George Lucas Actually Consulted For The Script Of 'Star War: Episode IX' (collider.com)

The teaser trailer for Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker has been viewed 13,665,350 times since its release Friday.

Collider reminds us that while George Lucas oversaw the original Star Wars trilogy and worked on its prequel trilogy, the final three movies in the franchise had moved ahead without direct involvement from the 74-year-old director: To recap, Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, setting Kathleen Kennedy as the new head of Lucasfilm and handing over his treatments for Episode VII, Episode VIII, and Episode IX -- the final three films in his Skywalker saga. Kennedy and J.J. Abrams reportedly threw out much of what Lucas handed over (much to the Star Wars director's chagrin) in favor of charting their own path, and Lucas has been pretty mum on the new direction of Star Wars under Disney thus far -- save for high praise heaped on Rogue One and a visit to the set of Solo after Ron Howard took over the director's chair.

But it appears everything has come full circle, as Abrams revealed at Star Wars Celebration in an interview with IGN that when he signed on to direct Star Wars 9, he consulted Lucas before beginning work on the script. "This movie had a very, very specific challenge, which was to take eight films and give an ending to three trilogies, and so we had to look at, what is the bigger story? We had conversations amongst ourselves, we met with George Lucas before writing the script," Abrams revealed...

Having seen the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer, this makes sense. The film looks to be leaning heavily on the original trilogy given the inclusion of that medal, the Death Star, and of course the return of Emperor Palpatine. And given Abrams' comments here, it sounds like he was very strongly thinking about Star Wars 9 as a conclusion to the entire Star Wars saga.
After that conclusion, Disney CEO Bob Iger says, "There are movies in development, but we have not announced them. We will take a pause, some time, and reset because the Skywalker saga comes to an end with this ninth movie.

"There will be other Stars Wars movies, but there will be a bit of a hiatus."

Comments

the two droids.

[Kaenneth]

It's just the story of C3PO and R2D2

Re:the two droids.

[Hardness]

Way ahead of you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re: the two droids.

[walterbyrd]

> Making the next ones have an all white male cast wouldn't fix anything, if that's all you changed.

The races, or genders, of the cast has nothing to do with whether Star Wars was ruined by SJWs.

For example: the new sequels strain to make all females absolutely perfect beyond belief, while all the male leads are stupid beyond belief. It is obvious PC BS, and it gets very tiresome.

Re: the two droids.

[q_e_t]

> Making the next ones have an all white male cast wouldn't fix anything, if that's all you changed.

The races, or genders, of the cast has nothing to do with whether Star Wars was ruined by SJWs.

For example: the new sequels strain to make all females absolutely perfect beyond belief, while all the male leads are stupid beyond belief. It is obvious PC BS, and it gets very tiresome.

Hello, Leia, Ep. IV? It's been a theme in Star Wars all along and epics in general for centuries.

The last jedi sucked

[atomicalgebra]

Honestly a Jar Jar only film would have been better than the last jedi.

Re:The last jedi sucked

[AmiMoJo]

It sucked so badly that they have Rian Johnson a trilogy of Star Wars films as punishment!

Re:The last jedi sucked

[antdude]

What about Star Wars' Holiday Special?

Re:The last jedi sucked

[Cmdln Daco]

It's typical made-for-TV schlock, but the Jefferson Starship music video rocks.

Some vision better than none

[Livius]

Lucas couldn't make it worse.

(Not something I would have said after the prequel trilogy, but times change.)

Re:Some vision better than none

[fazig]

I am fairly certain that he could make it worse.
As a thought experiment, think of of Episode 7 and 8 with the addition of Jar Jar Binks and even more little children.

Re:Some vision better than none

[religionofpeas]

As a thought experiment, think of of Episode 7 and 8 with the addition of Jar Jar Binks and even more little children

How about they burst into song and dance a few times ?

Re:Some vision better than none

[fazig]

Musical numbers is something I'd expect Disney to come up with on their own; not that much from Lucas.
But yes, that would make it even more terrible in my opinion.

Re: Some vision better than none

[fazig]

You're right, there were there.
I do not count them as musical numbers though. They're ambient stuff. Not something the protagonists are actively partaking in like in Disney cartoons or animations.
Imagine having Harrison Ford and Adam Driver sing and dance the part where Solo is killed. Or Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamil while training on that merchandise for children planet.

Re:Some vision better than none

[painandgreed]

I am fairly certain that he could make it worse. As a thought experiment, think of of Episode 7 and 8 with the addition of Jar Jar Binks and even more little children.

