‘Star Wars: Return of the Jedi‘ is the classic end cap of the original trilogy which pit good against evil in the final confrontation but originally the film was set to have Boba Fett be the main villain in the movie. George Lucas had a vastly different story in mind to originally tell and it’s one that today would seem like a fantasy compared to the film we all have grown up with. According to Lucas Film’s fan relations officer Craig Miller, things were originally set to end quite differently “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.”
So how was it originally set to go down? Miller reveals:
“Originally Boba Fett was set up in Empire as a character, and the third movie’s plot was going to be more about Boba Fett rescuing Han Solo and all of that. Boba was gonna be the main villain… That was set up, why he was taking Han Solo away, why there was a thing with him in the Christmas special.”
That is a very drastic change from what we ended up seeing on the big screen. How did he go from being the main villain to being lunch?
“When George decided not to make a third trilogy, he completely jettisoned that story line, which is why in the first ten minutes, Boba Fett gets bumped into and falls into the mouth of a giant monster. So he took what was planned for the third trilogy, which was the confrontation between Luke and Darth Vader, and the battle with the Emperor, and that got squished down from three movies to one movie. And that became the plot of Jedi.”
Now before you squint too hard at that you did read it right as he did say “third trilogy”. We’re not talking the prequel films either:
“At first there was one film, and then George originally announced that it was one of 12, and there were going to be 12, and then that changed to, oh there was never 12, there was only 9, and he was going to make 9. And then during all of it, George kind of lost interest in continuing it… While we were working on The Empire Strikes Back, George decided he was going to complete the first film trilogy and that would be it.”
It is unclear if the prequel trilogy was part of this 12 movie setup that George had originally felt would end up on the big screen. Lucas did have a grand vision for ‘Star Wars‘ and the love of fans everywhere are a testament to what he helped create though I have to say I kind of wish he had fully decided to give up on the franchise before the prequel movies were made.
Are you happy to hear that Lucas cut his original series short or do you think he should have gone and created three or four trilogies back to back after the original? Share your thoughts below!
Source: Screen Rant.
Stuart Conover is an author, blogger, and all around geek. When not busy being a father and husband he tries to spend as much time as possible immersed in comic books, science fiction, and horror! Would you like to know more? Follow him on Twitter!
