Devoted ‘Star Wars’ fans were rewarded with a new era of lore, characters and locations when Lucasfilm released ‘The Force Awakens’ in 2015. While franchise admirers were initially shocked when Disney acquired the film production company in 2012, and later announced its decision to make a new ‘Star Wars’ trilogy, viewers received another recent surprise. Lucasfilm has unveiled new ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens‘ concept art that reveals that Jakku was originally designed to be a junk planet instead of a desert planet.
The new concept art for the seventh film installment of the beloved action-adventure franchise was shared on the official ‘Star Wars’ Instagram page yesterday by Lucasfilm. The images, which are credited to concept artist Erik Tiemens, reveal what Jakku was initially supposed to be a cold and desolate planet, instead of the desert planet seen in the initial entry in the third ‘Star Wars’ trilogy.
Screen Rant points out that much like Raxus Prime, Jakku was originally supposed to be a waste-covered planet. However, the creative members who were working on ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ decided to change Jakku’s purpose. The team initially considered the possibility of turning Jakku into a jungle planet, much like the forest moon Endor. But the filmmakers eventually decided to make the planet’s environment more similar to a desert. The filmmakers also considered having a crashed Imperial space station on Jakku, before deciding to use the crashed Star Destroyer Inflictor instead.
The idea of including a junk-filled Jakku in ‘The Force Awakens’ was meant to avoid raising fans’ concerns about the filmmakers rehashing old stories and themes that were prevalent in ‘A New Hope,’ the first installment in the ‘Star Wars’ film series. But the final version of the planet that’s presented in ‘Episode VII’ instead serves as a reminder of what the original ‘Star Wars’ trilogy was, and now the franchise can be taken in a new direction.
The upcoming eighth episode in the acclaimed franchise, ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi,’ was written and directed by ‘Looper’ scribe-helmer, Rian Johnson. The anticipated follow-up to ‘The Force Awakens,’ which was directed by J. J. Abrams, is set to be released in theaters on December 15. The epic fantasy film stars Daisy Ridley, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Andy Serkis, Benicio del Toro, Laura Dern and Kelly Marie Tran.