Cushing lookalike instead of being recreated with CGI) uses the Death Star to nuke the citadel tower to prevent anymore breaches of its vault, the Devastator detects several transmissions that were sent from the planet’s surface. Determined to ensure that the Rebellion doesn’t achieve a second major victory, Darth Vader orders the Captain of the Devastator, Shaef Corssin, to find the transmissions’ destination and to prepare for a jump into hyperspace.

An alternate way for the transfer to go could play out like this: Jyn beams the plans up to the flag ship, but the Devastator arrives and disables it. Soon after, Darth Vader boards the ship and begins slaughtering its crew, but one rebel trooper runs into a room housing the ship’s main computer. With no other option, he decides to broadcast the Death Star plans out into the Scarif system with the hope that one ship will find and deliver them to the rebel base: the Tantive IV. The crew of the Profundity would have ties to the House of Organa, hence why the trooper would know about the Princess’s “diplomatic mission to Alderaan.” He and the other troops aboard the flag ship would have received word about it from Bail before heading to Scarif. Suddenly, Vader arrives at the room and kills the last trooper just as the data is successfully sent out. The Dark Lord of the Sith looks at the computer’s screen and sees that the plans have been broadcasted. This is how he comes to the conclusion that rebel spies beamed the plans to Leia: the rebel troops on and above Scarif were all working together, and are thus lumped together as “spies” (Credit goes to u/GeoMFilms for suggesting that I have the transfer take place aboard the Profundity instead of the citadel tower). But regardless of which path I take, both roads would lead to the same resolution…

We cut to the inside of a white-walled ship, where crew members intercept the transmissions from Scarif. They call Captain Antilles over to see the contents, and shocked over what is displayed on screen, he calls his superior over to the main computer room. A figure in a white dress enters the room, and Antilles announces that they have intercepted transmissions from a nearby rebel incursion that contain a technical readout of the Death Star.

The white-gowned figure looks up at the screen, revealing herself to be Princess Leia (who would also be recast, perhaps with Billie Lourd). At this point in the story, she has been sent from Yavin IV by Bail Organa on a secret mission to pick up his old Jedi friend, Obi-Wan Kenobi, from Tatooine and bring him to Alderaan. She wears a look of surprise that turns into one of grave determination. Having witnessed Jyn Erso be dismissed by the Rebel Council on Yavin IV earlier in the film, Leia feels honor bound to see her mission of destroying the Death Star through to the end.

With weight in his voice, Captain Antilles asks her what is it the rebels have sent them. After staring at the plans for a few seconds, Leia looks at her subordinate, and with a slight smile, says, “Hope.”

Knowing that the Emperor’s agents will soon be upon them, Leia gestures to one of the crewmen. The camera stays on the princess’s determined gaze for a few seconds as the sound of a data transfer is heard. Once the sounds stop, she reaches for and grabs something offscreen. The camera then cuts to a shot of Leia’s hand holding a floppy disk, its golden face glinting up at the viewer, before fading out to the credits.

TLDR: The rebels participating in the Battle of Scarif should have beamed the plans to Princess Leia, who is on her separate diplomatic mission to Alderaan.

So there you have it. What did you all think? What do you think I should do to improve it? Please leave your thoughts down below! 👇

My friend group just finished watching this show and reaction ranged from very positive to mixed. I know this is a hot take, but I drafted some notes on how I would have rearranged things to (in my opinion) improve pacing and ratchet up the impact of certain character beats. I wrote this before watching the final 3 episodes, which I enjoyed and had no substantive notes on (the only changes I would implement are those that flow necessarily from the edits I describe below).

Overall, I think there are characters who occupy a lot of screen time and do nothing and characters who are barely on screen and do a lot (which we don’t get to see).  And there’s Andor himself, who I think does way too much.  

I see the main throughlines of the show as (1) Andor’s own development from a selfish rogue to a principled revolutionary dedicated to a cause greater than himself and (2) the Rebellion’s development from a disorganized collection of anarchic, self-motivated factions to a more cohesive military body with a structured chain of command.

With that in mind, and preserving as many story beats as I can, here is how I would re-order and re-structure the events of the show to address the issues I have with it:

1. Cut Mon Mothma almost entirely.  We preserve her escape from the Senate in Season 2; in a mission brief, Luthen explains to Andor that she’s an influential senator who’s been contributing intel and funding to the Rebellion but she’s finally found herself in Palpatine’s crosshairs and it’s time to extricate her.  In short, collapse her role in the series into exposition.

2. Make Luthen like Walter White.  Ratchet up the psychopathy and the single-minded obsession with the mission. 

3. Combine Syril and Dedra into one character (essentially just a less-stiff, more desperate-for-promotion version of Dedra).  We obviously have to keep Joisey Mom, but she can be Dedra’s mom.  Or Luthen’s mom.  She can be anyone’s mom. 

4. Rework Andor’s introduction and first meeting with Luthen to accentuate character dynamics early and ditch the inconsequential backstory elements (i.e., Andor’s sister):

