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Originally posted by: Mictantecutli
Stop blaming Lucas for the ineptitude of lousy "actors". He didn't make Christensen, Lloyd or Portman stink - they do it themselves. Was Alec Guinness bad in the OT? Is Ewan MacGregor bad in the PT? Is Liam Neeson bad? How about Ian McDiarmid? Christopher Lee? Hell, Ray Parks isn't a Shakespearian thespian, and yet he was five hundred times better in TPM than all MTV-made "stars" are in any film they infect.
I think the truth lies somewhere in between. The director is ultimately responsible for either pulling a good acting job out of the people they chose for the role OR choosing someone better for the role. Lucas was fully in control of casting and he had no budget restraints on making his choices. What it ended up seeming like was that ultimately Lucas' excitement over the prospects of the special effects overshadowed his decisions in cast. In old interviews Lucas has stated that his least favorite part of making movies is dealing with actors, and after not having *had* to deal with them for as many years as he had gone without directing a film himself I'm sure he was a bit rusty. And there was no one there to take him aside and suggest that perhaps he step more into production and let a more capable director take over. This worked wonders in at least two films I can think of: "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (not that he 'stepped aside' in the latter case, but his ideas, his stories mostly but a better director).
Lesser movies have been reshot entirely when a major cast member or director didn't work out.