>>215275587
Nah, the impact of toy sales on Lucas has been greatly exaggerated over the years. The real issue was that he always considered Star Wars as being for kids (seriously there's quotes from him from before A New Hope came out where he was already saying "it's really for 12 year olds" - that's not a recent development.) The thing is though - he actually had a kid inbetween making Empire and Jedi, Amanda Lucas, at which point he started aiming his films for his own kids. And at the time Amanda was a baby - hence why the Wookiees became the cuddly Ewoks.

The entire prequel trilogy was essentially made for George's youngest kid at the time, Jet Lucas. And he was born in 1993 so keep in mind what age he would've been when George was writing each respective movie and that's the age George was aiming for. I don't love the prequels (and I think Attack of the Clones is genuinely bad at points) but once you realize that they start to make a lot more sense.