UPDATE: To the shock of no one, George Lucas apologized and clarified his comments not long after the Charlie Rose interview started making the rounds. Here's what he REALLY thinks about Disney.

Original story:

George Lucas is probably going to stop talking about the "Star Wars" films pretty soon. That's sad -- since they are his "kids," as he calls them, and you can tell how much he cares, even when he tries to shrug off his distance after the "divorce." But it's also probably good for him to take some steps back because, when he does talk about selling the franchise to Disney, he uses unfortunate comparisons -- like joking that he sold his children to the white slavers.

He went there in a long interview with Charlie Rose, which covered his filmmaking history and his plans for the future, with more experimental films.

Watch the full interview here, with the more colorful "Star Wars" quotes coming close to the 50-minute mark:


When it comes to "Star Wars," it's no secret that Lucas and Disney weren't on the same page with stories for Episode VII, which would become "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," the start of a new trilogy. "They wanted to do a retro movie. I don't like that," Lucas explained to Charlie Rose. "Every movie, I work very hard to make them completely different, with different planets, with different spaceships, make it new." Fair enough. "The Force Awakens" has made more than a billion dollars, but if there's any criticism out there, it's about the lack of freshness, with a nostalgic story tied to the original trilogy. (Then again, that's also part of why it's so popular with fans. And you could spend a year detailing all the reasons why fans did not like Lucas's prequels.)

As GL noted in the interview, still talking about his view for the future of "Star Wars" vs. Disney's view, "They looked at the stories, and they said, 'We want to make something for the fans.' ... They decided they didn't want to use those stories, they decided they were going to do their own thing. ...They weren't that keen to have me involved anyway — but if I get in there, I'm just going to cause trouble, because they're not going to do what I want them to do. And I don't have the control to do that anymore, and all I would do is muck everything up. And so I said, 'Okay, I will go my way, and I'll let them go their way.'"
Charlie Rose pushed that it had to hurt him, to lose his babies, the "Star Wars" films.

Lucas tried to keep it light, but called the films his "kids" and said, "I sold them to the white slavers that takes these things, and [laughs]..." He didn't finish the thought. Sounds like it was just a bad joke, and he probably didn't mean anything malicious, but no good has ever come of comparing anyone to slavers, white or otherwise.

But he also emphasized that he's fine with how things turned out, and he wasn't pushed out, he agreed that it was time for him to go on his way. (And most of the $4 billion he got for Lucasfilm is going to charity.) He said it's awkward when he's asked about it, like now, in a way that it's awkward to talk about a relationship after a divorce, but there are no hard feelings or anything -- other than that "white slavers" joke. Now he's focusing on his real-life kids, and his own kind of movies, which will probably be less popular than "The Force Awakens." And he's fine with that.

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