Thoughts on Darth Vader?

Zenwolf wrote:@DarthAnt66

Ok and yet, despite the words of Lucas saying that Vader was crippled, slow, not a good as PT era Jedi, so on and so forth. Writers and the like reversed that within the novels, comics and so on. Showing that no, Vader was fast, he is skilled, he is powerful etc etc. But yet, people wanna cling to old statements, despite the lore showing otherwise.

DarthAnt66 wrote:The 80% quote is from early 2005, said around the same time as all of his other ROTS-centric Vader commentary.

DarthAnt66 wrote:@Zenwolf: Lucas' commentary would take precedence over an infinite amount of C-Canon material. Though, I don't think of it as a contradiction, but rather clarification of Lucas' meaning of "slow." Vader isn't slow at all compared to fodder Jedi, but he is to higher Force users that Lucas clarifies are faster than him.

I think that's the best way to give Vader respect while staying true to LFL policy.

DarthAnt66 wrote:@The lord of hunger: I don't think it's a contradiction.

Lucas' commentary would take precedence over an infinite amount of C-Canon material. Though, I don't think of it as a contradiction, but rather clarification of Lucas' meaning of "slow." Vader isn't slow at all compared to fodder Jedi, but he is to the higher Force users. I think that's the best way to give Vader respect while staying true to LFL policy.

He couldn’t move at all, really. We had to keep modifying the suit so people could move in it. By the time we got to the first light-saber battle, we realized we weren’t going to be able to do much. And so I accepted it was an old man vs. a half-man, half-machine. But Jedi were supposed to be quite active. So for the next one, we got a really good stunt guy in, one of the best sword fighters in England. And Mark Hamill is a good sword fighter. For the final film, Hayden [Christensen] and Obi-Wan – I mean Ewan – took it very seriously; they trained for months. Those swords are carbon fiber: We went through lots of them, because they were hitting so hard, they would get bent. It’s like learning to dance, only if you make a mistake, you really get hurt.

“New developments in even the remotest corners of the Star Wars universe are always approved by Lucas himself. The continuity editors send him checklists of potential events, and Lucas checks yes or no. "When Bantam wanted to do the back story on Yoda," Dupree said, "George said that was off limits, because he wanted him to remain a mysterious character. But George has made available some time between the start of Episode Four, when Han Solo is a young pilot on the planet Corellia, and the end of the prequel, so we're working with that now."”-John Seabrook, Writer for the New Yorker, article from the New Yorker, Why the force is still with us, January 6, 1997

“George (Lucas) gave us an hourlong history lesson and let us go away and write a story, encouraging us to create original characters that filled familiar archetypes and giving us feedback as to how Darth Vader would act as a master,” Blackman explains. “The Force Unleashed” also introduces two behavioral simulation programs, NaturalMotion’s Euphoria and Pixelux’s Digital Molecular Matter, which imbue the characters with central nervous systems and add complex new variables to gameplay.

You have been developing the game since 2004 - why has it taken so long?
We spent the first year concept and prototyping the game. We had over 100 different concepts which we whittled down to 20. We then talked to consumers and whittled them down to 7. Then we spoke to George (Lucas) and elements from these seven ended up being the Force Unleashed. The next 6 months were spent on nailing down the story. Then we went into a year's worth of prototyping, building levels and starting the PR and marketing. Early 2007 was the start of full production which took around a year. And since then we have done the bug testing, submission and tuning. Ideally we would have had longer in production.

Lucas has taken an active involvement in The Force Unleashed right through production, from approving the team's original concept for the game to annotating their scripts and helping them create new characters within the Star Wars canon - or even to decide the fates of existing characters. What has emerged is a game which slots in between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. It links together the new trilogy with the original trilogy, and reveals what happens in between Darth Vader's creation and Leia's theft of the Death Star plans.

For Star Wars fans, then, this is the real deal - a brand new, totally canon, Lucas-approved chapter in the continuity, told in the form of a videogame but built around a completely new, movie-style script. For gamers, it's the promise of a title which will employ every trick next-gen affords to bring the powers of The Force to life as never seen before. So then - no pressure, eh guys?

Lucas clearly doesn't hold the view that Vader is slow past ANH, even acknowledging both Luke and Vader as real Jedi and "quite active".

