
And the map tells you where the Jedi are and where Luke is hiding.”
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“So when the adventure’s over, Kira finds a hidden map inside the Emperor’s tower of the second Death Star. The caption is titled “Death Star trench underwater.” It’s a quote from Star Wars artist Iain McCaig, reading:
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Some of the early MacGuffins of the movie – the thing that drives a movie’s plot - were a search for Darth Vader’s remains, or a quest to the underwater wreckage of the second Death Star to recover a key piece of history about sacred Jedi sites in the galaxy.Īnd on page 34 of The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, there’s a piece of concept art that shows this in detail. The bad news was, his toybox wouldn’t include a real-life Luke Skywalker action figure. The good news for Abrams was, he got to make a Star Wars movie. Abrams spoke with Entertainment Weekly about early ideas that didn’t make it into the movie. Not long after The Force Awakens’ release, Arndt and J.J. Maybe the work that Arndt did survives in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. (Though Arndt still received a writer’s credit.)īut what does this have to do with the Death Star in the Episode IX trailer? Maybe everything. And their story departed from Arndt’s story, too. Shortly thereafter, they turned in their first script draft. At a mid-December 2013 meeting, they pitched their version of the Episode VII story. With Arndt’s departure, Lucasfilm tapped Kasdan and Abrams to pen Episode VII’s screenplay. Abrams told Empire, Arndt “needed 18 months more than anyone had signed up for.” As Episode VII co-writer and director J.J. In October 2013, Lucasfilm announced that Arndt would no longer write the screenplay. And at one point, someone visited an old Star Wars relic.Įxcept that things didn’t work out with Arndt, either.

Instead of Luke training a new hero and leaving that emotional dark place, the search for Luke set the plot in motion. In the ensuing months, Arndt changed the story. Arndt was now responsible for writing the Episode VII story. Abrams would direct Episode VII, Lucas shared his treatment, and producer Simon Kinberg ( Star Wars: Rebels) and Kasdan began working with Arndt as consultants, according to The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.Īt some point (presumably after Lucas met with Lucasfilm in January 2013), Lucasfilm decided to depart from Lucas’ treatment. Three important things happened that month: Lucasfilm announced that J.J. We don’t know precisely what caused George Lucas and his former company to part ways, but January 2013 seems to be an inflection point. Then things kind of went to crap, at least between Lucas and Lucasfilm. He “provided his Episode VII treatment to the project’s creative team,” according to The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. In January 2013, three months after the sale, Lucas met with those working on the new movies, according to Bloomberg. The press release announcing the sale said that Lucas would serve “ as creative consultant.”

In October 2012, George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney. Though it wouldn’t be announced until November 2012, Lucasfilm’s co-chairs hired screenwriter Michael Arndt before the Disney sale and brought in Lawrence Kasdan (screenwriter of Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and co-writer of Solo: A Star Wars Story) as a consultant. They started to get Lucasfilm’s house in order. In June 2012, he hired Kathleen Kennedy, a seven-time Academy Award-nominated producer and executive, as co-chair of Lucasfilm. But what’s the Death Star doing there? We might be able to figure that out, thanks to the long, convoluted false starts that eventually became The Force Awakens.Īt least as far back as May 2011, George Lucas was thinking about retiring. There’s a striking image sitting at the end of the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker teaser trailer: The Death Star, broken and defeated, rising out of an ocean.
