‘The Rise of Skywalker’ Would Have Been a Better Movie If the Wayfinder Locations Were Switched

All the what-ifs with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker goes on close to a year after the film released officially in theaters. Fans on social media still are picking it apart and talking about what could have been done to make the story more accessible to casual viewers.

From fan perspectives, one of the confusing aspects was the search for the Sith wayfinder. As those who remember, this became the official “MacGuffin” in the plot as a GPS-like device to help find Exogol. Latter planet was where Palpatine built his Final Order, giving The Resistance an imperative to go there.

Since only two wayfinders were made, fans wish the film would have reversed the order of each found.

What would have happened had the wayfinder scenes been reversed?

This argument came from a recent Reddit thread saying the film might have had a better narrative based on which Wayfinder was found first. According to the initial thread starter, they argued the film should have opened with Kylo Ren finding Darth Vader’s Wayfinder within the ruins of the second Death Star on Mustafar.

As everyone knows, this is the location where Rey goes to find the other wayfinder and has her final battle with Kylo Ren. Having the idea of Kylo finding the wayfinder there first really would have changed the trajectory of the story.

At stake here is giving more explanation about Mustafar, something some fans on Reddit think was never explained enough. More casual fans felt confused about what the location was by the end of the film.

Not all fans agree with switching the wayfinder retrievals, though. It still is an intriguing idea as more people look at ways The Rise of Skywalker could have been edited to create more coherence.

Other fans like the final battle on Mustafar for one symbolic reason

Perhaps the theory of reversing the wayfinder searches would have improved The Rise of Skywalker, if arguably making it anticlimactic. One Reddit user noted: “That wasn’t a problem for me, I actually liked that Rey and Kylo’s last duel was surrounded by water to balance out Obi-Wan and Anakin’s duel by fire from III. There’s also some symmetry in that Kylo found his wayfinder at his grandfather’s castle whereas Rey found hers in her grandfather’s battlestation.”

Noting this more perfect structural aspect was likely intentional in the script.

Regardless, no one can deny the film was done strictly for those who really know their Star Wars details. The way the Wayfinder stories play out likely confused all casual fans for a while, maybe until reading about it after seeing the movie.

Digging deeper, though, one can see J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio put a lot more detail into the family connections through ironical ways. No one apparently realized how deep a film like this could become, hence why threads on Reddit are popping up now about the Mustafar scene.

Speaking of which, Mustafar was a big mystery, even for the ardent fans. Nobody really knew this was where Kylo was in the opening when finding his Wayfinder. Only a visual dictionary available on the market last year was able to confirm the location.

Will a future print exist better explaining things on Mustafar?

Said another Reddit user above: “What is really missing is the extended Mustafar sequence. The extended Mustafar sequence would have clearly explained the state of the galaxy after TLJ, Kylo’s motivations and goals, the reasons why he is murdering those weird guys, why he is on Mustafar, and foreshadowed the events of the movie in a cool fashion when Kylo meets the Eye of the Webbish Bog.”

With so many wishes for a director’s cut of The Rise of Skywalker, will fans be able to eventually see a more extended Mustafar scene to give more context? Reports from Games Radar suggest there may be a JJ Abrams cut still available somewhere.

For a true blue fan, however, what was seen on the big-screen did a major service for them. Anyone who saw A New Hope as a kid and then the final scene of Rise of Skywalker as a full circle will understand latter film seemed fine as is.