For this trilogy of films, it seems pretty clear that there wasn’t a clear overall vision of what was supposed to go down over the course of the runtime. This is especially the case after seeing Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which effectively undoes pretty much everything that came before — and in the clumsiest way possible, no less. But does that really mean there was no plan in mind?

Speaking with Awards Daily, The Rise of Skywalker writer Chris Terrio seemed to give us an idea of what plans Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and producer Michelle Rjwan had in mind for the end of the trilogy before he came on board.

“Kathy Kennedy and Michelle Rejwan had a clear plan for where they wanted things to end,” Terrio told the outlet. “They had clear plans about certain narrative marks they wanted us to hit. They also gave us a lot of freedom within that. We knew that Rey and Ren were utterly key to this trilogy, but we also felt that there was no way that we were going to not find a path to redemption for Kylo Ren, the son of Han and Leia. We felt that right from the beginning, when J.J. established Kylo Ren in Episode VII, there was a war going on inside him and that he had been corrupted by something bigger than himself and had made bad choices along the way. J.J. and I felt we needed to find a way in which he could be redeemed, and that gets tricky at the end of Episode VIII because Snoke is gone. The biggest bad guy in the galaxy at that moment seemingly is Kylo Ren. There needed to be an antagonist that the good guys could be fighting, and that’s when we really tried to laser in on who had been the great source of evil behind all of this for so long. That’s when we really started aggressively pursuing this idea that there is old evil that didn’t die. The source of the evil in the galaxy is this dark spirit waiting for its revenge and biding its time. The entity known as Palpatine in this version – his body died in Return of the Jedi – is patient and has been waiting. He dug his fox hole and has been waiting for his chance to re-establish his total domination.”

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This is quite interesting to me, as it does seem to indicate that Kylo Ren’s redemption was something in the works and that the death of Snoke seemed to prompt the return of the Emperor…but was that actually the case? Was Palpatine supposed to return from the beginning?

“Well, I can’t speak to Kathy’s overall intent,” Terrio continued. “That was certainly discussed and was discussed before I ever came on. Kathy had this overall vision that we had to be telling the same story for nine episodes. Although from the sleight of hand of Episode VII and Episode VIII, you wouldn’t necessarily know immediately that we were telling the same story. She thought it would be a very strong end for the ninth movie. This fits well with J.J. because he loves magic tricks. He will often talk in metaphors and magic tricks, and so in Episode VII and Episode VIII, you think you’re watching one thing but Episode IX tells you to watch more closely – you were actually watching something else. When you rewatch the earlier films, things start to make additional sense. Ren and his devotion to the idea of his grandfather. The voice that he’s always heard in his head. The certain similarities between Snoke and Palpatine. The intention was that, by the time you get to Episode IX, you realize there were real reasons this is all happening. It all shows how this story is being fought cyclically through the series.”

I have to say, I really like the idea of that…but I’m just not sure it was effectively done in The Rise of Skywalker. Like many other contributors on this site, this film seemed more interested in telling its own story than actually building off of the two films that came before. If they had managed to pivot their narrative without undoing what came before, I might be more on board, but as it stands, I just don’t think it worked.

It’s a cool idea, but as with all ideas, it relies heavily on the execution, and it just didn’t land with me personally. What do you think of Terrio’s comments? Let us know your thoughts down below!

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SOURCE: Awards Daily