Lucas strikes back at ‘retro’ Star Wars
FILM-MAKER George Lucas has claimed that selling the rights to Star Wars was like selling his children to ‘white slavers’.
The director sold his Lucasfilm production company and the rights to Star Wars to Disney for £2.5billion in 2012.
But he said yesterday that it was hard not directing the latest instalment, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, adding that he did not like the film because it had a ‘retro’ feel to it.
Lucas, 71, who has three daughters and a son, said moving on from Star Wars was harder than he thought. He told US television network CBS: ‘You have to just cut it off and say okay, end of ball game, I got to move on. And everything in your body says, don’t, you can’t – and these are my kids.
‘All those Star Wars films, I loved them, I created them, I’m very intimately involved in them, and I sold them to the white slavers that take these things and…’
He cut himself off mid-sentence and did not elaborate on what he meant. Lucas, who oversaw both the original Star Wars trilogy, which appeared in cinemas between 1977 and 1983, and the much-criticised 1999-2005 prequel trilogy, confirmed Disney had not wanted him involved in the new film. It was directed by J J Abrams.
Lucas said: ‘[Disney] wanted to do a retro movie. I don’t like that.’ The film-maker has given several disgruntled interviews about Star Wars but his latest comments are his most blunt.
Last month he said he was not involved in The Force Awakens because Disney wanted to do a film for the fans. Lucas wanted another ‘space opera’ about family relationships, so opted out.