The last thing Marcus Chen remembered was the blue glow of his television screen, the familiar crawl of yellow text ascending into starfield infinity, and the half-eaten bowl of Cheetos balanced precariously on his stomach. He had been in the middle of his annual marathon—all six original films, followed by Clone Wars, followed by whatever EU audiobooks he could cram into his consciousness before his body demanded sleep. The Thrawn trilogy was queued up. Timothy Zahn's dulcet descriptions of Grand Admiral Thrawn's tactical genius were supposed to lull him into satisfied slumber.
Instead, there had been a sharp pain in his chest, a moment of profound cosmic irony as he clutched at his heart while Darth Vader's theme swelled from his surround sound system, and then... nothing.
Well, not nothing exactly.
There had been darkness, certainly. A void that stretched infinitely in every direction, cold and empty and distinctly unpleasant. Marcus had floated there, or existed there, or perhaps simply was there in some capacity that defied conventional understanding of spatial relations. Time had ceased to hold meaning. He might have been there for seconds or centuries; the distinction seemed irrelevant in a place where neither seconds nor centuries appeared to exist in any measurable form.
And then, with all the subtlety of a Star Destroyer dropping out of hyperspace directly into a planetary atmosphere, Marcus Chen had woken up.
The first thing he noticed was the beard.
It was magnificent. It was glorious. It was the kind of beard that lesser men spent their entire lives attempting to cultivate, only to produce something that looked like a deceased ferret had taken up residence on their chin. This beard was full and gray and possessed of a certain dignified wisdom that suggested its owner had seen things, done things, created things of profound cultural significance.
Marcus touched this beard with fingers that were not his own—fingers that were thicker than his had been, older, attached to hands that bore the weathering of decades he had not lived. He sat up in a bed that was not his bed, in a room that was not his room, in a house that was certainly, definitively, absolutely not his house.
The bedroom was enormous. Not merely large in the way that upper-middle-class bedrooms might be considered large, but genuinely, ostentatiously, almost absurdly spacious. The ceiling stretched upward into shadows that suggested either impressive architectural ambition or a profound lack of heating efficiency. The furniture was the kind of furniture that appeared in magazines Marcus had never been able to afford—the kind that was described with words like "artisanal" and "bespoke" and "costs more than your entire annual salary."
"What the actual kriffing hell," Marcus said, and then stopped, because the voice that had emerged from his mouth was not his voice.
It was deeper than his voice. Richer. It possessed a certain measured quality, a gentle California cadence that spoke of decades spent in creative circles, of countless interviews and behind-the-scenes documentaries and press junkets for films that had shaped the childhoods of multiple generations.
Marcus scrambled out of the bed with significantly less grace than he had intended, his legs—longer than his legs, older than his legs—tangling in sheets that probably cost more than his rent had been. He crashed onto a floor covered in carpet so plush it actually cushioned his fall to a concerning degree, and then he half-crawled, half-stumbled toward what appeared to be an en-suite bathroom of such magnificent proportions that it probably had its own zip code.
The mirror.
He needed a mirror.
He found one. It was ornate, framed in what was probably actual gold because of course it was, mounted above a sink that looked like it had been carved from a single piece of marble by Italian artisans who charged by the chisel stroke.
And in that mirror, staring back at him with an expression of profound existential horror, was George Walton Lucas Jr.
"No," Marcus said, in George Lucas's voice.
The reflection's mouth moved in perfect synchronization. The reflection's eyes—behind glasses that were absolutely the kind of glasses George Lucas wore in every interview, every documentary, every behind-the-scenes feature Marcus had ever consumed—widened with the reflection's shock.
"No, no, no, no, no."
Marcus reached up and touched his face. The reflection did the same. He pulled at the beard—it was attached, very firmly attached, the kind of attached that suggested it had been growing from this face for decades. He poked at the cheeks, the nose, the forehead. All Lucas. All undeniably, irrevocably, impossibly George Lucas.
"This is a dream," Marcus announced to the bathroom. "This is a weird, Cheeto-induced fever dream, and I am going to wake up on my couch with orange fingers and a mild case of heartburn, and I am going to laugh about this extremely strange experience and then go back to my Thrawn audiobook."
The bathroom did not respond. Bathrooms, as a rule, tended not to.
