It's a tricky thing. He loves the editing process. But to get the raw material to edit together into a finished film, he felt he needed to control the camera positions and movement and the actors' performances, and the story they're acting out. But he sucks at those latter two, knows it, has admitted it, has said he doesn't like doing it, etc. But he felt so out of control of the created content for ESB he intruded himself back in with ROTJ. Much more script control, and even though he handpicked the director again, he micromanaged him so much the guy quit late in filming. Then he got a chance to be in utter control again on the Special Editions and thought it was best to maintain that into the Prequels.
He was just never been able to accept that while he has terrific ideas and much to contribute, his universe had outgrown him as sole creative force all the way back in 1977. The first two films owe their lasting quality to the influence of Marcia in the editing booth, Kersh on set in ESB and -- possibly most important -- Harrison Ford. He was unafraid to change his lines and tell George where he could stick it, and Mark and Carrie took their cue from him. I like to say Harrison "shadow-directed" Star Wars by having enough innate acting chops to perform in spite of George's "directing" and give the advice and direction the people he was on set with needed and George didn't provide. When you watch the Prequels, you can spot the actors who have the same instinctive talent and the ones who are accustomed to doing what the director tells them. But from ROTJ on, there's been no Marcia in the editing booth to tell George that burp and fart gags aren't good ideas or like that, and George was satisfied with performances that would have seen Kersh working the scene another half-dozen takes. Had George directed ESB, we would likely have ended up with Han's scripted "I love you, too" to Leia, rather than Harrison's exhausted ad-lib that caused him and Kersh to stop dead when setting up the next take and look at each other with a "that's it!" realization.
Meanwhile...
--Jonah
He was just never been able to accept that while he has terrific ideas and much to contribute, his universe had outgrown him as sole creative force all the way back in 1977. The first two films owe their lasting quality to the influence of Marcia in the editing booth, Kersh on set in ESB and -- possibly most important -- Harrison Ford. He was unafraid to change his lines and tell George where he could stick it, and Mark and Carrie took their cue from him. I like to say Harrison "shadow-directed" Star Wars by having enough innate acting chops to perform in spite of George's "directing" and give the advice and direction the people he was on set with needed and George didn't provide. When you watch the Prequels, you can spot the actors who have the same instinctive talent and the ones who are accustomed to doing what the director tells them. But from ROTJ on, there's been no Marcia in the editing booth to tell George that burp and fart gags aren't good ideas or like that, and George was satisfied with performances that would have seen Kersh working the scene another half-dozen takes. Had George directed ESB, we would likely have ended up with Han's scripted "I love you, too" to Leia, rather than Harrison's exhausted ad-lib that caused him and Kersh to stop dead when setting up the next take and look at each other with a "that's it!" realization.
Meanwhile...
That's entirely post-ROTJ EU creation because the authors didn't really know what to do with them. Luke's Force-ghost was used well in the Legacy comics a good century further on. If anything the OT gave us the opposite -- Obi-Wan went from disembodied voice to hazy static image to sharp mostly-static image to nearly-physical presence walking around and sitting on a fallen log. The original progression was going to have been that at the final confrontation with the Emperor a couple more films hence, he'd be able to step back across to physicality and help Luke against Vader and the Emperor. While I'm glad that didn't happen as such, I do definitely feel that qualifies as "more powerful than you can possibly imagine".
--Jonah
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