Lucas and Ardnt

Kathleen Kennedy that the biggest things they changed from Lucas' treatment were in relation to "the history of the saga."

My own view, which combines Disney's unease at Lucas' treatments having "teenage characters" that were reminiscent of the prequels, is that they changed up Rey's abandonment, Ben Solo's betrayal and fall, and the destruction of Luke's temple.

I believe Lucas would have started his trilogy out showing Ben Solo pre-fall and possibly meeting Rey. This sets him up for a solid redemption arc because Rey would still remember Kylo as "Ben" who was always "nice to her."

So VII would have been the tragedy of Ben Solo, mirroring the PT. Lucas' VIII would have been his redemption. His IX would be Rey and Kylo destroying Snoke.

It seems they started differently to age up the characters to ease Disney's worries about the similarities. So we see Kylo after the fall and have to have all those events revealed via flashbacks.

 

I'm really curious to know what Lucas' version was. I also find it intriguing that he said, "They didn't want to use my stories," while Kathleen Kennedy says, "No, we did use his essential story, but we mostly just rearranged stuff." I imagine the truth is somewhere in the middle.

 

If nothing else, we'll probably get the whole backstory on TFA's evolution in some expensive collection fifteen years from now.

 

Here's quotes from Kathy Kennedy about George's treatments and how they evolved.

" Well, here’s the thing. There are certain things they retained and obviously everything George created, you can imagine, every single person involved in this process hugely respects and wanted to know as much as they possibly could about the universe that he was describing. He had specific plot ideas that evolved."

" He sat down with me in 2012, and now it’s almost 2016, and you know the development process, where you bring writers on and once the story starts to take shape, it evolves. George wasn’t a part of those development discussions, so it was a fairly natural process of evolution. It sounds like we ignored him but that’s not really what happened."

" No, because the legacy characters play a significant role in this, and I would say and inside the balance that George was talking about to begin with. It was really much more to do with the specifics of the history of the saga. We changed the order of a few things, let’s put it that way. We didn’t make some wholesale change."

Here's also quotes from both Simon Kinberg (on the treatments for the ST and blueprint for the other films) and Harrison Ford about George's involvement in The Force Awakens.

" It depends from movie-to-movie, is the answer. But it's definitely a part of the planning of all the different movies and it was something that I was exposed to from the beginning of the process. "

" George was involved in the development of the script. It had George's genius behind it, and he left us in a very good position to pass things on to a new director."

I think the biggest clue about George's treatments and their usage is there's not a 'Story by George Lucas' credit during the end titles of The Force Awakens, while watching Rogue One there's a 'Story by John Knoll and Gary Whitta' credit. If they really discarded his ideas there would be a story credit for J.J. Abrams, Larry Kasdan, and Michael Arndt instead of just a 'Screenplay by'. I think the biggest thing is exactly what Kathy said, they changed around a few things, made a few departures, and have given the writers the freedom to tell a story within the guidelines that George left behind for the Sequel Trilogy. While promoting The Phantom Menace, George stated how he had outlines for each of the Prequels and they would turn into stories. Ian McDiarmid says also in the commentary for The Phantom Menace that when he met with George in London about the role he'd play in the Prequels he didn't offer many details, only the key points of each entry. I think that's where things evolved with the Sequel Trilogy and as other writers got involved things took their natural course. They evolved both visually and narratively. We'll most likely see how things took shape after the trilogy is done.

 

This is what I can remember about early versions of the film. Narrowed down to what I think were Lucas' ideas:

• There was no First Order. Early concept art had Imperial remnants, though that could have been after he left.
• Luke would bring Rey from her planet with him on his journey. Lucas' version of Rey was called Kira.
• New ships, planets, factions. I'm guessing more drastic changes to the OT look.
• Han and Leia would have been together.
• No Starkiller Base.
• He always said the ST would be morally grey, and there would be politics. Sounds like the New Republic wasn't going to be the nicest guys in the galaxy.
• The big three would have had a significant place in the first installment. No missing Luke.

 

he would have made it the movie that we all would have taken without all of the criticism

 

Come on, really? Do you need to bring this here?

 

i'm just saying what I think it would have been like with the details we know if Georg'es story.

 

Well, if there's one thing you can say in praise of the prequels, they certainly showed the extent of Lucas' imagination.