ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
I'm betting on the 'go home' part, Even now Iger's team is thinking about how to outsource production to China where they can pay the cast 100 yuan per day and be exempt from SAG rules..
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Breaking: Star Wars Ep VII Release Date Out
- Thread starter PhotoDave219
- Start date
I'm betting on the 'go home' part, Even now Iger's team is thinking about how to outsource production to China where they can pay the cast 100 yuan per day and be exempt from SAG rules..
lebeau
Well-Known Member
I was willing to let that go with a snarky comment. I even half apologized for the comment as I was making it by preceding my comment with "I hate to be that guy but..." But things escalate fast when someone's idea of civil discourse is "screw off". That doesn't mask the fact that @PhotoDave219 posted in the wrong forum. He obviously did and he obviously knows it or he wouldn't have immediately responded with belligerence.
As I said before, the mods make the ultimate call. I have no idea what the rational might be to grant Star Wars threads an exemption to posting rules. But it's not my call to make, so I'm more than willing to shut up about it. What got me worked up was PhotoDave trying to brush off a perfectly valid criticism with empty vulgarity. I figure that deserves some gentle mocking. So hopefully the OP has been chastised sufficiently for his incredibly rude behavior and we can all move on.
I'm chill.
As for your questions, I don't think the film's release dates has any significant relationship to the parks whatsoever.
Samoht
Member
Lucas DID write the treatment for episode 7 and the storylines for 8 and 9. They were handed over to Kathleen Kenedy and now are being rewritten into screenplays.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
As already mentioned by @lebeau, I have a hard time just accepting Lucas' definition of having written a story as it is very, very loose.
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lebeau
Well-Known Member
Disney has a vested interest in telling everyone that Lucas has had some grand plan he mapped out decades ago and that they are merely completing the story as its creator originally envisioned it. There is probably some element of truth to this. I imagine Lucas handed Kennedy some notes.
How useful were those notes? Probably not very. How much of the notes will make it into the final film? Probably (hopefully) not much.
If you read about the evolution of the series, Lucas has very obviously been winging it from the beginning. I can not recommend The Secret History of Star Wars site/book enough if you are interested in understanding how the series came to be. It's fascinating reading.
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I was willing to let that go with a snarky comment. I even half apologized for the comment as I was making it by preceding my comment with "I hate to be that guy but..." But things escalate fast when someone's idea of civil discourse is "screw off". That doesn't mask the fact that @PhotoDave219 posted in the wrong forum. He obviously did and he obviously knows it or he wouldn't have immediately responded with belligerence.
As I said before, the mods make the ultimate call. I have no idea what the rational might be to grant Star Wars threads an exemption to posting rules. But it's not my call to make, so I'm more than willing to shut up about it. What got me worked up was PhotoDave trying to brush off a perfectly valid criticism with empty vulgarity. I figure that deserves some gentle mocking. So hopefully the OP has been chastised sufficiently for his incredibly rude behavior and we can all move on.
I'm chill.
As for your questions, I don't think the film's release dates has any significant relationship to the parks whatsoever.
Maybe it was, or maybe it wasn't, but I took PhotoDave's "screw off" comment as a complete joke (I actually laughed out loud when I read it). Sometimes Ithink we all. Need to be a little less sensitive on these boards.
G00fyDad
Well-Known Member
Half false. He gave ideas, not a story.
lebeau
Well-Known Member
From the Secret History of Star Wars:
The Sequel Trilogy has its roots before Star Wars was even made, but these are very distant roots, and those are the idea of sequels to the film Lucas was calling The Star Wars. The prequel trilogy did not exist until later, as The Star Wars was meant to begin in the thick of the action, with an interesting backstory that set-up the film that would never be seen. This is why Lucas' early drafts of the film were titled Episode I, and then Saga I in later drafts, the implication being that there would--or could--be follow-ups. The early material for Empire Strikes Back was titled Chapter II, and then the 1978 screenplay Episode II, before finally being titled Episode V in 1979 once the prequels were decided on.
Lucas expressed desire to make sequels as early as September 1974, when a deal memo was worked out stipulating sequel rights belonging to Lucasfilm, while Lucas was preparing the second draft screenplay [Rinzler, Making of Star Wars p.25]; when contracts were finally drawn up a couple years later he retained sequel rights and had Hamill and Fisher under contract for two additional films. However, that contract came very late in pre-production, and so this is why Star Wars is more or less constructed as a stand-alone film--legally speaking, Lucas had no ability to make sequels. But in his mind he had the idea of making a trilogy of films, which is even reflected in his screenplay titling "From the Journal of the Whills"--the idea being that the Star Wars saga was just one small section of a larger chronicle of the galaxy. In late 1975, science fiction author Alan Dean Foster was hired to write the novelization of Star Wars and two sequel novels. Lucas at the time had no movie rights, but that didn't mean he couldn't have novelized sequels in the meantime. The intention was that if he was successful in retaining the movie rights, these two sequel novels could be made into films. The two met and conferenced on the two sequels in December 1975, [Rinzler, 107], and Foster later began writing the second novel, which was finally released in 1978 as Splinter of the Mind's Eye . In the end, Lucas did retain the rights for both the two lead actors and his own creative control, and this is the basis for the Star Wars trilogy. So, where does the "Sequel Trilogy" come into play?
Basically, after the film was released and became a massive hit. Lucas realized, not only could he make the two immediate follow-ups for his trilogy, and make them in more ambitious ways than he first foresaw, but he could go beyond those films. In 1977, he was envisioning the series as not constrained by any concrete number of "episodes" but continuing indefinitely, with spin-offs and movies following new characters and time periods. This non-linear approach was the first seed for the prequels, where he at first thought of making a film--one film, the way he tells it--following the early days of Ben Kenobi.
Lucas eventually did have to settle on a number, and for a few years the series wasn't 9 films. It was 12 films. This was even officially announced in the second issue of Lucasfilm's fan club newsletter, Bantha Tracks , in spring 1978.
The designated number of twelve films might have had a few factors motivating it. One, it was sufficiently large, with Lucasfilm, in the aforementioned Time article, expecting it to take until the year 2001 to complete, providing an appropriately long-term business plan. Secondly, it also paralleled the 1930s serials that Lucas was using as a model, as those serials were traditionally twelve chapters long. He once said, "This was done in the style of a 1930s Saturday matinee serial, which were usually in twelve episodes."
Because the backstory was so interesting, he speculated making not just one film but a number of films taking place in the pre-Empire Republic, featuring the Clone Wars. He also envisioned a number of films that took place after Star Wars--and may have even featured the characters from that film in entries beyond the original three. Mark Hamill told Gossip Magazine in 1978, "I am definitely going to do two more and they have asked me to do a fourth one and at this point, I can't see any reason why I wouldn't. I haven't signed for it, yet, but it really it is a really exciting thing for me."
George Lucas drafted what has been called a "treatment" for the this structure, but it really wasn't a treatment. It was, to be blunt, just a numerical structure, with virtually no information for the later sequels. Below is this undated structure from his notes. J.W. Rinzler dates them to late 1977, but there really is no context or information to say that with much accuracy, as they may well have drawn up in early 1978 as well (just as a disclaimer; but, probably, he is correct in his assessment).
In this configuration, the series is much different than what we know. There is no trilogy structure beyond the one Lucas was currently in the middle of. The prequels stretch for five episodes, with episodes II-IV being a Clone War trilogy, with episode V being an epilogue and prologue, which likely means it was meant to segue into the film called Star Wars. The original Star Wars is listed as episode six, with VII and VIII being denoted by Lucas as the trilogy. Episode IX, X, and XI follow the "original trilogy", if I may call it that, with Episode I and XII serving as respective prologues and conclusions to the series.
This was quite an ambitious plan, and a little hard to follow. With Lucas in the midst of coming up with the story of Empire Strikes Back, he seems to have never even fleshed out the plots for these films beyond broad conceptions like "Clone War trilogy" and "conclusion," which he had denoted in the margins. Meanwhile, Empire Strikes Back was being readied, and Lucas seems to have abandoned this configuration of the series. However, he still wanted to make twelve films, and he still wanted the freedom to take the series in new directions and explore different time periods and characters.
The Sequel Trilogy has its roots before Star Wars was even made, but these are very distant roots, and those are the idea of sequels to the film Lucas was calling The Star Wars. The prequel trilogy did not exist until later, as The Star Wars was meant to begin in the thick of the action, with an interesting backstory that set-up the film that would never be seen. This is why Lucas' early drafts of the film were titled Episode I, and then Saga I in later drafts, the implication being that there would--or could--be follow-ups. The early material for Empire Strikes Back was titled Chapter II, and then the 1978 screenplay Episode II, before finally being titled Episode V in 1979 once the prequels were decided on.
Lucas expressed desire to make sequels as early as September 1974, when a deal memo was worked out stipulating sequel rights belonging to Lucasfilm, while Lucas was preparing the second draft screenplay [Rinzler, Making of Star Wars p.25]; when contracts were finally drawn up a couple years later he retained sequel rights and had Hamill and Fisher under contract for two additional films. However, that contract came very late in pre-production, and so this is why Star Wars is more or less constructed as a stand-alone film--legally speaking, Lucas had no ability to make sequels. But in his mind he had the idea of making a trilogy of films, which is even reflected in his screenplay titling "From the Journal of the Whills"--the idea being that the Star Wars saga was just one small section of a larger chronicle of the galaxy. In late 1975, science fiction author Alan Dean Foster was hired to write the novelization of Star Wars and two sequel novels. Lucas at the time had no movie rights, but that didn't mean he couldn't have novelized sequels in the meantime. The intention was that if he was successful in retaining the movie rights, these two sequel novels could be made into films. The two met and conferenced on the two sequels in December 1975, [Rinzler, 107], and Foster later began writing the second novel, which was finally released in 1978 as Splinter of the Mind's Eye . In the end, Lucas did retain the rights for both the two lead actors and his own creative control, and this is the basis for the Star Wars trilogy. So, where does the "Sequel Trilogy" come into play?
Basically, after the film was released and became a massive hit. Lucas realized, not only could he make the two immediate follow-ups for his trilogy, and make them in more ambitious ways than he first foresaw, but he could go beyond those films. In 1977, he was envisioning the series as not constrained by any concrete number of "episodes" but continuing indefinitely, with spin-offs and movies following new characters and time periods. This non-linear approach was the first seed for the prequels, where he at first thought of making a film--one film, the way he tells it--following the early days of Ben Kenobi.
Lucas eventually did have to settle on a number, and for a few years the series wasn't 9 films. It was 12 films. This was even officially announced in the second issue of Lucasfilm's fan club newsletter, Bantha Tracks , in spring 1978.
The designated number of twelve films might have had a few factors motivating it. One, it was sufficiently large, with Lucasfilm, in the aforementioned Time article, expecting it to take until the year 2001 to complete, providing an appropriately long-term business plan. Secondly, it also paralleled the 1930s serials that Lucas was using as a model, as those serials were traditionally twelve chapters long. He once said, "This was done in the style of a 1930s Saturday matinee serial, which were usually in twelve episodes."
Because the backstory was so interesting, he speculated making not just one film but a number of films taking place in the pre-Empire Republic, featuring the Clone Wars. He also envisioned a number of films that took place after Star Wars--and may have even featured the characters from that film in entries beyond the original three. Mark Hamill told Gossip Magazine in 1978, "I am definitely going to do two more and they have asked me to do a fourth one and at this point, I can't see any reason why I wouldn't. I haven't signed for it, yet, but it really it is a really exciting thing for me."
George Lucas drafted what has been called a "treatment" for the this structure, but it really wasn't a treatment. It was, to be blunt, just a numerical structure, with virtually no information for the later sequels. Below is this undated structure from his notes. J.W. Rinzler dates them to late 1977, but there really is no context or information to say that with much accuracy, as they may well have drawn up in early 1978 as well (just as a disclaimer; but, probably, he is correct in his assessment).
In this configuration, the series is much different than what we know. There is no trilogy structure beyond the one Lucas was currently in the middle of. The prequels stretch for five episodes, with episodes II-IV being a Clone War trilogy, with episode V being an epilogue and prologue, which likely means it was meant to segue into the film called Star Wars. The original Star Wars is listed as episode six, with VII and VIII being denoted by Lucas as the trilogy. Episode IX, X, and XI follow the "original trilogy", if I may call it that, with Episode I and XII serving as respective prologues and conclusions to the series.
This was quite an ambitious plan, and a little hard to follow. With Lucas in the midst of coming up with the story of Empire Strikes Back, he seems to have never even fleshed out the plots for these films beyond broad conceptions like "Clone War trilogy" and "conclusion," which he had denoted in the margins. Meanwhile, Empire Strikes Back was being readied, and Lucas seems to have abandoned this configuration of the series. However, he still wanted to make twelve films, and he still wanted the freedom to take the series in new directions and explore different time periods and characters.
lebeau
Well-Known Member
continued:
To that end, he returned to a simpler number system that allowed him greater flexibility. Star Wars was listed as "Saga I" of the Adventures of Luke Skywalker in the final 1976 screenplay, and an earlier version had called the film Episode I. He now called it Chapter I, with Empire Strikes Back following as Chapter II in Lucasfilm documents from 1977 and 1978, akin to a twelve-chapter serial. Perhaps Luke could continue to be a main character beyond the third chapter, or perhaps they could do a prequel entry at that point; this sort of structure allowed Lucas to not commit to a particular storyline, because the series could progress non-linearly. Dovetailing into the comments he made to Rolling Stone , some of the ideas for one-off films might have been incorporated into this structure, as Lucas would later speak about.
Gary Kurtz' comments from 1999 on sequel and prequel ideas show that Lucas had also brainstormed ideas about doing a film about the origins of the Jedi Knights, and a whole film focusing on the Clone Wars. This indicates that Lucas probably had a lot more conceptual ideas for spin-offs than just the three he would later reveal to Prevue , which is why he originally set the series at twelve films long in 1978, giving him ample room to churn out these ideas.
