Star Wars: 10 Reasons Duel Of The Fates Would've Been Way Better Than Rise Of Skywalker
Darth Vader fighting Kylo Ren, a unique lightsaber for Rey AND a Coruscant uprising?!
If you ask most Star Wars fans about the final instalment to the sequel trilogy, you'd probably get a resounding "Meh".
To say The Rise Of Skywalker failed to live up to expectations would be an understatement, with critics and audiences alike complaining the writing team of J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio had "played it too safe" with the story and that it had left more questions than answers - none of them good.
But it wasn't supposed to be that way. Colin Trevorrow (writer and director of Jurassic World) was originally set to write and direct the third and final Star Wars sequel, but abandoned the project due to creative differences in 2017. Instead, J.J. Abrams returned to finish the series off and Trevorrow was given a story credit, which led some fans to question what could've been after leaving theatres somewhat disappointed.
And, unlike the Jedi scriptures in The Last Jedi, Trevorrow's sacred text was not lost and was indeed leaked online in January 2020. Although we can never be 100% certain whether or not it was Trevorrow's script, the way it is written and the fact it matches a lot of the original concept art shows that we potentially missed out on one hell of a finale, and one that could've easily outperformed the Episode IX we ended up with.
10. The Title - Duel Of The Fates
Of all the things that were left out of Trevorrows script (and believe me, there are some absolute doozies), I will never be able to understand why they decided to ditch his original title for the film: Duel of the Fates. The title is perfect.
The previous films were building up to a massive showdown between not only the Jedi and the Sith but The First Order and The Resistance ,and the title encapsulates that perfectly. Not to mention, it's a wonderful way to pay homage to one of the greatest composers of all time, John Williams (who composed the song of the same name for 1999's The Phantom Menace), and all the work he has done for the Star Wars franchise over the last 40ish years.
Even people that can't stand the prequels will agree that Duel of the Fates is a piece of cinematic mastery so, to me, it's somewhat baffling why they would banish the title to the unknown regions of existence.
Instead, we got the title Rise of Skywalker which, unlike Duel of the Fates, left a lot of us more confused than exited about the final instalment of the sequels.