Star Wars is still a viable marketing opportunity because Lucas was smart enough to keep reinventing it by applying current technology to it in order to keep up with the subsequent generation's expectations.
Of course, the old school purists moaned and gnashed their teeth when they saw that Greedo suddenly shot first or when CGI Jar Jar Binks first opened his mouth but the next generation doesn't give a damn about that. They want to see today's technology, not tech that was last current 20 years go. Anything less simply makes the end product look dated.
Lucas sold the Star Wars franchise to Disney for $4 billion with 3 new films scheduled for production.
Stern needed a white knight bailout from Hagerty Peterson to keep the company afloat.
