Well said.
By the time Lucas was pitching Star Wars around Hollywood, sci-fi was a non-starter in Hollywood. The Apes movies had run their course, films like Logan's Run, Rollerrball and Silent Running we very modest successes. If you were lucky, very lucky you might make a film in the neighborhood $5-8 million and come away with $18-22 million in box office receipts.
To suggest that some pencil pusher at a studio had seen or heard about Star Trek and was ready to sign on the dotted line because there was some hunger for sci-fi is simply laughable. As far as the studios were concerned Trek was a failed TV show from Desilu that's loyal fan base was seen as more of a curiosity than a cash cow to milk.
Hell, if the studios were so sold on the "massive" public influence that Trek had and thought there was money to be had then why did Paramount reject Lucas? Of all the studios out there surely they would know there was some untapped financial base to exploit, but they didn't.
As for Lucas, you may have not liked the Star Wars prequels, but to suggest he's some kind of hack who can't make films and needs other people to bail him out, I suggest you go watch "American Graffiti" or "THX-1138." Both of those films got made because of his will, his passion, and his smarts.
If you're going to go down this road I suggest you take a look at good ol' Gene. You could just as easily argue that the success of Star Trek, especially those first two seasons of TOS, were because Gene had surrounded himself with immensely talented people like Gene L. Coon and Herb Solow. People who were just as responsible for the success of Trek as Gene was.
Yancy
. Jedi Knights who have supernatural powers by harnassing their mind and physical energy around them? Can you say Gary Mitchell? Or even better can you say Talosians? The Yoda character offered up "logical" advice for living life, as did Obi Wan Kenobi. However, Spock had been doing that 10 years before those characters were written! Han Solo, as much as Harrison Ford kicked major ass in this role, again, it had been done before in the form of James T. Kirk. Kirk was a risk taker, rash in decisions, and always got the girl. 
The horror...the horror...