In the July-August 1980 issue of Prevue magazine, Prevue writes, "Even [Lucas] did not know the full extent of the Star Wars epic, but estimated it to be a total of twelve stories, grouped into four collective trilogies. Since Star Wars, Lucas had refined and polished the complex narrative, finally settling on three trilogies and three additional, related tales which are separate from the primary action." This information came from George Lucas himself. By that point, he had instead envisioned the series as a nine-part soap opera of the Skywalker family, but attentive media recalled the 12-part announcement. So, they began asking him what the three missing films were. Lucas was attempting to maintain a facade that the story had in place all along and not being made up as he went, so could only admit to three of these one-off style films, as that was number difference between the 12 and 9 film announcements. When Bantha Tracks asked him why the series was cut from 12 to 9, Lucas could only say, "I cut that number down to nine because the other three were tangential to the saga." The September-October issue of Prevue magazine was able to get more detail, however, on what these one-off films were, of which Lucas undoubtedly had planned more than three:
Prevue: Do you plan to make any separate films about the characters? Like a film just about Han Solo or perhaps Chewbacca, the Clone Wars or the Jedis?
Lucas: I can answer that best by describing the history of the way Star Wars developed... As I was writing, I came up with some ideas for a film about robots, with no humans in it. When I got to working on the Wookiee, I thought of a film just about Wookiees, nothing else. So, for a time, I had a couple of odd movies with just those characters. Then, I had the other films, which were essentially split into three parts each, two trilogies. When the smoke cleared, I said, 'This is really great. I'll do another trilogy that takes place after this.' I had three trilogies of nine films, and then another couple of odd films. Essentially, there were twelve films.
Prevue: Do you still plan on producing all twelve?
Lucas: No, I've eliminated the odd movies, because they really don't have anything to do with the Star Wars saga. It gets confusing trying to explain the whole thing, but if I ever do the odd movies about the robots or the Wookiees, it'll be just about them, not necessarily about Chewbacca or Threepio--just about Wookiees and robots. It's the genre that I'm intrigued with, not necessarily the characters."
During the story conferences with Empire Strikes Back writer Leigh Brackett in late 1977, she and Lucas also came up with some ideas for future episodes. Namely, that Luke has a twin sister. She is revealed to have been going through Jedi training at the same time, and was hidden on the other side of the galaxy by their father so that if one was killed, the other could survive. She was discussed in the first draft of Empire Strikes Back, and named Nellith in an early copy of that draft, and was set to appear in a future episode after this intro, perhaps with the two Skywalker siblings teaming up to battle their father's killer, Darth Vader. Their actual father, Anakin, appears to Luke on Dagobah as a spirit and inducts him into the Jedi way.
Meanwhile, just after Brackett had completed the first draft of Empire in early 1978, she passed away, having been battling cancer. With a deadline looming, Lucas was forced to pick up the role and write the second draft himself. While pre-production documents and art work had proclaimed Empire as Chapter II, with the production company itself even titled Chapter Two Productions , Lucas' second draft of Empire Strikes Back would be titled Episode II. The change to Episode from Chapter might have had to do with the fact that a movie adaptation of Neil Simon's famous play, Chapter Two, was about to be released in 1979.
2. The Sequel Trilogy is Born: 1979-1980
This second draft of Empire was enormously important for one reason: in this draft, Lucas finally made the decision to turn Darth Vader into Luke Skywalker's father. In the previous draft, the ghost of Luke's slain father appears to him to give him advice in his battle against Vader; here, Vader now says that he is the one who is Luke's father. This change created an entirely new storyline; now, Anakin Skywalker was a heroic Jedi and student of Ben Kenobi, who both become heroes in the Clone Wars, until Anakin is seduced by the Emperor, betrays the Jedi and turns to the dark side, but is wounded by Kenobi on the site of a volcano and is subsequently encased in his technological suit to keep him alive. Meanwhile, the Republic becomes the Empire, a rebellion is formed, the Jedi are hunted down, and Kenobi hides Anakin's only son, Luke.
This storyline was so substantial that Lucas made the big decision to commit to an entire trilogy detailing this. Thus, the next time an episode number is attached to a draft of Empire Strikes Back, it is listed as Episode V, with a prequel trilogy preceding the original film. The screenplay to Star Wars was included in The Art of Star Wars book released in 1979, but now bore the altered heading Episode IV A New Hope. Meanwhile, Lucas' company was still promoting the franchise as a twelve part series, with Bantha Tracks referencing this up until autumn of 1979.
Lucas at this point may have contemplated a prequel trilogy, the "original trilogy", and then six sequels beyond this. But at some point between 1978 and 1979, he decided to do a trilogy-of-trilogies, with three sets of three films totaling a nine-film arc. Lucas says on the set of Empire Strikes Back, on July 19th, 1979:
"The first script was one of six original stories I had written in the form of two trilogies. After the success of Star Wars I added another trilogy. So now there are nine stories. The original two trilogies were conceived of as six films of which the first film was number four." [Arnold, p. 177]
This is the first recorded instance of the three-trilogy nine-episode structure. Later on that year, on October 29th, he elaborates:
"There are essentially nine films in a series of three trilogies. The first trilogy is about the young Ben Kenobi and the early life of Luke's father when Luke was a little boy. This trilogy takes place some twenty years before the second trilogy which includes Star Wars and Empire. About a year or two passes between each story of the trilogy and about twenty years pass between the trilogies. The entire saga spans about fifty-five years...After the success of Star Wars I added another trilogy but stopped there, primarily because reality took over. After all, it takes three years to prepare and make a Star Wars picture. How many years are left? So I'm still left with three trilogies of nine films... The next chapter is called "Revenge of the Jedi." It's the end of this particular trilogy, the conclusion of the conflict begun in Star Wars between Luke and Darth Vader. It resolves the situation once and for all. I won't say who survives and who doesn't, but if we are ever able to link together all three you'd find the story progresses in a very logical fashion." [Arnold, p. 247-8]
Not surprisingly, the final draft of Empire Strikes Back, written earlier that year, contains a tantalizing hint at a story to come. As Luke is leaving Dagobah, Kenobi remarks that Luke is their only hope. "No," Yoda replies, "there is another."
Recently, on the Empire 2004 DVD for example, Lucas claims that this line wasn't referring to anyone specific but was simply added to increase the danger, that Luke could die because there was someone else ready to replace him. The explanation doesn't quite hold up. But an examination of this infamous line reveals that Lucas indeed must have had some plans for sequels. The line in the initial drafts achieves what Lucas claims of it, and it first appears in the revised second draft. Yoda says, "Now we must find another." In the third draft the line is similar: "No...we must search for another." But in the fourth draft it undergoes a subtle yet highly significant change: "No, there is another." Implying that somebody is already out there, ready to step in and replace Luke, someone that only Yoda knows of.
It certainly seems as though Lucas was setting up the protagonist for the third trilogy he was planning on making at that point. Who was this character? Lucas himself may not have known exactly, and had many avenues to take. Could it be another Jedi who escaped the purge like Obi Wan and Yoda and was in seclusion like them? If this is the case, he would be at least seventy years old by the time of the Sequel Trilogy, making this highly unlikely. The most obvious answer then is that this person was a Force-sensitive youngster, hidden at birth similar to the way Luke was, perhaps only being a child at the time of the middle trilogy. In the third trilogy he or she could become the protagonist. As Lucas said in June 1981 to Starlog, quoted below, no character would go through the entire series except perhaps the droids. Lucas also mentions that the actors would all be different in the films, not surprising given that the actors of his current trilogy were only under contract for those three films. Thus, any characters from this trilogy that appeared in the third trilogy would be played by older actors. From 1981:
"Kerri O'Quinn: Is there going to be character continuity among all three trilogies?
George Lucas: No-- possibly the robots, but there weren't originally designed to go through the whole... nobody was designed to go through all three. I'd like to see the robots go through them, but I don't know whether they will.
KOQ: What will provide the continuity then?
GL: Well, the next trilogy--the first one--since it's about Ben Kenobi as a young man, is the same character, just a different actor. And it's the same thing with all the characters. Luke ends up in the third film of the first trilogy just three-and-a-half years old. There is continuity with the characters in other words, but not with the actors--and the look of the films will be different."
The series at this point was no longer just about Luke, as evident by the fact that the first (and probably last) third(s) of the saga would not centre on him--which may be one reason why Lucas stopped referring to the series as The Adventures of Luke Skywalker by 1979, when this three-trilogy plan was revealed. It was three separate trilogies which told a chronological story when viewed together but followed different characters and had different styles and tones, although connected in various ways. The first trilogy was to be mainly about Obi Wan. The second trilogy was mainly about Luke. The third trilogy, then, may have followed this "Other," perhaps with Luke in the role of the mentor character (and played by someone other than Mark Hamill), similar to Obi Wan in the middle trilogy. "The sequel is about Jedi knighthood, justice, confrontation, and passing on what you have learned," Lucas would later say in 1983, bolstering this interpretation.
Although Lucas would change some of these plans by the time he released Return of the Jedi, this natural arc of Luke taking an apprentice to continue the Jedi way after he is gone is still alluded to in that film when a dying Yoda intones "Pass on what you have learned..." That the sequels would involve Luke's successor almost seems like a given.
Would the rest of the middle trilogy characters be seen? Certainly audiences would want to find out what happened to them. But, there simply is not enough information to make anything more than assessments of probability; perhaps Lucas would make the films revolve around them, or perhaps Lucas would relegate them to background characters and instead prefer to introduce new ones. It's simply a matter of opinion.
The next question is about plot. There's not much known, and probably Lucas himself knew little about the details. Denise Worrell writes in 1983 that Lucas has specific plots for the prequel trilogy, "but he has only a vague notion of what will happen in the three films of the sequel," also stating that he has only some notes on the films and not specific outlines. This contradicts Lucas' instances saying he had the nine-film saga outlined, for example in the September-October 1980 edition of Prevue where he claims to have "titles and ten-page outlines for each of the" nine films--which probably indicates those claims were false and that it was merely some notes and ideas. In 1980 Lucas revealed to Time magazine that the sequel trilogy would revolve around "the rebuilding of the Republic," and in 1983 stated to that magazine that thematically it would be about "the necessity for moral choices and the wisdom needed to distinguish right from wrong," implying perhaps a more introspective tone, which is consistent with Lucas' implications that the three sets of films would all be stylistically different. The first trilogy is to be more Machiavellian and melodramatic, like a costume drama, as Lucas revealed in 1981, while the second is more action-packed and light-hearted, perhaps leaving the third to be more philosophical, addressing issues of ethical responsibility and moral ambiguity. "The third [trilogy will] deal with moral and philosophical problems," Lucas said in 1983. "In Star Wars, there is a very clear line drawn between good and evil. Eventually you have to face the fact that good and evil aren't that clear-cut and the real issue is trying to understand the difference." [Worrell, Icons: Intimate Portraits, 1983]
While we may never know further details about this early conception of the sequel trilogy, as I will explain shortly, many of the ideas for this original version that featured the "Other" character may have survived in the later revision of the trilogy; in fact, I am assuming that is the case, since everything quoted except those comments from 1979 comes from a time when I propose that original version of the trilogy had been axed in favour of a modified form.
The actual plot--beyond the premise of re-building the Republic and perhaps following the Jedi-in-training Other character--is anyone's guess, though a number of viable speculations can be made. The hardest accomplishment of the Sequel Trilogy is the introduction of a new threat and the creation of a central villain, something the expanded universe has struggled with, but also been successful at overcoming to various degrees.
Perhaps a new menace would rise up in place of the Empire, threatening to consume or topple the struggling New Republic. Perhaps insidious evildoers would appear from within the New Republic itself, similar to the prequels, threatening to take over the democracy once again. Perhaps the remnants from the Galactic Empire itself have been taken over by a new leader and now are striking back as intergalactic terrorists in the ravaged post-war galaxy, similar to what Timothy Zahn would present in his own sequel trilogy. It could even be possible to bring back the Emperor himself--Lucas himself okayed the use of returning the Emperor as a clone for Dark Empire.
Moral ambiguity and the necessity for choices in the name of good, Jedi knighthood, and the passing on of knowledge would play key roles in the sequels, according to Lucas' previously-quoted statements, and so perhaps Luke would wrestle with the dark side, exploring what it is, why his father fell and how he himself should avoid it--after all, he himself tasted it at the end of Jedi. This type of plot is similar to the Dark Empire comic, with Luke trying to destroy the dark side from within, which Lucas had some involvement with and apparently is quite fond of. With Luke taking on an apprentice, these issues would be all the more relevant. Those rebuilding the Republic would be faced with a legacy of failure and the task of not repeating the mistakes of the past, which indeed would give the trilogy a reflective and philosophical tone.
These are, however, speculations on my part. The truth is that short of Lucas coming out and telling us, we will never know the details. All of this story development seems to be occuring around 1979. So, what happened to this trilogy? What it seems to come down to is that Lucas never had a huge emotional investment in it, and so he kept being put it off, until he got to the point where he was too old to do it. He revealed in the May 1980 issue of Bantha Tracks that his original story gave him material for the first six films but that the third trilogy was only added after the success of Star Wars. "Originally, when I wrote Star Wars," he says, " had material for six movies. After the success of Star Wars I added another trilogy." Perhaps this is why by 1980 the plan is to film the prequels first and then the sequels--it gave him the option of backing out if he felt like it.
Unfortunately, as production of Empire Strikes Back dragged on and on, Lucas may have begun to re-consider things. The difficult shoot was infamously nightmarish, with the budget nearly doubling, accidents and all sorts of problems on sets, and a methodical director that didn't always listen to George, who suffered health problems just as he did on the first film. Making Empire Strikes Back was not the fun adventure he thought it would be in 1977. On top of it, his personal life was being severely affected, with his marriage falling apart in additional to the other personal stresses, and his wife Marcia Lucas hounded George to step back from the series. Meanwhile Lucasfilm was ballooning as a company and growing at an accelerating rate beyond his grasp.
Out of this, an option loomed for Lucas of simply ending the franchise with Episode VI. With Return of the Jedi tying up the story--Vader dead, the Empire defeated, the heroes victorious--what need was there to extend the story beyond this? The third film stood poised to tie up the loose ends and finish the story in a satisfying way, and because of this, Lucas would vow to never make a Star Wars film again by the time Jedi went into production. [Pollock, Skywalking, p. 274-5]
This, of course, left one major lingering hole: the mention of the "other". If Lucas wanted to eliminate the sequel trilogy, as he had envisioned it, or at least give him the option of backing out of making it, then this now needed to be addressed, especially since audiences were looking forward to the reveal of who this would be. Without room to satisfyingly introduce a new character just to address this issue, Leia was merged with this character, justifying her importance as the last hope by making her Anakin's daughter and Luke's twin sister, re-using the twin sister concept that had been in place in the first draft of Empire Strikes Back; this also resolved the Luke-Leia-Han love triangle more definitively. Darth Vader was no longer battled as a nemesis, but instead Luke believes there is good in him and is able to make peace, fulfilling his maturation as a Jedi and bringing additional emotional closure to the series.
