Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (project)
After the "Unleashed" franchise was discontinued following Disney's decision to refresh the "Star Wars" canon in favor of producing a sequel trilogy, Sam Witwer, Marek's voice actor, revealed that Dave Filoni, the creator of the "Star Wars Rebels" animated series, considered bringing Marek back into the new canon and having him appear in that series, but ultimately decided against it because he could not find a way to do so without compromising either the new canon's quality or the character's unique distinctions.
List of Star Wars films and television series
The original "Star Wars" film opens with a Rebel spaceship being intercepted by the Empire above the desert planet of Tatooine. Aboard, the deadliest Imperial agent Darth Vader and his stormtroopers capture Princess Leia Organa, a secret member of the rebellion. Before her capture, Leia makes sure the droid R2-D2 will escape with stolen Imperial blueprints and a holographic message for the Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, who has been living in exile on Tatooine. Along with , R2-D2 falls under the ownership of Luke Skywalker, a farmboy who has been raised by his aunt and uncle. Luke helps the droids locate Obi-Wan, now a solitary old hermit known as Ben Kenobi. He reveals himself as a friend of Luke's absent father, Anakin Skywalker, who was Obi-Wan's Jedi apprentice until being murdered by Vader. He tells Luke he must also become a Jedi. After discovering his family's homestead has been destroyed by the Empire, they hire the smuggler Han Solo, his Wookiee Chewbacca and their space freighter, the "Millennium Falcon". They discover that Leia's homeworld of Alderaan has been destroyed, and are soon captured by the planet-destroying Death Star. While Obi-Wan disables its tractor beam, Luke and Han rescue the captive Princess Leia. Finally, they deliver the Death Star plans to the Rebel Alliance with the hope of exploiting a weakness.
The first rough draft, titled "The Star Wars", introduced "the Force" and the young hero Luke Starkiller. Annikin appeared as Luke's father, a wise Jedi knight. The third draft replaced (a deceased) Annikin with Ben Kenobi. Some months later, Lucas had negotiated a contract that gave him rights to two sequels. By 1976, a fourth draft had been prepared for principal photography. The film was titled "The Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars". During production, Lucas changed Luke's name to Skywalker and shortened the title to "The Star Wars", and finally just "Star Wars". At that point, Lucas was not expecting the film to warrant full-scale sequels. The fourth draft of the script underwent subtle changes to become a self-contained story ending with the destruction of the Empire in the Death Star. The intention was that if the film was successful, Lucas could adapt Foster's novels into low-budget sequels. By that point, Lucas had developed a tentative backstory to aid in developing the saga.
"Star Wars" exceeded all expectations. The success of the film and its merchandise sales led Lucas to make "Star Wars" the basis of an elaborate film serial, and use the profits to finance his filmmaking center, Skywalker Ranch. After the release of the first sequel, the original film was subtitled "Episode IV: A New Hope" for a rerelease in 1981.