By donating his Disney money to charity, George Lucas' journey away from the Dark Side is almost complete

By Sean O'Neal | November 1, 2012 | 4:35pm

Aux Features Film

Demonstrating that there is still good in him, George Lucas has made concerted effort in the last couple of days to engineer his own redemption after years of being accused of becoming more machine now than man, and other lines that narrowly escaped being altered by George Lucas. He recently yielded his intense Force grip on the Star Wars franchise by handing it over to Disney and a new generation of filmmakers, and—while he was paid $4.05 billion for doing so, and could easily use that money to create a moon-sized visual effects booth capable of converting entire planets into CGI—he now he says he'll give most of that to charity.

According to a Lucas rep who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter, the filmmaker has announced his intention to "donate the majority of his Disney deal proceeds to his philanthropic endeavors"—endeavors that have in the past included gifts to the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Stand Up To Cancer, as well as establishing the Lucas Educational Foundation that's given hundreds of millions of dollars to institutions like his USC alma mater. Anyway, to put this in visual terms, imagine that scene of Darth Vader finally breaking free of the Dark Side by hurling the Emperor down a reactor shaft, only here the Emperor is billions of dollars and the reactor shaft is charity. There, now it makes sense.