So a few months ago the forums section of theforce.net announced a new writing contest. This time, users were asked to come up with fan treatments for the three recently-announced Star Wars movies (the one about the origins of the Jedi, the “Mandoverse” movie, and Rey’s continuation). I was bored that weekend, so I decided to participate. Now that the contest has pretty much come and gone (I won), I figured I might as well share my outlines here.
I’m actually not sure if I’m going to see any of these new movies or shows (at least not right away), as I’ve been gradually “falling out of love” with Star Wars. Not cause I’ve hated any of the recent content, necessarily, but rather because I’m tired of the polarized reactions each new entry creates, and would rather not be part of that conversation anymore. And to those of you reading this who say “just ignore what others think,” I live in America. Literally everyone here talks about Star Wars. It’s impossible to escape conversations about it (especially when all your friends are nerds, like mine). So I’d rather not watch it anymore. That way, I can truly remain neutral when those conversations come up.
Well anyway, here you go:
The First Jedi
Set 25,000 years before the Skywalker saga, the galaxy is mostly controlled by the Rakatan Empire, as the Rakata (the giant aliens from the old canon) are the only known species in the galaxy to have advanced technologically, and they refuse to share their knowledge and tech with others, preferring instead to enslave them all.
The story begins on the planet Jedha, where the Rakata are forcing a bunch of slaves (mostly humans) to mine for kyber crystals. The people there believe that, someday, a hero will come to bring peace. This figure is known in their culture and folklore as “Jedi.”
The Rakata operate from ships (kinda like star destroyers) that hover in the air. Giant space whales that are known to be able to travel through hyperspace also float around there, but nobody has ever been able to tame one.
The mining area is surrounded by giant Rakata statues. The slaves are controlled by a bunch of guards (mostly humans, all of whom have been brainwashed since birth to worship the Rakata). These guards have Mandalorian-like armor and wear kyber crystal necklaces around their necks. The two head guards are a pair of brothers named Kurn and Lorn, who operate from a tower. There is also a Rakatan-made droid on the mining fields named Huyang (droid from The Clone Wars who builds all the lightsabers and is said to have been around since the beginning, but his plating is different here). His job is to build/repair tools.
One day, a middle-aged male, bearded human slave named Mez sees a smaller, weaker slave being abused by the guards, and decides to stand up for them. This leads to him being punished by electrocution (all the guards carry electro-staffs). In the days that follow, weird things happen to him. He starts having dreams at night where he hears voices saying “find Ach-To.” He starts interacting with the small animals of Jedha in strange ways, as if he can understand them, and they can understand him. On one day in particular, he picks a small kyber crystal up from the ground and it suddenly turns green in his hand, so he hides it in his pocket. On another day, he somehow makes a rock move with his mind.
Eventually, Mez decides that he needs to somehow escape and find the mysterious Ach-To planet he keeps hearing about in his dreams, as he feels this place will somehow be able to explain why so many weird things have been happening to him lately. He consults a female slave around his age named Daynia. They’re friends, but there’s also some romantic tension there. They’re able to convince Huyang to build a “carriage” that they plan to attach to a space whale. Using the Force (not called that yet), Mez tames the whale. The three of them then attach the carriage and escape into hyperspace.
Kurn and Lorn try to stop the escapees, but fail to do so. They are, however, able to place a tracker on the whale just before it leaves. The two brothers then consult the Rakata, who order Lorn to follow the whale, while Kurn stays behind. Kurn is upset with this, as he wanted to hunt them down as well, but complies.
The whale takes the heroes to Coruscant, which at this point is just a mountainous world where pirates, smugglers, etc. hang out in caves and such. All of them use small, dragon-like creatures (with small carriages attached to them) to travel, as they’re much easier to tame than whales, and can also jump into hyperspace (this species is likely extinct by the time we get to the main movies).
Mez and Daynia tell Huyang to stay in the carriage, as droids are super rare in this era, and people hunt them down for parts like wild dogs. The two humans then head into a pirate hangout. Mez feels insecure about the dirty rags he’s wearing, so he steals a nearby cloak with a hood that he puts on himself to blend in better.
