George Lucas Felt Betrayed Watching ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’

In his memoir The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, Bob Iger discussed how George Lucas was disappointed after viewing Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

When Disney acquired Lucasfilm from George Lucas, the Star Wars creator provided plot outlines for a new trilogy that the studio was under no obligation to follow. However, Bob Iger recalled that George Lucas was still upset after meeting with new Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, writer Michael Arndt, and director J. J. Abrams to discuss Star Wars: The Force Awakens and discovering they had no intention of using his outlines.

Shortly before Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released globally, Lucasfilm screened the film for George Lucas and he expressed his belief that it film didn’t offer anything new for audiences. While Bob Iger acknowledged that there is truth to George Lucas’ criticism of The Force Awakens, the Disney CEO commended J. J. Abrams for crafting a “quintessentially” Star Wars film:

“The truth was, Kathy, J.J., Alan, and I had discussed the direction in which the saga should go, and we all agreed that it wasn’t what George had outlined. George knew we weren’t contractually bound to anything, but he thought that our buying the story treatments was a tacit promise that we’d follow them, and he was disappointed that his story was being discarded. I’d been so careful since our first conversation not to mislead him in any way, and I didn’t think I had now, but I could have handled it better. I should have prepared him for the meeting with J.J. and Michael and told him about our conversations, that we felt it was better to go in another direction. I could have talked through this with him and possibly avoided angering him by not surprising him. Now, in the first meeting with him about the future of Star Wars, George felt betrayed, and while this whole process would never have been easy for him, we’d gotten off to an unnecessarily rocky start.

Just prior to the global release, Kathy screened The Force Awakens for George. He didn’t hide his disappointment. ‘There’s nothing new,’ he said. In each of the films in the original trilogy, it was important to him to present new worlds, new stories, new characters, and new technologies. In this one, he said, ‘There weren’t enough visual or technical leaps forward.’ He wasn’t wrong, but he also wasn’t appreciating the pressure we were under to give ardent fans a film that felt quintessentially Star Wars. We’d intentionally created a world that was visually and tonally connected to the earlier films, to not stray too far from what people loved and expected, and George was criticizing us for the very thing we were trying to do. Looking back with the perspective of several years and a few more Star Wars films, I believe J.J. achieved the near-impossible, creating a perfect bridge between what had been and what was to come.”

Of course, George Lucas was not the only one to hurl this particular criticism towards Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Upon its release, even some fans of The Force Awakens pointed out the narrative similarities between the film and the original Star Wars.

The main Star Wars saga that George Lucas kicked off in 1977 will come to an end when The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters this holiday season.

Lucasfilm and director J.J. Abrams join forces once again to take viewers on an epic journey to a galaxy far, far away with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the riveting conclusion of the seminal Skywalker saga, where new legends will be born and the final battle for freedom is yet to come.

Directed by J. J. Abrams, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker stars Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Joonas Suotamo, Billie Lourd, Naomi Ackie, Richard E. Grant, Keri Russell, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Ian McDiarmid, and Billy Dee Williams. Carrie Fisher will appear as General Leia Organa through the use of previously unreleased footage shot for Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will be released in theaters on December 19, 2019.

Source: The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company (via Reddit)