He's a separate character that Disney was spruking years ago called R2-MK. The MK stood for "Magic Kingdom".
Exactly how I feel. People seem to forget that the story for the first film wasn't exactly original. In fact, it was pointed out in several documentaries I watched growing up that many of the story elements from Star Wars were ripped from, or a "homage" to many, many earlier works. - Farm boy (or any menial laborer) who has dreams of glory or a destiny of greatness, straight from The Princess Bride (1973), The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, all of which followed Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, and was likely influenced by the life of Jesus. - Hero encounters supernatural aid, a mentor, and wise figure, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hero's Journey. - Hero is given or finds a mystical weapon - The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia - Hero leaves his ordinary life behind - The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia. - Hero is called to a great mission - rescue the princess, destroy a deadly object, ect. - far too many fantasy and/or scifi sources to list. - Hero enlists the aid of a lovable rogue - again, far too many to list, but Han seems to have been heavily influenced by Robin Hood, or Tom Sawyer. - Hero storms the enemy stronghold - The Illiad, Chronicles of Narnia, and many, many works. - Hero has trials, and a major loss - usually a friend or loved one. - Hero wins the day and is awarded.
This just smacks of a guy who's feeling minimized. I mean, his creation has just proven to be wildly successful WITHOUT him. He's just having difficulty with the fact that, aside from creating Star Wars, he isn't it's most crucial element (at least not anymore). I wonder what he really feels about TESB. Most people feel it's the best of the first six, and it's the one with the least input from Lucas. (he practically co-directed ROTJ). Star Wars doesn't need George Lucas anymore and it's thriving. Some folks would be happy, he's bitter.
The Indy franchise was sold to Disney, too. I still say a movie set in South America in the 50s or 60s involving Nazi-hunting and some sort of supernatural item would work, though.
Yeah, I have a theory that Snoke ordered the weapon to be built as easily destroyable ON PURPOSE as a killing two birds with one stone maneuver to a. strike a significant blow to the Republic / Resistance, b. ensure that Kylo killed Han to further his path towards the dark side and c. to destroy all the First Order who Snoke couldn't give two shits about. In fact, it would be cool to see the FO remnants as better-the-devil-you-know allies against Snoke and whatever minion army he reveals. If you wanted to take the franchise in a new direction, that's how I'd do it anyway. Think about it, most of the Republic has been destroyed and most of the First Order has been destroyed leaving room for a third power to emerge.
I though TFA was all the better for not involving Lucas. Maybe they just thought his ideas were stupid, did he ever consider that? He was dreadful at writing dialogue, properly developing a plot and his insistence on including characters like the Ewoks and Binks really hurt the first 6 films. When he first wanted to create Binks people at his own company warned him it was a mistake, but he refused to listen. His White Slaver comment is nonsense, he sold SW to Disney fair and square.
When you surround yourself with "yes man" for several decades, you lose the ability to comprehend that anything you do is less than perfect. It's perfectly understandable that he thinks he's the world's greatest writer/director, but the rest of the world isn't so deluded. And now that they could tell him to bugger off, they actually did, and that of course really irked him to no end.
For those who haven't followed the whole story, Lucas backtracked a day or so later and apologized for the "white slaver" remarks, and said how proud he was of everybody involved, and that he's glad that Star Wars is in good hands and is being developed further. But how does he really feel? Kor
It's a fair analogy. If you want to sell your family members, white slavers really are number one in their field.
People act as if the "yes man" thing is somehow unique to George Lucas, but really nothing could be further from the truth. It's pretty much endemic to corporate culture. I mean, where were all the heroic "no men" - that everyone other than Lucas is presumed to be surrounded by at all times - when Abrams was demonstrating his complete lack of understanding of basic astronomy, i.e. the size and scale of space?