Despite creating one of the most beloved franchises of all time in Star Wars, filmmaker George Lucas has a complicated relationship with fans.
Whether it's the prequels many felt didn't come close to the original trilogy or the fact he made constant alterations to the latter with subsequent re-releases, Lucas has long clashed with admirers of his work.
New technology saw him frequently make sweeping changes to A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. That ultimately ranged from blinking Ewoks to a massively overhauled Death Star battle, and even Darth Vader screaming "Noooo!" as he threw Emperor Palpatine to his death (Hayden Christensen was even inserted into Episode VI's final scene).
Perhaps the biggest issue, though, was the fact the original versions of Star Wars are now near-impossible to find.
Talking at Cannes, Lucas defended his decision to go back and "clean up" the original movies. "I'm a firm believer that the director, or the writer, or the filmmaker should have a right to have his movie be the way he wants it," he said, making it clear he'd never approve of a 4K remaster of the 1977 Star Wars.
"We did release the original one on laserdisc and everybody got really mad, they said, 'It looks terrible.' And I said, 'Yeah, I know it did,'" Lucas added. "That is what it looked like."
Elsewhere in the conversation, the filmmaker talked briefly about the new Star Wars sequels and seemed to suggest Disney got it wrong (you'll recall that the original agreement was that Lucas' story outlines would be used for the trilogy that kicked off with 2015's The Force Awakens).
"I was the one who really knew what Star Wars was...who actually knew this world, because there’s a lot to it," He explained. "The Force, for example, nobody understood the Force. When they started other ones after I sold the company, a lot of the ideas that were in [the original] sort of got lost. But that’s the way it is. You give it up, you give it up."
"I’m a stubborn guy and I didn’t want people to tell me how to make my movies," Lucas concluded when asked about the secret of his success.
The Lucasfilm founder has always chosen his words carefully when it comes to Disney's approach to the franchise, though many people have similar issues with the stories we've seen in theaters and on Disney+. The House of Mouse has, however, made the franchise bigger than it's been in a very long time.
After all, when Lucas sold the studio, there were no firm plans for another trilogy, he still hadn't managed to get the live-action Star Wars Underworld series off the ground and had seemingly little interest in ever returning to a Galaxy Far, Far Away...