Lucas only accepted it because tech limited him. Comics, games, etc all offered outputs for new portrayals of speed and other displays of power literally not possible at the time. A quote from the early 2000s where he is talking about the limits of tech meaning fights back then were slow but they now allow him to show what he couldn't at the time does not contradict this.[hideedit]

Zenwolf wrote:Also what are these tenets by Lucas? They can't be anything outlandish, because otherwise I'm sure we wouldn't have gotten nearly half the stuff we have.

Lucas was personally involved in and approved many elements of a game that depicted Vader as stomping PT Jedi, including Rahm Kota, Kento Marek, and being able to stomp Galen after he'd defeated a Jedi High Council member in Shaak Ti. If Lucas felt that Vader was weak, slow or not nearly as good as PT Jedi, none of this would have happened. Instead, he was personally involved in all of it.

I think this is the point people are most confused about Lucas. Lucas regards the out-of-universe filming constraints of the originals as also literal constraints in-universe as well. I can pull up probably a dozen examples of this, but here's probably the best: “In this rendition, Vader was half-man, half-machine, and Obi-Wan was pretty much an old man, so this fight was a hard one for them. It wasn’t an acrobatic, jump-around, fast fight. It was a hard fight to fight, because they’re both kind of old Jedi.” That's a line from 2004-2005 Lucas explaining, 'See Vader moving that slow because of the technology constraints? Well, he is that slow because of such and such in-universe reasons." Obviously Lucas could have said the opposite--and what many fans believe to be the case--'that this isn't actually how fast Vader is. He would be way better if we made him today.' But, no, that's not how Lucas works. And that's why Lucas fellates this idea of showing "the prime of the Jedi" and all the related speed/agility/skill wank. He's never saying that's how Luke was supposed to fight. The opposite, actually. He's saying that was just a young boy but here's REAL Jedi.

As for TFU, we know that Blackman tried to combine his own super-hero take of Vader with Lucas' lukewarm take on Vader.

“George (Lucas) gave us an hourlong history lesson and let us go away and write a story, encouraging us to create original characters that filled familiar archetypes and giving us feedback as to how Darth Vader would act as a master,” 

"This is the first example of what we've been able to accomplish by putting (Industrial Light and Magic) and (Force Unleashed developer) LucasArts in the same building in (San Francisco's) Presidio," Lucas said. "So it was a great collaboration between the two of them."

Indeed, based on the quotes you provided, the TFU team got a one-hour history lesson from Lucas--which is likely when Lucas told Blackman to tame his take on Vader.

The project was spearheaded by Haden Blackman, who got his start with LucasArts when he authored the interactive CD-ROM encyclopedia, Behind the Magic, and went on to pen scripts for countless Star Wars comics. Blackman also spent years as a producer at LucasArts, acting as a liaison between Lucasfilm, Industrial Light & Magic, Lucas Licensing, and their various partners. He developed a reputation — even within the Star Wars camp — for his extensive knowledge of the Legends-era universe. When it came time for the internal development team to pitch a number of potential game projects to George Lucas himself, LucasArts latched on to the notion of Vader having an apprentice of his own prior to A New Hope and plotting to overthrow the Emperor.

“George (Lucas) gave us an hourlong history lesson and let us go away and write a story, encouraging us to create original characters that filled familiar archetypes and giving us feedback as to how Darth Vader would act as a master,” Blackman explains. 

Lucas has taken an active involvement in The Force Unleashed right through production, from approving the team's original concept for the game to annotating their scripts and helping them create new characters within the Star Wars canon - or even to decide the fates of existing characters. What has emerged is a game which slots in between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. It links together the new trilogy with the original trilogy, and reveals what happens in between Darth Vader's creation and Leia's theft of the Death Star plans.

Lucas has taken an active involvement in The Force Unleashed right through production, from approving the team's original concept for the game to annotating their scripts and helping them create new characters within the Star Wars canon - or even to decide the fates of existing characters. 

