In a recent interview, Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill revealed that George Lucas originally planned on four Star Wars trilogies, and he had long intended the prequels to be more political additions to Star Wars movies and TV shows. Like it or hate it, when Disney bought Star Wars, things certainly changed in the franchise, including (rather controversially) Lucas’ plans for the sequels. Evidently, from the very beginning, George Lucas had plans not just for the prequels and the sequels but for four total trilogies.
During an interview on the Smartless podcast, legendary Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill revealed that George Lucas had extensive plans for Star Wars all the way back in 1977. Hamill explained:
“I said to George, ‘Why is this Episode IV? Why haven’t we started with Episode I?’ And he goes, ‘Episode I, there’s a lot of exposition, it’s more political. This trilogy is much more commercial…‘
The way I understood it was that he originally planned four trilogies… When we were shooting, I asked him about the first trilogy, and he said, ‘This is more commercial, there’s a lot of exposition, political, about taxation, blah blah blah…’ He wanted you to feel like you walked into a serial chapter play and you’d missed the first few episodes, that’s why they had the crawl, to bring you up to speed.”
In addition to solidifying that Lucas always meant for Star Wars to be political, which has its own interesting implications, this commentary from Mark Hamill reveals just how early on Lucas had a vision for the prequel trilogy and beyond.
George Lucas Always Knew He Wanted To Make More Star Wars
From The Beginning, George Lucas Had Bigger Plans
When A New Hope, then just called Star Wars, was first released, it was impossible for anybody to anticipate just how big a hit the movie would be or what the franchise would turn into. Nevertheless, George Lucas clearly had extensive plans long before the success of the original Star Wars trilogy was confirmed. It’s also interesting to know that Lucas saw the original trilogy movies, which continue to be viewed as Star Wars’ best movies by many, as being “commercial.”
In that sense, the original trilogy was always meant to draw audiences in so that George Lucas could build upon them and upon that fanbase to get into the nitty-gritty of other considerations, such as galactic politics and how the Jedi and the Republic fell. That is precisely what the prequel trilogy did. What Lucas’ sequels would have looked like also remains a topic of interest, particularly because they were quite different from Disney’s sequels.
Our Take On George Lucas’ Four Trilogies
It Would Be Fascinating To See What Lucas Had In Mind
While I don’t hate the sequels—although Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is among my least favorite Star Wars movies—I would be thrilled to see what exactly George Lucas planned for these four trilogies. Originally, Lucas actually had a completely different idea for Luke’s sister, who still would have been his twin but would have been a Jedi developing in a similar way to Luke. I’d hate to change anything about Leia, who is easily one of Star Wars’ best characters, but this does have intriguing implications.
Admittedly, I’d also love to have seen several other sequel trilogy concepts from Lucas’ original plans come to life, such as the return of Darth Maul as the big bad and the canon introduction of Darth Talon as his apprentice. This mysterious fourth trilogy would no doubt have offered myriad brand-new concepts and characters as well. Although there’s plenty Star Wars has gotten right over the years, it would be fascinating to see what these four George Lucas trilogies would have comprised.
Source: The Smartless podcast
