What Could Have Been / Revenge of the Sith

• Star Wars III: Fall of the Republic, by John L. Flynn, was a script that a fan offered to sell to Lucas in 1983. Nowadays it's mainly a curiosity, although some believe it might have inspired Lucas to some degree.
• Ahmed Best has stated that Lucas, explicitly after deciding by that point that Jar Jar Binks was "just a politician", planned to include a scene where Palpatine mockingly thanked him for granting him the emergency powers in the first place before crowning himself emperor. Best himself wanted Jar Jar to die in the film so that he'd be given a dramatic send-off, but Lucas vetoed it.
• In the original script, Dooku begged for his life after Anakin defeated him. Christopher Lee felt this would have been an Out-of-Character Moment for him, and Lucas agreed, rewriting the scene.
• There are a good amount of scenes that were not included in the final film, or even finished. These included two death scenes filmed for Shaak Ti (in the first, captured alongside Palpatine and executed by Grievous; in the second, killed by Anakin in the Temple massacre) which were both discarded,^note As far as the storyline goes, it was confirmed by Star Wars Insider 87 that neither scene was canonical, and that she actually survived Order 66; the video game The Force Unleashed took advantage of this by turning her into a boss. After the Disney reboot, the second death scene — where Anakin kills her at the Jedi Temple — was eventually confirmed to be canon (which at least aligns better with Clone Wars as she was not captured on Coruscant). Anakin and Obi-Wan treading through the sewers on Grievous' flagship, Wat Tambor's death by Darth Vader in Mustafar,^note Though in the final cut, he can be seen hiding in the conference room of the factory, and images of the scene were featured in Revenge of the Sith merchandise. an entire subplot of Padmé holding meetings with Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, and other senators to plan the birth of the Rebel Alliance, and a 30-second scene of Yoda arriving on Dagobah.
• Anakin had Concept Art involving having a mohawk and tattoos. George Lucas rejected that because he felt it was "Too Much". Hayden was originally going to have long hair in a ponytail, but felt uncomfortable because it made him look "Too Pretty".
• The creation of Grievous' character was entirely left by Lucas to the art department, which conceived a handful of versions of him. One of their ideas was a Creepy Child strikingly similar to a young version of Thrawn who would move around on a floating chair and followed by two IG-88 bodyguards, but Lucas shot it down for being hard to take seriously. The next concepts were equally creative: a fairy-like female warrior wielding a scythe, a muscled alien cyborg with a three-eyed mask, an alien in organic-looking armor, a floating alien head with tentacles, and a huge, dark cyborg echoing Darth Vader himself. Even after they settled for the final concept, his earliest design was discarded and repurposed as Grievous' electrical staff-wielding IG-100 MagnaGuards. The final Grevious still served as a foreshadowing of Vader, although in a more remote way. One possibility even had Grievous being a rebuilt version of Darth Maul, now reduced to purely cybernetics after his apparent death at Obi-Wan's hands in The Phantom Menace.
• Speaking of Grievous, Gary Oldman was apparently intended to voice him, but Lucas' departure from the Director's Guild of America many years earlier prevented Oldman from taking part without legal action. It was also rumored that John Rhys-Davies was considered.
• The film would have solved the mystery of Sifo-Dyas, but Lucas changed his mind when he realized the subplot had become irrelevant by this point of the story, was kind of implicit already, and would have inflated even more the film's plot. He instead tasked James Luceno with revealing it in the lead-in novel Labyrinth of Evil.
• Count Dooku was originally going to survive until the midpoint of the film, with his death being the final push Anakin needed to join the Dark Side rather than Mace Windu's. His death was instead moved to the opening sequence, which had changed from its original conception (seven battles on seven different planets showcasing the fury of the Clone Wars, rather than Palpatine being kidnapped by Dooku and Grievous).
• The Chancellor's Rodian aide from Attack of the Clones and two senate guards were to make cameos with Palpatine before the Jedi Masters arrived. These were cut before filming.
• The actual kidnapping of Palpatine was present in the early drafts of the film, but it was cut and passed over to be depicted in Labyrinth of Evil and Star Wars: Clone Wars. The opening battle was originally over 45 minutes in length even after they cut out that part, including the aforementioned first Shaak Ti death scene. Part of the extra footage ended up in the video game of the film.
• Palpatine was going to have much more dialogue while witnessing Anakin and Dooku's duel. He would have shouted to Anakin that Dooku revealed to him he paid the Tuskens to murder Shmi Skywalker.
• As Lucas was fond of the Dark Horse Star Wars: Republic comic books, he tried to get the character of Quinlan Vos in the film as he had done with Aayla Secura in the previous installment. He wrote a scene with him in Kashyyyk during Order 66, but it ended up cut from the script and never went beyond that. Still, Vos and his mission in Boz Pity are mentioned by Obi-Wan in the film's final cut.
• If Shaak Ti's death by Grievous had made it in, Tsui Choi from the Dark Horse comics would've been shown taking her place on the Jedi Council. The idea was dropped after the scene was cut, but unlike Vos, Choi still has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo on Kashyyyk, riding a flying can-cell beast.
• Padmé originally had a much larger role talking with other senators about opposing Palpatine's increasing accumulation of power, the "delegation of 2,000". Officially this remains canon, and was the early beginnings of the Rebel Alliance as many of the same senators became Rebel leaders like Mon Mothma and Bail Organa, but was cut because it was a subplot that couldn't go anywhere and it was just a few more political meetings. Genevieve O'Reilly as Mon Mothma ended up a Deleted Role in this film, but was brought back to play the character in Rogue One.
