10 Reasons Why Duel Of The Fates Doesn’t Solve The Rise Of Skywalker’s Problems
“Well somebody’s got to write these things. And the same can be said for collecting garbage and shovelling snow. It doesn’t matter whether you like it or not — a job’s a job.
For three and a half years, I’d been making this kind of contribution to society. Shovelling snow, you know, cultural snow.”
— Haruki Murakami, Dance, Dance, Dance
J.J. Abrams & Chris Terrio’s The Rise of Skywalker feels like shovelling snow.
If you’re anything like me, Star Wars has worn you out. Your back’s killing you, you’ve just about had enough and for a long time now it’s seemed like you’d never get to the end of the damn thing. But you’ve made it this far. One last snowdrift to clear and then the job’s done. You can’t quit now — even though, if you’re honest with yourself, you lost interest in the whole endeavour some time ago. Maybe even a long, long time ago…
The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t make much sense. In some respects it appears to ignore or undo what was established in previous films, and in others it seems slavishly adherent to the past. On the other hand, the scale of its task was monumental: to be a good film in its own right; to coherently conclude the sequel trilogy; to provide a satisfying ending to the entire Star Wars saga. Phew, I need a lie down just thinking about it.
In the final analysis, the film doesn’t manage to achieve any of it, though it comes closer than most uncharitable reviewers have given it credit for. Many have laid the blame squarely at writer/director J.J. Abrams’ feet. After all, he had the whole Star Wars galaxy at his feet, he could’ve done anything, so why does it all feel like another retread?
However, (as I’ve detailed previously) the uncomfortable truth is that Rian Johnson handed the final film in the saga a poisoned chalice. Whereas The Empire Strikes Back teed-up a perfect Andy Robertson sitter for Episode VI to bury in the back of the net, The Last Jedi stuck a knife in the ball before tossing it back. Like trying to build an Imperial Palace from a pile of broken bricks, it was not possible to make Episode IX great.
However, shortly after the film exited cinemas, details leaked online concerning Colin Trevorrow & Derek Connolly’s original plans for the aborted, alternate Episode IX, titled “Duel of the Fates”. Production artwork spilled out on the interwebs like guts from a Tauntaun, followed by a plot summary, and then (allegedly) a draft of the actual script. The internet duly dissolved into hysterical rants over what might’ve been:
“The Original Star Wars IX Script Has Allegedly Leaked. And It’s Much Better Than The Rise of Skywalker!”
— Dom Nero, Esquire
Would ‘Duel of the Fates’ have really been any better than what Abrams & co delivered?
I, for one, say no.
There are 10 storytelling obstacles any version of Episode IX had to overcome, I’ll give each version a score based on how well they deal with them:
1. Square Rey’s parentage circle
Well, this is a dilly of a pickle. First, The Force Awakens unambiguously established Rey as a girl with a significant backstory, as is evidenced by such lines as “Classified, really? Me too, big secret” and Kylo Ren’s pointed “What girl?”. Her entire motivation in the first half of the film is based on her desire to stay on Jakku and keep waiting for her parents to return. Later, she has a Force-vision in which her earliest memories are interwoven with scenes featuring Luke Skywalker and the destruction of his Jedi school. However, The Last Jedi then tells us she’s actually nobody, “You come from nothing. You’re nothing”, and that she has no interesting backstory, her parents being “filthy junk traders” who had sold her for drinking money.
So, Episode IX simply had to satisfactorily explain exactly how Rey had a super mysterious past, while maintaining her status of ‘nobody from nowhere’. Boy, Lucasfilm really knew how to make life hard for itself.
The Rise of Skywalker: it turns out that Rey’s father was the sort-of-son-sort-of-malformed-clone of Emperor Palpatine. He beget a daughter born with incredible Force powers, causing Palpatine to send an assassin called Ochi to retrieve her. When Rey’s parents refused to reveal her location they were both killed.
As explanations go, this really threads the needle, managing to be technically coherent with both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, while also somewhat driving the plot of The Rise of Skywalker. However, it was obviously very much a J.J. Abrams plot that was set up in The Force Awakens with the intention of it unravelling over the course of the trilogy. When Rian Johnson threw it all in the trash, not enough time was left to tell it properly. It inevitably therefore feels rushed; worse, it feels inconsequential.
