Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Revised Version

Rewrite ideas for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

After the fall of the Empire, the Rebellion has, mostly, disbanded.  Generally, there is peace and rebuilding and finding new ways of life for ex-Empire employees.  There is, however, one core band of Rebels who remain, and who most people think of as crackpots, or, at best, deluded and unable to let go of what drove them for so long.  Everyone else is happy to have their lives and freedom back from forces beyond their control.

In this remaining core of Rebels are Poe, Finn, Princess Leia, and others of the former inner circle, but even some of these people are wondering why they continue to train and fix ships and live like they're in hiding.  Princess Leia, however, has some information: there is still possible trouble.  There is a legend... (most people laugh at it).  The legend is of the origins of the Sith, and that there may be a spiritual war beginning with an insidious infiltration of "Dark Side" converts.  There are ancient, hidden, fogotten Sith shrines all across the galaxy, but there is also the rumor of a planet where they began.

Rey, meanwhile, is still struggling with Jedi training.  The only other Jedi is Princess Leia, and she is gravely ill.  Rey sits for lessons, but must train on her own.  There is great pressure on Rey to be good, but she can't seem to get the hang of it.  They want her to teach, but she dislikes teaching.  They want her to do some of the "traditional" Jedi tricks, but she's not really good at them.  She feels lonely, while also wanting to be alone (as she had been for so long).  She doesn't even get to hang out with BB8, who is helping Poe and Finn fix up the Millennium Falcon.

Rey also has a secret that becomes more and more intrusive: while meditating, if Kylo Ren is also meditating (or in meditative state, like before sleep), they have visions of each other.  They are brief at first, and disturbing for them both.  As time goes on, however, they realize the visions cannot be stopped, and while they try to come to a "you meditate at this time and not MY time" agreement, they both find themselves searching out each other's company.

Kylo Ren is also feeling alone.  Disrespected by his greatly diminished military staff, he struggles to remain as dark and imposing as his grandfather, Darth Vader.  Where once he really admired his grandfather's ability to impose fear, Kylo Ren's meditations on the mutilated mask change to sadness, even while Kylo pieces back together his own mask.  His underlings expect him to have grand plans, but he is unsure.  There are some generals or other advisors, though, who have heard of a legend...

Poe and Finn discover that the Empire has started investigating the legend of the Sith, too, and they now lend it greater credence.  They present Leia with the information, and she says there is only one way to find this legendary planet: by using the Force.  Leia gives Rey an important mission: take a ship, and use the Force to try to locate the Sith shrine planet.  Everyone goes through a lot of trouble to outfit a decent little ship.  Other Rebels doubt her powers.  Some Rebels (maybe Poe and Finn) want to complete this mission themselves, but it is impossible.  It is the job for a Jedi.  Rey keeps her self-doubt hidden.  Rebels try to prepare for a battle and travel to re-enlist former members--follow the adventures of Poe and Finn and BB8.

Despite trying desperately not to communicate with Kylo Ren, can't seem to help it.  He can't help it, either, though he is suddenly very cagey about giving her information about his activities.  Rey manages to find some minor shrines where she can feel the Sith power growing as she moves from planet to planet, shrine to shrine.  She also notices some indication that at some shrines, someone else was recently there...

While finding the shrines helps Rey's confidence in her Jedi abilities, she still can't stop "visiting" Kylo Ren.  She catches him working out.  He catches her bathing in a lake.  One night, on a quiet jungle planet, thick with plant life, she gives him some information about herself, and asks him for more.  He still refuses, and they fight about it.  She yells at him.  He freezes... He heard a sound.  He looks back at her, horrified.  Her anger drains away, and she looks at him, horrified.  He yells.  She actually hears it.  "We're on the same planet!"

They each leap up, igniting their lightsabers, looking around in a panic.  They each creep out of their campsites and end up crashing through the jungle towards one another.  They meet, on opposite ends of a clearing, lightsabers glowing, stars a riot overhead.  They walk slowly towards each other until their bodies are in sight.  They are deeply confused.  Kylo Ren turns off his lightsaber.  Rey turns off hers.  They narrow the distance between them, and revel in the reality of the moment.  Smells, warmth, and physical being.  Lit only by stars, they kiss.  They force themselves away, backing up, then turning and running back to their ships.  They leave, going different directions.

