The caption for this piece:

Rick (Carter, Co-Production Designer) said ‘What if the Emperor’s chamber has crash-landed after the second Death Star explosion?’ That doesn’t make any sense, but that’s when Rick knows he has something. He’ll say, ‘Exactly!’

And Doug Chiang drew one called Falcon Underwater:

Falcon Underwater by Doug Chiang. From April 2013.

And the caption for this piece:

Part of the journey of the story is that they take the Falcon, go underwater, and find the Emperor’s tower [laughs]. The Falcon is watertight because it’s airtight, so it can go underwater, right?

After those two pieces were done in April, The Art of The Last Jedi described the story thusly in May, with quotes from Doug Chiang:

“After Return of the Jedi, when the Empire fell, Luke went through a period of turmoil. He decides to reform the Jedi, Luke being the last. So he creates his own Jedi academy and recruits people.” One of Luke’s pupils was the character then known as the “Jedi Killer.” “Ultimately, he turns against Luke. There’s a big fight, and the Jedi Killer is wounded and cast aside. There’s this big through-line of the Jedi Killer wanting revenge on Luke. And that’s partly why he takes on this persona of Darth Vader: to haunt Luke.”

Some of this appears to have survived into the final film, as the map R2-D2 has in the movie that helps lead to the first Jedi Temple came from when he was hooked into the first Death Star in A New Hope.

Interestingly, the first teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker ends on the remains of one of the Death Stars sitting in a body of water. So it appears this idea has finally found its way to the screen. Right after that shot, the voice of Emperor Palpatine can be heard cackling. This wouldn’t be noteworthy here, except Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told MTV News that some of the ideas they are using now were around since the development of The Force Awakens.

That goes back to when we were talking about The Force Awakens and, you know, just the whole blueprint of where we’ve ended up now has kind of been in the works since then. — Kathleen Kennedy

She doesn’t say when, exactly, during the development of Episode VII it came up, but her mention of “the whole blueprint of where we’ve ended up now” sounds kind of like it could go back to the George Lucas days. He did turn over outlines for VII, VIII, and IX.

In an interview with Den of Geek about his role in Knightfall, the History Channel’s fictional series about the Knights Templar, Mark Hamill seems to say that he was told his role in the sequel trilogy would be bigger than what it has been.

That’s what I was hoping when I came back: no cameos and a run-of-the-trilogy contract. Did I get any of those things? Because as far as I’m concerned, the end of VII is really the beginning of VIII. I got one movie! They totally hornswoggled (tricked) me.

In 2016, the novel Star Wars: Bloodline was released. It focused on Princess Leia as a Senator six years before the events of The Force Awakens. In it, the Republic Senate is split between the Populists and Centrists. Leia is a Populist and forms a friendship with a Centrist, Ransolm Casterfo. Casterfo gets manipulated into revealing Leia’s true parentage. Around the release of the book, Pablo Hidalgo revealed that Casterfo was “ a character that existed, in various forms, in the earliest versions of the TFA story.”

Updates

(1/3/2018)

Just days after posting this, Lucasfilm Story Group member Pablo Hidalgo tweeted out some information about the early versions of Episode VII (Skyler is another name for the Sam/Finn character).

Skyler and Kira (and Kira wasn’t the first proposed name either; she had at least two others) became, after a fashion, Finn and Rey. The Jedi Killer morphed from Talon corrupting the son to becoming the son. Uber became Snoke. The starting point shifted. Yadda yada yada.

The son falling to the dark side was always in the mix. The movies just ended up having it already an established fact.

Skyler was the son in some versions. And as for how all that was gonna go down, that ain’t my story to tell.

And in 2016, he confirmed that Thea (Kira/Rey), Skyler, Darth Talon, and the planet of Felucia were in George’s plans.

(1/6/2018)

Added quote from Harrison Ford about George Lucas telling him during their first Episode VII related call that Han would die. Also added more information about the timeline.

(1/17/2018)

Added to the timeline thanks to a transcript of an interview with Michael Arndt.

(6/14/2018)

Added information and quotes from George about the inclusion of the Whills in his sequel trilogy.

(6/26/2018)

Added information from Mark Hamill about Luke training Leia in Episode IX before dying.

(11/28/2018)

Added concept painting from artist Christian Alzmann that received a “Fabulouso” stamp from George Lucas.

(11/30/2018)

Added mention of early ideas for the movie from an EW interview with J.J. Abrams.

(3/6/2019)

Added quote from Mark Hamill implying that he expected a bigger role in the trilogy.

(4/17/2019)

Added bits from the Episode IX trailer and subsequent Kathleen Kennedy interviews. And the brief summary of part of the plot circa May 2013. Also tweaked the information about the treatment Michael Arndt turned in to executives around the time of the sale. Vulture claimed it was for just Episode VII while Deadline said it was for VII, VIII, and XI.

(4/20/2019)

Added information about Ransolm Casterfo being in the earliest versions of The Force Awakens.

(7/30/2019)

Added quote from Michael Arndt describing his thoughts that Han would survive Episode VII.

(04/17/2020)

Cleaned up some information around the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney.

[1] The Art of The Force Awakens

[2] The Art of The Last Jedi

[3] The Secrets of The Force Awakens: A Cinematic Journey (Blu-ray/DVD Documentary)