Writer's Notes
It’s a tradition of mine to include my notes and give the reader some insight into why I made some of the decisions I made in the story. It includes a lot of tidbits and factoids… and those are always fun!
If you enjoy what you’ve read, please spread the word.
Music and Motifs
George Lucas once said that the original Star Wars film was designed to be a silent film; that the visuals and music could carry the story without dialogue. The generational nature of Star Wars means that history can repeat itself in subtle ways. In the same way, certain themes or motifs in music can be woven though an entire symphony (…or an epic progressive rock song…).
I tie some familiar themes, acts or dialogue from previous Star Wars stories into this story. For example, Rose kissing Finn for luck harkens back to Luke and Leia before they swung over the chasm in the original Star Wars film.
Master! Apprentice!
One of the things that struck me after seeing The Last Jedi for the first time was that - due to the deaths of Snoke and Luke Skywalker - Rey and Kylo Ren were now the most powerful Force users in the galaxy and neither had a master to guide them. Up to this point, there had never been a Star Wars story where the primary Force wielding characters were masterless or ronin. This opened some very exciting possibilities for me as a storyteller - possibilities the writers of The Rise of Skywalker either failed to notice or chose to ignore. This would be a central theme to my story.
Always Our Princess
One real world aspect that handicapped the story of The Rise of Skywalker was Carrie Fisher’s untimely death in 2016. This prevented the writers of The Rise of Skywalker from doing too much with Leia’s character. The choice to insert Ms. Fisher into the film by incorporating unused footage from The Force Awakens - in my opinion - hindered Leia’s involvement in the story and resulted in conversations between Leia and Rey with “shoehorned” and cringe worthy dialogue (…reminiscent of old beer commercials where the modern protagonist interacts with characters from classic films).
The three sided relationship between Leia, Rey and Kylo is HUGELY critical to the story. The interpersonal relationship with Leia as Kylo Ren’s biological mother and as an adoptive mother figure to Rey cannot be understated. Thematically, it is similar to the Luke, Vader, Palpatine dynamic in Return of the Jedi.
While writing this story, I chose to care more about the characters and the integrity of the story than the actors and actresses who portray those characters. As unthinkable as it is that someone other than Carrie Fisher would perform the role of Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, the role should have been recast so Leia could play a much more prominent role in the story. Hate me if you have to… but deep down, you know I’m right.
Return of the Token Survivor
One fan favorite character from the original Star Wars trilogy is Wedge Antilles. For those who may not remember, Wedge is the pilot who flew with Luke during the attack on the Death Star in A New Hope, he is the pilot who trips up the Imperial Walker in The Empire Strikes Back, and he is the X-Wing pilot who helped Lando destroy the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi.
Wedge did have a “blink and you’ll miss it” cameo in The Rise of Skywalker. For my story, I decided to have him play a larger role as the leader of the Republic Military Forces. He is also the first character we are introduced to in this story and I like to imagine (…if this story were made into an actual film…) that more than a few cheers would come up from the audience upon seeing him again.
To Revise and Improve
I consciously chose to keep the same general story structure of The Rise of Skywalker through the early scenes of my story. The scenes in my story are, of course, different - sometimes involving different characters or different locations. If writing can be compared to cooking, I do my best to add some spice whenever I think it’s called for.
If you know anything about Star Wars films, you know that the works of Akira Kurosawa are highly influential to the storytelling of Star Wars. I’ve read a few different biographies of Kurosawa and his typical writing process was this: Kurosawa and his writing partners would each write out the same scene. They would then present their individual ideas to each other and the best ideas and lines of dialogue were then combined and used for the final draft of the scene.
While I have never worked with a writing partner, I tried to imagine to myself what would I offer to make these existing scenes better had I been working with the writers of The Rise of Skywalker.
Original Story: Opens with a reconnaissance mission.
My Revision: Opens with a full on battle.
Original Story: Introduces a character named Klaud.
My Revision: Replaces Klaud with Rose.
