The much anticipated Star Wars' Sequel Trilogy is now riddled with polarization, particularly when discussing the series' latter two films, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. From fans of all ages to people who work in the industry, it is hard to find anyone who loves all three final episodes of the Skywalker Saga.
The great controversy comes from the creative decisions' director Rian Johnson made in The Last Jedi , with some of the most controversial being Rey's unclear lineage, Luke distancing himself from The Force, and the introduction of Rose Tico. Among those questioning Johnson's choices is author of Star Wars: The Force Awakens novelization, Alan Dean Foster.
NEWS
During a recent interview with Midnights's Edge , Foster shared his thoughts on Star Wars: The Last Jedi after revealing changes Lucasfilm made to the novel. Foster thought the eighth episode of Star Wars was "terrible."
"Episode 8 was out, it was a done deal. And I went and saw it, and I thought it was a terrible film. I thought it was a terrible Star Wars movie, and there's no need to go into why because every fan already has.
Foster revealed that he wrote a partial treatment for Episode 9 in hopes to explain some of the "really silly things that happened in Episode 8."
I thought, 'How can this be retconned? How can we fix as much as possible from Episode 8 in a proposed Episode 9?' And I wrote a partial treatment for that, attempting in that storyline to explain a lot of the really silly things that happened in Episode 8. My media representative couldn't get anybody at Disney to look at it, probably because the film was already, or at least the script was finished, the film was already in production. But I did that for the fans, I never expected Disney to do anything with that, one hopes.
Foster wanted to explain Rey's Force-abilities displayed in Episode 8 by making her "part droid" .
But I did things.. [asking] 'How come Rey has more Force powers than anybody after running around on that ocean world for 24 hours, or whatever it was?' How can I explain that away? And can I somehow tie that into the fact that she was abandoned on her planet, on Jakku? Can I bring those two things together? And what I did was, she has a disease... that was not curable unless they replaced part of her brain. It was done with electronics so that actually she is part android, or part droid, as they say in Star Wars. And that gives her the ability to learn remarkably quickly and also enhances her existing Force powers, and that's how she could throw boulders around at the end of Episode 8.
Rey being part droid also gave the opportunity to explain how she could understand BB-8 and other droids.
Also, it allows her to be instantly simpatico with other droids. I thought this would be a really fun story element as well as explaining why and how she's able to do these remarkable things.
Foster's Episode 9 treatment also included a "proper sendoff" for Luke, a final battle on Coruscant, and "proper motivation" for Rose Tico.
I gave Luke what I thought was a proper sendoff at the end of Episode 9... At the end of it, there's a big battle on Coruscant with the Emperor's clones. I also manage to provide proper motivation for the character that they forced Boyega to fall in love with, I give her something proper to do that justifies her character. At the end of the film, Luke is dying under a tree, and Rey comes out. And Luke's last words are 'Aunt Beru,' which brings the whole thing full cycle."
WHAT THIS MEANS
This is now the third detailed iteration of Episode 9 revealed to the public, the other two being The Rise of Skywalker directed by J.J. Abrams, and Colin Trevorrow's original script .
The greatest challenge Lucasfilm faced when creating Episode 9 was being able to please every fan, as some people loved The Last Jedi, while others loathed it. So when Foster asks, "How can this be retconned?" that is clearly not the direction that Disney or Lucasfilm wanted to go.
The goal to please everyone was ultimately using some elements from The Last Jedi , and seemingly retconning others like making Rey Emporer Palpatine's granddaughter. Love it or hate it, Foster's iteration of Episode 9 would've been a unique twist. Explaining why Rey could be so powerful through her being part-droid would've been fascinating to watch. Maybe fans would still be speculating if she had any connection to Lobot.
One of the more surprising details of Foster's treatment is that Emperor Palpatine still would've returned in some way. This was one of the more divisive parts of The Rise of Skywalker so capping off his version with "a big battle on Coruscant with the Emperor's clones" may not have been a crowd-pleaser. In the end, there is another Star Wars what-if movie to ponder upon.
