The Star Wars creator has been chatting about his plans for where Star Wars would have gone under his direction.
George Lucas’ stewardship of the Star Wars franchise has enjoyed something of a re-examination over the past few years. Following his much-maligned prequel trilogy, a sizeable chunk of the fanbase were less than pleased with Lucas, and weren’t quiet about their feelings. That, in part at least, led to Lucas selling Star Wars to Disney back in 2012, with the filmmaker complaining he was fed up of having fans ‘shout’ at him.
However, since the Disney sequel trilogy has released to an equally rocky reception, it has caused some to reassess Lucas’ efforts and a greater appreciation for his films has developed. Now Lucas has been chatting about his own plans for a sequel trilogy. These were plans that he ultimately shelved in order to spend more time with his family, and because of that loud and unkind reaction to his prequel films.
Whilst we’ll never see the films now, they certainly sound like fun. In the new book The Star Wars Archives, he explained that “the movies are about how Leia – I mean, who else is going to be the leader? – is trying to rebuild the Republic… Luke is trying to restart the Jedi”. That was the basic setup, describes Lucas, a premise that would surely have been more palatable for all those fans dismayed by Luke’s hermit status in Disney’s films.
Interestingly though, Lucas also revealed that his film would have contained two female leads, Carrie Fisher’s Leia and an apprentice of a resurrected Darth Maul. Darth Maul trained a girl, Darth Talon, who was in the comic books, as his apprentice.
She was the new Darth Vader and most of the action was with her. So, these were the two main villains of the trilogy.” For those who decry the new Star Wars trilogy as betraying the original vision because of its female characters featuring front and centre, it seems that Lucas was intending to do exactly the same.
Finally, Lucas explains how far he got with his planned trilogy, and why he gave it up. “At that time I was starting the next trilogy; I talked to the actors and I was starting to gear up. I was also about to have a daughter… it takes 10 years to make a trilogy… I’d still be working on Episode 9! … Finally, I’d decided I’d rather raise my daughter and enjoy life for a while.”
And we sincerely hope that’s what he’s been doing. As for Star Wars, the franchise endures, with more films on the way, whilst on the small screen it continues to flourish. Whilst we’ll never get to see Lucas’ original vision for the sequel trilogy, there’s always the chance that it might make its way into comic book form, or perhaps some kind of animated version. That would certainly be a fun tribute to bring Lucas’ vision to life.
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