Star Wars 9: New 'leaked script' reveals Colin Trevorrow's film would have been wildly different to Rise of Skywalker

Screenplay by Colin Trevorrow, who stepped down as director in 2017, has reportedly surfaced online

The script for Colin Trevorrow’s Star Wars film, which was scrapped in favour of JJ Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker, has allegedly leaked online.

Jurassic World director Trevorrow stepped down from the project in September 2017 after reportedly clashing with Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy.

Fans have been perusing the leaked script, which AV Club claims is legitimate, to see which direction the Star Wars franchise would have gone in had Trevorrow stayed on as director.

It turns out that, if the script is real (Disney is yet to comment on the reports), Trevorrow’s ideas were wildly different to Abrams’ – spoilers for The Rise of Skywalker below.

Firstly, the script reveals the film’s original title and opening crawl, which you can find here.

The most interesting aspect from the screenplay, which is said to have been co-written by Trevorrow and Derek Connolly, is the absence of Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) who, save for a mention in the breakdown, doesn’t appear to feature in the film.

Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) would have had a far darker arc than he had in The Rise of Skywalker. According to the leak, he would have spent the film “haunted” by the ghost of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) in Darth Vader’s old castle. There, he would have found a Sith device that put him on the path to Palpatine’s Sith teacher, Tor Valum.

Trevorrow is also claimed to have wrote it so that it’s revealed Ren killed Rey’s parents who were, in fact, nobody important to the franchise after all.

After the Force Ghosts of Luke, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda return to help Rey in her attempts to bring Ren to the good side, he is “extinguished”.

Just like Abrams, Trevorrow didn’t envision that Rey and Kylo kiss, either. According to recent reports, Abrams was left unsatisfied by several orders made by Disney in relation to his finished film.

Other things that would have undoubtedly scored praise from fans include: a heist story arc for BB-8 and Rose Tico (meaning Kelly Marie Tran, who received just 76 seconds of screen-time in The Rise of Skywalker, would have had a far bigger role to play), Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) piloting an X-Wing and Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) stealing a Star Destroyer.

Since the release of Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker last month, it has divided critics and audiences, with some highlighting the movie’s sense of adventure and others criticising it for its moments of fan service.

Consequently, the film has a critical score of 54 per cent on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes – one of the lowest for any movie in the long-running Star Wars franchise. Its audience score sits at 86 per cent, though, which is 43 per cent higher than the score amassed by Rian Johnson’s previous Star Wars film, The Last Jedi.

A full breakdown of Trevorrow’s alleged leaked script can be found on Reddit.

Abrams recently revealed what he believes to be the answer to one of The Rise of Skywalker’​s biggest mysteries: what Finn was about to say to Rey before getting sucked into the quicksand in Pasaana.

Find a list of every unexpected cameo in the film here.