3. The Sequel Trilogy Defined: 1980-1983
This is where things get even more interesting. Even though he was telling people like Dale Pollock in private that he wanted to get away from the series, publically Lucas was still expressing plans to make the missing six films. There are a number of speculations one can make. My own opinion is that, because there was such enormous public pressure and anticipation about them, he may have believed that at some future date he could eventually return to them. It would be a morally crushing blow to the fans and make for bad publicity if he announced their cancellation, especially when they would not be made for some time, and so he didn't want to speak prematurely. Also, even though many fans and audience members wanted to see the sequel trilogy and the further adventures of Luke and gang first, Lucas was always upfront that it was the prequels that would be filmed first, again allowing him to defer a concrete decision on the sequel trilogy for some time. They remained as an elusive possibility that did not need addressing for at least a while. Gary Kurtz seemed to sense this in 1980, as he tells Prevue in its September-October issue, "[w]hether or not all nine or twelve films actually get made depends on how George feels as time goes along. The series may happen the way he originally planned or may completely change. As the films are made, each of the stories develops. As each is finished, I think the direction of the saga may change a bit."
However, there is an additional element. Making Leia into the "other" had seemingly nixed a major character and story focus of the third trilogy, however Lucas also had assured audiences that he had mapped out the elaborate story years earlier, even saying he had complete treatments for them (for instance in his June 12, 1980 interview with Rolling Stone). This led to some legendary confusion in the 80s and 90s as people wondered what happened to these mythical films. Yet with the original thrust of the sequel story in need of revision, Lucas began to re-formulate the sequel trilogy around the idea of re-uniting the aged original cast members decades in the future. Even though this could have very well been a major part of his original plan, he especially began to emphasis the idea of a "reunion" film set far in the future, now with the option of having the original cast members if they were old enough. This is the version of the sequel trilogy most people remembering hearing about, and like I said may have incorporated elements and story points from Lucas' original 1979 version. But with Luke likely having a prodigy of some kind, the story needn't have changed dramatically, it just would have been someone different than the person Yoda was referencing; this freedom of not being tied to a specific story point may have even helped the storyline by giving it greater flexibility.
One of the first mainstream references to the sequel trilogy was the May 23rd, 1983 issue of Time magazine: "Luke, who will then be the age Obi-Wan Kenobi is now, some place in his 60s, will reappear, and so will his friends, assuming that the creator decides to carry the epic further. Hamill and the others will get first crack at the roles--if they look old enough."
Denise Worrell also reported in greater detail that same month, later published in her book Icons: Intimate Portraits:
"In the sequel Luke would be a sixty-year-old Jedi knight. Han Solo and Leia would be together, although Lucas says, "They might be married, or not. We have never actually discussed marriage in this galaxy. I don't even know if it exists yet. Who knows what relationship they will have? I mean, they're together, let's put it that way." The sequel focuses mainly on Luke, and Lucas says Mark Hamill will have first crack at the part if he is old enough. "If the first trilogy is social and political and talks about how society evolves," Lucas says, "Star Wars is more about personal growth and self-realisation, and the third deal with moral and philosophical problems. In Star Wars, there is a very clear line drawn between good and evil. Eventually you have to face the fact that good and evil aren't that clear-cut and the real issue is trying to understand the difference. The sequel is about Jedi knighthood, justice, confrontation, and passing on what you have learned." [Worrell, p. 186]
It appears that Lucas developed a somewhat alternate version of the Sequel Trilogy by this point, likely just in case he still felt like making it one day. This version also takes place much farther into the future, roughly forty years after Return of the Jedi, as opposed to twenty (Luke is said to be in his 60s), and is more centred around the gimmick of re-uniting the aged original cast. However, it is possible that much of the thematic content of the original plan remained intact,
A June 1980 interview with Rolling Stone has him claiming to have twelve-page outlines for all seven remaining films. He also addresses the "Other," but his comments are so vague that it is impossible to precisely gather if it is indicating he had decided to write in Leia as the Other by this point:
" What is your deal with Fox?
They have first refusal on every Star Wars film I want to make.
How many is that?
Seven left.
Let's get back to The Empire Strikes Back for a moment. In the movie, Ben says Luke is the last hope and Yoda says no, there is another.
Yes. [Smiling] There is another, and has been for a long time. You have to remember, we're starting in the middle of this whole story. There are six hours' worth of events before Star Wars, and in those six hours, the 'Other' becomes apparent, and after the third film, the 'Other' becomes apparent quite a bit.
What will happen to Luke?
I can't say. In the next film everything gets resolved one way or the other...
Do you have story lines for the seven Star Wars movies left to be done?
Yes, twelve-page outlines."
In any case, by 1983 Lucas is speaking of following the aged cast of the originals in a Sequel Trilogy. But they are somewhat empty promises--as Lucas' comments in 2005 indicate that the films were never considered very seriously, he never had a strong desire to film these. It was merely an option left open for himself. He would, however, continue to speak of the films throughout the 1980s, as would publicity from Lucasfilm. A few examples can be found below:
Time Magazine, May 19th, 1980:
"The second trilogy, which opened with Star Wars: Episode IV, centers on Luke Skywalker, who, will be seen as a child in Episode III. Empire continues the Skywalker story, and Episode VI, the next film to be made, which will be called Revenge of the Jedi, will end it, with either Luke or Darth Vader walking away from their final bout. The last three episodes involve the rebuilding of the Republic.
Only two of the main characters will appear in all nine films, and they are the robots, Artoo Detoo and Threepio. Says Lucas: "In effect, the story will be told through their eyes."
Bantha Tracks, issue 8, spring 1980:
"Revenge of the Jedi will complete the middle trilogy of the nine-part Star Wars epic. Following its completion, the first trilogy will be filmed, and then finally, the last trilogy.
Should production on the nine films continue at the same rate, we can expect to see the ninth film released in the spring of 2001."
George Lucas, Prevue special, spring 1980:
"It's a nine-part saga that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It progresses over a period of about fifty or sixty years with about twenty years between trilogies, each trilogy taking about six or seven years."
Starlog, July 1981:
"Starlog: Is there going to be character continuity among all three trilogies?
Lucas: No--possibly the robots, but they weren't originally designed to go through the whole...nobody was designed to go through all three [trilogies]. I'd like to see the robots go through them, but I don't know whether they will."
George Lucas, 1982, as quoted in John Baxter's Mythmaker, p. 387
I'm only doing [ Revenge of the Jedi] because I started it and now I have to finish it. The next trilogy will be someone else's vision.
Time magazine, May 23rd, 1983:
The sequels, the three movies that would follow Jedi, are considerably vaguer. Their main theme will be the necessity for moral choices and the wisdom needed to distinguish right from wrong. There was never any doubt in the films already made; in those the lines were sharply drawn, comic-book-style. Luke, who will then be the age Obi-Wan Kenobi is now, some place in his 60s, will reappear, and so will his friends, assuming that the creator decides to carry the epic further. Hamill and the others will get first crack at the roles--if they look old enough.
Dale Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas, First Edition, 1983, p. 146He started anew with the middle story. It had the most action and starred Luke, the character with whom he felt the most secure. The first trilogy told the story of young Ben Kenobi and Luke's father and was set twenty years before Star Wars. The final three movies feature an adult Luke and the final confrontation between the rebels and the Empire. The entire saga spans more than fifty-five years; C-3P0 and R2-D2 are the only common element to all the films.
George Lucas, Press-Telegram, May 18, 1983:
Now I've finished one book. And there may be two other books in my mind, but whether I start another book is not crucially important. The next book doesn't have anything to do with this book. Different sets, different actors. So it's not like I have to rush out and do another.
Starlog, issue 127, February 1988:
Starlog: Will you return to the Star Wars universe?
Lucas: Hopefully, I will someday be doing the next three Star Wars, but I'm not sure when. The next three would take place 20 or 30 years before the films they're celebrating here today. I'll do the first trilogy first. There are nine [films] floating around there somewhere. I'll guarantee that the first three are pretty much organized in my head, but the other three are kind of out there somewhere.
Starlog: Why didn't you give Luke a girl?
Lucas: You haven't seen the last three yet.
4. The Sequel Trilogy Becomes Uncertain: 1983-1999
While Lucas continued to talk about Star Wars sequels and prequels throughout the 1980s, in reality he was burned out from the series. While he had remarked on occasion to being done with the series for good--for example to Dale Pollock--he never did publically follow through with this (he added to Pollock that it would be very hard to actually leave the series, for example), and instead remedied the situation by settling down and taking a breather. He concentrated on his business and raising his family, while occasionally producing movies and continuing to state that more Star Wars films would one day be made. Lucas had gone through a costly divorce in 1983 not long after Jedi was released, and for this reason alone did not have the resources to make more films, which may have also been a contributing factor to the quiet period in the mid and late 1980s.
In the early 1990s, however, Star Wars experienced a gradual resurgence of popularity, and this Star Wars renaissance gave Lucas enough wealth to return to filmmaking, conveniently coinciding with the digital revolution and the maturation of his kids. If he were do any more Star Wars films they would be the prequel trilogy, which he had developed in some detail by point and which held a strong personal interest to him; the sequels, on the other hand, remained vaguer and less personal. Yet he still would publically consider the series a nine-part one throughout the decade. He told Premiere magazine in September 1990, "Star Wars is a story, divided into three trilogies. It's a long movie of 18 hours, divided in nine parts. The next trilogy will be prequels, with events taking place some years before the current trilogy."
In the mid-1980s, Lucas told Starlog, "No, no books. If I do [more Star Wars stories], I will do them as movies." [Starlog, July 1987] Yet by the 1990s he may have begun to have other feelings in private. Perhaps the prospect of making the sequels had become doubtful to him, despite his public statements, and so he allowed authors to make material that took place after Return of the Jedi. The development of additional Star Wars novels was proposed in 1989 by publisher Bantam Spectra, and a year later Lucas agreed--his first criteria that they take place a few years after Return of the Jedi. In effect, they functioned to some degree as replacements for the Sequel Trilogy. Lucas said to Wired years later,
"The sequels were never really going to get made anyway, unlike 1, 2, and 3, where the stories have existed for 20 years. The idea of 7, 8, and 9 actually came from people asking me about sequels, and I said, "I don't know. Maybe someday." Then when the licensing people came and asked, "Can we do novels?" I said do sequels, because I'll probably never do sequels." [Wired, May 1999]
Timothy Zahn's completed trilogy became a New York Times best-seller, and by the mid-1990s there would be a slew of comics, video games and novels that expanded the Star Wars universe, many of which told the continuing story of Luke, Han and Leia, mainly in the form of novels. Lucasfilm had to soon keep track of the continuity; as the expanded universe material went on, so did the timeline of the stories, with the latest examples taking place some fifty years after the events of Episode IV. While this process was beginning to occur, Lucas began planning his prequel films, which became the most anticipated features ever made.
The prequels also, seemingly at least, presented a shift in the focus of the series. While his original idea of the three-trilogy arc was to have each trio have a different tone and focus--a chronological narrative told in three separate books--they were now to be unified as a six-episode arc telling the life story of Anakin's fall, rise, and death, making the third trilogy entirely tangential. Thus, it was only after the release of Episode I that Lucas finally proclaimed, definitively it seemed, that the flms would not be made--and based on that context, many fans understood this reasoning.
Interestingly, the themes of issues of morality and the ambiguity of good and evil that Lucas once said would be explored in the sequels found their way fairly prominently into the prequels, indicating the personal fascination such exploration held for Lucas.
Also interesting is that in the early 1990s, when Lucas was at least cautiously optimistic about the idea of a sequel trilogy, he did provide himself a safety window in which he could envision both the books and the sequel films co-existing. His plans had the films set decades after Jedi, while he mandated that the books take place only a few years after Jedi. This may be why one of his closests friends, Steven Spielberg, and his closest collaborator, Rick McCallum, continued to acknowledge the existence or possibility of sequels as shockingly late as 1999. During a BBC special from that year promoting Phantom Menace, Steven Spielberg states:
"George always wanted to make nine. He wanted to make the first three, then he wanted to make the prequels to that, then he wanted to make the last three. And that was something that was part of his concept."
In the same program, prequel producer Rick McCallum says:
"Whether George only completes six of the nine-part series or he actually ever really ultimately completes the nine, it's really nine parts of one film. It's one big saga, a saga about a family that happens to live in a galaxy far, far away." [BBC Omnibus: A Long Time Ago: The Story of Star Wars, 1999]
Even in the 1994 introduction to the re-printing of Splinter of the Mind's Eye, Lucas states, "It wasn't long after I began writing Star Wars that I realized the story was more than a single film could hold. As the saga of Skywalkers and Jedi Knights unfolded, I began to see it as a tale that would take at least nine films to tell--three trilogies--and I realized, in making my way through the back story and after story, that I was really setting out to write the middle story."
Interviewers would sometimes question Lucas about the Sequel Trilogy, but in the lead up to Episode I's release he was more hesitant than ever. He's quoted in The Unauthorized Star Wars Compendium, published in January 1999:
"The first film came out and was a giant hit, and the sequels became possible. Then people suggested we could do more than three, so I thought, "Gee, I can do these back stories, too." That's where the 'Chapter IV' came in. Then everyone said, "Well, are you going to do sequels to the first three?" But that was an afterthought. I don't have scripts on those stories. The only notion on that was, wouldn't it be fun to get all the actors to come back when they're sixty or seventy years old and make three more about them as old people. That's how far that has gone, but the first six will definitely get finished."
At this point, many fans had even begun to doubt if the films would see the light of day, given that the prequels themselves would not be completed until 2005.
To that end, he returned to a simpler number system that allowed him greater flexibility. Star Wars was listed as "Saga I" of the Adventures of Luke Skywalker in the final 1976 screenplay, and an earlier version had called the film Episode I. He now called it Chapter I, with Empire Strikes Back following as Chapter II in Lucasfilm documents from 1977 and 1978, akin to a twelve-chapter serial. Perhaps Luke could continue to be a main character beyond the third chapter, or perhaps they could do a prequel entry at that point; this sort of structure allowed Lucas to not commit to a particular storyline, because the series could progress non-linearly. Dovetailing into the comments he made to Rolling Stone , some of the ideas for one-off films might have been incorporated into this structure, as Lucas would later speak about.
