When Disney purchased Lucasfilm, not only did they acquire the rights to Star Wars, but they also obtained George Lucas’ story treatments for episodes seven, eight and nine. We've got a plan for seven, eight and nine which are the end of the trilogy. These treatments were then famously discarded by Disney, who instead decided to start from scratch. Or did they? In the years since the release of The Force Awakens, several details have emerged on what George Lucas’ version of the sequel trilogy would’ve been like and there are more similarities than you may believe, proving that Disney didn’t scrap all of his ideas. In fact, some of the more controversial aspects of the sequels may have actually originated with Lucas, and we’ll reveal what those are in this video. So without any further ado, let’s dive in and take a look back at what could have been George Lucas’ sequel trilogy. One of the many complaints about the sequels was that the political situation in the galaxy was unclear. And while fans certainly weren’t clamoring for the incredibly dull and boring senate scenes from the prequels, we just wanted a clearer picture of what happened after the fall of the Empire. Frankly, an exchange similar to something as simple as this from A New Hope would have sufficed: The Rebellion will continue to gain support in the Imperial Senate. The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away. Instead, it seemed like the First Order just picked up where the Empire left off, giving us the same old story of the Rebels vs The Empire, but renaming both factions and hoping we wouldn't notice. Even James Cameron criticized this decision, saying: This film was more a retrenchment to things you had seen before and characters you had seen before. Instead, Lucas’ version would have logically explored the chaos and lawlessness that existed after the fall of the Empire as the New Republic begins to try and assert control across the Galaxy. Similar to how the original trilogy was shaped by Lucas' strong opposition to the Vietnam War, the sequels would have been inspired by the aftermath of the Iraq War, exploring the challenges and complexities of post-war reconstruction. The stormtroopers would be like Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist fighters that joined ISIS and kept on fighting. And they would refuse to give up when the Republic won. In the wake of the Empire's collapse, a power vacuum would emerge, leading to opportunist gangsters, such as the Hutts, vying to exploit the ensuing chaos. However, amidst this tumultuous landscape, a singular individual would rise to power, rallying the fractured remnants of the Empire and uniting the criminal underworld against the New Republic. And this man would’ve been none other than Darth Maul. Maul obviously would be very old in this, starting off with a set of cybernetic legs like a spider, before getting metal legs later in the trilogy. Maul would eventually become the godfather of crime in the Star Wars universe and the core of the conflict would be the New Republic trying to get the galaxy under control from Maul and his gangsters. While there was considerable backlash when Disney would go on to remove the Expanded Universe from the official Star Wars canon, you may be surprised to learn that had Lucas made the sequel trilogy himself, he planned to do the same thing. Not only would Maul have returned for the sequels, but he would have had a new apprentice in the form of Darth Talon. Originally introduced in the Dark Horse Comics series Star Wars Legacy, set 100 years after the original trilogy, Darth Talon would have been reimagined by Lucas for this earlier era. Described by Lucas as "the new Darth Vader," Talon would have been the heavy and done most of the fighting in place of her aged master. And she would also have been responsible for seducing Han and Leia’s son, Skyler, to the dark side with episode seven focusing on his fall. In Lucas’ original treatment, Luke Skywalker would have been trying to restart the Jedi from scratch and we’d see him going around the galaxy trying to find force sensitive children to train. An X-Wing. One X-Wing? Great. We're saved. This wouldn't have been too different from what we saw of Luke in The Mandalorian with Grogu. One of Luke’s other padawans would’ve been a fourteen year old named Taryn, although her name would undergo several changes during development. After Disney scrapped Lucas’ treatment, this character would eventually evolve into Rey, but before that happened it was Lucas’ idea to have Luke Skywalker seclude himself on an island following his failure to stop the murder of his Jedi students. I think it would’ve been a lot better to have seen this all unfold on screen versus in the Disney version where this all happens before the events of episode 7. Plus, seeing Luke for the first time in The Last Jedi being so negative and feeling sorry for himself was jarring for audiences. This wasn’t the Luke we knew. Lucas’ approach of