We're just a few weeks away from the release of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."
The final version of the movie is done and has already been screened — Steven Spielberg has reportedly seen it a few times — but as of a few weeks ago, one important person still hadn't seen it: "Star Wars" creator George Lucas, according to an interview with the Washington Post.
Lucas thought he might end up screening the film with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy (who took over the reins from Lucas) and "The Force Awakens" director J.J. Abrams., he told the Post.
And while this will be the first time Lucas will get to experience a "Star Wars" film purely as a fan, he doesn't sound particularly eager to head to a galaxy far, far away. If anything, it sounds like he just wants to get it over with, if he hasn't already.
“Now I’m faced with this awkward reality, which is fine,” Lucas told the Washington Post. “I gotta go to the wedding. My ex will be there, my new wife will be there, but I’m going to have to take a very deep breath and be a good person and sit through it and just enjoy the moment, because it is what it is and it’s a conscious decision that I made.”
It may not be the response you'd expect, but it's not an unreasonable one.
Lucas has had an idea of what episode VII should be like for some time. Mark Hamill has said Lucas originally pitched the idea for a seventh "Star Wars" movie to him back in the '80s. A 1978 Time magazine article suggested Lucas planned up to a dozen "Star Wars" movies.
Earlier this year, Lucas told USA Today he originally planned to make episode VII himself. His plan was to release the film in May 2015 and then sell his company Lucasfilm afterward.
Instead, he sold the company to Disney for $4 billion in October 2012 along with treatments for three more "Star Wars" films.
He knew a third trilogy could take up to another decade of his life, and the 71-year-old filmmaker said at a January press conference for his animated picture "Strange Magic" that he'd rather spend the time with his newborn daughter Everest.
Though CEO Bob Iger told Bloomberg the treatments "had a lot of potential," Disney ended up scrapping Lucas' ideas for a new "Star Wars" trilogy.
“The ones that I sold to Disney, they came up to the decision that they didn't really want to do those,” Lucas told Cinemablend. “So they made up their own. It's not the ones that I originally wrote.”
After selling Lucasfilm to Disney, Lucas was originally brought on in the vague role of a creative consultant for the new films.
Basically, Kennedy defined his role as being available to answer any "Star Wars"-related questions which may arise in order to make sure items made sense within the constructs of the universe.
That doesn't seem like it ended up working out. According to the Washington Post's lengthy interview, Lucas had no connection to the new film.
"There is no such thing as working over someone’s shoulder,” said Lucas. “You’re either the dictator or you’re not. And to do that would never work, so I said ‘I’m going to get divorced.’ . . . I knew that I couldn’t be involved. All I’d do is make them miserable. I’d make myself miserable. It would probably ruin a vision — J.J. has a vision, and it’s his vision."
"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is in theaters December 18, 2015.