Gary Kurtz' comments from 1999 on sequel and prequel ideas show that Lucas had also brainstormed ideas about doing a film about the origins of the Jedi Knights, and a whole film focusing on the Clone Wars. This indicates that Lucas probably had a lot more conceptual ideas for spin-offs than just the three he would later reveal to Prevue , which is why he originally set the series at twelve films long in 1978, giving him ample room to churn out these ideas.
In the July-August 1980 issue of Prevue magazine, Prevue writes, "Even [Lucas] did not know the full extent of the Star Wars epic, but estimated it to be a total of twelve stories, grouped into four collective trilogies. Since Star Wars, Lucas had refined and polished the complex narrative, finally settling on three trilogies and three additional, related tales which are separate from the primary action." This information came from George Lucas himself. By that point, he had instead envisioned the series as a nine-part soap opera of the Skywalker family, but attentive media recalled the 12-part announcement. So, they began asking him what the three missing films were. Lucas was attempting to maintain a facade that the story had in place all along and not being made up as he went, so could only admit to three of these one-off style films, as that was number difference between the 12 and 9 film announcements. When Bantha Tracks asked him why the series was cut from 12 to 9, Lucas could only say, "I cut that number down to nine because the other three were tangential to the saga." The September-October issue of Prevue magazine was able to get more detail, however, on what these one-off films were, of which Lucas undoubtedly had planned more than three:
Prevue: Do you plan to make any separate films about the characters? Like a film just about Han Solo or perhaps Chewbacca, the Clone Wars or the Jedis?
Lucas: I can answer that best by describing the history of the way Star Wars developed... As I was writing, I came up with some ideas for a film about robots, with no humans in it. When I got to working on the Wookiee, I thought of a film just about Wookiees, nothing else. So, for a time, I had a couple of odd movies with just those characters. Then, I had the other films, which were essentially split into three parts each, two trilogies. When the smoke cleared, I said, 'This is really great. I'll do another trilogy that takes place after this.' I had three trilogies of nine films, and then another couple of odd films. Essentially, there were twelve films.
Prevue: Do you still plan on producing all twelve?
Lucas: No, I've eliminated the odd movies, because they really don't have anything to do with the Star Wars saga. It gets confusing trying to explain the whole thing, but if I ever do the odd movies about the robots or the Wookiees, it'll be just about them, not necessarily about Chewbacca or Threepio--just about Wookiees and robots. It's the genre that I'm intrigued with, not necessarily the characters."
During the story conferences with Empire Strikes Back writer Leigh Brackett in late 1977, she and Lucas also came up with some ideas for future episodes. Namely, that Luke has a twin sister. She is revealed to have been going through Jedi training at the same time, and was hidden on the other side of the galaxy by their father so that if one was killed, the other could survive. She was discussed in the first draft of Empire Strikes Back, and named Nellith in an early copy of that draft, and was set to appear in a future episode after this intro, perhaps with the two Skywalker siblings teaming up to battle their father's killer, Darth Vader. Their actual father, Anakin, appears to Luke on Dagobah as a spirit and inducts him into the Jedi way.
Meanwhile, just after Brackett had completed the first draft of Empire in early 1978, she passed away, having been battling cancer. With a deadline looming, Lucas was forced to pick up the role and write the second draft himself. While pre-production documents and art work had proclaimed Empire as Chapter II, with the production company itself even titled Chapter Two Productions , Lucas' second draft of Empire Strikes Back would be titled Episode II. The change to Episode from Chapter might have had to do with the fact that a movie adaptation of Neil Simon's famous play, Chapter Two, was about to be released in 1979.
2. The Sequel Trilogy is Born: 1979-1980
This second draft of Empire was enormously important for one reason: in this draft, Lucas finally made the decision to turn Darth Vader into Luke Skywalker's father. In the previous draft, the ghost of Luke's slain father appears to him to give him advice in his battle against Vader; here, Vader now says that he is the one who is Luke's father. This change created an entirely new storyline; now, Anakin Skywalker was a heroic Jedi and student of Ben Kenobi, who both become heroes in the Clone Wars, until Anakin is seduced by the Emperor, betrays the Jedi and turns to the dark side, but is wounded by Kenobi on the site of a volcano and is subsequently encased in his technological suit to keep him alive. Meanwhile, the Republic becomes the Empire, a rebellion is formed, the Jedi are hunted down, and Kenobi hides Anakin's only son, Luke.
This storyline was so substantial that Lucas made the big decision to commit to an entire trilogy detailing this. Thus, the next time an episode number is attached to a draft of Empire Strikes Back, it is listed as Episode V, with a prequel trilogy preceding the original film. The screenplay to Star Wars was included in The Art of Star Wars book released in 1979, but now bore the altered heading Episode IV A New Hope. Meanwhile, Lucas' company was still promoting the franchise as a twelve part series, with Bantha Tracks referencing this up until autumn of 1979.
Lucas at this point may have contemplated a prequel trilogy, the "original trilogy", and then six sequels beyond this. But at some point between 1978 and 1979, he decided to do a trilogy-of-trilogies, with three sets of three films totaling a nine-film arc. Lucas says on the set of Empire Strikes Back, on July 19th, 1979:
"The first script was one of six original stories I had written in the form of two trilogies. After the success of Star Wars I added another trilogy. So now there are nine stories. The original two trilogies were conceived of as six films of which the first film was number four." [Arnold, p. 177]
This is the first recorded instance of the three-trilogy nine-episode structure. Later on that year, on October 29th, he elaborates:
"There are essentially nine films in a series of three trilogies. The first trilogy is about the young Ben Kenobi and the early life of Luke's father when Luke was a little boy. This trilogy takes place some twenty years before the second trilogy which includes Star Wars and Empire. About a year or two passes between each story of the trilogy and about twenty years pass between the trilogies. The entire saga spans about fifty-five years...After the success of Star Wars I added another trilogy but stopped there, primarily because reality took over. After all, it takes three years to prepare and make a Star Wars picture. How many years are left? So I'm still left with three trilogies of nine films... The next chapter is called "Revenge of the Jedi." It's the end of this particular trilogy, the conclusion of the conflict begun in Star Wars between Luke and Darth Vader. It resolves the situation once and for all. I won't say who survives and who doesn't, but if we are ever able to link together all three you'd find the story progresses in a very logical fashion." [Arnold, p. 247-8]
Not surprisingly, the final draft of Empire Strikes Back, written earlier that year, contains a tantalizing hint at a story to come. As Luke is leaving Dagobah, Kenobi remarks that Luke is their only hope. "No," Yoda replies, "there is another."
Recently, on the Empire 2004 DVD for example, Lucas claims that this line wasn't referring to anyone specific but was simply added to increase the danger, that Luke could die because there was someone else ready to replace him. The explanation doesn't quite hold up. But an examination of this infamous line reveals that Lucas indeed must have had some plans for sequels. The line in the initial drafts achieves what Lucas claims of it, and it first appears in the revised second draft. Yoda says, "Now we must find another." In the third draft the line is similar: "No...we must search for another." But in the fourth draft it undergoes a subtle yet highly significant change: "No, there is another." Implying that somebody is already out there, ready to step in and replace Luke, someone that only Yoda knows of.
It certainly seems as though Lucas was setting up the protagonist for the third trilogy he was planning on making at that point. Who was this character? Lucas himself may not have known exactly, and had many avenues to take. Could it be another Jedi who escaped the purge like Obi Wan and Yoda and was in seclusion like them? If this is the case, he would be at least seventy years old by the time of the Sequel Trilogy, making this highly unlikely. The most obvious answer then is that this person was a Force-sensitive youngster, hidden at birth similar to the way Luke was, perhaps only being a child at the time of the middle trilogy. In the third trilogy he or she could become the protagonist. As Lucas said in June 1981 to Starlog, quoted below, no character would go through the entire series except perhaps the droids. Lucas also mentions that the actors would all be different in the films, not surprising given that the actors of his current trilogy were only under contract for those three films. Thus, any characters from this trilogy that appeared in the third trilogy would be played by older actors. From 1981:
"Kerri O'Quinn: Is there going to be character continuity among all three trilogies?
George Lucas: No-- possibly the robots, but there weren't originally designed to go through the whole... nobody was designed to go through all three. I'd like to see the robots go through them, but I don't know whether they will.
KOQ: What will provide the continuity then?
GL: Well, the next trilogy--the first one--since it's about Ben Kenobi as a young man, is the same character, just a different actor. And it's the same thing with all the characters. Luke ends up in the third film of the first trilogy just three-and-a-half years old. There is continuity with the characters in other words, but not with the actors--and the look of the films will be different."
The series at this point was no longer just about Luke, as evident by the fact that the first (and probably last) third(s) of the saga would not centre on him--which may be one reason why Lucas stopped referring to the series as The Adventures of Luke Skywalker by 1979, when this three-trilogy plan was revealed. It was three separate trilogies which told a chronological story when viewed together but followed different characters and had different styles and tones, although connected in various ways. The first trilogy was to be mainly about Obi Wan. The second trilogy was mainly about Luke. The third trilogy, then, may have followed this "Other," perhaps with Luke in the role of the mentor character (and played by someone other than Mark Hamill), similar to Obi Wan in the middle trilogy. "The sequel is about Jedi knighthood, justice, confrontation, and passing on what you have learned," Lucas would later say in 1983, bolstering this interpretation.
Although Lucas would change some of these plans by the time he released Return of the Jedi, this natural arc of Luke taking an apprentice to continue the Jedi way after he is gone is still alluded to in that film when a dying Yoda intones "Pass on what you have learned..." That the sequels would involve Luke's successor almost seems like a given.
Would the rest of the middle trilogy characters be seen? Certainly audiences would want to find out what happened to them. But, there simply is not enough information to make anything more than assessments of probability; perhaps Lucas would make the films revolve around them, or perhaps Lucas would relegate them to background characters and instead prefer to introduce new ones. It's simply a matter of opinion.
The next question is about plot. There's not much known, and probably Lucas himself knew little about the details. Denise Worrell writes in 1983 that Lucas has specific plots for the prequel trilogy, "but he has only a vague notion of what will happen in the three films of the sequel," also stating that he has only some notes on the films and not specific outlines. This contradicts Lucas' instances saying he had the nine-film saga outlined, for example in the September-October 1980 edition of Prevue where he claims to have "titles and ten-page outlines for each of the" nine films--which probably indicates those claims were false and that it was merely some notes and ideas. In 1980 Lucas revealed to Time magazine that the sequel trilogy would revolve around "the rebuilding of the Republic," and in 1983 stated to that magazine that thematically it would be about "the necessity for moral choices and the wisdom needed to distinguish right from wrong," implying perhaps a more introspective tone, which is consistent with Lucas' implications that the three sets of films would all be stylistically different. The first trilogy is to be more Machiavellian and melodramatic, like a costume drama, as Lucas revealed in 1981, while the second is more action-packed and light-hearted, perhaps leaving the third to be more philosophical, addressing issues of ethical responsibility and moral ambiguity. "The third [trilogy will] deal with moral and philosophical problems," Lucas said in 1983. "In Star Wars, there is a very clear line drawn between good and evil. Eventually you have to face the fact that good and evil aren't that clear-cut and the real issue is trying to understand the difference." [Worrell, Icons: Intimate Portraits, 1983]
While we may never know further details about this early conception of the sequel trilogy, as I will explain shortly, many of the ideas for this original version that featured the "Other" character may have survived in the later revision of the trilogy; in fact, I am assuming that is the case, since everything quoted except those comments from 1979 comes from a time when I propose that original version of the trilogy had been axed in favour of a modified form.
The actual plot--beyond the premise of re-building the Republic and perhaps following the Jedi-in-training Other character--is anyone's guess, though a number of viable speculations can be made. The hardest accomplishment of the Sequel Trilogy is the introduction of a new threat and the creation of a central villain, something the expanded universe has struggled with, but also been successful at overcoming to various degrees.
Perhaps a new menace would rise up in place of the Empire, threatening to consume or topple the struggling New Republic. Perhaps insidious evildoers would appear from within the New Republic itself, similar to the prequels, threatening to take over the democracy once again. Perhaps the remnants from the Galactic Empire itself have been taken over by a new leader and now are striking back as intergalactic terrorists in the ravaged post-war galaxy, similar to what Timothy Zahn would present in his own sequel trilogy. It could even be possible to bring back the Emperor himself--Lucas himself okayed the use of returning the Emperor as a clone for Dark Empire.
Moral ambiguity and the necessity for choices in the name of good, Jedi knighthood, and the passing on of knowledge would play key roles in the sequels, according to Lucas' previously-quoted statements, and so perhaps Luke would wrestle with the dark side, exploring what it is, why his father fell and how he himself should avoid it--after all, he himself tasted it at the end of Jedi. This type of plot is similar to the Dark Empire comic, with Luke trying to destroy the dark side from within, which Lucas had some involvement with and apparently is quite fond of. With Luke taking on an apprentice, these issues would be all the more relevant. Those rebuilding the Republic would be faced with a legacy of failure and the task of not repeating the mistakes of the past, which indeed would give the trilogy a reflective and philosophical tone.
These are, however, speculations on my part. The truth is that short of Lucas coming out and telling us, we will never know the details. All of this story development seems to be occuring around 1979. So, what happened to this trilogy? What it seems to come down to is that Lucas never had a huge emotional investment in it, and so he kept being put it off, until he got to the point where he was too old to do it. He revealed in the May 1980 issue of Bantha Tracks that his original story gave him material for the first six films but that the third trilogy was only added after the success of Star Wars. "Originally, when I wrote Star Wars," he says, " had material for six movies. After the success of Star Wars I added another trilogy." Perhaps this is why by 1980 the plan is to film the prequels first and then the sequels--it gave him the option of backing out if he felt like it.
Unfortunately, as production of Empire Strikes Back dragged on and on, Lucas may have begun to re-consider things. The difficult shoot was infamously nightmarish, with the budget nearly doubling, accidents and all sorts of problems on sets, and a methodical director that didn't always listen to George, who suffered health problems just as he did on the first film. Making Empire Strikes Back was not the fun adventure he thought it would be in 1977. On top of it, his personal life was being severely affected, with his marriage falling apart in additional to the other personal stresses, and his wife Marcia Lucas hounded George to step back from the series. Meanwhile Lucasfilm was ballooning as a company and growing at an accelerating rate beyond his grasp.
