Star Wars Fans Shouldn’t Care What George Lucas Has To Say

Look, I love the guy, and I will always be thankful to him for creating my favorite IP but I haven’t cared what George Lucas has had to say about Star Wars in close to 30 years.

At some point in the ’90s, I—like most Star Wars fans in their 40s or older—had to make a choice whether I believed Boba Fett survived the Sarlaac as it said in the EU/Legends or whether I agreed with Lucas that he was really dead. I chose the books.

Later, I had to decide if the new Star Wars Special Edition that George Lucas considered the only “real” version of A New Hope was also my preferred version of the movie.

I decided very quickly that it was not. I had, in fact, come to the cold realization that my vision of Star Wars no longer gelled with George Lucas’s vision.

Allow me to p*ss off a lot of Star Wars fans by saying that despite it being his creation, George Lucas is often wrong about Star Wars. Like, objectively wrong. The guy is up there with Stan Lee as one of the most blatant self-mythologizers ever.

For instance, one of the big Star Wars reveals George Lucas made during his Cannes speech was that even though he didn’t want to be there, he had to show up to the set of The Empire Strikes Back every day as a “consultant,” because no one else understood how the Force worked.

Yeah, okay, buddy. As if there aren’t countless accounts of you trying to micromanage everything Irvin Kershner did during the production of ESB.

I’m sorry, George, but we all know you had horrible instincts about the sequel, including yelling at Kersh to cut out all the romance and make the film move faster.

Just like we’ve seen the behind-the-scenes footage of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, where you repeatedly pronounce the word Gungan wrong.

I mean, it’s no big deal. It’s just a word you made up yourself. Why should you know how to pronounce your own word?

Okay I think I’ve gotten my point across that George Lucas is not the ultimate authority on Star Wars.

Now let me really make everyone mad by arguing that not only should Star Wars fans not care what George Lucas has to say about the franchise, he should just stop talking about it altogether.

Every so often, in the Star Wars community, a rumor will surface that George Lucas is coming back to the franchise in some capacity.

When this happens, a small but vocal segment of the community—often referred to as the “Fandom Menace”—rejoices in the hope that their messiah will step in and save Star Wars from the evil Disney empire. Sorry to burst their bubble, but it’s never going to happen.

Unfortunately, George himself isn’t helping. Every time he says something like, “After I sold the company [Lucasfilm], a lot of the ideas that were in [the original] sort of got lost,” it only fuels the Fandom Menace.

That was another gem from Cannes, and it’s got tons of Anti-Disney Star Wars fans all pumped up.

“See, the Star Wars sequels suck, George Lucas even said so!” Cool.

Shigeru Miyamoto once said that the problem with the live-action Mario movie was that it was too close to the game. Creators aren’t always the best authorities on their own creations.

The quicker George Lucas shuts up about Star Wars, the quicker all the incel “fans” can just accept that Disney owns the franchise and can do whatever they want with it. In turn, those fans are free to go back and reread their old EU books anytime they want.

No one’s taking away your dogeared copy of Heir to the Empire or making you turn in the dusty Shadows of the Empire cartridge rotting in your parent’s attic.

And look, I’m not implying you should like the sequels, or like Disney, or any combination of the two.

There’s plenty of new Star Wars I don’t like just like there’s plenty I didn’t like when George still owned it. All I’m saying is when it comes to Star Wars, don’t seek out George Lucas’s opinion because, frankly, it doesn’t matter.

And it hasn’t for a long time.