Look, playing "what if" is a dangerous game that inevitably leads to disappointment, unless you get an awesome animation to bring that what if to life. Thus is the case with Mr Sunday Movies’ latest masterpiece, The Cancelled STAR WARS Episode 9 Animated.

As you might have surmised at title level, the video animates the story ideas presented in Duel of the Fates, Colin Trevorrow’s alleged and unverified Star Wars Episode IX script, which leaked its way online earlier this winter, back when we could go outside. Remember those days, when the most pressing debate of the day wondered if Chris Terrio and J.J. Abrams’ actual Episode IX script, The Rise of Skywalker, wouldn’t have benefited from some of Treverrow’s bold ideas?

Well, if this vid's any indication, it's safe to stir that debate yet again. In that classic Star Wars font, the animation begins with a quick scroll: “A long time ago in an alternate reality far, far away….”

Video of The Cancelled STAR WARS Episode 9 Animated

Pretty amazing, right? Sure, the characters kind of look like slicker versions of what you might find in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but that’s just part of the fun of seeing such Dark Side vs. Light melodrama brought to giddy life. And what fun it imagines!

Rey, with her new two-sided lightsaber spear, takes Force lessons from ghost Luke while debating the merits of opposing Forces and hoping to find a gray middle ground. Meanwhile, Luke also haunts stubble-bearded Kylo, who finds an old recording of the very much dead Emperor Palpatine telling Vader to go find his Sith teacher, Tor Vallum, should the Emperor be cut down. So Kylo goes to train with Palpatine’s Sith master. And that’s just the setup!

We’re not about to dive into some of the winking cheap shots the animation takes at the real film, or the veracity of the leaked script, as we’ll likely never know about that. But we can certainly verify that the work of Mr Sunday Movies and his animation partner @ethataylo is beyond stellar. Just go to the back half of the video — after all the cool concept art created for Duel of the Fates — to get a gander at how much work they put into this thing, and you’ll appreciate the results that much more.

Granted though, it’s the plot points that make this vid so juicy, and yeah, more than that, the what-ifs. But as we learned from the Rise of Skywalker’s art book recently, there’s even a lot of what-ifs in the franchise's official publications. So we’ll just continue to enjoy the live-action movie we got, and let our imaginations enjoy seeing the movie in our minds.

(via Inverse)