Original Story: Rey hovers over the ground while meditating
My Revision: Rey meditates while doing a handstand
In a few cases, I decided to keep actions (i.e lightspeed skipping) and dialogue (i.e. Poe and Rey) as they were presented in the film …because I like those aspects and couldn’t come up with anything better.
Rose
One of the criticisms of The Rise of Skywalker was Rose’s lack of screen time. I found it very easy to give Rose a much bigger role in this story than she did in the actual film. She serves as the chief mechanic on the Millennium Falcon.
Her relationship with Finn is …complicated. It’s friendship teetering on the edge of deep love.
Eclipse
The Eclipse-class Star Destroyer was introduced in the comic book series Dark Empire (…one of my all-time favorite Star Wars stories and I’m saddened by the news that author Tom Veitch recently passed away). It’s something of a Star Wars tradition that the evil leader has a distinguishing looking ship and I always loved the Eclipse design so I included it in this story… with one small change. The Eclipse in Dark Empire was 10 miles long. While the Eclipse in this story is bigger than the average Star Destroyer, it’s not 10 miles long.
BB-8’s Intro
When I write, I watch the movie in my head and then write down what I saw in my imagination (…I’m not sure if that makes a lot of sense to anyone who has never written anything before). Sometimes, I have difficulty describing what I’m seeing in my mind’s eye.
BB-8’s introduction is meant to mimic the opening shot in the original Star Wars film. Instead of a smaller ship flying away from a much larger Star Destroyer, this story has a little lizard running away from BB-8 himself.
Handstand Rey
One choice I made was to keep Rey’s powers in line with Luke's or Anakin’s. I certainly didn’t want her to come across as vastly more powerful than either Luke or Anakin. When Rey is introduced in The Rise of Skywalker, she is floating in the air, legs crossed, with large rocks floating around her. In my opinion, that level of control seems on par with someone of Yoda's caliber... someone who learned to master the exercise after years and years.
I decided to change Rey’s introduction by having her perform a handstand, similar to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back. However, Rey is a step or two more advanced at the exercise than Luke was. To use a karate analogy, Rey is a yellow or orange belt where Luke was a white belt.
Connect the Dots
In The Rise of Skywalker, the Resistance base was on a jungle planet called Ajan Kloss. In Solo, Lando Calrissian brags that he once won a sub-tropical moon in the Oseon Belt. For my story, I decided to change the location of the Resistance base to that very same sub-tropical moon in the Oseon Belt just to make that little connection back to Solo.
I was tempted to name the planet “Landoland” but… no.
Maz and Her Birthday Suit
The idea that Maz and C-3PO would be helping Rey decipher the Jedi Texts is something I had in mind before I started writing. Maz seemed like a logical choice to help Rey in this manner.
The fact that Maz hates the heat and is working in the buff is an idea that came to me spontaneously as I was writing the scene. The line “I’m too old for shame” seems to fit the character very nicely.
I’m doubtful that “Birthday Suit Maz” would be made into an action figure.
General Pryde
The inclusion of General Pryde in The Rise of Skywalker was something of an oddity to me. He appears from out of nowhere; not having appeared in any of the previous films. All of a sudden, he was the leader of the First Order forces.
I decided to alter the character, making him a Sith loyalist. He’s someone who can nudge Kylo Ren in certain directions although he is not qualified to be Kylo’s master.
SLAP!
One of my favorite aspects of The Last Jedi is the interaction between Leia and Poe. When Leia slaps Poe following the evacuation and demotes him was extremely good storytelling in my opinion. I have Leia slap Rey in this story. Leia has always been a tough, no-nonsense character who has been through a lot of tragedy in her life and that’s reflected in her attitude in this story. She’s done taking crap from anyone, including Rey.
While Leia is much more serious and bitter in this story, she is not totally without compassion and love.
Two Things I’ve Always Been Able To Count On
If you’re a deep and longtime Star Wars fan, then the line: “…the Millennium Falcon always comes home” ought to choke you up just a little bit.
And for the record, I haven’t yet worked out what the other thing that Leia has always been able to count on is. I’ll leave that to forum or Twitter debates.
