Some more contradictions and a bit more hypocrisy from George: Lucas is on record as suggesting doing the New Jedi Order books as the Sequels. Years later he then backtracked and claimed that was not the way he would have done it, despite it being his own actual suggestion (it also a project he worked on and contributed to). And then, rather hypocritically, years later Lucas actually used some of those early NJO ideas for his own Sequel Trilogy film treatments:
Don’t forget the version of the Sequels… that were novels (back in 1999):-
In 1999, an interview with George Lucas in Wired magazine, titled ‘Grand Illusion’… just a few months before the ‘Vector Prime’ book (from the ‘New Jedi Order’ series of novels) - began being heavily promoted (with tv advert and poster campaigns), a series of novels which Lucas himself was involved in and contributed to…
^ Grand Illusion - the full article at Wired.
A little more background info can be found here:-
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsEU/comments/hr1tnz/behind_the_scenes_the_making_of_the_new_jedi
and the Total Film interview with George below from 2008:
“And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn’t at all what I would have done with it. The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn’t come back to life, the Emperor doesn’t get cloned and Luke doesn’t get married.”
~ George Lucas, Total Film Magazine Interview, 2008
When George later changed his mind and decided to try his hand on the Sequels film, his own treatments were based some of early New Jedi Order novel ideas discussed in the article below, notably the conception of the NJO and aspects of other familiar EU stories. George himself had also contributed to the NJO books, having a number of meetings with the authors, instigating changes to the plot and characters, giving feedback, and making suggestions:
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsEU/comments/hr1tnz/behind_the_scenes_the_making_of_the_new_jedi
The text in the above article is a ‘spoiler’. To see the text appear, double-click on the space where the text should be, to see it. Or click here for a screenshot of the article: https://i.imgur.com/6n1rNdM.png
In Summary…
In 1999:
Interviewer: “What about the reports that Episodes 7, 8, and 9 - which exist in novel form - will never reach the screen?”
George Lucas: “The sequels were never really going to get made anyway, unlike 1, 2, and 3, where the stories have existed for 20 years. The idea of 7, 8, and 9 actually came from people asking me about sequels, and I said, “I don’t know. Maybe someday.” Then when the licensing people came and asked, “Can we do novels?” I said do sequels, because I’ll probably never do sequels.”
George also contributed to the New Jedi Order books, having a number of meetings with the authors, instigating changes to the plot and characters, giving feedback, and making a number of other suggestions implemented by the NJO writers.
In 2008:
George Lucas: “And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn’t at all what I would have done it”.
Around 2011-12:
When George later changes his mind and decides to now try his hand at the Sequel Trilogy, his own later treatments are based some on those same novel ideas, notably the conception of the New Jedi Order, and also some other aspects of familiar EU stories.