The saddest thing about Star Wars is that since about 1985, George Lucas has not been the person creating the best material within his own universe. He came up with a good premise (note: not excellent) and shot it in such a way that it was really pretty. See, that's the thing - he's a great director; that doesn't make him a great writer. I mean, the Star Wars prequels are nothing if not pretty.
Somehow, in the years following Return of the Jedi, a bunch of other people who actually know how to write took his vision as a springboard and made a bunch of really excellent material. They fleshed out his universe with a deep, rich history and fascinating characters. They showed everyone that great things could happen in the Star Wars universe, and they made George's movies look better simply by association. But then he went and made more movies, and everyone watched them, and they were like, "Uh...dude, you suck at making stories...ooh, lightsabers, neat." To which George replied, "Durrrr, I make Star Wars, I'm specialer than you. I planned Jar Jar Binks in 1972, I swear."
So the moral of the story is that the less George Lucas has to do with Star Wars, the better. That's why something like a TV show could actually work...because there's no way that George could take anything resembling total control over an operation as big as a TV series. At the very least, he'd have to have a team of writers, and the law of averages states that most of them would be better storytellers than Mr. Lucas.
Hopefully someday he'll relinquish his magalomaniacal grip on the license and hand it over to people who can actually do something worthwhile with it.
