Original Star Wars 9 Director Was Fired for Wanting Major Last Jedi Changes?

If you came of age during the originalStar Warstrilogy, and someone handed you a bucket ofStar Warsaction figures that only including Luke Skywalker amongst all the newForce Awakenscharacters, wouldn’t your instinct to be to reach for him first? Apparently that’s whatColin Trevorrowdid, if we’re to believe the latest rumors about his firing, and he got his hand slammed away with an affirmative ‘No, you may only play with Rey, Finn and Poe’. The so-called creative differences between him and Kathleen Kennedy’s Lucasfilm came from the man wanting to keep Luke Skywalker alive long enough to use him in the third and final installment of this new trilogy.

Colin Trevorrow wasfamously firedfromStar Wars 9after he’d been working on the script for quite some time, and his boot came after others were also ousted out of the series. ‘Creative Differences’ has been the tagline for these exits, and a lot of people immediately assumed that Trevorrow was being cut loose after everyone got a good look at his big bombThe Book of Henry. As the movie premiered, a lot of sites including this one began tospeculate that he’d soon be let gofromStar Wars. And sure enough, that happened. And no one really seemed to need an explanation. Though now, almost a year removed from the release ofBook of Henry, some are praising that weird mishmash of genres and ideas and misplaced humor as some kind of cult masterpiece. That’s something we’ll leave up to the individual viewer to decide.

Now, in recent weeks, it has been confirmed by Steven Spielberg that Colin Trevorrow is returning to directJurassic World 3after doing the first franchise reboot for that property, before exitingJurassic World 2to directStar Wars 9. Trevorrow stayed aboardJurassic World 2as a producer and co-writer of story and ideas. He always knew where he wanted that trilogy to go. And Spielberg is supporting his return. Much as Kathleen Kennedy is supporting J.J. Abrams' return to finish off what he started withThe Force Awakens. It’s all enough to give you a headache.

The clear cut answer to this is, all these guys are, are a bunch of overgrown kids playing in their own sandbox with a shoe box of action figures at their disposal, with a giant corporation standing close by with gun to their head, demanding they make a movie for the masses. These are basically high budget fan films one and all, and true fans should never loss sight of that, no matter how they feel about the movies and sequels. So these latest rumors about Colin Trevorrow’s departure fromStar Wars 9do make sense, even if there’s no substantial truth to them. No sources tied closely to the studio have confirmed what is being said. And it almost sounds like Colin Trevorrow’s story arc is being retconned not unlike Luke Skywalker inThe Last Jedito take some of the taint off the fact that he’s returning forJurassic World 3. And it could even be something that was floated forth by someone embedded within the Universal camp, knowing a lot of fans hateThe Last Jedi.

If you thinkThe Last Jedishould officially be scrubbed from the officialStar Warscanon, then you’ll be championing Colin Trevorrow once you get done reading what possibly could have taken place between him, Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy. If you grew up in the late 70s and early 80s, as Colin Trevorrow did, and someone asked you to make aStar Warsmovie, wouldn’t you want to play with Luke Skywalker? Create a story for him? Save him from the clutches of the fiendish Rian Johnson, who some, right or wrong, are painting to be the true evil Emperor of this refurbished saga?

Luke, as many fans well know by now, didn’t make it to the final credits ofThe Last Jedi. He vanished along with his metal hand into the ether, supposedly to join Yoda and Obi-Wan as a Force Ghosts. Colin Trevorrow didn’t like that idea, and supposedly, he asked director Rian Johnson to let Luke live for one more movie. But producer J.J. Abrams, big Boss Kennedy, and Johnson all believed it was time to let the past die, so that the third and final installment could be fully handed over to newcomers Rey, Finn and Poe Dameron, with Kylo Ren shining on as the main villain. The later of which was allegedly a problem for Trevorrow too, who wanted to further flesh out Snoke, and also asked if the Supreme Leader could stick around for at least one more movie.

As you know, this would have greatly alteredThe Last Jedi, letting both Snoke and Luke live, so those are some pretty hefty creative differences to be arguing over. Mike Zeroh, via theExpress UK, is the one that first brought this idea up. He’s not much liked by a great deal of theStar Warsfan base. But he sometimes gets stuff right, and this time he doesn’t appear to be speculating but has some insider intel. Though none of it’s proven true at all just yet. Perhaps Trevorrow will open up about it asJurassic World 3barrels into production sometime next year. Zeroh says this about how the ‘creative differences’ actually played out.

“The full reason why Johnsonkilled Luke is to free up space for the new characters… without any of the legacy characters pulling them backwards. He felt there would not be enough space for these characters with Luke Skywalker around. This is also what JJ Abrams wants and planned with Johnson forEpisode 9.”

Star Wars 9was supposed to Leia’s movie, but Carrie Fisher passed away before all that could happen. Colin Trevorrow had a script fleshed out, but a lot of things had to be changed. Including the entirety of Trevorrow’s proposed story conclusion. But he was still aboard presumably when this all went down. It’s quite understandable why a director like Colin Trevorrow would want to use Luke in his movie, and why he’d fight for the Jedi master to live to see another day. But we’re still not so sure this is how it all went down. We may find out later on, but perhaps it will remain a mystery. Someday an expose on all the firedStar Warsdirectors will make a very healthy and hearty read for fans, and it could make for a compelling Netflix series at this point that would rivalWild, Wild Country, with newer fans coming in the 2020s that won’t even believe any of it was real or even happened. At this point,Star Wars 9could still be a great movie. But we’re not getting any legacy characters. When Billy Dee Williams was last spotted in the wild, he was in a wheelchair and not looking up to portraying Lando one last time. So, who knows how this will all play out in the end.