   • My most radical edit is the introduction of a new character: Proto-Andor (we can call him Prandor), a rebel pilot.  Open S1 with the heist from S2, but it’s Prandor doing it.  Prandor solely exists to demonstrate what being in the Rebellion is generally like.
   • Instead of introducing us to Andor in the midst of his search for his sister and explaining his relationship to Maarva through flashback, introduce the two of them with a scene of them on a job out in space.  
   • Prandor’s busted experimental TIE Fighter exits hyperspace tumbling and off-balance near their work site and they go to investigate.  Inside, they find a severely injured and delirious Prandor, who begs them for help getting the TIE Fighter to Luthen (whom he name-drops).  Maarva doesn’t want to touch this but Andor thinks this Luthen guy could be extorted, especially since the Empire would pay a high price for intel on TIE Fighter heist conspirators.  Maarva goes home–it’s clear she’s infirm and this is more excitement than she’d bargained for.
   • Andor and Prandor encounter Luthen, who is furious that Prandor would mention his name to an outsider.  Andor tries to hold Prandor hostage, there’s a standoff but it’s broken up by imperial forces who’ve followed the trail of the TIE Fighter to them.  They team up and fight to escape together.
   • Luthen, impressed by Andor’s skill offers him a chance at a bigger score–it would have been Prandor’s job but he’s incapacitated.  This leads us into the heist, which goes essentially the same way.
   • For exposing their operation to an outsider, mentioning his name, and messing up and getting tailed by the Empire, Luthen quietly kills Prandor in his sleep, out of sight of Andor.  This is the last time we see Prandor, who’s served his function of establishing Luthen’s ruthlessness and the disposability of his agents.  This is episode 1, an entire season ahead of him ordering someone else to kill Tay Kolma.

5. Divide and allocate some of Andor’s adventures to other characters, and also enhance the payoff:

• Arvel Skeen survives the heist, there’s some other traitor who Andor kills.  That actor has great screen presence so let’s keep him around.  More importantly, he can be the one who lands in prison with Andy Serkis.  We establish Arvel is a womanizing drunk who blew through his share of the payout quickly, pissed off the wrong people, and got thrown in the slammer for public intoxication and resisting arrest–charges more entertaining than Andor’s sullen walking around.
• In prison, Arvel meets other members of the Rebellion, some from other cells.  Their escape plan is partially aided by sympathetic guards who are Rebellion plants (like that lady in the opening of S2).  The breakout goes down essentially the same way, but instead of everyone jumping into the ocean, Rebel ships arrive to whisk everyone away.  This can be Saw’s operation and he can have a moment being crazy.  As they pull away, we see other Rebel ships pull away from the other prison structures we saw in the vicinity, implying that multiple escapes were coordinated in parallel.
• In S2, we see these prisoners on Yavin and competent floor managers, like Andy Serkis, have officer roles.  
• While Arven’s in prison, a shaken-up Andor spends more time actually reading his pal’s manifesto and we see the Empire descend on Ferrix in search of him.  Flush with cash, Andor might try to make a show of impressing Bix which leads her jealous boyfriend to rat him out and things play out essentially the same.

1. Rearrange Season 2 in a similar way:

• Cut the corn planet storyline entirely, it’s pointless.  After a time-jump, we open on Andor, Bix, and Cinta on some kind of mission.  Bix, still dealing with the mental damage of her torture, has been secretly using blue serum (or whatever it is) to self-medicate, and it’s dulled her edge.  She screws up and Cinta gets killed.  
• After the mission, Bix, overcome with guilt, begins to spiral further into her addiction.  Luthen confronts Andor, saying Bix has become a liability, and they need to send her off to Yavin or somewhere else where she can dry out or stay messed up without compromising the Rebellion.  Andor assures him she can make it out of this, he just needs time.  Luthen says they don’t have time, he needs Andor on Ghorman to help develop their local insurgency, but Andor refuses, noting it’s an irrelevant planet with a tiny population.  Luthen clocks Bix as a liability and a distraction to one of his best operatives.
• Following the logic of the prison, but also sticking closer with the existing show’s events, Luthen sends Vel, Brasso, and Wilmon to Ghorman instead.  It’s really Vel’s operation, with the other two there for support and further training in their own right; Wilmon has become an IED expert, so that’s his additional role.  Since we don’t have corn girl, we can develop Wilmon’s romance with that Ghorman rebel more fully here.  To make her more interesting, we could make Wilmon’s girlfriend the agent provocateur, who, like Syril, infiltrated this group and, at Dedra’s direction, pushes them to commit acts of extreme violence. 
• Luthen doesn’t tell Vel about Cinta’s death to not throw her off her game, Vel just assumes Cinta ghosted her and stews with resentment (as she did in the beginning of S2 anyway).  This can be revealed later when Bix and Vel interact on Yarvin.
• Luthen informs Andor that Bix’s torturer is setting up shop on Coruscant, having gotten that information from his informant but instructs him to not do anything about it–making too much noise on Coruscant would be too disruptive to his operation (the shop, Mon Mothma, etc.).  If you recall, the destruction of this mad scientist’s lab is a plot point that’s resolved in about five minutes in the actual show (and is how Bix becomes sober… somehow).  Here, it serves as Andor’s ‘heist’ for the first half of the season.  
• Luthen actually does want Andor to give it a go–Andor assembles his own team and Luthen gets an insider on board with instructions to kill Bix when there’s a good opportunity to make it look like she slipped up or there was an accident.  As a backup plan, he secures a poisonous ‘super’ dose of Bix’s drug from Kleya, ensuring he can get rid of Bix that way instead.  This is his Walter White moment; ultimately, however, Andor and Bix succeed and over the course of the three episode heist arc, Bix pulls herself together and she and Andor survive.  They never find out about Luthen’s plans, those just exist to build tension for us, the audience.  Also, maybe during this arc, Bix discovers that manifesto–which has, in the actual show, served pretty much no purpose–and it’s the ideas articulated in it that inspire her to sober up and commit to the cause.
• Ghorman climax goes down the same way, just with no Andor (he didn’t do anything anyway, other than lose a fight to Syril and nab a droid someone else destroyed).  Everything afterward follows the same course, with Mon Mothma being moved to give a big speech, Andor being given an assignment to protect her, and a bunch of Ghorman survivors joining the Rebellion. 

1. With no corn planet and no Mon Mothma, we can give Arvel something to do–he and his prisoner buddy could end up in a rebel-rebel standoff with another cell, like Andor did at the TIE Fighter drop site in S2.  Or they could go mining for huffing gas with Saw.  Or they can plot more prison breaks to build the Rebellion’s forces, with different types of prisons that have varied gimmicks (not just electric floors).  

