I feel like Lucas sold the license to Disney because he knew he screwed up big time with Jar Jar, even when everyone around him told him that.
The worst of it is, I don't think anybody
did tell him that. I remember watching the DVD extras for The Phantom Menace, and everyone Lucas had surrounded himself with by that point were little more than yes men. He hired all of these fanboys who wanted nothing more than to be a part of Star Wars, and were willing to blow smoke up Uncle George's ass and tell him that every idea he had was great.
I get so torn about my real thoughts on guys like Lucas and Roddenberry, and I've stated before. They're great idea men, and they both created universes that I am a huge fan of. But as we have seen, when you allow others to take the idea and add to it in ways that the original creator might not have done, they become much greater. With Lucas, we saw that with Empire, and how approach to make it a darker movie than Lucas had wanted to do made it a superior film. But then he took more control with Jedi, and while a great film, it went back to being more family friendly than Empire (plus, his only goal with the Ewoks was to sell toys rather than to enhance the SW universe). Then we saw him do the special editions and the constant tinkering, and then the prequels, and it became apparent that Star Wars is better when he allows others to help him in his stories rather than have total control of them. I don't hate the prequels, nor the special editions of the films. But Lucas needed someone to sit him down and tell him off every now and then.
But as a creative person myself, I understand his side of it as well. This was his baby, he created it (true, borrowed
many aspects from other sources, but more originally than Cameron had done with Avatar). Still, I'm glad others are taking over the storytelling and expanding the universe. He can just sit back and complain about how it needed more political issues and committee meetings.