You can take this with a grain of salt, but Kurtz claims he saw the plans that Lucas had set up for 9 episodes, with the Emperor being met and killed in Ep 9. I had an article about that. I'll see if I can find it.
Ok, I found it. This is from the NJ Star Ledger Friday, May 20th. This is only an excerpt--a long one...:
The director (Lucas) denies ever stating that he'd make Ep 7-9, blaming the media for reporting rumors as fact in the early days of "Star Wars."
He said the hype was "created by you guys, not by me," while speaking to journalists during press day earlier this month at his Skywalker Ranch headquarters in Marin County, CA.
Technically, he never prmised 9 movies, but the news stories of Luke redux weren't pure fiction.
"We made an announcement to the press, 'There's enough material for 3 trilogies,'" says Kurtz. "It wasn't 9 films were going to be made. It was to give you an idea of how much material was there."
Before Lucas wrote the script for "Star Wars", he put together a novel-length treatment tracing the intergalactic exploits of Skywalker and son. In the blueprint, the plot spanned beyond Luke's young adult years to portray him as an elder Jedi.
"He went on to become the master and pass on his training to someone else," Kurtz says.
Kurtz adds that at one point, there was even talk of expanding the chronicle to 12 chapters.
"There were a lot of things bandied about. There were people who wanted to do novels, tangential stories that have nothing to do with the main story of the films. Everyone one of those could be turned into a film. There was an idea about using R2-D2 and C3PO in a feature, or Han Solo's adventures. I suppose you could invent things forever, but I don't think anything concrete was too seriously considered."
According to Kurtz, the possibility of a 3rd trilogy diminished when Lucas veered from his treatment to create RotJ. The original tale he mapped out didn't feature Ewoks or a 2nd Death Star, and it culminated in the death of Han Solo. Leia parted ways with Luke to lead those who survived her home planet's destruction.
The most critical change, however, was incorporating what would have been the climax of Ep 9, a showdown between Luke and the Emperor.
"The idea was that the Emperor would be hinted at and maybe seen occasionally but there wouldn't be a final confrontation with him until the 9th story." says Kurtz, who ended his association with Lucas after Empire, patrially because he was displeased with the aforementioned revisions.
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Wonder if I should make this a separate post so others can see it and respond to it.