Lucasfilm could make as many Star Wars trilogies as they want, but they’d never come close to matching A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, which have endured for four decades as monoliths of popular culture. Reception to every following entry in the franchise has ranged from wild enthusiasm to sheer outrage, and no matter what side of the divide you fall on, everyone is in agreement that the Original Trilogy stands head and shoulders above the rest.
When Disney relaunched Star Wars with The Force Awakens, it did massive numbers at the box office and rode a wave of excitement and nostalgia to find widespread success among critics and fans, who overlooked a startling lack of originality because the beloved sci-fi series was back and bigger than ever.
However, The Last Jedi split the fanbase right down the middle, before The Rise of Skywalker did the exact same but for very different reasons. Of course, one of the major criticisms directed at Rian Johnson’s Episode VIII was his handling of Luke Skywalker, and even Mark Hamill admitted that he wasn’t pleased at the legendary Jedi’s arc.
A new Star Wars book has now revealed, though, that George Lucas was also planning to kill off Luke in his version of Episode VIII. While there are no specifics offered on how he might’ve gone about doing so, you can imagine that the creator of the franchise would have Luke go out in epic and heroic fashion, instead of how The Last Jedi depicted him as a miserable loner who turned his back on everything that defined him as a character before eventually relenting and making the ultimate sacrifice.