12

George Lucas has famously sold Lucasfilm to Disney, but has he still had some sort of involvement in the production of Star Wars: The Force Awakens?

For example, as a:

  • consultant
  • scriptwriter
  • producer
  • other

What involvement did George Lucas have with The Force Awakens?

Mr. Bultitude
  • 411
  • 4
  • 16
Möoz
  • 45,398
  • 37
  • 256
  • 451

1 Answers1

16

Creative consultant only

George Lucas sold his LucasArts production company — including the entire Star Wars franchise — to Disney Entertainment in 2012. This was prior to any production on The Force Awakens. In fact, it was this move that led to planning for a new trilogy.

George Lucas remains a "creative consultant" on all Disney-era Star Wars film projects, but this is a fairly amorphous role. For instance, he submitted rough story ideas for new Star Wars episodes to Disney. These were summarily rejected by the new film's director, J.J. Abrams, and producer Kathleen Kennedy. In the end, Michael Arndt, Lawrence Kasdan, and J.J. Abrams conceived the story for The Force Awakens without any input from Lucas.

Apparently, George was "happy not to be involved". Early in 2015, he said:

"I haven’t seen anything; I mean I saw the trailer, it looks great, it looks interesting. But as I’ve said before: one thing I regret about Star Wars is that I never got to see it, you know? I never got to be blown away by the big ship coming over the thing, or anything. But this time I’m going to be, because I have no idea what they’re doing."

All in all, he really had no measurable role in the film — apart from the fact that The Force Awakens is really uncomfortably close in plot to his original 1977 Star Wars film. In that sense, he contributed a lot to The Force Awakens.

Praxis
  • 111,024
  • 50
  • 512
  • 690
  • 5
    How can he possibly be blown away by something new if all they did was carbon-copy Episodes 4-6? :))) – DVK-on-Ahch-To Jan 04 '16 at 06:15
  • 1
    @DVK : Indeed... – Praxis Jan 04 '16 at 06:16
  • 2
    @DVK The statement was from early 2015, I wonder what he said after actually having watched it... – Zommuter Jan 04 '16 at 07:09
  • 3
    @Zommuter : He stated a few days ago that he doesn't much care for The Force Awakens, saying it is too "retro" for his tastes. – Praxis Jan 04 '16 at 07:32
  • @Praxis "retro" pretty much sums it up indeed. Though personally I wouldn't say too retro, it was nice to watch, but yes, there were no real surprises... – Zommuter Jan 04 '16 at 07:37
  • 1
    Indeed, must George L. has been blown away by the new episode; not by the quality of the movie itself but by how much they plagiarised his movies 4-6. Now, the next big question is: what will they do plagiarise from the ep. 1-3 for the next movie(s)? Secondly, beeing officially a Creative Consultant is some kind of a double-edged sword: George L. can submit ideas to Disney but at the same time, probably that he is forbidden by a confidential agreement to reveal anything about these new ideas; so I wonder if we will ever know anything about what was his personal ideas for the next trilogy. – SylvainL Jan 04 '16 at 11:57
  • http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/george-lucas-apologizes-over-force-awakens-criticisms-20160101 and http://news.yahoo.com/george-lucas-explains-why-didn-t-star-wars-153745258.html?nf=1 are what @Praxis is referring to, I think. :) – Aith Jan 04 '16 at 13:17
  • 2
    It's not plagiarism. They rhyme. :P – candied_orange Apr 10 '17 at 02:41
  • @SylvainL - ep 1-3 don't exist. And if a single frame of last jedi resembles anything from those non-existent jokes, neither will ep 8. – Kai Qing Oct 11 '17 at 21:20