Via Digitalspy.com:

Everyone knows the sequel to Star Wars: A New Hope (or just Star Wars for the purists out there) is The Empire Strikes Back, widely held to be the best in the original trilogy, more mature and complex than the first one and made before George Lucas went merchandise- and Ewok-crazy in Return of the Jedi.

But before Empire, a very different second Star Wars movie was planned. Allows us to introduce you to Splinter of the Mind’s Eye.

Splinter was an exercise in caution on Lucas’s part. It was written by Alan Dean Foster, the author who was brought in to work on the novelisation of the first film, and was designed to be deliberately simple in its setting and scope. If A New Hope was a flop, it could be used as the basis for a low-budget sequel, and if it was a success (as it of course turned out to be), then Splinter of the Mind’s Eye could be released as a novel to tide fans over until the next film.

And no, we’re still not clear on why they were still planning a sequel should the first film flop – presumably Lucas thought the studio would let him continue playing in the Star Wars universe if the budget was low enough.

Click below to read the full article.