In the morning, Rey gets a coded message from the Rebels with a warning and an addition to her mission: the Empire has sent Kylo Ren himself to find the Sith planet, and she must kill him.

Kylo Ren also receives a message from his own people: the Rebels have sent their only Jedi to find the Sith planet.  It is Rey, and he must kill her.

Poe and Finn are having terrible troubles even being believed, much less recruiting anyone.  They can bring in (or at least try to) C-3PO, R2D2, Zorri Bliss, Lando, Chewbacca, the cool tiny repairman, and whoever else seems important who isn't in already.

Rey tries not to contact Kylo Ren, but eventually gives in.  Kylo Ren, however, adamantly refuses to meditate, and avoids other triggers however he can.  They continue to planet-hop, narrowly missing one another.  Rey gets angry and also refuses to try ever again.  She finds herself on an inhabited planet with a mix of kinds of people.  There is an ancient temple, they say, but it's out in the ocean.  She makes friends and tries to forget Kylo Ren.  Kylo Ren must, because of his wholly owned reputation, avoid all contact with anyone, and he lives rough.  After a lovely evening, the people show Rey how to get to the temple and warn her of the danger, and won't she let them help her, etc.  She takes a boat and makes the dangerous journey.  The people can watch through binoculars from shore.  They are happy she made it.  They see the temple.  They see her going into the open-air part.  Someone shouts, "There's someone else!  On a stolen boat!  It's... someone from the Empire.  It's... Kylo Ren!"  The people are scared for Rey, who they know must fight and kill her opponent, or be killed.

The temple's small island is badly deteriorated from the sea and from neglect, so it is dangerous to stay.  Rey must meditate, though she doesn't want to, to find her next traveling point.  She lays hands on the temple, and hears behind her, "So we meet again."  Rey spins, igniting her lightsaber.  Kylo Ren removes his.  Turns it on.  They stand, in agony.

The crowd on shore is either watching through binoculars, or listening to the play-by-play from those who have them.  "He is there!"  Boo!  "She turned on her lightsaber!"  Yea!  "He turned on his!"  Boo!  Pause.  "What's happening??"  "Um... Nothing."

Rey     "I have to kill you."
Kylo    "I know.  I have to kill you."
Rey     "I know."
Pause
Rey     "They're watching."
Kylo    "I know."
They fight.  It's the mother of all fights.  Gorgeous.  Emotional.  Dramatic.  Almost as if they are dancing.  Almost as if they know what the other will do.
Shore   "Who's winning?"
Binoc   "I... I don't know!"

They fight and fight, and Kylo Ren can see they are very well matched, but he is much bigger and stronger.  He worries about her.  He (purposefully) drops his guard.  She (accidentally) stabs him with her lightsaber.  He falls to the far side of the island, barely managing not to fall into the raging sea.  To the people on the shore, she has dealt a killing blow and has leaped down to be sure to finish him off.  Rey has, instead, leaped down because she is horrified.  Out of sight, she has turned off her lightsaber and flung herself to his side.  She pulls him to a safer spot and looks at his wound.

Kylo    "Don't.  Let me die.  Go find the Sith planet.  Win!"
Rey     "No, don't die.  I can't... I can't let you die.  I can't...  I love you."
Kylo    "I...love...you..."

Kylo passes out and Rey is frantic.  She rips open his shirt and sees the deadly wound.  Not knowing what she's doing, not caring that it shouldn't work, she presses her hands to his skin for the first time and she calls up all the forces of the Jedi and the Light.  Where her powers wouldn't do all the "tricks" of traditional Jedi, she can heal him.  His wound knits closed.  She weeps over him.  Finally, his eyes flutter open.  They have unbridled joy for one moment together before realizing what has been done.  They both sit, frozen in horror.  He has been healed by the Light.  She healed a follower of the Dark.  They both confessed their love.  Suddenly, a giant wave smashes his stolen ship.  Rey leaps up.

Rey     "I must go."
Kylo   "I... Rey..."
Rey     "Ben..."

She says his real name for the first time, and, for the first time, it seems to suit him.  She rips herself away from his gaze and flees on the only remaining boat.  He is left to figure himself out.

