Tor Valum

Tor Valum is a character from the original script of the 2019 film Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, written by Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly. He was originally intended to appear in the film, but was removed from the final screenplay. He is a 7,000 year old alien and a Dark Side prophet^[1] who taught Darth Plagueis, Palpatine's master. Sometime later, he encountered Kylo Ren, who after got teaching from him, killed her later.^[2]

Biography

Talum was presumably born during the Old Republic era.^[a] At some point during his life, he taughts and teaches Darth Plagueis, Palpatine's master and a legendary Sith Master who had the power to control the midi-chlorians to keep the ones he cared for from dying, which is implied to have been learnt from Valum.^[2] However, by the end of his training, Valum presumably felt ashamed or dissatisfied to Plagueis, as he states that Plagueis means nothing to him. Then, in the days leading up to the Battle of Endor, Emperor Palpatine, Plagueis's apprentice recorded a Sith holocron for his apprentice Darth Vader, ordering him to take Luke Skywalker to the Remnicore system should he strike him down so Tor Valum could train him into the ways of the dark side of the Force to harness the untapped power of Mortis, an ethereal realm within the Force which was supposedly a myth. However, Sidious' plans failed as Vader redeemed himself and killed the Emperor to save his son before dying from his injuries, fulfilling his destiny as the Chosen One and bringing balance to the Force.

Decades later, Vader's grandson Supreme Leader Kylo Ren finds the Sith holocron on Mustafar. After Sidious' message plays out, however, the holocron blasts red lightning on Ren's face because it scans him and realizes that he isn't Vader, leading Ren to get a new iron mask, reminiscent to that of his grandfather, which he later destroys by throwing it off his castle to shatter on the ground.

Eager to find Tor Valum, Kylo Ren takes his TIE silencer to Remnicore at night and finds an ancient stone military fortress consumed by time, where he finds Valum on the courtyard. After getting threatened with death by Ren, Valum offers the conflicted dark side warrior to replace the deceased Supreme Leader Snoke as his new master so he can find Mortis and unleash its power for himself if he severs his past to not end up like all the previous Sith and Jedi. While training, Valum finishes Kylo's training by teaching him how to Force drain the Living Force from a three-tusked Gronk Boar, reducing it to a husk. Desiring more, Kylo enters into an ice cave near them after Valum tells him there's a vergence there. Inside the cave, Kylo Ren meets a Force vision of Darth Vader and engages him in combat only to be defeated by it.

Leaving the cave, an angry Kylo Ren asks Tor Valum for Mortis' location, but Valum refuses to tell him, deeming him unworthy of its power due his failure on defeating the Vader vision. Not taking a no as a response, the Master of Knights of Ren uses the Force to hold Valum, delving into his mind to find Mortis' location as Valum implores him to release him, but his pleas fall on deaf ears. In a last attempt to convince Ren from sparing him, Tor Valum assures Ren that he has given him everything, something Ren agrees before draining him from all his Living Force, killing Valum and reducing him to a withered shell. However, in the end, Valum's training was for naught, as Ren was disowned as a Skywalker and ended up getting defeated once and for all by Rey Solana on Mortis, putting an end to his plans of conquest.^[2]

Development

In August 2015, Colin Trevorrow was announced as the director of Episode IX;^[3] he wrote a script titled Duel of the Fates with frequent collaborator Derek Connolly.^[3][4] Colin takes his script to Lucasfilm in December 2016, which was read by both Star Wars creator George Lucas and actor Mark Hamill. Unfortunately, Carrie Fisher's unexpected death altered his plans and forced him to rewrite the script he had written with Derek Connolly, even asking playwright Jack Thorne to rewrite it.^[5] However, producer Kathleen Kennedy ultimately realized that Trevorrow wasn't the right person for the job during the initial scripting phase and ultimately fired him,^[6] before rehiring J.J. Abrams, director of Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, to direct the film, which was renamed Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker and released in 2019.

While the final version retained some elements from Trevorrow's script, Tor Valum wasn't one of them, as Abrams opted to brought back Emperor Palpatine as the main antagonist and tie him into Rey's origins.^[7] Additionally, a similar creature like Tor Valum^{[citation needed]} called "Eye of the Webbish Bog" was scheduled to appear in the film, but his scene was cut out from the final film due to the film's runtime.^[8] However, the scene appeared in the novelization of the film written by Rae Carson.^[9]

Reception

The script and the character have received generally positive reviews from Twitter users, as they expressed that they would have preferred to see Trevorrow's Duel of the Fates over The Rise of Skywalker, which was written by J. J. Abrams and Chris Terrio.^[10] An admin of the website ScriptShadow called the character "the biggest dud" because, after he said: "We've already seen Jedis learning from masters in past Star Wars stories. But we’d never seen Siths learning from Sith Masters."^[11] Some users of Reddit have positive reviews about the character, with some users said he enjoyed his interactions with Kylo Ren, and some users said he was an interesting concept character and he was "the most interesting villain".^[12][13][14] However, Campbell Clark of IrmOnline criticized the character, he said why: "Essentially, Ren goes searching in Vader’s castle, he find a recording from Palpatine telling Vader to take Luke to his old teacher should he not survive. Now, if Palpatine had a master, that breaks the rule of two…again."^[15]

References

Citations

Notes