GL has made so many oddball ill-conceived choices (e.g. Boba Fett as Luke's mom?) that it was semi-plausible.
I still consider Lucas as a talented and perceptive director. His fundamental problem is not uncommon - even among very good directors. It seems that, when you're working on a shoestring budget, that really forces you to take inventory on what is essential for the screen. You micromanage and try to have a hand in every aspect of your precarious production e.g. creative solutions for in-camera effects. That degree of focus is a maddeningly exhaustive process that can only be driven by an immense degree of passion and a lot of desperation. The amount of original design (sound, visual effects, the entire setting ...) in SW is simply staggering. It was certainly a collaboration but it was still mostly GL and his vision.
SW (1977) was so tightly edited that the story unfolded like a brilliant musical composition. That kind of editing from a single individual requires ultra-meticulous orchestration of action, themes, score, humor, logic ... etc. It's no wonder so many directors burn out creatively. I'm not surprised that he didn't direct ESB. Birthing a labor of love can drive you mad.
I agree that Lucas was the guiding hand behind much of the success of Star Wars. But I find the whole cult of the auteur thing to be...I dunno...giving him a bit too much credit. We've heard the wacky ideas he came up with on his own. We saw the result of "unchained Lucas" with the prequels where he could literally do anything he wanted. And while he still got advice from other people (didn't Tom Stoppard try to punch up the script from ROTS?), we still got what we got. In all honesty, I don't think he changed all THAT much in that time, EXCEPT insofar as his tolerance for working and playing with people who would directly challenge him and say "That's a dumb idea. We shouldn't do it at all."
I do agree, however, that he was clearly pretty passionate about this stuff, and perhaps it was that passion that led him to SO love his creation and his ideas, that he just couldn't take having people tell him "You dressed your kid funny. Everyone on the schoolyard is gonna laugh at him."
A young talented, passionate director is also blessed with ignorance. If they truly understood the magnitude of a large production most would probably not do it. Many sequels lack the purity of the original simply because a director would now have more people involved with key elements of production. It's so liberating to have someone else do the bulk of your editing ... or casting ... or directing. It's so much easier to have CG contracted by a company overseas who never set foot on your lot. The lack of cohesive vision is evident in so many series. ESB wasn't bad at all ... it's not as pure as SW IMO. ROTJ was just tragic.
I felt the same with Mad Max ... although Miller held it together pretty we'll by MM2: The Road Warrior. Thunderdome was ROTJ with wild children instead of Ewoks.
It's funny you mentioned editing since, as I understand it, Marcia Lucas was HEAVILY involved in the editing...which adds an emotional dimension to all of this stuff, too. Star Wars is indeed tightly edited, as is ESB...by Lucas' ex-wife. I wouldn't be surprised if that played...rather a role in how he chose to do things in the future.
And as for Mad Max, yeah, the first two were just cracking good actioners. The third one is definitely the Yub Yub of the bunch.
--EDIT--
To be clear, I don't mean to say that George Lucas is some talentless hack. Obviously that's not the case. I think that, as an idea-man, he's one of the best in the business. But he's at his best when he has limiting factors on his imagination. I've said for years that I think his ratio of good ideas to bad goes like this:
Out of 10 ideas....
...5 are total crap. "NO, George. Those are BAD ideas. We're not doing that."
...3 are decent, and can be improved into something way better. "Hmm...that's pretty cool, actually. But what if instead of 'I love you too,' he says 'I know' and then BAM. Frozen."
...and 2 are pure genius. The kind of thing where you sense the hand of the divine at work, if you're at all religious.
With the OOT, I think we pretty much got two movies of genius and pretty-good-and-improved, and one movie of pretty-good-and-occasionally-not-improved. With the PT, I think we got all 10. There ARE some amazing moments in it. There ARE some decent-but-could-be-improved moments. And there is a whole bunch of crap. But none of that is to say that the genius parts aren't genius. They are. They're just not enough -- for my sense of enjoyment, anyway -- to offset the other stuff and make me want to watch.
