The more we learn about the process behind the making of "The Rise of Skywalker," the more bafflement consumes me. I've still been working on a review geared towards analysis of the plot and themes, and there
are things in there you can dig out, but they're the dredges left behind in a reservoir that has already been harshly mined.
In addition to the leaks about Trevorrow and Connolly's initial script draft, we apparently
also now have leaks of their final draft -- and it's good. It's really good, actually. It makes the Sequel Trilogy come together in ways that it doesn't feel like Abrams's and Terrio's script even tried.
It also shows us quite inarguably that Carrie Fisher's tragic passing was not the utter derailment of the original plan that it has been speculated to have been. Scenes from the earlier draft that involved Leia work just fine here with Poe (meeting with Lando), Connix (in command of the Resistance), and later Lando (when R2 is revived) filling in.
One can even see the origin of characters and concepts that made their way into the filmed product -- but one cannot even begin to delve into the thought process that would take one to those destinations from their far superior beginnings.
Trevorrow and Connolly's script would have shown us Rey fighting to free enslaved migrants, and despite failing, inspiring them; just the sort of direction TLJ left us to believe would evolve from the struggles and strife of its heroes; and just the sort of thing a certain child slave on Tattooine had once dreamed of before he grew up to become the very thing he hated.
This script would have also shown us the related consideration of Finn weighing and acknowledging that the enemies trying to kill he and his friends may be just like those slaves -- and more to the point, just like he used to be -- before inspiring at least one to turn away from a path of resigned abetting to villainy.
One can readily see how these ideas got diluted down into the much-easier-to-include-yet-vapid, unearned, no-involvement-from-our-heroes, no-growth-or-character-arc-journey-for-them-either concept of Jannah and the company of First Order defectors on the Water Moon of Endor. What remains unknowable -- unfathomable even -- is how any storyteller could think to arrive at the latter destination when beginning from the former positions.
Similarly, if less egregiously, we can see how a) the story beat of hijacking a Star Destroyer via Rey using Mind Tricks on the crew and b) Rey using Mind Tricks on Poe to get him to leave her behind was diluted into a couple of inconsequential jokes in the filmed product, wherein Rey disarms the threat of some Stormtroopers with her Force abilities, prompting Poe to wonder aloud to Finn if he thinks their friend ever uses that trick on them.
All of this is without even getting into the diluted-to-the-point-of-waste ideas that would have seen the Knights of Ren used to relevant effect; a more nuanced exploration of Rey's darkness; a more nuanced depiction of Ben's journey back to the light; Rose given noteworthy screentime and jobs to do; and the more explicit depiction of proper balance in The Force via its duality (TRoS still manages this, but barely).
I have been using the word "diluted" rather than "distilled" to describe these plot points, by the way, as that is precisely what occurred; particularly where the concept of the company of former Stormtroopers supplanted the other slave subplots. Seeing how we got to where we did from where we should have been is like watching a whole bag of gas station ice melt into a glass of good whiskey.