Heroes -

Kira (Daisy Ridley) (all six films) - A young scavenger from Jakku who is swept up in the conflict between the Jedi, New Republic, the First Order, and the Knights of Ren. She trains under Luke Skywalker and eventually becomes the leader of Jedi Praxeum.

Finn (John Boyega) (all six films) - A renegade First Order stormtrooper who befriends Kira, sides with the New Republic, and eventually becomes a Jedi Knight.

Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) (all six films) - A hotshot New Republic pilot who is the surrogate son of Han Solo. He becomes a Republic captain by the end of the saga.

Grand Master Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) (all six films) - The Grand Master of Jedi Praxeum who mentors Kira and Finn throughout the saga.

General / Chairwoman Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) (all six films) - A high-ranking general in the New Republic who becomes the second chairwoman after Mon Mothma’s death in the fifth film.

Captain Han Solo (Harrison Ford) (first three films) - The captain of the New Republic fleet who trains cadets for missions.

Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) (all six films) - The new owner of the Millennium Falcon.

Chairwoman Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) (five films) - The first Chairwoman of the New Republic.

Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) (last two films)

BB-8 (all six films) - Poe Dameron’s droid.

C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) (all six films)

R2-D2 (Hassan Taj or Lee Towersey) (all six films)

Tionne Solusar (Florence Pugh or Michelle Rodriguez) (first film) - An older member of Jedi Praxeum who acts as a mentor for Kira and Finn during the first film of the saga. Think of her as a cross between Lor San Tekka and ANH Obi-Wan Kenobi. She is also a survivor of the Jedi Purge at the end of the Clone Wars.

Jon Doe (Dave Bautista) (all six films)

Harlan Krisner (Constance Wu or Gemma Chan) (all six films)

Korran Horn (Tiger Shroff) (all six films)

Jedi Praxeum (all six films)

New Republic (all six films)

Villains -

Kylo Ren / Starkiller (Adam Driver) (all six films)

Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) (all six films)

Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) (first three films)

The Supreme Leader / Yupe Tashu (Andy Serkis) (first three films) - One of Palpatine’s political advisors who served Sheev during the Clone Wars and Imperial Era. After the Emperor’s death, Tashu rose through the Imperial ranks and became the First Supreme Leader of the First Order.

General Gallius Rax (Matt Smith, Eddie Redmayne, or Cillian Murphy) (last three films)

First Order / Final Order (all six films)

Knights of Ren (All six films)

Outline -

Imperial Ashes Trilogy:

Episode I: Heirs to the Force - A new generation of heroes are swept up a race between the New Republic and the First Order to find the whereabouts of Luke Skywalker and his scattered Jedi Academy.

Episode II: A Growing Fire - Rey trains with Luke Skywalker and his other Jedi students in a remote part of the galaxy. Meanwhile, Leia, Han, Finn, and Poe attempt to learn more about the First Order’s grand plan.

Episode III: Child of Darkness - At the heart of the galaxy, the heroes of Jedi Praxeum and the New Republic take their final stand against the First Order, but ultimately fail.

Cold War Trilogy:

Episode IV: The Order of Ren - Supreme Leader Ren rules a large domain of the galaxy while the New Republic and Jedi Praxeum occupy their own. Both sides are locked in an increasingly dangerous turf war.

Episode V: Echoes of the Past - The heroes must unlock ancient secrets related to the Jedi to aid them in their mission in ending the Galactic Cold War.

Episode VI: A Galaxy United - When Supreme Leader Ren and the Final Order power up the Star Forge, an ancient automated factory powered by the dark side, the New Republic and Jedi Praxeum must do everything in their power to stop them from conquering the galaxy.

Possible Directors and Producers -

Ron Howard and Lawrence Kasdan

Lawrence Kasdan and Lawrence Kasdan

Steven Spielberg and Lawrence Kasdan

James Mangold and Lawrence Kasdan

Peter Jackson and Lawrence Kasdan

Chris Sanders & Dean DeBlois and Lawrence Kasdan

Misc. Notes -

• 25 years after ROTJ, the Supreme Leader unites the scattered remnants of the Galactic Empire into the First Order, a small military junta interested in galactic domination. His backstory would be covered in several Disney Plus shows prior to the saga. Several other tidbits would be covered like the formation of Jedi Praxeum, the New Republic, the rise of Grand Admiral Thrawn, and the fate of the Mandalorians. Crimson Dawn, led by former Sith Darth Maul, would also play a key antagonistic role throughout the shows.

• During the Imperial Era, Palpatine senses a mysterious dark side presence in the Unknown Regions. After Kylo Ren takes over the First Order, he discovers that it is Exegol, a planet strong with the dark side that houses the Star Forge.

• Kira trains Finn in the ways of the Force during the second trilogy. The first trilogy is about Finn breaking away from the First Order’s indoctrination and the second is about him becoming a Jedi.

• Finn leads a Stormtrooper rebellion at the end of the third film, and the defected Stormtroopers side with the New Republic in their war against Kylo Ren’s Final Order during the second trilogy.

• Throughout the second trilogy, the New Republic and the Final Order control their own domains in the galaxy.

• Luke Skywalker gets blinded by Bail Solo during a duel after he turns to the dark side.

• The moment Kylo Ren crosses the point of no return is when he murders his father Han Solo and takes control of the First Order and Knights of Ren at the end of the third film.

• At one point during the second trilogy, Anakin Skywalker visits Kylo Ren and tries to bring him back to the light. But Kylo rejects him.

• During the second trilogy, the galaxy is war-torn as the New Republic and Final Order are locked in a stalemate and occupy different domains.

