There’s a fan-made plot synopsis/script outline that was circulating around in the 80s or early 90s which told the story of Episode 3. Obi-Wan is essentially the main character. The story also featured characters like “Lady Arcadia Skywalker”, who was Anakin’s wife, Bail Organa, and Captain Antilles. The story focuses a lot on the Alderaanian forces as Palpatine takes control of the Republic. There’s also a “Prince Valarium”, which indicates that whoever wrote this may have actually read (or at least heard details about) genuine early drafts of Star Wars. (They definitely read the ANH novelization at least.)
Anyway, this fan-made synopsis is close - both plot-wise and stylistically - to my vague expectations about the Prequels. At least, much closer than the actual Prequels that were released 1999-2005. I can’t say to what extent this fan-made synopsis was an amalgamation of pre-existing fan expectations, or to what extent it actually influenced fan expectations. I can’t even remember when or if I became aware of this plot synopsis as a child. But I can say with certainty that this plot synopsis is at least closer in spirit to what I expected from the Prequels.
Yeah! John L Flynn’s “Fall Of The Republic” script.
There are a few pieces about it listed in the Index thread for ‘Beyond the Original Trilogy’:
• For those who are familiar with it, what do you think of the fan script of “Fall of the Republic”? (2023 thread)
• Interesting Hypothesis of the Prequels Story from the Mid 90’s (2005 thread; John L Flynn’s ‘Fall Of The Republic’ fan-script)
^ John L Flynn’s ‘fan-lore’ script: 1983’s Fall of the Republic & 1994’s Looking Back to the Future of Star Wars & his other works
He also wrote pieces for Starlog, and maybe similar publications like Insider and CineScape? One of the above threads has a podcast with him on it talking about FOTR and his similar works. Screamsinthevoid linked to an article of two by him in here from the mid-90s, I’ll dig them out later.
I really liked FOTR at the time, and still prefer it to what we actually got. Though imagination and our projections in filling in the blanks often triumphs reality. I’d love to see an animation or comic book form of it, even fan made, but then is so much of that early “what if?” stuff I’d like to see, along the lines of “The Star Wars” comics from 2013/14.
Edit: John L Flynn article in Cinemscape for March 1995, posted up by Screamsinthevoid:
and just for fun: screams also posted a link to a Cinescape article from November 1997 guessing at what the Prequels could be like:
