Buzz
Before he sold the rights to Disney, George Lucas had crafted his own vision for a new Star Wars trilogy. He had already written a lot of material, developed a detailed outline for the trilogy, collaborated with Michael Arndt on an early draft of the script, and approved the concept art for the films, which he intended to direct himself for a time.
While we’ll never see Lucas's take on those films, snippets of his plans have made their way out. The individuals who were privy to his vision couldn’t keep quiet, and because of them, we now have a pretty good understanding of how a new Star Wars trilogy might have unfolded under his leadership.
10. Luke Was Supposed to Become a Father
In 1983, Mark Hamill accidentally revealed a glimpse of George Lucas’s plan for a new trilogy: Luke Skywalker was intended to become a father.
At the time, Hamill thought filming would begin in 2000. Though it took much longer for Star Wars: Episode VII to make its debut, Lucas never seemed to let go of that particular vision. Repeatedly, he stated that his trilogy was meant to focus on Darth Vader’s grandchildren, emphasizing that this wasn’t just about Leia’s offspring, but also Luke’s.
“People don’t actually realize it’s a soap opera and it’s all about family problems—it’s not about spaceships,” Lucas remarked to CBS when Disney’s version was released. Clearly frustrated with what ended up on screen, he stated, “They decided they didn’t want to use those stories, they decided they were going to do their own thing.”
It seems Lucas harbored some resentment about it. When Vanity Fair allowed him to ask J.J. Abrams, the new director of Star Wars, a question, an evidently irritated George Lucas asked: “What happened to Darth Vader’s grandchildren?”
9. Darth Talon Turns Sam Solo to the Dark Side
According to Pablo Hidalgo, a Lucasfilm executive, the villain in Lucas’s planned films was drawn from the pages of a Star Wars comic book. She was a red-skinned alien named Darth Talon, and her role was to corrupt Han Solo’s son.
In Lucas’s version of the story, Solo’s son—whom he referred to as “Sam”—would not begin as a dark side character. Instead, he would start out much like Han Solo himself. Michael Arndt, Lucas’s writer, described him as “pure charisma,” and the concept art depicted him as nearly a carbon copy of young Han Solo, with the same jacket, blaster, and other familiar traits.
Darth Talon was envisioned as a seductress. An early storyboard depicts her luring a Jedi monk out of a bar, having an affair with him, and then seemingly leaving him to die. It was she who would draw young Sam Solo into the dark side.
It seems Lucas envisioned Talon speaking in the style of Lauren Bacall. While working on the script, he visited LucasArts game studios and instructed them to integrate Darth Talon into an unreleased game.
One of the developers compared Darth Talon to the legendary Lauren Bacall. He even performed an impersonation of her, which was described as an incredibly strange take on the iconic '40s actress, who famously asked, 'Don’t you know how to whistle? Put your lips together and blow.'
8. A Teenage Hero Named Kira
According to J.J. Abrams, Lucas’s heroes were originally envisioned as being kids, quite young—around early teens. However, this concept was among the first ideas that Disney chose to reject.
Writer Michael Arndt revealed that the initial story was meant to center on a young female Jedi named Kira. Over time, she transformed into the character Rey in Disney’s narrative. Arndt described her as a 'scavenger,' a 'loner, hothead, gear-headed badass.'
Her age is somewhat difficult to determine. Despite Abrams's remarks, Lucas mentioned that the Skywalker children were intended to be in their twenties in his version, which led some to believe that Abrams might not have been entirely truthful.
However, it’s possible that both Abrams and Lucas were honest. Lucas only mentioned the Skywalker kids being in their twenties, and it’s quite likely that Kira wasn’t one of them.
Michael Arndt has stated that while collaborating with Lucas, Kira was designed to be 'the ultimate outsider and the ultimate disenfranchised person.' This strongly implies that she wasn’t a Skywalker, and that J.J. Abrams was being truthful when he said Lucas’s version of Rey was meant to be a frustrated teenage girl navigating the challenges of adolescence.
7. Luke’s Character Would Be Inspired By Colonel Kurtz
In George Lucas’s vision for Star Wars VII, Kira was destined to encounter Luke Skywalker, who would reluctantly take on the role of training her in the ways of the Force.
The plot would closely resemble what we saw in
Similar to the version we saw in the Disney movie, George Lucas’s Luke Skywalker would have been living in exile in the first Jedi temple. The design had already been approved, and it was envisioned as a golden bell perched at the edge of a cliff.
Kira wouldn’t hesitate in seeking out Luke Skywalker. Michael Arndt summarized the script by saying: '[Kira] is at home, her home is destroyed, and then she goes on the road and meets Luke. And then she goes and kicks the bad guy’s ass.'
Finding Skywalker wouldn’t have been a challenge in Lucas’s version. In his story, R2-D2 was fully operational and had a complete map of all Jedi temples at his fingertips.
6. The Whills Who Govern the Universe
One of the most frustrating aspects of The Phantom Menace for many fans was the introduction of the Jedi’s 'midichlorian count.' The idea that the Force had a biological and scientific basis was met with near-universal disapproval.
If you were among the critics, you might find it comforting to know that George Lucas was aware of the complaints. He knew that the midichlorians weren’t popular, but he was indifferent to the backlash.
Lucas was determined to push forward with this concept in his final trilogy. He had planned to explore a 'microbiotic world,' where we would learn about the beings who control the Force. 'I call them the Whills,' Lucas explained. 'The Whills are the ones who actually control the universe. They feed off the Force.'
