Apparantly George Lucas is still blowing smoke up our asses regarding the future of Star Wars.

There’s a snippet of an interview from the latest issue of Premiere on Coming Soon where George Lucas says about the Star Wars franchise, “A lot of my life has been wrapped up in this one thing. I can walk away from this now ‘cause I feel it’s the best I could do … “

Over at MovieWeb there’s a few snips of an old interview he did with MTV explaining why there won’t be any more Star Wars movies:

“This was never planned as a nine-episode work,” Lucas said. “The media [pounced when] I made an offhand comment, ‘It might be fun to come back when everyone’s 80 and do another one of these.’ But I never had any intention of doing that.”

“The original ‘Star Wars’ was only three films, and that was what it was meant to be,” he said. “After a lot of pondering and thought, I went back to do the back story, but that pretty much tells the story. Episode six is the end. There isn’t any more to it.”

Recently he said he would like to get back to the more “indy” feeling films he made in the past like THX 1138, American Graffiti, and long delayed sequels such as .. ahem… Indiana Jones 4. I suppose that is “indy”...

Sounds like he’s washing his hands of Star Wars for good, doesn’t it? Well at last month’s ShoWest convention George announced that they are working on 3D adaptations of all six films, the first of which will be in theaters in 2007. The remaining 5 will be released one per year for the next 5 years after that. Lucasfilm told Variety that while George really wants it to happen right away, they won’t be able to do it until the adoption of digital projectors is more widespread throughout the nation’s theaters. Looks like we will have to wait a while longer to see the latest “improvements” George is making, but they certainly are coming.

So with no remixed Star Wars movies coming out any time soon and no real progress on Indiana Jones 4, what will George Lucas have to distract him? TV shows. Yup, not just one, but two Star Wars TV series are in the works, according to Coming Soon. One will be a half hour long CG animated series, the other will be live action.

Rumors on the ‘net the past year or so have been hinting at a possible Star Wars series, so this wasn’t totally unexpected.

I personally think Lucas is going to have a hard time doing much of anything after Star Wars. He has proven to the entire world that he isn’t a good director, isn’t a very good writer, and he can’t make a film without working it to death. Most filmmakers have at least some growth throughout their careers, but I think the idea is to make better movies, not more expensive ones.

Defined tags for this entry: George Lucas, movies, rants