The original post: /r/movies by /u/Evening-Grocery-9150 on 2025-01-03 14:52:19.

George Lucas gets a lot of criticism particularly post the 2000s, but American Graffiti and THX show, in my opinion, that he is much more than a one trick wonder. He had a real stroke of genius in him. Even if we keep his directorial work aside, it would be hard to imagine anyone who has had as profound and as deep of an impact on the art of movie making than he has - both in terms of how his intellectual properties like Indiana Jones and Star Wars have shaped popular culture; and how his technical endeavours like Industrial Light and Magic have transformed what was possible to put on the big screen. His big fluke in the prequels, particularly The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones was what I believe to be the work of a man who had been told for two decades how much a genius he was and had nobody above him to question his creative choices. He had complete control on every aspect of the films, which made them much less coherent and cohesive. He’s certainly not the best writer of dialogue and not the most artsy of directors - he himself admits that he is not too fond of directing films of such scale as Star Wars. Even so, you see him respond to criticism and roll back many of his over the top directorial and creative tendencies for Revenge of the Sith. I think he gets far less credit than he actually deserves - beyond merely being a rebellious director from the 70s, his creative genius is what gave us Star Wars and Indiana Jones. He is a technical maestro without whom the achievements of visual effects, sound design and digital filmography in modern filmmaking could not have been possible. It’s unfortunate that he pretty much retired after the Clone Wars. I would have loved to see the ‘small, personal stories’ Lucas had said he would direct after Revenge of the Sith.