The creator of the Star Wars movies, George Lucas, has devoted fans of his sci-fi series up in arms – instead of making nine movies as planned, the director now says there will be only six.
That means that after the next movie, ‘The Phantom Menace,” there will be only two more movies and not the five die-hard fans have expected since plans for the series were announced in the 70s.
‘That’s not really part of the plan at this point,” Lucas said about the nine-movie project in the forthcoming February issue of Vanity Fair.
‘When you see it in six parts you’ll understand,” he continued. ‘It really ends at part six.”
Star Wars fans are annoyed because Lucas’ announcement means they already know what happens at the end of the Star Wars series.
The sixth movie of the series – The Return of the Jedi – was released in 1983.
‘When I was a child, there were nine films. For the last 15 years, there has been no doubt that one day, I would be able to put in and watch all NINE FILMS!!!,” whined Star Wars fan Harry Knowles, on his movie Web site aint-it-cool-news.com.
‘While I am quite thankful for the films we will be getting, there is an anger and frustration that lies deep inside me [about it].”
Originally, Lucas described the first three Star Wars movies – Star Wars, made in 1977, The Empire Strikes Back, made in 1980 and Return of the Jedi – as the middle trilogy of a nine-part series.
The trilogy begun by the soon-to-be released, ‘The Phantom Menace” – also known as Episode 1 – will have two sequels to complete its story arc.
‘The Phantom Menace” will be released in May.
The sequels will be made in Australia and will be released in 2001 and 2004.
But after these three movies there will be no more Star Wars.
In fact, Lucas says he never had any plans to make the third group of stories.
‘I never had a story for the sequels, for the later ones,” he said.
‘And also, I’ll be to a point in my age where to do another trilogy would take 10 years.’
In the Vanity Fair interview, Lucas says that although he has franchised out the comics, paperbacks and CD-ROMS related to the Star Wars world of characters he will not let other writers and directors continue his work on the movies.
‘Probably not,” he told Vanity Fair, ‘It’s my thing.”
Lucas’ decision to effectively kill the Star Wars story angered his legion of dedicated fans.
‘Only six films? And not letting anyone else touch the franchise after he’s done with it?,” grumbled Sandman in an e-mail posting.
‘Sounds like Georgie is taking his ball home with him for dinner, and no one else gets to have any fun. C’mon, don’t be so goddamn stingy.”