If I were George Lucas and I saw the response the general public is having to Clone Wars, I probably would hide for a while, or at least move on to something that isn’t Star Wars. That appears to be exactly what the bearded one is doing, as word is that Lucas has moved his focus from a galaxy far, far away to an era a little closer with his World War II project.

Red Tails is a project that Lucas has been working on on-and-off for a while now. It’s a story looking at the exploits of the Tuskeegee Airmen during the second World War. Now it looks like Lucas is turning to a familiar face for help with his African-American drama, although not in the capacity we might expect.

IGN reports that former Jedi Master Samuel L. Jackson has seen the script for Red Tails, telling the press that it’s a pretty good script. Interestingly, Lucas apparently didn’t send Jackson the script with a part in mind. Instead he wants Jackson to consider stepping behind the camera and directing the picture.

It concerns me a little that Lucas automatically thinks the inexperienced Jackson would be the right person to helm his picture, and certainly reveals Lucas’s philosophy of direction - after all, if he can do it, clearly anyone can. Thankfully, Jackson seems to have a more level head about things, stating that he doesn’t really want to stop acting for the amount of time it would take to direct a film. I think there’s a lot of people who would rather see Jackson in front of the camera for now, and it’s good to know Jackson himself is one of them.

As for Red Tails… didn’t World War II suffer enough when Michael Bay tried telling a serious story about it? Do we really need a Lucas-borne story about the era as well?