The long-standing perception has been that the complete Star Wars saga is a 9 film cycle, and after Episodes I through III were finished Lucas would move on to Episodes VII, VIII, and IX, resuming where Return of the Jedi had left off. "That's really not part of the plan at this point, " he says. "When you see it six parts, you'll understand. It really ends at part six."
Whereas the prequel plotlines have their basis in the original treatment for Star Wars that Lucas wrote in the early 1970's, "I never had a story for the sequels, for the later ones," he says. As such, he'll move on after Episode III to non-Star Wars projects, "and also, I'll be to a point in my age where to do another trilogy would take 10 years." (Lucas will turn 55 in May.) Would he be amenable to letting someone else carry on making Star Wars movies, much as he has permitted other writers to carry on the lives of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia in authorized novels, comic books, and CD-ROMs? "Probably not, " Lucas says. "It's my thing."
Whereas the prequel plotlines have their basis in the original treatment for Star Wars that Lucas wrote in the early 1970's, "I never had a story for the sequels, for the later ones," he says. As such, he'll move on after Episode III to non-Star Wars projects, "and also, I'll be to a point in my age where to do another trilogy would take 10 years." (Lucas will turn 55 in May.) Would he be amenable to letting someone else carry on making Star Wars movies, much as he has permitted other writers to carry on the lives of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia in authorized novels, comic books, and CD-ROMs? "Probably not, " Lucas says. "It's my thing."