Marcus turned on the faucet—water emerged, because plumbing continued to function regardless of cosmic body-swapping shenanigans—and he splashed it on his face. George Lucas's face. The face that had launched a thousand starships, that had imagined an entire galaxy far, far away, that had somehow thought Jar Jar Binks was a good idea but had also created Darth Vader and Han Solo and Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia and—
The water was cold. Very cold. The kind of cold that suggested Marcus was not, in fact, dreaming.
"Okay," he said, gripping the edges of the marble sink hard enough that his knuckles—George Lucas's knuckles—went white. "Okay. Let's... let's approach this logically. Let's use the deductive reasoning skills I definitely developed during my entirely normal, not-at-all-Star-Wars-obsessed life."
He was in George Lucas's body.
This was, on the face of it, impossible. Bodies did not work that way. Consciousness did not work that way. The fundamental laws of physics that governed the universe did not include a provision for dying of a heart attack while watching the original trilogy and waking up as the man who had created it.
And yet.
And yet here he was, standing in what was presumably George Lucas's bathroom, wearing what appeared to be George Lucas's pajamas (flannel, very comfortable, probably cost more than Marcus's entire wardrobe), staring at George Lucas's reflection in George Lucas's mirror.
"The Force works in mysterious ways," Marcus muttered, and then laughed, a slightly hysterical sound that echoed off the marble tiles in a way that suggested the bathroom had been designed by someone who thought acoustics were extremely important.
He needed information. He needed context. He needed to know when he was, because if he was going to be cosmically displaced into the body of the most important figure in science fiction cinema history, he would very much like to know what point in that figure's timeline he had arrived at.
Marcus—because he was still Marcus, even if he was now piloting the George Lucas meatsuit—stumbled back into the bedroom. There had to be a phone somewhere. A computer. A calendar. Something that would tell him the date, the year, the specific moment in George Lucas's life that the universe had decided to deposit a thirty-four-year-old Star Wars superfan from 2023.
He found a phone on the nightstand. A smartphone, which meant he was at least in the modern era, which was simultaneously a relief and a source of mounting concern. The screen lit up when he touched it, because of course George Lucas would have his fingerprint registered, and Marcus was now wearing George Lucas's fingers.
The date glowed at him from the screen.
October 29th, 2012.
Marcus stared at the date. The date stared back at him. Somewhere in the distance, or perhaps in the depths of his borrowed consciousness, he heard the echo of a million voices suddenly crying out in terror.
October 29th, 2012.
One day. He had one day. One single, solitary, twenty-four-hour period before George Lucas—before he—was scheduled to do the unthinkable. The unforgivable. The single greatest tragedy in the history of modern entertainment.
Tomorrow, on October 30th, 2012, George Lucas was supposed to announce the sale of Lucasfilm to the Walt Disney Company for the price of 4.05 billion dollars.
Tomorrow, George Lucas was supposed to hand over his life's work—his galaxy, his legacy, his baby—to a corporate monolith that would proceed to do... things to it. Things that Marcus had witnessed. Things that had broken his heart and the hearts of millions of fans worldwide. Things involving sequel trilogies that couldn't decide what story they were telling, corporate mandate storytelling, the systematic destruction of beloved characters, and the general sense that Star Wars had become a brand to be exploited rather than a universe to be explored.
"No," Marcus said, and this time the word came out with force, with conviction, with the kind of certainty that only comes from having lived through the consequences of a decision he now had the power to unmake. "No, no, no. Absolutely not. Absolutely kriffing not."
He was pacing now, wearing a groove into the probably-more-expensive-than-his-entire-apartment carpet, his borrowed brain firing on all cylinders as he processed the magnitude of what was happening. He had died. He had been reborn. He had been given a second chance—not at his own life, but at Star Wars.
The Extended Universe.
The books. The comics. The video games. The stories that had been told over four decades by hundreds of talented writers and artists and designers. The stories that Disney had wiped away with a single press release, relegating them to "Legends" status while they went on to produce... what they had produced.
Marcus stopped pacing. His hands—George's hands—were shaking. But not with fear. Not with confusion. With excitement.
"Thrawn," he said, the name emerging like a prayer. "Mara Jade. Kyle Katarn. Jacen and Jaina Solo. The Yuuzhan Vong. Darth Revan. Darth Bane. The Old Republic. The New Jedi Order. The Hand of Thrawn. The X-Wing series. I, Jedi. The Courtship of Princess Leia. Shadows of the Empire. Dark Forces. The Force Unleashed."
The names tumbled out of him in an avalanche of EU knowledge, forty years of expanded content that Marcus had consumed with the religious devotion of a true believer. Stories that had been declared non-canon. Stories that had been forgotten. Stories that, in this moment, in this body, he had the power to bring to life.