Out of this, an option loomed for Lucas of simply ending the franchise with Episode VI. With Return of the Jedi tying up the story--Vader dead, the Empire defeated, the heroes victorious--what need was there to extend the story beyond this? The third film stood poised to tie up the loose ends and finish the story in a satisfying way, and because of this, Lucas would vow to never make a Star Wars film again by the time Jedi went into production. [Pollock, Skywalking, p. 274-5]
This, of course, left one major lingering hole: the mention of the "other". If Lucas wanted to eliminate the sequel trilogy, as he had envisioned it, or at least give him the option of backing out of making it, then this now needed to be addressed, especially since audiences were looking forward to the reveal of who this would be. Without room to satisfyingly introduce a new character just to address this issue, Leia was merged with this character, justifying her importance as the last hope by making her Anakin's daughter and Luke's twin sister, re-using the twin sister concept that had been in place in the first draft of Empire Strikes Back; this also resolved the Luke-Leia-Han love triangle more definitively. Darth Vader was no longer battled as a nemesis, but instead Luke believes there is good in him and is able to make peace, fulfilling his maturation as a Jedi and bringing additional emotional closure to the series.
3. The Sequel Trilogy Defined: 1980-1983
This is where things get even more interesting. Even though he was telling people like Dale Pollock in private that he wanted to get away from the series, publically Lucas was still expressing plans to make the missing six films. There are a number of speculations one can make. My own opinion is that, because there was such enormous public pressure and anticipation about them, he may have believed that at some future date he could eventually return to them. It would be a morally crushing blow to the fans and make for bad publicity if he announced their cancellation, especially when they would not be made for some time, and so he didn't want to speak prematurely. Also, even though many fans and audience members wanted to see the sequel trilogy and the further adventures of Luke and gang first, Lucas was always upfront that it was the prequels that would be filmed first, again allowing him to defer a concrete decision on the sequel trilogy for some time. They remained as an elusive possibility that did not need addressing for at least a while. Gary Kurtz seemed to sense this in 1980, as he tells Prevue in its September-October issue, "[w]hether or not all nine or twelve films actually get made depends on how George feels as time goes along. The series may happen the way he originally planned or may completely change. As the films are made, each of the stories develops. As each is finished, I think the direction of the saga may change a bit."
However, there is an additional element. Making Leia into the "other" had seemingly nixed a major character and story focus of the third trilogy, however Lucas also had assured audiences that he had mapped out the elaborate story years earlier, even saying he had complete treatments for them (for instance in his June 12, 1980 interview with Rolling Stone). This led to some legendary confusion in the 80s and 90s as people wondered what happened to these mythical films. Yet with the original thrust of the sequel story in need of revision, Lucas began to re-formulate the sequel trilogy around the idea of re-uniting the aged original cast members decades in the future. Even though this could have very well been a major part of his original plan, he especially began to emphasis the idea of a "reunion" film set far in the future, now with the option of having the original cast members if they were old enough. This is the version of the sequel trilogy most people remembering hearing about, and like I said may have incorporated elements and story points from Lucas' original 1979 version. But with Luke likely having a prodigy of some kind, the story needn't have changed dramatically, it just would have been someone different than the person Yoda was referencing; this freedom of not being tied to a specific story point may have even helped the storyline by giving it greater flexibility.
One of the first mainstream references to the sequel trilogy was the May 23rd, 1983 issue of Time magazine: "Luke, who will then be the age Obi-Wan Kenobi is now, some place in his 60s, will reappear, and so will his friends, assuming that the creator decides to carry the epic further. Hamill and the others will get first crack at the roles--if they look old enough."
Denise Worrell also reported in greater detail that same month, later published in her book Icons: Intimate Portraits:
"In the sequel Luke would be a sixty-year-old Jedi knight. Han Solo and Leia would be together, although Lucas says, "They might be married, or not. We have never actually discussed marriage in this galaxy. I don't even know if it exists yet. Who knows what relationship they will have? I mean, they're together, let's put it that way." The sequel focuses mainly on Luke, and Lucas says Mark Hamill will have first crack at the part if he is old enough. "If the first trilogy is social and political and talks about how society evolves," Lucas says, "Star Wars is more about personal growth and self-realisation, and the third deal with moral and philosophical problems. In Star Wars, there is a very clear line drawn between good and evil. Eventually you have to face the fact that good and evil aren't that clear-cut and the real issue is trying to understand the difference. The sequel is about Jedi knighthood, justice, confrontation, and passing on what you have learned." [Worrell, p. 186]
It appears that Lucas developed a somewhat alternate version of the Sequel Trilogy by this point, likely just in case he still felt like making it one day. This version also takes place much farther into the future, roughly forty years after Return of the Jedi, as opposed to twenty (Luke is said to be in his 60s), and is more centred around the gimmick of re-uniting the aged original cast. However, it is possible that much of the thematic content of the original plan remained intact,
A June 1980 interview with Rolling Stone has him claiming to have twelve-page outlines for all seven remaining films. He also addresses the "Other," but his comments are so vague that it is impossible to precisely gather if it is indicating he had decided to write in Leia as the Other by this point:
" What is your deal with Fox?
They have first refusal on every Star Wars film I want to make.
How many is that?
Seven left.
Let's get back to The Empire Strikes Back for a moment. In the movie, Ben says Luke is the last hope and Yoda says no, there is another.
Yes. [Smiling] There is another, and has been for a long time. You have to remember, we're starting in the middle of this whole story. There are six hours' worth of events before Star Wars, and in those six hours, the 'Other' becomes apparent, and after the third film, the 'Other' becomes apparent quite a bit.
What will happen to Luke?
I can't say. In the next film everything gets resolved one way or the other...
Do you have story lines for the seven Star Wars movies left to be done?
Yes, twelve-page outlines."
In any case, by 1983 Lucas is speaking of following the aged cast of the originals in a Sequel Trilogy. But they are somewhat empty promises--as Lucas' comments in 2005 indicate that the films were never considered very seriously, he never had a strong desire to film these. It was merely an option left open for himself. He would, however, continue to speak of the films throughout the 1980s, as would publicity from Lucasfilm. A few examples can be found below:
Time Magazine, May 19th, 1980:
"The second trilogy, which opened with Star Wars: Episode IV, centers on Luke Skywalker, who, will be seen as a child in Episode III. Empire continues the Skywalker story, and Episode VI, the next film to be made, which will be called Revenge of the Jedi, will end it, with either Luke or Darth Vader walking away from their final bout. The last three episodes involve the rebuilding of the Republic.
Only two of the main characters will appear in all nine films, and they are the robots, Artoo Detoo and Threepio. Says Lucas: "In effect, the story will be told through their eyes."
Bantha Tracks, issue 8, spring 1980:
"Revenge of the Jedi will complete the middle trilogy of the nine-part Star Wars epic. Following its completion, the first trilogy will be filmed, and then finally, the last trilogy.
Should production on the nine films continue at the same rate, we can expect to see the ninth film released in the spring of 2001."
George Lucas, Prevue special, spring 1980:
"It's a nine-part saga that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It progresses over a period of about fifty or sixty years with about twenty years between trilogies, each trilogy taking about six or seven years."
Starlog, July 1981:
"Starlog: Is there going to be character continuity among all three trilogies?
Lucas: No--possibly the robots, but they weren't originally designed to go through the whole...nobody was designed to go through all three [trilogies]. I'd like to see the robots go through them, but I don't know whether they will."
George Lucas, 1982, as quoted in John Baxter's Mythmaker, p. 387
I'm only doing [ Revenge of the Jedi] because I started it and now I have to finish it. The next trilogy will be someone else's vision.
Time magazine, May 23rd, 1983:
The sequels, the three movies that would follow Jedi, are considerably vaguer. Their main theme will be the necessity for moral choices and the wisdom needed to distinguish right from wrong. There was never any doubt in the films already made; in those the lines were sharply drawn, comic-book-style. Luke, who will then be the age Obi-Wan Kenobi is now, some place in his 60s, will reappear, and so will his friends, assuming that the creator decides to carry the epic further. Hamill and the others will get first crack at the roles--if they look old enough.
Dale Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas, First Edition, 1983, p. 146He started anew with the middle story. It had the most action and starred Luke, the character with whom he felt the most secure. The first trilogy told the story of young Ben Kenobi and Luke's father and was set twenty years before Star Wars. The final three movies feature an adult Luke and the final confrontation between the rebels and the Empire. The entire saga spans more than fifty-five years; C-3P0 and R2-D2 are the only common element to all the films.
George Lucas, Press-Telegram, May 18, 1983:
Now I've finished one book. And there may be two other books in my mind, but whether I start another book is not crucially important. The next book doesn't have anything to do with this book. Different sets, different actors. So it's not like I have to rush out and do another.
Starlog, issue 127, February 1988:
Starlog: Will you return to the Star Wars universe?
Lucas: Hopefully, I will someday be doing the next three Star Wars, but I'm not sure when. The next three would take place 20 or 30 years before the films they're celebrating here today. I'll do the first trilogy first. There are nine [films] floating around there somewhere. I'll guarantee that the first three are pretty much organized in my head, but the other three are kind of out there somewhere.
Starlog: Why didn't you give Luke a girl?
Lucas: You haven't seen the last three yet.
4. The Sequel Trilogy Becomes Uncertain: 1983-1999
While Lucas continued to talk about Star Wars sequels and prequels throughout the 1980s, in reality he was burned out from the series. While he had remarked on occasion to being done with the series for good--for example to Dale Pollock--he never did publically follow through with this (he added to Pollock that it would be very hard to actually leave the series, for example), and instead remedied the situation by settling down and taking a breather. He concentrated on his business and raising his family, while occasionally producing movies and continuing to state that more Star Wars films would one day be made. Lucas had gone through a costly divorce in 1983 not long after Jedi was released, and for this reason alone did not have the resources to make more films, which may have also been a contributing factor to the quiet period in the mid and late 1980s.
In the early 1990s, however, Star Wars experienced a gradual resurgence of popularity, and this Star Wars renaissance gave Lucas enough wealth to return to filmmaking, conveniently coinciding with the digital revolution and the maturation of his kids. If he were do any more Star Wars films they would be the prequel trilogy, which he had developed in some detail by point and which held a strong personal interest to him; the sequels, on the other hand, remained vaguer and less personal. Yet he still would publically consider the series a nine-part one throughout the decade. He told Premiere magazine in September 1990, "Star Wars is a story, divided into three trilogies. It's a long movie of 18 hours, divided in nine parts. The next trilogy will be prequels, with events taking place some years before the current trilogy."
In the mid-1980s, Lucas told Starlog, "No, no books. If I do [more Star Wars stories], I will do them as movies." [Starlog, July 1987] Yet by the 1990s he may have begun to have other feelings in private. Perhaps the prospect of making the sequels had become doubtful to him, despite his public statements, and so he allowed authors to make material that took place after Return of the Jedi. The development of additional Star Wars novels was proposed in 1989 by publisher Bantam Spectra, and a year later Lucas agreed--his first criteria that they take place a few years after Return of the Jedi. In effect, they functioned to some degree as replacements for the Sequel Trilogy. Lucas said to Wired years later,
"The sequels were never really going to get made anyway, unlike 1, 2, and 3, where the stories have existed for 20 years. The idea of 7, 8, and 9 actually came from people asking me about sequels, and I said, "I don't know. Maybe someday." Then when the licensing people came and asked, "Can we do novels?" I said do sequels, because I'll probably never do sequels." [Wired, May 1999]
Timothy Zahn's completed trilogy became a New York Times best-seller, and by the mid-1990s there would be a slew of comics, video games and novels that expanded the Star Wars universe, many of which told the continuing story of Luke, Han and Leia, mainly in the form of novels. Lucasfilm had to soon keep track of the continuity; as the expanded universe material went on, so did the timeline of the stories, with the latest examples taking place some fifty years after the events of Episode IV. While this process was beginning to occur, Lucas began planning his prequel films, which became the most anticipated features ever made.
The prequels also, seemingly at least, presented a shift in the focus of the series. While his original idea of the three-trilogy arc was to have each trio have a different tone and focus--a chronological narrative told in three separate books--they were now to be unified as a six-episode arc telling the life story of Anakin's fall, rise, and death, making the third trilogy entirely tangential. Thus, it was only after the release of Episode I that Lucas finally proclaimed, definitively it seemed, that the flms would not be made--and based on that context, many fans understood this reasoning.
Interestingly, the themes of issues of morality and the ambiguity of good and evil that Lucas once said would be explored in the sequels found their way fairly prominently into the prequels, indicating the personal fascination such exploration held for Lucas.
Also interesting is that in the early 1990s, when Lucas was at least cautiously optimistic about the idea of a sequel trilogy, he did provide himself a safety window in which he could envision both the books and the sequel films co-existing. His plans had the films set decades after Jedi, while he mandated that the books take place only a few years after Jedi. This may be why one of his closests friends, Steven Spielberg, and his closest collaborator, Rick McCallum, continued to acknowledge the existence or possibility of sequels as shockingly late as 1999. During a BBC special from that year promoting Phantom Menace, Steven Spielberg states:
"George always wanted to make nine. He wanted to make the first three, then he wanted to make the prequels to that, then he wanted to make the last three. And that was something that was part of his concept."
In the same program, prequel producer Rick McCallum says:
"Whether George only completes six of the nine-part series or he actually ever really ultimately completes the nine, it's really nine parts of one film. It's one big saga, a saga about a family that happens to live in a galaxy far, far away." [BBC Omnibus: A Long Time Ago: The Story of Star Wars, 1999]
Even in the 1994 introduction to the re-printing of Splinter of the Mind's Eye, Lucas states, "It wasn't long after I began writing Star Wars that I realized the story was more than a single film could hold. As the saga of Skywalkers and Jedi Knights unfolded, I began to see it as a tale that would take at least nine films to tell--three trilogies--and I realized, in making my way through the back story and after story, that I was really setting out to write the middle story."
Interviewers would sometimes question Lucas about the Sequel Trilogy, but in the lead up to Episode I's release he was more hesitant than ever. He's quoted in The Unauthorized Star Wars Compendium, published in January 1999:
"The first film came out and was a giant hit, and the sequels became possible. Then people suggested we could do more than three, so I thought, "Gee, I can do these back stories, too." That's where the 'Chapter IV' came in. Then everyone said, "Well, are you going to do sequels to the first three?" But that was an afterthought. I don't have scripts on those stories. The only notion on that was, wouldn't it be fun to get all the actors to come back when they're sixty or seventy years old and make three more about them as old people. That's how far that has gone, but the first six will definitely get finished."