I See We All Wear Masks
As I write, spontaneous ideas will come to me. One of these ideas was that Kylo Ren’s mask would be repaired using metal from Darth Vader’s mask. While the two characters already have many similarities, fusing their masks together has a certain dark poetic quality to it…. as if Kylo Rens’s anger, hatred and self-loathing are now permanently bonded to the same emotions expressed by Darth Vader.
The idea may have been subconsciously inspired by Game of Thrones, specifically when the Stark’s ceremonial sword (Ice) was melted down to make two Lannister swords.
“It’d Take a Thousand Ships with More Firepower Than I’ve…”
The Rise of Skywalker introduced the idea of a fleet of Star Destroyers, each with the ability to destroy a planet. I did not like this idea for a number of reasons… mostly because a Star Destroyer is really small compared to a planet and partially because the “this thing can blow up a planet” trope has been overly done in Star Wars.
The idea for the Death Fleet has its roots in a line of dialogue spoken by Han Solo just after the Millennium Falcon arrives at the remains of Alderaan in the original Star Wars film. Another inspiration is the Zendradi fleet from the old Robotech TV series. The idea being that they need the combined firepower of these ships to destroy a planet.
Ultimately, Death Fleet was just a plan cooked up by the First Order. Hux used it as counter intelligence to lure the Resistance into a trap. While I generally don’t like red herrings, this idea was too good to pass up as a plot point.
Sunrise. Sunset.
Following the Death Fleet briefing, Rey climbs a mountain and watches the sun rise. This very obviously parallels Luke Skywalker looking out on the setting suns of Tatooine. It is meant to evoke the idea that today is the day when Rey’s destiny will be revealed. Her reason for being starts now.
Mastermind Council
I wanted to introduce the First Order high command but didn’t want to use some cliche name for the group. The name Mastermind Council came to mind one day. The name is inspired by the game Mastermind, which one of my grade school teachers would use to teach us deductive reasoning.
With the exception of George Lucas, all of the First Order leaders are anagrams of the names of the directors of the Skywalker Saga films. The two older leaders are supportive of Pryde. The two younger leaders are supportive of Hux.
Vinner Rikersh = Irvin Kershner, director of The Empire Strikes Back
Morrich Quandard = Richard Marquand, director of Return of the Jedi
Samar Bajj = JJ Abramas, director of The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker
Rijoh Onnasan = Rian Johnson, director of The Last Jedi
Again, George Lucas was left out …mostly because I didn’t think “Ogre Luge Sac” was a dignified enough name for a First Order leader.
The Prophecy of the One Who Will Bring Balance to the Force and the Omen of Bane
This is going to get into the deep history of Star Wars and I apologize if this gets difficult to follow.
Thousands of years ago the Dark Lords of the Sith ruled the galaxy. There were many Sith at this time and the Jedi had a prophecy that a “chose one” would rise up and destroy the Sith.
The Sith fell into civil war and nearly destroyed themselves. One Sith Lord, named Darth Bane, survived. Bane reforged the Sith Lords, dictating that there would only be two Sith at any given time: a master and an apprentice. They would then, through many generations, work in secret to regain dominance over the galaxy. All of this came to fruition during the events of Revenge of the Sith.
But the Jedi prophecy of the “chosen one” remained. Anakin Skywalker fulfilled this prophecy when he killed the Emperor at the end of Return of the Jedi.
In my story, Darth Bane knew all along about the prophecy of the chosen one. In response, he created the Omen of Bane. It is something of a “well of souls” where a fragment of every Sith Master would be stored. It is similar to the Harry Potter stories where Voldemort placed a part of his soul in different objects. Except, for this story, it’s different souls combining together within the same object (…something akin to the “milkshake” that Danny DeVito’s character describes in Twins.)
This was Bane’s “backup plan” in the event that Jedi prophecy came true and the Sith were physically destroyed. Once the Jedi prophecy was fulfilled, the Omen would serve as a “loophole” to resurrect the Sith and the cycle would continue.
