Thanks to a new bookwritten by Lucasfilm Star Wars fact
extraordinaire Pablo Hidalgo, we have a lot of interesting new information
about the galaxy far, far away. And it turns out George Lucas’s original plans
for a sequel trilogy bore some interesting resemblances to what actually
happened.
As reported by Slash
Film, according to Hidalgo in Star Wars:
Fascinating Facts: Story, Lore & History From the Greatest Galaxy,
“years before The Last Jedi began
development, the treatment left behind by George Lucas in 2012 also had Episode 8 be the one wherein Luke Skywalker
would die.”
Well ain’t that
something! Hidalgo also says that, in Lucas’s telling, Luke is “a recluse,
withdrawn into a very dark space and needs to be drawn back from despair.”
What’s particularly
intriguing about these revelations is that they suggest that Lucas’s ideas for
Luke and Star Wars were not, in the end,
all that different from those as developed by Rian Johnson in The Last Jedi, ideas for which he was very
powerfully criticized by a certain band of fans of the franchise. No matter who
was in charge of that movie, it seems likely that a sad, bitter old Luke who
redeemed himself and died would have been a likely part of it.
https://gizmodo.com/the-story-behind-the-ultimate-star-wars-lightsaber-book-1845350645
The book also
reveals, about Lucas’s version of the story from 2012, that it featured a
figure much like Rey, a young woman becoming a Jedi. But in Lucas’s version,
her name and age shifted a lot—at one point she was 14 years old and named
Taryn, while later she took on other names, like Thea. Or Winkie. Yes, Winkie.
To be fair, not all
of George’s ideas are good. We can all admit that now.
For more, make sure you’re following us on our Instagram @io9dotcom.
