Even one year after reaching cinemas, Star Wars: The Last Jedi remains an ongoing subject of praise, derision, scrutiny and debate, with a new tweet from Script to Screen adding to the conversation by showing us how the face to face meeting between Rey and Kylo Ren could’ve gone differently.
The post exhibits an excerpt from the aftermath of the pair’s fight with Snoke’s Praetorian Guards, in which Kylo reveals the truth about Rey’s parents and asks her to join him in ruling the galaxy. In the video’s accompanying script, however, we notice one action that didn’t make the transition to screen.
https://twitter.com/ScripttoScreen_/status/1073630182106370049
At the 1:20 mark, you’ll see that after Adam Driver’s character has asked Rey to join him, the script indicates that he turns off Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber before reaching his hand out to her, yet in the film itself, the saber was switched off pretty much as soon as the preceding fight ended.
Though the repercussions of this change aren’t exactly mind-blowing, keeping the saber on for longer would’ve likely affected the dynamic of the scene somewhat. If Luke’s weapon was glowing in Kylo’s hand in the first part of this exchange, the visual would’ve placed the character in a position of relative power, whereas filming the two of them weapon-free throughout the conversation puts the pair on more or less equal footing. What’s more, by switching off the lightsaber early, it becomes slightly more surprising when Rey attempts to take it from Kylo.
It’s hard to say whether the alteration makes the scene any better or worse, but it’s still a nice little tidbit regarding one of the many divisive moments of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Either way, we’ll find out what’s become of that well-traveled lightsaber now that it’s been broken when Star Wars: Episode IX hits theaters on December 20th, 2019.