• Lucas considered having Han Solo appear as a young boy raised by Chewbacca, but decided against it due to the improbability of it and the plot hole that would be created by young Han knowing of and interacting with the Jedi, yet not believing in the Force as an adult (which is already kind of incoherent, given how known the Jedi were at that time nonetheless, though not as blatant). Concept art for this can be found in the Art of Revenge of the Sith book and is reproduced here.
• The original script, as reflected in the book The Making of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, revealed that Palpatine used the power of the Force to will the midi-chlorians to start the cell divisions that created Anakin, as part of an evil scheme to breed the perfect Sith. The conversation between them at the theater ended with Palpatine saying "You might say I'm your father." Palpatine's role at this was replaced in the Legends canon by Darth Plagueis', but the idea of him being Anakin's "creator" would be still teased by Disney in the comic book series Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith 13 years later (albeit executives clarified it was all a vision by Vader).
• There exists concept art of a teenage Boba Fett killing Mace Windu during Order 66. Windu's killer was changed to Palpatine, as Lucas felt Boba was far too young to believably pose a challenge to such a powerful Jedi Master. This plot idea was used for the Legends young reader series Boba Fett as well as the season two finale of The Clone Wars, though Windu obviously avoided the kill.
• Two of the Jedi Masters who accompany Mace Windu and died during the unsuccessful arrest of Palpatine were originally meant to be killed during Order 66. Specifically, Saesee Tiin was supposed to accompany Ki-Adi-Mundi at Mygeeto and be killed alongside him, while Kit Fisto was to die along with two Jedi that were ultimately cut from the film on Saleucami (where Stass Allie was ultimately killed in the finished picture).
• The first version of the duel in Palpatine's office was completely different. Anakin was originally supposed to be present and just watch during the entire duel, with Palpatine even having stolen Anakin's lightsaber in order to fight, and the point of the scene would have been Anakin debating on which side he was going to choose. However, they figured that Anakin simply watching the fight could be interpreted as that he had already made his choice, so it all had to be entirely reshot, adding the moment where Anakin and Padmé "watch" each other across Coruscant to make him arrive later. Also, as mentioned by a Lucasfilm executive, the original cut made it fairly clear Palpatine was playing up being helpless to get Anakin to side with him, while the reshot version left it ambiguous whether he was playing up, really beaten or mostly beaten yet playing it up anyway.
• Furthermore, the fight between Windu and Palpatine was supposed to be an all-over-the-place masterpiece, but due to Lucas wanting Ian McDiarmid to do as many of his own stunts as possible (odd, considering his predilection for digital effects, and the fight later on in the movie between Palpatine and Yoda) it was reduced to, largely, Windu forcing Palpatine down the hallway and then a skirmish in the office's center before Anakin showed up.
• Originally, when Yoda and Obi-Wan rush to the Jedi Temple following Order 66, they were to be confronted by clone troopers disguised as Jedi. A promotional image of such a trooper can be found as a bonus feature on the DVD release, whilst they appear as playable characters in LEGO Star Wars.
• Nute Gunray's demise was somewhat different in the original screenplay. In a desperate attempt to kill Vader, Gunray would've summoned a group of droidekas to open fire on him as he was killing the other Separatist leaders. When the smoke cleared, Vader was presumably killed... only for him to appear from the roof and destroy the droidekas before beheading Gunray. This explains why, in the finished film, Gunray flinched in shock when Vader went to him; he had thought the droids had killed him.
• A scene of Wat Tambor getting stabbed in the stomach by Vader at Mustafar was filmed, but cut for being too violent (though the final film had Tambor visibly hiding in the conference room). Two stills from the scene were used in promotional material, and one of the stills were drawn for the comic book adaptation.
• A glimpse at the original backstory as seen in the novelization of Return of the Jedi (as well as strongly implied by Leia's lines in said film) shows us that her mother, who is now known to be Padmé, was originally meant to survive Anakin's turn to the Dark Side.
• The scene on Mustafar where Padmé and Anakin meet was supposed to be different. Anakin would've been wielding what seems like his red lightsaber from the OT, Padmé would have already given birth before going to Mustafar and would've been wearing different clothes, and most of all, Padmé would've pulled a dagger on Anakin after embracing him, having come to the conclusion that Anakin was dead and that Vader needed to die, only to find herself unable to kill the man she loved. It was this act, rather than simply seeing Obi-Wan, that would convince Anakin that Padmé had "betrayed" him and prompt him force-choke her. Concept art depicting this version of the scene can be seen here◊.
• There was also a version of the ending in which Anakin was already wearing the Darth Vader armour, and it would be believed that Darth Vader had "betrayed and murdered" Anakin Skywalker, just like Obi-Wan said in A New Hope. It's probably because of the hasty retcon in Jedi that this was changed, although this was another reason why Padmé was trying to kill Vader, believing he was responsible for her husband's death, while Vader himself was simply blinded by the Dark Side and his own rage and didn't know who he was fighting.
• The Return of the Jedi novelization also said Anakin fell into a pool of lava. In the movie, he doesn't actually touch the lava, but the fumes are hot enough to set his clothes on fire. This may have been changed to make Anakin's survival a bit more plausible.
• The white dress and cape worn by Bail Organa's aide, Sheltay Retrac, was originally designed for Padmé; it was instead assigned to Sheltay because Padmé's outfits needed to be more voluminous to hide her pregnancy.
• One idea raised for Padmé was that she would become temporarily Force-sensitive while pregnant, and even surpass Anakin in power for a time due to carrying twins that equal him in strength.

---