ScalziThis is how old I am: I will NEVER call the first Star Wars film "A New Hope," get your bullshit retcon away from me, it is and always shall be Star Wars, forever and ever amen
Jay Blanc@scalzi Oh so so many movies where "It was always meant to be a trilogy" when no, no it clearly was not. Star Wars, Back to the Future, The Matrix...
JdeBPEven though Lucas changed his tune several times as to how many movies he had envisaged, having in magazine interviews et al. even by the 1980s told stories of originally intending 6, 9, or even 12 movies; I think that we can be confident that he *had* always intended more than one movie.
He just didn't expect to get backing for a sequel at the time that he finally got to do the first one.
The original Star Wars was always intended as a pastiche of the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials. Hence the title crawl, and resurrecting the long out of fashion wipe transitions. This was an affectation of being one of many serial episodes.
There was no plan for a sequel. Empire being written almost entirely by Leigh Bracket on a very light synopsis, and originally being a more self contained story. Then Lucas redrafted it to add "I am your father" pivoting the franchise.
On the contrary, there was definitely a plan for a sequel back in 1975 when it was 'Episode One: The Star Wars', to become 'Saga 1' in 1976, of 'The Adventures of Luke Starkiller'.
In 1978, TIME reported:
> Lucas has set up four corporations: Star Wars Corp. will make Star Wars II and the ten, count ’em, ten other planned sequels;
There are a few versions of the tale told by Lucas, ranging from 6 movies to 12 movies, but they have never involved a plan for just 1 movie. The 1980 Prevue interview, for example, talks of having to rewrite the then story into chapters, the first of which became the first movie.