Saga The Original Sequel Trilogy (original story ideas, treatments, interviews, concepts, etc. by Lucas)

For example, there a Blu-ray featurette where he reads old notes of his regarding the Force:


"Found in all living things. Surrounds us and flows from us. Controls individuals, yet we have free will. We have a destiny if we want to follow it. We live for a reason and must discover what it is."

"The only way to overcome the dark side is through discipline. The dark side is pleasure, biological and temporary, and easy to achieve. The light side is joy, everlasting and difficult to achieve. A great challenge. Must overcome laziness, give up quick pleasures and overcome fear, which leads to hate."

Reiterated in an old interview with Bill Moyers:

"What these films deal with is the fact that we all have good and evil inside of us and that we can choose which way we want the balance to go. Star Wars was made up of many themes. It’s not just a single theme. One is our relationship to machines, which are fearful but also benign and they’re an extension of the human, not mean in themselves. The issues of friendship and your obligation to your fellow man and to other people that are around you, that you have control over your destiny, that you have a destiny, that you have many paths to walk down and you may have a great destiny. If you decide not to walk down that path, your life might not be as satisfying as if you wake up and listen to your inner feelings and realize what it is that you have a particular talent for and what contributions you can make to society."

 

Thank you for the quotes! One of my takeaways from this discussion is that each person is born with potential abilities that others may not have, and these distinguish the ways a person can contribute to society (the last line of the interview with Moyers); at the same time, whether or not that potential is unleashed may depend not only on the person in concern, but also on whether or not others play the role they should in helping to unleash that potential. Anakin's ability and destiny do not make him better than others; rather, as you put it, 'Anakin simply had his destiny spelled out from the beginning through a prophecy.' Anakin also needs others to unleash their own potential to lead him to fulfil that destiny.

 

I'd say that line about friendship and "obligation to your fellow man and to other people that are around you" is referring more to cases like Han in ANH, who was living a solitary, selfish life. Yet when he decided to let go of that selfishness and help the Alliance, he "flourished" so to speak and ended up fulfilling his destiny by becoming a leader. Leia even mentioned that he was a natural leader, something he could never have known in his previous smuggler life (which relied on his skill as a pilot).

Anakin, on the other hand, embraced his destiny to become a Jedi by choosing to go with Qui-Gon. The Force was strong with him and he liked to help those in need (which is what Jedi basically do). He dreamt of becoming one. And when he later on gave into the dark side, he knew it was something that he shouldn't be doing. He knew he was better than that. But he still chose to give into it which was his downfall. It was only when he decided to behave like a Jedi again that he managed to fulfill his prophetic purpose.

Luke was different. He let fate push him into his destined path. Only when he had nothing left on Tatooine did he decide to go with Obi-Wan.

 

Following up on 'I used to say ultimately what this means is we were just cars, vehicles, for the Whills to travel around in....We're vessels for them.':
The following weird analogy came to mind (it's perfectly fine if one thinks I'm babbling nonsense): Obi-Wan is analogous to a physical representation of the Whills. He is the mover and shaker behind the great acts of the galaxy, but he is never the one who actually executes them: destroying the Sith, bringing balance to the Force, rebuilding the Jedi Order. His greatest achievements are through a vessel, a conduit.

It's interesting that Luke, Anakin and Yoda all go through cave tests - Luke in Empire, Anakin in the 2003 Clone Wars micro-series, and Yoda in the 2008 The Clone Wars series - but no one has felt that Obi-Wan has to go through a cave test. It's as though Obi-Wan is firmly in the light, and yet being firmly in the light doesn't enable him to physically, personally destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force. Someone else is needed for that, and there's an interesting symbiotic relationship here.

 

- Who would the villain factions be?

- Would there be a “New Republic”?

- Would Luke have trained any Jedi?

 

From what I understand, Kira (later renamed as Rey for the actual films) was going to be Luke's first student in a long time. The New Republic was supposed to be having trouble getting systems to join it, and there was a "Knights of Ren" type anarchist group of rogue Force wielders running around. I'm not sure of all my sources here, but the first part is very well-attested as I recall.

 

Nothing has been revealed regarding the New Republic or any Force-related antagonist group. As far as enemies go, only Talon and Uber have been revealed. And the Jedi Killer. There would also be pirates, although wether they were antagonists or not isn't known.

P.S: Come to think of it, I believe Hidalgo insinuated once that when Lucas talked about Anakin's grandchildren, he was referring to Skyler and the Jedi Killer.

 

Damn, that's really well thought out. bravo!

 

Lucas said that before he came up with the idea of The Force, he intended to have the Whills give advice to the characters.

 

Wow dude, I absolutely love this. These quotes are brilliant, and for some reason I just kinda teared up from reading them.

I just don't feel like the Disney sequels had this kind of scope, grand purpose, and uplifting message driving them. He wasn't perfect, but man, it was a devastating loss to not have a caring visionary like Lucas at the helm.

