One of, if not the most popular, Star Wars-focused YouTubers, Star Wars Theory, recently detailed that Lucasfilm and The Walt Disney Company blacklisted him.
In a recent podcast interview with fitness and bodybuilding YouTuber VigorousSteve, Star Wars Theory not only revealed Lucasfilm had blacklisted him, but explained why they had done so.
First, he said, “They blacklisted me. I know a bunch of guys that wanted to work with me like big companies and they were like, ‘We don’t know what happened. We asked Disney and they don’t want to work with you.'”
He continued, “I know another guy, one of my close buddies, and he knows this dude that actually handles the whole black list, apparently, from what he told me. And he’s like, ‘Oh, is Star Wars Theory on that list?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, of course.'”
Star Wars Theory then theorized why he’s on Disney and Lucasfilm’s black list, “I just feel like I’m pretty outspoken. So, at the end of the day, I’m not going to like everything they make and at the end of the day I’m really loyal to George Lucas and what he made.”
“So I feel like if that pisses them off and that doesn’t get me a free movie ticket or early access or whatever that’s okay. I’ll buy it like everyone else. I’ll wait until it releases like everyone else. But it is what it is,” he added.
He would go on to reveal that one of his short term goals is to have more subscriptions than the official Star Wars YouTube channel. As of writing, the official Star Wars YouTube channel has 4.01 million subscribers. Meanwhile, Star Wars Theory has 3.32 million subscribers.
Star Wars Theory would go on to claim that a number of his contacts and sources have informed him that George Lucas is not happy with how The Walt Disney Company has handled the franchise.
He said, “I know people who know [George Lucas] and they say he’s not too happy with the stuff that been — kind of like the sequel trilogy stuff.”
In an October 2020 appearance alongside his wife Mellody Hobson at the East Harlem School At Exodus House, Lucas was asked, “The world has changed so much since the first Star Wars movie, how do you think the changes in the fight for racial justice will impact the Star Wars universe going forward?”
He responded, “I don’t know, I mean. I kind of lost control of Star Wars, so it’s going off in a different path than what I intended.”
He then added, “But the first six [Star Wars films] are very much mine and my philosophy.”
Back in 2015, Lucas also referred to The Walt Disney Company as “white slavers.”
During an interview with Charlie Rose, Lucas said, “They looked at the stories and they said, ‘We want to make something for the fans.’ I said, ‘All I want to do is tell a story of what happened. You know, it started here and it went there.’ And it’s all about generations. And it’s about issues of fathers and sons and grandfathers. It’s a family soap opera, I mean, ultimately. We call it space opera, but people don’t realize it’s actually a soap opera and it’s all about family problems. It’s not about space ships.”
He continued, “So they decided they didn’t want to use those stories. They decided they wanted to do their own thing and so I decided fine, but basically I’m not going to try to — they weren’t that keen to have me involved anyway — but at the same time I said I’m not going to; if I get in there I’m just going to cause trouble because they’re not going to do what I want them to do. So I don’t have the control to do that anymore, and all it would do is muck everything up.”
Lucas went on, “So I said, ‘Okay, I will go my way and I will let them go there way.’ And it really does come down to a simple rule of life, which is when you break up with somebody; the first rule is no phone calls. The second rule is you don’t go over to their house and drive by to see what they’re doing. The third one is you don’t show up at their coffee shop or the things where you’re gonna run into [them]. You say, ‘No, gone. History. I’m moving forward.’
“Because every time you do — and we all learn this from experience — every time you do something like that you are opening the wound again and it just makes it harder for you,” he explained. “You have to put it behind you. And it’s a very, very, very hard thing to do. But you have to just cut it off and say, ‘Okay, end the ballgame, I’ve got to move on.’ And everything in your body says don’t, you can’t, these are my kids.
Lucas then asserted, “All the Star Wars films. I loved them. I created them. I’m very intimately involved in them. And obviously to sell them off — I sold them to the white slavers that take these things and…”
As the discussion continued, Star Wars Theory went on to reveal that he stopped covering quite a bit of Disney Star Wars content because the quality dropped and he felt they were pushing agendas.
The YouTuber explained, “I was covering the comics adamantly, religiously. And then it started going in the direction and I was like that doesn’t really make sense and then it became kind of weird and diluted and they were pushing agendas and this and then. And I’m like okay this doesn’t really feel authentic anymore. So I stopped covering the comics.
“And then the movies did their own thing where they veered off a path,” he added. “And then there’s these High Republic books that came out and I tried reading it, but it was very boring for me and maybe I didn’t give it the proper chance. There’s stuff I just don’t cover that I know would of course be interesting for a lot of people who do want to know what I think about it or have it explained or something in my way. I just can’t seem to [get into it].”
What do you make of Star Wars Theory’s claim that Lucasfilm has blacklisted? What about his comments about George Lucas not being happy with Disney Star Wars?