Episode VII WAS Lucas' idea. You guys do understand that right? He started the process and already had signed the original cast to come back and had Michael Arndt writing an outline/script.
He then got married and it seems like that was the trigger for the sale of Star Wars as he had a choice ... spend time making these new movies or spend time with his new family. He made his choice.
Once he sold it to Disney, Kathleen Kennedy (wisely) realized that there were problems with the Lucas scriptment, and chose to get JJ Abrams and let him make the film as something that would take the franchise back to its roots. Disney paid for the franchise fair and square and they have the right to use it how they want.
And now The Force Awakens going to crush every one of George's prequels in box office and probably overtake at least Titanic as the no.2 biggest movie of all time and the no.1 movie domestically. Not bad.
And yes I agree, Disney was *forced* to make Episode VII a relatively safe/soft reboot type of film because the prequels had done heavy damage to the Star Wars brand. If I'm investing $4 billion in something, I don't want the audience base for it bitterly divided, it's not good business. Disney also quickly moved to can The Clone Wars TV series and stop the 3D re-releases of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, because they want to move those movies as far into the background as possible.
From Disney's POV the prequel fanbase are generally Star Wars lifers, who will like pretty much anything with lightsabers in it. The greater appeal that the OT had to general movie goers (read: non-nerds) and the older Star Wars fans who did not like the prequels however was always going to be a more challenging audience for Disney to bring back. They opted to go in a fairly obvious direction which was to make Episode VII a big love letter to the original movie and re-center the entire franchise around that.
