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

The last jedi sucked

[atomicalgebra]

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

Re:The last jedi sucked

[antdude]

What about Star Wars' Holiday Special?

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.

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

[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

[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.

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?

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.”

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 $$$.

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.

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.