The Purpose of Snoke
Shortly after Snoke’s death in The Last Jedi, I seem to remember thinking to myself: “What was the point of his character?” I understood that he was the leader of the First Order, but where did he fit into the overall story? Surely he had more of a purpose than sitting in a chair, giving orders and offering the occasional taunt.
My brief history of Snoke is this: he was a servant of Palpatine’s during the age of the Empire (…and possibly even before the Clone Wars). Snoke indirectly learned the powers of the dark side of the Force from Palpatine, possibly while serving as a scribe. Where Snoke fits into the post-Empire era, how he came to know young Ben Solo and how the First Order itself was founded… I haven’t worked any of that out yet.
But, Snoke’s real purpose was as harbinger of the new Sith Order. His purpose was to destroy any lasting legacy of the Jedi - books, artifacts, old temples, etc. The idea being that if no one could learn to be a Jedi, then no one would be a threat to the new Sith.
Let’s All Go to Kijimi
For the most part, the adventure on Kijimi is unchanged from The Rise of Skywalker. I did have to re-work how C-3PO loses his memory, but it’s by no means a major deviation.
Places of Interest
Once the First Order code inside of C-3PO is translated, the location of Death Fleet is revealed to be in the Bertholds sector, Spaal system.
I’ve used the Bertholds sector in past writings. It denotes an area of the galaxy, similar to referring to a particular state or territory. Bertholds is named for Jef Bertels, one of my favorite contemporary artists.
The Spaal system is a major location for another Star Wars story I have buried deep in my head.
“It’s gotta be us and it’s gotta be now.”
I don’t think I could write a better line to encapsulate the character of Poe Dameron.
The Death of Maz Kanata
Maz was an intriguing character in The Force Awakens. I feel she was shoehorned into The Last Jedi. Her role in The Rise of Skywalker was… unfulfilled.
For this story, I wanted Rey to experience a loss similar to what happened to Luke in A New Hope (…when Luke discovered Uncle Owen and Aunt Brew were dead). As I didn’t have any future plans for Maz, it seemed right to have the character die at this point in the story.
“You will be the last…” In The Force Awakens, much is made about Maz’s ability to see things in people; illustrated by her unusual glasses. This particular line of dialogue indicates that Rey will be the last thing Maz sees.
Following Maz’s death, Rey will call upon Luke to reveal himself. Rey becomes angry and lashes out. The line “C’mon Artoo. We’ll do this without him.” echoes a line of dialogue spoken by Luke in another Star Wars story I’ve written (...see the thefoolscrusade.com home page and scroll down to the teaser).
Powerful Moment
The idea of Finn unmasking Stormtroopers and naming each of them has a very powerful draw to me. By taking off their masks, he is revealing them as humans. By naming them, he is giving them identity and purpose. The scene, as it plays out in my head, has such a beautiful depth of humanity which is hard to put into words.
The First Order Civil War
Given the tension between Kylo Ren and General Hux in previous films, it’s not hard to imagine that they would see each other as full fledged enemies once the galaxy was conquered.
The combined forces of the Resistance and Hux’s forces are called Renegades. This is a nod to Renegade Flight from the first episode of the Empire Strikes Back Radio Drama (“Freedom’s Winter”) which I must have listed to hundreds of times as a kid.
Pasanna, tierra sonada por mi
I decided to keep the adventure to Pasanna but altered it in a number of different ways. First, Pasanna is now part of Rey’s solo adventure. Second, the events take place in a canyon city called Soso-ijj, which is a location I created for another Star Wars story. The city itself is based on a Jef Bertels painting called De Genezer.
While on Pasanna, Rey both confronts her past (in the form of Unkar Plutt) and sees her future (during the dyad duel with Kylo Ren). As in The Rise of Skywalker, she encounters Lando Calrissian; however Lando has a much greater involvement.
Instead of having Rey use her healing powers on a giant snake, I have have Rey heal Lando. This leads to a conversation about Lando’s daughter - a concept cut from The Rise of Skywalker but still included in the source books.
To Occapa Flow (…which is a placeholder named based on Scapa Flow) is a river that miraculously appears in the dessert and guides Rey and Lando to Lando’s ship. This is based on a documentary I watched many years ago where rain water flowing off of a mountain in ….Kenya??… produces a shallow river that stretches for miles and miles away from the mountain. Plants, insects and other life forms pop up along the river.
