From what I'd read before and after Force Awakens, there was an overall story for the trilogy planned in advance of writing the TFA script. That outline might just include a few major basics without any real plot details, that way the writers and directors can have a lot of room to create their own movies while still working toward the overall goal.
I mean you can summarize the core concept of Terminator 2 like this: Two machines get sent from the future, one to kill John Conner and a reprogrammed one to protect him. Make sure Sarah gets involved, and work in a guy at a robotics company who is using the remains of the terminator from the first movie. In the end, both terminators need to be destroyed.
That's ONLY Terminator 2, and I actually made it very specific, but yet just LOOK at how much leeway there is to create a plot. I only wrote three sentences, beyond that could be anything. That outline could create a hundred wildly different versions of T2 when put into the hands of a hundred different writers/directors.
These details aren't part of my outline: Where is John, what's he doing? Where is Sarah, why is she where she is? These things can be changed in many different ways while still matching the outline I wrote down. John and Sarah could be on the run together, for example. She could be training him. Or they could have a normal suburban life, trying to forget the past.
That outline could also easily create a good or bad movie. As you can see, the distance between the basic concept and a finished product is a vast distance.
Lucas also made up the original trilogy as he went along, despite the claims you'll hear. His outline was quite basic and it changed constantly. WHEN HE MADE STAR WARS, DARTH VADER WAS A WARLORD WHO HAD KILLED LUKE'S FATHER. That was the story and it was how the first Star Wars was written (before it was ever called A New Hope, a change made after the movie came out). Lucas created the family dynamic for Empire.
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Frogarama (12942)
7 years ago
P.S. plenty of clues in Star Wars that Vader was not originally Luke's father. One example off the top of my head: Obi-Wan gives Luke his Dad's lightsaber and says "Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough." When that was written, it was meant to be true.
This is an example of why Obi-Wan had to explain away his "lies" about Luke's father in Empire Strikes Back, with his "certain point of view" speech. If you watch A New Hope with this fact in mind, you'll see how obvious it is that Vader was TRULY written to be the killer of Luke's father, and that the original plan was for Luke to avenge him.
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