George Lucas continues to let people know that Disney’s Star Wars is not his version of Star Wars. To George Lucas, Star Wars was the six films he created as well as any spinoffs he oversaw.
While not as harsh with his criticism of Disney’s Star Wars as he’d been in the past (he infamously called Disney “white slavers” on the Charlie Rose show a few years ago) it’s still clear that he’s not really a fan of where Disney has taken that galaxy far, far away.
The subject of Disney’s handling of Star Wars came up during a Zoom call to a bunch of school kids, weirdly enough. Lucas, along with his wife, Starbucks chairwoman and Co-CEO of Ariel Investments Mellody Hobson, took part in a Virtual Speaker Series for The East Harlem School At Exodus House.
A 7th grader named Jeremiah asked “The world has changed so much since the first Star Wars movie, how do you think the changes in the fight for racial justice will impact the Star Wars universe going forward?”
Lucas responds with “I don’t know, I mean, I kind of lost control of Star Wars, so it’s going off in a different path than what I intended. But the first six are very much mine and my philosophy.”
He continues, “And I think that philosophy sort of, goes beyond any particular time, because it’s based on history, it’s based on philosophy, it’s based on a lot of things.”
According to Lucas, in Star Wars aliens and humans in all shapes and colors are not discriminated against, but droids are.
While not outright slamming Disney and Lucasfilm’s treatment of Star Wars as he has in the past, Lucas doesn’t seem particularly happy about its direction nonetheless.
George Lucas handed Disney a treatment for his version of Episodes 7, 8 and 9 with the understanding that Disney would take the story in his direction.
That didn’t happen. Disney and Lucasfilm started from scratch for their sequels, and according to an autobiography by then CEO Bob Iger, George felt betrayed by The Mouse.
The Disney Star Wars sequels saw a marked decline on return from film to film, with The Last Jedi, in particular, splitting the fandom. The Sequel era is seemingly being ignored by Disney for the time being in regards to merchandise.
But who knows? Maybe someday today’s kids will grow up and become nostalgic for Reylo. Doubtful, but even Jar Jar Binks is giving some Millennials the warm fuzzies again.
[Hat Tip: Bounding Into Comics]
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