The Evolution of TFA: Lucas, Ardnt, JJ and Kasdan

The story and characters of TFA underwent dramatic changes over the course of production, which, according to Pablo Hidalgo and Kathleen Kennedy, began with ideas left behind from George Lucas. Those ideas evolved (as ideas do) over the years of planning that went into TFA.

Like when Luke was originally a girl, he and Leia were originally meant to be a couple, and Luke was meant to find a twin sister who was not Leia. GL smushed those 2 characters, Leia and twin sister, in one in ROTJ. Still can't understand what possessed him to do so since twin sister reveal had ZERO dramatic effect on the plot. It was just a convenient way to resolve love triangle that wasn't prominent to begin with.

Thank you for starting this thread, @FrolickingFizzgig! I do find this an interesting topic - the parentage topic kind of overshadows it, because this isn't about any particular parentage at all... at least for me it isn't.

Anyway. Earlier, Pablo replied some tweets about the George Lucas treatment and said that some parts of it made it to The Art of The Force Awakens book. He mentioned Skyler, Thea, Darth Talon, and Felucia.

Now, I don't always trust the chronology of the concept art book because some pictures are in a demonstrably wrong place, chronologically speaking. But with Pablo's tweet in mind, there's an interesting cluster of images in the early part of it, from January 2013, when they officially started brainstorming for Episode VII. There are several pictures of Felucia, a picture of Darth Talon, and so on: I think this cluster of images kind of implies that they started by juggling concepts from the Lucas treatment.

There are no pictures titled Thea and Skyler in the book, but in this January cluster of pictures, there's this one, titled "Kira (Rey) and Sam (Finn)":



I've seen it before, but never really paid much attention to it. This earlier Kira - Thea? - doesn't look like a scavenger yet; all the other concepts for Kira later on in the book are recognisable as a scruffy scavenger.

However, the one thing I noticed last night is that these Kira and Sam/Thea and Skyler look identical. Seriously, they have the same facial features. The same mouth, the same chin, the same nose. Even the same eyebrows! Please zoom in on the pic and tell me I'm not imagining things? Those two could be twins.

And then it hit me... perhaps the Lucas treatment had Thea and Skyler as Solo siblings. Add to this Darth Talon - the seductive villainess - and I wonder if Thea Solo's love interest was a fallen Jedi who she had to rescue from Talon's clutches, à la The Snow Queen.

Then, as the development went on, they switched things around so that the fallen Jedi became the only Solo, Darth Talon turned into Snoke, and Thea and Skyler became Rey and Finn, non-Solos, but with the sibling dynamic still preserved. That would explain Lucas' asking what happened to Vader's grandchildren, and him being miffed in general. They ditched not only his villainess, but also turned the Solo heroes into a fallen Solo.

All this could be nothing, but anyway... I thought it was fun to think about.

I don't have links but I remember that jedi Killer was originally an aristocrat who was collecting Sith artifacts. Not related to anyone. So my guess would be that Kira/Thea/Rey and Jedi Killer/Kylo were never related. I do remember that main girl in Arndt script was heavily rumored to be Hanleia daughter because Arndt wanted the Solos to be the focus, especially the younger generation. JJ didn't like that direction and he OVERHAULED the script:

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2014/01/12/star-wars-episode-vii-to-focus-on-old-people

As you can see, even that information was wrong as OT characters are not the focus. They are there but not the focus. So what we have are rumors but nobody really confirming one thing or the other as ultimate truth.

vaderito wrote:I don't have links but I remember that jedi Killer was originally an aristocrat who was collecting Sith artifacts. Not related to anyone. So my guess would be that Kira/Thea/Rey and Jedi Killer/Kylo were never related. I do remember that main girl in Arndt script was heavily rumored to be Hanleia daughter because Arndt wanted the Solos to be the focus, especially the younger generation. JJ didn't like that direction and he OVERHAULED the script:

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2014/01/12/star-wars-episode-vii-to-focus-on-old-people

As you can see, even that information was wrong as OT characters are not the focus. They are there but not the focus. So what we have are rumors but nobody really confirming one thing or the other as ultimate truth.

