The Sequels - George's Original Trilogy

Hi everyone. So right now, I’m busy plotting out my own take on what the Sequels should have been. I’m going to try and base them off of as much of George Lucas’ original ideas as I can find. I would like to ask you guys for some ideas right now on a certain aspect. George has said that the Sequel Trilogy was to be more Ethereal. I’m assuming that ties in with the Whills and how they reveal our Destinies are written. What do you guys think would be an interesting plot line to have that involves the Whills with the Force?

In my Sequel Trilogy, the Whills are immortal beings that created the Universe, and they Control the Force. They decided to create Midi-Chlorians in the Star Wars galaxy, to see what would happen, and have been keeping track of the Jedi wars in the Journal of the Whills.

Some ideas I have (though I might not use) involve the discovery of the Whills by either Luke or the Jedi Killer. Maybe they discover them by discovering first the Journal of the Whills, which details the events of a different Galaxy. If Luke discovers the Whills, then maybe it would discourage him to know that we do not have free will, for we are always adhering to the Whill of the Force. Maybe he ignores the call to action this time round because he believes the Whills will take care of everything. However, if the Jedi Killer discovers the Whills, then I’d imagine he’d want to either learn their powers or force them to do his biding. Maybe he’d want them to destroy the Galaxy and create a new one for the Sith to rule.

Another idea I have is that Anakin might be a Whill. I imagine a scene where Kira touches the Journal and is transported to the realm of the Whills, where she meets the ghost of Anakin who turns into Darth Vader under the right light. The idea is that Anakin is the chosen one, so his eternal duty is to preserve balance in the Force in this realm.

Those are some basic ideas I have right now. I have to be honest, this is toughest part of the Trilogy to come up with. I’ve got a nice political plot line, and a story for the characters and how the Saga ends, but I’m having difficulty coming up with something “ethereal”.

I would have loved to have seen the Whills, they are the deepest lore dive the series ever would have taken. As far as their ethereal nature I can only really think of themes and visuals (the quantum reality mirrored against space) over plotlines, but I like your idea that they might be discovered and considered a source of cosmic ring like power over the universe. I’m not sure how much further they should really be characterized or explained without diminishing their larger than life ever presence, should be about as ambiguous as the power of the ark in Raiders.

Honestly I think they would have to be the major plotline still to even communicate how important they are to the saga, it’s a consciousness commentary, I don’t think Star Wars has ever been as sophisticated and it’s extremely difficult to imagine how it would be integrated.

To leapfrog a bit off of what Sheev tells Anakin about the power to influence midichlorians I think this would be a great payoff to be fully realized, a Sith creation as some manipulation of dark matter. I also think invoking and involving the universe itself as representation of the Whills could become pretty cataclysmic and satisfyingly epic for a conclusion, both fated yet still down to individual choice. Multiply the hyperspace ram by a factor of an exploding star as the protagonist becomes more or less enlightened by the force and transcends as the literal “light” manifests and the universe and the individual operate as one (Neo-ish, if you like).

act on instinct said:

I would have loved to have seen the Whills, they are the deepest lore dive the series ever would have taken. As far as their ethereal nature I can only really think of themes and visuals (the quantum reality mirrored against space) over plotlines, but I like your idea that they might be discovered and considered a source of cosmic ring like power over the universe. I’m not sure how much further they should really be characterized or explained without diminishing their larger than life ever presence, should be about as ambiguous as the power of the ark in Raiders.

I would have loved to’ve seen them too! I’m intrigued by your “quantum reality” comment. Are you suggesting something similar to what we see in the MCU? That would be awesome. I know in order for them to meet the Whills, they have to travel to their “realm”. Right now, I imagine they do that by touching the Journal or meditating deeply. But come Episode IX, R2-D2 is supposed to meet them, so he can transcribe to them the entire Star Wars saga. I suppose that means at somepoint the Whills are suppose to come to our “realm”, because I imagine R2-D2 can’t travel to theirs.

act on instinct said:

Honestly I think they would have to be the major plotline still to even communicate how important they are to the saga, it’s a consciousness commentary, I don’t think Star Wars has ever been as sophisticated and it’s extremely difficult to imagine how it would be integrated.