“New developments in even the remotest corners of the Star Wars universe are always approved by Lucas himself. The continuity editors send him checklists of potential events, and Lucas checks yes or no. "When Bantam wanted to do the back story on Yoda," Dupree said, "George said that was off limits, because he wanted him to remain a mysterious character. But George has made available some time between the start of Episode Four, when Han Solo is a young pilot on the planet Corellia, and the end of the prequel, so we're working with that now."”-John Seabrook, Writer for the New Yorker, article from the New Yorker, Why the force is still with us, January 6, 1997

“Lucas approves every important addition to the canon. The ambitious story beats contained in the new game The Force Unleashed were permitted only after he signed off—and spent hours talking to the developers about the relationship between Darth Vader and the Emperor.”- Leland Chee, Continuity Database administrator aka Keeper of the Holocron for Lucas Licensing, Interview with thewire.com, Meet Leland Chee, the Star Wars Franchise Continuity Cop, August 18th, 2008

I would need better quotes confirming Lucas also has Vader stomping Shaak Ti and such. Otherwise, I'll gladly take that as continuity, but I don't think there's any basis to say that's G-continuity.

you never know, you never know. The nerd-tacular obsession with Vader vs. Maul. It’s hard to say – I mean, Vader is hard to top. Something George is pretty adamant of all the time was that Vader, you know… You never want to do anything to diminish him.

I've never heard of that system, besides with the adult novelizations of the films. Most LFL products go right by Lucas' head, but bigger projects will send him a general early synopsis for him to approve. Like TFU, Plagueis, LOTF, NJO, etc. As you can see in the quotes you showed, Lucas approved the project wayyy before they had anything resembling even the final game script done. He said yes to the general idea, gave them some ideas and rules, then they left to work on the game.

“New developments in even the remotest corners of the Star Wars universe are always approved by Lucas himself. The continuity editors send him checklists of potential events, and Lucas checks yes or no. "When Bantam wanted to do the back story on Yoda," Dupree said, "George said that was off limits, because he wanted him to remain a mysterious character. But George has made available some time between the start of Episode Four, when Han Solo is a young pilot on the planet Corellia, and the end of the prequel, so we're working with that now."”-John Seabrook, Writer for the New Yorker, article from the New Yorker, Why the force is still with us, January 6, 1997

We went through George Lucas and he signed off on each point. When he got done, he wrote me a little note that said, “Great job, I can’t wait to see it!” It was that easy to get through the approval process. Of course, once you write the story, they read to make sure you wrote what you said you would, and it’s up to their standards. Really, it was a painless process that was pretty much all of my creation and I just felt lucky and grateful George Lucas signed off on it!

TOM: Cam Kennedy and I got the idea of sending our Marvel/Epic Comics series THE LIGHT AND DARKNESS WAR to George Lucas and proposing a new fully painted Star Wars graphic novel. George loved the idea and asked me to send him plot ideas.

My first idea, believe it or not, was to do a series called "The Jedi Chronicles" which would delve into the history of the Jedi Knights. He said he preferred that we take off from the ending of Return of the Jedi and tell the fate of Luke, Leia, Han, et al. So I put together the concepts that led to Dark Empire.

Now, it should be noted that we had feedback from Mr. Lucas on the plotting of Dark Empire. And our editor, Archie Goodwin, also had a hand in the plotting. He was "Mr. Star Wars" to us, having written many great Star Wars comics for Marvel, as well as the newspaper Star Wars comic strip with artist Al Williamson.

I would send Archie by plot ideas and then we would talk for hours on the telephone about them. We also discussed the story over lunch in Manhattan, with Archie eating sushi and sucking down martinis! :-) 

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TOM: Our original proposal was to bring back Darth Vader's costume and mask, with somebody else inside it. We felt the Empire would want to maintain the fearsome image of Vader and wouldn't much care who was wearing the armor and breathing mask. George vetoed that idea (although he did allow us to have Vader appear in dreams and memories). He said, no, you can't bring back the Vader costume...but if you can figure out how to bring back the Emperor, that's o.k.

The obvious way to bring back the Emperor was with cloning, which George immediately approved.

“He knows the comics very well – after the fact. He reads the comics. George knows more about Star Wars than we do.

George Lucas was also involved in the films where Ant's quotes come from. 

And it's not like either Rahm Kota or Kento Marek or on the level of the Force users that would be above Vader or at the very least on his level. Anakin, Yoda, Sidious, Mace, Dooku, ect. They'd get stomped by any of them. 

