“What we’re buying along with the overall company is a pretty extensive and detailed treatment for what would be the next three movies,” Disney CFO Jay Rasulo announced in the fall of 2012 when the mouse house purchased Lucasfilm for $4 billion and some change. For awhile, the notion was that George Lucas‘ vision for the next three chapters of his universe would form the foundation that the team assembled for the new movies would work from. But as time has passed, there has been fewer references to those treatments, as well as rumors of fallout over the direction of the new trilogy. Slashfilm notes chatter suggesting original ‘The Force Awakens’ scribe Michael Arndt was more in line with Lucas, who wanted the new movie to focus on the newer characters, while Lawrence Kasdan and J.J. Abrams were eager to put Luke, Han and Leia upfront. And whether or not that’s true, Lucas’ latest comments seem to aim in that direction.
In a recent interview with CinemaBlend, Lucas reveals that his ideas for the new trilogy are no more. "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 ," he said.
Certainly, the prequel films were not the best example of Lucas doing the right thing narratively by his series, and we’re sure $4 billion will cushion some of the creative wounds he’s sustained. That said, he’s godfather of the franchise, and there is some value in Disney keeping him happy. Was there a compromised reached? Are we still going to get an idea of what Lucas wanted? Or has "Star Wars" been Abrams-ed?
Guess we’ll find out when ‘The Force Awakens’ on December 18th.