You’re right. Introducing the Whills would vastly affect the plot, at least for the Jedi storyline (I doubt the Politicians would care). Right now, I imagine a good way to integrate the Whills would be through the villains. The Jedi Killer and Darth Talon want something. What? Probably something to do with the Whills.

act on instinct said:

To leapfrog a bit off of what Sheev tells Anakin about the power to influence midichlorians I think this would be a great payoff to be fully realized, a Sith creation as some manipulation of dark matter. I also think invoking and involving the universe itself as representation of the Whills could become pretty cataclysmic and satisfyingly epic for a conclusion, both fated yet still down to individual choice. Multiply the hyperspace ram by a factor of an exploding star as the protagonist becomes more or less enlightened by the force and transcends as the literal “light” manifests and the universe and the individual operate as one (Neo-ish, if you like).

Wow, I had forgotten that influencing the Midi-Chlorians was a Force power that already existed. But only Plagueis knew how to do that. I doubt it would be reasonable to give that insane ability to the new villains. It would raise too many questions. I had imagined we would at least hear the Midi-Chlorians whispering to us in the Realm of the Whills. George said in an interview that Midi-Chlorians are a type of Whill. Maybe we would see them.

As for the transcendence, I imagined that this would ultimately be the fate of Luke, Anakin, or maybe both.

yotsuya said:

About the only thing I had guessed from what Lucas and Hammil had said was that Luke would have the Qui-gon/Obi-wan role in the sequel. So he’d be in the first film and die near the end of it, passing on the torch to the new generation. And like Obi-wan, he’d come back as a force ghost as needed in the following two films.

Right. You got part of it right. Luke was supposed to train Leia and the girl (Kira) by Episode IX, and then he would have been slain by the Jedi Killer.

yotsuya said:

I also expected that if Solo were in it that he’d die as well.

Definitely. Harrison Ford said that the only reason he joined the project was because his character was going to die, and this was back when Ardnt was writing a script off George’s treatment.

yotsuya said:

From what little I can guess, there was supposed to be a young girl who is the new Jedi hero who comes to Luke for training.

Right. Her name was Kira, and she was the Granddaughter of Darth Vader (Han and Leia’s child). She also had a brother named Sam.

yotsuya said:

I think if you are going something closer to what Lucas drafted in his treatment that the first film would be Luke’s film. It would end with his death in something epic. You’d introduce whatever the ST epic evil would be in the first film (or his henchman like in both the OT and PT).

The villain for the film was supposed to be a Jedi Killer. He was the original inception for Kylo Ren, so you could call him that. He was a student of Luke’s who turned evil and murdered his padawans. But he was not a Skywalker. The Jedi Killer was seduced to the Dark Side by an unnamed female Darth, who used him and ended up murdering him eventually.

yotsuya said:

I like what Rian did with TLJ that anyone can be a Jedi, but that it can run in families.

I regard the ability to become a Jedi like the likelihood of you or I becoming an athlete. I mean sure, it’s not impossible, but it’s closer to a fantasy than a reality. It’s like the line from Ratatouille: “Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere”.

yotsuya said:

And Leia should have more force abilities from the get go. Probably not a Jedi, not in the sense of a warrior. But using those skills for negotiation.

I love that idea! That’s great, thanks! There is going to be a point where Luke trains Leia, but I have her starting out as a politician, so those initial force powers could make for some good scenes.

yotsuya said:

I’d have the Republic go through some growing pains, but come out the Trilogy intact.

That’s similar to the arc I’ve got. For it, I’m drawing inspiration from China’s 3 Kingdoms period. The Republic is one of the 3 factions remaining.

yotsuya said:

I’d have the Skywalker in the ST be a pilot. Not quite powerful enough in the force to be a Jedi, but powerful enough to be an ace pilot.

