When George Lucas had completed the initial Star Wars trilogy, he maintained that the franchise actually consisted of three trilogies in total: another that tells the story of what happened before Episode IV and a final series that continued the Luke/Leia story after Episode VI. He was able to realize the first continuation a couple of decades after Return of the Jedi, but then maybe not so surprisingly retreated from the world of directing for a bit. Indeed, the response to the prequels was not kind, and so Lucas focused his efforts on producing films like Red Tails and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Then, when Disney purchased Lucasfilm a few years ago and set about creating a new series of Star Wars films, Lucas left the world that he created for good—but not before outlining the last piece of his long-promised puzzle. He worked with screenwriter Michael Arndt to map out Episode VII through Episode IX, but after a year of collaboration with director J.J. Abrams, Ardnt and Lucas’ draft of Episode VII was scrapped in favor of a new story penned by Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan. Meaning we’ll probably never see what Lucas himself had planned for the final adventures of Luke, Han, and Leia.

But he seems pretty OK with that. Lucas is eager to watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens as a fan, recently asking Abrams in a video what happened to Darth Vader’s grandkids. And in a continuation of that video from Vanity Fair, Lucas further explains why he’s not interested in directing Star Wars—or anything that will be theatrically released—anymore:

Okay so the Jar Jar Binks line is pretty funny, but it’s a bit sad that Lucas was so burned by the prequels response that he feels no desire to make films for public consumption. I mean, this is the guy who directed American Graffiti and THX 1138. Sure the execution of the prequels was kind of a disaster, but I’d still be interested in seeing a new film directed by George Lucas. Alas, it looks like that’s not meant to be.

What do you think, folks? Would you be interested in seeing anymore films from Lucas, or are you totally fine with the filmmaker retreating from the public eye? Sound off in the comments below.