Everyone of the prequel era Force users I just listed could likely do what Vader did to Kota and Kento. 

Shaak Ti was amped by the planets energy as described in the novel so I wouldn't say she'd normal do that well against Galen.

First, Lucas explicitly says he accepted the idea that Vader is slow in ANH because of technological constraints:

Lucas says:

In ANH, the tech made it difficult to fight so I had no choice to accept the limitations and make an in-universe explanation for it. For the next film, tech had improved and we had a good sword-fighter, and so we were able to make active, energetic Jedi.

He's not saying "Vader is slow compared to the PT Jedi."

(1) Lucas literally told them how Vader would behave and act as a master:

(2) He then endorsed the game:

(3) So any "spin" Blackman would have put on it had to be checked by LucasArts, another subsidiary of Lucas'.

They didn't get "a one-hour history lesson from Lucas" and then have him saying "I'll approve whatever you do, no question." He was actively involved in it from the very beginning, from helping them to narrow down the plot:


To discussing how Vader would behave and the dynamics of the game:

To even annotating the scripts and other material and creating new characters:

Even explicitly deciding what would happen to characters like Shaak Ti:

Where Lucas would read through it point by point and say either yes or no.

Lucas creates a dynamic throughout Star Wars where the master is in a position of power because they possess the raw power and ability to hold that position. Sidious -Maul/Dooku/Vader, Dooku - Ventress, and now Vader - Galen. 

The apprentice then reaches a point of power (or emotional crisis) where they can overthrow the master. Lucas never wanted Vader to be upstaged, diminished or reduced, as we know for a fact per Filoni:

Not what I was saying. The distinction was the idea that PT Jedi are faster or more agile than Vader, and thus are better. Kota, Marek and Ti all come under that banner, yet all are quite clearly below Vader (two of them are outright stomped and ragdolled by him).

DarthAnt66 wrote:In the case of Force power, at least Anakin/Yoda/Dooku/Mace/Palpatine, but I won't assume anyone else.

LOTL wrote:

DarthAnt66 wrote:In the case of Force power, at least Anakin/Yoda/Dooku/Mace/Palpatine, but I won't assume anyone else.

Wouldn't put the Count in the same league as them at all. Certainly not in 19 BBY

BoD wrote:

George Lucas was also involved in the films where Ant's quotes come from. 

I'm aware. The last one has him saying what I said above, and thus takes precedence over preceding quotes.

And it's not like either Rahm Kota or Kento Marek or on the level of the Force users that would be above Vader or at the very least on his level. Anakin, Yoda, Sidious, Mace, Dooku, ect. They'd get stomped by any of them. 

Everyone of the prequel era Force users I just listed could likely do what Vader did to Kota and Kento. 

Not what I was saying. The distinction was the idea that PT Jedi are faster or more agile than Vader, and thus are better. Kota, Marek and Ti all come under that banner, yet all are quite clearly below Vader (two of them are outright stomped and ragdolled by him).

Shaak Ti was amped by the planets energy as described in the novel so I wouldn't say she'd normal do that well against Galen.

Yes; described in the novel. It's not mentioned in the game, which most of Lucas' attention was directed towards.

"I think people over emphasize the importance of the canon level. The intent of the canon levels was, as the main intent was 'if someones looking for the ships from a film, they can than use those fields to check for them only in the films,and thus separate that from what was in the EU. So we can look at it case by case. I think there is an over emphasis of what those fields mean and what they represent".

~ Leland Chee


"That 'level of canon' thus helps in terms of bookkeeping. Those 'canon levels' are for the holocron."

~ Pablo Hidalgo


ForceCast #273: The Galaxy Is Reading - Interview with Leland Chee and Pablo Hidalgo, 2013Starts at about the 1 hour mark so 1:00 - 1:02 mark

http://www.forcecast.net/story/home/ForceCast_273_The_Galaxy_Is_Reading_154431.asp

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"I get asked all the time, 'What happens after "Return of the Jedi"?,' and there really is no answer for that," he said. "The movies were the story of Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker, and when Luke saves the galaxy and redeems his father, that's where that story ends.""

