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Disney Turned Down George Lucas's Star Wars Scripts

ageoffri writes: When Star Wars fans learned that George Lucas was making the prequels, most were filled with excitement and anticipation. When Episodes 1-3 were actually released, many found them unsatisfying, and became disillusioned with Lucas's writing. Now, it appears Disney felt the same way. Though they bought Lucasfilm and began production on Episode 7, they weren't interested in using the scripts Lucas had already worked on. In an interview, he said, "The ones that I sold to Disney, they came up to the decision that they didn't really want to do those. So they made up their own. So it's not the ones that I originally wrote [on screen in Star Wars: The Force Awakens]." After what happened with the prequels, that may be for the best — but others may worry about Episode 7's plot being entirely in the hands of Disney and JJ Abrams.

7 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. Good for Disney by sirwired · · Score: 3, Informative

    After seeing a truly execrable trailer for "Strange Magic" (an upcoming animated movie, with the story provided by Lucas), I don't think there's anything JJ Abrams could possibly do worse than George Lucas.

  2. Re:Good news by kylemonger · · Score: 3, Informative

    I agree. IMO the complaints about the prequels were fueled primarily by nostalgia about the original movies, remembering the delight of seeing them as a child. I rewatched the original trilogy as an adult and wasn't nearly so enchanted. That shouldn't be surprising. These are all children's movies; we grew up. Lucas' movies didn't change so much as we did.

  3. Re:Good news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Honestly, in the original movies Gary Kurtz his producer kept many of his crazy ideas in check. Lucas wanted to create a Flash Gordon style adventure. Kurtz helped to shape the movies into what they were. The 2000 re-releases were closer to Lucas' original vision. No he didn't have a stroke, he just had a stroke of good luck with the original. He's always been a mediocre director.

  4. Re:Good news by mrchaotica · · Score: 4, Informative

    Then you have Khan. Perfectly good movie. And you had nerds raging because herpaderpawhiteguynamedKhanNoonienSingh.

    No, we had nerds raging because the damn thing had plot holes big enough to drive a fucking starship through (except you don't NEED to drive a starship anymore because we can just BEAM TO GODDAMN Q'ONOS now...)!

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  5. Re:Good news by Lord+Crc · · Score: 4, Informative

    Have you seen Mr Plinkett[1] pick the originals apart? While the presentation is a bit weird, though funny if you like that kind of thing, his points are spot on and overall does a very good job of explaining why the originals were considerably better than the prequels.

    [1] http://redlettermedia.com/plin...

  6. Re: Good news by neilo_1701D · · Score: 3, Informative

    Star Wars 'ethos' is front and center via the Force, so its harder for JJ to lens flare away the central theme of the story (balance of Light and Dark).

    Lightsaber battles with lens flares. Lots of lightsaber battles. And put lens flares on the lightsabre exhaust ports. And the X-Wings speeding over the water; those water droplets surely must interact with light to cause lens flares.

    'nuff said.

  7. Re:Viva Jar Jar! by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Informative

    Best use of Jar-Jar I've ever seen was in the Clone Wars TV show. The clone troopers needed to get by some enemy soldiers so they let Jar-Jar talk to them to "negotiate." Jar-Jar's clumsiness winds up taking out every single enemy soldier. Jar-Jar is weaponized clumsiness. (Unfortunately, weaponizing his clumsiness also makes him extremely annoying.)

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.