Summary
George Lucas' originalStar Warssequel trilogy plans are back in the public eye after one fan posted choice excerpts from a particularly insightful retrospective on the franchise and the potential direction it could’ve taken.
While there were no concrete plans for anotherStar Warstrilogy at the time whenDisney acquired franchise parent company LucasFilmin 2012, original creator and legendary filmmaker George Lucas did have a treatment ready for a potential sequel trilogy of films by the time the acquisition went through, which he promptly offered to Disney. While there were a lot of solid ideas that would have put up some plotlines that had already been explored in theStar Warsbooks and other media that would be consigned to the Legends continuity, the powers that be at Disney decided to go a different way with their sequel trilogy.
The Disney sequels would earn mixed reviews, withbehind-the-scenes turbulence marring this latestStar Warstrilogyand leading the franchise to an all-time low despite having some strengths. With fans currently in the dark about the franchise’s future, userDemiPyramidon Reddit has taken to the site’s r/StarWars board to fuel some discussion of those Lucas-led plans that Disney did away with in favor of the now-canon reality. Posting some photos and excepts from 2018’sThe Star Wars Archives, Episodes I — IIIby author Paul Duncan, DemiPyramid also offered a few quick notes on Lucas’ proposed ideas in the post title, stating, “George Lucas talks about his basic outline for Episodes VII, VIII, IX. —— The story features Luke establishing the New Jedi Order, Leia building the New Republic & becoming Supreme Chancellor in the end.”
The post draws attention to a lot of interesting characters and concepts that wereunderused by theStar Warssequel trilogythat was made, including the minute amount of time dedicated to Luke and Leia, the potential for a new, wiser, and more vigilant Jedi Order, and the actual political restructuring needed for the New Republic era to come to fruition. Several fans in the comments opined a preference for the concepts Lucas picked. In contrast, others doubt that these plans were concrete in the filmmaker’s mind when he offered them to the company. However, there is an overarching sense of disappointment with the parts as mentioned earlier of the sequel trilogy, even from those who genuinely enjoyed it.
Since its conclusion, many critics have concluded that theStar Warssequels were doomed to failfrom the start because of a fundamental mismatch with director J.J. Abrams' signature approach to filmmaking, which was only exasperated further when director Rian Johnson would approach the trilogy’s second entry with an entirely contradictory vision to what was laid out before. A third filmmaker was even brought in to complete the set, and he would have put his unique spin on the third and final film if he hadn’t had a falling out with Kathleen Kennedy that led to Abrams' return to the director’s chair. Whether or not fans enjoyed the trilogy, it’s easy to admit that having one unified vision, a la Lucas' plans, would have resulted in better audience satisfaction.
While it is a bit too late to implement Lucas' version of events into theStar Warscanon, the company certainly has some more ideas, asDaisy Ridley’s Rey is rumored to return for multipleStar Warsmovies.How these new projects will affect the current attitude towards the sequels and what parts of Lucas' ideas might make it to the new canon through these additions remains to be seen.
TheStar Warsfranchise is currently available for streaming on Disney Plus.
Star Wars
Star Wars is a multimedia franchise created by George Lucas and Lucasfilm Ltd with the 1977 motion picture. The science fiction franchise follows the adventures of characters (both humanoid and alien) in outer space, including those who can wield a mystical power known as the Force. Since the release of the original trilogy movies, the franchise has expanded to include multiple films and branched out to other mediums like comics, video games, TV shows, theme park attractions, and more. The IP and Lucasfilm were sold to Disney in 2012.
