Star Wars Episode IX: Duel Of The Fates - 10 Things We Learned From Colin Trevorrow's Leaked Script
5. Luke's Force Ghost Would've Trained Rey And Haunted Ben
Lucasfilm
In an idea taken somehow straight from this author, Duel of the Fates would've seen Luke Skywalker following through on his threat to Kylo at the end of The Last Jedi, where he would haunt him as a ghost. Luke would've had a much greater role in the film than he did in The Rise of Skywalker, simultaneously stoking Kylo's inner turmoil and pull to the light while training Rey, and it just sounds an awful lot better than him rocking up and stealing Yoda's bit from Empire.
Luke's role in Trevorrow's script sort of typifies why it seems so much more compelling than what we got with Rise. The character doesn't just show up for the sake of re-treading the old films or to provide audiences with something familiar and comforting. Instead, the Luke here almost sounds Dickensian, a ghost of Christmas past determined to redeem Kylo's Scrooge.
That may be oversimplifying the dynamic somewhat, but it was fresh and new. He's a literal manifestation of Ren's remorse, which is something we only really see with Leia's intervention at the conclusion of the second act in The Rise of Skywalker.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
