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George Lucas Predicted Star Wars Prequels’ Divisive Reaction, Reveals Star

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George Lucas Predicted Star Wars Prequels’ Divisive Reaction, Reveals Star

George Lucas didn’t need the Force to sense what the reaction to the Star Wars prequels would be. When the prequels were released, and for years afterward, they were incredibly divisive and...

Maria Nushi
June 21, 2026 9 Mins Read
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George Lucas didn’t need the Force to sense what the reaction to the Star Wars prequels would be.

When the prequels were released, and for years afterward, they were incredibly divisive and generated backlash, especially among fans who had grown up watching the original trilogy. However, as the generation who watched the prequels as kids grew older, the trilogy’s reputation became increasingly favorable.

















A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away · Eight Questions
How Well Do You Know Star Wars?
“The Force will be with you. Always.”

🗡️Jedi OrderLight-side guardians

⚡The SithRule of two

⚙️The RebellionA new hope

🪓Bounty HuntersThis is the way

👑The EmpireOrder 66

01

The original Star Wars film — later retitled Episode IV: A New Hope — opened in just 32 American theatres and proceeded to become the highest-grossing film of its era, redefining what summer blockbusters could be. In which year did it premiere?




✓ Correct! 1977 — specifically May 25. 20th Century Fox had so little faith in the project they only opened it in 32 theatres at first; queues quickly stretched around the block, and the film expanded to over 1,000 screens within months. It earned $307 million in its initial domestic run, won six Academy Awards (with another four nominations) and inverted Hollywood’s economics for the next 50 years.

✗ Wrong. The answer is 1977. 1975 is when the script was being shopped around. 1979 is when Star Trek: The Motion Picture released as a Star Wars-shaped countermove. 1980 is The Empire Strikes Back. The original Star Wars is May 25, 1977.

02

A New Hope’s writer-director was a then-32-year-old American Graffiti veteran who’d struggled to get the project greenlit and famously took back-end profit and merchandising rights in lieu of a higher salary — the deal that would build a billion-dollar company. He returned to direct the prequels but stepped away from the original-trilogy sequels. Name him.




✓ Correct! George Lucas. The merchandising rights he kept (because Fox didn’t value them) became the financial bedrock of Lucasfilm and the basis of the modern toys-and-licensing megabusiness. After A New Hope, Lucas produced but didn’t direct Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner) or Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand), then directed all three prequels (1999–2005). He sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 and stepped away from creative control of the sequels.

✗ Wrong. The answer is George Lucas. Steven Spielberg was Lucas’s close friend (and the godfather of his post-A-New-Hope career) but never directed a Star Wars film. Coppola was Lucas’s mentor at USC and at American Zoetrope. Irvin Kershner directed Empire Strikes Back. The original is Lucas’s.

03

In 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader delivers cinema’s most-misquoted line at the climax of his Cloud City duel with Luke Skywalker. Vader severs Luke’s hand and reveals their relationship. The exact line is — for the record — “No, I am your father.” What relationship does it confirm?




✓ Correct! Vader is Anakin Skywalker, Luke’s father. The reveal was so jealously guarded that Mark Hamill was only told the real line on set the day they shot it (the script said “Obi-Wan killed your father”), and even James Earl Jones recorded the dub without knowing the full plot context. The line — commonly misquoted as “Luke, I am your father” — rewrote what trilogies could pull off and is broadly considered cinema’s most famous twist.

✗ Wrong. The answer is that Vader is Luke’s father, Anakin Skywalker. The whole foundation of the Skywalker saga collapses to this single twist: Anakin (the Jedi prodigy of the prequels) becomes Vader after his fall. Luke and Leia are revealed in Return of the Jedi to be his twin children, separated at birth.

04

Yoda — the green, ear-twitching Jedi Master — was puppeted and voiced from his Empire Strikes Back debut through the prequels and the sequels by a single Muppet-show-veteran performer who also voices Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear. Name him.




✓ Correct! Frank Oz — longtime Jim Henson collaborator and voice/puppet work on Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Sam Eagle and Grover. Oz puppeted Yoda directly through The Phantom Menace before CGI took over for Attack of the Clones onward, but he’s continued to voice the character through the sequels and animated series. Yoda’s syntax was developed jointly by Lucas and Oz to feel old, foreign and hard-won.

✗ Wrong. The answer is Frank Oz. Jim Henson was Oz’s mentor and collaborator (he created the Muppets) but didn’t voice Yoda. Steve Whitmire took over Kermit after Henson’s 1990 death. Brian Henson is Jim’s son and runs the Henson company today. Yoda is Frank Oz’s.

05

In a deal that reshaped Hollywood, Disney acquired Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion in cash and stock — bringing Star Wars, Indiana Jones, ILM and Skywalker Sound under the Disney umbrella. The deal also kicked off the sequel trilogy production. In what year did Disney close the acquisition?




✓ Correct! 2012 — specifically October 30. The deal was announced with simultaneous reveal that a Star Wars Episode VII was being developed for a 2015 release. Lucas had been quietly preparing his exit from Lucasfilm for years; Kathleen Kennedy had been brought in as co-chair months earlier specifically to take over. The Force Awakens came out three years later, in December 2015, kicking off the modern era.

✗ Wrong. The answer is 2012. 2009 is when Disney acquired Marvel ($4 billion). 2010 is the year before Lucas began signalling exit plans. 2014 is when production proper began on The Force Awakens. Lucasfilm joined Disney on October 30, 2012.

06

The Mandalorian launched as Disney+’s flagship original on November 12, 2019 — the day the streaming service itself launched. Created by Jon Favreau and run by Dave Filoni, the show centres on a helmeted bounty hunter who reluctantly becomes a foster father to “The Child” (Grogu). What is the Mandalorian’s real name?




