She was the new Darth Vader and most of the action was with her. Darth Maul trained a girl, Darth Talon, who was in the comic books, as his apprentice. Interestingly though, Lucas also revealed that his film would have contained two female leads, Carrie Fisher’s Leia and an apprentice of a resurrected Darth Maul. That was the basic setup, describes Lucas, a premise that would surely have been more palatable for all those fans dismayed by Luke’s hermit status in Disney’s films. In the new book The Star Wars Archives, he explained that “the movies are about how Leia – I mean, who else is going to be the leader? – is trying to rebuild the Republic… Luke is trying to restart the Jedi”. Whilst we’ll never see the films now, they certainly sound like fun. These were plans that he ultimately shelved in order to spend more time with his family, and because of that loud and unkind reaction to his prequel films. Now Lucas has been chatting about his own plans for a sequel trilogy. However, since the Disney sequel trilogy has released to an equally rocky reception, it has caused some to reassess Lucas’ efforts and a greater appreciation for his films has developed. That, in part at least, led to Lucas selling Star Wars to Disney back in 2012, with the filmmaker complaining he was fed up of having fans ‘shout’ at him. Following his much-maligned prequel trilogy, a sizeable chunk of the fanbase were less than pleased with Lucas, and weren’t quiet about their feelings. George Lucas’ stewardship of the Star Wars franchise has enjoyed something of a re-examination over the past few years.

George lucas original sequel trilogy