Disney CEO Bob Iger has a new book out now titled The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned From 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company. Someone on Reddit recently posted a number of quotes from the book in which Iger discusses why they decided to discard George Lucas’ ideas, as well as Lucas’ disappointment in The Force Awakens. Honestly, considering how brilliant the new trilogy has been thus far, I’m glad that the likes of Kathleen Kennedy and J.J. Abrams decided to put aside George Lucas’ ideas and walk the path they ended up walking. Exploring the midichlorians again? No thank you. The truth was, Kathy, J.J., Alan [Horn, Disney’s film chief], and I had discussed the direction in which the saga should go, and we all agreed that it wasn’t what George had outlined. George knew we weren’t contractually bound to anything, but he thought that our buying the story treatments was a tacit promise that we’d follow them, and he was disappointed that his story was being discarded.” In regards to what Lucas thought of The Force Awakens, Iger said: He wasn’t wrong, but he also wasn’t appreciating the pressure we were under to give ardent fans a film that felt quintessentially Star Wars. We’d intentionally created a world that was visually and tonally connected to the earlier films, to not stray too far from what people loved and expected, and George was criticizing us for the very thing we were trying to do. Looking back with the perspective of several years and a few more Star Wars films, I believe J.J. achieved the near-impossible, creating a perfect bridge between what had been and what was to come.”
