More so than Han Solo or even Jar Jar Binks, George Lucas has been the face of Star Wars from the very beginning. He came up with the idea for the first film based on Flash Gordon comics and Japanese samurai movies, he stayed behind the scenes producing the original trilogy even after he stepped away as director, and he went behind the camera again for the trilogy of prequels-- say what you will about those movies, but they're clearly the unique vision of a single filmmaker.
So the news that Disney has acquired Lucasfilm and that Lucas is stepping down as head of the company, it really is the end of an era, even though Lucas will stick around as creative consultant on the Star Wars projects to come. Lucas has appointed his longtime collaborator Kathleen Kennedy as the new head of Lucasfilm, and in the video below you can see him and Kennedy talking about what the merger will mean, and how they both plan to work on the future of Star Wars on film.
What's been interesting about watching this story play out is how invested Star Wars fans have been, even though the news is more about business than anything else. Yes, the fact that there is a new Star Wars movie coming in 2015 is bananas, and meaningful for Star Wars geeks and fans of ambitious filmmaking alike. But what will it mean for us that Disney now makes profits off Lucasfilm? How will it affect the future of franchise filmmaking vs. original stories? That's really hard to tell for now. What seems certain, though, is that Star Wars will be in the forefront of the moviegoing landscape once again-- and that, with the potential of washing away the memory of the prequels entirely, fans can be incredibly happy about that.
