10 Cancelled Star Wars Projects That Were Devastating
7. The Original Episode IX
With The Rise of Skywalker being one of the most contentious entries into the franchise, many fans wish Disney stuck with the original plans for Episode IX. The film, titled Duel of the Fates, would have been directed by Colin Trevorrow, and would have had a completely different narrative to the Episode IX that eventually got released, which became apparent once a script for the film leaked online in 2020.
The script revealed that Duel of the Fates would have spent a lot of its runtime on Coruscant, with Finn leading a Stormtrooper rebellion on the captial planet, Rey being completely unrelated to Emperor Palpatine, and Kylo being haunted by the ghost of Luke whilst he searched for ancient Sith artefacts across the galaxy.
Though some questionable choices were made, such as Poe becoming Rey's love interest, a lot of fans were disappointed to learn what could have been for the end of the space opera. Trevorrow was fired from the project over 'creative differences', and JJ Abrams was brought on to rush through the film's development to meet the strict 2019 release date. Perhaps after a few more drafts, Duel of the Fates would have been a brilliant send-off for the Skywalker saga, rather than the underbaked finale that we got.