When George Lucas sold Disney his company and its properties in 2012, Lucasfilm’s new owners quickly set to work on a new trilogy of Star Wars sequels that eventually became The Force AwakensThe Last Jedi, and The Rise of SkywalkerBut Disney wasn’t starting from zero on these projects. Before Lucas retired, he’d actually started his own Star Wars sequel trilogy, and the projects were already in development when he sold the company.

They were far enough along, in fact, that Lucas told author Paul Duncan — in an interview for the new Star Wars Archives book that Duncan tweeted an excerpt of — he expected Disney to follow his plan, and perhaps give him a bit more creative input into what they were making. As Lucas explains, it didn’t work out that way:

I’ve spent my life making Star Wars — 40 years — and giving it up was very, very painful. But it was the right thing to do. I thought I was going to have a bit more to say about the next three because I’d already started them, but they decided they wanted to do something else.

Lucas added that the sequels were essentially the reason he sold Lucasfilm to Disney (well, that and more money than a human being can fully comprehend). In another part of Duncan’s excerpt, he noted that “it takes 10 years to make a trilogy” and at the time the sequels were ramping up he was about to have a daughter. He realized that, at age 69 at the time he sold the company, he’d “rather raise my daughter and enjoy life for a while.” So he sold the company and essentially retired, and Disney took over the projects. Duncan’s The Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005 will go on sale on December 13.

Gallery — Amazing Star Wars Concept Art: 

[H/T /Film]

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