"I'm George Lucas," Marcus said, testing the words, feeling the weight of them. "I own Lucasfilm. I own Industrial Light and Magic. I own Skywalker Sound. I own LucasArts—" he paused, a grin spreading across his borrowed face, "I own LucasArts, which means I can un-cancel games, I can make games, I can give the world Knights of the Old Republic III and actually finished games and—"
He was hyperventilating. George Lucas's lungs were apparently not accustomed to the kind of excited fanboy energy that Marcus was subjecting them to. He forced himself to sit on the edge of the bed, to take deep breaths, to calm the storm of possibility that was raging through his consciousness.
Think. He needed to think. He needed to plan. He needed to approach this like a strategic campaign, like Grand Admiral Thrawn studying the art of his enemies before destroying them utterly.
First: Do not sell Lucasfilm to Disney. This was the prime directive. This was the non-negotiable, absolute, carved-in-kyber-crystal foundational principle of everything that would follow. Under no circumstances was he going to hand over this galaxy to a corporation that would strip-mine it for content without understanding what made it special.
Second: Determine what resources he had available. George Lucas was, by all accounts, spectacularly wealthy. He had created one of the most successful film franchises in history. He owned companies, studios, the rights to stories that could generate content for decades if handled properly.
Third: Figure out how to actually run an entertainment empire when his previous professional experience consisted of working at a mid-tier IT company and spending most of his free time reading Star Wars novels and playing Star Wars video games.
That third point was... concerning. Marcus had no formal training in film production, in corporate management, in any of the skills that one might reasonably expect the head of Lucasfilm to possess. He was a fan. An extremely dedicated fan, certainly, but a fan nonetheless. He knew the content of Star Wars better than most people alive, but that was very different from knowing how to produce Star Wars.
Then again, he was now wearing the body of a man who did know those things. And somewhere in this house—this mansion, this estate, this ludicrously expensive property that Marcus was now apparently the owner of—there had to be resources. Notes. Plans. People he could consult without revealing that he was secretly a dead IT worker from the future inhabiting their boss's body.
"Okay," Marcus said, standing up with renewed purpose. "Step one: Coffee. Step two: Figure out where I am. Step three: Cancel the Disney meeting. Step four: Start planning the greatest era of Star Wars content the universe has ever seen."
He found clothes in a closet that was larger than his old apartment. George Lucas apparently favored a certain aesthetic—flannel shirts, comfortable jeans, sensible shoes. The kind of outfit that suggested a man more interested in comfort than fashion, which suited Marcus perfectly fine because he had never been particularly fashionable either.
Dressed and somewhat more composed than he had been while having an existential crisis in the bathroom, Marcus made his way out of the bedroom and into the house proper.
It was Skywalker Ranch. It had to be. The sprawling estate in Marin County that George Lucas had built as a creative retreat, as a filmmaking campus, as a monument to his success. Marcus had seen pictures of it, had watched documentaries filmed there, had dreamed of one day visiting as a fan.
And now he lived here. He owned here.
The main house was exactly as magnificent as he had imagined. Victorian-era design, meticulously maintained, filled with the kind of art and artifacts that spoke of a life spent in passionate creative pursuit. There were posters from the original trilogy, concept art from films that had defined childhoods, models and props and memorabilia that any collector would have committed crimes to possess.
Marcus found the kitchen—because even George Lucas presumably needed to eat breakfast—and discovered that it was staffed. Of course it was staffed. George Lucas did not make his own coffee; George Lucas had people who made coffee for him.
The woman in the kitchen was perhaps fifty, with graying hair and a kind face and the practiced efficiency of someone who had been doing this job for decades. She looked up when Marcus entered and smiled with the easy familiarity of an employee who had seen her boss shamble into the kitchen in a half-awake state countless times before.
"Good morning, Mr. Lucas. Coffee?"
"Please," Marcus said, and then had a moment of panic because he did not know this woman's name. He did not know any of the names of George Lucas's staff. He did not know the names of George Lucas's business associates or his personal friends or his family members or—
His family. George Lucas had children. Three adopted children, if Marcus remembered correctly. Potentially grandchildren. An ex-wife. A life full of people who would definitely notice if he suddenly started acting like someone other than George Lucas.
"You look tired," the woman—whose name Marcus desperately needed to learn without asking—said as she poured coffee from a pot that had clearly been prepared in anticipation of his arrival. "Big day tomorrow. Big decision."
