Details on How The New STAR WARS Trilogy Was Influenced By George Lucas' Initial Plan

A couple weeks ago some concept art surfaced giving us a look at George Lucas' initial vision for the new Star Wars trilogy. It gave us an alternate look at the Jedi Temple setting and showed Luke Skywalker and his apprentice. That art showed us some of the similarities and differences between Lucas' initial vision and what Lucasfilm ended up giving us.

Well, it turns out that there are a lot more similarities between Lucas' vision for the trilogy and what J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson have done so far. Lucasfilm creative executive Pablo Hidalgo, recently took to Twitter to share some insights with the fans. Those tweets have since been removed, but the internet saved them.

There were apparently a number of elements borrowed from Lucas' story treatment for the new trilogy that were used in both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. It's pointed out by StarWarsNews.net that the plot points for the character of Kylo Ren were "already decided by Lucas: that he would betray his uncle, kill many of his fellow students, and ultimately murder his own father. Likewise, Rey would ultimately convince Luke to get out of his depression and do something about the war. The key difference is that both of these events would have happened in the same Episode VII – whereas in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, they’re both late-movie plot points."

Hidalgo added that the origin of Kylo Ren was actually intended to be explored in The Force Awakens instead of The Last Jedi:

In a very general sense, the original idea of 7 started midway through what we now know as 8.

— The Tweets of San Francisco: A QM Production (@pablohidalgo) January 3, 2018

It would have been interesting to see a movie focused on Ben Solo and his path to the Dark Side. That would have removed a lot of questions that need answering. I guess the creative team just wanted to build up the mystery. You know how much Abrams loves his "Mystery Box":

The son falling to the dark side was always in the mix. The movies just ended up having it already an established fact.

— The Tweets of San Francisco: A QM Production (@pablohidalgo) January 3, 2018

When talking about the evolution of some of the character names from the original treatment, Hidalgo revealed:

Skyler and Kira (and Kira wasn’t the first proposed name either; she had at least two others) became, after a fashion, Finn and Rey. The Jedi Killer morphed from Talon corrupting the son to becoming the son. Uber became Snoke. The starting point shifted. Yadda yada yada.

— The Tweets of San Francisco: A QM Production (@pablohidalgo) January 3, 2018

The Son and The Jedi Killer that are mentioned are referring to Kylo Ren. As for Talon, Lucas wanted to pull the character from the expended universe. She is a Sith Lord from the Star Wars: Legacy comics. 

It's also reiterated that Lucas did not have any scripts written for his films. He only had story treatments written. Apparently, some fans get this mixed up:

I think the fact that a lot of people refer to the as ‘scripts’ show they don’t really understand what it is they’re talking about.

— The Tweets of San Francisco: A QM Production (@pablohidalgo) January 3, 2018

Finally, Hidalgo pointed out that “Skyler” (Finn) was originally The Son (Ben Solo) in some drafts of Episode VII:

Skyler was the son in some versions. And as for how all that was gonna go down, that ain’t my story to tell.

— The Tweets of San Francisco: A QM Production (@pablohidalgo) January 3, 2018

That would have been an interesting road to go down and story to explore! So, it doesn't look like all of George Lucas' ideas were scrapped. They were just taken and reworked to fit into a new narrative. 

It's really interesting to learn about what could have been and get an idea of how these movies would have turned out had Lucas stayed involved.