Among all the tidbits George Lucas has revealed about what his version of the Star Wars sequels would look like, one interesting element is how the movies would have explored what happened with the stormtroopers after the end of the Galactic Civil War. Considering how George Lucas has mentioned many different ideas for his versions of Episodes VII, VIII, and IX throughout the years, it is difficult to map out how exactly his Star Wars sequels would have played out. Still, there are a few recurring elements in all of Lucas’s quotes about his planned sequels, including that the movies would take place not too long after Return of the Jedi.
There are some similarities between George Lucas’s plans for the Star Wars sequels and the Episodes VII, VIII, and IX that Disney eventually released. For example, Lucas’s Star Wars sequels would have featured Luke Skywalker as a haunted Jedi Master following the betrayal of one of his students, something that was eventually carried onto Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. There were, however, major differences between Lucas’s plans and the actual sequel trilogy, mainly regarding the state of the galaxy.
The amount of criticism aimed at the Star Wars prequels is one of the elements that prevented George Lucas from immediately working on a sequel trilogy. Therefore, by the time Disney bought Lucasfilm and started developing the Star Wars sequels, it was already impossible to show the state of the galaxy right after Return of the Jedi, at least not without major recasts. In order for Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford to appear as Luke, Leia, and Han, the Star Wars sequel trilogy had to be set more than 30 years after Return of the Jedi, thus killing any chances of showing the aftermath of the Galactic Civil War. In Lucas’ original plans, the sequels would have followed the remaining Imperial stormtroopers and would have shown the aftermath of the war from their perspectives.
Lucas’s Sequels Would’ve Seen Stormtroopers Deal With The End Of The War
As revealed by The Star Wars Archives: Episodes I-III 1999-2005, Lucas envisioned a sequel trilogy arc for the surviving imperial stormtroopers. Lucas would have taken inspiration from real-life conflicts to tell a story about what happens with a disbanded army that loses the war. According to George Lucas, the stormtroopers would have “refused to give up” following the New Republic’s victory. The stormtroopers would want to continue fighting, and thus they would go “to a far corner of the galaxy” to “start their own country and their own rebellion.” How big of a threat this stormtrooper rebellion would have been in the George Lucas sequel trilogy is difficult to say, especially because the movies would see Darth Maul and a Sith apprentice as the main villains. Still, the stormtroopers' storyline would have fit into Lucas’s plan of showing the power vacuum left in the galaxy following the fall of the Empire.
Disney’s Star Wars Sequels Failed Its Interesting Stormtroopers Premise
While Disney’s Star Wars sequels did not use that specific stormtrooper idea, The Force Awakens did set up what could have been an interesting stormtrooper-centered storyline. Instead of being recruited soldiers like during the Empire, the First Order stormtroopers were originally children taken away from their families and trained during their entire life to fight. The Force Awakens also made a stormtrooper, Finn, a main character in the story – something no other Star Wars movie had ever done. In fact, before The Force Awakens, no real stormtrooper had ever removed their helmet on screen. However, all of those setups were not properly used throughout the sequel trilogy. Finn’s stormtrooper origins little affected the rest of his story, and a potential stormtrooper rebellion led by Finn never happened.
Lucas’s Sequels Plans Would’ve Made Stormtroopers Into Actual Characters
Throughout the original Star Wars trilogy, the stormtroopers were more a set prop than they were characters. The helmets made it difficult for audiences to connect with any of them, which was precisely the point. Lucas wanted non-human characters, or at least non-recognizable human characters, as villains who Luke, Leia, and Han could shoot at without losing their status as heroes. After Star Wars: The Clone Wars made the prequel trilogy’s clone army into actual characters with distinguishable personalities and emotions, it would have been interesting to see the same being done with the Imperial stormtroopers in George Lucas’s Star Wars sequels. This would have added an important layer to the stormtroopers, and it would have changed the way audiences see them in the original trilogy.