Movies - TV
George Lucas' 'Uncertainty' About Star Wars Went Away With Return Of
The Jedi
By DEMETRA NIKOLAKAKIS
Few franchises are as beloved and cherished by fans as "Star Wars" has been over its 45 years. Although some never doubted the first film would be successful, the series required a leap of faith from George Lucas, who only became more worried as the filmmaker started working on the far more expensive and riskier second entry, "The Empire Strikes Back."
However, the film's success gave Lucas newfound confidence going into "Return of the Jedi" and removed much of the stress he felt before. The filmmaker explained, "The biggest issue was, could we actually do a sequel, could we actually finance ourselves and do it? We'd proved we could [when creating 'The Empire Strikes Back'], so now it was just a matter of doing it again."
He continued, "The second one had done really well, so we knew the third one would do really well. By then a lot of the uncertainty had been taken out of the process." Although "The Empire Strikes Back" would be challenging to follow, Lucas entered "Return of the Jedi" with confidence that the film could rise to the occasion and deliver a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy.