Everything the Star Wars Sequels Could Have Been Part II
Okay, what could the Sequels have looked like if they more closely followed George’s initial plans? Let’s go by episode.
Episode VII
We start with Kira/Rey. Let’s just call her Rey because they named that other chick Kira in that Solo movie. So Rey’s a scavenger, based off a marshy planet, but she operates on other planets in her star system too, going off leads for important/expensive items or travelling to certain star destroyer crash sites. She’s a little more shrewd than the Rey we get and she definitely doesn’t trust people as easy. She’s a good person but doesn’t have a whole lot of people skills. She’s used to working with selfish pirates/scavengers who want what’s best for themselves. Rey exhibits a little bit of Force control by using mind tricks to convince who she can to give her a better deal, though she doesn’t know that’s the Force.
There’s a ship she often sees flying above but she’s never had any contact with it, even though she’s tried throughout the years. She’s been told she hit her head/got in a fight and that’s why she doesn’t remember anything but being a scavenger. She mostly believes it, I mean she does have a scar on her forehead, though occasionally she gets a feeling that her life was something different before. She’s been here since she was 8~ years old, first put in the care of a grumpy employer (almost just like how she is in the Force Awakens), but now being mid-20-something, she operates alone.
She gets a lead on a score, and whatever this item is, it’s big. She’s the first to show up and, this object, it’s Luke’s/Anakin’s lightsaber. She doesn’t know what it is but something about it is familiar, like she should know what it is. Other scavengers/fortune seekers show up and she manages to allude them, but there’s one she cannot. It’s the Sam/Finn character. Let’s just call him Sam because his story will be different than Finn’s. He’s also 20-something. They fight for a bit over it, but then a dark ship shows up.
A figure gets off the ship and Sam calls him “The Jedi Killer” (which was one of the early concepts for a villain). The Jedi Killer wants the lightsaber too. He has a few followers (similar to Kylo Ren’s Knights of Ren), but the mysterious ship that has appeared in Rey’s life before appears again, and this time she knows it’s not just her imagination. Its guns fire on the Jedi Killer and his followers and the doors open for Rey and Sam through the fog of the gray, misty planet the saber was on.
Rey and Sam, seeing no better option, hop aboard. The inside looks familiar to the viewers and when a door opens, Han and Chewie are there. They’re on the Falcon. Rey makes some comment about seeing this ship before and Han blows her off. She says she knows him and, when he can’t entirely avoid the question, he says he was a smuggler and that maybe she’d seen him at a port somewhere. Before Rey can question him again, Han sees the lightsaber and asks about it. Sam knows what a lightsaber is, but he doesn’t care. He wants it so he can sell the Kyber crystal that’s in it, but Han says that that saber is Luke Skywalker’s which makes Sam pause.
Rey doesn’t know anything about Luke or the Force, and Sam is like “You’ve never heard of Luke Skywalker?!” Rey maintains that the Force isn’t real, but Han (coming full circle and now taking the place of Obi-Wan in ANH), throws something at her from behind. When Rey dodges it, even though there was no way she couldn’t have seen it, she’s like “Oh shit, it is real and I can feel it.”
Rey, now clinging onto the one thing that she knows for sure about herself- that she’s a force-user-, wants to find Luke so she can be a Jedi too. It turns into an adventure movie where Sam and Rey try to find Luke meanwhile the Jedi Killer’s followers remain on their tails. Han really isn’t a main part of their adventures, but he is keeping tabs on them (he put a tracker on the ship they got) and is reporting back to someone. Oooo.
Sam only goes with Rey because he thinks Luke is dead (because there’s been rumors… Luke was so active in the galaxy with his Jedi schools and helping the New Republic and then suddenly he vanished and “the Jedi Killer”, a dark force user, appeared) and he made a deal with Rey that if they can’t find Luke they should sell the kyber crystal, split the profits, and forget the whole thing. He introduces himself as Samuel Ka Djo. After a few adventures, his backstory is revealed. He was from a planet that was under heavy Imperial control and his once wealthy family was crushed under the Empire for 40 years and, even after the new Republic was established, never recovered. Basically, he became a thief so he could help them out. His sister, on the other hand, went to work for the Republic and died in some battle the Republic wouldn’t even tell them about. He makes some statement about the New Republic not being as bad as the empire, but that it doesn’t feel like a huge improvement. That’s where we get that subplot mentioned first.
