10 Directors Who Didn't Understand Their Own Movies
7. George Lucas - The Star Wars Prequels
No matter what George Lucas has done, nobody can take away from him the achievement of the original Star Wars trilogy, where in collaboration with hundreds of ludicrously talented craftsmen, he created one of the most beloved franchises in entertainment history.
But the near-universal adulation for the original trilogy also created a certain cognitive dissonance in Lucas' mind - despite him only directing A New Hope - where he seemingly felt that his planned prequel trilogy was too big to fail.
Yet with Lucas not directing a single film during the 22-year gap between A New Hope and The Phantom Menace, he evidently lost sight of the creative process, instead becoming enamoured with cutting-edge technology over storytelling.
Behind-the-scenes footage from The Phantom Menace often shows Lucas referring to James Cameron's Titanic with a certain degree of thinly-veiled jealousy, and given that Cameron's Oscar-winner expertly blended mind-boggling effects with traditional filmmaking craft, it makes a lot of sense.
This is surely the balance Lucas wanted to achieve, yet not one he knew how to. For starters, Lucas was surrounded by yes-people throughout the production of the trilogy - everyone was (understandably) stoked to be working on new Star Wars films, and given Lucas' stature at this point, nobody felt able to second-guess his ideas.
But perhaps even worse than this was Lucas' reliance on digital filmmaking, shooting the overwhelming majority of the film's scenes against green screens, which were then filled in with garish, unconvincing CGI backdrops.
The prequels are in many ways emblematic of the very worst instincts of Hollywood's digital revolution, causing Lucas to forget much of the tactile charm that made the original trilogy so enduringly brilliant.
Thankfully, Lucas has taken a fairly hands-off approach with the current sequel trilogy, because no matter the complaints you might have about The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi, they sure as hell capture the spirit of the originals and demonstrate a clear comprehension of what made them work.