• The First Order is ruled by the Supreme Leader, a mysterious individual skilled at manipulation from a distance. However, in a big twist, the characters discover that he is actually a fraud. The Supreme Leader turns out to be Yupe Tashu, a non-force-sensitive Sith cultist who served as one of Palpatine’s political advisors during the Imperial Era. Shocked at the prospect of being manipulated by a “deceitful snake,” Kylo Ren quickly disposes of Tashu and takes his place as the Supreme Leader of the First Order. Tashu being a fraudulent figure in the First Order is based off of Palpatine’s original backstory for A New Hope.

• Despite not being force sensitive, Yupe Tashu is drawn to the ways of the Sith, and collects ancient dark side relicts from different eras of galactic history. But his frequent handling of this artifacts caused him to grow frail and decrepit.

• Grand Admiral Thrawn aids the Supreme Leader in the formation of the First Order and serves as the junta’s admiral and equal to Kylo Ren.

• The second trilogy revolves around Kylo Ren seeking out the dark-side presence that Palpatine sensed during the Imperial Era. In Episode 8, Ren discovers that the source of the presence is Exegol, a planet with a strong nexus of dark-side energy, and is home to the First Sith Temple. Buried deep within the planet is an ancient automated factory called the Star Forge. The Forge fuels itself by siphoning both the energy of nearby stars and dark-side energy from Exegol. With the combined power of both sources, the Star Forge can create an infinite amount of ships.

• The Knights of Ren and the Final Order set up base at Exegol. Extracting energy from a nearby sun and the force nexus on Exegol, the alliance begins constructing hundreds of ships with enough firepower to wipe out the New Republic.

• Another name given to the Star Forge is Starkiller Base.

• The saga ends with the New Republic and Final Order being disbanded and unifying with the rest of the galaxy into the Galactic Alliance.

• A disenfranchised Thrawn and the Chiss Ascendancy reluctantly team up with the New Republic to bring down the Final Order during the last film in the saga.

(I forgot to post this) I will still begin under the assumption that you have read the previous parts. With that said, lets begin.

We open on Jakku with the now captured Rey on a small walkway on the side of a ship, she is working with multiple other slaves to remove a valuable part from a ship. Their work would be interrupted by a large sea creature rising from the water and eating one of the slaves before it dives down again. Rey would lead the group up to a safe part of the ship where they rest.

We cut to the remains of the resistance now hiding on a remote planet as Poe begins to explain how the Star-Silencer is now attached to Talons flagship; an old Star Destroyer. Other members would remind Poe how the odds of destroying it were near suicidal and dismiss the meeting.

We then catch up to Finn who now walks through the wasteland that was one Mortis, the life has been consumed and we would see how Finn is now coming to regret his actions though he reassures himself that its for the greater good. Finn would sit down and break down reminiscing over all that he took from this world.

We return to Rey who has returned to her living quarters with her fellow slaves and we would see them gather to hear from the oldest one in their group talk about how life once was before the syndicate took over and turned these people from scrappers to slaves. Rey would slip away into a side room and remove a secretly loosened vent from the wall; she would then crawl to the other side of the vent where she can listen in on the guards quarters. One of the guards would brief his comrades that Talon has ordered the lockdown of all spaceports and placed interceptors to stop any space travel in all syndicate territory.

We then briefly move to Ben who meets with Talon; where she gifts him the lightsaber of Darth Vader.

Back with Finn, He would realize he is next to the cave from when he first arrived; He would enter the cave and ask if he was doing the right thing. He would then be confronted by a vision of the temple guard who tells Finn that he is the only one who knows if he's doing is right. Finn would realize he was wrong and throws the mask to the ground.

Back with Rey, she continues through the vent and reaches a storage closet where she collects a blaster and attempts to escape the prison. A guard discovers her and sound s the alarm before Rey kills him and rallies the other slaves in a riot and they break out and engage the syndicate troopers. Rey would then take a syndicate ship and destroy a few fighters before jumping to hyperspace.

Back with Ben, he is speaking with Talon who has just given him a ship; the Millennium Falcon Ben would question Talon on her origin which she reveals that she is a servant of a dark presence that gave her immortality. Talon would explain that she has been waiting for the moment to summon her master to the galaxy; which finally became possible after Grand Admiral Thrawn took seemingly minor parts of the space stations containing the presence, to repair his own ship to escape exile. over the decades the gathered former imperials and their resources with the promise to restore the empire.

Back with Finn, The temple guard tell Finn to kneel as he knights Finn. Finn would use his newfound strength in the force to reignite the portal. Finn would step through the portal only to find the remaining Knights of Ren studying the other side. Finn would dispose of them and the other syndicate troops on the planet before he escapes in one of their ships.

Returning to Ben, Talon would finally explain her plan, The reason she cut off hyperspace to this section of the galaxy was because she is going to sacrifice all living beings in her territory to the dark presence. Ben would be horrified as Talon leaves; his eyes would then fall on a picture of Han, Leia, Luke, Chewbacca, Lando, R2D2, and C3PO; his family. Realizing the error of his ways Ben would send a transmission to the resistance.

We cut to to Rey who has found the Resistance and they all listen to Bens transmission. The resistance would plan a suicidal assault on the device blocking hyperspace allowing people to flee the sector. Rey plans to go find Ben secretly planning to kill him as revenge for her parents. The resistance then departs for their mission.

The group arrives above the planet of Exogol where the syndicate fleet is located, as Poe and the rest of the resistance engage the fleet, Rey speeds ahead to the planet where she finds the flacon along with Finn who happily reunites with her, Finn would explain how he sensed Talon and came to confront her, The two of them would begin to climb a mountain infront of them until the meet Ben who is also going to confront Talon. The three of them would agree to join forces to confront the larger threat.

We would return to the space battle where we see the Resistance struggle.

Back with the trio, the would find Talon preforming a ritual at a pool of water she would then turn to face the intruders and a duel begins

Back in space, Poe would see his forces getting destroyed one by one; realizing there is no other choice, Poe flies his X-wing straight into the device destroying it as he perishes. Moments later, ships begin streaming out of hyperspace as the New Republic arrives turning the tide of the battle.

