Official Info Here's what we "knew" about the Sequel Trilogy before yesterday

Despite Lucas saying in recent years that the Sequel Trilogy was an invention of the media, or that the films were always to be "about Darth Vader," he did talk a little about them in the 70s-80s. There isn't much, but there are a few things we'd been told. Now, given how the film saga has been mutated into "the Tragedy of Darth Vader" and how the Emperor was destroyed in ROTJ, I'm unsure how many of the circa-1979 concepts Lucas had could be relevant anymore, no matter how much LFL will claim these new films are directly based on them. I'm sure there will be a few similarities, but... for one, it sounds as if these new films might be placed further down the timeline than was planned in 1979, and also during the 80s, when the ST was ever mentioned, it was talked about not in the sort of generational story capacity the below quotes stress, but rather as a reunion of OT characters. It would seem pretty up-in-the-air.

Still, here's most of what we had been told about the Sequel Trilogy prior to D-Day (Disney Day, har har). Who knows how much of this is still applicable... And I'm sure I missed some quotes, but this is very nearly all there is:

"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... 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*."

- George Lucas to Alan Arnold, 1979, Once Upon A Galaxy

The last three episodes involve the rebuilding of the Republic.

Only two of the main characters will appear in all nine films, & they are the robots, Artoo-Detoo & Threepio. Says Lucas: "In effect, the story will be told through their eyes."

- Time Magazine, May 1980

"There are six hours of events before Star Wars, & in those six hours the 'Other' becomes apparent, & after the third film the 'Other' becomes apparent quite a bit**."

- George Lucas to Rolling Stone, June 1980

The sequels, the three films that would follow Jedi, are considerably vaguer. Their main theme will be the necessity for moral choices & the wisdom needed to distinguish right from wrong.

- Time Magazine, May 1983

But he has only a vague notion of what will happen in the three films of the sequel? In the sequel Luke would be a sixty-year-old Jedi knight. Han Solo and Leia would be together? 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 realization, and the third deals with moral and philosophical problems... The sequel is about Jedi knighthood, justice, confrontation, and passing on what you have learned."

- George Lucas to Denise Worrell, 1983, ICONS: Intimate Portraits

"It deals with the character that survives Star Wars III and his adventures***."

-George Lucas to Bantha Tracks, 1980

* The "very logical fashion" here doesn't account for how the saga, during the production of the actual prequel films, was turned from three loosely-integrated trilogies into a single hexalogy ostensibly focused on a single (now dead) character. How this will be bridged is anyone's guess.

** The Other here may not be Leia. When ESB was being made, Leia was not the Other; this appears to have only been changed in ROTJ. I don't think we know exactly when during preproduction this decision was made (yet - Rinzler's Making of ROTJ comes out next year). So this Sequel-Other might have been a totally different character.

*** "Star Wars III" almost certainly refers to ROTJ, not Episode III (during production, the OT films were talked about in that way)

As I've posted elsewhere, two things stick out to me about that article:

1. Kinda funny how the intervening years of "there never was a sequel trilogy, the media made it all up" is glossed over or ignored (can't blame Rinzler for that, though).

2. Even Rinzler has never seen this mythical book of notes and stuff. I doubt there are pre-existing "treatments" in there, simply because Lucas said the same thing about the prequels, and then later said that really there were only some notes and things. As we see in the appendices to The Making of Star Wars, there were in fact some 1970s thoughts correlating to some of the eventual PT stories (most specifically to ROTS) but there are a lot of differences too. And large parts of the prequels-as-we-know-them are clearly later inventions. It will be the same with any sequel films; back when they were thought of in any serious way, there was no "Tragedy of Darth Vader." The modern restructuring of the saga around a Force-demigod and his life story would, I expect, necessitate some (large) amount of adjustment to any prior concepts.

I'm sure Lucas changed his thoughts on this numerous times. But I remember at one time one of his visions was a second trilogy in which Luke trains Leia to become a Jedi and together they defeat the Emperor (the idea being that the original trilogy was about Luke defeating Darth Vader). However, he realized that he didn't have enough material to sustain that story over six films and abandoned the concept.

Well. The Making of Star Wars: Episode VII is certainly going to be a book worth looking forward to.

@JediChris99 Do you have a source for that? From memory it sounds like that might relate to Gary Kurtz's stories, which, while probably accurate to his own memories, appear to correspond to different story concepts at different periods of development, with a few ideas he liked but that weren't necessarily seriously considered thrown in.

No I don't. I'm operating straight from my memory. I have read thousands of articles about Star Wars and its history. There has always been a rumour that the story arc was for nine episodes and I remember Lucas explaining (around the time the prequels went into production, back then it was popular to ask Lucas about the long rumoured 9 episodes and if he planned a post-Jedi trilogy after the prequels were finished) that he never had a story that dealt with what happened after Jedi and that the explanation was a second trilogy about Luke and Leia defeating the Emperor.

