ST If you were a fan in the 1980s, who did you think the villains of the sequel trilogy would be?

For whatever reason SW fever seemed to die down after ROTJ. Maybe fatigue from all the hype. In the 90s it started building again with the PT announcement and the SE in theatres.

 

Lucas lost half of his fortune in his divorce. LFL wasn't in the position to create a lot of content (Star Wars or otherwise) for a number of years. Without new content, Star Wars sort of went away for a few years.

 

Neither did I. As a kid it was like, there's 3 movies. That's it. And that was perfect at the time.

 

Exactly. SW was dormant until about 1991 when Heir to the Empire and Dark Empire were released.

 

I think its pretty obvious who I thought was a very interesting villain to continue the SW story after ROTJ (keeps looking from the avatar to the text and back for like 30 seconds). Later Jedi Knight came along, and with it came Jerec, who was a personification of everything I thought could make an interesting villain to keep things moving in the GFFA. I always saw the end of Palpatine like the opposite of the end of evil in Star Wars: in reality, plenty of pretty bad men and women that were bidding their time during the Empire of the Sith could now grab the power they've always dream of. Jerec, Tremayne, Lumiya, Blackhole, Hethrir... that those creepy dark siders began crawling their way up to power in the EU´s post-Endor era made perfect sense to me...

 

That's a good point.
I was VERY young in the eighties and didn't reflect much on Star Wars, if at all, beyond the existing trilogy. That story was all there was to it, really.
But IF I had started thinking about the aftermath of the war and possible sequels, I probably would've assumed that there would be completely new villains. Similar to Vader and the Emperor perhaps, maybe even old acquaintances/allies/rivals, but otherwise unrelated.

 

After ROTJ I was just hoping for many years that new Star Wars films would be made and afterwards was happy enough with a Prequel Trilogy being made, then years later the announcement of a Sequel Trilogy which I thought as much as I wanted more Star Wars at the time would probably not be made .Though I didnt suspect after ROTJ that Palpatine would return in the sequels if they were made as of 1983 I thought his death was final.

 

Another apprentice of the Emperor.Or Vader.

 

Pre ST I thought:

Criminal Warlord takes control in the power vacuum.
Imperial Remnant rises from the ashes, all scrappy like the rebels were.
Invasion from some alien/horde/barbarians outside the galaxy.
Ancient Sith/Darksider
Mandalorians

 

No, it was because it's the only good Star Wars film since Jedi!

 

I thought the villain would be a dark-side force user (not a Sith, as Anakin had destroyed the Sith). Maybe a cult based around Palpatine/Vader or a previously hidden threat from the unknown regions.

After TFA, I thought Snoke was just that. A hitherto unknown dark-sider from the back of beyond (I also believe that was the original intention). The character design was a little boring (another shrivelled old guy in a robe), but there was potential.

 

I do think a cult centered around Vader (which the ST gave a bit of playing with Kylo worshipping Vader's helmet) would have been interesting. That even Anakin Skywalker's choices/actions years after his death had created a revolutionary movement of those that see Vader as a mythic figure.

 

I was thinking the exact same thing. In how the fandom sees Vader as this iconography of power but choose to ignore the human aspect of Vader (whether its his redemption in ROTJ and the reveal of him being a pathetic old man, to his entire recontextualization into a tragic character in Episodes I, II, III).

It thematically keeps in line with Anakin's story being the big overarching story in I-VI (of course, if Anakin's spirit himself actually has some appearance and involvement)


On a side note, a book about Anakin's spirit having to face trials and tribulations in the spirit realm of the Force after ROTJ would be so interesting and a great character study of facing and living up to the guilt of one's actions and the challenges of redemption. That would be a dream book.

 

They could have easily had a few of Luke's students follow Ben when he fell to the dark side, and then decided to pursue their own dark side Order. Something new. The Knights of Ren. Then pair them with the few of Luke's students who survived the attack.

The ST was so close, but so far away.

 

I didn't think there would be new movies. Lucas seemed done with them, except for the odd Ewok like TV spin off which weren't very good. I figured books and video games would carry the torch.

 

Well Lucas was planning to do 7,8 and 9 before he sold to Disney. Iger heard about it and convinced George to sell to them.

 

Han and Leia's son Ken and his evil dark lord mentor, Lord Snake.

 

Is this what happened? After Revenge of the Sith Lucas was adamant that the SW films were DONE. It wasn't until the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney that we found out Lucas had a 7,8,9. It seems like revisionist history on top of revisionist history.

 

When ESB came out in 1980, GL talked about his long-range plans. He wanted to finish the OT, then make the PT, and eventually an ST that would be about rebuilding the Republic. That was in the TIME magazine ESB review in 1980.

 

I honestly never thought in the 80's that an ST was even possible. My dad had thoroughly convinced me that there was nowhere left to go with the story, because the emperor and Darth Vader were both dead and that if they ever made more, it would be the first three chapters. This was substantiated for a long time by GL, so it never even entered my mind to consider a possible villain until I was older. And even then, I think I focused more on what the premise might be than who the possible antagonist(s) might be.

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None. The story had concluded. Here I was, a 7 year old kid sitting in the theater, having just watched the evil Emperor's demise and Darth Vader turn good,* and it's probably my first experience with catharsis. Villains? They're gone. That was it. There was no "Skywalker saga" or similar marketing. Luke would pass on what he learned to Leia, maybe to others too, and everyone would be happy.

* In my experience, kids in 1983 spoke in terms of Luke succeeding in turning his bad dad good, not the redemption/resurrection of Anakin Skywalker as a separate personality. Stated differently, this was the culmination of Luke's training and status as a Jedi, not the restoration of some Chosen One (who in 1983 terms was little more than a valiant warrior from long ago-turned-pleasant looking old ghost guy).

 

Like others i didnt believe there would be 3 new films based on the Skywalker saga specifically. Once that became a possibility i did hope for offspring of some kind. It seemed logical from the Solo side but i must admit i was hoping for a little Luke or a daughter of his.