The internet has been blowing up ever since Disney announced the official cast for Star Wars: Episdoe VII, the much awaited sequel to Return of the Jedi, However, many fans don’t know there was a different Star Wars sequel that was never made.
Alternate Star Wars sequel could have happened â€" photo courtesy of Wikipedia
Star Wars of course went on to be one of the most influential films ever, ranking as number 13 on AFI’s greatest films of all time. Also, The Empire Strikes Back is generally considered to be one of the greatest sequels ever made. But what happened after Empire could have been very different.
George Lucas decided to finance Empire without 20th Century Fox so lucasfilm financed the film independently, which cost the studio almost all of its money. Empire was a very ambitious and expensive film which Lucasfilm was able to make because the first Star Wars was so successful.
However, Lucas didn’t assume that Star Wars was going to be a massive success and had a plan for a lower budget sequel in case it wasn’t. Alan Dean Foster was commissioned to write a lower budget sequel option in the form of a novel. The novel became Splinter of the Minds Eye.
Foster recently talked to Screen Crush about the experience.
“I was originally brought in while ‘Star Wars’ was still in production, on a two book contract to do the novelization of the film, but he also instructed me to write a novel that could be filmed on a low budget,†Foster said.
The plot revolves around Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, R2-D2 and C-3PO crashing on a planet where they discover a secret Empire mining operation, eventually coming down to a fight with Darth Vader. Han Solo was not featured in the book because he had not signed on for another film yet. As a result, Chewbacca was also left out of the book.
The book was released, but of course the film never saw the light of day. Dark Horse comics later adapted the book into a graphic novel as well.
Star Wars Sequel That Almost Happened Instead of ‘Empire’
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