I think it's unfair to give George Lucas credit for inventions and innovations in visual/digital effects done by so many other different people or companies he'd invested in. That isn't a trail of one man's vision, it's just a trail of money.
Except most of it was
HIS money. What wasn't, he was the one with the wherewithal to lobby and arrange for its use.
He was lucky to work with some amazing special effects during Star Wars which led to him gaining a huge amount of money. He then put this money in to special effects companies as his own movie's success showed him that was the future.
What a ridiculous thing to say.
You could also say that Bill Gates was lucky enough to have a friend who knew a guy who was willing to sell an OS for cheap.
Or that Steve Jobs was lucky enough to have a friend who liked to tinker with stuff.
While Allen and Woz were clearly the "geniuses" behind the core work, it was Gates and Jobs who promoted and pushed the technology. And use the money they earned to further the process. Such that, anyone who might suggest Gates and Jobs weren't the two most important people in the history of personal computing would just come off looking like a bumpkin.
Both computers and film are ultimately businesses. The money isn't the important part. It's the people who take chances and have the vision to spend the money in the right places at the right times.
And even, for the sake of argument, what if it all does come down to luck? That doesn't change the fact that it was him and not someone else involved in all that shit in
LoB pic.
George Lucas has done when he's actually forced to contribute and add ideas to the table
How do you know?
A matter of opinion non relevant to the point.
In said last 3 movies, Lucas shows no skill at visual style at all. Scenes are directed as flatly as possible, with conversations largely in shot-reverse-shot. The tech whizzes he has working for him then clutter the frame with as much pointless shit as possible, while George kinda nods or tuts. The prequels are barely directed. I think Abrams is a hack director, but he's obviously highly competent. Lucas hasn't even shown that since 1977.
Another opinion also not relevant--or grounded in reality for that matter.
The prequels may have had epic script and plot woes, and Lucas probably couldn't direct an actor out of a room full of lollipops, but the camerawork is as good as anything filmed in the last 25 years.
A lot of it is by the numbers. But a lot of it isn't. To say it was "barely directed" only shows your bias and lack of originality.
Also, there's nothing wrong with keeping it simple. The vast majority of all conversational frames in film are shot-reverse-shots. So the fuck what? Flair doesn't always beget quality.
What you call pointless clutter, I call the prequels' one redeeming quality. Because all that stuff isn't "pointless." It's world building on a scale that had never been seen in film before. The subtle use of moving depth of field he used in some cityscapes was sometimes breathtaking.
Also, a lot of what was goes on in the background in many key scenes have HUGE thematic implications. The one thing Lucas has always been really good at (going back to
THX) is thematic visual cues. He loves them, and the prequels are loaded with them.
Most importantly, some shots just look down right awesome, and there are a handful that I wouldn't mind blowing up and hanging on my mantle (provided I had a mantle).
