Five years after the release of the final Star Wars sequel movie, this trilogy of the Skywalker saga is still highly criticized, though one popular George Lucas argument against it falls short. George Lucas famously created the Star Wars galaxy, starting with the original Star Wars movie (later retitled A New Hope) in 1977. The next two movies would premiere in 1980 and 1983. In 2012, Lucas famously sold Lucasfilm Ltd., the company that produced the Star Wars movies, to Disney, thus giving them the rights and creative ownership of the galaxy and its characters.

When the Star Wars sequel trilogy came out, audiences’ biggest complaint was that there was a lack of direction and cohesion between the three movies. The argument was that there was no plan and that the studio didn’t know what to do with characters like Rey Skywalker and Supreme Leader Snoke. Fans cited Lucas’ previous trilogies—the original and prequel—and how Lucas had a pre-planned arc and vision for the movies. The argument with the sequel trilogy is that between directors JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson, there was no plan for them to follow, leading to retcons and confusion.

George Lucas Never Had A Real Plan For Star Wars (No Matter What He Says)

It’s Obvious In The Original Trilogy

No matter how much George Lucas or Star Wars viewers insist that he had things planned out, it’s obvious that he made some things up as we went. This can be seen in The Empire Strikes Back, when Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa share a kiss. In the following movie, Return of the Jedi, the audience learns that Luke and Leia are actually twins. It’s safe to say that if George Lucas always intended for Luke and Leia to be siblings, he never would’ve had them kiss in The Empire Strikes Back.

This can also be seen with Darth Vader’s iconic “I am your father” moment. In a world before spoiler culture, very few people knew about Luke’s parentage. In fact, David Prowse, who physically portrayed Vader on set, didn’t know that Vader was Luke’s father while filming the iconic scene. If this idea had been planned, it wouldn’t have come as such a shock and twist. Additionally, the father-son relationship and connection could’ve had Easter eggs in A New Hope, but they weren’t present because Lucas hadn’t thought of the idea until pre-production of The Empire Strikes Back began.

This wasn’t just something that happened in the original trilogy, but also in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. When a typo meant to say “Darth Sidious” said “Sifo-Dyas” in the Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones script, George Lucas decided to keep it in because he thought the name was cool. This ultimately changed how audiences viewed the clones and how they came to be. It would take years before audiences got an official answer as to who Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas was and what happened to him. These answers would come in Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 6.

Why George Lucas’ Star Wars Is More Cohesive Than The Sequels

Disney Didn’t Have the Same Finesse

While some details—admittedly big details—weren’t concocted by George Lucas in his initial outlining of the original Star Wars trilogy, Lucas wasn’t making these movies just to make movies. Even though Lucas didn’t have a plan set in stone, he did have a vision of how a galaxy far, far away would look and conduct itself. From the set design to figuring out how the Force works, Lucas knew, even if he sometimes had a hard time defining these things in scripts or on screen. He actively made adjustments in later movies to expand on ideas from previous projects.

One of the things that truly separates Lucas’ vision of Star Wars from the sequel trilogy is that Lucas provided a singular message that he was confident he could tell. This was not the case with the sequel trilogy, where the script for The Force Awakens went through multiple editions, and had even been scrapped and restarted. The directors of the sequel trilogy also couldn’t decide on one cohesive way to tell the story or what characters were important to utilize. Even though the original trilogy had different directors, they were all led by Lucas’ vision. That was lacking with the sequels.

Star Wars Needs To Learn The Right Lesson From George Lucas

Cohesion is Key

While George Lucas may no longer be involved in Star Wars, there are still lessons to be learned from his time at Lucasfilm. While having different directors and writers is okay for the Star Wars galaxy, it all has to have a purpose and overarching message. Star Wars cannot just have new movies for the sake of having new movies. Additionally, if Lucasfilm were to attempt another trilogy, there would need to be one creative who helps keep the individual movies on message and makes sure everything connects well.

It’s impossible to replace George Lucas at Lucasfilm; however, that doesn’t mean there aren’t key takeaways to be learned from his time there. People like Dave Filoni worked alongside George Lucas for years, so having that kind of insight into how Lucas planned and developed different concepts would be the perfect thing to emulate. With Dave Filoni’s new role as CCO at Lucasfilm, it seems this may be the direction they’re taking.

Star Wars is far from a perfect franchise, and sometimes these last-minute decisions by George Lucas changed things for the better, and other times, they confused canon. However, George Lucas always stayed true to his vision and the overall message he wanted to tell in these stories. Lucasfilm, as it stands now, has to take a couple of pages out of Lucas’ playbook if they want to continue having success, and hopefully translate that to the big screen as well. Audiences should be hopeful, but time will only tell what the future Star Wars movies will look like.

All Star Wars movies and TV shows are available to stream on Disney+