Meanwhile we get a few scenes of Leia as a senator trying to get a task force out to handle the Jedi Killer (C-3PO is with her). Other senators vote that he’s not a direct threat to the republic, only her personally, and that they won’t handle it. Meanwhile the Jedi Killer himself appears to be on another mission besides finding the lightsaber.
Anyway, Rey and Sam’s adventures continue and finally they manage to find out there was one person who saw Luke before he disappeared, a student of his. The alien Rey and Sam find that out from also tells them that this “jedi apprentice” was hiding in some star system. Rey and Sam go there and oop, the Jedi Killer’s ship is there. The Jedi Killer comes out of the home with the “apprentice” as prisoner.
Sam wants to call it off, but Rey is all gung-ho on this now and wants to go rescue this “apprentice” guy. So they follow the Jedi Killer to his base on some spoopy planet. Han, still watching over, gets a message. A female voice says that he can’t let them go to the Jedi Killer’s base, that it isn’t time yet. Han follows them.
Meanwhile, the Jedi Killer is interrogating this “apprentice”. It’s apparent that they know each other well/have a history and it’s revealed this “apprentice” guy isn’t really an apprentice at all, he was one of Leia’s, for lack of a better term, spies. Let’s just call him Poe because that’s what his equivalent is in the actual movies. Sam and Rey end up rescuing Poe and they’re on their way back to their ship when the Jedi Killer senses something’s up. He goes to stop them, but Han arrives. Han and the Jedi Killer interact, and it’s evident that they know each other as well. The Jedi Killer never takes off his hood and we never see his face. Han shoots at him and the Jedi Killer says something about not being surprised about him shooting first (@ me if you want, that’s funny).
Han dies Obi-Wan style (though he doesn’t turn into a force-ghost) in order to let Sam, Rey, and Poe escape with help from Chewie. Chewie is obviously the most distraught over Han’s death, but Poe is a close second. Poe says something to the extent of, “he was like a father to me.” Something about Poe seems familiar, but Rey blows it off. (Harrison Ford has been petitioning for Han to die for a while and George was finally going to let him die, so this is why I kept that, otherwise I’d like to see Han live, but more on that in part III).
Eventually, Poe, Sam, and Chewie head back to Leia’s headquarters on Coruscant. Before they go though, Poe gives Rey Luke’s coordinates/star system. Rey asks why Poe didn’t go himself. He says that he can’t use the force and that they’ve been waiting for her. “For me?” asks Rey. “Well for a force-user, I mean,” Poe sloppily mops up the mess he almost made. Rey heads off on her own path to find Luke. The last shot we see is the round roof of the OG Jedi temple (I can’t show you because of copyright, but I’m talking about the concept art picture of Luke and Kira).
Episode VIII
Rey meets Luke (and R2 who had come with him in his exile because they’re buddies dammit) and he pretty much immediately agrees to teach her, saying something that the Force has led her here when it was the right time. Rey doesn’t really know what that means but she just thinks it was some kooky old man thing to say.
So he teaches her the force and as she starts to rely on her feelings more, she gets flashes of her past and a feeling that something happened much more terrible than just a bump on the head intensifies. She talks to Luke about it, because she can’t focus, and Luke asks if she remembers her family. Rey says, “No… well maybe. I see a woman. Someone kind, but sad.”
And we cut to Leia. Boom. She’s still arguing with the senate that something has to be done about the Jedi Killer. She says that she has information that he’s going to attack Republic planets. Someone tries to blow her off saying that it’d just be an attack on her and an older senator who has been around for awhile, says that an attack on Leia is an attack on the republic. However, most of the senate blows her off saying that she’s stuck in the days of the Imperial War and that there’s no need for all this subterfuge anymore and that she’s just being dramatic. One senator also mentions, “Do you remember what happened last time we tried to manhandle a sith lord? Darth Talon got away and now we have no hope of finding her and that’s on your ass.”
