Quote Originally Posted by Gregoshi View Post
Not the case. When Star Wars was first pitched, Lucas had three trilogies in mind: first, the fall of the republic; the second, the empire; and the third, the return of the republic. That Lucas denied there was a third trilogy in later years baffled me. However, as you say, all the fiction that's been written since makes the third trilogy an adventure with good prospects to fail - at least amongst the fan base.
When Lucas first pitched the first movie it was Anakin who rescued the Princess from the Empire and later fell to the darkside - in a second draft "Luke Skywalker" was a meshing of what would become Obi-Wan and the Luke we know.

By the time he'd got to the point where ANH had an actual plot there were three films and a backstory. That backstory barely changed between 1976 and 1999, except that Palpatine is referred to as "President" of the Republic in the original Star Wars novel.

The "nine movies" story is, afaik a later invention that Lucas was toying with.

As a unit the current two trilogies barely make dramatic sense - he end of Episode V is robbed of all it's pathos if you watch I-III first.

The idea of Episode VII raises a more fundamental issue, what would be the point? Other than to give Mark Hamil some pocket money.