A great sigh of relief went out among fans when they learned George Lucas wouldn't be involved with the Star Wars sequels following the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney.  Instead, he's moved on to an original property by writing the story for the upcoming animated family film, Strange Magic.  However, since he's doing press for that film, he's still going to get asked about Star Wars, and thankfully he's been willing to comment on the upcoming sequels. Over a year ago, we reported that Lucas had been working on Star Wars: Episode VII before Disney acquired Lucasfilm, and he confirmed this report

Walt Disney Studios If you’ve so far avoided checking out the first trailer for Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens because you don’t consider yourself a fan of one of the most famous, popular and profitable film franchises in cinematic history, well, that’s kind of weird. On the other hand, it’s not too late to get on board with the series, especially since we have an entire year to go until J.J. Abrams’ entry in the franchise zips into a theater near you. That’s plenty of time to catch up on six three films! Not sold on the idea?

During a keynote address at the annual conference of the Confederation of British Industry, Pinewood Shepperton chief exec Ivan Dunleavy confirmed that the eight instalment in Disney/Lucasfilm's Star Wars franchise would indeed return to shoot at the U.K. studio. Episode VII (now officially titled "The Force Awakens") wrapped production there recently having also shot in Abu Dhabi and Iceland, but the still-untitled eight movie will be written and directed by Rian Johnson (Looper, Brick) with Disney scheduled to release the movie in 2017.

Anthony Daniels, the actor who has played the famous droid C3-PO in all of the Star Warts movies including the upcoming seventh film, took to twitter to make a bold claim. Could JJ Abrams’ Star Wars Episode VII end up being the best movie sequel ever made, even better than Empire Strikes Back? Hit the jump to see Daniels comments. Anthony Daniels tweeted: “”No movie sequel is better than The Empire Strikes Back.” You might eat those words for Xmas dinner in 2015.

The villainous Emperor Palpatine from "Star Wars" finally has a first name.