George Lucas should have outsourced the last three ‘Star Wars’ movies

The preview trailer for a new “Star Wars” video game impressed a lot of jaded industry reporters at the E3 video game show this week.
I heard several people mention that the trailer was better than any of the last three “Star Wars” movies by franchise creator George Lucas.
“Why couldn’t Lucas have made a movie like that?” one attendee asked me.
Well, for starters, Lucas apparently didn’t have anyone close to him who could give him the straight dope. He’s probably surrounded by yes men and sycophants.
He’s also too interested in building his fortune by selling toys, games and party supplies to young kids.
People forget that Lucas didn’t direct the second and third movies of the original trilogy. Irvin Kershner (“Never Say Never Again”) directed “The Empire Strikes Back” and Richard Marquand (“Jagged Edge”) directed “Return of the Jedi.” And Lucas, who wrote and directed the first “Star Wars” by himself, had help with the screenplays of the next two movies.
The lousy, more recent, prequel trilogy was all Lucas’ handiwork.
Meanwhile, Lucas has outsourced the “Star Wars” video games to other people. Unlike Lucas himself, these creative professionals have a fan’s perspective of the franchise and can tell the stories that they’d like to see.
The trailer video for “Star Wars: The Old Republic” has the dark themes and action that adults want to see. (Watch it full screen.)
The massively multiplayer online role-playing game is produced by BioWare, a unit of Electronic Arts.
“It’s amazing what you can do with this universe once you pry it from George Lucas’ hands,” Marc Bernardin wrote on EW.com’s PopWatch blog.