George Lucas defends majority-white Star Wars casting

George Lucas has spoken about the original Star Wars movies and their prequels, and he’s defended the majority-white casting.

The filmmaker wrote and directed the seminal space epic trilogy, as well as the prequels – the first of which came out in 1999.

Lucas, 80, addressed the lack of diversity in the casting of the films while speaking at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday (May 24).

Lucas, who is receiving an honorary Palme d’Or this year, spoke about the criticism the original films have received since they came out.

“They would say, ‘It’s all white men,’” Lucas said [via Variety]. “Most of the people are aliens! The idea is you’re supposed to accept people for what they are, whether they’re big and furry or whether they’re green or whatever. The idea is all people are equal.”

Cindy Ord/Getty Images

Speaking about Black characters in the franchise, he talked about Samuel L. Jackson’s Mace Windu, who he described as a “top Jedi”. He also said that “there were a few Tunisians who were dark”.

Lucas spoke about the prejudices which exist in the Star Wars universe, speaking about ‘anti-droid discrimination’.

“People are always discriminating against something and sooner or later, that’s what’s going to happen,” he reportedly said at the festival. “I mean, we’re already starting with AI, saying, ‘Well, we can’t trust those robots.’”

It’s one of the biggest bits of Star Wars news of the years so far – unless you count the incredible Cerveza Cristal ads shoehorned into Star Wars reruns on South American telly back in the early 00s which went viral.

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