There's A Petition To Have George Lucas Replace Colin Trevorrow As Director Of 'Star Wars: Episode IX'

Though the box office for Star Wars: The Force Awakens has started to slow down, the buzz surrounding the film and the future of the franchise has never been stronger. While some fans didn't fall in love with The Force Awakens, I think we can all agree this is a good place to start anew with Star Wars, and like Max Von Sydow's character Lor San Tekka says at the beginning of the movie, "This should begin to make things right." But it sounds like one fan wants to take a big step back for Star Wars: Episode 9.

There's a petition on Change.org posted by a Brazilian fan who is campaigning to get Disney and Lucasfilm to bring back Star Wars creator George Lucas to direct Episode 9 instead of Jurassic World helmer Colin Trevorrow. Too bad that won't ever happen.

Yuri Luiz is the fan behind the George Lucas petition (via Bleeding Cool) that has garnered over 5,700 signatures at the time of this writing. That's not exactly an overwhelming number of fans, and the petition has been out there for a week. But since it's been getting spread around more online, that number will likely ending up rising before all is said and done. Here's what the petition says:

Bring back George Lucas for the Star Wars movies. Put the father of the franchise as director of Episode IX . We really want this, please.

We have no problem with Colin Trevorrow , but he's not the right guy to direct Star Wars Episode IX. George Lucas as director of Episode IX would be the perfect way to end this new trilogy and make an epic farewell between the Father of Star Wars and the whole universe of the galaxy far, far away ....

We would like to see him again involved with the franchise. Thank you so much.

That's very direct and succinct, but that's mostly because this fan used a translator to put this petition together, so he's not going to dive into any sweeping arguments about storytelling and whatnot. However, saying that you don't have a problem with Colin Trevorrow and following it up with "he's not the right guy to direct Star Wars: Episode IX" sounds more than a little contradictory. It sounds like you have a big problem with him if you don't think he's right for the movie.

Even if this petition made a more compelling argument, this effort is still all for naught, because George Lucas has made it very clear that he's done with Star Wars. First of all, he sold Lucasfilm in an effort to get away from Star Wars and even Indiana Jones. Disney didn't completely leave him out of the development process when a new Star Wars film was announced, and they didn't remove him from the project. They had an idea of they direction they wanted to go, Lucas disagreed, and he decided to let them do their own thing. He's talked about this a few times recently, equating it to a breaking up with someone. There is no way Lucas will return to Star Wars. Furthermore, why would you want him to?

We can never take away credit from Lucas for creating the universe that we all love so much. He achieved things in front of the camera that had never been though of before and innovated filmmaking in ways that still impact cinema to this day. But he also lost sight of what made the original Star Wars movies great, and he's not anywhere near as innovative behind the camera as he used to be, at least when it comes to making Star Wars movies.

With the direction the Star Wars universe is heading, it's clear that this isn't the story that Lucas had in mind for the original characters he created. So why would you want him to inherit a new story that he doesn't have an invested interest in anymore? It just doesn't make sense.

Beyond that, in my opinion George Lucas has only directed three fantastic movies: Star Wars, American Graffiti and THX 1138. The best Star Wars movie in the franchise, The Empire Strikes Back, was directed by Irvin Kirshner. So if you needed someone to really give Star Wars its due diligence, it would be him. But sadly, he died in 2010. Lucas had three attempts to make another good Star Wars movie, and he made two awful ones and Revenge of the Sith, which was just fine. He's not going to get back to the original greatness of Star Wars.

And finally, Lucas doesn't want to make movies for anyone else anymore. In a recent Charlie Rose interview, Lucas said:

I'm gonna make movies that only I wanna see and I wanna do. I've always wanted to do that. I fell into popular movies by accident. I always disliked Hollywood theatrical movies. I didn't want anything to do with them.

And it's clear he doesn't want anything to do with them right now either. This petition is a waste of time, and these fans are just going to have to deal with it. Not wanting Colin Trevorrow to direct Star Wars: Episode IX is one thing, but at least have a better idea for a replacement director than going back to George Lucas.

Do any of you out there want to see George Lucas come back to direct Star Wars: Episode IX?