Reader Gary sent us the following pieces from an 'Empire' magazine interview with George Lucas on the day after the UK premiere of TPM. There are Episode 1 spoilers, so highlight to read.

Lucas: The next film is a love story and I don't know how that is going to be taken by the fans

Lucas: And then the third film is very, very, very dark. It's not a happy movie by any stretch of the imagination. It's a tragedy.

Lucas: Ultimately the final story is between Yoda, Obi-Wan, Anakin and the Queen. It's really their story. Those four characters.

Lucas: At one point, when Obi-Wan kills Darth Maul, he just fell into the pit. I looked at it and thought this isn't going to work because, if people like him enough, they are going to want him to come back and they're going to assume somehow he gets out of it. So I had to cut him in half to say this guy's gone, he's history, he ain't coming back. I'll come up with another apprentice. The whole issue of having apprentices, poor Darth Sidious trying to replenish his apprentice supply, is one of the main plot points.

Empire: In Episode IV, R2-D2 and C-3PO land on Tatooine and haven't got a clue where they are. Yet in the Phantom Menace R2 travels to Tatooine and C-3PO was built there. How so?

Lucas: How so? That will all be coming up. There's a lot of little things that'll be cleared up. The other one that gets asked a lot is why doesn't Qui-Gon disappear like everybody else? That's a plot point that centres around Obi-Wan saying to Vader/Anakin in the first one, "If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." There is an issue about the Force and that will be revealed.

Empire: Does this sort of retro reading get on your nerves?

Lucas: A lot of it is just nitpicky. Most people just don't care about that stuff. There's a lot of things that will be explained more. Some of it is important plot stuff - the Qui-Gon one is, 3PO isn't.

If anyone has a scan of the article, we'd love to see it.