Lucas Sequel Trilogy Treatments: Evidence, Facts, Discussion

That's exactly what I was thinking too. Here's what I said in this thread a couple years ago:
And I was thinking it was through this vendetta that Rotta would seek out someone capable of taking out Luke and Leia. Enter Maul (or some dark side user).

Rotta doesn't even need to be a big part of the story, just set the wheels in motion.

This would pack a bit of significance being that it was Anakin and Ahsoka who saved Rotta's life.

One could go a little Godfather with this

An awesome cogitation -- yes, exactly!!!


I had mixed thoughts on the title "The Force Awakens" -- kinda sounds both cool and stupid at the same time (Star Wars titles in a nutshell?). It did suggest some monumental shift in our understanding of the Force through these movies, while also coming across as exceedingly market-friendly. The neat thing about it is it can be easily cyphered into many other titles with just a few alterations in the lettering. "I'm a person (persona/mask) and my name is The Force Awakens!" 

I was a bit hostile to "The Last Jedi" when it was announced -- largely because, as you say, it repeats a key word and deprives the Saga, a little bit, of its structured identity (previous titles all used unique nouns). That said, it grew on me and now sounds pretty badass. Mark Hamill, perhaps with a touch of mirthful detachment (consider his many catty comments about the movie and the way the ST handled the OT characters), said it best when he proclaimed that it was very samurai-esque and minimalist. 

BTW, I don't think the movie tosses the title over its proverbial shoulder. Luke certainly does that, with the "legacy saber", at the beginning; but then you get to the Crait scene where Luke claims the title as his own and recognises, with humility, that he is merely a custodian of the Jedi flame. His pronouncing of the title might be a break with the "rules" of the Saga, but that only gives it more impact (and seems to be another way the ST was inspired by LOTR, where all the titles are uttered by a "wise" character of some sort). Episode VIII does things a bit differently, so it fits nicely into the movie's wider scheme. And Mark intones it with such determination. A wonderful moment.

I think the final title -- "The Rise Of Skywalker" -- is fine. Note that it is the lost-and-found "twin" of ROTS (TROS). That's pretty cool (especially when you consider the twin motif in the Saga). Rey even lays Luke and Leia's sabers to rest at the end, as if she is burying the many hidden secrets and powers inherent in the dyadic storytelling of Star Wars itself. There they will dwell, in the same sand as the homestead, forever and ever. 


I dunno. Ray Park has the physicality for Maul -- but that voice? The role might have been recast (or else heavily dubbed). What makes Maul distinct, in any case, is his facepaint, not so much the actor playing him -- whereas, with a bad guy like Tarkin or Dooku, you would ideally only use the original actor.



There's an enormous disjunct with the Disney Sequel Trilogy, and if it can be put into one word, then that word is Jabba. Just as the Prequel Trilogy concludes with the Sith taking revenge, so should the plot of the ST have begun, or been put into motion, by the scheming of criminal elements wanting to avenge Luke's actions on Tatooine -- and, yes, a power vacuum in the wake of Jabba's death. As it is, this plot thread is entirely abandoned, as if the ST is taking place in a bell jar. It's even more bizarre because Lawrence Kasdan was a writer on both ROTJ and TFA. This significant hole in the continuity of the trilogies is almost never mentioned. Even many Disney detractors are too caught up in the Skywalker family drama to notice that there is also a macro plot at work -- or, at least, there was, before Lucas sold it and lost control. The final third of the Saga could have both adequately acknowledged what came before and yet still have been very different.  

^ Or both. *rubs hands together*

I mean, if the Hutts are taking advantage of the power vacuum, then Luke & Leia's New Republic is going to be a very big rival. The Hutts will have a rather difficult time trying to take out a Jedi and his sister. They'll be looking for help. Just seems like the Hutts are the obvious catalyst to the conflict in a sequel on more than one level. Just an idea.

I remember in the '80s, everybody said there'd never be any SW sequels because all the bad guys are dead. Well, what about the Hutts? Yeah, Jabba's dead, but he has cronies and family. It's tempting to think Lucas establishing Rotta (quite early on, I might add) and the return of Maul was some attempt at laying groundwork for a possible sequel trilogy.

And like Cryo pointed out, the seeking of revenge, along with political motivations, would mirror Episode III, and the whole of the PT, quite well.

But I don't know, maybe it's too obvious.

We do have a lot in common.

Man how did it take so long for me to read this thread- great stuff!

Lucas' sequel is an itch I can't scratch. What I am hoping exists, somewhere on the Internet, is a resource that traces, in parallel or homogeneously, influences of 1) Middle East 2) Islam 3) Arab 4) North Africa 5) Lawrence of Arabia 6) The Maltese Falcon (Crusades) 7) Casablanca 8) Frank Herbert the entire life not just the axiom 'SW copied DUNE lols' 9) Iraq 10) petroleum 11) 9/11 12) 2003 invasion of Iraq 13) ISIS. Also, viewing the matrix of sand-origin-savior through the lens of Edward Said's Orientalism.

