George Lucas’ new museum has just opened, and it does seem like a pretty good indicator of what the Star Warscreator does and doesn’t like about the franchise under Disney. Since selling Lucasfilm back in 2012, Lucas has largely remained on the sidelines, offering limited thoughts and opinions about what’s become of Star Wars since his departure. However, his brand-new museum seemingly communicates quite a bit.
Of course, Star Wars is a major draw for the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles. That said, the entire building is full of impressive pieces besides those belonging to the galaxy far, far away, like the works of Frida Kahlo and Norman Rockwell, to original pages of comic book art by Jack Kirby and Jim Lee. Having visited the museum myself during its opening week, I can attest that the building and campus designed by Chinese architect Ma Yansong is a true work of art in and of itself.
However, it’s worth zeroing in on the Star Wars of it all, especially when it comes to what is (and what isn’t) featured in Lucas’ new museum, as it offers potential insight into what “The Maker” might actually like about the franchise in the modern Disney era.
George Lucas’ New Museum Features An Impressive Star Wars Collection (From His Time)
In particular, the Star Wars collection at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is really quite something. Original concept art from legends like Ralph McQuarrie and Doug Chiang adorns the walls, while the hall displays several amazing physical props and costumes, including models of iconic vehicles like The Empire Strikes Back’s AT-AT, as well as The Millennium Falcon. There are also several full-sized vehicle models, including General Grievous’ wheel bike from Revenge of the Sith, Luke’s landspeeder from A New Hope, Anakin Skywalker’s podracer from The Phantom Menace, and more.
The entrance to the museum’s library even features a full-sized N1-Naboo starfighter hanging from the ceiling, while the greater campus features outdoor statues of Princess Leia Organa slaying Jabba the Hutt and Padmé Amidala taking on a vicious Nexu.
However…it’s nearly all from George Lucas’ time with Lucasfilm. Next to nothing can be found from the Star Wars projects produced under Disney. Even the merchandise created exclusively for the museum follows the same pattern. The legacy and Star Wars representation on display at the Lucas Museum is wonderful…though it very much ignores almost everything from the last 14 years (save for two things).
The Two Disney-Era Star Wars Things George Lucas Actually Seems To Like
Disney+ via MovieStillsDB
It’s interesting to note that there are seemingly just two Disney-era exceptions at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. The most obvious is a statue of Grogu, who joins Jedi Master Yoda at the top of a fountain (designed by Lawrence Noble, who also designed the original Yoda fountain at Lucasfilm’s headquarters in San Francisco). Likewise, Grogu is also represented in a piece of exclusive Lucas Museum merchandise with a pin. This speaks to long-held reports that George does have an appreciation for the child and the work and dedication that has gone into bringing Grogu to life with practical puppetry.
However, the second inclusion is perhaps even more revealing. Featuring its own theaters, the Lucas Museum’s Slavko Vorkapich Theater plays various short films, montage experiments, and even some of Lucas’ own college student films throughout the day. However, two different Star Wars projects are also screened. The first is select episodes from Star Wars Detours, the animated comedy series developed by Lucasfilm that was canceled following the Disney acquisition, and episodes of Star Wars: Visions, a Disney-era anthology featuring non-canonical stories from various anime studios.
A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know Star Wars? “The Force will be with you. Always.”
🗡️Jedi OrderLight-side guardians
⚡The SithRule of two
⚙️The RebellionA new hope
🪓Bounty HuntersThis is the way
👑The EmpireOrder 66
01
The original Star Wars film — later retitled Episode IV: A New Hope — opened in just 32 American theatres and proceeded to become the highest-grossing film of its era, redefining what summer blockbusters could be. In which year did it premiere?
✓ Correct! 1977 — specifically May 25. 20th Century Fox had so little faith in the project they only opened it in 32 theatres at first; queues quickly stretched around the block, and the film expanded to over 1,000 screens within months. It earned $307 million in its initial domestic run, won six Academy Awards (with another four nominations) and inverted Hollywood’s economics for the next 50 years.
