ST Behind the Scenes of the Sequel Trilogy

Lucas was always trying to push technology forward. Could he have been planning to make a fully CGI trilogy like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within?

 

I wouldn't go that far, but he was clearly pursuing something like the volume in The Mandalorian.

 

I think this story may of been set after the events of Dark Empire not just ROTJ. Which could explain many Sith Lords roaming around in early concept art for TFA. Lucas did consider the EU canon but lesser level canon, and liked the Dark Empire story, and he came up with the idea for a Clone of Palpatine. So its very likely that story occurred before the events of his ST. TFU was a sequel to ROTS and prequel to ANH, so even Shadow Guards were canon back then.

Maul is very important in the Lucas' universe(live action and animated), never mind the old EU or modern EU/Neo-Canon. He remains as such in the latest seasons of TCW and 2018's SOLO even with Lucas gone. Probably the Kasdans tried to keep some of Lucas' ideas intact by putting Maul in SOLO since Lawrence was brought onboard to support Lucas and Arndt and eventually connected Maul to a young Solo and Kira was renamed Qi'ra. Her junk planet became Correlia.

Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg were brought on as consultants in 2012 to help Lucas and Arndt. Kasdan went onto to do the Solo movie while Kinberg worked on Rebels post Lucas alongside Filoni.

So from what we can gather, the movie would've started and then aged up the grandchildren of the main characters, probably a faster version of what we got in TPM with Anakin. Probably a certain amount of de-aging would've been used since apparently this movie starts off a few years after ROTJ(Mandalorian?) for Luke, Han and Leia. Lucas was also open to writing those characters off if any of the former cast did not want to return.

Luke also finds around 50-100 Jedi(not uncommon in the EU and modern EU/neo-Canon constantly uses surviving Jedi too) and Force sensitives.

Maul successfully survived the chaos of the Clone War and Order 66, he out lasted and undermined the Empire and Emperor for decades, he's like the anti-Galen Marek. He trains a young girl who becomes Darth Talon who grows up to be this powerhouse as she becomes the Vader of the trilogy, she eventually manipulates and converts Sam/Skylar( Lucas' version of Ben Solo). As the New Republic attempts to form at various stages, they have to deal with Maul's Criminal Empire (Shadow Collective/Crimson Dawn/5 syndicates)that has filled the power vacuum left by the Empire.

Along with rogue Imperial warlords(Gideon and/or Snoke? type) holding onto planets. A big traumatic event occurs at some point, Luke gets betrayed by one of his pupils. His new Jedi Order gets destroyed. Kira/Taryn/Winkie eventually finds the colonel Kurtz type aged Luke hiding in exile and he trains her to some extent before himself dying/killed.

Lucas chose to kill Luke in Episode VIII.

Lucas promised Ford that Han Solo would be killed off in order to get him back.

Somewhere in this trilogy lies Lucas' infamous microbiotic world. There is some kinda confrontation with Lucas' version of the Whills who feed off of the Force and basically control the universe.

Felucia was pretty important in Lucas' version of the sequel trilogy in some capacity.

Evil Space Pirates and Bandits would've factored into the storyline in some capacity, possibly idea where they got the Nihil. Most likely controlled by Darth Maul and his criminal Empire. One art piece featured a Mandalorian style bandit with a red lightsaber.

There may of been more than one grandkid of Vader's since Lucas back in 2015 was wondering what happened to Vader's grandkids in the new movies. So it seems Leia had more than one child, and maybe Luke had a child but Lucas did not seem very fond of Mara Jade from what we know. So he may of remained celebrate like the PT Jedi or he may of had a child that ended up like Mordred but there is little to go on. Daisy claimed that Rey at one point was supposed to be a Rey Kenobi, so its possible Lucas may of wanted Kira to be Kenobi's granddaughter or niece.


Its likely that Lucas had devised Imperial type Sith Lords(probably later turned into Filoni/Kinberg's Rebels Inquisitors) to be a part of his trilogy along with Maul and Talon as a separate group. We know Lucas envisioned Maul to destroy rival Sith Lords whom he viewed as an affront to the Order. Lucas was also open to the idea of Maul, or a clone of Maul or male descendant being alive a 100 years after the OT into the Legacy era.