The pair eventually come across a pirate named Sting, who says he’s been to Ach-To before and knows how to get there. Mez and Daynia convince Sting to help them by revealing they have a droid, and are willing to give it to him in exchange for his assistance. He agrees. Mez tells Daynia off to the side that he’ll find a way to “get Huyang out of it.” One of the other pirates hears them mentioning a droid, which causes a fight to break out there in the area. The heroes manage to escape back to their whale and leave, being led by Sting and his dragon, whom he orders to go to Ach-To (the dragons can understand english, etc.). Lorn arrives right after, missing them just by a hair.
The heroes make it to Ach-To, which already has the fish nuns, huts, stone steps, and porgs. Mez climbs the stone steps all the way to the top of the mountain and stands on the cliff (the same one where Luke eventually dies in The Last Jedi). Suddenly, a group of ghost-like beings appear to him. They are Yoda’s species, and they call themselves the Whills. Quickly, Mez realizes they are the voices he’s been hearing in his dreams. The Whills say that he has been destined since birth to “discover the Force,” but needed to reach a certain level of bravery before he was ready. They then tell him that, in order to truly master the Force, he “must understand balance between light and dark.” To do this, he needs to find “the darkness” in the cave beneath the island. The Whills then fade away, promising that their kind will someday join his kind, in his realm.
Mez climbs back down the steps, finds the cave entrance (same one Rey finds in Last Jedi), and jumps in. He then sees a giant black crystal (same one Rey finds) and touches it. Instantly, he’s transported to a mysterious, “smoky” realm, where he sees another member of Yoda’s species, only this one is dark and creepy, and they describe themselves as “the fallen Whill.” This being taunts Mez. telling him that, if he continues down the path of light, he and Daynia would never be able to be together, and she will also get hurt.
Suddenly, Lorn arrives on the surface, and Mez senses this, immediately being transported back to the real world. He climbs out of the cave. Lorn almost kills Sting, but Huyang manages to save him. Daynia gets hurt, however. Mez tries to fight off Lorn, attempting to use both the light side and the dark side at once, but ends up leaning towards the dark side too much, grabs hold of Lorn’s staff, and kills him in cold blood. Overwhelmed by his own actions, Mez suddenly feels unworthy. He hands his green kyber crystal over to Huyang and climbs back up the steps again.
Back on the cliff, he attempts to reach out to the Whills again,but they don’t appear. He then looks into the sunset, and suddenly starts to see blurry visions of the future (all the movies). Through these visions, he realizes that true “balance” is accepting the cycle of good and evil, rather than trying to strike a literal balance, or try to eliminate evil altogether. Feeling reformed, he heads back down the steps and tells the others that he wants to try to free the people of Jedha. They all agree to help, and Sting agrees to not enslave Huyang for himself anymore or strip him for parts, in exchange for saving him. Huyang also shows Mez that, while he was up on the cliff again, he used his crystal and some spare parts he had lying around, along with other raw materials there on the island, to build a new “tool.” He hands it over to Mez, who ignites it. It’s the first-ever lightsaber (the blade is “wavy,” and the handle itself looks very primitive).
Sting then gets on his dragon and goes back to Coruscant to recruit all the other pirates by convincing them that they’ll be able to take the Rakata tech for themselves. Meanwhile, the rest of the heroes go straight back to Jedha. Their whale then suddenly leaves without explanation. Soon after, Mez (saber ignited) convinces all the other slaves there to revolt. A battle breaks out on the ground between the slaves and guards, and soon enough, the pirates arrive on their dragons and start a battle of their own in the sky against the Rakatan ships. Things are rough at first, but then the whale from before comes back, with a bunch of other whales as reinforcements, which turns the tide in the heroes’ favor.