✗ Wrong. The answer is 1977. 1975 is when the script was being shopped around. 1979 is when Star Trek: The Motion Picture released as a Star Wars-shaped countermove. 1980 is The Empire Strikes Back. The original Star Wars is May 25, 1977.
02
A New Hope’s writer-director was a then-32-year-old American Graffiti veteran who’d struggled to get the project greenlit and famously took back-end profit and merchandising rights in lieu of a higher salary — the deal that would build a billion-dollar company. He returned to direct the prequels but stepped away from the original-trilogy sequels. Name him.
✓ Correct! George Lucas. The merchandising rights he kept (because Fox didn’t value them) became the financial bedrock of Lucasfilm and the basis of the modern toys-and-licensing megabusiness. After A New Hope, Lucas produced but didn’t direct Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner) or Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand), then directed all three prequels (1999–2005). He sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 and stepped away from creative control of the sequels.
✗ Wrong. The answer is George Lucas. Steven Spielberg was Lucas’s close friend (and the godfather of his post-A-New-Hope career) but never directed a Star Wars film. Coppola was Lucas’s mentor at USC and at American Zoetrope. Irvin Kershner directed Empire Strikes Back. The original is Lucas’s.
03
In 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader delivers cinema’s most-misquoted line at the climax of his Cloud City duel with Luke Skywalker. Vader severs Luke’s hand and reveals their relationship. The exact line is — for the record — “No, I am your father.” What relationship does it confirm?
✓ Correct! Vader is Anakin Skywalker, Luke’s father. The reveal was so jealously guarded that Mark Hamill was only told the real line on set the day they shot it (the script said “Obi-Wan killed your father”), and even James Earl Jones recorded the dub without knowing the full plot context. The line — commonly misquoted as “Luke, I am your father” — rewrote what trilogies could pull off and is broadly considered cinema’s most famous twist.
✗ Wrong. The answer is that Vader is Luke’s father, Anakin Skywalker. The whole foundation of the Skywalker saga collapses to this single twist: Anakin (the Jedi prodigy of the prequels) becomes Vader after his fall. Luke and Leia are revealed in Return of the Jedi to be his twin children, separated at birth.
04
Yoda — the green, ear-twitching Jedi Master — was puppeted and voiced from his Empire Strikes Back debut through the prequels and the sequels by a single Muppet-show-veteran performer who also voices Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear. Name him.
✓ Correct! Frank Oz — longtime Jim Henson collaborator and voice/puppet work on Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Sam Eagle and Grover. Oz puppeted Yoda directly through The Phantom Menace before CGI took over for Attack of the Clones onward, but he’s continued to voice the character through the sequels and animated series. Yoda’s syntax was developed jointly by Lucas and Oz to feel old, foreign and hard-won.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Frank Oz. Jim Henson was Oz’s mentor and collaborator (he created the Muppets) but didn’t voice Yoda. Steve Whitmire took over Kermit after Henson’s 1990 death. Brian Henson is Jim’s son and runs the Henson company today. Yoda is Frank Oz’s.
05
In a deal that reshaped Hollywood, Disney acquired Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion in cash and stock — bringing Star Wars, Indiana Jones, ILM and Skywalker Sound under the Disney umbrella. The deal also kicked off the sequel trilogy production. In what year did Disney close the acquisition?
✓ Correct! 2012 — specifically October 30. The deal was announced with simultaneous reveal that a Star Wars Episode VII was being developed for a 2015 release. Lucas had been quietly preparing his exit from Lucasfilm for years; Kathleen Kennedy had been brought in as co-chair months earlier specifically to take over. The Force Awakens came out three years later, in December 2015, kicking off the modern era.
✗ Wrong. The answer is 2012. 2009 is when Disney acquired Marvel ($4 billion). 2010 is the year before Lucas began signalling exit plans. 2014 is when production proper began on The Force Awakens. Lucasfilm joined Disney on October 30, 2012.