A shame really as it does have a lot going for it, thematically tying in with Palpatine’s history of meddling with clones— it’s nice that a discarded clone is the cause of his ultimate downfall. Even better, it also royally pissed-off an army of self-righteous critics, furious that Abrams had ‘subverted their expectations’.
6/10
Duel of the Fates: we learn that a teenage Kylo Ren hunted down and murdered Rey’s parents because Snoke — channelling King Herod — had decreed death to any and all potential threats, including the infant Rey. Quite why Kylo Ren didn’t actually kill Rey after offing mom and pop is less than clear, as are the circumstances around how she ended up on Jakku.
On the plus side, it’s tidy, and it also preserves the storytelling of the two previous films (Rey still gets to be special and a nobody), however it’s all a little weak-sauce. So, Ben and Snoke knew all along exactly who Rey was — and how powerful she was, but just decided to pretend they didn’t… for some reason? And Ben never once taunted her about the fact that he’d killed her parents? In fact, in the script Ben still isn’t the one to reveal the truth, it’s Rey herself who says: “I know what you did. Deep down, I’ve always known”. Bollocks.
2/10
2. The ‘Reylo’ elephant in the room
A quick Google of the word “Reylo” returns more fan fiction, fan art and YouTube videos depicting the illicit love of Rey and Kylo Ren (geddit?) than a Mandalorian could shake an Amban rifle at. A large chunk of the Star Wars fanbase really wanted these kids to get together. But was that ever on the cards?
While there are obvious light/dark similarities between these star-crossed Force-wielders and the forbidden romance of Bella and Edward in the Twilight series, the latter makes it clear that the vampire Edward is a bad-boy, but he’s no villain. Ben Solo, however, just has too much blood on his hands for a general audience to be able to accept him as Rey’s love interest.
And yet, fans of this weirdly asexual sequel trilogy are clearly crying out for some kind of emotional connection between the characters beyond simple friendship. For all Lucasfilm’s aspirations of keeping their female lead free of any romantic entanglements, it was obvious that this mandate was hurting the story. Something had to give.
The Rise of Skywalker: J.J. Abrams is said to have agonised over the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ young-lovers-death-and-revival ending to his film. The will they or won’t they of it all seems to mirror his own indecision over whether or not to leave the kiss in. The meaning behind the peck on the lips is put to rest in the novelisation, which clarifies that their smooch — which apes the ending of the most famous romance in all literature — was actually one of gratitude between friends. Positively, definitely nothing more than that. The cop-out to end all cop-outs.
2/10
Duel of the Fates: At the culmination of a climactic fight to the death, after Ben confesses to Rey that he murdered her parents, blinds her with his lightsaber, and almost succeeds in siphoning off her ‘Force-energy’ (to make himself super-powerful), he abruptly does a 180 degree reverse and puts the ‘Force-energy’ back into her (the whole passage is actually very similar to the end of The Rise of Skywalker). With his last words he tells Rey her surname is “Solana” (uh, cool…?). Then Rey watches him die with “a look that could be perceived as love”. Are you freaking kidding me Trevorrow?
1/10
3. To redeem, or not to redeem: that is the question
The events of Episodes VII and VIII show Ben Solo committing deeds of such evil that any hope of redemption is surely extinguished: he butchered his classmates at Luke’s Jedi school, executed villagers on Jakku, murdered millions (billions?) with a super-laser. Worst of all, he killed Han Solo. Fuck that guy.
Even his objectively more villainous grandfather managed a kind of redemption before he died — but even then, Vader’s sacrifice to save Luke could hardly begin to clean the ocean of blood on his robotic hands. And yet, there’s something about Adam Driver’s performance that gives the impression Ben is always teetering on the edge of repentance, in a way Vader never was.
So, another of Lucasfilm’s self-inflicted storytelling dead-ends: will the story of Ben Solo end happily, with an utterly implausible redemption arc; or will it boringly mirror the death of Darth Vader (i.e. he discovers a conscience and sacrifices himself to save Rey). I just don’t see any other way out.