Cut to the Jedi Killer who is indeed planning an attack on the republic. His allies include former members of the Empire, various scourge of the galaxy, and his handy gang of dark-force users. He takes a break from planning the end of the republic to train with a dark figure who he calls Master. We don’t see anything about this figure but we hear a feminine voice. The Jedi Killer also never takes off his hood (he operates half-blindly for aesthetic, using the force to see). He trains in the dark side (paralleled to Rey who trains in the light using Anakin’s lightsaber) and his master fuels his anger at the Republic. He has a few lines about The Republic and the Jedi breaking apart his family and that his own mother never trusting him and that there’s nothing left for him to save. There’s some expositional lines (sorry but it happens) about them both being trained by Luke. Then Jacen, seemingly randomly, has a vision of his own death. A silhouette stands above him, but it’s blurry. His master asks him what’s wrong. He says, “The visions… I haven’t had them in years… They’re back.”
We get scenes of Rey training and trying to push through her thoughts which are becoming more incoherent. At times she sees Luke how he is now, and sometimes his face looks younger, almost like she’s looking at a memory of something she knew before. She struggles.
Meanwhile Poe and Sam and Chewie work for Leia, trying to get old rebellion allies to prepare for a fight. They stay at Sam’s parents’ house for a bit while they’re campaigning. They mention Sam’s dead sister and they have like a little painting of her on a desk.
Sam and Poe are pursued by the Jedi Killer’s little gang and they have to outmaneuver and outrun them while trying to complete their mission. Eventually, they’re able to contact Lando and ask him for help, but he is skeptical and has his own planets to deal with and protect. They’re getting attacked by pirates almost every day now. He does agree to send some ships to Leia though.
It’s not enough. The Jedi Killer begins his attack on Coruscant and the other core Republic planets with ships and weapons stolen from people like Lando. Sam, while they’re heading back with their allies, breaks his promise and he contacts Rey saying that the Republic is under attack. Poe gets mad at him for this, lets it slip that Rey wasn’t supposed to leave yet. Sam asks how and why Rey has a specific time to leave and Poe doesn’t say anything. Sam asks him what secret is he keeping.
Rey gets the message and wants to leave but Luke says she’s not ready. She tries to mind-trick him and he’s like, “Seriously, you’re gonna try that shit on me?” so Rey settles on masking her feelings so Luke can’t track her as easy, sneaking off, and heading towards the fight.
R2 comes barreling into the temple and beeps at Luke that she’s gone and so he heads off to try to stop her.
Sam and Poe and Chewie show up at the battle and immediately join up with Leia and C-3PO. They send out ships and they’re putting up a good fight against the Jedi Killer’s fleet. Rey shows up mid-battle. She sees that they’re not going to win if the Jedi Killer isn’t dealt with directly, so she goes to confront him. She finds him and says she’s a Jedi and that she’s come to stop him. He laughs, saying that she’s no Jedi and that he’s seen children with more mastery of the Force. Rey charges. She’s better than he initially thought, not bad actually, but mostly he’s just letting her tire herself out. When he finally gets bored, he goes in for a kill-shot, but he’s stopped. He can’t move.
And Luke is there, yay! The Jedi Killer removes his hood to get a good look at Luke… in fact he practically rips it off in shock because he can’t believe Luke is there. “I thought I killed you,” the Jedi Killer says.
Rey though, upon seeing his face which is much younger than she would have thought, mentally flips out. We get her POV and a flashback. The Jedi Killer is there, though he looks much nicer, training beside her. Instead of a red saber, he has a blue one. Luke is there… as the younger version she saw in her flashbacks, and Poe for some reason, along with a red-haired woman. There’s other padawans there, but they’re out of focus. Though gradually, and rapidly, they do turn into focus. Another boy, who looks a lot like the Jedi Killer but blond, and a girl… who looks a hell of a lot like the girl in the painting at Sam’s parents’ house. All three padawans are older than her (she’s about 8~ and she’s got the three space buns) and she runs among them as they train with lightsabers. Then there’s a cut to young Rey on Luke’s lap as her spins a kyber crystal with the force. Cut to the Jedi Killer and her sitting across from each other on the floor as he shows her some force tricks. She tries to replicate them but she’s not as strong in the force yet.