Yep, this would be a perfect character template for Sam.

yotsuya said:

The key thing, the thing I worried about with the ST we got, is the ending. What is the ending of the trilogy that is going to be epic enough to top ROTS and ROTJ. It has to further the story and bring it to a close. So the big bad needs to be connected to Palpatine and the Sith, though resurrecting Palpatine might not have been the best way to go about it. Maybe the big bad is trying to resurrect Palpatine. Maybe mentored by Palpatine’s ghost. But no physical Palpatine. Maybe the big bad was one of the Emperor’s hand’s like Mara Jade. And that is a character I would have included.

I’m still toying around with the idea of getting Plagueis involved. I think it would be a great surprise that he faked his death. He is Wise after all, he would’ve seen the betrayal coming. However, with the Whills involved, this story will not lack in epicness, so I might be able to drop that plotline. But as far as I’m concerned, Palpatine should be dead.

I think it’s interesting that you would include Mara Jade. I haven’t made up my mind on Luke’s love life yet.

Here’s an interesting idea I had guys:

For the longest time, the biggest reason George said there wouldn’t be a sequel trilogy was because Anakin had brought Balance to the Force. Now what does Balance mean? To George Lucas, Balance does not mean that both the Dark side and the Light side are equal in strength. It’s not that Zen. It actually means, that the Dark side does not exist at all, and only the Light side uses the Force. So by the end of Episode VI, Anakin fulfilled the prophecy, and brought Balance to the Force by killing Palpatine, the last Sith lord. So the story’s over then, because the only way you could have another story, is by having another villain, but then that would negate the Prophecy Anakin fulfilled.

But yet, George’s Sequel outlines contained two villains: Darth Temptress, and the Jedi Killer (those are my rough draft names for them). Two villains, both of whom are Force users. How? Didn’t Anakin bring balance to the Force? Well, what if there was something wrong with the Force? In George’s Sequel Trilogy, we were going to find out that the Force is actually made up of microscopic beings called Whills, beings who created the Universe and the Midi-Chlorians. What if among the Whills, there was an evil Whill? What if this Whill rebelled against the continuum, and allowed these 2 villains to rise to power? Maybe that’s where the war of the Sequel Trilogy was to take place; in the micro-biotic world.

Again I worry about characterizing the whills too far so much that they become individualized almost like greek gods, I’d rather see the evil act originate from a mortal character that corrupts the balance and we get a closer look at the interplay between the human will’s influence over midichlorians vs the whills. There can be a need for powerful force users to be lured and sacrificed to harness that power which could be what happens with Darth Talon. I think a lot of the trilogy arc would be the mystery behind the force as it builds to a climax, with dark siders and light seeking deeper, more ancient answers, hard and heavy on eastern influence.

One thing I’d love to see is more emphasis on Anakin / Vader. I haven’t thought all this through but what if the main villains find a way to resurrect Darth Vader? But this is purely his “evil” form. In the process the force ripples and creates a reborn lightside Anakin (by Hayden Christensen) who acts like Gandalf the White. The two forces of the Chosen One literally collide, and in the end, his soul is at rest and the force balanced.

RogueLeader said:

Is there a thread that has citations for everything that has been said about George’s early ideas for the Sequel Trilogy? I know most of it comes from interviews and the Art of books. I know this more like fan fiction and it is really beholden to his original ideas, but it might be helpful to go through all the source material and go from there.

I don’t think there is such a thread on here. Though these may be of some interest, contain quotes and claims from George, or pointers etc…

• Star Wars Episode VII, VIII, IX George Lucas original story outline, scripts, treatments or his ideas (2015 thread)

• If George Lucas Had Made The Sequel Trilogy… (2016 thread)

• George Lucas’ comments re his Sequel Trilogy (2018 thread)
 

A thread with George’s claims and quotes over the years (not just on his Sequel Trilogy - the trilogy that didn’t exist, or something… 😉 ) would be quite useful, and also illuminating - hopefully someone will undertake one…
 

act on instinct said:

Again I worry about characterizing the whills too far so much that they become individualized almost like greek gods, I’d rather see the evil act originate from a mortal character that corrupts the balance and we get a closer look at the interplay between the human will’s influence over midichlorians vs the whills. There can be a need for powerful force users to be lured and sacrificed to harness that power which could be what happens with Darth Talon. I think a lot of the trilogy arc would be the mystery behind the force as it builds to a climax, with dark siders and light seeking deeper, more ancient answers, hard and heavy on eastern influence.