They're called Ewoks.

So the guy who gave us midichlorians

[rsilvergun]

and a virgin birth got consulted. Good. Good. Let the Hate flow through you.

The trouble with the last couple Star Wars movies wasn't that it didn't stick to Lucas' ideas. The writing was just plain bad and the direction worse. The Last Jedi was just a bad movie. The plot didn't make sense. Nobody's motivations made sense. The fight scenes were badly, almost laughable choreographed and Rey's a Mary Sue character without an arc because the writers were in too much of a hurry to get to lightsaber battles.

Re:So the guy who gave us midichlorians

[Anonymous Coward]

Rey's a Mary Sue character without an arc because the writers were in too much of a hurry to get to lightsaber battles.

No, they wanted to add in pointless feminist crap. And everyone can see that. It's just bad.

Re:So the guy who gave us midichlorians

[Mandrel]

Yes, these days more directors think they're auteurs and write the scripts of their movies. This only works when there's a vision like Lucas with his Star Wars story and his drive to get it made right with the best people. Otherwise, the writing is weak and the direction is cliched because the auteur mistakenly believes they are a genius, and the collaborators become yes-men. This eventually happened to Lucas.

Re:So the guy who gave us midichlorians

[Chewbacon]

It has become an after school special. I always enjoyed Star Wars as a good vs. evil, but now I get this "let's give everyone a trophy" vibe from the story when it comes to characters like Rose Tico and I hear echos of political rallies I see in the news today. No hate on Rose Tico or the actress that portrayed her and was subsequently bullied for it or political views different from my own, but keep that shit the fuck out of the franchise I've loved for thirty years. I watch Star Wars to escape reality.

Re:So the guy who gave us midichlorians

[AmiMoJo]

My guess is that "the Skywalker" in the title refers to a new force using order to replace the Jedi, based on Luke's philosophy.

Re:So the guy who gave us midichlorians

[Anonymous Coward]

In New Hope he does not have to train a lot.
He appears to understands R2D2. He fixes their droids and discovers Leia's message.
He picks up light sabre combat quickly against that training ball from Kenobi.
He shoots down Tie fighters like a pro while manning the turret in the Falcon.
He shoots his proton torpedoes at a 90 angle into an exhaust vent, without using a targeting computer and flying through a narrow corridor with lots of anti ship batteries around him being chased by other Tie fighters. Showing off experienced pilots.

So yeah, let's not forget that kind of nonsense. All of this expertise without showing the audience any of the training required to acquire these skills. If you're willing to accept this while denying that Rey as a scavenger of technology isn't explanation enough you're applying double standards and not being rational.

Where the real difference starts was the 2nd instalment of the original trilogy. In empire Luke has to learn and to train, and he does badly. When he leaves his training to rescue his friends and face Vader he fails so badly that he loses his hand.
This is where the Luke character evolves, whereas Rey doesn't see such a development in her 2nd instalment.
They called it "subverting expectation". Yeah, subverting expectations my ass. I could smell what they tried to sell us as subversion from some distance away and said to myself "don't go there. don't go there. don't go there. HELL NO you did do it!" Maybe it works as subversion for someone who can't read the faintest social cues or never has seen any other movie before. But for most perceptive people it'd dare to wager that there were little surprises, it was just cheap and shoddy execution.

Re:So the guy who gave us midichlorians

[AmiMoJo]

It's interesting that Empire got a similar reaction when it was released. People complained about taking a straightforward fantasy movie and introducing a puppet Jedi master, and then the ridiculous (and now iconic) reveal that the big bad is Marty Stu's dad.

What do you mean by "give everyone a trophy"? The point of that movie, like Empire, is that they lost badly and hit pretty much rock bottom, setting up the third movie. Rose's role was to help Finn transition from just a guy running from the Empire and trying to help his only friend, to someone who has seen the injustice and come to think that the rebellion is worth fighting for. Along with Poe he comes to understand that going out in a blaze of glory for some hopeless cause isn't the point - the rebellion is more than that.

Re:So the guy who gave us midichlorians

[Shadow of Eternity]

He spends most of A New Hope training but doesn't really use the lightsaber for anything and doesn't do much in the way of fighting. He doesn't actually shoot down tie fighters like a pro, it takes him a while to get ONE of them and even then he's told "good, now don't get cocky". The one thing that's impressive is justified by his being a pilot that used to shoot small targets, a good enough pilot he wanted to go to the imperial academy, and the fact that he's literally using the force while having an entire airforce covering for him at the climax of the film.

