STAR WARS Creator George Lucas Explains His 2012 Decision To Sell The Iconic Franchise To Disney

Like it or not, the Disney era of Star Wars is here to stay, and creator George Lucas has now elaborated on his decision to part ways with the franchise back in 2012 in a new book. Check it out!

By JoshWilding - Dec 08, 2020 01:12 AM EST

Filed Under: Star Wars

The new book Star Wars Archives: Eps I-III: 1999-2005 sheds a lot of light on the making of George Lucas' divisive prequels - though it's probably fair to say they didn't receive anywhere near as much backlash as the recent sequels! That trilogy was, of course, made by Disney after the franchise's creator sold Lucasfilm to the studio back in 2012.

Author Paul Duncan recently took to Twitter to share a new excerpt from his book, which sees Lucas talk more about what led to him selling Star Wars to the House of Mouse.

"At that time I was starting the next trilogy; I talked to the actors and I was starting to gear up. I was also about to have a daughter with my wife. It takes 10 years to make a trilogy – ‘Episodes I ‘ to ‘III’ took from 1995 to 2005," Lucas explained. "I’d still be working on ‘Episode IX!’ In 2012, I was 69. So the question was am I going to keep doing this the rest of my life? Do I want to go through this again? Finally, I decided I’d rather raise my daughter and enjoy life for a while."

Lucas acknowledged that he could have decided against selling Lucasfilm and instead got someone else to take charge of the trilogy. However, he admitted it would have been impossible for him to remain hands off, something the filmmaker says he struggled with on The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

Lucas denied claims he'd grown bored of the franchise, and admitted to being disappointed by Disney's decision not to follow the plans he'd handed them for where the sequel trilogy should go.

"I’ve spent my life creating ‘Star Wars’ – 40 years – and giving it up was very, very painful," the filmmaker reflects. "But it was the right thing to do. I thought I was going to have a little bit more to say about the next three because I’d already started them, but they decided they wanted to do something else. Things don’t always work the way you want it. Life is like that."

Do you wish we'd seen Lucas' take on the Star Wars sequels instead of Disney's?

Click on the "Next" button below to see a ranking of
the Star Wars movies according to Rotten Tomatoes!

11. Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

Score: 51%

Rotten or Fresh? Rotten

Critics Consensus: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker suffers from a frustrating lack of imagination, but concludes this beloved saga with fan-focused devotion.

What a disaster. In an effort to please everybody, director J.J. Abrams pleased pretty much no one with this rushed, messy finale to the Skywalker Saga. Kylo Ren got a decent enough ending, but beyond that, characters were mostly underserved, and the return of Emperor Palpatine was majorly botched. The franchise deserved better, so these reviews are by no means a surprise!

10. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

Score: 52%

Rotten or Fresh? Rotten

Critics Consensus: Burdened by exposition and populated with stock characters, The Phantom Menace gets the Star Wars prequels off to a bumpy -- albeit visually dazzling -- start.

In many ways, The Phantom Menace is treated too harshly, but it was as disappointing an opening chapter for the prequels as The Rise of Skywalker was a finale for the sequels! There's an awful lot here that does work, and it's hard not to be grateful to the movie for introducing us to characters like Darth Maul and Qui Gon Jinn who have been explored in greater depth since.

9. Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones

Score: 65%

Rotten or Fresh? Fresh

Critics Consensus: Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones benefits from an increased emphasis on thrilling action, although they're once again undercut by ponderous plot points and underdeveloped characters.

Arguably a worse film than The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones wasted far too much time on exploring Anakin Skywalker's romance with Padmé Amidala (CGI fruit!) and setting up a conflict which would only ever be touched on in an (admittedly stellar) animated series). There were some highlights - like Yoda seeing some action - but they weren't frequent!

8. Solo: A Star Wars Story

Score: 70%

Rotten or Fresh? Fresh

Critics Consensus: A flawed yet fun and fast-paced space adventure, Solo: A Star Wars Story should satisfy newcomers to the saga as well as longtime fans who check their expectations at the theater door.

Another Star Wars movie that gets a bad rap, the only thing really wrong with Solo was how badly marketed it was! It definitely wasn't the strongest origin story for the iconic smuggler, but there were a lot of surprises here, with Darth Maul's return one of the biggest in the franchise's history. Honestly, it's worth the price of admission for Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover alone.