Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was released in December 2019 to negative reviews from fans and critics alike. The Skywalker Saga's finale was always going to struggle living up to expectations, but damage control, too much fan service, and a messy plot resulted in a disappointing blockbuster that tried to make everyone happy and achieved the opposite.
Since then, Lucasfilm has gone back to the drawing board with its big screen plans and struggled to get any of them into theaters. Something particularly embarrassing for the studio was the fact that story details and concept art for Colin Trevorrow's Episode IX, titled Duel of the Fates, leaked online shortly after and ended up being widely hailed as a much better finale.
Talking to Uproxx about helming Jurassic World Dominion, the filmmaker said "it was complicated" when asked for his thoughts on the positive reaction his ideas for the movie received.
"Honestly, I mean, since we’re talking now in 2022, I can say honestly I’m very grateful to Kathy for recognizing that she and I were never going to make a movie that we were both proud of together," he elaborated. "And she’s been doing this for so long and she cares about me and I care about her and her family. And Frank and I are partners still. I’m a part of this group of incredible filmmakers, so it was a complicated moment."
"Now, having been able to do this and really feeling like this is what...I’m glad I did this. I’m deeply, deeply satisfied for having done this. I appreciate that she had the wisdom to see something that, honestly, I’m not sure I could’ve seen because I was so dialed in to the story I wanted to tell."
In other words, it sounds like creative differences really were the issue here, and something tells us those might have something to do with Lucasfilm's attempts to make fans happy after the mixed response to The Last Jedi. Either way, all Trevorrow would say about fans embracing his vision for Star Wars, in a way Lucasfilm clearly didn't, is, "It was a lot. I’ll leave it with that."
We may never know whether Duel of the Fates would have been better than The Rise of Skywalker by the time all was said and done, but it certainly looked that way on paper...