John Boyega Would Be "Heartbroken" To Read Colin Trevorrow's 'Duel of the Fates' Script Because It Was His Best 'Star Wars' Meeting

If you’re a fan of the “Star Wars” franchise, it’s sad to see how the sequel trilogy ended with a thud instead of the bang it deserves. “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” was meant to be this celebratory ending that would make fans cheer and bring to a close a series of films dating back decades. Instead, it was unsatisfying, terribly constructed, and haphazardly written. And it’s only made worse by knowing Colin Trevorrow might have had a pretty great conclusion up his sleeve if he would have stuck around to tell it and wasn’t fired and replaced by J.J. Abrams. It’s a thought that even troubles “Star Wars” actor John Boyega.

John Boyega was recently promoting “Breaking” and a little bit of “The Woman King” on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, and during the conversation, “Star Wars” was brought up, naturally. While the actor has suggested he’s “good” recently, aka, he doesn’t feel like he really needs more of his Finn character in future “Star Wars” films, if there was any bitterness in that most recent interview, it was hard to detect here. In fact, Boyega sounded like an enthusiastic fan who has kept up with all of the more recent Lucasfilm Disney+ series like “The Mandalorian” and “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

During the conversation, the host brought up writer/director Colin Trevorrow’s “Duel Of The Fates,” his planned, but eventually scrapped “Star Wars Episode IX” film. As mentioned, Trevorrow and Lucasfilm parted ways over creative differences and ‘Duel’ was scrapped in favor of what would become ‘Rise.’

READ MORE: John Boyega Was Surprised When His ‘Star Wars’ Role Kept Getting Smaller In Sequels & Seems Happily Done With The Franchise

“I can’t read that one ’cause I’d be heartbroken,” Boyega said, initially shocked that the script was available online and seemingly sounding very enthused to have almost worked on that version of the film. “I was…I had a sit down with Colin, and I gotta tell you that was one of the best ‘Star Wars’ meetings I’ve ever had because it felt like two nerds who were like, ‘Yesssss! That’s what we want to see!'”

“I saw the [concept] art,” Boyega continued, “Stormtrooper rebellion, I’m like… that stuff was cool, and hopefully Lucasfilm will give him an opportunity down the line to work on something else cause I’m sure they would love to collaborate with him again in any capacity.”

The discussion also veered into the force-sensitive nature of Boyega’s Finn character that only ever revealed itself in ‘Rise Of Skywalker.’ Boyega suggested that was the plan from the start in ‘The Force Awakens,’ but it took a creative turn in ‘The Last Jedi,‘ and director J.J. Abrams circled back to the idea in the final installment.

“It was a discussion from ‘[Episode] 7’ that was brewing, but you didn’t know which way it was going to go,” Boyega revealed. “And then ‘[Episode] 8’ went in another direction, and so I think when [you’re] going in another direction when you bringing [back] someone for the third [film], they kinda have to appreciate what has happened in ‘[Episode 8],’ but still try and make a narrative of it.”

“JJ really wanted… ‘Force Awakens,’ the movie that JJ directed, he was kind of plotting a trajectory, but obviously, with the creative differences in the middle, he still wanted to force it in there,” he continued. “So that’s where you get that moment with Finn and Jenna and [she] asks him, ‘How do you know?’ and he just says, ‘It’s a feeling,’ and [JJ] just had to get something in there that told you why there was a Stormtrooper who held his own long enough against a Sith, or Sith wannabe to a certain extent with Kylo.”

Boyega even speculated that they could tell a young Finn story at some point. “Who knows if somewhere down the line they have a younger actor or whatever, and they try and expand on Finn? Who knows if we get that: we get to see what made him so special.”

Of course, all of this is pure fantasy, as the fans were given something else completely when ‘Rise of Skywalker’ was released in 2019. And Boyega’s comments do nothing more than just further fuel fan frustration about how things could have worked out. Unfortunately, we’ll never really know.