I agree. I would like to keep the Whills as vague as possible, but I’m not going to allow that to make me fearful of using them to a compelling point. I view the Whills like the Q Continuum from Star Trek. We see them as separate entities, yet they are all the same person/conscience. They’ve been using and controlling us to act out their own will. This is what should disillusion Luke. “My Father brought balance to the Force, but the Force has betrayed me and allowed evil to rise again. My faith and trust in the Force is shaken.” And then Kira comes along, and by passing on everything he learned to her, his faith is restored.

I absolutely love your idea of our own wills versus the Whills. That’s a phenomenal point to make in the Trilogy. A good point for Kira to make to Luke. BTW, the mortal who corrupts the Force could be Darth Temptress, corrupting the Jedi Killer while he’s training under Luke. The question is tho, where does this corruptor come from, and why did the Force allow this happen? I think it would be interesting if there was something going wrong with the Whills/the Force.

Could you elaborate a bit more on the luring and sacrificing comment you made? I don’t know if harnessing someone else’s power is possible. You either have a high Midi-Chlorian count or you don’t.

I really love your last comment. That’s exactly what I think the Sequel Trilogy should do for the Jedi plotline.

OutboundFlight said:

One thing I’d love to see is more emphasis on Anakin / Vader. I haven’t thought all this through but what if the main villains find a way to resurrect Darth Vader? But this is purely his “evil” form. In the process the force ripples and creates a reborn lightside Anakin (by Hayden Christensen) who acts like Gandalf the White. The two forces of the Chosen One literally collide, and in the end, his soul is at rest and the force balanced.

How would these personalities of Anakin manifest themselves? How would they appear to us?

I’m hesitant of this idea, because it ultimately ends up creating an “evil-twin” confrontation, like a cheap 80s TV show. I’d like to think Star Wars is above that.

We do know that there are no souls in Star Wars. Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda and Qui-Gon are Force Ghosts because Qui-Gon learned how to preserve their consciousness after death from a Shaman of the Whills. So the dualism would have to be in Anakin’s consciousness.

yotsuya said:

He on one hand says that the force is not ying and yang, but on the other that is how he wrote the stories. That is what Dave Filoni has taken from it and what shows up in Clone Wars and Rebels and The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.

What stories? From all the movies George has written, it’s not that case at all. Dave Filoni is just as capable as misunderstand Star Wars lore as everyone other than George is.

yotsuya said:

The way I take the events of the PT is that the Jedi have slide too far to the light and have tipped the balance while the Sith have grown in power. So both sides are out of whack and in need of a reset. The Jedi think the Chosen One will come and wipe out the Sith. The Sith don’t care. So the Chosen one comes and the Sith lure him to the dark side and he helps wipe out the Jedi. Then 23 years later he wipes out his sith master and comes back to the light side. He balanced the force by resetting everything leaving Luke to rebuild.

I know where you’re coming from. I used to believe this too. I agree that it seems like a much nicer theory or way to view balance, but if we truly want to respect George’s vision, we have to adhere to what he defines as Balance. The Dark Side is when a person uses the Force to disrupt nature. It’s a slippery slope, because you only need to use a little of it to become a Sith. In order to preserve the Force, darkness must be eradicated completely, and this is the prophecy Anakin fulfills. If Balance to the Force means that the Dark side is just as strong as the Light, then this war would never end. The Star Wars story would never have a conclusion, which would make it pointless because it wouldn’t be going anywhere. Why even tell it? It would just be a state, not an evolution/story.

yotsuya said:

But there are still other force users out there. In The Last Jedi they made it very clear (Following in line with The Clone Wars and rebels - both which Lucas consulted on and okayed) that it very much is a ying and yang and they need to be in balance. They can be in balance in each person. Ignoring either side creates the imbalance.

