Boba Fett Was Originally Meant To Be The Main Villain in Star Wars: Return of The Jedi

During the early development of Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi, there were already plans for three more films that would center on Luke Skywalker going after Darth Vader and the Emperor. That was the original story arc for Episodes 7-9, and that means Return of the Jedi's plot would have been completely different.

In a recent interview with Inverse, former Lucasfilm film fan relations officer Craig Miller revealed that Return of the Jedi would have focused more on Boba Fett as the main villain and Han Solo as the hero. Miller explained:

"Originally Boba Fett was set up inEmpireas a character, and the third movie's plot was going to be more about Boba Fett, rescuing Han Solo and all of that. Boba was gonna be the main villain… That was set up, why he was taking Han Solo away, why there was a thing with him in the Christmas special."

Plans for the Boba Fett story were scrapped after the second original trilogy of films was canceled. Miller said:

"When George decided not to make a third trilogy, he completely jettisoned that story line, which is why in the first ten minutes, Boba Fett gets bumped into and falls into the mouth of a giant monster. So he took what was planned for the third trilogy, which was the confrontation between Luke and Darth Vader, and the battle with the Emperor, and that got squished down from three movies to one movie. And that became the plot of Jedi."

So why did Geore Lucas dropped his plans to make more Star Wars films? He lost interest in it.

"At first there was one film, and then George originally announced that it was one of 12, and there were going to be 12, and then that changed to, oh there was never 12, there was only 9, and he was going to make 9. And then during all of it, George kind of lost interest in continuing it… While we were working onThe Empire Strikes Back, George decided he was going to complete the first film trilogy and that would be it."

Lucas went on to say that he's going to retire from making big movies to focus on making experimental films.

"And I remember sitting in a mixing room with George, working onEmpire, and he told me he was just going to make the third movie, which didn't have a title at that point, and then stop. He was going to retire from making big movies and make experimental movies. And that's why the whole plot of the third movie, what becameReturn of the Jedi, completely changed."

We've heard Lucas talk about it before, but I guess we'll never see those "experimental films" since he said that he will never release them.