39 Cancelled Star Wars Projects

The Star Wars universe is a dangerous place. For example, "man walks into a bar" gags in Mos Eisley tend to end with unwarranted threats, droid racism, limbs being chopped off, impromptu deaths or – worst of all – rigorous re-editing.

Until the recent Disney buy-out, the world created by George Lucas was just as treacherous for seemingly-exciting projects. Lucasfilm/LucasArts, for a time, became notorious for the number of cancellations under its belt, with films, TV shows and game ideas constantly being chucked out at various stages of their development.

But when did the term "countless" ever stop us trying to count things? Never, that’s when. So we donned a pointy-hooded robe and scoured the desert wilderness of the internet to bring you what we hope is a complete list of what we’ve missed out on from that galaxy far, far away.

NB: we haven’t covered cancelled Star Wars books and comics here, simply because we didn’t have a writer with a life-span long enough to chronicle them all. Forgive us, please.

So, without further Banther doodoo, here’s our tribute to the Star Wars projects that we’ll never get to see…

The films

George Lucas’ sequel trilogy

What was it? The first entry on our list is undeniably the most talked-about; George Lucas’ original plans for a Star Wars sequel trilogy. Indeed, several reports will have you believe that Mr Lucas envisioned a further three films since the very invention of the Star Wars universe.

“It's a nine-part saga that has a beginning, a middle and an end,” said Lucas in 1980. It progresses over a period of about fifty or sixty years with about twenty years between trilogies, each trilogy taking about six or seven years.”

Plot-wise? Luke and his sister (not Leia at this stage of planning, apparently) would have been developing their skills with the force, it is believed, while moral and philosophical problems would have been the focus. Key themes would have been distinguishing right and wrong, as well as passing on your knowledge.

A romantic interest for Luke, as well as his children, his legacy and the rebirth of the Republic would also have been on the agenda.

Rumours persist that, if all had gone to plan, a Hamill-cameo akin to Obi-Wan’s role in A New Hope would have appeared in the sequel trilogy’s final installment, Star Wars Episode IX, in around 2011.

What happened? "Basically what I said as a joke was, 'Maybe when Harrison and Carrie are in their 70s, we'll come back and do another version.'” said Lucas in 2002. “The thing I didn't realise then, and that I do realize now very clearly, is that not only would they be in their 70s, but I would be in my 70s too."

In 2008, Lucas is also quoted as saying that "the movies were the story of Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker, and when Luke saves the galaxy and redeems his father, that's where that story ends."

It sounds to us that Lucas simply lost passion for the project, which ties in well to his well-known desire to step away from the blockbuster arena.

Chances of resurrection? Well, Star Wars: The Force Awakens (and the promise of a sprawling on-screen Star Wars universe to follow) is very much a reality now, but we may well never know what level of similarity it shares with Lucas’ original ideas.

Indeed, it seems Lucas is fairly separate from the creative process in his role as a consultant. “I mostly say 'you can't do this. You can do that,'" he told Bloomberg Businessweek last year. "You know, 'The cars don't have wheels. They fly with antigravity.' There's a million little pieces. Or I can say, 'He doesn’t have the power to do that, or he has to do this.' I know all that stuff."

We’ll never know exactly what his plans were then, failing a graphic novel akin to The Star Wars.

“A film about robots, with no humans in it”

What was it? As more of an aside (albeit an interesting one), from George Lucas’ aforementioned sequel trilogy planning, a droid-centric cinematic outing was on his mind at one point.

In 1980, Lucas told Prevuemagazine that “as I was writing, I came up with some ideas for a film about robots, with no humans in it.”

“When the smoke cleared, I said, 'This is really great. I'll do another trilogy that takes place after this [the original trilogy].' I had three trilogies of nine films, and then another couple of odd films. Essentially, there were twelve films,” Lucas added, slightly confusingly.

What happened? A solo cinematic outing for R2-D2 and C3-PO seems the exact sort of thing studio executives looking for bankable shared cinematic universes would invest in these days. At the time, the idea didn’t seem to float, though. As soon as 1981, it seems Lucas had stopped referring to the droid-heavy movie in his interviews.

Chances of resurrection? Very slim. But, if you were paying attention to kids’ TV in the late 1980s, you might have spotted the animated Star Wars spin-off Droids. Although not feature length or cinema-standard, this series is probably as close as we will get. "Droids In Distress," an episode from StarWars Rebels, is a decent substitute too.

“Wookiees, nothing else”

What was it? As above, Lucas was tentatively planning a Wookiee-centric movie in the year 1980.

In the same interview where he suggested the droids movie, he also said “When I got to working on the Wookiee, I thought of a film just about Wookiees, nothing else. So, for a time, I had a couple of odd movies with just those characters.”

Plot-wise, the world of Wookiees opens up many possibilities in the wider Star Wars universe. Life-debts are common amongst Wookiees, which has been played in interesting directions previously, while the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk is one of the more beautiful corners of the Star Warsgalaxy.

What happened? Again, the idea simply stopped being mentioned. To our decades-later speculation-heavy minds, this seems to suggest a studio bigwig shut the idea down quickly.

Chances of resurrection? Nil, but did the ideas here become the infamous Holiday Special, we wonder? If not, perhaps some recycled concepts ended up in 1985’s Ewoks TV series. We’ll never know, but there’s a chance the cinema-going public might have dodged a bullet here.

3D rereleases of Attack Of The Clones and Revenge Of The Sith

What was it? You might remember in 2012 when, in lieu of creating new content, a 3D rerelease for the prequel trilogy was announced by Lucasfilm/ 20th Century Fox.

The first one went ahead, with The Phantom Menace picking up a nifty $43 million in the US to nudge its original box office total over the $1 billion mark. Fans also got to enjoy some podracing-style 3D glasses. They had, er, fun.

However, with the big changes to the behind-the-scenes Star Wars world occurring in 2013, Lucasfilm’s cancelled the rereleases of Attack of theClones and Revenge of the Sith.

What happened? The production of The Force Awakens happened, in this case. Shortly after the cancellation occurred, Kathleen Kennedy released a statement saying “given the recent development that we are moving forward with a new Star Wars trilogy, we will now focus 100 percent of our efforts on Star Wars: Episode VII in order to ensure the best possible experience for our fans.”

Chances of resurrection? Well, that statement concluded with “We will post further information about our 3D release plans at a later date,” so it seems the idea hasn’t been completely canned. With Disney’s desire to push forward in a Marvel Studios-esque model of yearly instalments and spin-offs, we’ve no idea when they’d fit this in, though.

We usually don't love the practice of inserting page breaks, but as this is a long article with tons of images, we've broken this up by section. So, on to the TV Shows segment of the article, then...