Do we know whether or not the Rey/Poe romance was still in the second Trevorrow draft that MSW talked about?
Unfortunately, yes. According to MSW:
“Rey makes Poe leave with Chewie to go help the Resistance (Finn and Rose). She kisses him to make him do this.”
Other than that, I think the second draft is a big improvement over the first. Kylo is humanized, the plot is streamlined, some moments that came out of nowhere originally have more setup, Carrie Fisher’s death is dealt with in a satisfying way, and we get more of redeemed Kylo before he dies. The only problem I have with the second draft is the renaming of Coruscant to “Remnicore,” but that’s not a dealbreaker for me. I’m confident that if Trevorrow had time to refine his script before filming, his version of Episode IX would have been amazing.
Starkiller, do you think you could post the summary, or parts of it, that he shared? I do not recall most of those details at all! Must have missed it.