- George Lucas, Flannelled One, May 2008, "George Lucas: 'Star Wars' won't go beyond Darth Vader", interview with Los Angeles Times

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"The G/C/S-level canon stuff is a construct specifically for the Holocron. Non-Holocron users would have no idea what this stuff even means. and I would say most of the people who use the Holocron don't use the field, instead looking specifically to the source of the material. Individual entries are not broken down by canon level."

~ Leland Chee 2005


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"Understand, that the Holocron's primary purpose is to keep track of Star Wars continuity for Lucas Licensing , and to some degree Lucas Online. To my knowledge, it is only *rarely used for production purposes."

~ Leland Chee 2006

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"The Holocron"

SWI #45. pg. 21

Do you have a map of the Star Wars universe in your head-where every creature comes from, what they eat, their society back home?

"I think somewhere in the dark recesses of my company there is something like that, but I've never seen it. I don't really know. Even though I live this and I know the worlds very well, and I know what everything is, half the time I'm in the fortunate position of being able to just make it up. So if somebody asks me a question, I know what the consistencies are, I know what's consistent with a particular environment and what isn't."

~ George Lucas - SWI #45. pg. 21

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'And what goes in the blank timeline spaces of the Film Only universe - can we never know the history or background of that Star Wars universe like we can in the EU Star Wars universe?'

"Nothing. That's why it's film only."
~ Leland Chee, 2007

https://ibb.co/3dBN7Sw

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“I did not have direct contact with George about Star Wars continuity. Dave Filoni, who worked on Clone Wars, definitely did. So for me, the spirit of George’s work is what’s in the films, and it doesn’t go too far beyond that.”
~ Leland Chee 2018


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"What George did with the films and The Clone Wars was pretty much his universe ,” Chee said. “He didn’t really have that much concern for what we were doing in the books and games. So the Expanded Universe was very much separate."


~ Leland Chee, 2017 - SYFY WIRE

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“Lucas’ canon – and when I say ‘his canon’, I’m talking about what he was doing in the films and what he was doing in The Clone Wars  – was hugely important. But what we were doing in the books really wasn’t on his radar.”

~ Leland Chee, 2018


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"The dual universe question comes up often. I know George Lucas has mentioned it being two universes, but that’s not how I see it. His vision is definitely not beholden to ours, but ours is definitely beholden to his."


~ Leland Chee 2012

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"Dave Filoni is better equipped to relay Lucas’ true feelings about the EU."

~ Leland Chee

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"There's this notion that everything changed when everything became Legends. And I can see why people think that. But, you know, having worked with George I can tell you that it was always very clear -- and he made it very clear -- that the films and the TV shows were the only things that he considered Canon. That was it."
Dave Filoni interview on 'The Star Wars show' [41.40 mark]- https://youtu.be/hcNXPNXOv2A?t=2500

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Pablo Hidalgo on Lucas and the EU being separate Universes.

https://i.redd.it/3fpbkocr43q01.png

"He [Lucas] only considers his movies and TV projects as his universe, and told the Clone Wars writers to only worry about those."

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"This is Star Wars, and I don't make a distinction between [The Clone Wars] series and the films."

~ George Lucas, SciFiNow, October 2011


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"What George Saw as Canon"

"In the old days, George Lucas saw his universe as separate from publishing [EU]. He wasn't at all interested in connecting."

~ Pablo Hidalgo [Lucasfilm Story Group] 2016
https://i.imgur.com/6ZOkAau.png

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"From Star Wars Insider [The Official Star Wars Magazine] -  Issue 77 , Using Dark Empire & The Thrawn Trilogy As Examples. - https://ibb.co/K9PMgH3


"So do episodes beyond Return of the Jedi exist? Nothing beyond possible story points and ideas, certainly not fleshed out story treatments or scripts. Fans often wonder if Dark Empire or the Thrawn Trilogy were based off those notes or are meant to be Episodes VII, VIII, IX. - That's not the case.


Those works are the creation of their respective authors with the guidance of editors at Lucas Licensing. They are not, nor ever were, meant to be George Lucas' definitive vision of what happens next."


~ Pablo Hidalgo, 2004 - https://ibb.co/K9PMgH3

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"I don't read that stuff, I haven't read any of the novels. I don't know anything about that world. That's a different world than my world. But I do try and keep it consistent. The way I do it is they have a Star Wars encyclopedia. So if I come up with a name or something else, I look it and see if it has already been used. When I said other people could make thier own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have TWO universes: My Universe and than this other one. They try to make THEIR universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions."