It's entirely possible that he did say something like that, but I'd like to keep this particular thread to direct quotes and reportage if at all possible, for the simple reason that memories are fallible. I still remember when in the 1990s the Official Site having a format where each film was assigned a space on the front page, counted with Roman numerals - and that there were spaces for VII, VIII, and IX. Except that that appears to have never been the case. There have always been rumors and memories about the ST, and now there will be even more. I'm not saying you're lying, I'm just trying to keep this as organized and well-sourced as it can be.

Found another old quote:

The first part implies that the concepts he had for the sequels were vague - completely consistent with other things he said at the time, though this story may be spun now - and the second part, obviously, implies something about the narrative. However, this is quite some time after the 1979 "next generation" concept had been morphed into a "OT cast reunion" idea and it's hard to tell exactly how serious he's being here.

This old thread (The Official 7,8 And 9 Thread!!!!!) had a lot of good information.

From io9: This May Be The Star Wars Movie You're Looking For

From Wiki:

From TheForce.Net:
Gary Kurtz Reveals Original Plans for Episodes 1-9 Wed, May 26, 99

From STARKILLER: LOOKING BACK TO THE FUTURE OF STAR WARS

The Long, Winding, and Shapeshifting Trail to Episodes VII, VIII & IX

Yeah, as LCT says, that sounds almost exactly like the Kurtz version, except with Leia as the other.

@zombie's "Secret History of Star Wars" has an Appendix on what was known about the ST, and a second dealing specifically with what Kurtz thought it was to be. Includes a rather exhaustive set of quotes. According to his website, he's started working on an update given the new developments.

EDiT: And rather convenient how Rinzler completely ignores Lucas's statements about the ST never really having existed.

In all this talk about 7-9 we're forgetting the talk about 10-12. Wayyy back in the 70's GL had talked about 12 movies. The Official Blog even posted notes referring to such and recent articles I read since D-Day (borrowed) mentioned that GL CURRENTLY passed on treatments for 6 more films.

@Echo-07

The thing about "10-12" - Lucas always talked about these as "odd" films, "tangential." From what anyone can tell, they date from a time (late 1977) when the series indeed had twelve films but they weren't developed into trilogies and weren't even in chronological order. The films in this model that appear to have been considered in any detail at all were Star Wars (what would become IV), Empire (some form of it), a "young days of Ben Kenobi" movie, a wookiee movie, a robot movie, and maybe ones on the Clone Wars and on the Jedi and the Republic. In other words, the prequel(s), the ewok movies/cartoons/holiday special segment on Kashyyyk, the Droids series, and the Clone Wars tv show.

So... I seriously wonder just what Lucas gave them, how recent any of it is (and if it's not recent, how relevant to the current, modified-since-1978/9 version of the saga), and how they will try to spin/sell it.

I don't really think Lucas ever had a definite plan for 7, 8 and 9. He just knew that he might/would make them one day. I think it has only been in the last couple of years where Lucas has actually sat down and given them serious thought.

The only two consistent things from all the interviews I have read over the years are that Luke will be "an Obi-Wan-type character" and that the ST will deal with the re-building of the Republic.

According to the Official Blog on the mothership GL handed in synopses recently for Ep 7-12. So I have a feeling that we will see two more trilogies following ROTJ -- sequential events. I also feel that we'll start a new series The Old Republic: Epissode I at some point during the next series -- a new independent series.

This may sound really ignorant, but what is the "official blog on the mothership"? Is it just a term for the official site?

No prob. There's an Official Blog on SW.com. In the first entry after the news broke last week there is a picture of the draft notes (rough outline) for Eps up to 12.

If you're referring to what I think you're referring to, that was a potential outline for the series dating to sometime in 1978.

And if anyone (including Echo-07) is interested in speculation along these lines I recommend reading through this thread in Saga. It's been around for awhile, and so it ranges across many different topics all relating to the Sequel films and the other lost SW stories (the "Tangential Trilogy").

Yes, I was referring to the pictures of the rough ouitline (I guess from the late 70's). But also I'm referring to the many articles that exploded onto the web post D-Day. In those various articles, which you can either google or go to other SW websites that have some of them rounded up, you can see that Mark Hamill mentions that there may have been ideas for as many as 12 episodes (not necessarily including the Big 3.) Also, Lucas gave interviews at various times throughout the OT stating that he's brainstormed ideas for 9-12 episodes.

Just to be clear, I'm not guaranteeing taht we will see 10-12, just that those conversations have been spoekn about over the years. For all I know, or anyone else right now, Disney plans to producse 7-9 and then maybe they just do a series of stand-alones. We fans can only speculate; let our imaginations run wild.