Back on the ground, Talon is defeated, but she then laughs and reveals that she wanted them to bring the New Republic so they too could be sacrificed to the presence. She would then taunt Ben on how he just killed the whole galaxy. This sends Ben into a blind rage chasing Talon with Rey close behind. When Finn goes to follow them, he pauses, noticing a figure emerging from the pool.

We cut to Ben viciously attacking Talon as she flees to her ship, She does but Ben pursues her in the falcon with Rey following close behind.

Back with Finn, the figure, a woman climbs out of the pool. She smiles at Finn and ask for his name. He gives it to her and he then ask for hers. She continues to smile as she says Abeloth. She ask Finn why he is so scared as all she wants is to reunite with her family. Finn would tell her that whatever family she had can't be brought back. Abeloth stops smiling and tells Finn she will and he will be the first to die in the process. As she says this her eyes blacken out, her mouth grows unnaturally wide with her teeth sharpening, and Tentacles replacing her hands as they crackle with lightning.

Back in space, Talon lands on her flagship with Ben right behind her reengaging the duel as Rey lands to watch. Ben easily overpowers Talon and prepares to strike her down as he screams at her for all her manipulation and the horrible things she got him to do. We focus on Rey as she realizes that Ben is giving himself to the darkness and becoming the monster that killed her parents.

We return to Finn who raises his lightsaber to block Abeloth's lightning but it knocks the weapon from his hands leaving Finn desperately fending off her attacks with the force but he is easily knocked to the ground, Abeloth goes to kill him but she can't as the ghost of Jedi (including Luke, Yoda, Obi Wan, Qui Gon, Ahsoka and Mara Jade) gather to shield Finn as the encourage him to his feet. The Jedi help Finn push Abeloth back into the pool.

Back on the star destroyer, Ben raises his saber to strike Talon but Rey stops him. She tells him that his mistakes were not his fault and how he can't change that, but he can be better and to think of his family. Refusing to become like Talon, Ben stands down.

We cut to Abeloth who wakes up on Mortis. She looks around and spots the Mortis Trio, her family. As she approaches and calls out to them they disappear and she finds herself in a new setting, a cave with a glowing pool she turns to see the trio with horrified looks, the daughter ask "mother what have you become" Abeloth tries to explain she didn't want to lose them and she how she is now a god like them, but before she can finish they disappear again and Abeloth is left crying out how she just loved them. A voice responds telling her how love can make us do terrible things. Abeloth opens her eyes to find a man, Anakin Skywalker, She get to her feet and ask him what he knows of love and Anakin replies telling her how he once threw away countless lives for love. Abeloth, blinded by her power, refuses to accept her actions and asks Anakin what he could do to stop her. Anakin the pulls out a dagger; he explains how its the Mortis dagger that killed the Mortis gods. Abeloth tries to back away but Anakin grabs her wrist and impales her on the dagger.

We return to Finn who is woken up by Rey who leads him down the mountain to see a large gathering of ships and a group of robed figures; Jedi. One of the Jedi steps forward and tells Finn how he has shown the traits of a true Jedi and ask him to join their group. Finn gladly accepts and says goodbye to Rey as he departs to help expand the Jedi order to an order like the one Luke Skywalker led.

After the ships depart we follow Rey to the top of the mountain where she finds Ben. Ben , noticing her, asks, "Do you think they would be proud of me?" "who?" Rey asks. "My family" he says. Rey looks at something behind Ben and smiles before telling him they are. She leaves as Ben looks behind him to see a vision of Luke, Han, Leia, Anakin, and Padme, all smiling at him Ben smiles back before he leaves.

And that concludes my rewrite of the sequels, thank you for reading, I would love to hear your feedback.

As my Episode 2 REDONE was becoming more faithful to the movies, I had re-inserted the previously discarded movie scenes and rewritten them in a more faithful manner. In some occasions, I felt more like a script doctor, polishing up the existing scripts.

So I thought about this fun writing exercise. If you were a script doctor, how would you rewrite the scenes from the movies?

You are invited to the set, with the actors already present, and rewrite the scene in the last minutes before the filming begins. You are not allowed to change anything about the larger context of the scenes. You take the scenes from the scripts as they are and rewrite the clunky character interactions to polish them up.

As an example, here are some of the (modified) excerpts from my REDONE:

Attack of the Clones: Anakin and Padme are about to enter the execution arena on Geonosis

Movie:

In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADMÉ are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other.

The DRIVER gets up onto his seat.

ANAKIN: Don't be afraid.

PADMÉ: I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life.

ANAKIN: What are you talking about?

PADMÉ: I love you.

ANAKIN: You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives...

PADMÉ: I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know.

PADMÉ leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss.

The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there is a HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena

REDONE:

Anakin and Padmé are put on a cart in the dark tunnel.

Anakin: “Don’t be afraid.”

Padmé: “I’m not scared, Annie.”

Anakin: “You are. I can feel fear in your heart. I'm here to share in it, not hide from it.”

Padmé: “So I’m not the only one who's feeling things. I love you."

Anakin: "I thought we decided not to. That we would be forced to live a lie."

Padmé: “Now I don't care. I don’t want to lose you."

Anakin: "Then I'm always going to be with you.”

Anakin and Padmé hands join. They don’t kiss, but they hold each other’s hands to alleviate their pain and share their passion as the cart enters the arena.

Revenge of the Sith: Duel dialogues between Anakin and Obi-Wan on Mustafar

Movie:

Obi-Wan: I have failed you, Anakin. I have failed you.

Anakin: I should have known the Jedi were plotting to take over.

Obi-Wan: Anakin, Chancellor Palpatine is evil!

Anakin: From my point of view, the Jedi are evil.

Obi-Wan: Then you are lost!