The idea of the skimmer slowly following the Occapa Flow is inspired by a scene in the Japanese animated film, Spirited Away. I don’t remember the film that well having rented it once many years ago. However, I do remember a fight sequence that ended with the spirit slowly running away through shallow water.
Lando’s ship, Sleeping Giant, is named after a song by Dream Theater (“like a sleeping giant, one we dare not wake.”). One early concept that I had, and ultimately abandoned, was that Lando had a crew of 4 or 5 Wookies working with him.
Back to the Original Beginning
I decided to have the Millennium Falcon go to the ice colony as seen at the start of The Rise of Skywalker. When I originally wrote the sequence, I wasn’t really sure what the purpose was…. but then had a really cool idea.
I transformed the ice colony into a First Order labor camp. The Boolio character who helps them is the same character from The Rise of Skywalker. I fleshed his character out a bit, making him the leader of a race that has been conquered by the First Order.
I also altered the line “win the war” to “win the damn war” as a nod to my Grandfather. He kept a diary during the World War II years and frequently referred to it as “this damn war.”
The Thing with Me
There was this part of me that was hoping DJ would return in The Rise of Skywalker. His departure from The Last Jedi was very open ended; as if there was more to the story to be told. The idea came to me that DJ would be able to help Finn locate Rey in this story.
Following the events of The Last Jedi, DJ was betrayed by Hux and sent off to the labor camp. Meanwhile, Finn & Rose told Maz about what happened to them on Canto Bite. To their astonishment, Maz knew who DJ was and much of his origin story. DJ’s given name is Pepe, which was my Great-Grandfather’s nickname (…no, he is not named after the character from “Time of the Apes” - a Japanese rip off of “Planet of the Apes” and a great episode of MST3K.)
I have to admit, I had an absolute blast writing dialogue for DJ.
Transmitter 137
Transmitter 137 is named for the song “Room 137” by Dream Theater. It is an installation on a largely uninhabited water moon and is part of the system that relays communications across the galaxy.
The Gill Folk are intended to be small humanoids and are inspired by the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Abe Sapien from Hellboy.
Oh Great, Now There Are Two Of Him
C-VT8 is named after VT-8, the torpedo squadron that was destroyed by the Japanese fleet during the Battle of Midway. Ensign George Gay was the only member of the squadron who survived the attack. It could be argued that if those men did not sacrifice their lives, none of us would enjoy the freedoms we have today.
C-VT8 is a similar design as C-3PO. C-3PO is traditionally used in Star Wars films to being a little levity to an intense action sequence. Having C-3PO’s programming existing in two different bodies at the same time is the latest gag to that end…. and probably the worst possible thing that a writer can do with C-3PO.
Honor Thy Heroes
In other stories I’ve written, I’ve named planets and locations after John Petrucci, the guitarist for my favorite band, Dream Theater. The Myuung System is named after Dream Theater’s bass guitarist, and all around cool guy, John Myung.
Oh wee oh… D-O. Oh wee oh… D-O
Sorry folks, but I did not like D-O in The Rise of Skywalker and will elaborate no further on that point.
For this story, I made some fundamental changes to D-O. First, I changed his name to D-AO. Speculation is that the name D-O is in tribute to Ronnie James Dio a fabulous Rock singer (…lets all rock out to “Stargazer,” shall we?). I changed the name to D-AO in tribute to Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. Gary Beikirch. Look for Sgt. Beikirch’s story on YouTube and you’ll understand why I made the change.
Second, D-AO is no longer a droid in the traditional sense. Instead, I based him on the reader robots from Keepers of the Maser by Massimiliano Frezzato. This makes D-AO more of an accessory added to R2-D2… not unlike hooking up an external drive to your computer. From a literary standpoint, D-AO allows me to have R2 go off on his own adventure while having someone/something to convey to the audience what R2 is doing.