Back to present time. Luke calls the Jedi Killer his real name, Jacen. Bitch, that’s right the Extended Universe is semi-alive and semi-well. Luke tells him to call off the attack and come back to the light and that it’s not too late (because Luke’s still the same guy that went up to Darth Vader’s evil ass and went NOT ON MY WATCH) and Jacen is like, nah y’all took everything away from me and y’all started it.
Meanwhile, Rey, still all up in her own head, continues to experience more flashbacks. Red lightsabers hit blue/green ones through smoke in the night. There’s fires. Something explodes. There’s a battlefield. A figure, not the Jedi Killer but someone else with more elaborate robes, fights Luke and the red-haired woman. We get a brief shot of the figure’s face under the hood. It’s a black and red-colored alien and head spikes.
In present time, red and green lightsabers clash, Luke’s and Jacen’s. Rey, when she’s done with her acid trip, helps out a bit but Jacen has been training hard in the sith ways and kills Luke. He’s got Rey in a force choke, about to kill her too, but then he stops. With his hood up he hadn’t got a good look at her but now he does. Rey’s child-self flashes in front of him. He drops her. It’s unclear what he’s about to do- he’s shocked-, but then the ship gets alerts that its under heavy fire and that it’s about to blow. He pauses- staring at Rey unconscious on the ground-, like he’s contemplating something, then walks away. Just then he meets R2 who was coming down the hallway. R2 beeps. Jacen looks sad. As he high-tails it out of there in a little ship, retreating with what’s left of his fleet, he has a vision of his own death again, this time the silhouette standing above him materializes into a grown Rey.
After a hot sec, R2 rolls up and nudges Rey until she comes to and she makes her way to an escape pod. Rey and R2 have a rough landing but they survive. She looks absolutely trashed, so does everyone else. The capital of Coruscant is mostly in ruins. Nobody really won this fight. Our last shot is Rey and Leia, standing across from each other.
Episode IIX
We start off on a dark, desolate planet filled with various kinds of criminals/villains from throughout the galaxy gathering yet again. They’re planning the final attack on the Republic with Jacen and his master. Later, when the other leaders leave, his master, now confirmed to be Darth Talon (another character they conceptualized as being the main villain, the same species as Darth Maul) more or less reprimands Jacen for his failed attack on the Republic. “Now they know we’re coming so they will rally to stop us. We have to improvise. Split them apart now.”
She leaves Jacen alone with his thoughts, none of which are good. We get a flashback of happy memories at first. He’s with his parents, Han and Leia, on Coruscant. He’s a happy kid. Then Leia drops him off at a more calm, secluded planet than Coruscant when he’s about 8 years old to go train with Luke. Leia and Luke watch the group of less than 10 force-sensitive beings start practicing. Leia has some line about this being the 2nd round of padawans. Luke says, “Maybe it’ll go better this time.” (which it won’t haha) and Leia jokes, “Well, I was fine. I was a great student.” Which confirms that Leia is a Jedi too, she just doesn’t really have time for it with becoming a leader in the Republic and all.
Cut to years later and Jacen is with some other padawans, his two best friends in the world, Ben (I’m just going to call him Ben because I don’t know whether I would have written him as some rando or his cousin, Ben Skywalker, but I’ve read that George didn’t want Luke to be married or have kids so I don’t want to do that even though Ben’s a prominent character in the EU. Decide whatever you want Ben to be, but let’s have him be some rando) and Tenel Ka Djo (who was Jacen Solo’s wife in the EU. She’s not his wife here, but she could be interpreted as his love interest). Also, did you catch? Sam’s full name is Samuel Ka Djo. This is his sister.
Also guess who else has a sister? Jacen. Leia brings Rey, originally named Jaina, to the secluded planet to be trained. She’s about 8, the same age Jacen was when he first started his training. Jacen and Rey/Jaina get on famously.
