George Lucas already had a plan for the ending of Star Wars 9 and it honestly had nothing to do with what they gave us.
Remember when the original film of the series was released in 1977, it was a spectacular success and thanks to that George Lucas was confident enough to complete the first trilogy. After a few years, when technology progressed, he decided to do all three prequels. But he didn’t complete the final episodes because he sold the LucasFilm’s rights to Disney. The film studio decided to take a new approach to the saga and entrusted the task to JJ Abrams. Now they have released Star Wars 9, one can only wonder what would have been the ending George Lucas had originally planned?
During an guest appearance at the 1999 Sci-Fi Expo, producer Gary Kurtz (who worked alongside George Lucas in the first two Star Wars movies) detailed what the director had in mind for the general saga. The ideas are from the 1980s, so they are old concepts.
The essence of this involved following Luke Skywalker’s life as a Jedi Knight, something we have been able to read about in the comics and books which are now called “Legends.” George Lucas planned to show the public the great power Luke could achieve.
One of the first ideas was to introduce Luke’s sister (not Leia) who came from a distant part of the Universe. But that idea was discarded because George Lucas wanted to expand the Skywalker saga. But since Leia acquired so much prominence, in the end, he decided that she would be Luke’s sister in an unexpected twist. Leia was supposed to develop her skills in the Force immensely since her brother would have trained her, something we have not seen except for some foreboding and space glide she did in Episode 8. Together they would have created a new Order and thus the Galaxy would have been protected both in political matters and by the Jedi.
For George Lucas it was necessary that Luke Skywalker died at the end of Star Wars 9 and not in Episode VIII. At that point, the first Order would have emerged from the ashes of the Empire. Everything was part of the Emperor’s plan. Therefore, at the end of the new trilogy, we would have discovered who was behind everything and have witnessed an epic confrontation between the Skywalker siblings with the evil Sith Lord.
As we can see the big difference is that the classic heroes we’re to be the main protagonists and not have introduced new characters, Luke, Han Solo and Leia would have been with us till the end.