He doesn't turn into a fighter until the second movie by which time he's spent a while with an armed rebellion. Even then his fight with Vader goes disastrously, he gets his ass handed to him and literally loses a hand. And that's AFTER finding and training with Yoda. It's not until the final movie that he's really shown to be a competent fighter and military leader.

Meanwhile Rey is better than everyone at every thing without any effort, training, or consequences.

Re:So the guy who gave us midichlorians

[Shadow of Eternity]

Marty Stu? You mean the guy that had to struggle, train, and fight in every movie and got his ass handed to him even after training with the great jedi master yoda? The guy who literally got his hand cut off to show how imperfect, weak, and flawed he was as a character? The one that took three movies worth of trials and training to become a competent fighter and military leader?

A Marty Stu would've been if he had singlehandedly proven to be a better pilot, mechanic, jedi, and fighter than everyone on screen without any effort or even explanation.

You know, like Rey.

Re:So the guy who gave us midichlorians

[Calydor]

What is wrong with sitting down with the original creator for a couple of hours to hear the ideas that never made it into the movies, then looking at those ideas to see if you can do something with them? They didn't say they asked him to write the script like it was the holy gospel.

Re:So the guy who gave us midichlorians

[thegarbz]

The last time we got ideas that didn't make it into the original movies we ended up with Jar Jar. No sorry I lie. That came out before he decided to "add" to the original movies. I wish no one told him computer animation was possible.

Re:So the guy who gave us midichlorians

[AmiMoJo]

Rey starts out by crashing the Millennium Falcon into the ground, and doesn't improve all that much from there. Kylo has been shot but still has little difficulty fighting her, and remember that he's not actually trying to hurt her because he wants her as his ally.

Re:So the guy who gave us midichlorians

[AmiMoJo]

In The Last Jedi Rey initially fails to convince Luke to help her, and gets next to no training. She finds out her parents are insignificant and doesn't get the answers she was looking for.

Finally at the end she is able to use the force to move the rocks herself. The message is clear: she is not a Jedi, she has a natural gift and she doesn't need the Jedi training. The Jedi have failed and she is how the Force moves past them.

Re:So the guy who gave us midichlorians

[PCM2]

No no no, "the Skywalker" is the new magic power to replace the Force! Disney's got to be sure it retires all those dusty old trademarks.

Luke->Rey
Han->Poe
R2-D2+C-3PO->BB-8
Rebellion->Resistance
Empire->First Order
Tatooine->Jakku ...and so on, and so on.

Let it go.

[bussdriver]

If you would like more then read the many BOOKS which I'm told are actually not horribly simplistic and pretty good plus they all must tie together... and Lucas didn't write them, just set the bar higher than he could ever reach for those writers.

You know they will mess it up and Lucas already messed it up and to wrongs together will not make a right. Get over it and enjoy the past movies; even a decent job wouldn't replace your memory and age when you saw them. Enjoy the past memory and don't expect all these reboots, soft reboots and sequels to compare to the 1st, it's better to see the old thing again unless you like being disappointed or upset... or are so simple that mere branding is enough to excite you.

One could imagine a ton of situations before and after a good open ended story; that is, if you have an imagination.

Re: Let it go.

[Anonymous Coward]

The books are shite, no one gives a shit about the books. Now the films are shite too, which is a shame.

Re: Let it go.

[Mashiki]

The Thrawn trilogy is shit? Who knew. Never mind that everyone's favorite TIE and X-wing games of ~20 years ago were made around all that cannon material or anything...

Re: Let it go.

[Mashiki]

Yes. All of it is comic book grade space cowboy drivel.

It's called a space opera for a reason, maybe you need to just off a copy of the merchant of venice and tell the plebs how a story is supposed to be.

Re: Let it go.

[Hognoxious]

Cannon material? Like bronze and iron, you mean?

This teaser did not convince me of anything.

[Anonymous Coward]

The name is weird. Rise of the Skywalker? Is that supposed to be some sort of apology for the insulting storyline of the previous movie?

The action sequence looked campy.

Everything else was just clips showing us familiar sights from previous movies, to try and invoke our nostalgia.

I don't see anything here that makes me want to come back to Star Wars after the travesty that was The Last Jedi.

Re:This teaser did not convince me of anything.

