Latest Star Wars Rumor Claims Damon Lindelof’s Project Featured An Older Rey Training Two Young Jedi “Of Color”
One of the latest Star Wars rumors claims Damon Lindelof’s scrapped film would have featured an old Rey training two young Jedi.
This rumor comes from Jeff Sneider and John Rocha on their The Hot Mic podcast and follows Lindelof revealing he was asked to leave Star Wars.
Lindelof told Esquire, “I was in more than talks to join the Star Wars universe. I joined the Star Wars universe. I was asked to leave the Star Wars universe. So will I get back in line outside the club and ty to get back in again? Of course.”
He continued, “This movie was the Alpha and the Omega. It was the first movie I saw in a movie theater. I love all the storytelling in that world. And if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Or again, again, try as Yoda would say.”
Following Lindelof revealing he was asked to leave, Sneider shared his scoop with Rocha, who also claims he heard a similar scoop and had been sitting on it for over a week.
Sneider detailed, “It sounded like what he wanted to do from what I understand. It was 60 years after The Rise of Skywalker.”
He went on to claim, “Lindelof’s was supposedly set 60 years down the line, but now we know Daisy Ridley’s coming back. So it ain’t gonna be 60 years later. It’s going to be like seven years later or 10 years later.”
“What I’d heard when it was that original idea … I’d said that there was a black actor that came attached to the project with Damon. Everyone thinks that’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen. It wasn’t. It was not. I confirmed that recently. I don’t know who it was, but it was not Yahya,” he continued.
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Sneider then shared more of what Lindelof’s plot entailed, “It was supposed to be an older Rey training two Jedi, a man and a woman, who I think both would have been of color.”
“Now, they didn’t go out to this actress. This was not offered, but she was the comp. She was the person when they put together casting lists, this is ideally who we want. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the prototype person is the person that [gets the] casting. But, basically, older Rey they were thinking of Helen Mirren,” he added.
Rocha then detailed, “This is what Lindelof’s approach was: he wanted an older Rey who was restarting the Jedi Order with these two new Jedis kind of starting everything all over again, bringing them back out, seeing that there was a need for the Jedi to come back, finally deciding to key back into being a Jedi, and then training these younger people to become Jedi. Simply turning them into young Padawans and they would carry the legacy that Skywalker taught her and that she would be teaching to them and so the line would continue.”
“And Disney, apparently, didn’t want to go in that direction,” Rocha asserted. “Kathleen Kennedy apparently got involved and wanted to go younger.”
At Star Wars Celebration last month, Lucasfilm announced that Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy would direct a film focusing on Daisy Ridley’s as she “builds a new Jedi Order.”
A press release detailed, “Kennedy then revealed that Star Wars will head into the future, with a new feature set 15 years after the last events of the Skywalker Saga. Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy will tell the story of rebuilding the New Jedi Order and the powers that rise to tear it down; the director then delighted fans by welcoming Daisy Ridley to stage, confirming she will be reprising her beloved role as Rey in the upcoming movie.”
Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy spoke with IGN following the film’s announcement and provided some more details on how the film came about.
Kennedy detailed, “We’re 15 years out from Rise of Skywalker. So we’re kind of post-war, post-First Order and the Jedi are in disarray. And there’s a lot of discussion around who are the Jedi, what are they doing, what’s the state of the galaxy? And she’s attempting to rebuild the Jedi Order based on the books, based on what she promised Luke.”
Kennedy concluded, “So that’s where we’re going.”
Kennedy was then asked by IGN’s Alex Stedman, “You mentioned Luke and I think he almost seemed like almost a cautionary tale in the most recent trilogy. Will we see any of that play with Rey at all?”
Kennedy responded, “I don’t know [if] we’ll spend a lot of time in flashbacks, or Force ghosts, or things like that, but certainly the spirit of what he represents to her is going to be significant.”
Later in the interview, Kennedy claimed the film has been in the works for multiple years. She said, “As far as Sharmeen, we’ve been working on that for a couple of years already.”
What do you make of this latest rumor?
NEXT: New ‘Star Wars’ Movie Focused On Rey To Be Directed By Documentarian Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
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