Star Wars question

Cafe Society
1

Sometime turing the original Star Wars series I seem to recall that George Lucas said that he intended to make three trilogies: the original one, a prequel trilogy, and another one that takes place after the destruction of the Death Star. ISTM that I heard this either after Star Wars and around the time The Empire Strikes Back was in production or its release. I also seem to recall that after The Return Of The Jedi Lucas said he never said anything about making prequels and sequels. (And after the Empire is defeated it seemed that there was nowhere a sequel series could go. But this was before the Balkans, which might provide a model.) Of course he did go on to make SW4, SW5 and SW6 (or ‘Episode I’, ‘Episode II’ and ‘Episode III’ if you prefer).

The thing is I’m almost positive I heard/read Lucas wanted to make three trilogies; but now he says he never said it. Am I misremembering?

2

The hardest thing about being a Star Wars fan in my opinion is the unreliable nature of Lucas. He’s constantly changing his story and effectively retconning explanations for things.

Yes, I’m dead certain he once said he’d like to do a full 9 piece series after the old trilogy had been made. During the prequels I remembering him saying in interviews that he didn’t really see how he could do that, for the complications of his aging and that of the cast of the original trilogy at the very least. He said that he had grown to like the idea of leaving it at 6 pieces, with a central theme of Anakin’s fall to darkness, and eventual redemption (through his own actions and that of his children).

Besides, the EU did a fantastic job of covering the next 25 years or so of galactic “history.” I don’t really know where he’d go with it, unless he picked one of the trilogies (preferably Zahn’s Dark Force Rising books) and adapted it.

Incidentally, if you don’t know what the EU did, and don’t mind spoilers…

[SPOILER]basically they operated from the assumption that the galaxy is a big place, so even though the Battle of Endor was a key decisive victory, like the Normandy landings in some respect it was just the beginning of a much longer campaign against the Imperial loyalists (or perhaps Gettysburg might be a better example?). There was an extended period of back-and-forth fighting until the New Republic had pushed the loyalists back into a corner of the Galaxy where the population had a genuine majority in favor of remaining Imperial. They made peace, just in time for the NR to get embroiled in political infighting and face a deadly new invader from the outer reaches. With the Imperialists help, they were able to push out the new aliens (the Yuuzhan Vong, a name which always makes me think of Viet Cong).

During this time Luke has founded a new order of Jedi by training pupils in an academy environment. He’s had a few students gone bad, but for the most part it’s been a big success. The new Jedi really live up to the prophecy of balancing the Force because they’re goody two-shoes as always, but nowhere near as cold and logical as the old order. They have families, they have emotions, they’re people.

I don’t really know what all they’ve been up to since, but I gather it involves Jacen, one of Han and Leia’s kids starting down the path of the Dark Side, and the rebirth of the Mandalorians (an ancient nomadic tribe of warriors, often at odds with the Jedi, from whom Boba Fett is decended and from which his armor comes), which Boba Fett (who escaped the Sarlacc monster, though it took an extended period of illegal cloning-based medical treatments for him to recover; there’s some speculation it effectively made him younger, too) now leads. While Fett and Solo have set aside their grudge, it’ll likely start anew since Jacen is implicated in the death of Fett’s daughter. [/SPOILER]

3

I figure Lucas is only human and is entitled to be as fallible as the rest of us. The ones I’m annoyed at are the cadre of fans who follow his lead and insist that whatever George is saying or doing now is not only perfect but completely in accord with all of the perfect things he said or did in the past.

4

I had (have? somewhere?) a copy of the TIME magazine with Darth Vader on the cover, which came out just before The Empire Strikes Back was released. I got it on eBay in the late 90’s and I remember going “aha!” when it stated very clearly that a 9-part series was in consideration, though I don’t remember if this was a direct quote from Lucas or a paraphrase. But it was clear from the article that at least the author thought that this was Lucas’s intent.

If I manage to dig up this relic again, I’ll post the actual cite. Unfortunately I have no idea where it is.

5

I remember reading it in Starlog, also around the time of Empire Strikes Back.

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I started a similar post, some time back, but I can’t find it, and it didn’t add much to the question, nor this one.