"Yeah," Marcus said, accepting the coffee and taking a sip that burned his tongue but grounded him in the reality of the moment. "About that. I've been doing some thinking."
The woman's expression shifted slightly, from casual concern to focused attention. "Oh?"
"I'm not selling."
The words hung in the air between them. The woman—and Marcus really, really needed to figure out her name—set down the coffee pot with deliberate care.
"Not selling," she repeated. "Mr. Lucas, you've been planning this for—"
"I know. I know what I've been planning. But I changed my mind." Marcus set down his coffee cup with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary. "I've been thinking about it all night, and I realized that I can't do it. I can't hand Star Wars over to someone else. Not now. Not when there's so much more story to tell."
"Mr. Lucas—"
"I'm going to need to make some calls," Marcus continued, the plan forming in his mind even as he spoke it aloud. "Legal team. Financial advisors. Whoever I need to talk to in order to call off the Disney deal. And then I'm going to need meetings. Lots of meetings. With the creative team, with the marketing people, with—" he paused, a thought occurring to him, "—with whoever runs the video game division. Is that still a thing? LucasArts?"
The woman was staring at him with an expression that suggested she was deeply concerned about her employer's mental state. Which, fair enough. George Lucas had probably spent months or years building toward this sale, and Marcus had just walked into the kitchen and announced he was throwing all of that away.
"LucasArts is... having difficulties," the woman said carefully. "There have been layoffs. Project cancellations. The industry has been—"
"Difficult, yes, I know." Marcus did know. He remembered the death of LucasArts, the games that never got made, the studios that got shuttered. "We're going to fix that. We're going to fix all of it."
"Mr. Lucas, are you feeling alright? Perhaps you should sit down, have some breakfast—"
"I feel fine. Better than fine. I feel like I've finally figured out what I'm supposed to be doing." Marcus picked up his coffee again, took another sip, and felt the warmth spread through his borrowed body. "Where's my phone? I need to start making calls. And I'm going to need my calendar cleared. Whatever meetings I have today that aren't about Star Wars, cancel them."
"All of them?"
"All of them. Today is the first day of a new era." He paused, a thought striking him. "Actually, what is on my calendar today?"
The woman—and Marcus was just going to have to ask at some point, this was getting ridiculous—pulled out a tablet and began scrolling. "You have a 9 AM with your financial advisor to review the final terms of the Disney agreement. A lunch with Bob Iger to discuss—"
"Cancel the lunch. Keep the financial meeting, but we're going to be discussing very different things." Marcus's mind was racing, pulling together fragments of knowledge from a lifetime of Star Wars obsession. "I need to see what we have in development. What scripts are in the works, what games are being planned, what's happening in the publishing division. I want a full picture of where Lucasfilm stands right now."
"That would be... a lot of meetings, Mr. Lucas."
"Then let's start scheduling them." Marcus moved toward the door, his coffee still in hand, his borrowed body thrumming with energy that probably had something to do with caffeine and everything to do with the sheer overwhelming potential of his situation. "And I'm going to need to talk to Kathleen. Kathleen Kennedy. She's still... she's here, right?"
"She's been preparing for the transition to Disney," the woman said, her tone carefully neutral. "As you asked her to."
Right. Kathleen Kennedy, who in Marcus's original timeline had become the head of Lucasfilm under Disney. Who had presided over... well. Over the sequel trilogy. Over Solo. Over decisions that Marcus had very strong opinions about.
"Get her on the phone," Marcus said. "Tell her the transition is cancelled. Tell her we need to talk about the future of Star Wars—the real future, not the Disney future."
He swept out of the kitchen before the woman could raise any more objections, his coffee sloshing slightly as he moved through the hallway with a speed and purpose that probably looked very strange on George Lucas's body. He was already mentally cataloguing the stories he wanted to tell, the projects he wanted to greenlight, the universe he was going to expand.
The Thrawn trilogy—it had to be the first project. Timothy Zahn's masterwork, the story that had single-handedly revived Star Wars in the early 90s, that had proven there was an audience for stories beyond the original films. Three books that could easily be three films, introducing audiences to Grand Admiral Thrawn and Mara Jade and Talon Karrde and all the characters that the EU had given them.
But you couldn't just adapt the Thrawn books without context. You needed audiences to understand who these characters were, what had happened in the years since Return of the Jedi. You needed the foundation of the post-Endor era, the establishment of the New Republic, the slow rebuilding of the Jedi Order.
