Rick McCallum didn’t make jump from LUCASFILM to Disney. No probs right here.

There is a great moment in the Making of the Phantom Menace where Rick McCallum and the rest of the crew is watching a first cut. As the camera fixes on McCallum’s face, you can see realization slowly wash over him. He begins to realize that his Dark Master has made a flaming pile of excrement. Instead of mentioning this to Sir Lucas, Ricky decides to continue doing what he had been up to for years. Washing the Lord’s balls. So no, I’m not sad that McCallum has “retired”, and in fact I’m pretty fucking excited he is gone.

io9:

Let me clarify: Rick McCallum, producer ofThe Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, the original trilogy Special Editions and the threeStar Wars prequels (and who I have always cruelly thought looked like Dr. Evazan fromA New Hope) was not fired by Disney. Instead, LucasFilm master of merchandise Steve Sansweet merely mentioned on the Forcecast podcast that McCallum had retired a little while ago, an oddly quiet farewell for a man so integral to Lucas and to the Star Wars franchise for the last two decades. Odd enough, in fact, that I have to wonder if McCallum got out because he was told to get out.

This is pure speculation on my part, but generally companies don’t let executives that high profile retire without a press release thanking them for his/her work, no matter what the reasons for their departure. And McCallum’s been high profile; he’s been on countless DVD extras talking about the movies, sat at countless Star Wars con panels, and been the face of the franchise when George Lucas didn’t want to deal with it, which was most of the time.

To have his departure be mentioned as an aside on a fan podcast is crazy, but equally crazy is that the news of McCallum’s “retirement” has been secret for so long. Again, no announcement, not even a mention in the trades, nothing. That’s weird, folks, and the most logical reason I can come up with is because Disney told him his services were no longer required, leading to this bizarrely secret “retirement.”