‘Star Wars’ Concept Artist Says The Han Solo Movie Is “By Far The Best Star Wars Script”
Star Wars: The Force Awakensconcept artistIain McCaigspoke earlier this month at the Art and Industry of Imagination conference in New Zealand, and apparently dropped some huge bits of information that had not shown up online until a report posted earlier today. Among them is a claim that after selling Lucasfilm to Disney,George Lucasdecided he wanted to be involved and wrote a script forEpisode VIIwhich was rejected by the Mouse House. He also has a glowing review ofLawrence Kasdan’sHan Solomovie script and much more.
The following details come from a report written by E.R. China forStarWarsNewsNet. We have not been able to find any other reports from this event anywhere, but we can corroborate that concept artist Iain McCaig spoke at the Art and Industry of Imagination conference in New Zealand on June 3rd and 4th.
McCaig says that Lawrence Kasdanactually wrote the scriptfor the Han Solo: A Star Wars Story standalone movie before he began work onEpisode VII, and that the screenplay is (paraphrasing):
By far the best Star Wars script, and one of the best scripts period, that I have ever read. I laughed, I cried, I did all the things you should do when reading a good script. You’re in for a treat.
Some very positive praise, even if it is coming from someone inside theStar Warsproductions. As for the opposite, the report suggests that McCaig was very negative about cutting Star Wars creator George Lucas out ofEpisode VII.
How Did George Lucas Get Cut Out of Episode VII?
George initially wanted nothing to do withEpisode VII, but changed his mind after pre-production began. According to the report, Lucas brought in McCaig and another prequel artist (possiblyDoug Chiang) to Skywalker Ranch to help him realize his concepts. Apparently this “script was rejected outright.”
This might seem like completely new information, but it’s very possible that the timeline of this story is not being presented in context.
Remember, Lucas has been previouslyquotedas saying the following:
The ones that I sold to Disney, they came up to the decision that they didn’t really want to do those. So they made up their own. So it’s not the ones that I originally wrote [on screen inStar Wars: The Force Awakens].
As for the reason they didn’t go with Lucas' take, it is now suggested that they wanted to distance themselves from the Star Wars prequels. According to the report of McCaig’s talk, Disney didn’t want to include anything mildly prequel-related including prequel-only characters, environments, etc. Of course, this is something we had heard in the past, but more specifically as a J.J. Abrams edict.
According to the report from this presentation, “a number of initial script ideas teased Anakin/Vader’s Force ghost’s involvement,” which again is something we saw in early concept art form inThe Art of The Force Awakensbook.
McCaig also supposedly spoke about Rey’s mysterious heritage, relaying a story about how Qui-Gon Jinn and Shmi Skywalker had a romantic affair in early drafts ofThe Phantom Menace, an idea whose remnants are still seen in the final film. He also teased that (paraphrasing) “though none of these prequel-related concepts were able to be used outright, these ideas remain in the Lucas ecosystem, and filter through.”
The report also claims that Disney executives were originally “reluctant to include non-Caucasian characters.” We know fromThe Art of The Force Awakensbook that the trio of new main characters were initially all Caucasian, and we’ve heard before thatJJ Abramswasvery adamantin bringing a multi-cultural cast to his film.
