Star Wars: Episode IX – Duel of the Fates | Navigator's Den Visualization in Unreal 5 by Won Hwang

Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AoI9zpxTlqyiHomAHhuD9vSXdsIoVfkC/view?usp=sharing

Unreal Engine 5 Diorama, Cinematic, and Video created by Won Hwang (Student ID: 100996638)
www.artstation.com/porky7805
onex7805@naver.com, onex7805@gmail.com

George Brown College
Game – Art Program G119
2022 Fall
Cinematics I
Professor: Vitor Fiacadori Costa
December 14th, 2022

Inspiration:
Back in 2016, Lucasfilm hired director Colin Trevorrow and his partner screenwriter Derek Connolly,
fresh off from the massive blockbuster hit of Jurassic World, to helm Episode IX. This initial version of the movie was titled Star Wars: Episode IX – Duel of the Fates, a nod to an iconic soundtrack from The Phantom Menace. Eventually, due to the death of Carrie Fisher and the creative differences between the filmmakers and the studios, Duel of the Fates was scrapped and Trevorrow was replaced with J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio three months before The Last Jedi’s release, returned to work on their own Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker. Although The Rise of Skywalker takes some cues from Duel of the Fates enough that Trevorrow and Connolly received a “Story By” credits in the final movie, it has become a radically different story.

Shortly after the release of and the strong backlash The Rise of Skywalker, the concept arts for Duel of the Fates were leaked by an unknown insider to give insights to what the alternative movie could have been. Later, the entire script dated December 15th, 2016 was on the surface. Although it was never 100% confirmed by Lucasfilm if this script is genuine, many trustworthy sources collaborated on its authenticity, including Colin Trevorrow himself who acknowledged its legitimacy in a tepid way through vague tweets without outright saying it. Also, it lines up with a lot of leaked concept arts and Trevorrow’s storytelling style, especially the romantic angle between Rey and Poe the script is going for is similar to how Owen and Claire’s relationship was depicted, though the script would have been revised and changed had it went to the full production as it is likely an early draft.

This script isn’t perfect—it barely qualifies as “okay”, being an early draft, but it has a lot going for it, and it certainly shows more than a superficial understanding of Star Wars. If The Rise of Skywalker relies on nostalgia and retcons several key elements of The Last Jedi, Duel of the Fates is not just a darker, weirder, and a more competent sequel, it is builds upon a lot of ideas introduced in the previous story.

Objective:
Duel of the Fates was developed enough to the point where most locations and sequences were realized in the visualization stage through concept arts. However, a few scenes were not. One of them is the sequence where Rey and Poe visit a navigator named Nomi in her den to ask her about the location of Mortis. This scene does not have any leaked reference image, only left in the written form.

The diorama for DESN 3020 Cinematic I aims to recreate this scene from Duel of the Fates, specifically page 51 to 54, in an Unreal 5 cinematic. The visualization will rely on the descriptions and the dialogues from the script only, while adding my own flavors to the scene. The finished video will feature the audio portion of the script reading on YouTube to give the watchers the context and the references to figure out how much it parallels with the scene direction.

Used Programs:
Unreal Engine 5.0.3
ZBrush
3ds Max
Substance Painter
Marvelous Designer
Photoshop
Davinci Resolve

Sources:
Duel Of The Fates Script by Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow 2016-12-16
https://archive.org/details/duel-of-the-fates-script/page/51/mode/2up

Star Wars Episode IX Duel of the Fates - A Fan Reading by Sean Keller
https://youtu.be/8LU8cIloabo

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (soundtrack) | "Destiny of a Jedi", "We Go Together"
https://youtu.be/x7EIJcVD1sY
https://youtu.be/tPyWz2J7ng8