The Rise of Skywalker: Ben discovers a conscience and sacrifices himself to save Rey. Yup.
5/10
Duel of the Fates: Ben discovers a conscience and sacrifices himself to save Rey. Yup.
5/10
4. Luke Skywalker
A pivotal (and much debated) scene in The Last Jedi had our beloved former-main-character creep into his nephew’s bedroom so as to murder him in his sleep. It is the point at which Mark Hamill checked out of the franchise alongside entire legions of its best fans. Evidently, J.J. Abrams and Colin Trevorrow were among those unimpressed with the bizarre character turn. Unfortunately, whatever any prospective Episode IX might’ve done to course-correct, the damage was already done: Luke Skywalker as a character was irreparably damaged. He might have saved the galaxy a dozen times over, but thanks to The Last Jedi he will forever be the guy who tried to murder a child. Oh, and just to twist the knife a little further, one of the few things Rian Johnson didn’t equivocate on was Luke being dead. Dead dead.
The Rise of Skywalker: Luke’s still dead. I’ll be generous and say Force-ghost Luke ‘completes his Last Jedi character arc’ by catching the lightsaber Rey throws into the fire. Likewise, in a nod to The Empire Strikes Back he raises his old X-wing from the seafloor. Meh. Child murder count: zero (although I didn’t stay to see if there was a post-credits scene).
3/10
Duel of the Fates: Luke’s still dead. Force-ghost Luke haunts Ben Solo, needling him like a snarky poltergeist. He also continue to train Rey, though still spends most of the time arguing with her. Overall, Luke does pop up a fair bit, but it’s all ultimately unsatisfyingly. I don’t think he kills any kids in this one, but then again it probably wouldn’t have been the final draft.
6/10
5. FN-2187
Poor Finn, he really got lost in the shuffle in these movies. I worried about him after The Force Awakens, what was he going to do? ‘It’s alright,’ I thought, ‘He’s got a built-in backstory to be explored. Where did he come from? Who were his parents? How was he abducted by the First Order as a child?’ Unfortunately, the screenwriters just weren’t interested in him as a character, and never chose to dig in to any of that.
Indeed, The Force Awakens also hinted at a potential love story developing between Finn and Rey (co-screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan does knows a thing or two about sweeping space-opera romances). However, Rian Johnson did away with the entire notion of those two as trilogy co-leads, and instead made the far more obvious choice of Force-Dyading Rey up with Kylo Ren.
Why would Rey be interested in a nobody like Finn anyway, when she could be all about a Skywalker?
The Rise of Skywalker: As we learned in The Last Jedi: you don’t have to come from a famous lineage to be important, but you sure do have to be a Jedi. Carrying that thought forward, Finn discovers that he is Force-sensitive after-all (much like Leia did in Return of the Jedi), and therefore matters again. The tiniest hint of his prior romantic interest in Rey is gone, as is his relationship with Rose (thankfully), although he does form an intriguing bond with Jannah, who is also a former Stormtrooper. Inevitably, the (tantalising) prospect of a Finn-Poe love affair is nowhere to be found, although the characters do engage in J.J. Abrams’ trademark fizzy banter throughout.
5/10
Duel of the Fates: Star Wars goes full Les Misérables, as Finn is described standing atop the barricades on the streets of a war-torn Coruscant, waving a flag and inspiring the masses to revolt. Actually, this does seem like a good way to make use of his character. Fancy that.
9/10
6. Lando, Lando, wherefore art thou Lando?
Of all the beloved original trilogy cast, the only actor with a claim to have been treated more disrespectfully than Mark Hamill is Billy Dee Williams. For all Lucasfilm’s self-congratulatory boasting of its diversity credentials, back in 2013 in the midst of their giddy announcement that Han, Luke and Leia would be returning for the new trilogy, Williams’ iconic Lando Calrissian was completely forgotten. Not until the passing of Carrie Fisher did we hear whispers that Williams might finally make an appearance.
However, instead of sporting regal Calrissian-blue, Lucasfilm’s brand-synergy department dressed him in the ridiculous yellow tunic sported by fake-Lando in the wretched Han Solo spin-off. The heart of Star Wars is slowly putrefying at the House of Mouse.
