I walked out of Star Wars Episode 9 The Rise of Skywalker, thinking how can it be a more fitting end to the sequel trilogy than it ended up being. And then I got to work in rewriting it in the only way I know how to: in comic/manga form.
Please read from left to right. Click here to jump to Behind the Scenes.
Chapter Select
Follow Me:
Behind the Scenes
First of all, thanks for reading through this whole thing. I’m not the best at words, so thank you for tolerating my spotty writing. But now are you ready to see me jamming words into other words?
To be fair, Star Wars Episode IX wasn’t the most disappointing thing since my son… largely in part because before I walked in the theatre I already read that they walked back on a lot of things The Last Jedi established. I’m not sure if it’s still controversial anymore to say that I thought TLJ was great – it’s not amazing, mind you – but it is great, at least on paper.
My gripe with The Rise of Skywalker was not its pacing or story structure, but its failure as a last ditch effort to give the sequel trilogy its own identity. The Force Awakens kickstarted the trilogy with a blind appeal to nostalgia while offering nothing much to say on its own, and for me, that feeling lingered with me throughout viewing the three films. My appreciation for TLJ comes from its attempt at an actual overarching theme for the new trilogy, which seemed to be forgotten by TRoS.
With that in mind, I set out to restructure this rewrite to hopefully give the sequel trilogy proper closure. To me the theme for the new trilogy is obvious (thanks to Rian): It is a nostalgia trip, yes, but it’s time to move on for a new generation of Star Wars. Here are some “behind-the-scenes” thoughts behind some elements of this rewrite:
- The very nature of these films, intentional or not, is a meta-commentary on the reliance on nostalgia that the Star Wars franchise has become. The thematic structure of the sequel trilogy, if according to this rewrite, would be:
- Act I (Setup) The Force Awakens = Nostalgia!
- Act II (Confrontation) The Last Jedi = Maybe… maybe we should be open to a Star Wars film that’s not just pure nostalgia?
- Act III (Resolution) The Rise of Skywalker = Yeah let’s burn it all down, baby!
It’s actually pretty fitting that Episode IX be closing the book and wiping clean slate, as the last film in the trilogy.
- TFA (I believe) is unintentionally genius if the trilogy was actually written with this meta-commentary in mind. The whole crisis of the trilogy was started by the First Order, a whole bunch of Galactic Empire wannabes. The people who are fixated on nostalgia were literally the bad guys.
- I wanted to take the “Palpatine was behind it all!” (read in Mr. Plinkett voice) of actual episode IX and make it part of the meta-commentary. In this rewrite, the Knights of Ren actually try to resurrect Palpatine, and it was important that they weren’t able to succeed. Let it (the constant attempt to appeal to nostalgia) die already!
- I think some of the character work in TLJ was phenomenal: it took the very bland “archetype” characters in TFA and started to give them an arc. Not all of it works, but for the ones that did TRoS promptly threw away.
- Rey: The revelation that she was a nobody was probably the heart of the entire trilogy. I was sad there never was much of an exploration on what being a nobody means, especially growing up in this generation where “everyone’s special”. In this rewrite, Rey is reckless. She can’t be tempted by the Dark side, as she is determined to fight it; yet you can’t but think maybe, just maybe, she’s doing this because she feels she has no other purpose. “Being a Jedi” was the closest she felt to being a somebody.
- The path of the Jedi has always been lonely in these films; they’re originally inspired by the ronin/lone gunslingers afterall. I always felt Luke, although friends with Han and Leia, was very detached from the rest of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. It’s as if he knows his destiny would be very different from us normal people. There’s something isolating but beautiful about that, and I think Rey with her upbringing, would highlight the fact that she has accepted being the wandering hero who would not be remembered in the history books, but through songs and legends.
- Kylo Ren / Ben: The antagonist and angsty (overaged) teen of the trilogy. It’s unconventional in a way where villains in film are rarely so thoroughly unintimidating. Usually the allure of this archetype comes from them being unhinged, but Ben tries so hard to be evil it comes off as pathetic since he hasn’t won a single fight in these films. What’s great though is that he’s actually the perfect foil to the nobody that Rey is, while Ben is the gifted one and frustrated he keeps losing to a nobody.
- In this rewrite, I feel in order for him to have a proper redemption arc, he needs to take a backseat and see himself through a mirror. Hence the introduction of the Knight of Ren character who’s even more immature and fanatical.
- The relationship between Ben and Rey is… hard to pinpoint. While the contrast between the two is great thematically, there really isn’t much of a connection between the two. I don’t think they can even be friends to be honest. Rey’s pursuit of Ben seems to be there solely to set up Ben’s redemption, but Rey really didn’t have to. I can only imagine the two are fascinated with each other because 1) Ben got beaten by someone without the bloodline or training of a force user 2) Rey’s sense of duty as a goodie two shoes Jedi. I thought it’s best the rewrite kept the two as “acquaintances”, and to end with “they have mutual respect for each other as force users”.
- Finn: Oh boy. Finn was already underwritten from the start. In TFA after having his backstory laid out he basically had nothing to do other than being a red herring so Rey doesn’t hold a lightsaber in the promotion materials. TLJ struggled to find anything for him to do… He’s basically been a POVcharacter/storytelling tool without much of a personality.
- Rose: Oh boy. Rose maybe isn’t the most Star Wars-y character, but the huge backlash from a vocal minority, and how JJ Abrams decided to brush her off in TRoS all left a bad taste in my mouth. She deserved a little bit more love, even if she’s just a supporting character.
- The relationship between Finn and Rose is… again, very hard to pinpoint. Sure, the kiss was kinda bad in TLJ, but then again, TLJ was sort of a “Themes, the Movie”, and the Finn and Rose storyline exemplifies that. It was basically just there to deliver the “Not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love” message. So… I figured in order to salvage these two personality-less “everyday” characters this late into the trilogy, is to inject a dynamic to the two. A mentor-disciple relationship. I find that this serves a few purposes: 1) have their interactions give an illusion of personality for the two characters 2) fits the theme of Finn learning a lesson from not doing the “heroic sacrifice” thing and just taking a backseat in a supporting role to someone else 3) Star Wars was always about the fighters, how about we show how cool engineers could be?
- Poe: I kinda liked what TLJ tried to do with Poe: putting the cocky starfighter in his place, have him learn about leadership. This rewrite attempts at showing the result of his failure: he grew a lot in the time gap between TLJ and TRoS. He’s well-prepared, inspirational, and calm.
- Leia: After Carrie Fisher’s passing, any portrayal of her character is super touchy and I really thought the only right way to handle it is… to start with the funeral.
- Knights of Ren: The idea is that they are basically a bunch of Sith fanboys. Even the Grand Order was ready to move on but they are so intent on resurrecting Palpatine. In figuring out what the design should be for the new Knight character I decided 1) must evoke the samurai aesthetic a little bit more than the others, to show he is more ancient 2) this guy is even edgier than Kylo Ren that he looks up to ancient Sith. And it was quite hard to pull an ancient Sith with a mask so I went with Darth Nihilus, which was the inspiration behind his skull mask.
- The biggest influences on how I look at Star Wars:
So that’s it folks, thanks for reading. If you like the style of storytelling i present, please please please follow me on instagram/facebook. I may not have any content for you right now, and frankly won’t for a couple of months since i do prefer uploading things when they are finished… but following me would at least notify you when i do have stuff! It would mean a lot to me. Thanks again, and see you when i see you.
P.S. For the love of God, give Daisey Ridley a job!