George Lucas' Original STAR WARS: EPISODE VII Story Involved Young Teens
It sure is a good thing that George Lucas handed off the Star Wars franchise to Disney and J.J. Abrams. The original plan Lucas had for Star Wars: Epsiode VII might have ended up being as bad as those prequel films.
According to Bruce Handy's Vanity Fair cover story on the development of Episode VII, Lucas wrote a treatment for a story that he wanted to tell that “sketched out ideas for episodes VII, VIII, and IX.” It was around that time that he approached Harrison Ford, Carrie Fischer, and Mark Hamill about being involved, before Disney bought Lucasfilm.
Apparently Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy scrapped Lucas's ideas because they centered on young teenaged characters, and they didn't think anyone would want to see that. Here's what was said in the article:
"[Abrams] said Lucas’s treatment had centered on very young characters—teenagers, Lucasfilm told me—which might have struck Disney executives as veering too close for comfort to The Phantom Menace and its 9-year-old Anakin Skywalker and 13-year-old Queen Amidala. 'We’ve made some departures' from Lucas’s ideas, Kennedy conceded, but only in 'exactly the way you would in any development process.'"
I'm glad that Disney and Lucasfilm steered away from whatever Lucas was planning. The young teenage characters aren't really the issue — you can craft a good story around teens. I just don't think Lucas has what it takes anymore to craft a great story for Star Wars, and I think that's what the real issue was. It's hard to believe that Lucas would have given us the awesomeness that has been teased in the trailers for The Force Awakens that we've seen.
All I know is that Star Wars: The Force Awakens looks amazingly thrilling, and it opens on December 18th.
Via: The Atlantic