The Rise of Skywalker: Lando is apparently still operating as a Resistance agent, and dutifully turns up at the end to fly the Falcon and lead another rag-tag fleet of ships from a thousand worlds. One of the most satisfying moments in the entire film comes from the exchange:
C-3PO: “This is General Lando Calrissian — ”
REY: “We know who he is 3PO”
Call it fan service if you like, I don’t care. I loved it.
8/10
Duel of the Fates: Leia finds Lando running a cabaret club, and, as in The Rise of Skywalker, he turns up at the end leading a fleet of “smugglers and thieves” against the First Order. It’s all a bit odd. Although, to be fair I liked this exchange a lot as well:
LANDO: “We won a war once already, what good did that do?”
LEIA: “We proved it could be done.”
3/10
7. Get your sci-fi mumbo jumbo out of my space fantasy
As should be clear to all by now, Star Wars is not science fiction: the golden rule with Star Wars is if that if the story wouldn’t work as a samurai epic then it isn’t going to work in that galaxy far, far away. Of course, all the movies are overstuffed with space ships and ray guns, but they can always be traced back to something earthbound and recognisable. A planet killing Death Star? It’s just a giant, ball-shaped Hidden Fortress. Lightsabers? Glowing samurai swords. Han Solo encased in carbonite? Fancy chains.
Are our respective Episode IX’s good citizens in this regard?
The Rise of Skywalker: Kylo Ren finds a Sith wayfinder (map) which leads him to an uncharted planet hidden in a nebula where the laws of physics don’t seem to apply (an island surrounded by rocks). So far, so good. There, in an amphitheatre, he finds the massed spirits of all the dead Sith surrounding the essence of a dead Emperor transmogrified into a clone kept alive by machines… No.
There’s also ‘lightspeed skipping’ which sounds like something Geordi La Forge would come up with to escape the Romulans. Not to mention thousands of fully manned Star Destroyers somehow buried under ice, waiting to be activated. And then the power of two lightsabers reflects Palpatine’s lightning bolts back at him, which stops more lightning being shot into the sky, and therefore saves the universe. Or something. Kill me.
1/10
Duel of the Fates: Ben Solo goes to Darth Vader’s castle in search of a Sith “holocron” (scroll) which instructs him to seek out the Sith Master “Tor Valum”. The Resistance attempts to blow up a First Order Orbital Ring shipyard (a shipyard) and goes on to steal a Star Destroyer (warship). Later, the Resistance activates an ancient beacon (maybe a gong, or flare?) inside the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, designed to “summon the galaxy to war”.
While the storytelling crutch of a “holocron” immediately makes me think of the terrible Star Wars novels they first appeared in, all this just about checks out.
8/10
8. My kingdom for an antagonist
Pop quiz: how many times is the word “Palpatine” uttered in the original trilogy? Answer: zero.
As The Rise of Skywalker screenwriter Chris Terrio says:
“J.J. and I felt we needed to find a way in which [Kylo Ren] could be redeemed, and that gets tricky at the end of Episode VIII because Snoke is gone. The biggest bad guy in the galaxy at that moment seemingly is Kylo Ren. There needed to be an antagonist that the good guys could be fighting”
Indeed. Traditionally, stories have both a protagonist and an antagonist. When Rian Johnson decided to slice the principal sequel trilogy antagonist in half in his middle movie, it posed something of a storytelling problem for Episode IX. Either the film had to: a) promote Ben Solo to the position of Antagonist In Chief (and therefore run the risk of a bored audience watching the clock, waiting for the inevitable goodies-defeat-the-baddie resolution); or b) find a new villain from somewhere.
‘New’ being the operative word, seeing as how the only other supervillains in the history of the saga (The Emperor and Snoke) are both dead. You see, this is how a professional screenwriter wraps up a forty-year saga, by inventing a brand new main antagonist for the grand finale. Okay, it’s not how Kevin Feigi did it at Marvel: he carefully built up to Avengers: Endgame and Thanos over the course of more than twenty films. Amateur.