The Empire has heard about Poe and Finn's mission and they are now having a harder time of it.  Poe and Finn have also heard: Kylo Ren has returned.

On an Empire ship, Kylo Ren has, indeed, returned.  He is reminded that only getting to the Sith planet and securing the power there will the Empire rise again, with him at the helm.  Without this power, no one will follow the grandchild of the destroyed Darth Vader.  Kylo Ren is reminded over and over that this is the only way he will ever reach his true power, and the only way he will ever be anyone at all.  He gives them the location of the Sith planet.

Poe and Finn hurry back to the remaining Rebel stronghold to report.  Rey is already there.  She, too, has the location of the Sith planet.  The Rebels have been planning what to do, and are ready.

Ready Player One Movie Opening

OPEN: An ideal, ivy-league-style SCHOOL.  Wood paneling, polished floors, statuary, paintings, etc.  Rooms and rooms of learning--seeing inside some appear "normal" and others fantastic--just a glimpse, enough to see it's "futuristic".  A bell rings and clean, good-looking STUDENTS flood the hallways.  Most either go to lockers and then out the nearest door, or they just leave.  It sounds busy, like you'd expect in a high school.  Perhaps unnoticed, there are several boys and girls who are dressed exactly the same--plain black t-shirts and jeans, black Converse sneakers.  Above all their heads, ghostly, float their names in boxes that point down at them.  Lockers look normal, if extra-deep.  WADE WATTS, a teenage boy in the plain clothes, is at a locker.  He is good-looking if a bit nondescript.  Opening his knapsack, he taps on book icons that reappear floating over the top shelf of his locker.   His backpack appears lighter with every tap.  The locker slams and an even better-looking boy in fancy clothes is behind the door, several friends behind him.

**interaction just as in book**

STUDENTS leave quickly and the HALLWAY quiets.  WADE walks slowly to a door.  Just outside a couple STUDENTS blink out of existence.  WADE walks beyond the school grounds and keeps going until he is on rolling, beautiful green hills on a gorgeous fall late afternoon.  Empty of people, there is a gentle breeze, forest in the distance, blue skies with just a few clouds.  WADE sits on the hill and watches for a while.  He sighs, reaches up, logs out.

Suddenly, WADE appears on the floor in the corner of a noisy, dirty laundry room.  It is dark grey inside and out.  It is cramped.  WADE is no longer good-looking.  He appears a little younger than before.  He is overweight and looks unhealthy.  He has acne, he is pale, he is dirty.  WADE is wearing dirty, patched clothes.  WADE pulls off a plain-looking set of goggles and worn-looking gloves.  He puts them lovingly into a vintage metal Star Wars lunchbox.  There is the sound of fighting, shouting, sirens, music, television, and more.  WADE tucks the lunchbox into his knapsack (a filthy, sewn-up version of the one he has in school) and pulls himself into a ball, shivering a little.  A fight on the other side of the thin wall is disturbing.  WADE pulls out a beat up laptop and plugs in headphones.  He watches Family Ties.  The sound of theme song is first nice and loud, comforting; WADE smiles, wiping his eyes.  The camera pulls back and as the song fades out for the audience, the fighting fades in.  We see the relatives and renters who live in the trailer, many plugged in, some doing drugs.  The camera pulls back and back until we can see the STACKS: mostly trailer homes with some RVs or vans mixed in.  Lots of sounds and sights of extreme poverty, drugs, crime, economic and ecologic devastation.

NOTE: the characters are all real actors.  There will be three WADE actors:
YOUNG WADE: overweight, short, acne, normal, but not overtly attractive.
OASIS WADE: tall, good-looking, fit.  Has same general coloring and the idea of real WADE, but an ideal WADE.
OLDER WADE: taller than YOUNG, very fit, acne gone, normal, but not overtly attractive though better than he was, extremely pale and devoid of hair.

CONTINUATION:


Pulling back from the STACKS, you get a view of the further devastation.  The trailer homes, in multiple neighborhoods, surround an over-packed, poverty-riddled, energy-lacking city.  The roads do not have private vehicles, and many roads are overgrown and crumbling back to nature, some with homeless living in lean-to shelters or makeshift tents.  The only vehicles are buses with solar panels, and even those are patched together.  Pulling back further, there are dead zones from ecological disaster and abandonment, and, even further, some US cities have been destroyed (either crumbling and abandoned, burned, or nuked and are cordoned off holes).  Pulling back further, the ash-filled, polluted sky gives way through the clouds to blue, then up to a cluttered layer of satellites, abandoned space program paraphernalia, and rocks.  Pulling back further, only starfield is visible.



