For Better or Worse, Disney Rejected George Lucas’s Ideas for the New Star Wars Movies

By  · Published on January 20th, 2015

LucasFilm

Here’s a difficult revelation for those of us who grew up trusting in George Lucas, regardless of what we think of the Star Wars prequels: the franchise’s creator had ideas plotted out for Episode VII and beyond, but Disney scrapped them all for their upcoming trilogy. In an interview with Cinema Blend to promote Strange Magic, Lucas states that he sold the sequel outlines along with Lucasfilm and the rights to all things Star Wars, and “[Disney] came up to the decision that they didn’t really want to do those. So they made up their own.”

On the one hand, maybe they were bad, as in focused on trade agreements or something similarly convoluted. But on the other hand, Lucas devised the Star Wars universe to such an amazing degree back in the beginning that there’s never been anything comparable in terms of movie world-building. Disney already scrapped the expanded universe, and here we have proof that the new guard on the franchise has also dismissed the vision of its originator. Its god, if you will. And that could result in a cracked foundation for Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the rest.

According to Slashfilm, the reason screenwriter Michael Arndt left the property was because he was working with Lucas’s vision, and J.J. Abrams wasn’t interested in that. He brought on Lawrence Kasdan, who we all can appreciate for his improvements to Lucas’s franchise with his screenwriting work on The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and that keeps any skepticism about a possible loss of originals’ flavor way down.

We don’t currently know exactly what will be different with The Force Awakens compared to Lucas’s treatments for the continued narrative of the Star Wars universe, but depending on how the new movie is received this December, fans’ curiosity of what the Lucas version might have been should be fuel for much discussion.

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Christopher Campbell began writing film criticism and covering film festivals for a zine called Read, back when a zine could actually get you Sundance press credentials. He's now a Senior Editor at FSR and the founding editor of our sister site Nonfics. He also regularly contributes to Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes and is the President of the Critics Choice Association's Documentary Branch.