~ George Lucas, August, 2005
https://ibb.co/Km1CcNs


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"Howard Roffman [President of Lucas Licensing], He once said to me that there are two Star Trek universes: there's the TV show and then there's all the spin-offs. He said that these were completely different and didn't have anything to do with each other. So I said, "OK, go ahead."


~ George Lucas 2008

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"Within the issue of Starlog magazine with the War of the Worlds cover is an interview article with George Lucas. He stated something which he had said before, which is that he doesn't follow the SW EU, he doesn't read the books or comics. He also said that when they started doing all this (which is allowing other storytellers to tell their own SW tales), he had decreed that the Star Wars Universe would be split into two just like Star Trek , one would be his own universe (the six episode movie saga), the other would be a whole other universe (the Expanded Universe). He continued to say that the EU tries as much as possible to tie in to his own universe, but sometimes they move into a whole other line of their own."


~ Confirmed by Sue Rostoni, Lucas Licensing Publishing, 2005

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"George knows more about Star Wars than we do. He doesn't see the Expanded Universe as ”his” Star Wars, but as ”ours.” I think this has been mentioned previously, maybe in other places, but it's not new info, as far as I remember."

~ Sue Rostoni, Lucas Licensing (LLP Managing Editor), 2004

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“There are two worlds here,” explained Lucas. “There’s my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe – the licensing world of the books, games and comic books."


~ George Lucas, Cinescape, 2002

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"And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn't at all what I would have done with it. The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn't come back to life, the Emperor doesn't get cloned and Luke doesn't get married."

~ George Lucas, Flannelled One, 2008

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”The novels and comic books are other authors' interpretations of my creation.  Sometimes, I tell them what they can and cant do, but I just don't have the time to read them. They're not my vision of what Star Wars is."

 ~ George Lucas 2004

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"I like to refer to the Interview with Lucas in the Special Editions.When asked about the novels and what not, he simply says:

”Those are another author's interpretation of what I've created, and not to be taken seriously, as far as what is really going on in the Star Wars world.”

~ George Lucas

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"Q: What do you think of the Expanded Universe of books?

A: "The books are in a different universe. I've not read any of them, and I told them when they started writing I wouldn't read any of them and I blocked out certain periods."


~ George Lucas 2003

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"Continuity is for wimps."
~ George Lucas during TCW


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 Leland Chee does point out that there is one higher authority than the Holocron: Lucas himself, who is free to alter continuity at will.

https://www.mcservices.com/blog/custom-programming/lucasfilm-tracks-star-wars-continuity-with-filemaker-database/

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"The only relevant official continuities are the current versions of the films alone, and the combined current version of the films along with whatever else we've got in the Holocron. You're never going to know what George's view of the universe beyond the films at any given time because it is constantly evolving. It remains elastic until it gets committed to film or another official source. Even then, we know there's always room for change. Though the Holocron is maintained by Licensing, it is utilized by folks throughout all the Lucas companies."

~ Leland Chee, Continuity Database Administrator

https://ibb.co/kyf6mnY

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"I'm not going to do it. I'm too old. I've got other movies I want to do. And I don't want anybody else to do it, so I've locked it up so Nobody can ever do it. There may be TV offshoots from people, but the saga itself, the story of the Skywalker family, is over!"

~ George Lucas, Entertainment Weekly #785 interview September 24, 2004

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"Well its possible that maybe an offshoot movie somewhere, about an offshoot character in that world, but not about Luke Skywalker, not about that group of people [Han, Leia, Chewie, etc.]. Or the struggle to bring back democracy to the Galaxy."

~ George Lucas Interview, 2005

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"George Lucas says there has never been any war between the Jedi and the Sith in his Star Wars Canon" - An excerpt from StarWars.com‘s oral history of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace:


Everybody said, “Oh, well, there was a war between the Jedi and the Sith.”  Well, that never happened. That’s just made up by fans or somebody. What  really happened is, the Sith ruled the universe for a while, 2000 years ago.  Each Sith has an apprentice, but the problem was, each Sith Lord got to be  powerful. And the Sith Lords would try to kill each other because they all  wanted to be the most powerful. So in the end they killed each other off, and  there wasn’t anything left.