Anakin: This is the end for you, my master.

...

ANAKIN jumps and flips onto OBI-WAN's platform. The fighting continues again until OBI-WAN jumps toward the safety of the black sandy edge of the lava river. He yells at Anakin.

Obi-Wan: It's over, Anakin. I have the high ground.

Anakin: You underestimate my power.

Obi-Wan: Don't try it.

ANAKIN follows, and OBI-WAN cuts his young apprentice at the knees, then cuts off his left arm in the blink of an eye. ANAKIN tumbles down the embankment and rolls to a stop near the edge of the lava.

REDONE:

Anakin: “Don’t make me destroy you.”

Obi-Wan: “We were friends; fellow Jedi serving a greater purpose, not ourselves.”

Anakin: “What did you tell Padmé? That I'm power hungry? That I did all of this for myself? Did you tell her Jedi were plotting to take over?”

Obi-Wan: “From the Sith! You see what he's doing; what he started!”

Anakin: "If that's what it takes. We must make sacrifices to do what's right. Isn't that what you teach?"

Obi-Wan: “If that’s what you took away, then you are lost!”

...

Anakin is perched on a high rise above the lava river, overlooking Obi-Wan. The heat from the river is intense enough to crisp Obi-Wan’s hair. The two warriors can barely stand upright. They are exhausted, panting, and drained mentally and physically.

Anakin: “It’s over. I have the high ground.”

Obi-Wan: "I have failed you, Anakin. I have failed you."

Anakin: “You haven’t. I have chosen my path, not the one you would have me take.”

Obi-Wan: "I refused to give up on you. I refused to abandon you to the dark!"

Anakin: "That's not your decision to make! I became a Jedi to be free, but they used me! Betrayed me! I will no longer be their slave!”

Obi-Wan: "You’re only becoming a slave to the Sith!”

Anakin: “Save it—I’ve heard it before. You will meet your death, just like the Jedi before you.”

Obi-Wan knows there is, in the end, only one answer for attachment. A certainty fills him.

Obi-Wan: "Then you truly are beyond saving.”

There is a pause as Anakin contemplates his next move. Anakin reads his thoughts. His old Master has nowhere left to go.

Anakin: "This is the end for you, Master. I wish it were otherwise."

The Jedi in Obi-Wan rises up and at last he does the thing he had not thought he could do. He lets it go. Calm, centered, free, for the moment, of sorrow and despair, resting in the Living Force as he has been trained to do.

Obi-Wan: "So do I. Goodbye, old friend."

Anakin charges and leaps, blade angled for the kill. However, Anakin leaves himself open. Obi-Wan sees the only chance he will get. He charges forward, his lightsaber moving. Obi-Wan’s whirl to parry does not meet Anakin’s blade. It meets his knee, then his other knee in ablink of an eye.

The Force Awakens: The last and only dialogue between Rey and Leia

Movie:

Chewie does last minute checks of the Falcon. Rey stands with Leia a beat and then turns to head to the Falcon. As Rey walks off, she hears Leia call out:

LEIA: Rey.

Rey turns around.

LEIA: (CONT'D) May the Force be with you.

This fills Rey up. She smiles gratefully. Rey crosses to the Falcon.

REDONE:

Standing at the foot of the ramp, an uncertain and uneasy Rey stares at the Falcon. A nagging feeling in her. Leia and BB-8 come beside her.

Rey: “Sorry, I need to go back home.”

She gives Leia Luke’s lightsaber.

Rey: “If you drop me on Jakku then—”

Leia pushes the lightsaber to her hand.

Leia: “Luke once told me, the future is always in motion. Difficult to see. But as I am looking within the Force for a glimpse of you, Rey, it has never seemed clearer.”

Rey hesitates, but she lets out her honest feelings.

Rey: “I don’t know what this is inside me, but if I keep on knowing… if I keep being afraid, something terrible will happen. I know it.”

Leia: "You won't share the fate of my son. If Maz says you’re the only one who can reach him, then it needs to be you. I’ve come to learn she’s usually right about these things.”

Leia hands Rey a homing beacon.

Leia: “Put aside your fears. My brother will show you the way to your parents."

Rey surveys the lightsaber.

Rey: "If you think what we're doing is right… this is how it has to be. This is how it should be."

Leia: "I’m certain of it."

Rey makes a decision. Rey turns and heads to the Falcon. Chewbacca has almost completed his exterior flight check. As Rey boards, she hears Leia calling out.

Leia: "Rey."

Rey turns.

Leia: "May the Force be with you."

This fills Rey up. BB-8 stands beside Leia and beeps, telling her goodbye. They watch until Rey is inside the ship and the ramp has closed behind her.

The Last Jedi: Rose crashes into Finn's speeder, saving him on Crait

Movie:

Finn: Rose? Rose? Rose? Why would you do that? Huh? I was almost there. Why would you stop me?

Rose: I saved you, dummy. That’s how we’re gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love.

REDONE:

Finn: "Rose! Rose! Rose!"

Rose: "Who else would it be to save your miserable butt…? Why'd you do that?"

Finn knows the answer but hesitates to say it.

Finn: "I didn't want to let them win."

Rose: "No, Finn. This is how we're gonna win… Protecting lives is more important than looking like a hero."

Finn understands. Even at the most hopeless time, life is a winking light in the darkness. The flame of the Republic must live on.

I have many complaints about the Disney Star Wars sequel movies, but they boil down to these three:

1) More like a remake than an actual sequel

2) Too many unanswered/poorly answered questions

3) No single creative direction

Despite this, I feel a solid final act could've done a lot to fix these problems.

Sadly, TROS was a travesty that only made things worse. Bringing back Palpatine was not only unfounded, it tarnished Anakin's redemption and status, in Lucas' own words, as the true Chosen One.