The actual starfield seamlessly transforms into an old video game starfield--opening credits roll over decades of video game scenes.

AFTER OPENING CREDITS:
WADE wakes early in the LAUNDRY ROOM.  He powers up just the laptop (not the goggles and gloves) to scroll through old family pictures.  He stops at one of his mother and father: a selfie his mother took with his father holding a hand on her pregnant belly.  They look thin and dirty, but smiling.  He has a FLASHBACK to his childhood (**if flashbacks are used, there will be one more WADE: a little kid who is thin and dirty**.)

FLASHBACK: LITTLE WADE is sitting with his MOTHER on their filthy, old, torn couch in a dark single-wide trailer (at the bottom of the STACKS).  There is a cardboard box labeled **FATHER'S NAME** on a dirty coffee table also strewn with take out food containers, pop bottles, and subtle drug paraphernalia.  She is showing him the same picture of his father on her phone, scrolling to it through a couple other pictures.

MOTHER     This is your daddy, Wade.  He loved you very much.  (She pauses to hold back tears.)  Your daddy's the one who named you, you know?  (She reaches into the box and pulls out some superhero comics, including Spiderman.)  Like Peter Parker, you know?  "Wade Watts".  The first letters are the same.  Like you're a superhero, because you are.  You're my little superhero!  (She tickles him and they laugh.)  Come on (she drops the comics back into the box), it's time for you to play your games.  I gotta go to work.

MOTHER puts WADE in old fashioned VR goggles and little gloves.  She logs in for him via an old laptop and sets him more firmly on the couch.  Before putting the large headphones over his ears, she whispers to him.

MOTHER     (whispering) I love you, Wade Watts.

WADE     I love you, Mommy.

As WADE's hands lift and make passes in the air as he plays, MOTHER stands, pockets some drug paraphernalia, and is already taking down her hair and unbuttoning her shirt.  She exits to the next room and closes the door.

WADE takes off his headphones and goggles so he can look in the box of his father's belongings.  He finds more pictures that show his father was very young, his mother was very young, they were very, very poor and struggling.  He finds pictures of a happier, younger father with his own family in a suburban home.  He finds notebooks.  He finds an obituary page filled with listings, all who died of influenza, that includes his grandparents together.  Finally he finds a newspaper article about his father being killed while looting during a blackout.  As he's looking, he begins to hear his MOTHER making sex noises in the other room, as she is an online escort.  WADE puts the papers away and his headphones and goggles back on, turning up the volume to drown out the sounds.


CONTINUATION:

WADE comes out of this flashback, scrubbing his wet eyes with the end of his sweater sleeve.  At that moment, his AUNT enters, carrying an armload of filthy laundry.  She is thin, with sores on her face.  She starts the process of doing laundry and notices WADE, frozen in the act of trying to cover his laptop.  The AUNT's eyes widen and she bellows for her husband.

AUNT     **NAME**!  NAME!  Get in here!  The little asshole's got a laptop!

WADE     No, Aunt XXX.  Please, I need this.
AUNT     You owe me and your uncle, for taking care of you.
WADE     But you get my food vouchers...

UNCLE enters and stands at the door, unseen by AUNT.  He is also filthy, tattooed, wearing a shirt that shows off his muscles and track marks.

AUNT     NAME!

UNCLE     What!
AUNT     Wade's got a laptop.

WADE surreptitiously executes a program that deletes all of his information off the laptop.

UNCLE     Hand it over, freak.

WADE     Just a minute...

UNCLE enters fully, flexing and making a fist.

UNCLE     Now!

WADE just manages to let go when his UNCLE yanks it from his grip.  AUNT and UNCLE smile at their fortune.  AUNT speaks as they both exit.

AUNT     Let's see how much we can get...

