13 Times You Lost Respect For Your Favourite Filmmakers

11. George Lucas - Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

At this point attacking George Lucas seems almost too easy - like shooting fish in a barrel - but is there really anyone who is more deserving of being included on this list? Lucas was a wonderkid back in the day, tossing out three films that were brilliantly done (yes, THX-1138 rules). Even better than this auspicious beginning was Lucas having the self-awareness to remove himself from the director's chair for the Star Wars sequels; a move which probably helped ensure the series' immortality. For the next 20 years Lucas resigned himself to the role of producer and businessman. Not only was this lucrative for him and his company, but it allowed the memory of the bright, passionate and iconoclastic filmmaker from the 70s to be preserved with images of cruising hot rods and Death Stars. Then came the woeful Phantom Menace in 1999, followed by the equally awful Attack of the Clones in 2002, and the only slightly less terrible Revenge of the Sith in 2005. So much has been said about these travesties that it would be pointless to write much about them here. To understand why the world collectively lost respect for George Lucas, one simply has to pop in a copy of Episode I, and wait for the moment where they hear that awful voice saying: "Mesa called Jar Jar Binks." It's all you need to know.