George Lucas Thinks Original Trilogy Ideas “Got Lost” in Sequels

The Star Wars creator has seemingly made peace with leaving the franchise behind.

Back in 2012, George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney for $4 billion, and for the past decade, the filmmaker hasn’t been directly involved in any of the stories being told in the galaxy far, far away. Much like how fans have had mixed responses to the movies and TV shows Lucasfilm has released, Lucas himself admits that he thinks some of the core components of his original trilogy “got lost” with stories Disney produced. Even with that reaction, though, Lucas admits that by giving something up, you have to move on from it, regardless of how you feel about the final product.

“I was the one one who really knew what Star Wars was … who actually knew this world, because there’s a lot to it. The Force, for example, nobody understood the Force,” Lucas shared at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, per The Hollywood Reporter. “When they started other ones after I sold the company, a lot of the ideas that were in [the original] sort of got lost. But that’s the way it is. You give it up, you give it up.”

Even though Lucas feels Disney projects have lost some of the spirit of his originals and even though he is no longer directly crafting stories, the storyteller does still visit the sets of various projects and consult with filmmakers. When Lucas visited the set of Star Wars: Andor, for example, second unit director Sam Hargrave likened it to witnessing a real-life Jedi master.

“I was there but, I mean, I was working on another stage,” Hargrave recalled to Collider last year. “But I did pass through, and I saw him there. He was actually – you would’ve thought that the real Yoda had showed up. I mean, he kind of did. But there was more people there that day than any other day on any other, you know, episode of the whole season. That was as if you were at Comic-Con on the stage where he was. It was crazy.”  

Additionally, just earlier this year, Lucas publicly shared his support for Disney CEO Bob Iger during a proxy battle over the control of the company.

“Creating magic is not for amateurs,” Lucas explained in a public statement at the time. “When I sold Lucasfilm just over a decade ago, I was delighted to become a Disney shareholder because of my longtime admiration for its iconic brand and Bob Iger’s leadership.”  

Stay tuned for updates on the future of Star Wars.

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