 

And Kira? I have a hard time believing that George would not have the main protagonist of the story be a Skywalker.

 

So, you mean...

He set up Luke's hideaway, approved that as a "thing", and then disappeared?​

STAR WARS
EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS​

George Lucas has vanished.​

 

Who's the protagonist of TPM?

He approved some designs in the first art meeting for Episode VII, just like he did in the previous movies. Then Disney decided to start over and do their own thing, so Lucas left.​

 

Padme ultimately ends up married into the family. Regardless, Kira was to be the Anakin/Luke of the ST. I have a hard time imagining her to not be a Skywalker or Solo. Plus, George always emphasized that the ST was about the grandkids, plural (another reason I refuse to acknowledge the DT as canon).

 

I was observing a funny parallel in the way Lucas "set up" Luke S.'s retreat, then basically disappeared/left. Kinda like he was setting up his own retreat. And the first line of the movie in the text crawl is "Luke Skywalker has vanished." Vanishments and banishments. There are exiles on both sides. Disney is everywhere.

 

Qui-Gon doesn't.

And apparently he was referring to Skyler and the "Jedi killer".

 

1) But Qui-Gon wasn't the main character of the PT, or even one single movie (TPM's protagonist is Padme).

2) Hmmm, got any proof for that? I'm not disparaging you or anything, that's just something I've never heard before and I followed the ST development pretty closely.

 

Is it possible that Lucas intended Darth Maul to be Talon’s master (“Uber”)? I know Lucas once said he imagined Maul and Talon being “friends”.

 

I think this is a reference to a canceled Darth Maul video game from sometime in the early 2010s. GL insisted Talon be included. They told him she doesn't exist until sometime past 100 ABY in what was then called C-canon, and he basically said "So what? They're friends" as a half joke, half "**** that, it'd be awesome"

Sadly, I don't think the game ever reached a stage of development beyond proof of concept gameplay demos

 

It's possible. We don't know if Maul's fate in Rebels is the same one George envisioned. But we do know that George's plan was for him to survive TCW.

 

Do you have a link for this? Not doubting you, just never heard of this.

 

I think that Luke had trained Jedi can be somewhat safely attested in GL’s story. One of the early concept arts of Episode VII shows Talon spying a Jedi in a bar, so clearly there where several by the time the film takes place. The decision to destroy the Jedi Luke had built was something Arndt did, while he was still attached to the project and working with JJ but after GL had left. Not to mention Poe was envisioned at one point as a Jedi

 

Well, the Ahsoka book, which uses information from the then-unreleased Siege of Mandalore developed by George Lucas and Dave Filoni, states that

Spoiler

Ahsoka had a choice - to let Maul live and escape with Rex during Order 66, or to kill Maul. Development had not resumed on the work that George and Dave had done at that point, as TCW had not yet been brought out of cancellation at that point, so the author was working with a series of events that was 100% Lucas approved (we don't know to what extent Dave consulted him for this new season). Is it possible Maul could have been killed by clones after he left Ahsoka? Yes, and the novel doesn't give us an answer there - although it's been awhile since I read it so my memory is fuzzy.

But, it would seem very anticlimactic to end Maul through random clones executing Order 66, especially since he's not even a Jedi. So, is it 100% certain George wanted Maul to survive - no, but I think it's likely. Plus he could have appeared in the Underworld show, and the new video game that was being developed that featured him working with another Sith that George had a hand in.

 

Yoda 'there's another' in TESB was ambiguous, and intentionally so.

From 1981 on, Leia, Luke's twin sister and the 'another' person -three separate characters/ideas during TESB development- were amalgamated.
The 'another' person was another jedi who was somewhere else, supposedly. He/she was to appear in Lucas' ST (a idea he toyed with in 1978-80 I think). Then Lucas decided against the sequels, although the 'another'+post-ROTJ stories was left open in ROTJ (Leia the jedi)

Who's the another of the ST? No one's said that line, or implied it, but there was another a couple years ago. Snoke had 'at least another apprentice' in Dec.2017. He/she disappeared without a trace, but he/she had also appeared out of nowhere. Why? JJ was already directing the film. Was he/she to be mentioned?

Then the DOTF script leaks and there's this Sollony Ren, a female 'maul-like character', whatever that means. She's 2nd in charge and powerful. She beats Kylo and Rey at some point.

Are both characters the same. or at least part of the same idea? Maybe there's something deeper to 'maul-like' - and maybe Darth Talon was split in two characters at some point, one of them being Kylo Ren. There's also this concept art of 'uber' and Darth Talon.

The piece called 'seduction' looks like storyboard, and storyboard sounds like script.

All those names. Ben Solo, Sollony Ren; they sound like family. Han, Qi'ra, Maul, a 'maul-like' character. Talon and Maul being 'friends' in Lucas' mind.
Is there 'another'? Who knows, but I guess it's not impossible, and maybe we'll know.

 

If the Whills were to appear, I wonder if we would learned about Anakin’s conception.