Lucas consulted and Okay’d the Clone Wars. He didn’t oversee every little detail or plotline. George did not oversee or Okay the Last Jedi, which is where you’re getting the perception of Balance from. It’s incorrect. We’re not going to talk about the Sequels we got here, we’re going to talk about George’s Sequels.

yotsuya said:

I think he would have abandoned his Whills idea. Now if they were the race we saw in Clone Wars, that would have been cool, but microscopic? No.

The Whills have existed in Star Wars since the very first draft. He didn’t abandon them for almost 50 years; he wouldn’t now. He had hired screenwriter Michael Ardnt to write scripts based off this plotline. It was going to happen.

We never saw the Whills in the Clone Wars. And calling the Whills a bad idea because of how they would be executed on screen is a weak argument because we don’t know how they would’ve been presented. That’s where we can come in and come up with some cool stuff. In movies, any idea can be good enough if presented properly.

ShamanWhill said:

OutboundFlight said:

One thing I’d love to see is more emphasis on Anakin / Vader. I haven’t thought all this through but what if the main villains find a way to resurrect Darth Vader? But this is purely his “evil” form. In the process the force ripples and creates a reborn lightside Anakin (by Hayden Christensen) who acts like Gandalf the White. The two forces of the Chosen One literally collide, and in the end, his soul is at rest and the force balanced.

How would these personalities of Anakin manifest themselves? How would they appear to us?

I’m hesitant of this idea, because it ultimately ends up creating an “evil-twin” confrontation, like a cheap 80s TV show. I’d like to think Star Wars is above that.

We do know that there are no souls in Star Wars. Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda and Qui-Gon are Force Ghosts because Qui-Gon learned how to preserve their consciousness after death from a Shaman of the Whills. So the dualism would have to be in Anakin’s consciousness.

I mean, you could set it in Anakin’s consciousness, although it would be kinda weird. The problem is Star Wars is the story of Darth Vader, and you can’t just reset the entire world for an excuse to tell a new story, imo. If there was a prequel prequel series that gave more context beyond Anakin, I think it would work smoother, but with just three extra movies it is hard to suddenly lurch the series into a new direction.

All due respect: I’ve never understood this argument. I understand Taoist traditions, but I can’t comprehend a “good dark side user”. Love and passion aren’t equivalent to darkness, they just lead you to it if you aren’t careful.

Dare I say it, I don’t think the Jedi did anything wrong during the Clone Wars. A genius outsmarted them. Had Palpatine not been involved Anakin would have either peacefully left their order or broken off with Padme and firmly joined their cause. I just can’t see the Jedi losing the PT because they were “too good”.

ShamanWhill said:

The question is tho, where does this corruptor come from, and why did the Force allow this happen? I think it would be interesting if there was something going wrong with the Whills/the Force.

Seeing as the Sith are also ancient and the force can be wielded by them albeit through the dark side to me points a bit closer to the direction that the Force/Whills are a vaguely neutral energy that can be taken advantage of, unless they are playing a larger game. The Force does seem to allow bad things to happen then watch and see how it plays out so I don’t see a problem really with a person who does have free will abusing the force without the whills intervening so personally, ultimately I might wonder if those beings could even conceptualize morals in that way or at that scale. The whills should have some intention but the risk of demystifying and damaging the relationship of the force to the audience is at an extreme high, I definitely understand why going microbiotic to begin with is already too much for some though I find it vindicates their inclusion in the prequels. Embrace the Midi-Chlorian…

Words of wisdom to consider from Filoni about the force: https://youtu.be/USr1elOOWJg

Could you elaborate a bit more on the luring and sacrificing comment you made? I don’t know if harnessing someone else’s power is possible. You either have a high Midi-Chlorian count or you don’t.

This is actually a pretty hard one because the further we try to fill the gaps the more difficult questions concerning how the lore can be faithfully expanded need to be given an answer. I think harnessing a Jedi’s power after killing them also is a weak idea as well as derivations of that premise like collecting kyber crystals or anything along those lines would be too on the nose. Still, I think the closer we get to revealing beyond the veil and the inherent relationship between life and death to the spiritual realm there leaves room for interpretation as to where that energy goes and how it can be measured or perceived. As you mentioned with Luke his own misinterpretation could lead to his disillusionment, so even if the Jedi killer is failing to achieve this ultimate power through their violent means the motivation can stay the same, same as it ever was for dark siders really, misguided power seeking even if it means going through people.

yotsuya said:

OutboundFlight said:

All due respect: I’ve never understood this argument. I understand Taoist traditions, but I can’t comprehend a “good dark side user”. Love and passion aren’t equivalent to darkness, they just lead you to it if you aren’t careful.

