Almost as quickly as production finished on Attack of the Clones, the writing process for the second film began. By 1996, Kasdan had produced a rough draft of the next film. Then entitled, Star Wars: The Retaliation, Kasdan’s original draft is fairly similar to the film that was eventually released. Even as early as the final draft of Episode I was written, Lucas and Kasdan had decided to turn Lord Panaka into a villain of sorts. That decision had colored the casting process. Reportedly, Christopher Eccleston received the role because of his ability to portray both the sympathetic and distasteful parts of the Panaka character. As Spielberg noted in an interview shortly before the release of Revenge of the Sith, “Panaka couldn’t be a complete moustache twirling sort of character. No, he had to be sympathetic. The audience is supposed to know he’s wrong, but still respect him for why he’s wrong. I know, that’s a bit confusing. He’s a very noble sort of villain. He’s a tragic figure in his own right. And I think it’s a really good thing we had the actor playing him we did. In other hands, I don’t know if it would have turned out as well.”
The 1996 draft varies in several key respects from the final product. In reading the early notes about the planned second movie, one if struck by how disjointed it seems. The first draft is essentially an attempt to tell two movies at once. Unlike in the final product, the proposed draft does a poor job of connecting its two major threads. As in the actual Revenge of the Sith, those two major threads are Anakin’s story-which mainly involves the fate of Utapau and Queen Padme, and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s attempt to ward off an invasion of Aldeeraan. The difference is that in this draft, the two fights are not as intimately connected as they are in the film that was released in 2000. The other difference, between this draft and the final product that one immediately notices is how different the Sebulba character is in this draft.
Here, his personality is almost indistinguishable from that of Han Solo. Indeed, if anything, the original draft’s Sebulba was meaner than Harrison Ford’s character ever was in the original trilogy. At one point, he threatens to kill Anakin outright, and the circumstances are such that there is no reason to suspect that he is making an idle threat. The Sebulba character would be a major point of contention while the script for the second film was being written.
From the earliest period in Revenge of the Sith's pre-preproduction George Lucas was insisting upon an all CGI character that would play a major part in the plot. It was clear that such a character would appear, the idea of a CGI character was one thing from which Lucas would not budge. There was no question that a prominent all CGI character would appear in the film. The only question was who that character would be. Early on, the proposed character was given the name Sebulba, but in the first notes and drafts, there was precious little consensus on precisely who or what Sebulba was supposed to be. In some drafts, he was an almost villainous character, in others he’s a slapstick transplant, in still others, he’s Panaka’s even more ambivalent right hand man.
Everyone who had a major role in determining such things had different views on the matter. Kasdan wanted Sebulba to be akin to Han Solo, as we see in Kasdan’s draft. Lucas wanted a more farcical approach. Lucas wanted Sebulba to be a kind of slapstick comedy character. It was not one of Lucas’ best ideas. Indeed, it was akin to his one-time insistence that C-3PO ought to be played like a used car salesmen stereotype. Spielberg, on the other hand, had his own ideas concerning Sebulba. Partially he agreed with Lucas, he wanted Sebulba to be a far more innocent character than Kasdan originally envisioned. Spielberg reportedly thought of Sebulba as a representation of Anakin’s lost innocence. In effect, Spielberg thought of Sebulba as what Anakin had been before he was a Jedi.
The film’s director disagreed with both Lucas and Kasdan. Spielberg wanted Sebulba to have a certain degree of dignity to him, even if he were used at points in the film as comic relief. He claimed that having an outright slapstick character now, with tensions in the plot being what they were, would simply distract the audience. Comic relief was one thing, but if Sebulba was too comedic, the film might suffer from tonal whiplash. Lucas disagreed, arguing that the slapstick involved in Sebulba’s character was essential for establishing the calm before the storm element in the second film. He argued that the impression of lightening tension, of recovery, in short, that the situation was improving, ought to be given by the second film in order to emphasize the tragedy in the final film the trilogy. While there was general agreement that the film should be more optimistic in tone than the first film had been, there was disagreement over whether to use Sebulba to actually create that more optimistic tone. He also disagreed with Kasdan, arguing that Sebulba should not be too similar to any character who had already appeared. Spielberg believed that Kasdan's conception was simply too close to Han Solo, and reading Kasdan's original draft, it is easy to see how he came to that conclusion.
While the general plot was decided upon relatively quickly, deciding upon Sebulba took a considerable amount of time. All of that consideration was probably for the best. Today Sebulba remains one of the more popular characters from the prequels, and he has a prominent place in the expanded universe along with the rest of his species. Conceivably, the too many cooks situation could have hurt his character immensely had no real consensus been reached. But of course, a consensus was reached, and no member of the production tried to sabotage that vision. Once the Sebulba character had been decided upon, the other elements in the plot began to fall into place. While Owen and Beru would not be appearing in the film, the rest of the major cast from the first film would be reprising their roles. Aside from the voice casting for Sebulba, the only major new casting decision would be who would play the part of Bail Organa. It was a decision that would merit intense consideration given the importance of Organa in the film’s proposed plot.