Thursday, September 1 12:00 AM ET

George Lucas Announces Latest Star Wars Legality

Skywalker Ranch, CA - George Lucas announced today that the Star Wars franchise are my movies and "not the fans."

Unknown to the fan community at large until today's announcement, Lucas has been implementing a strategy to keep his properties his even after his death.

"It's all being buried with me," Lucas told reporters. "All copies of the two trilogies will be brought to my gravesite within one month of my death and laid to rest with me."

Lucas went on to describe that throughout the making of the movies, he included clauses in each contract that authorize his agents to collect all of the original films and encase them in carbonite to be buried alongside him.

"After that only the VHS and DVD copies that people have purchased will be left," Lucas said. "That's not a problem, as each VHS copy has been encrypted to write commands to any VCR that tries to play them after a certain date to erase the tape. Any dubbed copies of these VHS tapes also contain the encryption. DVD copies of movies were easier to protect. After the same date, the DVDs simply won't play, and will come out as digital gibberish if people attempt to copy them after that date."

Fans were outraged. "This is so unfair," one Star Wars enthusiast said through his Clone Trooper helmet. "We bought these movies for, like, twenty bucks, and we should be able to watch them whenever we want! I'm not going to stop watching them just because Lucas is dead or something. That sucks."

"I don't know why the fans are so mad," Lucas said. "I've been saying all along that they are my movies. Wait until they find out that my merchandising contracts all have the same text in them. When they have to hand over all their Star Wars toys, models, framed pictures, clothes, cups, and everything else to be buried with me, then they'll really flip-out."

The legal date for the return of all Star Wars merchandise, and the programmed timestamp in the movies is given as May 14th, 2034, which is Lucas' 90th birthday. "I don't see living that long, but even if I do, people have had my stuff long enough by then," Lucas laughed.