Lucas had every right to change the universe he created. While every fan may decry the new CGI or Han shooting first, Lucas has every right to do as he wishes. Lucas, in this case, is the auteur. This is unusual. Most auteurs are directors changing their films. Higher profile cases besides the Star Wars series are Apocalypse Now and Blade Runner. There are 4 or so versions of Blade Runner, three of them done by the director and one to the specifications of the studio that was the original release. There are two versions of Apocalypse Now, the original and Redux. The reason these men to get to change these films, whether to positive reception or otherwise, is because they are the auteurs, or authors, of the films.
Where some would like to contend that film is a collaborative art entirely, there stand in the way the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Jean Renoir and other greats. Today, the auteurs are Christopher Nolan, Wes Anderson, Xavier Dolan and Miguel Gomes. The nice things about the ones today is they can go back and change things. While directors during the Golden Age of Hollywood may have had their own personal cuts of their films, now directors can release them. A recent example of this is Alfonso Cuaron's cut of Gravity that takes out the dialogue, included as an extra on a Blu Ray.
The reason directors can change their films is because they're the painters with the brushes, everyone else is just holding the paint.
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