He was already aware that the fans wouldn’t embrace this idea. 'A lot of the fans would have hated it,' Lucas confessed. 'But at least the entire story would have been told from beginning to end.' According to Lucas, 'If I’d held onto the company I could have done it.'
5. Felucia: The Mushroom Planet
Another intriguing detail revealed by Lucasfilm executive Pablo Hidalgo was one of George Lucas’s envisioned locations: an unusual, alien world known as Felucia.
Felucia isn’t an entirely new setting. It made a brief appearance in Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith and also featured in the Clone Wars TV series. However, in Lucas’s planned sequel trilogy, it was meant to play a major role.
This planet is dominated by jungles filled with towering mushrooms and ferns, all of which come in every color imaginable. The immense, neon-colored mushrooms covering the planet are capable of shooting out spores, releasing toxic puffballs, and even devouring humans whole.
The native inhabitants of Felucia, known as the Felucians, are deeply attuned to the Force and dwell within the planet’s thickest jungles. They coexist with bizarre, translucent-skinned creatures, including tube worms, wild alien birds, and enormous larvae with tiny legs, which can even be ridden like horses.
Although the exact events on Felucia remain unclear, Pablo Hidalgo revealed that Lucas’s films would have delved deeper into the mysteries of the planet.
4. Luke Trains Leia in the Ways of the Force
When The Last Jedi was released, Mark Hamill made a statement that uncovered two major plot details from Lucas’s original outlines. 'I happen to know that George didn’t kill Luke until the end of [Episode] Nine,' he shared with an interviewer, 'after he trained Leia.'
Kira wasn’t going to be Luke’s only Padawan, it seems—Luke was going to be spending either part of the last movie or possibly even the entire trilogy training his sister, Leia.
In another interview, Hamill built on the idea. “I always wondered [ . . . ] why [Leia] wouldn’t fully develop her Force sensibilities,” he mused. “That’s something George Lucas addressed in his original outline for 7, 8, 9.”
The suggestion seems to be that, by the end of the ninth movie, George Lucas was going to have turned Leia into a fully trained Jedi with fully developed Force sensibilities. And then, for whatever reason, Luke would have died, perhaps leaving Leia to take his place as a Jedi knight.
Whatever Lucas’s plan was, it was definitely very different from what we saw. “They’re not following George’s ideas,” Hamill complained. “It seems like a waste.”
3. An All-Wookiee Spin-Off Film
Lucas's vision went beyond just Episode IX. In 1978, during the early days of Star Wars, he envisioned, as he put it: 'three trilogies of nine films, and then a couple of other films. Essentially, there were twelve films.'
This plan included three spin-off films, one of which would be dedicated to Wookiees. Lucas shared, 'When I started working on the Wookiee, I thought of making a movie solely about Wookiees, nothing else.'
If Lucas had been in control, instead of Rogue One and Solo, we would have likely received a spin-off film resembling the Star Wars Holiday Special, only without any humans. It would have essentially been an hour and a half of massive, furry creatures growling at each other in a completely unintelligible manner.
Additionally, Lucas had plans for 'a film about robots,' again 'with no humans in it' throughout the entire 90-minute duration.
Naturally, this was back in 1978. It's almost certain that Lucas's ideas evolved from those rough concepts, and likely continued to change even further as he began crafting the films.
Since George Lucas will never bring these films to life, we’ll never truly know how they would have turned out. All we have are fragments of details, leaving us to fill in the gaps with our imagination.
2. Han Solo's Demise
Not all of George Lucas's ideas were scrapped. Harrison Ford confirmed that Han Solo's death was part of the new trilogy from the very beginning.
Harrison has shared that even during the initial conversation, it was made clear that Han Solo wouldn’t make it through. For him, it was simply part of the pitch: “So I said ‘okay.’”
It's quite possible that Lucas included Solo's death just to please Harrison. While working on Return of the Jedi, Lucas reportedly dismissed an idea to kill off Luke or Yoda, explaining, “I’ve always hated it in films when a main character is killed off. This is a fairy tale. You want everyone to live happily ever after.”
Lucas, however, needed Harrison’s approval. So, as soon as he reached out to him, he introduced the concept of Han Solo’s death. It's unclear whether Lucas would have gone through with killing him off in the new trilogy, but Solo’s son was intended to be a heroic figure for much of the first movie. If he were to kill his own father, the shock would have been immense.
1. Luke Ascends to Another Realm
“What happens to Luke afterward is much more ethereal,” George Lucas once remarked when discussing his vision for the future of Star Wars. He made this statement in 1978, but by then, he already had, as he described it: “a tiny notebook full of notes on that.”
It’s unclear exactly what Lucas meant by “ethereal,” but Mark Hamill, who’s familiar with Lucas’s vision, has offered some clues. He revealed that Luke Skywalker was going to exist on “another plane of existence” in the new trilogy. From the way it’s described, it seems that Skywalker would have evolved into something beyond just a Force ghost, like Obi-Wan.
Whatever the idea may have been, Lucas appears to have had it for a long time. Mark Hamill recalls that back in 1976, while they were still filming the first Star Wars, Lucas asked him: “How’d you like to be in Episode IX?”
Lucas gave a glimpse into his early concept: “You’ll just be like a cameo. You’ll be like Obi-Wan passing the lightsaber to the next new hope.”
