By Michael Idato
Star Wars creator George Lucas had hoped to guide the three new Star Wars movies to their conclusion but has revealed his overtures to the US studio Disney were very gently rebuffed.
Lucas told the US breakfast program CBS This Morning that he had met with Disney executives to offer them his story notes for the conclusion of the Star Wars saga.
George Lucas offered tips for the new Star Wars films which were rejected by Disney.
But, Lucas revealed, "they decided they didn't want to use those stories, they decided they were gonna go do their own thing."
Understandable, perhaps, given they had paid Lucas US$4 billion to acquire Lucasfilm and its key property, Star Wars.
Disney has subsequently announced not just three films in a final "sequel trilogy" but three new standalone films, as well as a Star Wars-themed expansion to its iconic park Disneyland.
And depending on your perspective, the absence of Lucas in the story planning for the new sequels could be seen as either a positive or a negative.
It is true that Lucas created Star Wars and the Skywalker family, and some of Star Wars most loved characters, including Darth Vader, the Sith and the Jedi, Boba Fett and the Wookies.
But he also created some story elements which fans disliked intensely, including Ewoks, "midichlorians", which seemed to reduce Jedi mysticism to a quirk of biology, the three critically battered "prequels" and their most annoying character Jar-Jar Binks.
In his defence, he can at least be spared most of the responsibility for the darkest secret in the Star Wars canon: the almost universally panned Star Wars Holiday Special; it was written by others, including comedy writer Bruce Vilanch, and directed by Steve Binder.
Lucas told CBS he felt the Star Wars saga was a story of "generations, the issues of fathers and sons, it's a family soap opera. It's called space opera, but people don't realise it's actually a soap opera."
Lucas also acknowledged that had he been involved, he would most likely have caused trouble.
"They're not going to what I want them to do. All I would do is muck everything up," Lucas said. "So I said, okay, I will go my way, and I'll let them go their way."
Lucas likened it to breaking up from a relationship.
"When you break up with someone, the first rule is no phone calls," he said. "The second rule, you don't go over to their house and drive by to see what they're doing. The third rule is you don't turn up at their coffee shop to run into them.
"You just say no, gone, history, I'm moving forward," he added.