@vaderito

I actually wonder if "Jedi Killer" and the fallen young Jedi were meant to be two different characters... or whether there's some misdirection going on in the book (which wouldn't surprise me). Because this cluster of images has this beautiful (ahem) early concept of "Jedi Killer":



But there are also pictures of a Dark Side user who is seems like a human male:




The latter picture is accompanied by this caption, which suggests that yin-yang was part of the story development from the start:



But... yeah. Like I said in the lineage thread, it's not like we'll find out anything for sure about this stuff for a long time. But I started speculating because of this tweet by Jett Lucas, which has been taken to mean that Rey was a Solo in the Lucas treatment:

https://twitter.com/mrjettlucas/status/770723447647326208

Maybe she was. Doesn't mean she is anymore, though.

And to add, that human Dark Side user is definitely an early concept because the first of those two pictures is titled "Felucia". According to Pablo, Felucia came from GL. It seemed to drop out of the concepts later on.

@Darth Dingbat The biggest question is why this




was not included in the book.

vaderito wrote:@Darth Dingbat The biggest question is why this




was not included in the book.

@vaderito

I think we all know why

That one is definitely a later concept though, likely from the JJ & Kasdan period, because the Leibovitz photos were taken in Kerry in June 2013 and published in the September Vogue.

@Darth Dingbat JJ&Kasdan period is all that matters.

Deleted.

Darth Dingbat wrote:Thank you for starting this thread, @FrolickingFizzgig! I do find this an interesting topic - the parentage topic kind of overshadows it, because this isn't about any particular parentage at all... at least for me it isn't.

Anyway. Earlier, Pablo replied some tweets about the George Lucas treatment and said that some parts of it made it to The Art of The Force Awakens book. He mentioned Skyler, Thea, Darth Talon, and Felucia.

Now, I don't always trust the chronology of the concept art book because some pictures are in a demonstrably wrong place, chronologically speaking. But with Pablo's tweet in mind, there's an interesting cluster of images in the early part of it, from January 2013, when they officially started brainstorming for Episode VII. There are several pictures of Felucia, a picture of Darth Talon, and so on: I think this cluster of images kind of implies that they started by juggling concepts from the Lucas treatment.

There are no pictures titled Thea and Skyler in the book, but in this January cluster of pictures, there's this one, titled "Kira (Rey) and Sam (Finn)":



I've seen it before, but never really paid much attention to it. This earlier Kira - Thea? - doesn't look like a scavenger yet; all the other concepts for Kira later on in the book are recognisable as a scruffy scavenger.

However, the one thing I noticed last night is that these Kira and Sam/Thea and Skyler look identical. Seriously, they have the same facial features. The same mouth, the same chin, the same nose. Even the same eyebrows! Please zoom in on the pic and tell me I'm not imagining things? Those two could be twins.

And then it hit me... perhaps the Lucas treatment had Thea and Skyler as Solo siblings. Add to this Darth Talon - the seductive villainess - and I wonder if Thea Solo's love interest was a fallen Jedi who she had to rescue from Talon's clutches, à la The Snow Queen.

Then, as the development went on, they switched things around so that the fallen Jedi became the only Solo, Darth Talon turned into Snoke, and Thea and Skyler became Rey and Finn, non-Solos, but with the sibling dynamic still preserved. That would explain Lucas' asking what happened to Vader's grandchildren, and him being miffed in general. They ditched not only his villainess, but also turned the Solo heroes into a fallen Solo.

All this could be nothing, but anyway... I thought it was fun to think about.

@Darth Dingbat They do look similar! That's a very good and interesting point you make. It actually reminds me of the EU, where Jaina the good/light Solo twin had to face off against the bad/dark twin Jacen, who was seduced to the Dark Side by the Sith lady Lumiya (Snow Queen). If this was GL's original concept, maybe that's what inspired Timothy Zahn to create the Solo Twins in the Thrawn Trilogy in the first place.

Snoke was also originally meant to be a woman - perhaps they kept the concept of the seductress/Snow Queen for a while, maybe even include the Mother/Maiden arc eventually with Rey, but then switched to the Father/Son in order to focus more on Kylo's journey perhaps? Maybe keep in with that familiar theme since the previous two trilogies focused on it as well?

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Pablo explains: