Star Wars fans heartbroken over cancelled movie we'll never see

Star Wars fans are heartbroken following news of a cancelled movie that we’ll likely never see.

Arguably, the series has never been better since the original trilogy which began with Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. However, things began to change and not for the better with the prequel trilogy which kicked off with Episode I - The Phantom Menace (though I do love Episode III - Revenge of the Sith).

Check out the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer below!

Following Revenge of the Sith in 2005, the Star Wars movie series would take a 10-year hiatus until Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens arrived in 2015. For the most part, The Force Awakens did not disappoint but sadly the same cannot be said for The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.

The Force Awakens introduced a new protagonist Rey, a charming, unassuming hero who would later become the galaxy's newest saviour against the New Republic. To cut a long story short, Rey saved the day but her path could have been different.

Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker was reportedly going to be called Dual of the Fates and would have not only made the newest latest trilogy make sense thanks to the butchering that was The Last Jedi, which made The Rise of Skywalker unfixable, but Rey would have embraced the dark side even more.

Sharing the same name as a musical score from The Phantom Menace, Duel of Fates was the original script for Star Wars: Episode IX written by Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly. But when Trevorrow left the project, it was replaced by J. J. Abrams and Chris Terrio’s script.

According to a leaked script of Duel of Fates in 2020, while The Rise of Skywalker retained some aspects of the cancelled script, Kylo Ren discovers Darth Vader’s castle where he encounters the 7,000-year-old Tor Valum, who had previously trained the master of Emperor Palpatine, none other than Darth Plagueis.

Now being trained by Tor Valum, after fighting a phantom Darth Vader, Kylo Ren absorbs the power of the man once named Anakin Skywalker and uses his newly found talents to kill Tor Valum.

Later in the story, Rey, Poe, Chewbacca and Bonadan get into a fight with Kylo Ren’s knights and instinctively, Rey channels her inner dark side and kills one of the knights with Force lightning after remembering they were the ones that killed her parents.

Just like in The Rise of Skywalker, Rey and Kylo eventually duel, leaving our hero fatality wounded before General Leia intervenes and persuades Kylo to heal Rey with his powers. Then as in the final version of the movie, pretty much everyone lives happily ever after.

“Episode IX - Duel of the Fates. I'll forever wish this was the third sequel film,” exclaimed Redditor Neat-Games. “It would have made the trilogy at least consistent and cohesive, and well much cooler.”

“I honestly thought Rey was going to turn bad and Kylo would be good again,” replied DevineAaron92.

Ryuk128 said: “I liked The Last Jedi, sue me for that all you want, but I will die on that hill and Rey having a double-bladed lightsaber should have been a no-brainer.”

That being said, many were also happy that the Dual of Fates script was cancelled with comments such as “You might not have loved The Rise of Skywalker but this script is NOT better and it fundamentally misunderstands Star Wars and the Force in particular,” from JACOAE.

You can watch the entire Star Wars saga on Disney Plus right now.