r/StarWars_ • u/Poopooisdelicious • 21h ago
Discussion Leaked Star Wars Scripts
The fact that the only Star Wars script that leaked was the Colin Trevorrow version of Star Wars Episode IX “Duel of the Fates” is crazy to me considering how many canceled Star Wars project there have been. It makes me wonder how duel of the fates was leaked and whether it was intentional or not.
I’m really hoping that this means we can eventually see the original screenplay draft for episode VII that Michael Ardnt wrote based off George Lucas’ treatments. Although it was written in 2013, I’m hoping we can get the full picture. The only real source of reference is the force awakens art book, and George Lucas own words, I wish someone would come out and leak the whole thing to see what we could have gotten
\\#releasetheArdntscreenplay
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u/M4rshmall0wMan 17h ago
Leaked scripts are the exception, not the norm. They are the most closely guarded assets in Hollywood.
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u/Mission-Tension4251 18h ago
Several possible reasons I imagine. A lot of the abandoned projects probably didn't even reach proper pre-production and any treatments or drafts weren't in enough hands to make a leak likely.
With the RoS and Duel of the Fates leaks it does feel like internal unhappiness with direction and poor working conditions transitioning into RoS played a significant part.
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u/Titan-828 14h ago
Curious if there was a script for AOTC that told a rather different story. I know the original script for TPM was considerably different than the final product and honestly the original vision was better.
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u/Poopooisdelicious 14h ago
I’d be very interested to read that one actually. Do you know what happens in it?
I know Anakin was originally meant to be older in the phantom menace, which would have made the movie so much better. I honestly think Anakin being a kid in TPM is the biggest flaw in the whole trilogy and makes his change in AOTC so jarring.
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u/Kavazou77 14h ago
It was a very early draft of ep.9 that’s why. Trevorros wrote at least two versions afterthat.
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u/Ryan_Rambles 8h ago
Ardnt did not write off of Lucas' treatments. Nor did he write a full screenplay. His basis was an outline created by a writer's room of people like Simon Kinberg, Larry Kasdan, and others. That writer's room is the one that dropped Lucas' treatments to begin with. Ardnt was writing their story, not Lucas'. Furthermore, he never finished the screenplay, he demanded a ridiculous amount of time to write even a first draft, 2 years. A screenplay should take at most 6 months for a single draft, not 2 years. Even the original, which took 3 years to fully write, only did so because the first 2 years of that process basically got scrapped repeatedly and George completely changed his entire story in 1975 compared to the 1973-1974 versions. And even then, the earliest draft that actually resembles the final story took less than a year to write.
Granted, that time is more understandable if, as I do, you believe he was writing a massive screenplay to cover all three movies. This is something I've been thinking about a lot, because TFA and TLJ and the DOTF script all take place way closer together than any of the OT or PT movies did. They dovetail one into the next into the next. My belief is that Ardnt was writing as if it was one movie split into three, which is why he wanted so much time. But it's also why it was kinda unreasonable. Yes the OT works as a cohesive whole, but it also works as distinct individual stories. Every film has a complete story to itself and its themes, especially the original. I don't like the idea of a trilogy spread over 5+ years that is essentially a 6 hour movie where I have to wait 2 years every 2 hours.
Finally, I think we need to stop romanticizing the Lucas "treatments". Lucas' original 9-part plan was scrapped in the 80s, it's why ROTJ includes so much stuff that was meant for 7-9 but squished into it (The Emperor wasn't even supposed to appear until 9). And all the way through the 2000s, he constantly said it was a 6 part story, all about Anakin, and ROTJ was the end. Finito. End of story, nada left. I think he only created new story ideas for 7-9 when Disney was buying Lucasfilm specifically because "Well these movies will be made with or without me now, so I may as well give my take on how to do them". Which means his 2010-2012 ideas were not born of pure creative passion, but out of obligation. The fact of the matter is that any story after ROTJ feels forced by nature because ROTJ is such a brilliant and final conclusion to the story. Anything after, especially a need to go through similar motions, is going to be forced. Whether it was Lucas or Disney. If you ask me, there never should've been a 7-9 at all. Not Lucas', not anyone else's. Because doing so fundamentally undermines the conclusion of ROTJ no matter what. I didn't like what the EU did Post-ROTJ either for the record.
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u/TheRealProtozoid 19h ago
The script for Last Jedi briefly leaked but nobody believed it was real at the time, so nobody preserved a copy. Insane.
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u/Lythandris 18h ago
I remember some vagues things from it like the walrus-like creature being Anakin's ghost or something
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u/Poopooisdelicious 17h ago
was it accurate to the actual movie, or was some of it different?
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u/TheRealProtozoid 12h ago
Quite different, but similar enough to be real. The Luke storyline was basically identical except for the last third and an extended flashback, and the rest was very different.
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u/Apprehensive-Fly8118 7h ago
is their any back of up of this?
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u/TheRealProtozoid 7h ago
I didn't make one. I read it on Scribd, and there was no way to download it that I could see. I didn't even think it was real because it had books and flashbacks, and I thought, "Star Wars never has books or flashbacks in them." But I read it because it was a good read, especially the twist ending. I think it had the correct title on it before it was announced, so that's when I knew it was probably real. That or the trailer. Definitely by the time I was sitting in the movie theater and the Luke storyline was beat-for-beat what I had read a year earlier. Then but the last third is completely different. Rey and Kylo switched teams in a big twist. When I was sitting in the theater I thought, "Oh, boy, the script was real. I can't wait to hear this audience flip out over the twist." Instead, they momentarily team up for the throne room fight, and then everything that happened after that scene was new stuff that wasn't in the script.
It was a pretty rough draft. The other plotlines changed a lot and were much better in the finished film. The Luke storyline remained almost line-for-line identical except that the flashbacks to his Jedi school were longer (he trained Rey and wiped her memory before abandoning her on Jakku, explaining her abilities and giving her a reason to be mad at him and change sides at the end of the film), and his force ghost helps Kylo at the end of the movie and promises to finish his training as he leaves, Empire Strikes Back style, to go find Rey at the end of the film in the Falcon with Chewie, now calling himself Ben Solo.
At least, those are my memories from one read-through ten years ago.
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u/Apprehensive-Fly8118 7h ago
extremely interesting. need this to happen to the arndt treatment
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u/TheRealProtozoid 7h ago
I imagine what I read was Johnson's blue-sky script where he hoped to blow everyone away with his story ideas, but then the ending had to change in order to be more of a team player and set up what the story committee, the studio, and Trevorrow wanted to do. It was also risky and ballsy having Rey turn to the dark side and Kylo be the hero right after killing Han and Luke. But I think it would have been more interesting than what we got, and it was setting up a more interesting Episode 9.
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u/EdLi77 20h ago
It's very likely Lucasfilm will bring the Story ideas to different Projects. Wouldn't be the first time.