Fans, I'm trying to find out exactly when George Lucas announced that there would be prequels/sequels to the original trilogy. If you go online, the only sentence that you can find (with no cited proof) is that on "5/24/1987, Ten years after star wars' release, Lucas announces plans for a second trilogy—and hints the possibility of a third." A fan on TheForce.net in 2005 attributes that to Entertainment Weekly magazine. HOWEVER, that date happens to be Day 2 of The Star Wars 10 Year Anniversary at the Stouffer Concourse Hotel in LA. This is a Sunday, the 1 day George actually appeared, so is this when he announced it? There was a fan Q&A with George, but there is no known transcript, and the limited video footage online only shows someone asking him his favorite movie-making experience (he says Raiders) and his philosophy on life. Starlog Magazine chronicled the event, and in their subsequent issue in July quoted George as saying, "If I do [more Star Wars stories], I will do them as films. I'm very busy, but I will get back to Star Wars eventually." So is THAT where people got the news from? Starlog? If so, the key word there is "if," which isn't exactly solid proof, and it certainly wasn't released on 5/24/87. Was any of you out there AT the original Celebration in 1987 and can confirm that the news was revealed in the Q&A? Press at the time (which can be found online) said there were rumors that such an announcement was going to happen that weekend, but the internet history is nebulous at best. Thanks,
I don't know about when "official announcements" were made, but GL had plans for 9 movies long before '87. I remember reading Time Magazine's review of ESB in '80, when it was announced as Ep V and the original SW was retitled Ep IV A New Hope, GL explained that he would make 3 movies about the fall of the Republic and the rise of Vader, and eventually 3 more about rebuilding the Republic.
I don't know if the ST could be regarded as the trilogy that will focus on the rebuilding of the Republic, since it's set some three decades after ROTJ. By then, the Republic should have been rebuilt.
Lucas first talked about the other films beyond TESB and ROTJ as far back as 1978. To help you out, here's the following link. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sequel_trilogy