Television. That was the answer. Television had changed in Marcus's lifetime, had evolved from episodic adventure shows into longform serialized storytelling that could support complex narratives over multiple seasons. Game of Thrones had proven that audiences would embrace mature, morally complex fantasy storytelling. Breaking Bad had shown that you could tell a single story over years if that story was compelling enough.
Star Wars television. Not the cartoons—though those had their place—but live-action shows with film-quality production values. Shows that could explore the corners of the galaxy that films couldn't reach, that could develop characters over dozens of hours instead of two, that could adapt the stories from the EU that were too sprawling for theatrical release.
The Old Republic. That was where he would start. Knights of the Old Republic had proven that audiences responded to stories set thousands of years before the films, stories with their own aesthetic and their own conflicts and their own mythology. Revan and Bastila and Malak, the Mandalorian Wars and the Jedi Civil War and the corruption of the Sith—these were stories that deserved to be told on the largest possible canvas.
And if he was going to tell Old Republic stories, he was going to need to rebuild LucasArts. The games had been essential to making those stories matter, to letting audiences play in those eras, to making the Extended Universe feel like a living, breathing thing rather than just a collection of novels. KOTOR III had never been made—Disney had cancelled it, along with so many other projects—but Marcus was going to make it. He was going to make all the games that should have been made, with budgets appropriate to the Star Wars name and creative freedom appropriate to storytelling that actually mattered.
He found a study—George Lucas's study, presumably—and sat down behind a desk that probably cost more than his car. His old car. The car he would never drive again because he was now George Lucas and George Lucas probably had people who drove him places.
"Okay," Marcus said to the empty room. "Okay. Let's make a list."
He found paper—actual paper, along with a pen that looked like it might be made of actual gold, because apparently George Lucas did not believe in doing anything by halves—and he began to write.
PROJECTS - IMMEDIATE PRIORITY:
Cancel Disney sale - TOP PRIORITY, LITERALLY TODAYThrawn Trilogy film adaptation - Timothy Zahn should be involved, get his inputOld Republic series - HBO-style, prestige television, Revan's storyLucasArts revival - KOTOR III, Imperial Commando sequel, new Jedi Knight gamesDarth Bane film trilogy - based on Drew Karpyshyn's books, R-rated if possible
PROJECTS - MEDIUM PRIORITY:
6. X-Wing television series - Rogue Squadron, military drama in space
7. Mara Jade film - her backstory, the Emperor's Hand, eventual redemption
8. New Jedi Order series - Yuuzhan Vong War, high stakes, actually kill characters
9. Kyle Katarn adaptation - Dark Forces/Jedi Knight storyline, video game tie-ins
PROJECTS - LONG TERM:
10. Legacy era content - Cade Skywalker, far future of the galaxy
11. Tales of the Jedi animated series - ancient Sith, Exar Kun, Ulic Qel-Droma
12. Clone Wars continuation - proper ending to series, follow through to Revenge of the Sith
Marcus stared at the list. It was ambitious. It was probably insane. It was the kind of thing that would require the coordinated effort of thousands of people, billions of dollars in investment, and a complete restructuring of how Lucasfilm operated.
But he had the resources. He had the name. He had forty years of source material that audiences had never seen on screen, that had been dismissed and forgotten and relegated to the dustbin of canon.
And he had the knowledge of what not to do. He had lived through the sequel trilogy. He had seen what happened when you tried to make Star Wars without respecting its foundations, when you treated the Extended Universe as something to be discarded rather than mined for stories. He had watched the fandom fracture and turn on itself, had witnessed the slow erosion of the cultural phenomenon that Star Wars had once been.
He wasn't going to let that happen. He refused to let that happen.
The phone on George Lucas's desk rang. Marcus stared at it for a moment, his heart—George's heart—pounding with a mixture of anxiety and anticipation. Then he picked it up.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Lucas?" A voice he didn't recognize, professional and slightly nervous. "This is Sarah from your office. I have Bob Iger on line two. He says it's urgent—something about confirming tomorrow's announcement?"
Bob Iger. The CEO of Disney. The man who, in twenty-four hours, was supposed to become the owner of Star Wars.
Marcus took a deep breath. His hands were steady. His voice was calm.
"Tell Mr. Iger that I need to reschedule. Tell him that there's been a change of plans. Tell him—" Marcus paused, looking down at his list, at the future he was going to build, "—tell him that the sale is off. Lucasfilm is no longer for sale. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever."