06
The Mandalorian launched as Disney+’s flagship original on November 12, 2019 — the day the streaming service itself launched. Created by Jon Favreau and run by Dave Filoni, the show centres on a helmeted bounty hunter who reluctantly becomes a foster father to “The Child” (Grogu). What is the Mandalorian’s real name?
✓ Correct! Din Djarin — played by Pedro Pascal under the helmet (with body double Brendan Wayne handling much of the physical work). The Mandalorian is widely credited with reviving Star Wars on TV, popularising the StageCraft LED-volume virtual production technology now used across Hollywood, and turning baby Yoda — Grogu — into the meme-economy phenomenon of late 2019. Three seasons have aired with a feature film, The Mandalorian & Grogu, set for May 2026.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Din Djarin. Boba Fett is the famous bounty hunter from the original trilogy, with his own Disney+ spinoff (The Book of Boba Fett, 2021). Cobb Vanth is the Tatooine marshal played by Timothy Olyphant. Bo-Katan Kryze is the Mandalorian princess played by Katee Sackhoff. The Mandalorian himself is Din Djarin.
07
Order 66 — the secret directive that turns the Republic’s clone troopers against their Jedi commanders and effectively ends the Jedi Order — is dramatised in the climactic third act of which prequel film?
✓ Correct! Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). Palpatine’s “Execute Order 66” comm to the clone armies leads to the methodical, planet-by-planet liquidation of the Jedi Order — one of the saga’s most operatic sequences, scored to John Williams’ “Anakin’s Betrayal” cue. The same film features Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side, the Mustafar duel with Obi-Wan, and his rebirth as Darth Vader in the suit. Widely re-evaluated as the best of the prequels.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Revenge of the Sith. Phantom Menace ends with Qui-Gon’s death and the unveiling of Darth Maul. Attack of the Clones ends with the Clone Wars beginning. Rogue One is set just before A New Hope, after Order 66 has long since happened. The Order 66 sequence is the climax of Episode III.
08
Andor (2022–25) is widely regarded as the most adult, politically literate Star Wars project ever made — a slow-burn prequel to Rogue One charting Cassian Andor’s radicalisation against the Empire. The series was created and showrun by a writer/director best known for the original Bourne trilogy and Michael Clayton. Name him.
✓ Correct! Tony Gilroy. He’d previously been brought in for extensive Rogue One reshoots in 2016, and Lucasfilm gave him near-total creative independence on Andor. Season 1 (12 episodes, 2022) is widely regarded as Star Wars’ finest dramatic writing ever; Season 2 (also 12 episodes, in four three-episode jumps across 2025) closes the gap to Rogue One’s opening scene. Gilroy’s prior credits: Bourne Identity / Supremacy / Ultimatum / Legacy, plus directing Michael Clayton (2007).
✗ Wrong. The answer is Tony Gilroy. Rian Johnson directed The Last Jedi (2017). Jon Favreau created The Mandalorian and is Lucasfilm’s Disney+-era animation/live-action lieutenant. Dave Filoni runs the Filoniverse (Clone Wars, Rebels, Ahsoka, the upcoming Heir to the Empire film). Andor is Tony Gilroy’s.
The Force Has Spoken · Final Tally Your Galactic Standing
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Jedi Master — or moisture farmer on Tatooine?
Unlike most Disney productions, Visions isn’t constrained by the franchise’s established canon or even a single visual style, which is likely why it’s such a natural fit for the Lucas Museum. Furthermore, Lucas having an appreciation of Visions makes all the sense in the world. After all, George Lucas’ biggest reported complaint after seeing The Force Awakens was that “there was nothing new.” In comparison, Visions couldn’t be more opposite, with artists being given unprecedented permission to experiment with visual styles, story techniques, new characters, and concepts in order to showcase whole new flavors of the galaxy far, far away like never before.
From that perspective, it can definitely be argued that the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has further cemented the kinds of Star Wars projects and ideas George Lucas continues to value, especially in the time since his absence (there just hasn’t been very much of it lately).
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi, Star Wars: Episode IX- The Rise of Skywalker, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi, Star Wars: New Jedi Order