✓ Correct! Din Djarin — played by Pedro Pascal under the helmet (with body double Brendan Wayne handling much of the physical work). The Mandalorian is widely credited with reviving Star Wars on TV, popularising the StageCraft LED-volume virtual production technology now used across Hollywood, and turning baby Yoda — Grogu — into the meme-economy phenomenon of late 2019. Three seasons have aired with a feature film, The Mandalorian & Grogu, set for May 2026.

✗ Wrong. The answer is Din Djarin. Boba Fett is the famous bounty hunter from the original trilogy, with his own Disney+ spinoff (The Book of Boba Fett, 2021). Cobb Vanth is the Tatooine marshal played by Timothy Olyphant. Bo-Katan Kryze is the Mandalorian princess played by Katee Sackhoff. The Mandalorian himself is Din Djarin.

07

Order 66 — the secret directive that turns the Republic’s clone troopers against their Jedi commanders and effectively ends the Jedi Order — is dramatised in the climactic third act of which prequel film?




✓ Correct! Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). Palpatine’s “Execute Order 66” comm to the clone armies leads to the methodical, planet-by-planet liquidation of the Jedi Order — one of the saga’s most operatic sequences, scored to John Williams’ “Anakin’s Betrayal” cue. The same film features Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side, the Mustafar duel with Obi-Wan, and his rebirth as Darth Vader in the suit. Widely re-evaluated as the best of the prequels.

✗ Wrong. The answer is Revenge of the Sith. Phantom Menace ends with Qui-Gon’s death and the unveiling of Darth Maul. Attack of the Clones ends with the Clone Wars beginning. Rogue One is set just before A New Hope, after Order 66 has long since happened. The Order 66 sequence is the climax of Episode III.

08

Andor (2022–25) is widely regarded as the most adult, politically literate Star Wars project ever made — a slow-burn prequel to Rogue One charting Cassian Andor’s radicalisation against the Empire. The series was created and showrun by a writer/director best known for the original Bourne trilogy and Michael Clayton. Name him.




✓ Correct! Tony Gilroy. He’d previously been brought in for extensive Rogue One reshoots in 2016, and Lucasfilm gave him near-total creative independence on Andor. Season 1 (12 episodes, 2022) is widely regarded as Star Wars’ finest dramatic writing ever; Season 2 (also 12 episodes, in four three-episode jumps across 2025) closes the gap to Rogue One’s opening scene. Gilroy’s prior credits: Bourne Identity / Supremacy / Ultimatum / Legacy, plus directing Michael Clayton (2007).

✗ Wrong. The answer is Tony Gilroy. Rian Johnson directed The Last Jedi (2017). Jon Favreau created The Mandalorian and is Lucasfilm’s Disney+-era animation/live-action lieutenant. Dave Filoni runs the Filoniverse (Clone Wars, Rebels, Ahsoka, the upcoming Heir to the Empire film). Andor is Tony Gilroy’s.

The Force Has Spoken · Final Tally
Your Galactic Standing

🗡️

/ 8

Jedi Master — or moisture farmer on Tatooine?

According to Popverse, at Spacecon 2026, Emperor Palpatine actor Ian McDiarmid shared that Lucas anticipated that the generation used to the original movies were going to have a difficult time accepting the prequels. This did not bother the filmmaker, though, as his primary target was younger audiences, who generally had a far more positive reaction to the films and eventually helped them be reassessed. Lucas was correct on both fronts. Check out McDiarmid’s comments below:

It is great that you guys and your relations, old and young, have made it last. He wasn’t that sure that the prequels were going to move things forward in terms of audiences. And he saw early on, well, maybe his generation, my generation really, who saw the original movies will be a bit picky. And they were actually, but the kids weren’t. The kids were completely knocked out by it. And he said, “Well, I make these films for everybody, but if an 8-year-old is happy, I’ll feel I’ve done my work.” And that’s what happened with the prequels.

This is not the first time that there have been comments from Lucas in which he has called Star Wars “a kid’s movie.” In addition to providing joy and entertainment, he has always been open about the films posing important questions and teaching valuable lessons that are meant to help younger audiences grapple with the complicated world they are living in.

The silliness of Jar Jar Binks, the style of dialogue, extensive use of CGI, heavy emphasis on politics, and changing long-held beliefs about the Star Wars universe were among some of the more prominent criticisms of the prequels. None of these reactions deterred Lucas from his creative vision, though, with all three movies continuing to embrace silliness at times, along with the same approach to dialogue, CGI, politics, and challenging what fans thought they knew about the galaxy far, far away and the characters who inhabit it.

Now, many of these elements are celebrated, and some newer stories have been criticized for their lack of politics and having a consistent creative vision from beginning to end. The Clone Wars animated series that Lucas created and produced also helped, as it added further context and depth to the prequels and allowed audiences to spend more time with the characters, along with introducing compelling new ones.

The prequels and The Clone Wars set the foundation for many of the Star Wars shows that would be released after the Disney acquisition of Lucasfilm. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars Rebels, The Bad Batch, Maul — Shadow Lord, The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and The Book of Boba Fett all directly build on the time period, characters, relationships, or concepts of the prequel era. The emphasis on politics has also remained strong, not only in many of the aforementioned series, but in the critically acclaimed and Emmy Award-winning Andor.

While Lucas is not actively involved with the franchise anymore, he is opening the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art this year. He and his wife, Mellody Hobson, have been working on this project for years, which is a celebration of visual storytelling, and Star Wars is only part of the many exhibits. The museum is located in Los Angeles and will open on September 22, 2026.

Star Wars Franchise Poster

Movie(s)

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi, Star Wars: Episode IX- The Rise of Skywalker, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi, Star Wars: New Jedi Order


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