George Lucas says he was constricted by the Force choke of the Star Wars franchise

George Lucas left the Star Wars universe because he felt constricted by its fans, according to his Vanity Fair interview published this week.

“You go to make a movie and all you do is get criticized,” Lucas says, explaining why he left the franchise behind. “And it’s not much fun. You can’t experiment.” Lucas intended to be done with Star Wars as far back as 2005, after the release of Revenge Of The Sith: “Why would I make any more?” the director asked The New York Times in 2012, “when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?,” his statements mirroring one another much like he intended the prequel trilogy to rhyme with the three original films in the Star Wars saga.

While Lucas has completely given the reins of the Skywalker saga over to Disney, he does still have a few concerns over the direction the new trilogy will take. The man who introduced midichlorians to the Jedi mythos and filled every frame of the prequel trilogy with spaceships hopes that “The Force doesn’t get muddled into a bunch of gobbledygook,” and that anyone directing a Star Wars film understands that “there’s more to it than spaceships.”

Outside of trolling Star Wars fans by stating that his favorite character in the saga is Jar Jar Binks and admitting to being curious as to the fate of Darth Vader’s grandchildren, Lucas appears to be content staying far, far away from the galaxy far, far away that he created. According to Vanity Fair, he’s looking forward to going back to making more experimental films in the vein of THX 1138 that “generally won’t be shown anywhere.”

The Force Awakens, on the other hand, opens everywhere December 18.