October 30 is mostly known for Halloween as most of us love to dress up, let our hair down, and have fun whether it’s with movies, candy, or both.
It’s also the date that for many Star Wars fans, it marks the day Star Wars died.
On this day in 2012, George Lucas signed over Star Wars to Disney’s boss Bob Iger for $4 billion, and Lucas quickly turned around and donated most if not all of the sum to charity.
This sale also came after Lucas stated in an interview it was the end of the line for the Skywalker storyline but he’d be open to offshoot movies involving other characters.
We have to be fair and give credit to the fans that enjoy Disney’s version. To each their own and we’re glad they enjoy them.
Unfortunately for many of us, they didn’t stay in line with what Lucas created and the scripts were bad with brief moments of fun.
The fact the movies have been losing money shows fans have been checking out and Disney’s hope relies on those that have remained true to Lucas’ vision to an extent if shows like the Mandalorian and Ahsoka.
At least, until others become involved like we expect them to for a repeat of Mandalorian season three. As for the movies, no one cares about Rey so that’s going to be an interesting trilogy to watch for the reactions to it.
Why did George Lucas sell Lucasfilm in 2012? He tells me why in this extract from my new book The #StarWars Archives Eps I-III. My unboxing video here: https://t.co/M907YGZsjm pic.twitter.com/MEPRStOil8
— Paul Duncan (@kershed) December 3, 2020
Why, George, why?
As to why Lucas sold the property and handed over a detailed overview of his vision for the next trilogy that Disney scrapped, he explained his reasoning with writer Paul Duncan, who shared the screen cap of their interview on Twitter/X (Shared above.)
For Lucas, he started getting ready for the next trilogy, but they take ten years and he was 69 and had a new baby arriving, so he chose his family over his other baby.
“At that time I was starting the next trilogy; I talked to the actors and I was starting to gear up. I was also about to have a daughter with my wife. It takes 10 years to make a trilogy – ‘Episodes I ‘ to ‘III’ took from 1995 to 2005,” Lucas explained on the time-demanding effort of building up a Star Wars trilogy. “I’d still be working on ‘Episode IX!’ In 2012, I was 69. So the question was am I going to keep doing this the rest of my life? Do I want to go through this again? Finally, I decided I’d rather raise my daughter and enjoy life for a while.
“I could have not sold Lucasfilm and gotten somebody to run the productions, but that isn’t retiring. On ‘The Empire Strikes Back‘ and ‘Return of the Jedi‘ I tried to stay out of the way but I couldn’t. I was there every day. Even though the people were friends of mine and they did great work, it wasn’t the same as me doing it. It was like being once removed. I knew that probably wouldn’t work again, that I’d be frustrated.
“I’m one of those micro-manger guys and I can’t help it. So I figured I would forgo that, enjoy what I had and I was looking forward to raising my daughter. Also, I wanted to build a museum, which I’d always wanted to do, so I was thinking, ‘If I don’t do this now, I’ll never get that done.’”
There have been times he hasn’t seemed happy with the direction Disney took his franchise and characters, and he said it was painful giving up Star Wars and then being excluded from it.
“I’ve spent my life creating ‘Star Wars’ – 40 years – and giving it up was very, very painful But it was the right thing to do.
“I thought I was going to have a little bit more to say about the next three because I’d already started them, but they decided they wanted to do something else. Things don’t always work the way you want it. Life is like that.”
We can’t fault his reasoning, and given the character assassination on Luke, killing Han off recklessly, and just sloppy writing in general, fans are eternally hopeful he’ll buy back the property, though that’s almost a guaranteed no.
What do you think? Would you like to see Lucas’ original ideas for the next trilogy? Let us know in the comments below.
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