We’ve gone from knowing nothing about Colin Trevorrow’s original vision for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker at the start of the month to finding out practically everything about it. Detailed breakdowns of his various script drafts have arrived online, with a batch of concept art also materializing. Those previous images, though, weren’t actually representative of Trevorrow’s Episode IX – to have been titled Duel of the Fates – as confirmed by the director himself.
A fresh glut of leaked concept art has now surfaced, however, which very much appears to be the real deal as the images match up exactly with Trevorrow’s plot. And here’s one of the most interesting pieces. In the leaked artwork below, you can see a glimpse at a cross-generational battle that never happened, between Kylo Ren and his own grandfather, Darth Vader.
From what we’ve learned about how Duel of the Fates was to have gone, this epic-looking lightsaber fight was to have been an homage to the cave sequence from The Empire Strikes Back. If you draw your eyes away from Vader, you might notice that Kylo’s mask looks pretty different here as well. That’s because the First Order leader wouldn’t have fixed his old helmet in this version of Episode IX and would have had a new one made from melted Mandalorian armor.
The reason he needed a new mask was because his face would have become badly scarred during the course of the film. When Kylo tried to wield a powerful Sith relic intended only for someone with a pitch-black soul, it would have rejected him, causing his grievous injuries. Given that Trevorrow would have made Kylo even more like Vader, then, this ghostly conflict would’ve been extra fascinating.
No doubt even more about what could have been in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will come out in time. But for now, we’re left to wonder whether we ended up with the best conclusion to the Skywalker Saga possible.