By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Forget Anakin Skywalker…to many Star Wars fans, George Lucas is the real Chosen One. Because Disney continues to run Star Wars into the ground, fans have convinced themselves that the Maker might be the only one who can save this franchise from its depressing decline. But here’s a bitter truth bigger than any space station: Lucas was already running the franchise into the ground, and he would be handling Star Wars just as badly as Disney if he was still in charge.
Arguably, the first real evidence that George Lucas had fallen off was the release of the Special Editions. At first, Star Wars fans loved seeing the Original Trilogy in theaters again, but the decline in quality was obvious…Garish CGI replaced ingenious practical effects, and some cool moments like Han Solo killing Greedo were forever ruined through awkward editing. “Forever” is the key word here because only the Special Editions are now sold or streamed, keeping us from the most iconic versions of these films because Lucas decided to pave over his creative legacy for a chance to make a few extra bucks.
The Special Editions helped build up hype for The Phantom Menace, the first film of George Lucas’ highly-anticipated Prequel Trilogy. The movie had highlights like the big fight with Darth Maul, but it was mostly a major disappointment that replaced the old franchise magic with farting special effects and a barely-literate space rabbit that steps in poop. The prequels have since found a younger audience, but to older Star Wars fans, these chaotic and borderline incomprehensible films were evidence the franchise was in decline and even bright spots like the Clone Wars cartoon were built on Lucas’ failure to tell a good story in the first place.
Now, Disney bought the franchise from George Lucas in 2012, and the failure of the Sequel Trilogy and multiple TV spinoffs have made many fans think Star Wars wouldn’t be in decline if it had never been sold. However, we’ve established that Lucas was busy squandering the franchise that made him wealthy for a full 15 years (the first Special Edition came out in 1997) before selling it to Disney. And what most fans don’t realize is that he was doing some crazy stuff before then, including developing a Star Wars live-action show whose episodes would have cost $40 million a piece and basically doomed the franchise.
That’s the real story, but it’s one that most fans don’t want to admit: had George Lucas never sold Star Wars to Disney, the franchise would still be in complete decline if not dead altogether. New ideas like the impossibly budgeted live-action show prove that Lucas had lost whatever Jedi-like wisdom caused him to create the franchise in the first place. Plus, it’s worth remembering that some of the Disney-era Sequel Trilogy ideas fans hated so much, including Luke Skywalker as a hermit teaching a precocious young woman, were originally developed by Lucas himself.
For Star Wars fans who are disappointed with the current state of the franchise, it’s tempting–comforting, even–to think that George Lucas could have done everything better. In reality, though, he had already begun ruining the franchise, and Disney’s own failures show how well they learned from the man who brought this galaxy far, far away to life. And at this point, we can just hope that Star Wars comes back as a fun Force ghost once Disney has finished killing it.