"But anyway, there’s a whole matrix of backstory that has never really come  out. It’s really just history that I gathered up along the way. It’s all based on backstories that I’d written setting up what the Jedi were, setting up what the Sith were, setting up what the Empire was, setting up what the Republic was, and how it all fit together I never really got a chance to explain the Whills part."

'George Lucas’ vision of the galaxy’s ancient times is clearly different from the Expanded Universe. Many wars between Jedi and Sith in the Old Republic era were told in games, books and comics. The current Lucasfilm’s canon didn’t explore this era yet.'


https://naboonews.wordpress.com/2019/05/25/george-lucas-says-there-has-never-been-any-war-between-the-jedi-and-the-sith-in-his-canon/

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"I don't even read the offshoot books that come out based on Star Wars."

~ George Lucas, Flannelled One, July 1999 - Film Night interview

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Q: Can you quote any good story other than the movies?

A: "No, I don't think so. (laughs)."

~ George Lucas


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"Q: in that vein, is it possible we'll see more Star Wars TV product?

A: Because I"m retiring from this part of my creative life, I'm open to more TV Product. but not more feature films. The story is complete and any other story wouldn't be my philosophy and views, the books are not the same philosophy as the movies."


~ George Lucas 2003


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"The movies are Gospel, and everything else is Gossip."
~ George Lucas


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"The question selected from The Furry Conflict poll was: How much does the Expanded Universe influence the movies?


"As I asked him, Lucas leaned back a moment and said to me “Very little.” When he first had agreed to let people write Expanded Universe books, he had said “I’m not gonna read ‘em” and it was a “different universe” and that he wanted to keep away from the time period of his saga. He jokingly complained, however, that now when he writes a script he has to look through an encyclopedia to make sure that a name he comes up with doesn’t come too close to something in the EU."

- "Marc Xavier", November 2003, "The Furry Conflict and the Great ‘Beard‘ of the Galaxy (report based on a Q&A session with George Lucas which occurred at USC on 11-19-03)

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"George doesn't see the overall story ideas or concepts. If there is a sensitive area, or if we are developing backstory for a character he's created or mentioned in an interview, we can query him to get more information, his approval, or whatever. And yes, we always query him if we're doing something drastic to a film character. I believe he does read the concepts for the games though."

- Sue Rostoni, Lucas Licensing (LLP Managing Editor), 2004

..

"George doesn't give us much information about his future movies until he's making them. In general, George does not take the EU into account when he's making his movies.

It's our job to manipulate the EU into fitting George's future movies, which often contradict stuff we've done. Not our ONLY job, of course."

~ Sue Rostoni, LucasBooks/LL Managing Editor, 2003



..


"So if we'll never see it onscreen, what does happen to Princess Leia and Han Solo after they fall in love?


”Han and Leia probably did get married,” Lucas conceded. ”They settled down. She became a senator, and they got a nice little house with a white picket fence. Han Solo is out there cooking burgers on the grill. Is that a movie? I don't think so.”

 ~ George Lucas, Flannelled One, May  2005  - MTV interview


"That explains the fates of two of the most beloved characters in that galaxy far, far away.."

http://www.mtv.com/news/1501522/what-happened-to-han-and-leia-how-about-jar-jar-star-wars-emperor-lucas-speaks/



..



"I feel very satisfied that I have accomplished what I set out to do with 'Star Wars,' " he told CNN. "I was able to complete the entire saga and say this is what the whole story is about."

    - George Lucas, Flannelled One, May 2005, CNN interview

DarthAnt66 wrote:@Zenwolf: Lucas' commentary would take precedence over an infinite amount of C-Canon material. Though, I don't think of it as a contradiction, but rather clarification of Lucas' meaning of "slow." Vader isn't slow at all compared to fodder Jedi, but he is to higher Force users that Lucas clarifies are faster than him.

I think that's the best way to give Vader respect while staying true to LFL policy.

See now that would be fair, but now who are these higher Force Users? 

Where does this high end Force Users start and stop at?

By high end, are we just talking Palps/Yoda/Anakin/Mace/Obi/Maul? Or does it even stretch further than that?