‘Star Wars’ Producer Says George Lucas Never Understood His Own Characters

George Lucas created Star Wars, but that doesn’t mean he actually knew what he wanted to do with it, says an early series producer.

George Lucas and Mark Hamill on the set of 'Star Wars' — Credit: Lucasfilm

Ever since Star Wars debuted in theaters in 1977 (and hastily given the subtitle A New Hope shortly after, in the first of many retcons), fandom has looked to George Lucas for guidance. Even during the initial backlash to the prequel trilogy, when audiences were puzzled by midi-chlorian counts and galactic economics, there was never any question that Lucas had a vision.

Of course, it is a matter of historical record that Lucas had plenty of help building the Star Wars universe into the behemoth that it is now. His former spouse, Marcia Lucas, won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing for the first film and is widely viewed as having molded it into its final narrative.

The late Ralph McQuarrie produced the conceptual art that established the visual tone of the series and many of its most breathtaking images. Currently, people like Clone Wars creator Dave Filoni and (whether the fandom likes it or not) The Acolyte showrunner Leslye Headland are expanding Star Wars past where Lucas left it.

A man in a cowboy hat smiles at the camera on the left side of the image. To his right, The Acolyte, a dark armored figure with a red lightsaber, glows menacingly against a dark background, creating a striking contrast. — Credit: Inside the Magic

It turns out that he might have needed the help. Michael Hirsh, the co-founder of animation studio Nelvana and the producer of the very first animated Star Wars shows, has revealed in his upcoming memoir that Lucas frequently had no idea what he wanted to do with his characters (via Polygon).

An animated scene featuring two robots. A gold humanoid robot, C-3PO, is sitting and holding its head. Next to it is a smaller, dome-shaped blue and white robot, R2-D2. Both are in a room with a yellow and green interior background. — Credit: Lucasfilm

In an excerpt from Animation Nation: How We Built a Cartoon Empire, Hirsh says:

“Ewoks was relatively simple as it was mostly inspired by the world of Endor in Return of the Jedi, but Droids was intended to have new leads every four episodes, with R2-D2 and C-3PO as the only continuing characters. George also kept changing his mind about whether he wanted it to be more comedic or more action-adventure. The two main droids were the Laurel and Hardy of the Star Wars saga, but sometimes George wanted them to be like Yosemite Sam or other Warner Bros. cartoon stars, and sometimes he wanted them to be Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop. We never found the right direction for the series.”

A scene from Star Wars: Droids shows animated stormtroopers standing in front while two human characters in military attire, one looking stern and another looking worried, are in the background. The setting appears to be inside a spacecraft or space station. — Credit: Lucasfilm

Droids and Ewoks were the very first Star Wars series produced, with Nelvana working in cooperation with Lucasfilm and the series broadcast on ABC. The former series followed R2-D2 and C-3PO in what was retroactively deemed the time period between Revenge of the Sith (2005) and A New Hope, while the latter centered on the titular forest species on Endor before the events of Return of the Jedi (1983).

Anthony Daniels returned to voice his most famous character in Droids as he and his counterpart encountered bizarre creatures like the Great Heep and fled from Imperials, but, for the most part, the shows were disconnected from what we now think of as the “history” of the era.

Droids cartoon show featuring the Great Heep — Credit: Lucasfilm

Neither series was long-lasting or particularly well-liked by audiences, but at the time, so little Star Wars content was being created that fans pretty much took what they could get. In the years since, both Droids and Ewoks have been de-canonized by The Walt Disney Company and have largely been embraced as cult items in a very different era of Star Wars.

But more than the campiness of the goofy plots and dated animation, perhaps they serve another purpose in the saga of Star Wars: a reminder that as much as fans can complain about modern creators, not even George Lucas knew what he was doing most of the time.

Have you watched Droids or Ewoks?