Star Wars: The Force Awakens was one of Dinsey’s biggest films, making upwards of $2 billion against its budget of $533 million, as reported by Forbes. The 2 films that followed The Force Awakens ended up making one of the most divisive trilogies in the Star Wars film canon.
While a lot of fans have criticized the films for failing to follow George Lucas’ original vision with the Star Wars sequel trilogy, there is some of its DNA clearly present in the three films that Disney produced as a continuation of the Skywalker Saga.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens follows George Lucas’ set blueprint
While The Force Awakens might seem like it strays from George Lucas‘ vision for the sequel trilogy, the structure of the plot is very consistent with the first entry in a Star Wars trilogy, such as A New Hope and The Phantom Menace. A young force user, otherwise living an unremarkable life (Anakin, Luke, Rey), embarks on an adventure with a wise old mentor (Qui-Gon, Obi-wan, Han) who dies at the hands of the Sith Lord (Darth Maul, Darth Vader, Kylo Ren) to allow the young hero to escape.
George Lucas also thought about having Luke be occupied at a time when he should be serving as a mentor, causing Han to take up the responsibility. This repositioned the classic Star Wars mystery in a different light, focusing on hunting and locating Skywalker, rather than on Rey’s lineage (even if the future films threw this out completely).
The Force Awaken could have borrowed from an earlier draft of A New Hope
In an older draft of Star Wars, then called The Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Starkiller, Obi-Wan’s return was something that had a larger impact on Darth Vader, who would go on to make a comment, as reported by /Films:
Something old has been awakened. The Force has suddenly grown stronger. We must travel future paths with caution.
This is directly echoed in the line where Snoke warns Ren about Rey and Finn, saying that something has awakened in the force.
Earlier drafts of the story had a lot of unique ideas, such as the existence of Kyber crystals as a means to control the Force, which was later repurposed to function as a mechanism for the lightsabers.
Star Wars can be streamed on Disney+