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "Mr. Lucas, are you... are you sure? This deal has been in development for—"
"I'm sure." Marcus smiled—George Lucas's smile, but with Marcus's joy behind it. "I've never been more sure of anything in my life. Star Wars is coming home. And it's going to be bigger than anyone ever imagined."
He hung up the phone and looked out the window of the study, at the rolling hills of Marin County, at the empire he now controlled, at the galaxy of possibility stretching out before him.
Somewhere in the distance, almost imperceptibly, Marcus could have sworn he heard the Force theme swelling.
It was going to be one hell of a ride.
The next several hours passed in a blur of phone calls, each one more surreal than the last.
There was the call with George Lucas's attorney, a man named Michael who spoke in the measured tones of someone being told that a multi-billion dollar deal was being cancelled and trying very hard not to have a cardiac event. Marcus had explained—vaguely, because he couldn't exactly say "I'm a dead IT worker from 2023 who knows how badly Disney will screw this up"—that he had reconsidered his priorities and felt that Lucasfilm deserved to remain under his control. Michael had suggested taking a few days to think it over. Marcus had politely declined.
There was the call with George Lucas's financial advisor, a woman named Patricia who displayed an impressive amount of restraint when informed that her client was walking away from four billion dollars. She had pointed out, quite reasonably, that George Lucas was already quite wealthy and did not need the money. Marcus had agreed. She had then pointed out that the deal had been structured in such a way that Disney was offering an extremely generous valuation. Marcus had explained that some things were worth more than money. Patricia had made a noise that suggested she disagreed but was too professional to say so.
There was the call with Bob Iger.
That call had lasted forty-seven minutes. Marcus had spent most of it deflecting, redirecting, and employing every stalling tactic he had learned from years of corporate IT meetings where nobody wanted to make an actual decision. Bob Iger was charming—Marcus would give him that—and clearly confused by the sudden reversal. He had asked if there was a problem with the terms. Marcus had said no. He had asked if there was a counter-offer from another studio. Marcus had said no. He had asked, with the kind of patience that came from running one of the world's largest entertainment companies, what exactly had changed in the past twenty-four hours.
Marcus had told him, in the most diplomatic terms possible, that he had woken up with a different perspective on his legacy and had decided that Star Wars needed to remain in creative hands rather than corporate ones. He had not said "I'm from the future and I know you're going to make Rise of Skywalker," which he considered a remarkable display of self-control.
Bob Iger had wished him well. The call had ended. And Marcus had sat in George Lucas's study, staring at George Lucas's phone, trying to process the fact that he had just cancelled the biggest entertainment acquisition in history.
"Holy kriff," he whispered.
The door to the study opened. Marcus looked up to find a woman standing in the doorway—late fifties, professional attire, an expression that suggested she had received some very interesting phone calls in the past hour.
Kathleen Kennedy. It had to be. Marcus recognized her from interviews, from behind-the-scenes features, from the countless photos of her standing next to the Star Wars logo while fans debated her influence on the franchise.
"George," she said, and her voice was careful, controlled, the voice of someone choosing their words very deliberately. "I just got off the phone with Disney's legal team. They seem to think there's been some kind of misunderstanding."
"No misunderstanding." Marcus gestured to the chair across from the desk. "Please, sit. We have a lot to discuss."
Kathleen Kennedy sat. Her posture was rigid, her eyes searching his face for some explanation for the chaos he had apparently unleashed. "The sale was finalized, George. We've been working toward this for months. Years, really. You told me yourself that you wanted to pass the torch, to let someone else carry the burden."
"I changed my mind."
"You changed your—" Kathleen stopped herself, took a breath, and when she spoke again her voice was calmer. "George, what's going on? This isn't like you. You've been talking about stepping back for ages, about wanting to focus on experimental films, on education, on the things Disney money would let you do."
Marcus considered his options. He could try to explain—really explain—what had happened, but that way lay straitjackets and psychiatric evaluations. He could remain vague and mysterious, but that would only delay the inevitable confrontation. Or he could be honest about his intentions, if not about the mechanism of his arrival.
He chose door number three.
"I had a moment of clarity," he said, leaning back in George's chair—his chair now, he supposed. "I was thinking about all the stories we haven't told yet. All the books and comics and games that have been published over the years, building on the foundation of the original films. The Thrawn trilogy. The Old Republic. The tales of the Jedi. Forty years of creative work by talented people who love Star Wars as much as I do."
Kathleen nodded slowly. "The Expanded Universe. Yes, we've discussed this. Disney was planning to—"
"To throw it away," Marcus interrupted. "To declare it non-canon and start fresh with their own stories. I know. That was the plan."
"It's... a lot of continuity to maintain, George. Not all of it is compatible with the original films. There are contradictions, retcons, stories that don't quite fit together. Starting fresh gives us creative freedom."
"Starting fresh gives you corporate control." Marcus stood, moving to the window, looking out at the grounds of Skywalker Ranch. "But it also means discarding the work of everyone who's contributed to Star Wars over the past four decades. Writers like Timothy Zahn, who saved the franchise in the 90s. Artists who've been drawing these characters for years. Game designers who created entire eras of Star Wars history. We can't just... throw that away."
"We weren't going to throw it away. We were going to rebrand it as 'Legends.' A separate continuity for fans who—"
"A separate continuity that would slowly be forgotten," Marcus said, turning back to face her. "That's how these things work. You declare something non-canon, you stop publishing new stories in that continuity, and eventually it fades into obscurity. The casual fans never even know it existed. The hardcore fans feel betrayed and abandoned. Nobody wins."
Kathleen was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was softer. "You really have been thinking about this."
"All night," Marcus said, which was technically true. "And I've come to a decision. We're not selling. We're not starting fresh. We're going to take the best of what the Expanded Universe has given us, and we're going to bring it to the screen."
"That's... ambitious."
"That's the whole point." Marcus moved back to the desk, grabbing the list he had written earlier. "Look at this. The Thrawn trilogy—that's three films right there, with characters audiences will love. Grand Admiral Thrawn, the greatest tactical mind in the galaxy. Mara Jade, the Emperor's Hand turned reluctant ally. Talon Karrde, the gentleman smuggler. These are iconic characters that deserve to be seen."
Kathleen took the list, scanning it with the practiced eye of someone who had spent decades in the entertainment industry. Her expression shifted as she read—skepticism giving way to interest, interest giving way to something that might have been excitement.
"The Old Republic," she murmured. "Darth Revan. Darth Bane. You want to adapt the games and novels."
"I want to adapt everything. Or at least everything that's worth adapting. We have forty years of source material, Kathleen. Forty years of stories that audiences have never seen on the big screen. Why would we throw that away and start from scratch when we have this goldmine sitting right in front of us?"
"Because adapting existing material is complicated," Kathleen said, but her voice was thoughtful now, not dismissive. "Rights issues with authors. Continuity problems with the films. Expectations from fans who've been reading these stories for decades. It's not as simple as just making a movie of Heir to the Empire."
"Nothing worth doing is simple." Marcus sat back down, leaning forward with an intensity that probably looked strange on George Lucas's face. "But think about what we could accomplish. Think about a prestige television series set during the Old Republic era—HBO quality, Game of Thrones production values, telling the story of Revan and Malak and the Jedi Civil War. Think about bringing Thrawn to life, letting audiences see the brilliance and menace of the greatest villain since Vader. Think about—"
"Think about video games," Kathleen interrupted, and there was genuine interest in her voice now. "You mentioned LucasArts. They've been struggling."
"I know. And we're going to fix that." Marcus pulled another sheet of paper from his desk—this one covered in notes he'd been making throughout the morning. "The game industry has changed. It's bigger than film now. And Star Wars has some of the most beloved games ever made—Knights of the Old Republic, Battlefront, Dark Forces, TIE Fighter. We need to be making games that live up to that legacy, not cancelling projects and laying off developers."
"That takes money. A lot of money."
"We have money. We have more money than we know what to do with. And even if we didn't, there are investors who would kill to be part of this. Imagine going to them and saying 'we're making a new Knights of the Old Republic, with modern technology, with the original creative team involved.' They'd be throwing cash at us."
Kathleen set down the list. She looked at Marcus—looked at George Lucas's face, at the body he was now wearing—and there was something in her expression that he couldn't quite read. Calculation, maybe. Assessment. The look of someone recalibrating their understanding of a person they thought they knew.
"You sound different," she said finally. "Not just what you're saying—how you're saying it. There's an energy I haven't heard from you in years."
Marcus didn't know how to respond to that. He was different—fundamentally, cosmically, impossibly different—but he couldn't exactly explain why. "I had a wake-up call," he said, which was true in ways he could never articulate. "I realized that I've been treating Star Wars like a burden when it should be a joy. There's so much more story to tell, and I want to be the one to tell it. Not Disney. Not some corporate committee. Me. Us."
"Us," Kathleen repeated.
"Us. Lucasfilm. The team we've built. The writers and directors and artists who actually care about this universe. But it has to be done right. It has to respect what came before while pushing forward into new territory. The Expanded Universe isn't a problem to be solved—it's an asset to be utilized."
Kathleen was quiet for a long moment. Marcus could practically see the calculations happening behind her eyes—the producer's mind weighing options, assessing risks, measuring the potential against the practical challenges.
"If we're going to do this," she said finally, "we need a plan. A real plan, not just a list of projects we'd like to make. We need a timeline. A budget. Creative leads for each major initiative. And we need to figure out how to manage fan expectations, because if we announce that we're adapting the Thrawn books and then don't deliver something amazing, the backlash will be worse than if we'd just made something original."
"Then let's make something amazing." Marcus reached across the desk, offering his hand. "What do you say? Are you with me?"
Kathleen looked at his hand. She looked at his face. She looked at the list of projects, at the ambition and the madness and the sheer overwhelming scope of what he was proposing.
Then she smiled—a small smile, cautious but real—and took his hand.
"I must be crazy," she said. "But I'm with you. Let's make some Star Wars."
Marcus shook her hand, and felt something shift in his chest. This was really happening. He was really doing this. He was George Lucas—or at least he was wearing George Lucas's body and wielding George Lucas's power—and he was going to make the Star Wars content he had always dreamed of seeing.
Darth Revan, brought to life by a talented actor, standing at the crossroads of light and dark.
Grand Admiral Thrawn, studying art in his command chamber, preparing to outmaneuver the New Republic.
Mara Jade, lightsaber ignited, the Emperor's final command burning in her mind.
Kyle Katarn, discovering his connection to the Force in the depths of a Dark Trooper facility.
The stories he had read as a teenager, the games he had played in college, the universe he had loved for his entire life—he was going to bring them to the masses. He was going to show the world what Star Wars could be when it was treated with love and respect and genuine creative vision.
"Okay," he said, releasing Kathleen's hand and turning back to his list. "First things first. We need to get Timothy Zahn on a plane. If we're adapting Heir to the Empire, he needs to be involved from day one."
"I'll make the call." Kathleen was already pulling out her phone. "Anyone else?"
"Drew Karpyshyn. He wrote the Darth Bane novels and worked on the Knights of the Old Republic games. If we're doing Old Republic content, we need his input." Marcus paused, another name surfacing from his memory. "And Michael Stackpole. He wrote the X-Wing novels. If we're doing a military Star Wars series, he's the one who understands that world best."
"You want to bring in the EU authors as consultants?"
"As creative partners. These are the people who've kept Star Wars alive for forty years. They know these characters better than anyone. They deserve to see their stories on screen, and they deserve to be part of making that happen."
Kathleen was smiling now—a real smile, the kind that suggested genuine excitement rather than professional obligation. "George, I don't know what happened to you overnight, but I like it. This is the George Lucas who made the original trilogy. This is the filmmaker who changed the world."
Marcus felt a twinge of guilt at that—he wasn't George Lucas, not really, and whatever had happened to the real George Lucas when Marcus had arrived in his body was a question he desperately didn't want to think about. But he also felt a surge of purpose, a clarity of vision that seemed to resonate with whatever remnants of George Lucas might still exist in this borrowed form.
"Let's change it again," he said. "Let's show them what Star Wars can really be."
Kathleen nodded and stepped out into the hallway, already dialing. Marcus watched her go, then turned back to the window, looking out at the grounds of Skywalker Ranch, at the empire he had inherited, at the future stretching out before him like the opening crawl of a story yet to be told.
Somewhere, in another life, in another body, Marcus Chen had died watching Star Wars. He had left the world with Return of the Jedi playing on his television and the taste of Cheetos still on his tongue.
But here, now, in this body and this life, he had been given a second chance. A chance to save Star Wars from the corporate machine. A chance to bring the Expanded Universe to life. A chance to tell the stories that had been told in novels and comics and games, to share them with audiences who had never known they existed.
It was going to be difficult. It was going to be expensive. It was going to require convincing a lot of people that he hadn't completely lost his mind.
But Marcus had the Force on his side—or at least, he had the power of a man who owned the Force. And he was going to use that power to create something incredible.
He picked up the phone. He had more calls to make.
Grand Admiral Thrawn was coming to the big screen.
And that was only the beginning.