WHY did George Lucas kill Star Wars?
You’ll have to ask him the next time you see him… 
but I would guess that he felt he had done all he could do and didn’t want to invest any more time, money or energy into the franchise.
Hubris, which as the Greeks taught us is inevitably followed by Nemesis.
Either that or he couldn’t stand the idea that others made his world better than he ever could. So in a fit of childish pique he decided to fuck it up for everyone.
[Moderator/Comic Book Guy]
Many would say that George Lucas killed Star Wars just like Han shot Greedo, but this thread belongs in Cafe Society, not General Questions. So I’m moving this thread the same way R2D2 moves - without rocket boosters!
[/M/CBG]
The combined world wide gross of the prequel trilogy came to almost two and a half billion dollars. And that’s just the movies. It doesn’t include books, video games, TV shows, toys and other media tie-ins. The question of quality aside, it’s pretty clear Star Wars wasn’t “killed” in any sense of the word. And even tackling the question of quality head-on, at 2.5 billion, it’s pretty clear that a hell of a lot of people liked the movies just fine.
In what sense is Star Wars dead?
He tried to keep it going, but he’s not talented or creative enough.
Everything good about the original movies was more or less done by working around Lucas.
In two words, Skald the Rhymer:
I hate to admit it, but Episode 1 has achieved the realm of a classic for me. I actually am starting to appreciate it as part of the SW canon. I don’t even hate Jar Jar. Of course, Episode 1 was the least offensive of the three, and I liked RotJ, so whatever.
My humble estimation is this:
What made the first trilogy so great, is that George was in fact NOT in complete control of Star wars.
What made the second trilogy so bad, was George being IN complete control of Star wars.
I suppose then to clarify; how did George, being faced with the great big wooly-mammoth success of the original star wars, manage to put a bullet in it’s head once, twice, three times with the new trilogy?
I’m just saying, it’s almost like he deliberately shot it, and shot it good.
How does DARTH VADER go from “I am altering the deal, pray I don’t alter it any further” to “YIPPEEEEEE!”?
I’m just trying to understand.
Why George why.
That was “billion” with a “b,” in case you missed it.
The way I see it, it was internet nerd purists with unrealistic expectations who created a bandwagon effect that “killed” SW only in the sense that it is still cool to make the same lame narrow nitpicky points over and over again online. The rest of us still enjoy SW just fine though, in fact TCW is seriously on a roll right now.
God god! Get yourself to a hospital stat, man!
To answer the OP’s question: He killed the franchise because he decided to make more movies. Think about it. The prequel trilogy is the very definition of inessential. (Though I fully admit to being right there in the center of the slobbering hordes, pre-Phantom Menace.)
“Why, George, why?”, indeed.
Hear hear.
In the original trilogy, Lucas was able to build a story around an exiting climax, and anything that didn’t thrill you or make you fall in love with the characters could be left out.
In the prequels, his hand was forced in many ways. He had to flesh out the alluded-to back story even if it wasn’t very climatic, and we already knew how it comes out; he had to make Luke’s father be the kind of person who would grow up to be Darth Vader and he had to make Obi-wan be the kind of person who couldn’t prevent that from happeneing. And felt he had to make the movies appealing to children, and had to force in a lot of razzle-dazzle action sequences to make up the fairly anemic story.
Educate yourself, man!
Nah. Even with the constraints you mention, it wouldn’t have been hard to make Phantom Menace much better than it was:
Make Anakin a sullen teen instead of a cute kid. He’s born a slave, but bitterly resents it because he’s so smart and talented. Obi Wan finds him and instantly senses the power of the Force within him. He decides to train him in secret, against the wishes of the Jedi Council, partially out of a sense of pity, and partially out his own arrogance. The young Anakin learns quickly, proving that Obi Wan sensed correctly that he was powerful. But he carries within himself a hidden rage that is only amplified when he is unable to save his mother from dying a slave. His subconscious sense of inferiority is made even worse when he (born a slave) falls in love with a princess. He vows to prove everyone wrong and win Amidala’s love by becoming the greatest Jedi who ever lived, setting up his eventual seduction by the power of the dark side. And setting up Obi Wan’s eventually humbling when he realizes the monster he created. Build a couple of big action set pieces around those character arcs and you’ve got a much better movie than TPM.
Winston Smith loved Jar Jar Binks.
What’s in your Room 101?
Red Letter Media, the guy who did the Star Wars and Star Trek Next Generation movies reviews, made a similar point. Just skipping The Phantom Menace would’ve spared us several hours and dollars.
Because it was a better concept than he was an artist.