After yesterday's bombshell that Disney would be purchasing Lucasfilm and the rights to Star Wars, speculation quickly began for cast, crew and plot of the newly planned sequel trilogy.  George Lucas has already sketched out an outline for Star Wars VII; he and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy have reportedly met with writers already.  Now, Lucas biographer Dale Pollock is spilling some details about the upcoming trilogy (or trilogies, since Lucas' original idea spanned 12 films!).  Among those is the fact that Luke Skywalker, played by Mark Hamill in the original films, would be in his 30s or 40s.  Hit the jump to see what else is in store.The Wrap reported on Pollock's comments about the planned sequel trilogy.  While researching his unauthorized biography, Pollock was allowed to read Lucas' outlines for all 12 of the features.  He calls the upcoming films, which will be Episodes 7, 8 and 9, "the most exciting" in the series.

“It was originally a 12-part saga.  The three most exciting stories were 7, 8 and 9. They had propulsive action, really interesting new worlds, new characters. I remember thinking, ‘I want to see these 3 movies.’”

Well now Pollock will get his chance, along with millions of fans around the world.  Another thing the fans and Pollock have in common is the general distaste for the Star Wars prequels, as Pollock called them:

“dreadful. I think they’re horrible. For me, the first one is the worst. Maybe the second prequel is better one. I didn’t like the third one at all.  When he did the three prequels, he was in a Lucas vacuum. No one saw the scripts [in advance], they were dreadful screenplays. I thought they seemed dry. They were medieval in terms of court intrigue. And it was a weird way to start out the story.”

Star Wars Darth Vader

Concerning the new sequel trilogy, which everyone hopes will be better than the prequels, Pollock revealed that they take place approximately 20 years after the events of the original trilogy.  This places Luke Skywalker in his late 30s or early to mid-40s.  Hamill, currently 61, will likely be replaced by a fresher face.  According to Pollock, Lucas' outlines will be an essential foundation of the upcoming trilogy:

“Writers will absolutely take his outline. That’s in part what Disney bought."

Supporting an original story is a recent report from E! Online whose inside source claims that Episode 7 will not be pulled from any of the existing Star Wars novels or anything the fans have come across before.

While I'm excited about the prospects of another Star Wars trilogy (something that not all fans are aligned on), I'm more pleased by the fact that Lucas is easy up on the reigns and  allowing Skywalker's story to be finished.  What I'm more interested in is the eventual broadening of the Star Wars films to include the myriad of storylines in the books, comics, TV series, etc.  This will allow Star Wars to continue in perpetuity with fresh talent cycling in to provide their own take on the universe, as well as continuing Lucas' creation and legacy long after he's gone.

Pollock researched his biography, "Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas," in the 80s and included some 80 interviews with Lucas, but the two had a falling out after Pollock published the book in 1999.

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