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.
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.