One has to wonder if Lucas was gonna introduce more clones(TROS eventually did but hinted at doing in TFA) and time travel(Rebels did in its last season).

 

This reads like LUCAS just trying to appease fans of TCW and I can understand why.

The PT was met with a massive backlash and it seems like TCW finally found a sweet spot where he was able to tell the story he wanted based in that PT timeframe while not having everyone jump down his throat. So, although I personally don't think Lucas's ST treatment sounds good, I am sure it would have been met with a lot of praise.

 

Questions: What about all the cries of continuity?

Leia, not Anakin, is the Chosen One? How can this be? Many here have told me endlessly that the PT (and the ROTJ ending) was very clear on The Chosen One, and that the prophecy was not at all vague. This clearly disregards (and shows the weakness) the prophecy in the narrative.

Darth Maul and Darth Talon? Again, The Chosen One destroyed the Sith, no? This has been a HUGE point of contention by many unsatisfied by the return of Palpatine in Episode 9? Darth Maul is simply not, nor ever will be, the threat that Palpatine is. In this outline, he's like a more Sithy version of Jabba The Hutt?

50-100 surviving Jedi ? This sure alters our understanding of the OT quite a bit, does it not? I mean, how can Luke be The Last Jedi if there are that many out there? Yoda had 100 potential "others" to train? This makes Yoda either ignorant, or a liar does it not? I think it's already stretching firmly established truths to have Ahsoka, Kanan, and Ezra alive and active while Obi-Wan and Yoda are in hiding. This seems like a bridge too far, no?

The timeline? This is taking place a decade after ROTJ? How was that going to work?

Where/what is this book? Google is not helping me. Sorry for being lame.

Overall, as @FightoftheForgotten said, this is just as much of a re-tread (if not more) as the ST. To me, seems even more convoluted and like fan fiction. I just think certain fans would have pissed and moaned about this just as much (if not more) than some of them did with the ST we got. I also think movie critics would have hated this since they don't really rely on, nor have, a sweet spot for TCW like fans do.

 

I disagree ONLY because I think very vocal fans of TCW would have loved it. I think the fanbase would have shrunk, but I think you wouldn't have had as much backlash because the older fans (who got drawn back into the ST because the marketing made it very vocal that they were shying away from the PT) simply wouldn't have gotten invested in the ST in the first place.

 

You might be right. Hardcore PT/TCW fans would have been in heaven. I think the general public, people turned off by the PT, and critics would not have embraced this as much as they did the ST.

That might be the whole problem right? The ST appeals more to a mass/general/non-fan centric demo. Ergo, some hardcore Star Wars fans feel left out in the cold.

 

I’d go with Sidious and Maul being Master and Apprentice once more to bookend the Saga.

 

I think the issue with the ST is that it started off as you described, but devolved into a muddled mess. TFA was meant for EVERYONE (fans of the series and newcomers) but by the time of TROS, the franchise was meant for... your guess is as good as mine.

 

Darth Maul is the greatest threat of them all, even to his former master . Thats why Lucas brought him back. He also side-steps the Rule of Two of the PT, since he's a rogue Sith Lord of the Order of Bane and sworn enemy to the Sith at the same time. And Palpatine would've been killed twice by 2011 already in Lucas' era G-level canons, he was not coming back again. Maul is Sith to the core , but was growing into something even far more dangerous in TCW as he was doing his Dark Side version of the Hero's Journey. We see just how powerful Maul has become in Season 7 of the Clone Wars and he's also an evil chaotic mastermind and 3-D chess player. He was trained by Sidious and Talzin.

Probably The Kazier/Dryden Vos or even a Snoke-like proxy character featured into Lucas's scripts as well and could explain why Snoke's paretorian guards used similar weapons to Dryden Vos and were trained in Teras Kasi and the KOR dressed like Maul's but with battle helmets . Maul operates behind the scenes until he has to get off the throne and has do some damage like an evil King Conan in Lucas' ST.