The Rise of Skywalker: went for secret option c): un-dead a dead villain. Palpatine’s back baby! The Emperor’s essence lives on in one of his backup clones. It also turns out that Snoke was a Palpatine clone. Rey’s dad was a Palpatine clone too. Everyone’s a Palpatine clone. The Millennium Falcon is a Palpatine clone. That’s right, the one-dimensional villain caked in makeup who had a couple of scenes at the end of Return of the Jedi is now THE MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTER IN THE SAGA.
The idea that these two main characters, both the grandchildren of these crucially important characters of Palpatine and Skywalker […] these two houses coming together in this next generation
Someone’s just finished a Game of Thrones marathon.
Chris Terrio:
As it turned out there was this gift that George Lucas wrote that was sitting there in a scene in one of the prequels…
Beware of geeks bearing gifts.
(Also, the Knights of Ren turn up to get killed.)
4/10
Duel of the Fates: went for option a), but also mixed in a spoonful of option b). Kylo Ren is the leader of the First Order, but Hux is now Chancellor of the First Order. So that’s clear. And Darth Vader returns for a cameo in a Force-vision. And Palpatine returns for a cameo in a Force-hologram. And Darth Plagueis also gets mentioned. Last but not least, Kylo Ren gets tutored by new villain Tor Valum (think evil Yoda), who is apparently a kind of frog-spider sat atop the head of a giant baby in the middle of a lake. Seriously.
(Also, the Knights of Ren turn up to get killed.)
4/10
9. The Holy Lightsaber of Antioch
Without doubt, the weirdest thing about this new trilogy is the way all and sundry revere bloody lightsabers. In A New Hope, the very first time we ever see a lightsaber — when Obi-Wan hands Luke his father’s saber — Lucas doesn’t even bother with a close-up of it. Then, when Obi-Wan dies and his own lightsaber drops onto his empty cloak, nobody makes a desperate attempt to save it, Vader just pokes it with the toe of his boot. It remains the only Star Wars movie not to end with a lightsaber fight.
In The Empire Strikes Back when Luke loses his lightsaber (along with his hand) on Cloud City, he doesn’t give the weapon a second thought. He doesn’t go back to get it, he doesn’t mourn it. He even seems to care more about the loss of his fingers and thumb than the lightsaber, if you can believe it.
The sequel trilogy has upgraded these ‘elegant weapons’ to the status of holy artefacts. Their importance seems to rival that of the Force itself. Lightsabers now bestow visions, and anyone can pick one up and immediately duel a powerful Sith Lord. Characters fight for possession of lightsabers as if the word of God is written on the hilt. We see Rey sorrowfully cradle the broken pieces as if she were holding a fragment of Jesus’ cross.
The Rise of Skywalker: Forget Ghost-Luke catching the lightsaber in the fire. Put aside the Luke / Leia lightsaber training flashback. Nevermind even the entire saga ending on the shot of Rey burying two lumps of metal in the sand. This film commits the sin to end all sins (but still not as bad as ‘Jake Skywalker’): how is Rey able to defeat Palpatine? Because she has two lightsabers.
George Lucas made up a load of baloney in the prequels about lightsabers rendering Force-lightning useless, which in turn gave free licence to Abrams and Terrio to deploy double-baloney. Whereas Anakin defeated the Emperor with love, remorse and self-sacrifice, Rey beats him because she has two lightsabers. Not one, you understand, two. And they’re Skywalker, extra-special lightsabers.
To paraphrase Blackadder, the the writers of this film must have brains so minute that if a hungry cannibal cracked their heads open, there wouldn’t be enough inside to cover a small water biscuit.
Turns out you don’t need emotional stakes, wit, creativity or even drama to make a compelling finale: you only need lightsabers.
0/10
Duel of the Fates: Rey gets a Darth Maul-esque double-ended lightsaber. Kylo Ren lightsaber fights Darth Vader, because of course he does. One of the Knights of Ren wields a ‘darksaber’, because of course he does. Chancellor Hux keeps a collection of vintage lightsabers in a glass case, and dreams of being able to use one like a Jedi. Overall, it’s yet another orgy of lightsaber over-use, but nothing too offensive.
6/10
10. Balance
Pop quiz: how many times is the word “balance” uttered in the original trilogy? Answer: zero (I checked).