As the ground and sky battles are being won by the good guys (with Dainya leading on the ground), Mez climbs the tower and fights Kurn, who figures out that Mez killed his brother and wants revenge. Men is able to defeat him, and almost kills him, but holds back and spares him. Injured, Kurn manages to escape by jumping off the tower and onto a dragon, blasting off into hyperspace. He ends up on a remote moon, where he hears the voice of the fallen Whill consulting him. He then pulls the kyber crystal necklace off his neck, and the crystal itself starts to turn red…
Back on Jedha, the ex-slaves start knocking down the Rakatan statues, to replace with statues of Mez. Dainya says that she and the other slaves and pirates are gonna start traveling around the galaxy and liberating other kyber crystal mining fields, starting with “the big one on Illum.” She thinks that eventually they’ll be able to overthrow the Rakatan Empire and “replace it with something else,” so that the advance tech can be shared with the whole galaxy. Mez says he wants to help her, but can’t because he needs to find others like him instead. She says she understands. He then hops on a dragon and takes off.
Fate of the Galaxy
WARNING: Potential spoilers from upcoming shows factor into this outline.
NOTE: I’m leaving Ahsoka out of this cause I have a feeling she’s gonna become some sort of “Guardian of the World Between Worlds” at the end of her own show.
The story kicks off with Thrawn’s star destroyer finding its way back to the known galaxy, and settling over an abandoned cloning facility on a remote moon. Thrawn “sets up camp” here and sends his two Dark Jedi assistants, Baylan and Shin, on their own missions. Baylan is tasked with going to retrieve DNA from a race of rare but dangerous lizard-like humanoids. Shin, on the other hand, is tasked to retrieve a rare device that will allow Thrawn to create an entire army of fully-grown clones in a matter of hours. Thrawn, for his part, leads his star destroyer on a mission to retrieve an entire abandoned fleet of powerful one-man ships. Each ship is also rumored to contain plenty of blasters, which Thrawn also hopes to utilize.
We then cut to the Ghost crew from Rebels also returning from the unknown regions, and Ezra is back with them. They are ambushed by a few TIE fighters (also belonging to Thrawn), but rescued by Mando (flying his own ship with Grogu and R5), who was just about to return home after completing a mission of his own. Both ships land on a nearby world and both parties introduce themselves to one another. Ezra says that he can feel through the Force that their paths crossing is not a coincidence.
Meanwhile, out in the “New Beyond” part of the galaxy, Jude Law’s Jedi character from the upcoming Skeleton Crew show (I’m assuming he’s from there) senses a disturbance in the Force and decides to “follow it.” He eventually catches up to Mando, Grogu, R5, and the Ghost crew, and together they all figure out Thrawn’s plan and decide to split up. Jude Law goes to try to stop Baylan, while Mando and his buddies go to try to stop Shin, and the Ghost crew goes to try to stop Thrawn himself. All three groups of heroes fail, however. Ezra almost comes into contact with Thrown, but misses him just by a hair.
Thrawn and his followers regroup at their base and start putting together their army. During this time, Thrawn calls Brendol Hux and asks him to join forces, but he refuses (I’m leaving the other Shadow Council members out cause I’m assuming Mando defeats them all in Season 4 of his own show).
We then cut to all the hero characters regrouping as well, and after taking a moment to “lick their wounds,” they realize that the only way to defeat Thrawn is to beat him at his own game, by quickly putting together an army of their own. Sabine (using the Phantom) goes to Mandalore to recruit Bo-Katan and the other Mandalorians there with her. Mando himself and his buddies go to Tattooine to recruit Boba Fett and his entire crime syndicate (by telling them that he can help soften tensions between them and the New Republic since he works for them now). The remaining hero leads go to that New Republic fleet base seen in The Mandalorian Season 3, to recruit those people.
Both armies (good and evil) arrive at Coruscant at roughly the same time as one another, and a big battle happens on the ground and skies. Luke and Leia (who briefly comes out of Jedi retirement for this) take on (and kill) Baylan and Shin, while Han, Chewy and Lando take to the skies in the Falcon and fight alongside Boba Fett in his own ship, and let’s also throw in an R2/3PO cameo here somewhere for good measure. Jude Law is helping on the ground battle (I don’t think he has a lightsaber anyways).
