Yes, George Lucas started off his career with “THX-1138,” and “American Graffiti,” the latter is one of the defining films of the ‘70s, and then there was “Star Wars,” and the sequels — this woke up Hollywood to the multi-billion dollar potential of franchise filmmaking. He actually hasn’t helmed anything non-Star Wars since ‘Graffiti,’ which was released 53 years ago. No itch whatsoever to do something original. Hell, even his friend, Francis Ford Coppola, came out and said he “felt bad about George” wasting away his cinematic potential as a filmmaker.
That said, yesterday, Lucas sat down with Norah O'Donnell for an extended CBS Sunday Morning chat, and one admission will be making some waves. The man who built the most popular mythology in movie history says he retired with three more "Star Wars" films still on his plate, and he let them go because the clock was ticking, selling Lucasfilm to Disney.
"I'm 82, so there is a limit," Lucas said. He had "three more 'Star Wars' to make," but he wanted to build his museum more.
To be clear, these aren't secret new projects. He's talking about his own versions of Episodes VII, VIII and IX, the trilogy he'd started prepping before selling Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012. He'd already spoken to the actors. Kathleen Kennedy has said Lucas had reached out to Ford, Fisher and Hamill before she took over. Disney bought the company with his treatments in hand, then — misguidingly — threw them away.
Lucas was 69 at the time. Another trilogy meant another decade of his life. He picked his young daughter and the museum instead. He's called giving up "Star Wars" "very, very painful," and he's also admitted he expected more creative input on the sequels than he got. We all know how that turned out.
So what would his trilogy have looked like? Nobody really knows, because it kept changing. He once talked about exploring the "microbiotic world" of the Force,” mentioning Darth Maul and an apprentice, Darth Talon, rising through the underworld while Leia rebuilt the Republic and Luke rebuilt the Jedi. Pablo Hidalgo has said the 2012 treatment had a reclusive, despairing Luke who dies in Episode VIII. Hamill remembers it differently, with Luke training Leia and surviving to IX.
Back in 2024, Lucas mentioned how Disney didn’t use his ideas after he sold Lucasfilm to them in 2012 for $4 billion.
I was the 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. 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.
Here's my take. Would I rather have seen Lucas' messy, midichlorian-heavy sequels than what Disney delivered? Honestly, yes. They'd have been divisive, but they'd have been his, with one coherent voice from start to finish. Instead we got two directors pulling in three directions. At least the man got his museum.
James Gray is taking aim at the instant gratification that's infected film discourse, including social media first reactions, and Letterboxd. Oh, and he hates Rotten Tomatoes.