What I’ve been able to uncover about what George’s treatment for VII was going to be about was very similar to what we got. Even before Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney, Luke was pushed out of VII and into VIII. VII was going to be about finding Luke. I think it would have been better if we hadn’t seen him and the end of VII was more like the end of TESB with Rey and Chewie going off to find Luke and then a gap between the two films. But Rian Johnson really nailed the opening of TLJ with out Abrams left TFA. Really all 3 films have an epilogue (Rey finding Luke, the broom boy, and Rey burying Luke and Leia’s sabers). I think TFA is the weakest one. It sets up the story and most of the flaws consistently pointed out in the other two films stem from what Abrams setup in TFA. I don’t agree that they are necessarily flaws, but I feel that Abrams set them up. Some of them Lucas setup. Lucas had the girl as the Jedi in training. Lucas had Luke in exile. I love what Rian Johnson did with Luke because given what Abrams established in TFA, Johnson mined ANH and TESB for qualities and traits that Luke had the might resurface in the face of a tragedy that would make him go into self-exile.

I’ve studied how movies develop, particular the Star Wars movies, and what I see in Lucas’s original ideas and the pre-Abrams draft of IX are a basis for how the films developed and mutated into what we go. TESB and ROTJ went through similar mutations. I think Abrams played it too safe with TFA and make some bad story telling choices. I think if he would have been more daring like he was with TROS that it would have been a better film.