WI "Return of the Jedi" was darker

I think it would have paved the way for more Star Wars sequels immediately after ROTJ, directed by someone else. Lucas hated working on the original Star Wars trilogy as it consumed too much of his time and caused his bitter divorce. After ESB was released, Lucas had already decided that he didn't want to do another Star Wars movie ever again and so, made sure that ROTJ resolved all plot points cleanly and had an uplifting, happy ending.

With ROTJ being darker and less resolved, as Kurtz wanted, there would have been even more pressure on Lucas to continue the saga and resolve the issues. Lucas, already fed up with Star Wars, would finally relent but give all control away (or even sell Star Wars to someone else).

How would these sequels do? Whether done well or badly, I think they would eventually kill the Star Wars universe since people had already tired of the Star Wars universe and wanted to move on to other things. Star Wars made a comeback since the 90s because of nostalgia. Already having a series of sequels to ROTJ immediately released would have ruined that.
While this still makes a lot of sense, I still can't help but think Lucasfilm would do the prequels before continuing with more sequels (unless ROTJ was really open ended).
 
While this still makes a lot of sense, I still can't help but think Lucasfilm would do the prequels before continuing with more sequels (unless ROTJ was really open ended).

Originally, he planned a prequel trilogy and a sequel trilogy. The Emperor was supposed to be finally defeated by Episode IX, not ROTJ. However, he then didn't want to do anything with Star Wars. Once time has passed and he recovered from his bitter divorce, he planned again a prequel trilogy while someone else would do the sequel trilogy. The success of Zahn's sequel trilogy books encouraged Lucas to get started with the prequels.
 
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