Everybody is so pessimistic here! I'm actually quite suprised I didn't find a feast here celebrating the good news that George Lucas is - finally! - out of the picture, so some good Star Wars movies may come. Ever since I've seen all the prequels and found them an utterly constrained and disgusting patchwork, I've thought that some of the fans - the most intelligent layer of the fans - could pull together better screenplays, better ideas, better everything, and if someone in power would let them work on it, there could be hundred times better movies than the prequels were.

Up to this point, it seemed impossible to happen. I thought Lucas won't do sequels and even if he would, they would be just as bad as the prequels, and he won't ever allow anybody else to do a Star Wars movie. But now that he sold the rights, there's a chance that the new movie would be made by people who are actually fans of the original trilogy and see every problems with the prequels and smart enough to avoid them. Actually I'm worried that Lucas is still hired as creative consultant. Cleary he told all his original ideas with the first three movies.

I'm not worried at all that the reputation of Star Wars will be degraded further; the new movies will be better than George's uninspired patchwork. This is GOOD NEWS guys! :)

(As for releasing the OT, I don't think we can expect anything good, I guess George made sure in the contract that he doesn't want it to be released.)