Eventually, Ezra makes it to the bridge of the star destroyer and comes face-to-face with Thrawn, whom he blames for all the years he “lost” while out in the unknown regions. Aware of this, Thrawn taunts him, thinking that Ezra won’t kill him since it’s “not the Jedi way.” Ezra tries to resist, but gives in and kills Thrawn in cold blood. Soon enough, the battle comes to an end, and all of Thrawn’s army is defeated (with maybe just a few retreats here and there). We then cut to Mustafar (which already looks the way it does in The Rise of Skywalker) and see Brendol Hux putting the Wayfinder inside the chest and saying something like “the First Order has begun.”
We then jump back to Coruscant, which has sustained heavy damage from the battle. Because of this, the Republic decides to move their capital to Hosnian Prime. Luke then talks to Ezra and Jude Law, saying something like “my master once told me that I was the last Jedi, but now I know that he only said this to push me towards my destiny.” He then asks them both if they want to help him rebuild the Jedi order, but Jude Law declines, saying that he feels he “belongs” in the New Beyond, and Ezra also declines, feeling that he needs to “work on himself” after killing Thrawn so ruthlessly. Ezra decides to follow Jude Law to the New Beyond, and the other members of the Ghost crew (including Hera’s son Jacen) decide to go with him, as they don’t want to be separated from him again. Luke wishes them all well as they leave.
Jedi United
The Republic (no “New” in the title anymore) is back to being on Coruscant, and Rey resides there too, but she hasn’t put together a new Jedi order yet. Instead, she has spent the last 15 years traveling around the galaxy and training different people, but then leaving them to find their own paths. In the meantime, she’s also been working on translating all of the ancient Jedi books, but there’s still one small piece of text that’s too archaic for her to understand. Deep down, Rey wants to form a new council, but is afraid to do so because a huge portion of the public now blames the Jedi for all of the problems the galaxy has endured over the last several decades. She’s also worried that having a bunch of Jedi all in one place might lead to another implosion, like what happened to Luke, and the order before his.
To make matters even worse, the Republic is already starting to show some signs of inevitable corruption. On top of that, Rey’s most recent student has already become a Dark Jedi (one who thinks that balance needs to be a literal mix of light and dark). So the “patterns” from before are already starting up again. At one point, we see Rey standing in the middle of the room where the prequel-era council used to be. She’s surrounded by empty seats covered in dust…
Eventually, a new threat arises (let’s just say the Grysk from the books cause they supposedly come from another galaxy and I can’t think of anything else). They’re in league with Rey’s fallen student. Rey realizes that this is too difficult for her to handle alone, so she unites together a handful of her other old apprentices. This backfires on her, though, and things get worse instead of better, which leads the public to hating the Jedi even more than they already did, and tensions between the Jedi themselves also start to grow.
At her lowest point, Rey suddenly comes across a device of some kind that allows her to finally translate the last piece of the ancient text, which turns out to say “Light will always be there for the people, even when they cannot see it, even when they do not want to.” This leads Rey and her Jedi peers to realizing that the galaxy may never accept them, but that’s not the point. Rather, the point is to just simply be there for them regardless. This newfound motivation leads them to getting along again and finding a way to defeat the Grysk (for now, at least). The Dark Jedi also retreats in the process.
The story ends with Rey and her new order deciding to stay united, but rather than remaining on Coruscant, they choose to travel around the galaxy together, helping people from a distance. They think that this “distant” approach might help the public to feel more comfortable with them. Furthermore, they think that constantly moving around will give them all something ongoing to focus on, which should hopefully limit infighting, while allowing them to still stay united as one order. Rey promises the Republic that they’ll keep in contact with them, but they wanna be the guardians of “the people” now, not just the Republic. Her and her peers then get into a big ship together and take off into space.
…And that’s all she wrote!
Peace!
Related Article: Expanding My Latest Rey Outline
