I've
posted about Lucas' involvement in the TCW show if you're interested in reading that, but if you need further convincing of Lucas relegating the show to another product to boost the brand, like Genndy Wars and
Force Unleashed before it, as well as future projects like
Underworld....here's a quote from Lucas from 2012 increasing his involvement in various LFL Projects, which is around the time he'd distanced himself from the bulk of TCW's production, and both Gilroy and Filoni were enacting larger creative control over the storyline:
Now, as with anything from Lucas, it's important not to take everything he says as gospel...because he makes contradictory and inconsistent statements a lot (the number of times he's revised the actual planning of the OT, and how many films the saga was initially supposed to be, is beyond count). But this quote, I'll reinforce again, is from around TCW Season 4, and with the series initially planned to have 8 seasons at least (before a certain Disney purchase put those plans to rest). You don't have to take it as definitive proof of anything, but after the first three seasons (where Lucas' influence can be felt the strongest), Lucas seemingly had one foot out the door when it came to directly supervising all projects, and had taken a more relaxed, aloof role to it all.
It's one of the reasons why he encouraged Ron D Moore to "go nuts" when it came to pitching/writing storylines for the unmade
Underworld show. As long as new content was being made and sustaining LFL's self-funded model, he was fine with it, even if he didn't consider them official extensions of his personal saga.
All media, from books to comics to video games fell under this umbrella. The shows, both made and unmade, were not an exception. It's partially why they
were assigned the "T" status on the canon ranking by the licensing division. Part of the canon, but not on the same level of Lucas' saga.
Lucas did not consider the EU his storyline or one that he was beholden to, but to say he "didn't care" implies he had no involvement or was simply dismissive of it as licensed material that had zero importance to the brand. And that simply isn't true.
He was very open and personally involved with the EU authors, largely because he respected them as fellow creatives. Regardless of whether or not he saw their works as legitimate extensions of his universe, he recognized their importance for maintaining the image of quality for the brand, and the creative fruit that could be yielded by others playing around in his personal narrative sandbox.
Not because
I say he was involved, because the authors said he was involved:
You might write this off as the authors simply promoting their work and assuring fans that Lucas had some involvement in what they were crafting...but that's precisely what Filoni does in interviews to justify any creative decision
he makes....despite his claims never being substantiated from Lucas' mouth even once.
If it's not illegitimate when Filoni does it, it's not magically less legitimate when all these other authors do as well. Again, I don't say this to vilify anyone who likes TCW, or appreciates Lucas' passing involvement in that series.
But if you're going to hand TCW the crown of legitimacy based on quotes from Filoni regarding how "intimately involved" Lucas was on the show, then you need to be consistent in regards to that same rhetoric coming from creators involved elsewhere in the company's various media divisions.
Okay, I was willing to give the previous points raised some benefit of the doubt, but using this as some kind talking point and proof of Lucas' stamp of approval is actually hilarious, because he's been invited to the sets of productions multiple times, well before the
Mandalorian even aired. Companies do this for both PR and as a gesture of goodwill to Lucas in light of his industry contributions...that does
not equivocate to those productions "having his blessing" or "him being creatively involved".
For instance, Lucas was also invited to visit the sets of
The Last Jedi, Solo: A Star Wars Story, and even
Game of Thrones during the filming of its final season. Will you actually argue that just because Lucas visited those sets, and took pictures with Rian Johnson and Emilia Clark that he was somehow involved in those productions?
