8 Different Versions Of Star Wars Episode VII That Were Almost Made

8. A Non-Lucas Follow-On In The Eighties

When Did It Almost Happen? After the Original Trilogy was wrapped up. Vader was dead, the seeds of a new Jedi order had been sown and the Rebellion had woken up on Endor with a banging headache. Yup, after Return Of The Jedi, the Original Trilogy's story was definitely over, making another sequel a questionable thing - the previous movies had been more open-ended.

Although Lucas was rather adamant as time went by that the Saga ended with Episode VI, he did toy with the idea of handing Star Wars over to another director for some subsequent movies lacking his involvement, revealed in interviews shortly after the first trilogy's conclusion.

He was off writing Indiana Jones, a franchise if anything closer to his heart to Star Wars, and dabbling in a variety of less noteworthy projects, so was likely happy to move on. Had he had more success with the likes of Howard The Duck (which he produced), then perhaps he'd never have felt inclined to keep such a tight hold on the franchise, before returning properly in the nineties.

By the time the Prequels rolled around, anyone else having creative control over another Star Wars was an alien concept to Lucas, with the director saying he no longer fancied giving the movies to someone else. This was also at the time when the Sequel Trilogy was consistently and vehemently denied, making the current state of affairs a massive u-turn.