Some of D-AO’s dialogue is taken from familiar sources:
• “Heh…hello. Hello.” - Based on the Three Stooges and their harmonized singing of “Hello.”
• “Here we… Here we… go.” - The “hear we” is intended to mimic the “hear ye, hear ye” that town criers allegedly used prior to giving major announcements.
- “Where are we going?” - I was never a big SNL fan, but in the early 90’s, Dana Carvey and the late, great Phil Hartman did a sketch where they portrayed Ross Perot and Adm. Stockdale on a road trip. Hartman, as Stockdale, asked the question “where are we going?” in a rather excited yet clueless way.
Leia’s Plea to the Galaxy
It can be argued that the pivotal moment in the Star Wars saga is when Luke and Obi-Wan watch Leia’s plea for help during A New Hope. For this story, I wanted to recapture the heart of that moment but make it a plea to a much larger audience. It’s an event that literally makes time stand still across the galaxy.
This draft of the story uses the sixth or seventh iteration of the plea that I’ve written. Further changes are likely coming. I started by taking the structure of the original plea from A New Hope and tried to follow the same general pattern. If you study the two pleas side by side you’ll probably see how the two are related.
The current iteration of the plea has some influential dialogue woven into it.
• “Freedom cannot be won by appeasement, negotiation or legislation” - This echoes sentiments written by Victor Davis Hansen in his book “The Second World Wars” in which he points out that British appeasement, Russian collusion and American isolationism helped to give rise to Germany. This same idea influenced some dialogue spoken by Maz earlier in the script.
• “…you must rise up, unite and stand strong…” - Taken from the song “Outcry” by Dream Theater. The song was inspired by the events of the Arab Spring. The lyrics are: “Rise up, be counted. Stand strong and unite. Wait for the outcry. Resistance is calling tonight.”
• “Our only hope is to fight!” - Taken from the song “Pierce the Sky” by Day of Departure. I just happened to be listening to that song for the very first time while revising the plea on 4/15/22.
Rey, Kylo Ren and Leia
The confrontation between Rey and Kylo Ren in the presence of Leia is meant to harken back to the confrontation between Luke, Darth Vader and the Emperor in Return of the Jedi (…and, to a lesser extent, the confrontation between Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan, Palpatine and Count Dooku in Revenge of the Sith). All of the same elements are in play but with very significant character differences. It is history repeating itself but with new players each time. Much of the dialogue in this scene is designed to echo those previous confrontations.
“Don’t call me that! (mocking) Mother.”
I can’t be the only person who thinks that Adam Driver would have delivered that line with absolute perfection, can I?
Rey of Light
Everything about Rey - her past, her purpose, her experience in the Mirror Cave, her unexplained powers, her rise from nothingness - comes to a head in this scene. She truly is Rey Nobody but - like so many Nobody’s in human history - she has a defining purpose at one particular moment in time. What will she choose?
Fear, Anger and Hatred …or the Burden of Emotions.
I wanted to make Rey’s story an emotional one. She experiences anger after Maz’s death. She experiences fear after healing Lando. She experiences hatred after Leia’s death.
StarBird Avenger
Zorii’s ship is taken from a Milton Bradly space ship from the late ’70’s. The toy is basically a rip-off of the Y-Wing, so I don’t feel too guilty appropriating it for this story.
Death of Hux
General Hux’s death in The Rise of Skywalker disturbed me. It seemed like a very callous way of eliminating the character. Since I gave him a much larger role in this story, I figured I’d give him a more spectacular death.
There’s A Picture Worth A Thousand Words
The idea to do a flashback scene with Leia and a young Ben came to me late in the writing process. When the idea came to mind, I had to incorporate it into the story.
Ben will also “relive” the events surrounding Han Solo’s death, something that has haunted him all this time. In keeping with the “Music and Motifs” theme, the events of the memory are changed. There is a bit of a spiritual thing going on here… is Han Solo really just a memory? Or is it Han’s spirit helping Ben kill the evil Kylo Ren within him? I’ll let the audience debate that one!
“Mom… I’m sorry.”
Three words no son ever wants to say to his mother.
There’d better be a few tears in the audience with that line!