At this point, many fans had even begun to doubt if the films would see the light of day, given that the prequels themselves would not be completed until 2005.
lebeau
Well-Known Member
5. The Sequel Trilogy Cancelled: 1999-2005
It was 1999 when George Lucas at least tentatively implied that the series would end with the prequels, making these plans very clear once Revenge of the Sith was released. The first instance comes from the January 4th, 1999 issue of Vanity Fair where he states, "I never had a story for the sequels, for the later ones... And also, I'll be at a point in my age where to do another trilogy would take ten years." He further adds that he would "probably not" be open to the idea of someone else making them. Further quotes from the media of the time can be found below.
George Lucas, Juice magazine, May 1999:
No, no. [After Star Wars came out] somebody asked me if I was going to do a sequel. And I said, "I'm doing the other two parts to this one." And they said, "You're doing this trilogy--do you have any more?" And I said, "I've got a backstory, which I've got laid out. I could probably do that." And they said, "But are you going to do a sequel?" And I said, "I guess maybe I could do a sequel at some point." And that got turned into doing nine films. It's six films. It's really not nine films. It's extremely unlikely that I will go on and do any more.
George Lucas, TV Guide, November 19, 2001:
What would it take for you to do a third trilogy, with episodes VII, VIII, and IX?
Lucas: "Each time I do a trilogy it's 10 years out of my life. I'll finish 'Episode III' and I'll be 60. And the next 20 years after that I want to spend doing something other than 'Star Wars'. If at 80 I'm still lively and having a good time and think I can work hard for another 10 years between 80 and 90, I might consider it. But don't count on it. There's nothing written, and it's not like I'm completing something. I'd have to start from scratch. [The idea of episodes VII, VIII, and IX] was more of a media thing than it was me."
A quote from 2005 reveals a rather simple explanation for the post-1983 talk as merely boiling down to not anticipating the amount of work involved: "Someone once asked me in an interview if I would be making sequels to the original trilogy... I said that it might be fun to come back and do sequels with all the characters in their eighties, and to ask Mark [Hamill] to come back when he's eighty. What I forgot, or didn't realize at the time, was that I'd be eighty too! So, no, I'm not going to make another Star Wars film at eighty." [Hearn, The Cinema of George Lucas, 2005, p. 240-242]
If one accepts this admission, perhaps it was the public pressure that convinced him to continue to entertain the notion of making the films, even though his original plans for the movies had been complicated by compromise, combined with the notion that maybe he felt he truely could make such films one day. "I sort of played into it," he admits in 2005, "but I probably shouldn't have."
During the publicity period of Revenge of the Sith's release, Lucas made it very clear that he would never be making the sequels. Instead, he insisted the media had invented the idea of sequels, which wasn't the case at all, but this may have been his way of dodging the responsibility of letting some fans down.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports on May 12, 2005:
"What about the third trilogy of sequels: the episodes VII, VIII and IX that have been reported many times over the past 28 years to exist in his head? Lucas says that was always mostly a 'media invention.' 'The truth is there's no place to go with the story.' "
Similarly in Empire Magazines May 2005:
"The rumour of Episodes VII, VIII and IX was a popular question, and Lucas summed it up with one word, and then two: 'Never! Absolutely never!' Luckily for us, he then elaborated. 'This is all that's ever been written about it. It was the story of Darth Vader, you know, it starts when he's 10 years old and ends when he dies."
As well as MTV online on September 10th, 2004:
"This was never planned as a nine-episode work. The media [pounced when] I made an offhand comment, 'It might be fun to come back when everyone's 80 and do another one of these.' But I never had any intention of doing that."
And again in Merge Digital in 2006:
"Merge: Can this really be the end of the Star Wars saga?
Lucas: Yes. The series starts with Darth Vader as a young lad and ends with him dying. So I don't know where else I can take it.
Merge: Wasn't there talk at one time of three trilogies?
Lucas: That was created by the media, not me."
Finally, he speaks with Total Film magazine in May 2008:
Total Film: Are you happy for new Star Wars tales to be told after you've gone?
Lucas: I've left pretty explicit instructions for there not to be any more features. There will definitely be no Episodes VII-IX. That's because there isn't any story. I mean, I never thought of anything. And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn't at all what I would have done with it. The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn't come back to life, the Emperor doesn't get cloned and Luke doesn't get married."
As if to underline how little chance there was of seeing the sequel trilogy, Lucas sat down with MTV's website in May 2005 and jokingly explained what the sequels would be like, emphasizing that the story was finished and everyone lived happily every after. When first asked what will happen to the sequel trilogy Lucas once again remarks, "that was sort of a figment of the press' imagination... The joke I said was, 'It would be fun to come back when everybody's 70 and make a sequel.' But I realized when everybody's 70, I'd also be 70. That idea, now that I'm 60, isn't quite so appealing." Lucas continues on with what he imagines the characters did in the years following Episode VI: "Han and Leia probably did get married. They settled down. She became a senator, and they got a nice little house with a white picket fence. Han Solo is out there cooking burgers on the grill. Is that a movie? I don't think so." When asked about Jar Jar Lucas says, "He goes back to Naboo and he's a representative....He probably stays on the council, he's probably in the senate, because it becomes completely worthless. Senators are just for show, which they talk about in 'Episode IV.' Actually, in 'Episode IV' they get disbanded, so Jar Jar probably goes home to his wife and kids."
And so for many years it was assumed that was all we would hear of it. Fans speculated that, perhaps decades down the road, when Lucas is gone and the Lucasfilm empire sold or merged or operated by a new generation, the sequels could perhaps be made, perhaps even a remake of the entire saga. But, basically, people had given up on any hope of new Star Wars films, especially the long-lost Sequel Trilogy that so many grew up hearing about. Star Wars would remain as the six episode story of Anakin Skywalker's rise, fall and redemption.
6. The Complete Saga and Lucas After the Prequels: 2005-2012
Some years went by. A very successful cartoon series began airing in 2008, called The Clone Wars. Following on a feature film that was financially unsuccessful and completely critically eviscerated (as it arguably deserved), the weekly series surprised everyone by being smartly written and generally entertaining. Lucas contributed ideas and most of the stories, but gave the show's writers and directors, especially the series' main creative head Dave Filoni, lots of freedom, and crafted a show that appealed to both old and new fans. Meanwhile, Lucas was working on an ambitious live-action television series set between the two trilogies, that he envisioned as having the production quality of a feature film and aimed at older audiences. He met with writers and supposedly wrote about 100 episodes for the series, but production of the show was perpetually delayed due to it being so costly. However, the show continues to be in development, and by 2012 the Clone Wars series was entering it's fifth and most successful season yet. Lucas even recruited his daughter Katie as a series writer. Meanwhile, development was being done on yet another Star Wars series, this one being a parody series called Detours, produced with comedy actor Seth Green, who had lampooned the series in skits for his stop-motion Robot Chicken series.
George Lucas had said he was done with Star Wars and going to make other films, yet he was producing more Star Wars product than ever. In 2012, Episode I was re-released in theaters, this time in 3D, with the plan being to release each film in 3D over the following five years. The release was not successful, but plans to release the other films moved ahead, with the following two prequel films both to be squeezed into 2013 to make way for the beloved original trilogy--plans that were ultimately cancelled in 2012. In 2011, all six films were released in a best-selling Blu-ray boxed set, which drew criticism for yet more Special Edition changes but was as equally successful for being able to give original trilogy fans the chance to see the films in greater fidelity than ever before and view vintage bonus material. The set was branded as "The Complete Saga," a term that Lucasfilm has used in other products to describe the six-episode series. With the 30th anniversary of Star Wars in 2007 and Empire in 2010, fan nostalgia for those original films was being celebrated more than ever. Family Guy made very successful hour-long specials of each film, with Lucas' blessing, but refused to do so for the prequels. At Disney Land, "Star Wars Days" celebrations were regularly occurring, with costumed characters mainly from the original trilogy entertaining millions of kids in stage shows, while the long-running Star Tours ride was overhauled in a massive 2011 release.
Even as the successful Clone Wars series went on, it was still the original films that were the core of Lucasfilm's reputation, and the most respected elements of the franchise were often ones not made by Lucas himself, which would continue with the mature-audiences Force Unleashed video game series. Lucas made a fourth Indiana Jones film, with a begrudging Steven Spielberg, but it too faced prequel-style criticism, although it fared decently with critics and cleaned up at the box office; Lucas finally made Red Tails in 2012, after decades of development, but the film failed to make much money and again was critically maligned. It was one of the last projects Lucas had on his to-do list, while in the period from 2005-2012 Lucas continued to distance himself from his company and the franchise and let others run it, claiming to be semi-retired. At the age of 68 in 2012, Lucas was in the process of moving into a less active role and gearing up for a looming retirement.
In May 2012, Lucas spoke with Empire magazine, saying, "I'm moving away from the company, I'm moving away from all my businesses, I'm finishing all my obligations and I'm going to retire to my garage with my saw and hammer and build hobby movies." On June 1st, Lucasfilm finally released a press notice which announced Kathleen Kennedy becoming the new CEO of Lucasfilm, with Lucas becoming co-chair. "I've spent my life building Lucasfilm and as I shift my focus into other directions I wanted to make sure it was in the hands of someone equipped to carry my vision into the future," said George Lucas. "It was important that my successor not only be someone with great creative passion and proven leadership abilities, but also someone who loves movies... I also care deeply about our fans and it was important to have someone who would carry on the passion and care that I've given the films over the years. So for me Kathy was the obvious choice, she is a trusted friend and one of the most respected producers and executives in the industry."
As Lucas oversaw her transition into CEO, there was a deal being made for the future of the company, unbeknownst to the public. With Clone Wars still going strong, the live-action TV series--titled Underworld--still being developed, impressive games like Star Wars 1313 set for release, as well as Lucas having made appearances at recent Celebration conventions, it was not expected that Lucas would be letting go of the series any time soon, especially as he had just overseen the 2011 Blu-ray release and the 3D releases, which were only just beginning. Which was why it was so shocking when on October 30th, 2012, Lucas announced the sale of Lucasfilm, and with it all rights to the Star Wars movies. And with that, the first course of action Disney was taking was to make the Sequel Trilogy, from original story treatments from George Lucas.
7. Lucas Retires and the Sequel Trilogy Reborn: 2012-2021?
Although the announcement, not only of the sale of the company and its assets to Disney but that there would be a Star Wars sequel trilogy, took the world by shock, for Lucas it was not a last-minute decision. It was one he had been planning for about a year, and probably mulling over for longer than that. By 2010, Lucas could see his retirement looming, and the question of what to do with Lucasfilm--and thus Star Wars--after he left the company was a pressing concern for him. In May of 2011, George Lucas had breakfast with Disney CEO Robert Igor at Disney World's Hollywood Brown Derby; the two men were there that day to celebrate the opening of the revamped Star Tours ride. Igor asked Lucas if he had ever contemplated selling his company. Lucas replied that he had just celebrated his 67th birthday that month and was starting to seriously think about retiring; perhaps the sale of the company was inevitable. He said he wasn't quite ready for it though, but added "when I am, I would love to talk."
Fans and the press had continued to ask Lucas about doing the sequel films, which he had always brushed off. But, when he began talking with Kathleen Kennedy about taking over the company as CEO, the films suddenly were in discussion. With Lucas moving away from the company, it was seen as a way of re-inventing the franchise and also providing a way of setting up the transition of power within the company in a way that Lucas was comfortable with. In many ways, just as the sale of the company was inevitable, so was the notion of making more films: Lucas selling Lucasfilm and instigating a new trilogy was undertaken by him so that he could do it on his own terms, and steer both in the right direction.
"When Kathy came on, we started talking about starting up the whole franchise again," Lucas told Bloomberg Businessweek in early 2013. "I was pulling away, and I said, 'Well, I've got to build this company up so that it functions without me, and we need to do something to make it attractive.' So I said, 'Well, let's just do these movies.' "
According to the Bloomberg Businessweek article, Lucas and Kennedy approached Michael Arndt about writing the new films in the first half of 2012, then hired Lawrence Kasdan as a consultant and began meeting with the cast of the original trilogy. "Last August, [George] asked Carrie and I to have lunch with him and we did," Hamill said on October 31st, 2012. "I thought he was going to talk about his retirement or the Star Wars TV series...So when he said, 'We decided we're going to do Episodes VII, VIII and IX' I was just gobsmacked...I guess he wanted us to know before everybody else knew."
Lucas called Iger in June 2012 to begin negotiations for the deal, but insisted they use many of the staff he worked with--and his own story treatments for the sequel films. Though Lucas would not be closely involved in the new movies, he wanted to set them up on his own terms so he could at least step away from the franchise in peace. "I had a group of very, very talented people that had worked for the company for many, many years and really knew how to market Star Wars, how to do the licensing and make the movies," he says. "I said, 'I think it would be wise to keep some of this intact. We need a few people to oversee the property, you know, who are just dedicated to doing that, so we're sure we get this right."
At the same time, Iger wanted Lucas to understand "that if we acquire the company...at the end of the day, we have to be the ones who sign off on whatever the plans are," says Alan Horn, chairman of Disney Studios. Lucas ultimately agreed, though Kennedy remarks "I'm sure he paused periodically to question whether he was ready to walk away." Disney also requested to see Lucas' story outlines before the deal was signed, but Lucas replied only that they should trust him. "Ultimately you have to say, 'Look, I know what I'm doing. Buying my stories is part of what the deal is.' I've worked at this for 40 years, and I've been pretty successful." Eventually he did show them the treatments, but insisted they only be read by Iger, Horn and Kevin Mayer, Disney's executive VP for corporate strategy. At the end of October, Lucas flew down to Disney's Burbank headquarters to sign the papers. "When he put that pen to the piece of paper, I didn't detect a hesitation," Iger remarks. "But I did detect there was a lot of emotion. He was saying goodbye."
Iger remarks that when Lucas finally showed him the treatments, he was excited. "We thought from a storytelling perspective they had a lot of potential," he says. But, of course, a big question is: what are these treatment, and where did they come from?
There is little doubt in my mind that these were relatively new creations. But there is also little doubt that they at least incorporated some--if not many--ideas from his original sequel trilogy plans, however modified and altered. When Lucas was ready to retire and propose making the new trilogy, he had obviously given it some serious thought. And so, I'm sure he sat down and began sketching out a specific storyline, though it's a bit difficult to say how much seriousness he thought about such a thing before Kathleen Kennedy was involved. But regardless, by the time negotiations began with Disney in summer 2012, Lucas was insisting his treatments be a mandatory part of the sale, so they had existed on paper since at least then.