WADE crouches for a moment longer, then packs away the rest of his belongings with one eye on the door.  He opens a window and climbs out onto a metal rail that helps hold the trailer home onto its perch near the very top of the stack.  WADE looks out and sees desolation in the still-dark, grey morning.  A cold wind whips at his clothes and too-long hair.  WADE pulls his pack all the way on and shuffles sideways holding onto a rope he tied onto the metal to help him escape on this more dangerous route.  WADE makes it to the end where he can climb down the scaffolding, and he does.

Along his climb, he sees men, women, and children plugged into their computers, wearing old goggles and gloves.  Some only have huge computer screens showing scenes of shopping or entertainment, some violent and/or vile.  No one is moving much, and no one is very fit--either over or underweight.  WADE stops at one window where the scene is a bit more homey and decorated in an old-fashioned, grandmotherly style.  There is an old sofa with an afghan, doilies, kitchy pictures on the wall, many cats, and a TV showing an evangelical Christian service.

CONTINUATION

WADE taps on the window.  An old woman, NAME, enters, sees WADE and smiles.  They both wave and NAME opens her kitchen window.

Interaction is same as in the book.

As WADE climbs down the stack, it gets darker and darker.  Dirtier and dirtier.  The bottom is filled with litter, dirt, and mud.  All the drippings and grossness of being at the bottom of a vertical trailer park, plus a few hulks of rotting vehicles, pushed to the side and used for other purposes.  Paths lead through the stacks, and WADE keeps his hood up and his head down, but his eyes wary.  People lurk in the dark, selling drugs, selling themselves, looking for a target, or looking at absolutely nothing.

The stacks get a little shorter and the path opens up to a junkyard, filled with the other vehicles that were towed away and piled up to make room to build the stacks.  WADE looks around furtively, then hurries into the junkyard, taking a winding path.  Sure he's not been followed, WADE pulls a key out from around his neck, takes one final, hidden turn, and slides up to the back of a Ford Econoline van with blank back windows and framed all around with other junk cars.  The top of the van has been saved because the vehicles on either side were just a little taller than the van and a vehicle on top was dropped sideways, balanced on the side vehicles.

WADE unlocks the back, climbs in quickly and quietly, and shuts the door.  It is completely dark, but we hear WADE pick up a crank-powered flashlight and grind it into use.

How to be Poor and Buy a House

Cash-poor people can buy a house.  It's a struggle, and many routes easy for those with money are closed, but if you can be patient and be okay with a house not-quite-of-your-dreams, you can do it.  I know because we finally did it ourselves.

I've read plenty of "inspirational" stories of people with "no money" flipping houses and getting rich, but their version of "no money" is not really no money.  They have a house they sold, or stocks they sold, or money they could borrow from family.  We had no house to sell, no major savings, and no family who could lend to us.  We pursued several avenues to a house, and while any could have possibly worked, only one finally did.  We tried:

• City auction
• "Homestead" housing
• Traditional bank lender
• Specialty "low-income" lender
• Asking to be given a city-owned house

Each of these paths had problems, but sometimes they have worked for other people so we tried them all.  To see how you match up with our personal version of "no money", you need to know our details:

• We make less than $25,000 a year and we need just about all of it to live (rent, food, gas, utilities, etc.)
• We have approximately $5,000 in money we can liquidate to cash (not IRAs, which I refuse to touch!)
• We have no debt--no credit cards, no car payments, no loan payments of any kind.

I understand others may be in more dire financial straights than we are, but you can see we are not in a position to lay down big bucks, nor do lenders offer us much in the way of a mortgage.  In the end, it was the "simple" use of huge balls of brass that got us a house, and even more gigantic balls that helped us to make it habitable.  The only way we got our house was by asking to have it from the city.  It had no plumbing, missing radiators, a leaking roof, and a back door that was wide open.  It was filled with garbage, including a stairway used as a feral cat litter box.  The first floor toilet was broken--in half!--and the iron fire escape was pulling free from the back of the house.  The sofits were see-through with rot and it was in a questionable neighborhood.  We asked for it.  We got it.

We cleared out the garbage, secured the doors and replaced broken windows, put a tarp on the roof leak, and lived without water or heat.  We couldn't afford to rent and fix a house, so we had no choice.  Our relatively low rent was to go to repair savings, and in the meantime, we were on a one-year waiting list to get a repair grant that could fix our roof.  We polished up our brass balls and started asking for free to cheap renovation help.