If there’s one person who most perfectly represents the divisiveness that so frequently defines Star Wars fandom in the modern era, it’s got to be, well…Actually, we’re kind of spoiled for choice on this one, aren’t we? You’ve got J.J. Abrams, obviously, or John Boyega, for all the Reylo ’shippers in the audience. Rian Johnson is in the mix, too, of course, given the reception that greeted The Last Jedi, and Kathleen Kennedy is another obvious candidate. (Lawrence Kasdan might be in there, too, depending on your take on how the whole Solo debacle went down.) Still, though, almost all of these young padawans derived their simultaneously-delighting-and-pissing-off-Star–Wars-fans-skills from one man, in the end: The master himself, George Lucas.
And while Lucas’ reputation among Star Wars fans has generally improved since he sold off the franchise (and thus removed himself from making all the annoying decisions he’d been pissing people off with over the years), he still remains a figure of split affection in the wider fan community. Which is why we get a real light side/dark side contrast from this recent photo from The Mandalorian’s Jon Favreau, showing the man who broke the order (of dedicated Star Wars fans, that is) reunited with the scion of light that brought so many of them back into the fold:
Yes, that’s George Lucas holding Baby Yoda (or “The Child,” as Favreau would presumably, pedantically declare it.) Now, given how critical Lucas has (quietly) been about the technical elements of latter-day Star Wars projects, we can only assume that, rather than having a Werner Herzog-esque moment of beauty and connection, he’s just assessing the little guy for similarities to, and deficiencies from, his own Yoda puppets from back in the day. Still, it’s a pretty cute image, even if you do assume Lucas is eyeing Baby Yoda with an eye toward figuring out which aspects of him he’d “fix” with a healthy application of CGI.