[Hognoxious]

"Taking the rise" means to mock something, normally used in combination with "you muppet" or "what do you take me for, some sort of pilchard?" Only people who think rings with coins in them are classy, i.e. most non-toff Brexiteers, use it these days.

Perhaps it's mocking itself?

Should have Consulted Kurosawa

[Anonymous Coward]

And these two droids are the comedic relief, which is a hold over from the Two Thieves which a Samurai (Jedi) forces to help him and his Princess escape an Imperial Forces in the movie Hidden Fortress, which the original Star Wars treatment blatantly plagiarized.

[Would you like to know more?]

Re:Should have Consulted Kurosawa

[Anonymous Coward]

If you take a story and then write a similar story in your own words, that's not plagiarism. Plagiarism is when you copy the words. There are only something like 30 basic plots in the entire history of storytelling, and 7 or 12 (depending on who you ask) major story types, since people have been writing stories. So everyone is copying from everyone else.

Re: Should have Consulted Kurosawa

[Anonymous Coward]

"Google's location data says Obi Wan is in Tatooine, Lord Vader."

Re: I think it looks pretty good

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it literally can't be worse than the last jedi, I mean can it? Even if the whole film is just chewbacca doing a shit, that would be better, I wish TLJ was just chewbacca doing a shit so then it would have had the same plot quality, but less destruction of beloved characters. I'll probably watch the next one, but I'll be pirating it if I do.

4th

[kackle]

Wait, there's a FOURTH Star Wars movie?

Re:4th

[Livius]

I think it's just a rumour for now.

Re:4th

[TeknoHog]

Too bad they never made any sequels.

That's not Palatine laughing at the end

[OzPeter]

It's Lando laughing while flying the Millennium Falcon as he mows down a surprise return of Jar Jar .. well that's what I am hoping for!

Lucas’ sage advice

[93 Escort Wagon]

“We can fix it in post.

Even post-release.”

Lucas only wrote New Hope

[rsilvergun]

he had "help" on Strikes back & Jedi and they're better films for it. You're right about the yes men though. He had script writers for the prequels but they still came out meh and seeing the interviews with everyone involved it's pretty obvious they were too star struck to fix anything.

Re: "save for high praise heaped on Rogue One" Wha

[JonnyCalcutta]

I did. I liked that and Solo. The 2 trilogy films on the other hand were stinkers.

I won't be holding my breath

[timholman]

After sitting through the abomination of "The Last Jedi", I think I'll see Episode IX after I get around to watching "Solo", "Star Trek: Discovery", and "Star Trek Beyond". Oh, wait ...

Both franchises are done, and Star Wars most of all. It's nothing but a Disney merchandising vehicle. Having Lucas "consult" on the script means nothing. The script will be ultimately be written by a Disney executive committee.

Re:I won't be holding my breath

[RespekMyAthorati]

The animated series "Clone Wars" was pretty good, especially after Darth Maul re-entered the story.

So Jar Jar makes a return?

[gweihir]

Anyways, I have stopped caring since Episode 1.

Re:So Jar Jar makes a return?

[Cmdln Daco]

I watched Star Wars in the theater in 1977. Haven't had time for any of the rest of it, except for surfing on the layer of the fandom by reading threads like this. Oh, and watching the Christmas Special.

I was too busy in the 80's being a nerd. Yes, a real nerd, with soldering iron and TTL gates and all that stuff they don't do on TV shows or movies.

If jar jar had turned out to be SNoke

[goombah99]

Was Lucas "actually" consulted, "virtually" consulted, or "merely" consulted. I'm confused.

Boy I would have loved it if Snoke had turned out to be Jar Jar. Drunken master style. would have been the biggest stick in the eye of the jar-jar haters ever.

I bet that there will be SW X, XI, XII and so on..

[kiviQr]

...Disney did not buy it to sit on it but to make loads of $$$.

Star Wars

[beep54]

I was a big fan of the first (er, iV) one and a huge fan of the next. The third one was a bit of a disappointment designed to sell toys, but not horrible. Then I paid good money to see The Phantom Menace. What an incredible mess. Horrible, horrible movie. I lost all interest in the entire franchise after that. I could care less how they wrap it up just so they finish the damn thing a be done. Course, that will not happen. Freaking thing makes too much money.

Re: Was Star Wars ever actually good?

[zawarski]

Maybe you were a little to old. I was 7 and it was, to me and my friends, the closest we ever had to a religious experience. There was life before Star Wars and life after, for us. Like a healthy person, I did not carry that nonsense into adulthood, but I appreciate the memory.