“Each of us were created for a purpose. We have a reason to live.”
I wanted Leia to say something of profound importance prior to dying. This line is a direct quote from the aforementioned Sgt. Gary Beikirch. He was interviewed in 2019 prior to the first game of the NHL season (…the NHL honored almost every living Medal of Honor recipient prior to the game) and those words resonated with me.
Sgt. Beikirch died on Dec. 26th, 2021. God rest his soul.
Bringing Back the Big Bad Baddie (or… The Return of Palpatine)
I believe it was Star Wars Celebration 2019 when it was revealed that Emperor Palpatine would return in The Rise of Skywalker. My initial reaction was in a very skeptical place, somewhere between “oh no” and “uh-oh.” The writer in me sensed that the storytellers weren’t really sure what to do with the plot after The Last Jedi and re-introducing Palpatine (…and saying that he had been manipulating things behind the scenes all this time…) was a literary sleight-of-hand trick. It was a plot device that, frankly, was never going to work (…although I have to admit that Ian McDiarmid is wonderful and I can’t get enough of his portrayal of the character).
For the purposes of my revision, I did want to use Palpatine as a McGuffin in the story. But rather than have him mysteriously reappear at the start of the story, his appearance is the result of Kylo Ren’s obsession and Rey’s inability of control her emotions (“Do you have your baggage, or do your bags have you?”). Again, one of the things I was playing at is that neither of them (Rey and Kylo) have a master to guide them. That lack of guidance and control results in them unleashing a great evil upon the galaxy; a very “Pandora’s Box” situation.
The being that rises out of the Omen is an amalgam of every Sith Master from the past thousand years (…or a “Gestalt Entity” for you Red Dwarf fans). It isn’t really Palpatine… but it takes on Palpatine’s form. Yes, the literary motif has similarities to the villains in Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings… so what?
As I mentioned earlier, I had a blast writing dialogue for DJ. I’ve already scripted out a few lines for Palpatine and had an equal amount of fun with his dialogue. Here are a few samples:
“Let me take away your fear. And relieve you of any hope.”
“The young are too foolish. They don’t realize how easily manipulated they are.”
That’s All Folks!
As noted in the script, I have two ideas in mind for the ending:
Option 1 - The story goes on for another 40 minutes or so. This would probably push the movie to about 3 hours in total length.
Option 2 - The story ends with the revelation that there will be a tenth film. While a tenth film is an exciting prospect, I don’t currently have enough material for another 150+ page script. And before anyone says that I got this idea from the end of The Mandalorian season 2 (and the revelation about The Book of Boba Fett), I really did have Option 2 in mind BEFORE that episode of The Mandalorian aired.
And Now… Draft 2
My writing style loosely resembles knitting. I put stuff together, pull it apart, put it back together again, pull it apart again… and so on. I don’t typically redraft the whole story but work in chunks to attempt to make things better by incorporating new ideas or fixing problems I didn’t see when certain scenes were originally written.
While this process has always worked for me - and given the personal issues I was dealing with while writing this - I can definitely see that the last quarter of this story is not as inspired as the rest. And you, dear reader, may have picked up on that. Maybe someday, when there is nothing else to do and my well of creativity is no longer bone dry, I’ll revisit it (UPDATE:: I couldn’t help myself and made a few changes in mid-April 2022).
Again, this is my strange hobby and I don’t feel compelled to make this story perfect. I had my fun!
Fan Service
The term “fan service” is one I’ve heard more and more often over the past few years. It seems to be a derogatory term invented by the good folks on the internet in reference to character cameos or obscure references included by the filmmakers to make the fan base happy. To which, as a writer, I must say:
“Well… DUH!”
Of course, my Revise of Nine is heavy on fan service! It’s the last act of the play. Everything in the previous eight episodes has been building to this. All of the little motifs that have been running through the symphony have now come together for the big, goosebump-inducing finale. As an artist, I want the audience to leave the performance feeling like they’ve reached the summit of the mountain and are wowed by the view. You, fan, are welcome.
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The reason I do this is because it bothers me that Star Wars has become a joke.
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