Matt Vayda wrote:I think Lucas made it clear a long time ago that he has his own idea of what Star Wars is, and isn't much interested in what the fans would like to see.
E: Strongly Disagree
The evidence shows that Lucas is quite interested in what fans would like to see. He just isn't inclined to make whatever that is. (I wouldn't be, either. O noes OMG O noes, let me put all my plans on hold RIGHT NOW so I can address the concerns of MangaLuvver34@gmail )
But on the other hand, unlike Spiderman, Batman, etc, which can be rebooted endlessly - sometimes grotesquely - because they're commodities owned by corporations (which protect those brandnames with varying degrees of vehemence), Lucasfilm is still privately owned by LucasMan himself, and against the advice of counsel he's made it his policy to let fans reinterpret his stuff themselves in all kinds of ways, and share those interpretations with the world in ways that publicly-held corporations would have - and often have - taken legal action to crush.
3/4ths of the core DIF panel have personally committed actionable copyright infringement of Lucasfilm's intellectual property (and Teague helped). Instead of prosecution Lucasfilm has given 1/2 of the panel awards for so doing.
So I highly doubt Star Wars The Official Thing will get handed to anyone while George is still alive, but as a tradeoff he's said quite specifically that anyone who wants to do their own take on the thing themselves can do so UNofficially, and he's been enjoying seeing the results.
A compliment I get quite often about Pink Five is "this feels more like original Star Wars than the official prequels do", which is nice because that's exactly what I was going for. George isn't going to make the movies I want to see, and he doesn't have to. But he let me make my own, gave me two awards and some cash for it, and let me remix my soundtrack at his nice ranch place. Sony would have just sent me a C&D.
So maybe I don't like his recent work, but the guy himself I like a lot.