I don't get that

[rsilvergun]

I mean, they blew up several planets, killed Han and Luke (yeah, I know they're ret-conning that last one) and the leader of the "Rebellion" made a complete mess of everything in the second movie out of sheer, maddening stupidity. Nobody's getting stars and everybody's a complete screw-up.

There's a YouTube outrage machine you're probably picking up on that road the crappiness of the last Star Wars movie to a lot of free hits. But Step outside that and to plain old movie critics who break the film down and you'll find it's just a bad movie. The constant incompetence of the characters is because the director wanted a Strikes Back style "Everything's fucked" ending that didn't make any sense in the context of the Rebellion's victory. It's lazy writing because they don't know how to raise stakes without falling back on the tropes of the original trilogy. Politics doesn't enter into it, it's just incompetence.

Star Wars post-Palpatine reboot

[CanEHdian]

Whatever happened after the 2nd Death Star blew up should be rebooted. There never was a 'first order' that was able to amass an army without anyone knowing about it. Or that weird weaponry.

I can believe an Imperial Remnant. I can believe the Emperor lying about the entire fleet being there. I can even believe task forces (a dreadnought with several Star Destroyers and auxiliary vessels) being sent on secretive missions and being too far away to recall. But I believe NONE of that First Order stuff they're trying to push down our throats.

Hopefully Disney will sell the franchise and we'll see a reboot.

Re:Star Wars post-Palpatine reboot

[dddux]

How about just remembering the Star Wars franchise as it was, and forgetting about any reboots? Because let's face it, the last couple of films were just marketing ploys and full of crap. They were obviously made just to make some more money, nothing else. Catered to the lowest social denominator. Just like everything Americans do these days, because having millions annually is not enough. Morals/ethics has been shot at least to the moon, and creativity has been buried as deep as hell, possibly.

Re:DisneyFied

[Cmdln Daco]

Wait... you're saying it was all pure gold when Lucas ran it and now it's been ruined???

Why would Lucas provide input on IX?

[ayesnymous]

When he wasn't able to provide input on VII and VIII? I thought I read he wasn't thrilled with what Disney did with VII and VIII, but if he's providing input on IX he would have to accept VII and VIII.

Re:"save for high praise heaped on Rogue One" What

[Rockets84]

Rogue One was pretty darn good, it's the best of the Disney Star Wars films by far. I often see it called a bad movie and the only reasoning being bad characters and bad pacing but I don't see that. Compared to The Last Jedi it's a master piece. TLJ is a festering turd of a movie.

I hope George turned him away

[Rockets84]

I hope George turned them away saying "you've dug your own grave with the TFA and TLJ and I'm not taking the blame for another bad trilogy. I'm going to go swim in my money bin now and get off my lawn!"

Re:I bet that there will be SW X, XI, XII and so o

[Calydor]

It's possible they're going to be named different things as they take place in the same universe, but on other planets and possibly time periods.

I choose to never watch any of it again

[throwaway18]

The last time I watched a star wars film was roughly the year 1987.

I'm going to keep my vague inaccurate partial memories of the first three films and my memories of my mother being a sharp tongued sour faced bitch when I requested star wars toys for Christmas, wanted to buy star wars toys with my money or played with them in range of her.

He understands R2

[rsilvergun]

because he's obsessed with mechanical things, like most boys his age were in the 70s. This was pre-computers for most folks, and droids were thought of as machines more than PCs by the general population (myself included).

He didn't pick up lightsabre battles quickly. He didn't use a lightsabre until Empire and got the snot beat out of him. Even when he used the sabre on the Skiff and beat down Vader in Jedi he was leaning heavily on his Force powers (and rage when he beat Vader, who's rage had started to falter and with it his dark side powers).

He shot down the Tie Fighters because he was supposed to. You try attacking a ship without really hitting it so it can get away, see if you can avoid all the fire while not really targetting it.

And as for the Death Star, again, leaning on the force. Well, that and wamp rat bullseyeing. He'd been doing that kind of shooting his whole life.

Luke had an arc and explanations for everything he did. With Rey they just skipped all that to get to the "good part". The whole thing looked like they didn't know for sure if Disney would give 'em another movie or not. I know that sounds crazy, but this is Disney we're talking about here. If the move had just done "ok" it mighta been years before they tried again and with a different director, cast, etc. Disney is very much about maximizing profit from everything they touch.

So, George...

[reanjr]

We sort of broke the franchising somehow and would really like some advice on how we transition out of this...