Lucasfilm

The year is 1977 and George Lucas has just released Star Wars. All those years spent painstakingly creating the effects and fine-tuning his perplexing scripts have been worth it; the film is adored by audiences, has redefined how studios approach the box office and will go on to get nominated for some serious Academy Awards (including Best Original Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture).

With Marvel already keen to represent the galaxy far, far away in comic book form and a sequel an inevitability, Lucas sat down to set out the greater scope of the world. Writing short monologues in first person view from the characters, they set up the context of the world or the previously unconsidered back-stories. These early musings in the immediate success of Star Wars (still yet to acquire its Episode IV: A New Hope subtitle) became the bible by which the immediately following films and Expanded Universe material followed.

Now available in the incomparable The Making Of Star Wars coffee table book, looking back on those early notes makes an interesting read. In the year's since the original trilogy (and in some cases even before that ended), ideas have been slowly dropped from official continuity.

But while there's lots of little thing in Lucas notes that no longer apply to the saga, whats really remarkable is how many of the ideas that would go on to define the less-beloved prequels have their roots here. Altered to some degree by story requirements, they're shockingly on point with the trilogy's broad strokes. Here are eight unbelievable prequel moments George Lucas had envisioned way back in 1977.