But then an old student of Luke’s named Darth Talon starts making trouble in the galaxy. The Republic wants to squash her and Leia petitions to have herself go along with Luke Skywalker and his padawans. For some reason, Leia is held up and she can’t make it. There’s the battle. Luke, the red-haired Jedi (Mara Jade, Luke’s wife in the EU, but let’s just say she was a fellow Jedi to keep more in line with George’s ideas), Jacen, Ben, Tenel Ka, and the other padawans fight Darth Talon but most of them don’t make it. Actually all of them die except Jacen and Luke. Jacen wants to stay but Luke and Han pulls him away and they escape.
Jacen starts acting out in training sessions. He knows enough not to want to revenge but it’s difficult. He blames his mother for not being there. And he blames her for trying to fight Talon in the first place. He also blames Luke for not knowing better. He and Luke have an argument where Jacen says he should have been able to see their fate. Luke tries to tell him they can’t try to control fate.
Jacen appears to let it go but then begins searching through Luke’s stuff for Jedi texts until he finds some old books detailing the Living Force and… something else. He steals the book and then begins his secret trainings. It works, and he starts to see some future events. Like he sees Rey/Jaina control a training orb before she does it. When she really does, it’s like an instant replay. Luke notices something and Leia feels something, so they arrange for Poe to come as a fake padawan so he can report back to Leia.
Jacen thinks he’s solved everybody’s problems… but then he starts getting visions of his own death (like he does in the EU). They become more frequent and more detailed. Just when he thinks they can’t get any worse, he sees his sister, grown-up, standing above him, watching him die from a lightsaber wound. Her own lightsaber is powered on, flashing with energy.
He leaves the Temple and tries to deal with his shit. Doesn’t exactly work. So he tries to find Darth Talon and end this once and for all, after all, this is all her fault. However, things don’t go as expected. Darth Talon’s got a way with words, saying stuff like “If I were Luke I would have let you fight me. You might’ve won too, the dark is more powerful than the light.” She details her training under Luke and said that she learned nothing compared to what she knows now and she ends up turning Jacen to the dark side. The more Jacen trains in the dark side, the more he can control the Force just with brute anger… and he’s good at it. He also gets more visions, visions of him bringing peace to the galaxy. All the while, Darth Talon is saying, “What has the Republic, the Jedi, ever done for you? Everything you’ve ever loved is gone, and soon, you will be too. I’ve seen what you’ve seen, you’re the only one who can save the galaxy. Your sister will stop all that.”
So Jacen goes back to kill 8 year old Rey. Luke and Poe stop him and Jacen only wounds Luke, although, in the moment, Jacen thinks he’s killed him. Poe is also almost killed. With them out of the way, Jacen goes after Rey, but she falls and hits her head. Jacen thinks she’s dead and he’s so relieved he doesn’t actually have to kill her that he immediately leaves. Poe comes to and finds Rey and heads back to Coruscant, back to Leia. Luke wakes up later and decides to yeet off to the Jedi Temple to try to study more so he can combat Jacen’s new powers. Leia, in contact with Luke, says, “There will be a time when we must face him, but that’s not yet.” So she and Han hide Rey. There’s the whole goodbye thing where Leia says the Force will bring them back together and then Leia uses a sort of mind-trick to wipe most of Rey’s memories because “if she doesn’t know who she is, he won’t either.” and leaves her on that marshy planet, hidden from her brother. “We couldn’t keep you near us… it was the only way,” we hear in a voiceover.
Back to the present. Rey is sitting across from Leia. Rey: “Really? That’s the only thing you could think of? You got to be a princess and you dropped me off in the middle of nowhere?”
Rey might argue some more, but they’re interrupted by a message that is sent throughout the galaxy, saying Leia is Darth Vader’s daughter (which is a subplot in the EU books). It’s confirmed by Naboo records of a queen’s secret marriage to a Jedi. It’s also confirmed that the Jedi Killer is none other than Jacen Solo, her own son. With links to two sith lords, Leia is the perfect person to blame in the in the chaos of the post-attack on Coruscant. She, with the rest of the gang, flee the Republic and go into hiding.
