The creator of http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/starwars, http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/georgelucas, has said he is to retire from commercial film-making in order to return to the experimental fare that marked the early years of his career.
In an https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=/2012/01/22/magazine/george-lucas-red-tails.html&OQ=_rQ3D5Q26pagewantedQ3D1&REFUSE_COOKIE_ERROR=SHOW_ERROR (paywall) to mark the arrival in US cinemas of second world war drama http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpA6TC0T_Lw, his long-gestating passion project, Lucas promised to make no new Star Wars films, citing negative reaction from fans of the series to his recent efforts.
"I'm retiring," Lucas said. "I'm moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff." However, he said he would not rule out making a fifth Indiana Jones film before bringing his commercial career to a close.
The film-maker's longtime producing partner at Lucasfilm, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0564768/, confirmed: "Red Tails will be the last blockbuster Lucas makes. Once this is finished, he's done everything he's ever wanted to do. He will have completed his task as a man and a film-maker."
The NY Times reports that Lucas will return to arthouse material such as the science-fiction film http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066434/, his longform debut, conceived when he was still a student at the University of Southern California. Just six years later, Lucas released the http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/106404/star-wars-episode-iv and found himself working at the commercial forefront of Hollywood as the pioneer of a new era in blockbuster film-making.
Red Tails, which Lucas has funded with $58m of his own money after major studios refused to back it, is the story of the Tuskegee airmen, a squadron of untested African American pilots who won nearly 100 http://dfcsociety.net/medal.asp/ during the second world war. The film is directed by The Wire's http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0376006/ and stars Cuba Gooding Jr, Terrence Howard and David Oyelowo.
Lucas, on board as producer, told the Times he was disgusted by the reaction from studios when he tried to secure funding. Last week he claimed during an interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show that racial issues were to blame for Hollywood's lack of interest. "It's because it's an all-black movie," he said. "There's no major white roles at all. It's one of the first all-black action pictures ever made."
The 67-year-old film-maker refused to apologise for making changes to his original Star Wars films through the addition of computer-generated imagery which many fans of the movies felt jarred with the more naturalistic look of the trilogy.
"On the internet, all those same guys that are complaining I made a change are completely changing the movie. I'm saying: 'Fine. But my movie, with my name on it, that says I did it, needs to be the way I want it.'"
"Why would I make any more," Lucas says, "when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?"
Lucas also addressed widespread disbelief towards a scene in 2008's poorly received fourth Indiana Jones film, http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/124168/indiana.jones.and.the.kingdom.of.the.crystal.skull, which saw the intrepid archeologist surviving a nuclear bomb test by hiding in a fridge and resulted in the term "nuke the fridge" entering the film-making lexicon as shorthand for a creative blunder.
The movie's director, Steven Spielberg, said he was responsible for the scene in an interview with Empire magazine last year, but Lucas said his friend was "just trying to protect me". He defended the scene's legitimacy, suggesting that "the odds of surviving that refrigerator – from a lot of scientists – are about 50-50."
In declaring his imminent retirement, Lucas joins fellow film-maker Steven Soderbergh, who http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/aug/31/steven-soderbergh-retire-director to focus on painting, then http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14779398. Soderbergh's latest film, action thriller http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/142928/haywire, arrives in UK cinemas this week.
Star Wars fans needn't panic, meanwhile, as all six films in the space-opera saga are http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11434545 over the next few years.

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Please God no.

People wouldn't complain if he just offered the original films along with his "updated" versions. Messing with nostalgia tends to make people irate.

I didn't know they were his movies.

I could have sworn that the legions of children and young men and women who paid to go see those movies back in the day, then bought the trilogy on VHS....then saw the prequels....then bought the originals on DVD.....then bought the prequels on Blu Ray paid their dues in order for it to be called thier movie as well.

If I make a hamburger, I don't give it to someone and half way through go "IT'S MINE!", take it, and then change the dressing and put crap on it.

That's not really how that works.



And that's not quite the same thing.

The Star Wars movies never made much sense to me. The Empire builds the Death Star but it conveniently has a "shoot here to win the game" spot on it. Then the Death Star is being rebuilt or fixed? I am not really sure about that, looked pretty destroyed the first time. Anyways they destroy it again and everyone is like "The Empire is gone forever!" But the Empire controls the entire Galaxy and has tens of thousands of battleships and countless troops. So how was the Empire defeated again? Sure you got the leader, but someone else would take is place.

He constructed a brand new one. If you read the books he was so powerful in the force he litteraly influenced the galaxy. Which explains why an empire that large ruled by a dictator didn't try and userp him too often. He was litteraly influencing them towards his own wills. Not direct mind control, but enough to stabalize a lot of issues. When he died it caused the equivalent of a morale loss. It could be felt accross the Empire, somehow they all knew he was dead. The sudden shock of not having a leader after so long made them not exactly think so well. It didn't take much for it to freacture as various Officers of battleships tried to make their own Empires, or take conttrol of the Empire itself. Not to mention with Imperial rule shattered numerous planets rebelled and joined the Alliance almost simultaneously and instantaneously. Basically, [censored] hit the fan.

Given Palpatine was one of the strongest force users in the galaxy, I find it a plausible theory. He's th eonly one that we've seen witht eh power to do something on that scale. Obviously this canon could be changed with new books, it's often shifting, But fo rnow, that's the explanation. Has been for at least five or six years too.