actually showing Luke’s fall from grace I think would’ve been much better received. It would then be through the training of Taryn which would help Luke overcome his self-doubt and eventually leave the island to continue to try and rebuild the Jedi. Reading this made me realize that that’s what was missing from The Last Jedi-- a bond and relationship between Luke and Rey. Rey never really inspired Luke in that film or restored his confidence as Lucas suggested. Plus, the two characters never seemed to really like each other all that much either. They had a very cold and distant relationship. And after Rey leaves Luke to go face Kylo, it’s Yoda who appears and restores Luke’s confidence. Leia’s role in these films would have centered around her struggle to rebuild the Republic and avoid the corruption that enabled the rise of Palpatine's Empire in the first place. As Maul assumes command over these offshoot stormtroopers, the old gang will need to get back together to get the galaxy under control from Maul and his gangsters. And speaking of the old gang, similar to Force Awakens, Han Solo and Leia would have drifted apart in this version too, with Han also dying at the hands of his son after he turns to the dark side. The first draft of the original Star Wars screenplay was titled “The Adventures of Luke Starkiller as taken from the Journal of the Whills." Initially, George Lucas was going to have the story be told by someone else – an immortal being known as a Whill, similar to The Watcher in the Marvel Universe. Eventually Lucas dropped this idea and the concepts behind the Whills turned into the Force. But the Whills became part of a massive amount of notes, quotes and background information that Lucas wrote and ultimately used to help shape the scripts. For the sequel trilogy, Lucas wanted to finally explore the concept of the Whills on screen, which would have tied into and elaborated on the concept of the Midichlorians first mentioned in The Phantom Menace. As Lucas put it, in the microbiotic world there's creatures that operate differently than we do. These are the Whills. And the Whills are the ones who actually control the universe. They feed off the Force and we’re just vessels for the Whills to travel around in and the conduit is the midi-chlorians, who communicate with the Whills. Lucas felt one of the core values we should have in the world, and kids should be taught, is ecology, and to understand that we all are connected. And the Whills would’ve been a metaphor for that. By the end of Lucas’ sequel trilogy Luke would have likely died, but not before rebuilding much of the Jedi, and the New Republic would firmly be in power too, with Leia becoming the Supreme Chancellor in charge of everything, which according to Lucas would have made her the actual chosen one. As Lucas debated making the sequel trilogy himself, he even toyed with the idea of getting someone else to direct them, but scrapped that idea after recalling how on Return of the Jedi he was still on set every day looking over Richard Marquand’s shoulder. It was at this time Lucas’ wife was pregnant and he wasn’t keen on the idea of being an absent father for the next ten years as he oversaw the production of the sequels, so he made the decision to pack things up and retire. I'm retired. When he sold Lucasfilm to Disney, Lucas expected to have a lot more say in the sequels than he ended up having. And especially helping with the script and making sure the script is... There's a lot of blank spots in the story treatment that hopefully we can fill in. And while he initially attended and contributed to a few development meetings as a consultant for The Force Awakens, he grew increasingly upset as he realized that Disney was discarding most of his ideas in favor of making something derivative of the original 1977 film. They decided they didn't want to use those stories. They decided they were going to go and do their own thing. And so I decided I will go my way and let them go their way. Just prior to the release of The Force Awakens, Kathleen Kennedy screened the film for George, who didn’t hide his disappointment. Publicly, however, he tried to put on a brave face. You know I think it's a movie the fans will really love. And that's the most important thing after all, isn't it? Yup... Absolutely. Marcia Lucas, George’s ex-wife who was also responsible for helping to improve the original film in the editing room, didn’t hold back and said this about the sequel trilogy. Lucas’ thoughts on The Rise of Skywalker are unknown, but it’s worth noting that he was absent from the film’s premiere. Interpret that as you wish. So, do you think Lucas’ version of the sequels would’ve been better than what we got or would they have been received with the same negative reaction as the prequels? Let me know in the comments below and thanks for watching. If you liked this video please be sure to tell us by hitting that thumbs up button and subscribing to Bullets and Blockbusters.
