Star Wars: George Lucas Explains His Decision to Step Away
The name that will always come first for Star Wars will always be George Lucas. However, George Lucas recently decided to retire from filmmaking and sold the franchise and Lucasfilm to Walt Disney Studios. Recently, Lucas spoke to Vanity Fair and shared some of his reasoning behind his decision to step down from Star Wars and filmmaking. Lucas did admit the criticism from fans, likely from the widely derided Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, did get to him. He stated, “You go to make a movie and all you do is get criticized.” He added, “And it’s not much fun. You can’t experiment.”
The reins of Star Wars have no been handed off to a new creative team. J.J. Abrams is directing and co-writing the next installment in the franchise, Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens. In addition, Abrams will also produce future installments. Kathleen Kennedy became the new president of Lucasfilm and will be overseeing all future Star Wars sequels and anthology films.
Lucas did voice a concern for the future of the franchise saying he hopes that “the Force doesn’t get muddled into a bunch of gobbledygook.” That statement is sort of ironic considering that’s exactly what Lucas himself did with Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, which introduced the idea of Midi-chlorians to the franchise, and Midi-chlorians determining an individual’s Force powers and sensitivity. It was an idea that angered and annoyed a great deal of fans.
However, one statement that few would disagree with Lucas about the franchise is “There’s more to it than just spaceships.” That statement is Lucas’ advice to anyone making a new Star Wars film. You can check out the video of George Lucas speaking about Star Wars below. Star Wars: The Force Awakens arrives in theaters on December 18.