Dare I say it, I don’t think the Jedi did anything wrong during the Clone Wars. A genius outsmarted them. Had Palpatine not been involved Anakin would have either peacefully left their order or broken off with Padme and firmly joined their cause. I just can’t see the Jedi losing the PT because they were “too good”.

And yet there is that bit that is in several of the films where the Jedi admit they are having problems with the force. How would that be the case if they were just outsmarted. There is an imbalance. I see the imbalance (and I did before the ST) as the good force users ignoring the dark side of the force. They are taught to ignore it because it is too tempting. They are never taught how to wrestle with it and stay on the light side and maintain balance. That is why Anakin fell so easily. He was never taught how to fight the temptation of the dark side. So in the PT and OT you have the force splintered into the far light and the far dark. Jedi are supposed to be closer to the center. They should know how to tap into the dark side as needed, but not let it tempt them or consume them. The Jedi need to be in balance themselves. They have banned attachments because it could lead to the dark side rather than teach the young Jedi how to be attached and not be tempted by the dark side.

If the old EU lore holds true, the Sith started out as fallen Jedi. So the order split. And to balance the force the order needs to be whole again. Since people are not easily changed, the easiest way to do that is to wipe everything out and start over. Well, Palpatine wiped out the Jedi and the Sith tradition of only two, a master and an apprentice, left the Sith side vulnerable to defeat. We see Luke learn that final balance in ROTJ as he taps into the dark side to defeat Vader and the lets it go. Vader kills Palpatine and himself in the process leaving only Luke… until someone resurrects Palpatine (everyone confirmed that he was indeed dead at the end of ROTJ). Luke is balanced, but late Republic Jedi taught. As issues arise, the balance is not maintained. The ST we got is about perfecting that balance. So Rey is NOT Jedi trained in the Old Republic traditions, but has the original Jedi text… from the age when they were balanced. Luke noted she was not afraid of the dark side. To her it is all just the force. Revelation of her origins tests that balance, but she regains it.

It isn’t a matter of which side of the force you use, it is all in how you use it and why. The user must be balanced. The user must maintain control. Anakin was consumed by the dark side. Palpatine isn’t just consumed, he is the embodiment of the dark side. He is chaos. The Late Republic Jedi have made their order all about keeping order and following rules and avoiding the dark side at any cost. They placed good an evil onto the natural order of things when the good and evil lies in how the force is used, not the force itself. So the destruction of Palaptine does bring about the balance to the force because he is chaos and evil - the embodiment of everything bad. The first time Luke has just found that balance and all is good for a time. The second time, Rey is that balance and has destroyed even the Sith loyalists leaving no one to bring it back. The Jedi order has been reset to where it was 1000 generations before.

But I still don’t understand. What does balance mean? Rey acts just like a regular Jedi only that she thinks she’s immune to the dark side in TLJ (but that’s far from the case in TROS). Luke, Obi-Wan, and Yoda were all calm and composed Jedi.

I don’t understand how you can use the dark side for good.

Well, selfishness isn’t inherently evil. We all have a natural inclination towards self preservation, we all want things: to be happy, to be respected, for those we care about to be, to have the things we like.

Outside of TROS, “darkness” always always had its roots in those intentions. Desire. It doesnt make you want to do bad deeds for no reason, but the extent you want - your passion - convincing you that you have to do whatever it takes to achieve those goals. How many parents would kill for their child? Protecting your children isn’t bad, but the act of killing is questionable, justified or not.

I figure if anyone explores the dark side as a tool for good, it would double down on greed as natural, human desire. TLJ kind of does it by showing how selfless sacrifice can actually hurt the ones you love, and that saving yourself means you can live to fight another day with those you care about.

isnt your icon revan