Following criticism over pretty much everything he’s done in the past decades, Star Wars creator/destroyer George Lucas announced his planned retirement in a recent interview with the New York Times – adding, “Why would I make any more when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?”

This made various Star Wars and Indiana Jones fans feel bad for a couple of minutes, before Lucas revealed that the “nuke the fridge” sequence in Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull – where Harrison Ford survives an atom bomb by hiding in a lead-lined fridge – was entirely his idea. Everyone then remembered every other cartoonishly undignified tweak Lucas has made to well-liked franchises in the past twenty years, and returned to a state of vague loathing.

The announcement comes just a week after Lucas’ promise that Red Tails, based on the lives of a group of African American pilots during World War II, was just part of a proposed trilogy – but then why would we be surprised when Lucas goes back and completely changes whatever it is he was setting out to do before?

Lucas’ retirement isn’t going to preclude all sorts of film making, as he plans to follow in Francis Ford Coppola’s example and focus on smaller, “more personal” projects, which is fine because this means he isn’t going to be messing with either Star Wars or Indiana Jones any more. Or not much more, anyway, as the possible fifth Indiana Jones film might still be seeing the light of day.

So there’s only so much more damage he can do.

[Source: Time]

Han shot first.