While it’s not the first time in his career to have done so, creator, writer, director and flannel connoisseur George Lucas is apparently retiring from the blockbuster film business entirely. With his Tuskegee Airmen flick Red Tails that has been a project long in the making, waiting in the wings to premiere this Friday being his final project.

Lucas told the NYTimes,

“I’m retiring,” Lucas said. “I’m moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff.”

What about the proposed fifth Indiana Jones film? Don’t worry, he’s reportedly still doing that.

Shockingly, and I think for the first time, in the same interview, Lucas addressed fan grievances over the Star Wars prequels and apparently some of us left a bit of a mark on the director.

Lucas said,

“On the Internet, all those same guys that are complaining I made a change are completely changing the movie,” Lucas says, referring to fans who, like the dreaded studios, have done their own forcible re-edits. “I’m saying: ‘Fine. But my movie, with my name on it, that says I did it, needs to be the way I want it.’ ”

“Why would I make any more,” Lucas says of the “Star Wars” movies, “when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?”

To be clear, Lucas is only talking about retiring from big-budget films and not television shows etc.

I have to be honest, I really didn’t think he had ever heard any of the fan disdain about the prequels and special editions… so, I’m not really sure how to react about that being a possible ‘last straw’ to force his retirement. What do you think?