This discussion of changing writers from one movie to the next kind of begs the question of whether VIII and IX will even vaguely resemble George’s outlines for VIII and IX or if Lucasfilm is totally and completely doing its own thing now.
I’m highly doubtful that there was ever much of an outline in the first place.
From what I remember, Lucas had a 50-page story outline for the entire ST and hired Michael Arndt to write the screenplay for VII. Abrams eventually rewrote the script himself, keeping certain elements from Arndt’s earlier draft. For example, we know that a female protagonist was always in the cards. One of the very earliest rumors following the Disney deal was that Matthew Vaughn would direct with Chloe Grace Moretz in the starring role.
The only major difference I remember hearing about was Abrams giving the original characters a bigger role in the story. I’m sure there were other differences, apparently enough for the “white slavers” comment from Lucas, but did TFA at least vaguely resemble his outline for VII or was it really that different?
George showing up at Celebration makes me wonder if TLJ isn’t going to get back to what he had in mind for the ST.
EDIT: Cobb beat me to it.
50 pages? I never got the impression it was that exhaustive, but then again there hasn’t been a whole lot said on the matter.
One of the closest things to official BTS material about the script is the Art of book, which doesn’t go into much but it does make it seem like there were some specific ideas from the outset (female protagonist - Rey, some sort of pirate type I think? - Finn, and a Jedi Killer - Kylo) that may or may not have been from Lucas. The book also makes it clear that the development process was very much an evolution, presumably starting with the treatment, through with Arndt’s contributions (and it’s not clear if he ever completed a draft) and when JJ was added, and then when JJ brought Kasdan on and they took over writing duties (I think many assumed that Arndt was fired or something but it seems like he still contributed even after he stopped physically writing).
Ultimately I guess whatever Lucas’s contributions were weren’t enough to get him a “story by” credit, while Arndt’s contributions were enough to just get him a straight up screenplay credit. So they must have evolved the script quite a bit beyond whatever George had in mind.
Whether TLJ or IX will have anything to do with that initial treatment, who knows. We probably won’t find out until after IX is out (I’m sure the reason the TFA Making of book was indefinitely delayed is because there were potential TLJ and IX spoilers in the development stages).