I’m going to say it, Star Wars went off the rails the moment George Lucas muddied the waters with the whole half-baked idea of ‘balancing the Force’. ‘Balance’ is gobbledegook. The first mention of balance is — of course — in the prequel trilogy, where it supposedly meant that the Sith were a corrupting influence who had ‘imbalanced’ the Force.
Yoda says of the Force: “Life creates it, makes it grow,” and the first thing Lucas shows us in The Phantom Menace is Trade Federation ships loaded with droids ploughing through a forest, causing the wildlife to flee. In Attack of the Clones the stuff of life is perverted in the manufacturing of an army of clones at the behest of the Sith. In Revenge of the Sith Palpatine talks of manipulating the Force to create life and escape death. Like a disease, the Sith have disrupted the ‘balance’ of the Force and the ‘chosen one’ is destined to destroy them, and so restore it. As Lucas explained in the introductory documentary for the VHS release of A New Hope, Special Edition:
“…which brings us up to the films 4, 5, and 6, in which Anakin’s offspring redeem him and allow him to fulfil the prophecy where he brings balance to the Force by doing away with the Sith and getting rid of evil in the universe”
However, even George can’t keep it straight in his head. In 2002 he contradicted himself somewhat when he said:
“I wanted to have this mythological footing because I was basing the films on the idea that the Force has two sides, the good side, the evil side, and they both need to be there. Most religions are built on that, whether it’s called yin and yang”
Nonsense building on claptrap.
People got so worked up about Midi-chlorians that they missed the fact that the prophesy of “the one who would bring balance to the Force” was dangerous drivel of the highest order, and which had the potential to do much greater damage to the saga. Dangerous, because halfwits would soon be allowed to take over Star Wars. In the sequel trilogy ‘balance’ literally means if you have some good, you need some evil.
Some light side, some dark side: balance. Some life, some death: balance. Some sense, some bollocks: balance.
No wonder the Jedi Knights, the “Guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy” had come to be seen as the problem.
The Rise of Skywalker: During the climatic battle, Rey reaches out for help through the Force, and hears the voice of Anakin Skywalker: “Bring back the balance, Rey, as I did.”
Basically, the film suggests that Anakin did bring balance to the Force and did fulfil the prophecy, but then it got out-of-whack again so Rey double-triple-balanced it, just to make sure.
6/10
Duel of the Fates: Rey and Kylo Ren journey to the planet Mortis, where their final confrontation occurs. Mortis is described as an “ancient place. From a time before the Jedi, before the Sith. Two thrones, two powerful beings. One of darkness, the other of light. Together, they brought balance”. Oh oh. In the end, Rey teaches Yoda, Obi-Wan and Luke that they were wrong to reject evil, because she embraces the dark side within to achieve ‘balance’.
Remember when Star Wars was about people that you cared about fighting an evil empire? I miss that.
2/10
Final thoughts
When reviewing The Rise of Skywalker, most critics seemed to be in agreement that the passing of Carrie Fisher before the film went into production probably caused writer/director J.J. Abrams some trifling difficulties. I suspect the real impact of the (heartbreaking) news was that he picked up the working draft of his script, carried it over to the fireplace and dropped it into the flames. He likely had to start-over from scratch, and make major compromises just to find a way for the scraps of Leia footage to make some semblance of sense.
The portrayal of Leia in the film may not perfect, but, given the situation, it’s damn near miraculous.
The Rise of Skywalker is full of zip zang boom, and boy, it really moves. It’s fun, funny and is full of the exciting, adventurous spirit of the original trilogy. I like all the characters, I root for the heroes to win and for the baddies to be less dull. It is clever and is inventive, and made me smile a lot, well, at least for first two thirds.
However, it’s saddled with too much plot-scaffolding, completely botches Star Wars’ rich mythology, and scurries uncertainly, but frantically, to the finish-line. Abrams’ admirable refusal to expand the running time of any of his films (which is almost always the correct instinct) works against him here, as there’s just so much of everything to cram in that the overall effect is to make your head spin.
But ignore the bah-humbug critics — I’ve no doubt it’ll be re-watched many more times than The Last Jedi, albeit with the last 20 minutes on fast-forward.
And yes, it’s better than Duel of the Fates. By a hair.
