The original Episode I idea

[ChrisIII]

So I think according to Gary Kurtz one of the original concepts for Episode I was to largely sort of focus on the roots of the Star Wars galaxy/Jedi/Sith/Republic and that the Anakin/Obi-Wan story wouldn't happen until Episode II and wrap up in Episode III. This was back before Kurtz was fired for ESB's budget issues, there was kind of a basic outline for a 9-part saga etc.

Seems like we kind of got this a bit with the finished Episode I, especially in the first half. Obi-Wan is largely a supporting character for most of the film, and Anakin isn't introduced until more than a half hour in (Then again even Luke didn't appear right away in the first movie, although Lucas did intend to introduce him earlier with the deleted Anchorhead/Biggs scenes). So in many ways their story doesn't really start until II anyway. Even Lucas has admitted that most of the story he wanted to tell is in the last two films I think and Episode I had a lot of 'filler'.

Seems that original idea might be what James Mangold is going for (and was also the idea behind the "Dawn of the Jedi" comics and novels).

[Bruce Wayne]

I think you need to understand that a lot of these ideas are more specificaly Kurtz's own ideas of how the PT and ST would play out. They are not necessarily Lucas's ideas given that Lucas's ideas were always changing with for example Leia being the other Skywalker sibling and playing a greater role in the sequels while Kurtz had her written out in his version of ROTJ. You could argue they were probably a snapshot during the production of ESB, but even in ANH it's not clear if Vader being Anakin was set in stone yet. There's some evidence that Lucas was playing with the idea during ANH since David Prowse (Vader's suit act) thought this was true. So the ideas of plans for future films were always up in the air. I seriously doubt Lucas in the 2000s even had an idea of Darth Maul coming back from the dead after TPM and being the main villain for the sequels until after the production of TCW. A lot of the films are due to contingency for example Dooku being the big villain in Clone Wars was probably due to getting Christopher Lee.

Seems like we kind of got this a bit with the finished Episode I, especially in the first half. Obi-Wan is largely a supporting character for most of the film, and Anakin isn't introduced until more than a half hour in

Because Qui-Gon took a lot of screetime meant for Obi-Wan. In fact, it's very likely a lot of Qui-Gon's material was meant for Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon (and Count Dooku in AOTC) were probably written into these films specifically because Lucas wanted to work with Liam Neeson and Christopher Lee. For example there's very little concept art of these two characters and there's a lot of concept art of only Obi-Wan alone for example negotiating with the Trade Federation (https://i.imgur.com/VbhxFQF.jpg) or on Naboo escaping from the droids (https://i.imgur.com/Cm878i0l.png).

[ChrisIII]

From what is available from early AOTC plans it seems like Lucas was considering another Maul-esque villain (which eventually became Ventress, Kit Fisto, maybe a bit of Grievous too) as Palpatine's new Sith apprentice and Dooku might've been intended as a Tarkin type.

It looks like the Lee casting merged the two characters into one and the role of the action-heavy villain/Sith henchman is largely taken up by Jango in the film.

Vader I think was born out a similar idea, merging some of the separate villain characters together.