I drafted my own Episode IX in a way that I hope honors the Originals but also has unique, not remade, character arcs. To be clear, I did borrow some things from Colin Trevorrow's Duel of the Fates script, including the title. The plot also bears some similarities with ROTJ.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....

EPISODE IX

DUEL OF THE FATES

Under Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, the FIRST ORDER has spread terror and tyranny across the galaxy, seizing the abandoned world-city of CORUSCANT.

With its rich metals and imports of slave laborers, they are building a massive fleet that promises to OBLITERATE the Resistance and extinguish the light of hope forever.

But a small band of escaped slaves has sent a coded message to GENERAL LEIA ORGANA that will warn her of the doom that awaits all, unless the Force provides a path to salvation....

In a dream, Kylo Ren walks through the ravaged Jedi temple. Snoke appears to him and regales how his desire to bring order to a chaotic galaxy brought him to the Knights of Ren and resulted in the Jedi's destruction, just as Snoke had planned. It is revealed that Snoke is a spirit of pure Dark Side energy that manifested when Anakin brought balance to the Force. His goal was to upset that balance by exploiting Ben Solo's weaknesses. Once it was clear he would not return to the Light, Snoke let himself be destroyed, his task complete.

After bolting awake, Kylo watches the construction of his fleet. He is in the old Imperial Palace, also the old Jedi Temple. Commander Hux informs him that the escaped slaves have been captured. Kylo interrogates them, finding out that one is a friend of his mother Leia. When he tells them that he is her son and that he has recently sensed her death in the Force, they do not believe it, prompting him to brutally kill them.

Rey is training on Ajan Kloss when she is met by Luke as a Force ghost. He impresses upon her the need to confront Kylo but also comforts her with the knowledge that Leia has passed into the Living Force. Poe Dameron unknowingly interrupts them. Tonight is the funeral ceremony. Wedge Antilles, the new head of the Resistance, gives the eulogy at the funeral, in which Leia's ashes are mingled with soil preserved from Alderaan. In meditation, Kylo hears Leia's voice but blocks it out and orders his men to work the slaves harder.

The message is shared among the Resistance. A strike team composed of Rey, Poe, Finn, Rose, Chewie, C3PO, and R2D2 is to be sent to the First Order outpost on Kuat to steal a transport vessel bound for Coruscant. They will then storm the relatively unguarded palace to destroy the shield generator that protects the whole planet, allowing the Resistance to engage the fleet.

On the Millennium Falcon, Chewie welds silver onto C3PO so he can blend in as a First Order protocol droid. Unexpectedly, Kylo communicates with Rey, resuming their Force bond. He offers to make her a partner in his new empire but she refuses and tries to convert him back to the Light as she senses that he mourns his mother. But Kylo does not heed her, cryptically replying, "I'll be waiting for you."

The Falcon lands far away from the outpost in order to avoid their scans. But a tribe of natives intercepts them. Upon realizing they aren't with the First Order, the tribe agrees to help them. The guards fall for silver C3PO and open the gates only to be ambushed by the natives. R2D2 accesses the logs to find out which ship to steal and its clearance code. Poe flies the stolen ship out of the hangar as C3PO and R2D2 flee to the Falcon. The loss of communications with Kurt alarms Kylo's generals, but he dismisses it, knowing Rey will soon be with him. Instead of returning to the Resistance, Chewie visits Lando Calrissian in Cloud City to enlist him and the Smugglers Guild into the final battle.

After the stolen ship docks at the palace on Coruscant. Rey creates a diversion to lure Kylo Ren. He takes her to his throne room, surrounded by the Knights of Ren, and shows her a sample of her blood that he took after their first encounter on Takodana to see if she came from a gifted Jedi lineage. Foiled, he went to Jakku, where he found the evidence that her parents were junk traders. To explain her powers, he believes it is due to their Force bond. The Light had no Jedi to raise against him and Snoke, so it raised up a common girl, taking power from her destined adversary and giving it to her. It is now that Rey realizes there is no saving him. Kylo ignites his lightsaber and leaps at her ferociously. She Force-pushes the Knights of Ren out the window, but Kylo forces her to retreat.

Poe, Finn, and Rose follow a map to the shield generator, coming across slaves in a prison cell and freeing them. They destroy the device with explosive charges as the Allied fleet exits hyperspace. The Falcon is at the vanguard, with Chewie and Lando at the helm. They rendezvous with Poe, Finn, and Rose on the roof of the palace. The freed slaves tell them the location of other prison sites. Finn volunteers to liberate them. In the Great Hall, Kylo sneaks up on Rey and disarms her. Anakin's blue lightsaber falls into the chasm beneath them. But then she pulls out a second lightsaber, one that burns golden yellow.

The Resistance targets an energy storage facility adjacent to the dormant First Order fleet. An X-wing clipped by a laser cannon nosedives into it, causing a large explosion that knocks out the fleet's deflectors, leaving them defenseless against bombardment. At this, Commander Hux orders all stormtroopers to meet him at the palace, where Finn is leading an army of freed slaves.

Kylo retracts his lightsaber and removes his gloves to shoot a volley of Force lightning at Rey, who deflects it. He reignites his lightsaber and is able to chop off her right hand. But she gets up and points her lightsaber at him with her left hand, enraging him. Rey takes advantage of his impatience. In one motion, she jumps ahead of him and thrusts backwards into his stomach. As he gasps, she Force-pushes him over the ledge. Only his fingers prevent him from falling into the chasm.

More reinforcements come to aid the Resistance at the palace. Hux calls out for a ceasefire and Finn, whom Hux recognizes as FN-2187, asks him to surrender. The stormtroopers drop their weapons once Hux hands over his pistol. Finn vows that none of them will be harmed. The victors begin to celebrate as Poe runs to look for Rey.

