STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER Writer Explains That He's Never Re-Written a Film as Much as This One
I’ll admit that I enjoyed watching each individual film in the latest Star Wars trilogy. They are all fun popcorn flicks, but when you watch them back-to-back, the whole thing is kind of a mess. Hell, the prequel films, which a lot of fans don’t care for, told a much better story than what Lucasfilm delivered with this latest trilogy.
I wish Lucasfilm would have just told the story that George Lucas was initially planning. But, what’s done is done. While there were some great moments in these latest films, they will never feel like classic Star Wars chapters. They will go down as the films that fueled Star Wars toxic fandom.
Anyway, screenwriter Chris Terrio recently revealed that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker featured more rewrites than any other film project he had worked on. He says that the creative team wanted to ensure they would deliver fans the best version of this story that they could, and we all know how that worked out. During an interview with Business Insider, he said:
“I’ve never rewritten a film as much as this one. It’s like a tide. There’s a new script every morning. But we just keep going at it and going at it, loosely thinking that it’s not good enough. It’s never good enough.”
They never really achieved the goodness that they were looking for. In the end, it seemed like they just ended up settling on what we got. The writer went on to explain just how the production team was at accomodating for these alterations, saying:
“Luckily, the production team is so good that they can shift and adjust. We’re course-correcting as we go – we’re trying things, and some things don’t work and some things aren’t ambitious enough. Some things are overly ambitious. Some things are too dense. Some things are too simple. Some things are too nostalgic. Some things are too out-of-left-field. We’re finding our balance.”
It’s too bad they never really found their balance. Before they even started on this new trilogy they should have brought in a solid creative team with one director that would have developed the project from beginning to end. They should have developed a full story for the trilogy with completed scripts before they even started shooting. They also should have had Lucas more heavily involved with the development. These films would have turned out a lot differently had they done that.
It’s just hard for me not to think about what could have been, especially while watching something like The Mandalorian, which is 100% Star Wars awesomeness!