Rey and Leia end up going back to the temple to finish her training and the Force ghosts come back and help them. Sam and Poe end up doing something, I don’t know what… I need to wrap this up, I’ve already written too much. Let’s just say they’re keeping Jacen’s goon squad at bay. There’s just a few more scenes that have to be in there which include a flashback of Leia and Jacen fighting where he says, “You were never there for me, you abandoned me blah blah blah and you trust that stupid Poe guy more than me, waah.” When, really, that’s not true, and Jacen insults her further by saying how she’d never be a true Jedi. There’s also a flashback scene of the first round of Luke’s padawans, which includes Leia and Darth Talon. They used to be friends before Talon left to train in the dark side.
Also, Force-ghost Luke visits Jacen and tries to tell him to knock it off, but kindly. Sam, Poe, and Rey have adventures trying to find Jacen and Darth Talon. Then they do find them. (Also, this shows Rey has matured because she wasn’t good at the whole teamwork thing in the first movies and now she is better at that).
Anyway, it ends with Leia embracing her whole Jedi self and fighting Darth Talon while Rey fights Jacen in the final battle at Jacen’s evil headquarters. (Rey also decides to keep going by Rey instead of Jaina, just a side note, although she does end up fixing her hair the way she used to as a kid). Sam and Poe take on the Jedi Killer’s goon squad.
Rey, when given the opportunity for a kill-shot, refuses, saying that she would never. Jacen is like oh shit was I wrong this whole time and turns back to the light and saves Leia from Darth Talon. Jacen is dying from Talon’s lighsaber stab and Rey appears out of the mechanical fog of a busted communications table and stands over him, shocked. This was his vision. Rey and Leia together finish of Darth Talon and then they help Jacen. Jacen gets a vision from Force ghost Luke and Jacen apologizes but Luke tells him to stop. Jacen dies and turns into a Force ghost (or maybe he lives I haven’t decided yet, but he did kill Han and Luke and a bunch of other people so it might be cathartic if he just dies).
Now Rey starts a new Jedi order at the Jedi temple, one free of politics. They don’t do the beckoning of the Republic, no matter how good the Republic’s intentions are. They rely on their morals. Rey finds more Jedi texts and starts to teach those too. Leia’s name is cleared, but she retires to Naboo, occasionally visiting the Temple. We end with Rey and Sam and Poe going off to finish getting rid of Talon’s army and some bad guys that got away. They have no particular affiliation with the Republic, they’re just doing the right thing.
…
That was longer than I thought it’d be, but here we are. I’m sure I ended up doing some things that might not have been super in line with what George planned, but I was just having fun with the story. Also, if you think I’m going to include those dang midichlorians, oh boy think again. The only reason why I’ve remained defiant on that part is because George is well aware of how much people hate that idea and he was going to just do it anyway so I don’t have a whole bunch of sympathy for him on that part… although I do side with him on many other things.
✌️
P.S.
I also wanted to note that in the last article I said writers were fired/rehired. I’ve heard those terms used, but a lot of sources say writers “left the project” which could have been a voluntary decision on their part. I just wanted to clarify.
Here’s the link to a video explaining Colin Trevorrow’s original script for Duel of the Fates which was what was in place before he left and it was redone into Rise of Skywalker. I thought it was a really fun story he came up with and, while I’m not a huge proponent of “Force-healing”, he actually has them train to be able to do that, and I can totally accept that. Also, after reading Trevorrow’s work, I was definitely influenced and I’m sure it came through in my writing, especially when I have Jacen training in the “Future Force” thing and with Darth Talon. It’s so important to see characters develop and learn the skills they have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQgdW6eR8rc
I was also heavily influenced by the EU and, while I did mark some places where direct stoylines came through, I’m sure I missed some. Jacen seeing the future (and the “peace” of the galaxy) was a huge part of his schtick in the EU, so I didn’t come up with that. I don’t think he saw Jaina killing him, but I can’t definitively say no.
Just saying this in case I missed my labels on anything.