The shimmering mirage that my mind's eye sees is a configuration in Lucas' sequel that parallels these two relationships: restored Republic and Hutt territory, and, The American Century and the nexus of black gold and where empires go to die.

The "problematic" (dis white guy) detects first is that Lucas' variety of quotations, citations, references to an Arab / North African / Middle Eastern / Levant are... unexaminedly Orientalist. Whereas Frank Herbert's citation was entirely examination. The class of Jabba character inherits the properties of Casablanca, Fez, criminal, before he was a slug, and then after he was a slug, inherits whatever it is that Herbert was channeling with sandworms. I quick google argues that Herbert sandworms represent the cycle of life. My intuition was that Herbert was reifying the deadliness of inhospitable places, if someone will allow that redundancy. (A cycle of life is indeed brought into the sharpest possible focus if it occurs in the deadliest of inhospitable places.) Something about Jabba becomes... inevitable.

I certainly do one day want to hear all the decisions Disney made, in the room where it happened, where they jettisoned Lucas' treatments. And by jettison, I reject (personally) the defense that "Disney used lots of Lucas' sequel. See? Rey!" Yeah, No. Disney cherry picked from the options Lucas laid out the specific options that could be fielded the quickest. As far as I have seen from the Disney Sequel offering, they went where Lucas went, already, that one time, before, when he did it better, the first time. The tough parts, these continuations of subterranean threads, of what happens after you defeat the visible monolithic enemy, Disney declined. Too much work. Possibly, content that explored versions of 'The Middle East' was too soon. Possibly, a third rail. Possibly, not something that focus groups wanted to see in the Star Wars property.

I was trying to articulate this in my last weeks at TFN: SW is a Western in that law must be created by the self where law is scarce, or the arm of the law is short, the wilderness where population is scarce, while also being an 'Eastern Promises' where crime exists right immediately under the noses of the metropolis and of the longest extent of the arms of the law. The Mos Eisley cantina inherits from lawless saloon in the 'West' wilderness, Capone Prohibition speakeasy in the metropolis of Chicago, and Rick's Cafe for people that wish not for wilderness, and wish to remain in reach of civilization, but not be found or hounded by their past. It operates outside the realms of time and space of the metropolitan or wilderness.

This 'thing' I can barely assemble into a word picture was up for grabs, going by the treatments, and it would have gone to dark introspective places that echo "what lengths it is that a superpower, however morally valid it begins as, go to for self preservation". SW77 channeled Nixon > Emperor. ROTJ channeled
Viet-Minh vs American imperialists. (There's a third one on the tip of my tongue I am forgetting.) The invasion of Iraq was not about spice of Kessel, but about melange of global commerce. Yes, you can very slightly map Kessel spice to Afganistan opium which branches out to a Taliban - criminal / underworld connection. But a restored Republic configured against a Hutt thing / regime / territory / state / non-state has its first and closest analogue to the face off or confrontation between the "West" and the "Middle East" that most visibly or viscerally in living memory dates back to the 1991 Gulf War, and which Lucas himself specifically references in his remarks on the Baathist soldiers joining ISIS.

"Where On the Internet" is an authoritative tome that demolishes this Gordian knot?

It sure is more compelling a promising case of introspection than the (grade school) proposition that Nazis in Argentina launched a MERV that destroyed all the deep water ports on both coasts, HI and the Capitol. Was that the topic that needed to be contended with in the period between 2015 and now?

Line item vetos are appreciated. Good references are appreciated.

Lucas clearly once again went deep into his old notes and pulled ideas from there. The whole idea of gangsters taking over after the Emperor's death seems to come from some of his notes for ANH:


Despite Lucas saying that it "wouldn't be The Phantom Menace all over again", I think the overall tone and feel of the sequel trilogy would have been closest to that of TPM, which I think is the most mythic of the films. In the 70s, Lucas said the sequel trilogy would be more ethereal. This fits right in with the fact that the Whills and further exploration of the Force and midi-chlorians would have been a big part of the ST. TPM was Lucas' vision uninfluenced by audience backlash, the likes of which influenced AotC and RotS, as Lucas admits in this quote:


But it seems that after the prequels, Lucas stopped listening to the naysayers, and was adamant in putting the Whills back in the movies. Aside from relenting because of backlash, the latter two prequels naturally changed the feel to become more like that of the OT as they got closer to it, so the ST was Lucas' chance to create something mythological on the level of TPM again. And like TPM, it would also feature Maul, a force of pure evil. There is something elemental about the Duel of the Fates, with Qui-Gon, who looks somewhat like Jesus, essentially fighting the devil. The concept art of Luke for Lucas' ST looks a bit like Qui-Gon. Maybe Luke would have then fought Maul. Maul in the concept art is an all-black figure that looks to be made of smoke, and he is called the dark side of the Force. The concept was done by Ian McCaig, and it harkens back to some concepts he did for Maul in TPM, which resembled Sauron. This leads me to believe that Maul has somehow come to embody the very dark side of the Force, and is now on elemental being. This would lend itself to a truly mythic story.

Slightly. He took out the Whills and further mentions of the midi-chlorians, aside from the opera scene in RotS.