Q&As About 'Star Wars': Why did Disney decide to end The Skywalker Saga, instead of leaving open the possibility of continuing it after "The Rise of Skywalker"?

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Image Credit: www.toonzone.net



Why did Disney decide to end The Skywalker Saga, instead of leaving open the possibility of continuing it after "The Rise of Skywalker"?
First of all, The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) does not have that level of micromanaging editorial control over any of its subsidiaries (ABC, ESPN, Marvel Enterprises, National Geographic, Lucasfilm, or 21st Century Fox).
I don’t know why people keep on assuming that Alan Horn and Bob Iger are omnipresent and omnipotent and that “Disney” execs have their fingers in every pie, ostensibly ruining franchises and people’s childhoods just for grins.
If I seem to be a bit annoyed at this question’s basic assumption, it’s because I am annoyed about how intellectually lazy people get, especially when it comes to Lucasfilm Ltd., its leadership, and its role in making decisions as far as its biggest intellectual properties, Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
Second, Star Wars needs to grow beyond the travails of a single family and tell new stories set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." This gives new writers and directors more creative freedom than they ordinarily would. 
So, to clarify:
Lucasfilm decided to end the Skywalker Saga with Star Wars - Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker for various reasons, which I will list briefly here.
  1. Before Marcia Lucas divorced Star Wars creator George Lucas in late 1982, Lucasfilm hinted that the Star Wars saga would consist of three trilogies, of which Episodes IV, V, and VI would be the middle trilogy. Lucas would then double back, do the Prequels, and return to the post-Return of the Jedi galaxy to follow up the story of 60-year-old General Luke Skywalker
  2. Post the divorce - which was not amicable, despite the fact that Marcia came back to help edit Return of the Jedi late in post-production - Lucas was tired, depressed, and burned out on Star Wars. He changed the story of Episode VI to accelerate Luke’s final showdown with the Emperor, shoehorned the Death Star II subplot, and decided to scrap the Sequel Trilogy and end the saga in Return of the Jedi
  3. When he was making the PR rounds for each of the Prequel films and - especially - in the audio commentary tracks on the DVD and Blu-ray releases of the Star Wars saga, Lucas denied that he was going to make nine films (despite on-the-record interviews to the contrary) and that the two Trilogies formed The Tragedy of Darth Vader
  4. Even when he was still CEO and President of Lucasfilm prior to his retirement from making “big” movies and his choice to sell his company and its IPs to TWDC, Lucas stated many times that Star Wars consisted only of the six Saga films and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. In regard to the constant criticism from fans over how he made the Prequels when he was asked if he planned to make any new Star Wars films, he basically said, “Why should I make any more of these movies when everyone yells at you and says how terrible you are?”
  5. Shortly before the final sale of Lucasfilm to TWDC, Bob Iger asked Lucas if he had any thoughts for a Sequel Trilogy. Lucas reportedly told him that there were story treatments or outlines for Episodes VII, VIII, and IX in his files. (It’s also said that Lucas wrote them shortly before the handover and gave them to Iger in person.) It is rumored that some of the elements in Lucas’s treatment were the basis for the story of Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens,but not all of them were used.
  6. Lucasfilm has long stated that Star Wars was never intended to be just about the Skywalker family
  7. The old Expanded Universe/Legends books were only authorized by George Lucas (but never made part of Star Wars canon) so that he and Lucasfilm could tell other stories in movies that were set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” that were not “Skywalker-centric.”
I think that if Star Trek can successfully create several series that are not 100% dependent on the characters and situations from The Original Series and its feature film spinoffs, Lucasfilm can boldly go into that galaxy far, far away without having to focus on one family group

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