Interesting, Trevorrow's script called for a Darth Maul-like villain in the second movie, a Dathomirian KOR woman that assumes control of the FO and KOR after Ben Solo falters. He called her Sollony Ren. Rey also uses a double-bladed lightsaber, which was given to that Dark Rey vision in the finished third movie.

Maybe Kira/Qi'ra became his apprentice by the third movie and the Sam/Skylar had to undergo a similar transformation as Jacen Solo/Caedus did(Ben did in the last movie). Talon also could've been similar to Lady Lumiya.

Knowing Lucas though, the story of his ST would've spilled into connecting video games, comics and novels like his PT did. Likely he would've had a cartoon series to go with it or leading into it or set between an episode or each episode. Also his live action TV series focusing on the Underworld would've contained elements too am sure.

 

I think the galactic conflict was always going to be the hardest nut to crack for the ST. Whether New Republic vs Criminal Underworld (Lucas) or Resistance vs First Order (post-Lucas), neither is as conceptually compelling to me as the OT and PT galactic conflicts.

 

Imagine an ST sort of like the one we got, but with Maul in Snoke's place. Just like that, the guy's got a history - AND he gets cut in half twice in the Saga!

 

I still think there should have been a First Order type military regime (minus SKB) and a Republic that is again leaning toward fascism with pro-Empire politicians slowly taking over. Then you have the Resistance (the rebellion of the First Order) stuck in the middle getting secret support from the Republic (from Leia and Han). Throw in Luke with the beginnings of a New Jedi Order having to deal with whether or not to get his still undertrained apprentices into the mix or not and you've got a great idea for a trilogy. It would have imagery of the Republic, Empire, Rebellion, and Jedi; everything people like.

 

The most interesting galactic conflict I can think of for the ST is one that's centered on the Jedi and the Skywalkers. Not just in that they're once again highly involved in the war, but that it's ABOUT them. People are afraid of the Jedi messing up again, of history repeating itself (especially once it's become public knowledge that the Sith, who ran the Empire, were founded by a renegade Jedi), so they try to end them for good. Others side with the Jedi and try to defend them.
The conflict isn't made any easier when it's revealed that Darth Vader was the father of two celebrated Rebel heroes who also happen to be two of the most prominent figures in the new Republic - AND JEDI. This even leads to great discord within the family itself.

All of this goes hand in hand with the fact that people can't seem to agree on how to best govern the galaxy. They have very different ideas of what true freedom is and some have a hard time letting go of the sense of stability and security they feel the Empire provided.
Again, fear of history repeating itself causes people to take drastic action.

Everything escalates quickly and soon, the galaxy has a desperate war on its hands. A war born out of fear that puts the Skywalkers and the Jedi front and center, which raises the emotional stakes of the galactic conflict to a more personal level than before and, to me, signals that this is it. The grand finale. The big showdown that will decide the future of the galaxy and end the saga of the Skywalker family.

 

I think it's also worth pointing out that the Lucas ST would hypothetically have had 3 dark side villains: Maul, Talon and the Solo son turning to the dark side.

 

Talon probably would've died to make way for Evil Solo.

 

Or they kill Maul. Again.

 

Giving Leia's daughter a female villain to fight and a brother to save from the dark side after joining Talon and a crime lord (Maul or somebody else) sounds appropriate. Would've liked to see that.

 

I don't see this as being particularly retready of the OT. It seems more dealing with factions and the criminal underworld and such, as far as I've read.

 

Ugh...I would have loved to see this!!!! Such a big missed opportunity.

 

Hearing Lucas was inspired by ISIS and post-war rebuilding seen in the Middle East makes it really interesting. A coalition of criminals like the Stark Hyperspace War would have been a nice change from Imperials 2.0.

 

TROS was meant for everyone, in the sense that they seem to have compiled a list of common discussion points that existed after TLJ and attempted to cover all of them. Some of the time they gave two opposite groups each half of what they wanted and the rest of the time they didn't seem to grasp the why people felt like they did so the end result was a chaotic mess that made almost no one happy.

 

Why would they need to do that? TLJ was a great film...

 

You might like Lucas story more or less. But at least you some reasoning, some logic behind it. This is much more than we can say about the ST we ended up having.

 

A more complete transcript on midi-chlorians here.

Spoiler

— George Lucas