George Lucas' 5 Best Star Wars Story Ideas That Never Made It Into The Movies

The "Star Wars" franchise is an endless well of entertainment. With all of the movies, TV shows, video games, comics, books, and other media, fans can spend years getting lost in the galaxy far, far away. As of this writing, George Lucas' space opera has been around for almost 50 years, and it shows no signs of slowing down any time in the near future. Sadly, Lucas has taken a backseat to Disney nowadays, but he'll always be the franchise's godfather.

Of course, not every great idea Lucas had made it into finished "Star Wars" projects. In fact, the galaxy far, far away's creator left some of his better concepts on the cutting room floor, leaving fans to forever wonder what could have been. For this exercise, we are going to look at some of those unrealized ideas and mourn the fact that they never made it to the screen — especially since they could have vastly improved some less-than-stellar "Star Wars" projects.

The "Star Wars" franchise is now famous for its opening crawl detailing things that happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. However, George Lucas originally planned on framing the story around mystical beings known as the Whills. R2-D2 would have recounted the galactic battles and other notable events to one of the Whills, who'd have immortalized them in a journal. This idea never came to be, but the Whills still informed Lucas' creative process throughout the years.

"I eventually dropped this idea, and the concept behind the Whills turned into the Force," he revealed in "Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays" (via The Star Wars Report). "But the Whills became part of this massive amount of notes, quotes, background information that I used for the scripts; the stories were actually taken from the 'Journal of the Whills.'"

The Whills have since been acknowledged through subtle references, most notably in "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story." Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) and Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen) are referred to as the "Guardians of the Whills," which is a fun Easter egg. That said, seeing the Whills feature in a meaningful capacity would be more interesting than scattered references here and there.

Steven Spielberg might love the "Star Wars" movies that most fans hate, but he's in the minority. "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace" is far from the franchise's best hour, but it might have been better if George Lucas stuck with his plan to take the movie to a very dark place. In the film, Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson), Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), and Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best) find themselves in Otah Gunga, where they ultimately receive assistance from the locals.

However, Lucas' original draft saw the underwater city get destroyed by the Trade Federation's battle droids, leading Jar Jar to believe that his people have been destroyed. The destruction of an entire civilization isn't pleasant, but this storyline would certainly have added more high-stakes drama to "The Phantom Menace." It would have put the "war" in "Star Wars," emphasizing the brutal reality of combat. "Star Wars" eventually got dark with movies like "Rogue One" bringing devastation to the fold, but it seems that Lucas wanted the franchise to remain more family-friendly.

Darth Maul is one of the highlights of "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace," and Ray Park is great as the villainous Zabrak. Be that as it may, the live-action movies have only featured male Sith Lords so far, which gets repetitive after a while. That's why it would have been interesting to see Maul as a woman, which was George Lucas' plan for a short time. Not much is known about Lucas' plans for a female Maul.

Rumor has it that he wanted Maggie Cheung — the Hong Kong star famed for movies like "Police Story" — in the role, but the idea didn't progress far enough to seriously consider it. However, the film's early storyboards featured more overt Asian influences, which explains why Lucas considered bringing in a prominent Eastern star like Yeung to portray Maul.

The "Star Wars" franchise has gotten some good mileage out of the Sith Lord since "The Phantom Menace" came out. Most recently, "Maul: Shadow Lord" gave fans one of the best "Star Wars" animated series out there, so we can't complain about the final iteration of the character. Still, it could have been fun to see Cheung tear it up as a Sith Lord and bring another dynamic female villain to the saga.

George Lucas was working on a new "Star Wars" TV series before accepting the bag from Disney in 2012. Titled "Star Wars: Underworld," the story would have been set between the events of "Revenge of the Sith" and "A New Hope," with the action taking place in Coruscant's criminal underbelly. Lucas and the show's writers produced over 60 scripts, which are now collecting dust somewhere.

"Star Wars: Underworld" was imagined as a film noir-flavored show with morally grey characters, sex appeal, and more violence. The project would have targeted a more mature audience, but it fell through after the House of Mouse revamped the space saga in its own image. That said, "Star Wars: Underworld" would have cost $40 million per episode, forcing Lucas to put the project on hold even before Disney came along.

The canceled "Star Wars" series was also set to chronicle Emperor Palpatine's origins. The evil Sith Lord would have been portrayed as a sympathetic character, only to turn to the Dark Side after being screwed over by a woman who was seemingly involved in the organized crime scene. This project sounds all kinds of awesome, so let's hope Disney dusts off those scripts someday.

The Disney era of "Star Wars" has been divisive, to say the least. George Lucas might have ticked off fans with the prequel trilogy, but he had a long-term vision for the space opera saga that he never got to fully realize. Once upon a time, Lucas planned on making 12 "Star Wars" flicks, encompassing four different trilogies. The first trilogy in the timeline would have followed a young Obi-Wan Kenobi and led into the Clone Wars. He also envisioned a sequel trilogy about Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) rebuilding the Republic and introducing fans to her children with Han Solo (Harrison Ford).

Elsewhere, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) would have been tasked with forming a new Jedi Order, and Darth Maul would also have returned to create his own criminal empire. Of course, it's difficult to stick with a plan in Hollywood, and Lucas explored other ideas as time went on. Still, his sequel trilogy sounds especially fascinating, and it might have been less polarizing than the one Disney put out with "The Force Awakens," "The Last Jedi," and "The Rise of Skywalker." If nothing else, fans would love to see the franchise's original mastermind tell the entire story on his own terms.