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George Lucas and the Fate of the "Star Wars" Saga

Ah, the halcyon days of the early 1980s, before badass Darth Vader turned into Luke Skywalker's victimized father, and George Lucas, basking in the glow of his worldwide success, proclaimed his righteous "Star Wars" was just the first in a series of nine movies. And as he spake these words, so was the modern-day FanBoy born.

Had Lucas kept on his every-third-year track, he would have finished his series in 2001, the year Stanley Kubrick predicted we'd find that weird granite slab up on the moon. But after "Return of the Jedi," Lucas took a sixteen year break between releases, and apparently spent that time plotting how best to showcase Jar-Jar Binks.

While the prequel trilogy was underway, Lucas tried upon his earlier "nine episodes" comment the same kind of revisionary tactics he tried, albiet digitally, upon those first three (or is it the last three) movies. Oh, he never said anything about a trilogy of nine parts, that was some kind of misunderstanding. Yeah, sure, George. FanBoys never forget.

After all, the internets were invented for us. And though you might talk all day about how the notion of Episodes 7-9 grew out of some off-the-cuff remark, we know better. So we're supposed to believe it was all just "an idea that seemed amusing at the time, but doesn't seem realistic now," because you're too old to continue? Yeah, okay. Tell it to Clint Eastwood.

Though George now talks about canonical continuations of the series via television and video games, I think he misunderstands or underestimates the power of any franchise, much less his own. Eventually somebody other than him is going to have control over the LucasFilm franchise--and whether it's a single person or a board of directors, I guarantee you somebody is going to make the decision to produce three films and call them Episodes VII, VIII, and IX.

You better at least be making some notes, George. As Christopher Tolkien will tell you, those inherited notes come in pretty handy...

Source: IGN Movie News.

Posted by Jim Gilbert on March 6, 2007 06:55 PM
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He'll make them, or somebody else will. Some studio will by the rights from his family after he dies if he doesn't.

-- Posted by: Asheville Movies at March 9, 2007 05:59 PM

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