Lucas tried to get Howard, Zemekis and Spielberg all to direct TPM

What really helped was that Lucas had the time, money and resources to dedicate himself to making TPM which in turn is why he kept directing. He was saying as far back as 1999, that he was going to turn it over to someone else to direct the other two. It wasn't until 2000, that he finally confirmed that he'd direct both films.

 

Why didn't he ask Irvin Kershner?

 

Keshner was already retired when the prequels were made.

 

I suspect we wouldn't have had half the negativity we've had to put up with...

 

That and he didn't want to do anymore after he did TESB. Which is why he didn't do TESB.

 

You mean ROTJ?

 

But it wasn't just that. Lucas chaffed at not having directorial control in ESB (see my quote). George doesn;t like directing or writing really, but he can;t stand giving up the control. As he said in Rinzler, he likes to edit. But he doesn't like a director telling him how to edit, so he directs. And as a director, he wants control over what he shoots, so he writes.

There ya go.

 

Strongbow I don't if you're really serious here. As it was already mentioned on this thread, Lucas tried to get Howard, Zemekis and Spielberg to direct the prequels, 3 directors! If he really wanted control over everything, would he really have asked 3 directors to direct the prequels? Would he really have asked his teacher, Kershner, to direct Empire or let Marquand direct Jedi? Would he have sold his company to Disney?

I think your reasoning is a bit simplistic. Lucas was exhausted and stressed after directing the original Star Wars (A New Hope) and facing all the technical difficulties and financial constraints by the big studios of 20th Century Fox. As SeventySeven mentioned it in a previous post, that's why he gave up directing. Plus, for Empire and Jedi, the budgets for the making of those two movies have exploded, he was financially broken and that's why he ended with Jedi instead of making sequels and prequels immediately despite the fact that Star Wars was financially successful. And he was facing later a divorce with Marcia Lucas which was also very costly for him. That's why he has also retained a bitter memory from his experience with Star Wars.

 

TPM - Lucas
AOTC - Spielberg
ROTS - Lucas? Maybe Howard, but I don’t think he would have done as well with that in 2005 as he did this year with Solo.

 

TPM - Zemeckis
AOTC - Howard
ROTS - Tarantino

Perfection!

 

I don't think Howard has ever had a strong directorial voice. He himself has admitted that Willow was basically ghost directed by Lucas.

Howard's the kind of director who can be relied upon to competently deliver what he's given. He won't elevate the material but he won't botch it either. Working as essentially a directorial extension of Lucas on the prequels would have been an ideal role for him and I think it would have worked out fine. But ultimately I'm glad Lucas decided to just do them himself, for better or worse.

 

Better, better and best I'd say.

I wish he'd done Empire as well (more than he did) and have done all six (since he effectively did ROTJ).

 

There are around a dozen quotes, mostly from Lucas but also his close friends where he flat out says he hates directing, even more than he dislikes writing. No surprise that over a 50 year career the guy has directed a total of 6 movies. It's a pity none of those guys were wiling to take the reigns of the PT. Lucas seems to work far better as an overseer than the guy in the chair. That's also the way he prefers it.

 

George Lucas's direction was sufficient enough to where fans celebrated TPM during its first theatrical release. Only later was it retroactively derided and despised, because of the internet.

 

But he actually had fun directing the PT:

The most difficult part of returning to Star Wars, he says, has been neither the directing (“much more fun than it used to be”) nor the pressure of following up an assured classic, but the knowledge that his involvement in the prequels makes him a public figure again. “If there’s any trepidation I have, it’s issues with the media, which has gotten much more savage and worse and gossipy,” he says. “Nobody wants to be Bill Clinton, but anyone who ends up doing anything worthwhile these days ends up being Bill Clinton.”

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/1999/02/star-wars

So he had fun making exactly the movies he wanted to make, made a bunch of money doing it, and also made a lot of people happy. All told, not a bad outcome, eh?

 

Not bad at all.

 

Of all the directors that made Disney Star Wars films, I'd say Ron Howard came the closest to capturing the mood of the George Lucas films.

 

Yes, absolutely. Ron Howard really imparted "Solo" with it. He understands STAR WARS!