Want to know what happens after Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi? You have to venture into the “expanded universe” of books, comics and video games, says creator George Lucas, who reiterated that he never plans to make episodes 7, 8 or 9 of the series. For Lucas, the saga begins with Anakin’s childhood and ends with his redemption and death. But Lucas is perfectly happy to keep stuffing the gaps in that narrative with more and more padding.
Lucas explains to the LA Times that Anakin is the main character of the Star Wars saga for him. So even though he’ll continue to tell Star Wars stories before Vader passed, he has no interest in going further:
There really isn’t any story to tell there…It’s been covered in the books and video games and comic books, which are things I think are incredibly creative but that I don’t really have anything to do with other than being the person who built the sandbox they’re playing in.
I wonder if he’s just upset he killed off the best character and knows there is no way to top Vader. This may be why Indiana Jones is still alive and solving archaeological riddles to this day. But just because Lucas isn’t going to continue the story doesn’t mean he’s not going to keep creating new characters and shoving story lines in between the first six episodes. Someone’s gotta feed the ponies on Skywalker Ranch. Lucas continues on to explain his interest in working on writing about Vader or things the directly involve that character, i.e. Clone Wars.
The Clone Wars’ is a lot of fun for me, because in the normal course of the Skywalker saga, what happened during the Clone Wars is never told — we see a little of the beginning and a little of the end, but other than that, it’s skipped over… Obviously, during a war, there are lots and lots of stories, there’s action, there’s drama, there’s heartbreak and sometimes there’s comedy. Anakin was a part of the Clone Wars, so it makes a certain sense to tell these stories, because they ultimately do affect him.