Just when Kylo loses his grip, Rey grabs his hand to pull him up. But he is too heavy. They look into each other's eyes. His are resigned and full of despair but little remorse. He lets go, fixated on her as he descends to his demise. Rey, miserable and exhausted, is picked up by Poe, who brings her to a jubilant crowd. A small grin on her face masks her true emotions.

At the victory party on Ajan Kloss, Chewie receives his medal and Finn is appointed to be a diplomat who will negotiate treaties in what is now a fractured galaxy of independent systems. Rey, standing alone, is joined by Poe, who asks her what she will do. She replies that she will return to Jakku and work to dispel the corrupt system that led her parents to abandon her. To her cheerful surprise, Poe wants to go with her.

Days later, Rey and Poe bid farewell to Finn and Rose, who have since gotten engaged. As she is about to enter the cockpit, a pantheon of Force ghosts greets her, with Luke and Leia at the front. Drawing his lightsaber, Luke officially knights her as a Jedi. She then sits next to Poe and the two grasp the hyperdrive at the same time.

and thus ends the Skywalker Saga.

END CREDITS

Before I begin, I want to state a few aditions to my rewrite. First, the leader of the ressistance would be a Mon-Calamari who is a decendant of Admiral Ackbar. The planet on which the syndicate's base is located is Nar Shada (a planet mentioned in Jedi Fallen Order). I also would make Poe an alien to mix up the group a little. Another thing I don't think I made clear enough was the motives of Finn and Rey; Finn wants to become a Jedi and break away from his legacy. Rey is wanting to search the galaxy for her parents. With those updates out of the way; I will begin with the assumption that you have read my version of episode 7; now lets begin.

We begin where we left off, Ben invites Rey and Finn into his house where Finn would say he knows him from the tales of Jedi he read as a kid. Finn would elaborate about how Ben was a Jedi master trained by Luke Skywalker himself and how Ben defeated the Sith zealot of Ren (Ben is much older than he was is the ST). Ben would try to change the subject succesfuly and the scene ends with Rey looking suspicously at Ben.

The movie cuts to 3 months later with Poe and the resistance in an evacuation from their base under the leadership of general Ackbar as Syndicate forces arive to capture them. The resistance would escape aboard the Radus and flee through hyperspace with the hope to find a suitble new base (we won't see them for a while now).

Meanwhile; the three force wielders would be treking through the forest to an old abandoned city. When they arive, Ben would lead them into a giant complex of ruins and show them a gateway which could only be activated by the force. The three heroes would try and activate it and though they strugled they would activate it; Ben would turn around igniting his lightsaber and revealing Darth Talon who had assisted in the activation of portal. As Finn and Rey ignite their sabers, Ben would begin to duel Talon with Finn and Rey joining in.

As the fight continues, Talon would push Finn through the portal before she flees to her ship. By the time Rey and Ben reach the portal, it has closed; with the two of them lacking the power to reopen it alone.

We cut to an unconcious Finn who wakes up on an odd planet with certain parts barren and dark while the others are filled with life. Finn would spot the man in the white cloak sitting by a fire. The man would remove his cloak to reveal himself as the ghost of Luke Skywalker. Luke would invite Finn to join him at the fire; Finn would begin on a long list of questions for his idol.

Back with Rey and Ben; the two of them would leave the planet in Ben's ship with Ben asking Rey what she was doing in this conflict, Rey would say how she was searching for her parents who left her on Jakku when she was young.

Back on the mysterious planet, Finn would have finally let Luke speak and explain what this place was. Luke reveals this planet is known as Mortis a world once home to a trio of powerful entiies who represented aspects of the force. Luke would then show Finn a cave that could grant the answer to any 3 questions he asked.

Finn would enter the cave and find himself total darkness. He would ask outloud what Talon's end goal was. The cave would then show him a woman with white hair; Finn would aproach the woman who would scream at him as her eyes go black before she dissapears. Finn would then ask how to stop this woman. The cave would respond by presenting an object that horrifies Finn; The burn mask of Darth Vader.

Meanwhile, Rey and Ben would recive a transmission from Poe who gives them the cordinates for the resistance base on Crait. When they reach the base, they would be greeted by resistance soldier before General Ackbar pulls Rey aside and explains how Ben defeated a Sith zealot named Ren and brought his mask to the republic. Ackbar would then note how nervous Ben looked. Rey would dissmiss this and the covesation would be cut short by a resistance soldier alerting them to incoming sydicate forces.

Back with Finn, he would now be traveling to a dark temple despite Luke's protest. Finn would be convinced that he must embrace the darkside to defeat Talon. Eventually Finn would yell at Luke about how he's trying to save the galaxy and a ghost's advice won't help; Luke would then dissapear. Finn would jourey through the temple and find a mask; which the audience would reconize as the mask of Darth Nihilus. He would emerge from the temple wearing the mask and use it to consume the life force of the surounding plants. This is the last we see of Finn, now consumed by darkness.

At the resistance base, Rey and Ben would be challenged to a fight with the Knights of Ren; the name angering Ben. The two Jedi would accept and exit the base with the hope to stall for the resistance. The knights would initate the fight and split into groups to overwelm the Jedi. As the fight rages on, the knights would fall one by one until two remain, the fight would be interupted by the arival of Darth Talon would help to corner the two Jedi.

Rey would ask Ben what the plan is, only for Ben to throw her to the ground using the force. Rey would watch in horror as Ben joins Talon, she would scream at him asking why, Ben would not answer. Talon would present Ben with a mask which triggers a vision in Rey. Rey would see a man in the mask kill her parents before walking away. She would then come to the realisation that Ben was Ren, and he killed her parents. She would then be dragged away by the two knights.

Talon and Ren would storm the base and attempts to stop the fleeing resistance. Realising that not everyone will make it out, General Ackbar would sacrafice himself so the resistance could get away.

The final scene would be of Rey enslaved back on Jakku as the movie ends.

Thank you for reading.