the entire franchise existed from the beginning to sell toys anyway.
Star Wars almost wasn't even a franchise. They had no idea if the first movie would even be a success, let alone blow up into a cultural phenomenon.
Had they known it was going to be huge, they most likely wouldn't have neatly wrapped up the plot with the first movie destroying the Death Star at the end. Lucas was extremely lucky to be surrounded by better writers back then. His wife directed the final act of the first movie (the Death Star battle) and she won the Oscar for best editing and cinematography for it. Lawrence Kasden and Gary Kurtz wrote Empire Strikes Back which was the best one of the entire trilogy.
Come time for the prequels, he was 100% in control of everything and it clearly showed. Lucas is a good 'ideas person'. He is creative and can come up with cool ideas, but you need a good writer (or a couple of them) to really arrange things and put a decent story to it.
The toys originally were meant to pay off the debt that Lucas had amassed from making the first movie. He put himself in serious debt to make it. There's some pretty interesting stories about the casting of the original Star Wars. Alec Guinness hated those movies and only agreed to do Star Wars for a pay check. Despite his loathing of the movies, he put in a pretty good performance as Obi Wan and was friendly on set.
Lucas had the least to do with Empire Strikes Back though and that's probably why it's the best film of the entire franchise. His original script was seriously some WTF stuff, and the worst part is, most of that script ended up in Attack of the Clones all those years later.
The toy empire was really driving it in time for Return of the Jedi. There were multiple scripts and he changed so much of the original stories so they could focus on toy sales (that's how we got the Ewoks). This was around the time Kurtz also got fed up with Lucas and wanted out.
Star Wars almost wasn't even a franchise. They had no idea if the first movie would even be a success, let alone blow up into a cultural phenomenon.
Had they known it was going to be huge, they most likely wouldn't have neatly wrapped up the plot with the first movie destroying the Death Star at the end. Lucas was extremely lucky to be surrounded by better writers back then. His wife directed the final act of the first movie (the Death Star battle) and she won the Oscar for best editing and cinematography for it. Lawrence Kasden and Gary Kurtz wrote Empire Strikes Back which was the best one of the entire trilogy.
Come time for the prequels, he was 100% in control of everything and it clearly showed. Lucas is a good 'ideas person'. He is creative and can come up with cool ideas, but you need a good writer (or a couple of them) to really arrange things and put a decent story to it.
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The toys originally were meant to pay off the debt that Lucas had amassed from making the first movie. He put himself in serious debt to make it. There's some pretty interesting stories about the casting of the original Star Wars. Alec Guinness hated those movies and only agreed to do Star Wars for a pay check. Despite his loathing of the movies, he put in a pretty good performance as Obi Wan and was friendly on set.
Lucas had the least to do with Empire Strikes Back though and that's probably why it's the best film of the entire franchise. His original script was seriously some WTF stuff, and the worst part is, most of that script ended up in Attack of the Clones all those years later.
The toy empire was really driving it in time for Return of the Jedi. There were multiple scripts and he changed so much of the original stories so they could focus on toy sales (that's how we got the Ewoks). This was around the time Kurtz also got fed up with Lucas and wanted out.