That - though Lucas doesn't approve all the final books but many of the concepts and synopsis are run through him for approval (and one arc he was personally involved a lot in the creation of was the Yuuzahn Vong, actually) - and there's the fact for Lucas the SW canon he is interested in remains the movies. He lets the "expanded universe" a great deal of freedom, at least for all the post-OT storylines. He was far more hands-on with the prequel era EU, especially with the books dealing with Palpatine.



Or not. In interviews that came close to that, Lucas always fell back on the explanation that he wrote and made those movies for a primary audience of 7 to 13 years old. E.g.: when some complained the Padmé-Anakin love story was simplisistic, he replied it wasn't much of a love story as a love haiku and he needed to keep it simple as it's about as much romance his kid audience could stomach. Many of the "criticism" of SW Lucas don't care for, because his detractors address perceived flaws from the perspective of adult viewers. As for why he didn't make the PT primarly for the grown up OT fans, Lucas insisted the saga as a whole remained movies for 7-10 y.o. If the adult OT fans liked them fine, but it wasn't one of his goals as a creator to reach that audience. To Lucas, this must sound as silly as Cahiers du cinéma ripping apart Toy Story as if was a Truffault movie. To challenge him, one would have to discuss with him his creative decisions versus his intended target audience. When some did a bit of that, he always defended his creative decisions.