It is difficult to tell at this point what the focus or story of the new films will be. However, there are a few clues as of the time of this writing (March 2013). First is that the original trilogy characters will be in the films and played by the original actors, who are now basically in their 60s. That gives a good idea of the chronology of the new films, in that they ought to be set about 40 years or so after the events in Return of the Jedi. Currently, Harrison Ford is not signed, but that will likely (and hopefully) change. In fact, in the March 2013 Businessweek article, Lucas may have spoiled a future announcement, saying that they were in the final stages of negotiating with Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher--and Harrison Ford. "Maybe I'm not supposed to say that," he says, and adds, "I won't say whether the negotiations were successful." But given that Hamill and Fisher have already announced their participation and the fact that Lucas, in the interview, initially says they had signed all three before clarifying that the deal was technically not closed--the characters will be back.
This begs the question: will the films follow Lucas' notion of "wouldn't it be fun to make a film about the original cast in their sixties?" The answer is no. While the characters--and actors--will be in the storyline, they will not be main characters, and may even have mere cameos. I draw this conclusion because when the actors were negotiating with Lucas and Disney, Lucas told them that their characters would not be re-cast with other actors if they turned down the role--the characters would be written out of the storyline instead. "[George] did say that if we didn't want to do it, they wouldn't cast another actor in our parts--they would write us out," Hamill remarked in February 2013. So, if the characters could simply be written out over a contract dispute, they must not be central to the story. Instead, they may have roles similar to Alec Guiness in the original sequels--Guiness was only locked for Empire half way into shooting, and his dialogue would be given to Yoda if Guiness refused or was unable to participate. So, while we will see an older Han, Luke and Leia, the stories were not designed around them. However, now that they have signed, I have the feeling that their screentime may be enlarged slightly now that the screenplay itself is being worked on. Hamill could be interpreted as alluding to such a process when he mentions in February 2013 that "they want us to go in and meet with Michael Arndt, who is the writer, and Kathleen Kennedy, who is going to run Lucasfilm." In part 2 of a video series released by Lucasfilm in December 2012 on the new developments, Lucas further states that "there are a few blank spots in the story treatment that hopefully we can fill in," indicating the actual screenplay will expand the treatment Lucas initially offered.
That does leave who the main characters will be. The obvious conclusion is that it may follow the kids of Han and Leia and Luke. If Han and Leia are in the film, it seems a very natural conclusion that they would have kids in their 20s or so by now. Luke is another matter--but if the first trilogy was about Luke's father, the second trilogy about Luke himself, then it would make sense that the third trilogy was about Luke's son or daughter. As Lucas originally said in 1979, "The Star Wars saga is essentially about Luke's background and his destiny," [Arnold, p. 223] and that may now finally have come to fruition. No longer the story of just Luke, no longer the story of the rise, fall and redemption of Anakin, the Star Wars "Saga"--the episode numbered storyline--may well end up the multi-generational tale of the Skywalker family.
Another question is: what is Lucas' involvement? He has provided the story, but is listed as a creative consultant. While in reality that means he is fairly hands off, especially during pre-production he has continued to shape how the film will turn out. According to the Businessweek piece, he has attended story meetings and given clarification as to the consistencies of the world. "I mostly say, 'You can't do this. You can do that," Lucas states. "You know, 'The cars don't have wheels. They fly with antigravity.' There are a million little pieces. Or I can say, 'He doesn't have the power to do that, or he has to do this.' I know all that stuff." Between Lucas' input, the guidance of Kathleen Kennedy--even down to the meetings with the older actors--talented writer Michael Arndt is just one piece of what appears to be the most collaborative Star Wars film since Empire Strikes Back. Add to that mix director J.J. Abrams, who was announced as director of the film in early 2013.
Finally, although there is the new trilogy being developed, there are other Star Wars films in the pipeline. In February 2013, Robert Iger announced Star Wars films being developed by Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg. Iger told CNBC the two are "working on films derived from the great Star Wars characters that are not part of the overall saga, so, we still plan to make Star Wars VII, VIII and IX, roughly over a six year period of time starting in 2015. But there are going to be a few other films released in that period of time, too." The sequel trilogy may finally bring down the curtain on the Episode numbered "Star Wars Saga," featuring the original actors and characters and a direct link in continuing the trajectory left off with Return of the Jedi. But, Disney has claimed, every two or three years after, and perhaps even between the episodic releases, there will be more Star Wars films which are not to be episode numbered but be spinoffs, perhaps finding a parallel in the manner in which Disney's Marvel franchise has created both The Avengers series as well as interlinked side franchises, from Iron Man to Thor to the S.H.I.E.L.D. television series.
These upcoming Star Wars projects will explore side characters, and perhaps diverse time periods, and things we have not yet seen. In some ways, we have come full circle to Lucas' 1977 aspirations that Star Wars not be limited by one story or group of characters. The franchise has, in many ways, finally achieved a replication of The Journal of the Whills, a chronicle of the galaxy far, far away with the events of the Episode numbered "Saga" only one component.
This is the latest incarnation of the franchise, which has gone through at least three--and four or more if you count the Special Editions--evolutions of what "Star Wars" actually is. We've had Star Wars the movie, a wonderful, witty 1977 classic that stands on it's own and needs no elaboration. We've had the Star Wars Trilogy, charting the development of hero Luke Skywalker and the battle between Rebels and Empire. We've had the prequels and 6-episode "Tragedy of Darth Vader," in Lucas' words, charting the rise, fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker shown parallel as the galaxy undergoes upheaval and finally peace. Soon, we will get the 9-epsiode "Skywalker Saga", showing the multi-generational epic of a single family that destroyed and then brought back the Jedi Knights and Republic government. And from there it will blossom into a much more complex, diverse and varied universe, whose scale and storytelling potential will only be known by viewers reading this in the future. It's an interesting and exciting time in Star Wars fandom--and it hasn't yet even begun unfolding.
It was 1999 when George Lucas at least tentatively implied that the series would end with the prequels, making these plans very clear once Revenge of the Sith was released. The first instance comes from the January 4th, 1999 issue of Vanity Fair where he states, "I never had a story for the sequels, for the later ones... And also, I'll be at a point in my age where to do another trilogy would take ten years." He further adds that he would "probably not" be open to the idea of someone else making them. Further quotes from the media of the time can be found below.
George Lucas, Juice magazine, May 1999:
No, no. [After Star Wars came out] somebody asked me if I was going to do a sequel. And I said, "I'm doing the other two parts to this one." And they said, "You're doing this trilogy--do you have any more?" And I said, "I've got a backstory, which I've got laid out. I could probably do that." And they said, "But are you going to do a sequel?" And I said, "I guess maybe I could do a sequel at some point." And that got turned into doing nine films. It's six films. It's really not nine films. It's extremely unlikely that I will go on and do any more.
George Lucas, TV Guide, November 19, 2001:
What would it take for you to do a third trilogy, with episodes VII, VIII, and IX?
Lucas: "Each time I do a trilogy it's 10 years out of my life. I'll finish 'Episode III' and I'll be 60. And the next 20 years after that I want to spend doing something other than 'Star Wars'. If at 80 I'm still lively and having a good time and think I can work hard for another 10 years between 80 and 90, I might consider it. But don't count on it. There's nothing written, and it's not like I'm completing something. I'd have to start from scratch. [The idea of episodes VII, VIII, and IX] was more of a media thing than it was me."
A quote from 2005 reveals a rather simple explanation for the post-1983 talk as merely boiling down to not anticipating the amount of work involved: "Someone once asked me in an interview if I would be making sequels to the original trilogy... I said that it might be fun to come back and do sequels with all the characters in their eighties, and to ask Mark [Hamill] to come back when he's eighty. What I forgot, or didn't realize at the time, was that I'd be eighty too! So, no, I'm not going to make another Star Wars film at eighty." [Hearn, The Cinema of George Lucas, 2005, p. 240-242]
If one accepts this admission, perhaps it was the public pressure that convinced him to continue to entertain the notion of making the films, even though his original plans for the movies had been complicated by compromise, combined with the notion that maybe he felt he truely could make such films one day. "I sort of played into it," he admits in 2005, "but I probably shouldn't have."
During the publicity period of Revenge of the Sith's release, Lucas made it very clear that he would never be making the sequels. Instead, he insisted the media had invented the idea of sequels, which wasn't the case at all, but this may have been his way of dodging the responsibility of letting some fans down.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports on May 12, 2005:
"What about the third trilogy of sequels: the episodes VII, VIII and IX that have been reported many times over the past 28 years to exist in his head? Lucas says that was always mostly a 'media invention.' 'The truth is there's no place to go with the story.' "
Similarly in Empire Magazines May 2005:
"The rumour of Episodes VII, VIII and IX was a popular question, and Lucas summed it up with one word, and then two: 'Never! Absolutely never!' Luckily for us, he then elaborated. 'This is all that's ever been written about it. It was the story of Darth Vader, you know, it starts when he's 10 years old and ends when he dies."
As well as MTV online on September 10th, 2004:
"This was never planned as a nine-episode work. The media [pounced when] I made an offhand comment, 'It might be fun to come back when everyone's 80 and do another one of these.' But I never had any intention of doing that."
And again in Merge Digital in 2006:
"Merge: Can this really be the end of the Star Wars saga?
Lucas: Yes. The series starts with Darth Vader as a young lad and ends with him dying. So I don't know where else I can take it.
Merge: Wasn't there talk at one time of three trilogies?
Lucas: That was created by the media, not me."
Finally, he speaks with Total Film magazine in May 2008:
Total Film: Are you happy for new Star Wars tales to be told after you've gone?
Lucas: I've left pretty explicit instructions for there not to be any more features. There will definitely be no Episodes VII-IX. That's because there isn't any story. I mean, I never thought of anything. And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn't at all what I would have done with it. The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn't come back to life, the Emperor doesn't get cloned and Luke doesn't get married."
As if to underline how little chance there was of seeing the sequel trilogy, Lucas sat down with MTV's website in May 2005 and jokingly explained what the sequels would be like, emphasizing that the story was finished and everyone lived happily every after. When first asked what will happen to the sequel trilogy Lucas once again remarks, "that was sort of a figment of the press' imagination... The joke I said was, 'It would be fun to come back when everybody's 70 and make a sequel.' But I realized when everybody's 70, I'd also be 70. That idea, now that I'm 60, isn't quite so appealing." Lucas continues on with what he imagines the characters did in the years following Episode VI: "Han and Leia probably did get married. They settled down. She became a senator, and they got a nice little house with a white picket fence. Han Solo is out there cooking burgers on the grill. Is that a movie? I don't think so." When asked about Jar Jar Lucas says, "He goes back to Naboo and he's a representative....He probably stays on the council, he's probably in the senate, because it becomes completely worthless. Senators are just for show, which they talk about in 'Episode IV.' Actually, in 'Episode IV' they get disbanded, so Jar Jar probably goes home to his wife and kids."
And so for many years it was assumed that was all we would hear of it. Fans speculated that, perhaps decades down the road, when Lucas is gone and the Lucasfilm empire sold or merged or operated by a new generation, the sequels could perhaps be made, perhaps even a remake of the entire saga. But, basically, people had given up on any hope of new Star Wars films, especially the long-lost Sequel Trilogy that so many grew up hearing about. Star Wars would remain as the six episode story of Anakin Skywalker's rise, fall and redemption.
6. The Complete Saga and Lucas After the Prequels: 2005-2012
Some years went by. A very successful cartoon series began airing in 2008, called The Clone Wars. Following on a feature film that was financially unsuccessful and completely critically eviscerated (as it arguably deserved), the weekly series surprised everyone by being smartly written and generally entertaining. Lucas contributed ideas and most of the stories, but gave the show's writers and directors, especially the series' main creative head Dave Filoni, lots of freedom, and crafted a show that appealed to both old and new fans. Meanwhile, Lucas was working on an ambitious live-action television series set between the two trilogies, that he envisioned as having the production quality of a feature film and aimed at older audiences. He met with writers and supposedly wrote about 100 episodes for the series, but production of the show was perpetually delayed due to it being so costly. However, the show continues to be in development, and by 2012 the Clone Wars series was entering it's fifth and most successful season yet. Lucas even recruited his daughter Katie as a series writer. Meanwhile, development was being done on yet another Star Wars series, this one being a parody series called Detours, produced with comedy actor Seth Green, who had lampooned the series in skits for his stop-motion Robot Chicken series.
George Lucas had said he was done with Star Wars and going to make other films, yet he was producing more Star Wars product than ever. In 2012, Episode I was re-released in theaters, this time in 3D, with the plan being to release each film in 3D over the following five years. The release was not successful, but plans to release the other films moved ahead, with the following two prequel films both to be squeezed into 2013 to make way for the beloved original trilogy--plans that were ultimately cancelled in 2012. In 2011, all six films were released in a best-selling Blu-ray boxed set, which drew criticism for yet more Special Edition changes but was as equally successful for being able to give original trilogy fans the chance to see the films in greater fidelity than ever before and view vintage bonus material. The set was branded as "The Complete Saga," a term that Lucasfilm has used in other products to describe the six-episode series. With the 30th anniversary of Star Wars in 2007 and Empire in 2010, fan nostalgia for those original films was being celebrated more than ever. Family Guy made very successful hour-long specials of each film, with Lucas' blessing, but refused to do so for the prequels. At Disney Land, "Star Wars Days" celebrations were regularly occurring, with costumed characters mainly from the original trilogy entertaining millions of kids in stage shows, while the long-running Star Tours ride was overhauled in a massive 2011 release.
Even as the successful Clone Wars series went on, it was still the original films that were the core of Lucasfilm's reputation, and the most respected elements of the franchise were often ones not made by Lucas himself, which would continue with the mature-audiences Force Unleashed video game series. Lucas made a fourth Indiana Jones film, with a begrudging Steven Spielberg, but it too faced prequel-style criticism, although it fared decently with critics and cleaned up at the box office; Lucas finally made Red Tails in 2012, after decades of development, but the film failed to make much money and again was critically maligned. It was one of the last projects Lucas had on his to-do list, while in the period from 2005-2012 Lucas continued to distance himself from his company and the franchise and let others run it, claiming to be semi-retired. At the age of 68 in 2012, Lucas was in the process of moving into a less active role and gearing up for a looming retirement.
In May 2012, Lucas spoke with Empire magazine, saying, "I'm moving away from the company, I'm moving away from all my businesses, I'm finishing all my obligations and I'm going to retire to my garage with my saw and hammer and build hobby movies." On June 1st, Lucasfilm finally released a press notice which announced Kathleen Kennedy becoming the new CEO of Lucasfilm, with Lucas becoming co-chair. "I've spent my life building Lucasfilm and as I shift my focus into other directions I wanted to make sure it was in the hands of someone equipped to carry my vision into the future," said George Lucas. "It was important that my successor not only be someone with great creative passion and proven leadership abilities, but also someone who loves movies... I also care deeply about our fans and it was important to have someone who would carry on the passion and care that I've given the films over the years. So for me Kathy was the obvious choice, she is a trusted friend and one of the most respected producers and executives in the industry."
As Lucas oversaw her transition into CEO, there was a deal being made for the future of the company, unbeknownst to the public. With Clone Wars still going strong, the live-action TV series--titled Underworld--still being developed, impressive games like Star Wars 1313 set for release, as well as Lucas having made appearances at recent Celebration conventions, it was not expected that Lucas would be letting go of the series any time soon, especially as he had just overseen the 2011 Blu-ray release and the 3D releases, which were only just beginning. Which was why it was so shocking when on October 30th, 2012, Lucas announced the sale of Lucasfilm, and with it all rights to the Star Wars movies. And with that, the first course of action Disney was taking was to make the Sequel Trilogy, from original story treatments from George Lucas.
7. Lucas Retires and the Sequel Trilogy Reborn: 2012-2021?
Although the announcement, not only of the sale of the company and its assets to Disney but that there would be a Star Wars sequel trilogy, took the world by shock, for Lucas it was not a last-minute decision. It was one he had been planning for about a year, and probably mulling over for longer than that. By 2010, Lucas could see his retirement looming, and the question of what to do with Lucasfilm--and thus Star Wars--after he left the company was a pressing concern for him. In May of 2011, George Lucas had breakfast with Disney CEO Robert Igor at Disney World's Hollywood Brown Derby; the two men were there that day to celebrate the opening of the revamped Star Tours ride. Igor asked Lucas if he had ever contemplated selling his company. Lucas replied that he had just celebrated his 67th birthday that month and was starting to seriously think about retiring; perhaps the sale of the company was inevitable. He said he wasn't quite ready for it though, but added "when I am, I would love to talk."
Fans and the press had continued to ask Lucas about doing the sequel films, which he had always brushed off. But, when he began talking with Kathleen Kennedy about taking over the company as CEO, the films suddenly were in discussion. With Lucas moving away from the company, it was seen as a way of re-inventing the franchise and also providing a way of setting up the transition of power within the company in a way that Lucas was comfortable with. In many ways, just as the sale of the company was inevitable, so was the notion of making more films: Lucas selling Lucasfilm and instigating a new trilogy was undertaken by him so that he could do it on his own terms, and steer both in the right direction.
"When Kathy came on, we started talking about starting up the whole franchise again," Lucas told Bloomberg Businessweek in early 2013. "I was pulling away, and I said, 'Well, I've got to build this company up so that it functions without me, and we need to do something to make it attractive.' So I said, 'Well, let's just do these movies.' "
According to the Bloomberg Businessweek article, Lucas and Kennedy approached Michael Arndt about writing the new films in the first half of 2012, then hired Lawrence Kasdan as a consultant and began meeting with the cast of the original trilogy. "Last August, [George] asked Carrie and I to have lunch with him and we did," Hamill said on October 31st, 2012. "I thought he was going to talk about his retirement or the Star Wars TV series...So when he said, 'We decided we're going to do Episodes VII, VIII and IX' I was just gobsmacked...I guess he wanted us to know before everybody else knew."
Lucas called Iger in June 2012 to begin negotiations for the deal, but insisted they use many of the staff he worked with--and his own story treatments for the sequel films. Though Lucas would not be closely involved in the new movies, he wanted to set them up on his own terms so he could at least step away from the franchise in peace. "I had a group of very, very talented people that had worked for the company for many, many years and really knew how to market Star Wars, how to do the licensing and make the movies," he says. "I said, 'I think it would be wise to keep some of this intact. We need a few people to oversee the property, you know, who are just dedicated to doing that, so we're sure we get this right."
At the same time, Iger wanted Lucas to understand "that if we acquire the company...at the end of the day, we have to be the ones who sign off on whatever the plans are," says Alan Horn, chairman of Disney Studios. Lucas ultimately agreed, though Kennedy remarks "I'm sure he paused periodically to question whether he was ready to walk away." Disney also requested to see Lucas' story outlines before the deal was signed, but Lucas replied only that they should trust him. "Ultimately you have to say, 'Look, I know what I'm doing. Buying my stories is part of what the deal is.' I've worked at this for 40 years, and I've been pretty successful." Eventually he did show them the treatments, but insisted they only be read by Iger, Horn and Kevin Mayer, Disney's executive VP for corporate strategy. At the end of October, Lucas flew down to Disney's Burbank headquarters to sign the papers. "When he put that pen to the piece of paper, I didn't detect a hesitation," Iger remarks. "But I did detect there was a lot of emotion. He was saying goodbye."
Iger remarks that when Lucas finally showed him the treatments, he was excited. "We thought from a storytelling perspective they had a lot of potential," he says. But, of course, a big question is: what are these treatment, and where did they come from?
There is little doubt in my mind that these were relatively new creations. But there is also little doubt that they at least incorporated some--if not many--ideas from his original sequel trilogy plans, however modified and altered. When Lucas was ready to retire and propose making the new trilogy, he had obviously given it some serious thought. And so, I'm sure he sat down and began sketching out a specific storyline, though it's a bit difficult to say how much seriousness he thought about such a thing before Kathleen Kennedy was involved. But regardless, by the time negotiations began with Disney in summer 2012, Lucas was insisting his treatments be a mandatory part of the sale, so they had existed on paper since at least then.
It is difficult to tell at this point what the focus or story of the new films will be. However, there are a few clues as of the time of this writing (March 2013). First is that the original trilogy characters will be in the films and played by the original actors, who are now basically in their 60s. That gives a good idea of the chronology of the new films, in that they ought to be set about 40 years or so after the events in Return of the Jedi. Currently, Harrison Ford is not signed, but that will likely (and hopefully) change. In fact, in the March 2013 Businessweek article, Lucas may have spoiled a future announcement, saying that they were in the final stages of negotiating with Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher--and Harrison Ford. "Maybe I'm not supposed to say that," he says, and adds, "I won't say whether the negotiations were successful." But given that Hamill and Fisher have already announced their participation and the fact that Lucas, in the interview, initially says they had signed all three before clarifying that the deal was technically not closed--the characters will be back.
This begs the question: will the films follow Lucas' notion of "wouldn't it be fun to make a film about the original cast in their sixties?" The answer is no. While the characters--and actors--will be in the storyline, they will not be main characters, and may even have mere cameos. I draw this conclusion because when the actors were negotiating with Lucas and Disney, Lucas told them that their characters would not be re-cast with other actors if they turned down the role--the characters would be written out of the storyline instead. "[George] did say that if we didn't want to do it, they wouldn't cast another actor in our parts--they would write us out," Hamill remarked in February 2013. So, if the characters could simply be written out over a contract dispute, they must not be central to the story. Instead, they may have roles similar to Alec Guiness in the original sequels--Guiness was only locked for Empire half way into shooting, and his dialogue would be given to Yoda if Guiness refused or was unable to participate. So, while we will see an older Han, Luke and Leia, the stories were not designed around them. However, now that they have signed, I have the feeling that their screentime may be enlarged slightly now that the screenplay itself is being worked on. Hamill could be interpreted as alluding to such a process when he mentions in February 2013 that "they want us to go in and meet with Michael Arndt, who is the writer, and Kathleen Kennedy, who is going to run Lucasfilm." In part 2 of a video series released by Lucasfilm in December 2012 on the new developments, Lucas further states that "there are a few blank spots in the story treatment that hopefully we can fill in," indicating the actual screenplay will expand the treatment Lucas initially offered.
That does leave who the main characters will be. The obvious conclusion is that it may follow the kids of Han and Leia and Luke. If Han and Leia are in the film, it seems a very natural conclusion that they would have kids in their 20s or so by now. Luke is another matter--but if the first trilogy was about Luke's father, the second trilogy about Luke himself, then it would make sense that the third trilogy was about Luke's son or daughter. As Lucas originally said in 1979, "The Star Wars saga is essentially about Luke's background and his destiny," [Arnold, p. 223] and that may now finally have come to fruition. No longer the story of just Luke, no longer the story of the rise, fall and redemption of Anakin, the Star Wars "Saga"--the episode numbered storyline--may well end up the multi-generational tale of the Skywalker family.
Another question is: what is Lucas' involvement? He has provided the story, but is listed as a creative consultant. While in reality that means he is fairly hands off, especially during pre-production he has continued to shape how the film will turn out. According to the Businessweek piece, he has attended story meetings and given clarification as to the consistencies of the world. "I mostly say, 'You can't do this. You can do that," Lucas states. "You know, 'The cars don't have wheels. They fly with antigravity.' There are a million little pieces. Or I can say, 'He doesn't have the power to do that, or he has to do this.' I know all that stuff." Between Lucas' input, the guidance of Kathleen Kennedy--even down to the meetings with the older actors--talented writer Michael Arndt is just one piece of what appears to be the most collaborative Star Wars film since Empire Strikes Back. Add to that mix director J.J. Abrams, who was announced as director of the film in early 2013.
Finally, although there is the new trilogy being developed, there are other Star Wars films in the pipeline. In February 2013, Robert Iger announced Star Wars films being developed by Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg. Iger told CNBC the two are "working on films derived from the great Star Wars characters that are not part of the overall saga, so, we still plan to make Star Wars VII, VIII and IX, roughly over a six year period of time starting in 2015. But there are going to be a few other films released in that period of time, too." The sequel trilogy may finally bring down the curtain on the Episode numbered "Star Wars Saga," featuring the original actors and characters and a direct link in continuing the trajectory left off with Return of the Jedi. But, Disney has claimed, every two or three years after, and perhaps even between the episodic releases, there will be more Star Wars films which are not to be episode numbered but be spinoffs, perhaps finding a parallel in the manner in which Disney's Marvel franchise has created both The Avengers series as well as interlinked side franchises, from Iron Man to Thor to the S.H.I.E.L.D. television series.
These upcoming Star Wars projects will explore side characters, and perhaps diverse time periods, and things we have not yet seen. In some ways, we have come full circle to Lucas' 1977 aspirations that Star Wars not be limited by one story or group of characters. The franchise has, in many ways, finally achieved a replication of The Journal of the Whills, a chronicle of the galaxy far, far away with the events of the Episode numbered "Saga" only one component.
This is the latest incarnation of the franchise, which has gone through at least three--and four or more if you count the Special Editions--evolutions of what "Star Wars" actually is. We've had Star Wars the movie, a wonderful, witty 1977 classic that stands on it's own and needs no elaboration. We've had the Star Wars Trilogy, charting the development of hero Luke Skywalker and the battle between Rebels and Empire. We've had the prequels and 6-episode "Tragedy of Darth Vader," in Lucas' words, charting the rise, fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker shown parallel as the galaxy undergoes upheaval and finally peace. Soon, we will get the 9-epsiode "Skywalker Saga", showing the multi-generational epic of a single family that destroyed and then brought back the Jedi Knights and Republic government. And from there it will blossom into a much more complex, diverse and varied universe, whose scale and storytelling potential will only be known by viewers reading this in the future. It's an interesting and exciting time in Star Wars fandom--and it hasn't yet even begun unfolding.
englanddg
One Little Spark...
Yeah...don't worry.
JJ would never take a beloved franchise reboot and try and explain it with a convoluted alternate universe story.
Never.
lebeau
Well-Known Member
lol
Samoht
Member
"Lucas called Iger in June 2012 to begin negotiations for the deal, but insisted they use many of the staff he worked with--and his own story treatments for the sequel films. "
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
And look at the twelve Episode structure he put together that @lebeau posted.
Cesar R M
Well-Known Member
so, the next movies are gonna be crap then? XD
G00fyDad
Well-Known Member
Partial myth.
Lucas called Iger in June 2012 to begin negotiations for the deal - TRUE
insisted they use many of the staff he worked with - Ehhh, maybe.
and his own story treatments for the sequel films - FALSE
lebeau
Well-Known Member
Remember that from 2005-2012, Lucas was denying that he ever had any plans to make episodes 7-9. He claimed there were never any outlines for any movies other than the 6 he made and that the press put words in his mouth. So the idea that Lucas had some continuation worked out from the beginning is at best an overstatement of the truth.
Lucas gave Kennedy and company notes. Notes that were so vague that Luke, Han and Leia could easily be written out should the actors refuse to reprised their roles. He's giving them some feedback which apparently they welcome. He's included and I'm sure the final films will reflect his ideas and influence at least a little.
But Lucas isn't driving anything. Abrams is in control creatively. So much so that he took control of writing the screenplay. He even got Iger to move the date to accommodate him which is really an amazing feat. I had my doubts Iger would budge. Abrams will ultimately decide what Star Wars 7 is like. He'll use as much or as little of Lucas' ideas as he likes.
If Abrams ditches everything Lucas gave him, what is he going to do? Sue? I don't think so. Sure, Disney will want to keep George happy so he doesn't bad mouth the new Star Wars. But George is going to want it to succeed, so I doubt he'll try to sabotage it like Roddenberry did Star Trek II.
Lucas gave Kennedy and company notes. Notes that were so vague that Luke, Han and Leia could easily be written out should the actors refuse to reprised their roles. He's giving them some feedback which apparently they welcome. He's included and I'm sure the final films will reflect his ideas and influence at least a little.
But Lucas isn't driving anything. Abrams is in control creatively. So much so that he took control of writing the screenplay. He even got Iger to move the date to accommodate him which is really an amazing feat. I had my doubts Iger would budge. Abrams will ultimately decide what Star Wars 7 is like. He'll use as much or as little of Lucas' ideas as he likes.
If Abrams ditches everything Lucas gave him, what is he going to do? Sue? I don't think so. Sure, Disney will want to keep George happy so he doesn't bad mouth the new Star Wars. But George is going to want it to succeed, so I doubt he'll try to sabotage it like Roddenberry did Star Trek II.
flynnibus
Premium Member
Were those examples you mention touted as the justification for a 4 billion dollar acquisition ? This is an entirely different league. Iger took the Wall Street approach and named a date to justify when they would make their money back. Creatively this is god awful but once it was done - it's hard to back track for iger