George Lucas says Disney tossed his ideas for Star Wars: The Force Awakens: It was like 'breaking up with somebody'

George Lucas is feeling a little like a jilted lover. After selling the Star Wars franchise to The Walt Disney Co. in 2012, he approached the company with story ideas for a new trilogy. Walt Disney pulled a classic "it's not you, it's me," and dumped his plans.

"They decided they didn't want to use those stories, they decided they were gonna do their own thing. They weren't that keen on having me involved anyway," Lucas told CBS. His idea had been to tell the story of the grandchildren of the characters from the original trilogy (and since details are still foggy about the new film, it's unclear if Disney did something else entirely, or simply went about executing the idea in a way different than Lucas had envisioned).

"The issue was, ultimately, they looked at the stories and they said, 'We want to make something for the fans.' So, I said, all I want to do is tell a story of what happened — it started here and went there. It's all about generations, and issues of fathers and sons and grandfathers. It's a family soap opera," Lucas said.

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He explained that he finally realized he needed to step back. "When you break up with somebody, the first rule is no phone calls. The second rule, you don't go over to their house and drive by to see what they're doing. The third one is you don't show up at their coffee shop and say, 'You are going to burn it...' You just say 'Nope, gone, history, I'm moving forward.'"

But that doesn't mean he's over it. "It's not much fun [when you] go to make a movie and all you do is get criticized," Lucas said. Watch below. Jeva Lange