George Lucas On ‘Star Wars 7’: ‘The Force Awakens’ Strays From My Original Vision’
George Lucas says Star Wars 7 isn’t going the way he’d intended. For fans of the franchise, this is probably a sign that J.J. Abrams is doing it right. After all, it was Lucas’ idea to add Jar Jar Binks to the canon.
As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Lucas had told Vanity Fair how he’d parted ways and probably would have messed everything up getting involved again. Now he’s added to his statement with an interview for CBS This Morning, which is planned to air in December, according to CBS News.
“The issue was ultimately, they looked at the stories and they said, ‘We want to make something for the fans. People don’t actually realize it’s actually a soap opera and it’s all about family problems – it’s not about spaceships. So they decided they didn’t want to use those stories, they decided they were going to do their own thing so I decided, ‘fine … I’ll go my way and I let them go their way.'”
The story George Lucas wanted still seems to be in Star Wars 7 however, with original cast members Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford all reprising the roles fans have loved them for. Even the trailers made mention of a story about family, though the most powerful surviving member of the Skywalker family has been missing from the trailers and promotional material.
This was intentional, J.J. Abrams has admitted, and Luke Skywalker is a very large part of the story, as previously reported by the Inquisitr. Though canon has been changed to where Han and Leia are no longer parents, they are still technically the same family George Lucas had wanted to focus on. Star Wars 7 picks up decades after Luke convinced his father Anakin that he still had some good in him, and the infamous mask is referenced by the new trilogy’s villain Kylo Ren in the trailers.
This is admittedly a very different direction than what Lucas had taken with Episodes I through III. Those were critically panned for their horrible acting and the political padding used to add length to the films. Hayden Christensen, who played Anakin Skywalker (the teenager who would end up being Darth Vader), had such a bad delivery that the chemistry which was very present between Han and Leia was absent between Anakin and Padme.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens strays from my original vision, George Lucas says. https://t.co/TFceLYR4NF pic.twitter.com/ft1Uho7Dwo
— GameSpot (@gamespot) November 27, 2015
Of course we can’t forget the universe’s most ridiculous mistake, Jar Jar Binks, a Gungan who was more misused comic relief than a useful part of the story. For these reasons, it’s safe to assume that fans are happy that George Lucas is not involved with Star Wars 7.
The former Star Wars storyteller told the press that he would have just been in the way, according to GameSpot.
“But basically, they weren’t that keen to have me involved anyway. But at the same time, I said, ‘If I get in there I’m just going to cause trouble, because they’re not going to do what I wanted them to do.’ And I don’t have the control to do that anymore and all I would do is muck everything up.”
From Phantom Menace to Return of the Jedi, the story had always revolved around Anakin Skywalker, from his days as a child slave on Tattooine to his death and the eventual destruction of the empire he helped build. The Force Awakens is apparently going to have a strong emphasis on his son Luke, only deviating to add Rey and Finn to the battle, much like Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Jar Jar.
It is unclear what George Lucas would have changed in Star Wars 7, but if those changes were anything like the ones he’d added in the Blu Ray re-release of the original trilogy, fans are probably glad he stepped down.
[Image via Grant Lamos IV / Getty Images for the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival]
