George Lucas was completely within his rights to make those movies into the sterile, toy-marketing vehicles they were. He owned Darth Vader and could tell the origin story as he wished – and that’s the only version you’ll ever get to see.
He goes on to muse about what fantasy world delights would be possible if those laws had stuck to the original period of 28 years:
In 2011 the whole of the original Star Wars trilogy – all of its artwork, its characters, its music – would have left copyright protection and been available to aspiring directors and writers to build upon and make their own versions of.
There would be a treasure trove of new Star Wars stories for fans to enjoy.
Here’s CP Grey’s take on copyright law in full: